“What’s that?” Rebecca asked Talon. “Is that your chief’s house?”
He chuckled. “No. That’s the Big House, a religious gathering place, almost like your church. It will be used for political meetings as well.”
Rebecca counted more than a hundred onlookers before she gave up. Women with babies, old people, everyone seemed to be happy to see Talon; it was obvious he was popular. Then she saw a familiar face, the man Talon called Fox.
“My friend,” Talon shouted.
Fox threw his arms around him. “Counts is here and Osage Killer. We convinced your sister to come back with us, but the hard part was to get her to leave that cat. She says she will only stay until Counts recovers.”
“The wound does not turn bad, does it?” Talon asked.
Fox shook his head. “Your sister is a powerful witch.” He grinned. “Besides, Counts is too mean to die.” He glanced at Rebecca. “Do you draw breath?” he asked her.
She looked at him in confusion. “What?”
“It is a traditional greeting,” Talon said.
“I’m glad to see you too, Fox,” she said.
He nodded. “There is someone to see you, Talon. A woman from the white fort. She arrived several days ago with a Delaware named Chimhe. He says he hunted buffalo with you. Do you know him?”
“Yes. He is trustworthy,” Talon answered. “I will see this woman. Take her”—he motioned to Rebecca—“to Squash Blossom’s wigwam. Ask the sister of my father to treat her kindly. This man has not provided food today, and she is hungry.”
“No,” Rebecca said. She didn’t want to be stowed away at Talon’s aunt’s house. She wanted to hear the news from the settlements first hand. “I want to come with you,” she insisted.
Talon frowned. “It would be better to do as this man suggests.”
“I want to come,” she repeated stubbornly. There might be some news of Colin or even of Simon. There might be word of Talon’s father. She didn’t want to think about that . . . about what would happen if Siipu had been right—if the old man was dead. A shiver ran down Rebecca’s spine. “Please, Talon,” she said.
He turned and strode away. No one tried to stop her when she followed, but her skin tingled from the stares of dozens of eyes. Children ran after her, reaching out to touch her skin or the edge of her clothing. The dogs continued to bark and run in circles.
The village smelled of wood smoke and leather. The curious people watching her with such relish had red-brown skin, but other than that, they could have been Irish peasants from the little hamlet near her father’s house. Some were short, some were tall; a few were fat, but most were handsomely built with clear, bright eyes and intelligent faces. The children were relatively dean and obviously healthy. They were all warmly dressed against the cold. She could detect no hostility toward her, in spite of the difficult relations between whites and the tribes.
I could learn to like these friendly, laughing people, she thought. If I spoke their language, I could gossip with them and share their jokes. And for just a brief instant, she wondered what her life would be like if she could do as Talon had asked her . . . if she could set aside Simon and take Talon as husband.
She was so engrossed in her own musings that she nearly ran into Talon. He had stopped in front of a wigwam that looked much like all the others. He followed Fox through the low doorway and held aside the deerskin flap for her.
Inside, Rebecca paused to let her eyes become accustomed to the dim light. The hut was similar to Siipu’s home, but here the smell of wet fur and simmering stew was tempered with an unpleasant scent—the odor of sickness.
Talon circled the fire pit and went to the far side of the wigwam where a gray-haired woman was spooning broth into another woman’s mouth. The patient coughed and turned her face away. Rebecca gazed at her intently. In the shadows, it was hard to tell, but she looked like . . . Yes, she knew the sick woman from the fort. She was a laundry woman named Ready Mary. “Isn’t that Mary?” she asked Talon.
“This is Shash-kee-thee,” Talon said. “In our tongue, her name means Virgin. She says she did work for the white soldiers at Fort Nelson.”
The woman’s face was drawn and pasty. Two unnatural spots of color tinted her cheeks. Seized by a spasm of coughing, she covered her mouth with her hands. Her nurse looked at Talon and shook her head gravely, then retreated to the far side of the hut.
“You are the war chief Fire Talon?” Shash-kee-thee demanded hoarsely, when she could speak.
He nodded. “What message do you bring me? Has Medicine Smoke sent you?”
“I have come—” She broke off with another fit of coughing. “Come at great personal risk, to tell you of your father’s death,” she said in Algonquian.
“Medicine Smoke no longer lives?” Talon asked in the same language.
“Simon Brandt hanged him.”
“When?”
Shash-kee-thee shook her head. “I don’t remember how many days ago. Before the long-knife militia rode out to hunt your warriors. Many suns.”
“You saw this with your own eyes?” he demanded of her.
The sick woman nodded solemnly. “I saw,” she said. “The shaman died bravely.”
“What is she saying?” Rebecca asked.
Talon turned back to her, and his face seemed carved of sun-dried cedar. “My father is dead,” he said in an emotionless voice. “Hanged at the English fort.”
“It’s not true,” she protested. “It can’t be.” She looked back at the coughing woman. “Why are you saying that, Mary?” she cried. “They wouldn’t hang Medicine Smoke. If they did—”
Talon knelt and gathered a handful of cold ashes from the edge of the fire pit and scattered them over the flames. “Then your life would be worth no more than this,” he said. “If the Shaman has been murdered, then of what use to the Shawnee is a hostage?”
Chapter 19
Sick numbness spread through Rebecca as she watched Talon kneel by the fire pit and rub ashes on his face. He began to chant, a low eerie song that could only be a mourning hymn for his dead father.
“Talon, I’m so sorry,” she whispered. Her first instinct was to put her arms around him and comfort him, but she was afraid. This wasn’t the man she’d made love to so passionately; this Shawnee warrior with the features of carved cedar was someone she didn’t know.
“Talon,” she tried again. But he didn’t respond; he didn’t even seem to hear her. It was as if a wall of solid ice divided them.
What Siipu had seen in her witch’s vision was real. Rebecca’s worst nightmare was coming true. It didn’t seem possible to her that the commander at Fort Nelson would do such a thing, knowing that the old man’s execution would put her life in such terrible danger. Deep inside, her suspicion grew that it was not the commandant, but Simon and his blind hate for the Indians who was responsible.
Gathering her courage, she reached out to touch Talon’s arm.
“Ku!” The gray-haired woman who had tended Mary pulled her away from him and shook her head. “Ku!”
“I didn’t mean any harm,” Rebecca said. “I only . . .” She trailed off as she saw the old squaw’s forbidding expression.
Ignoring her, Talon rocked back and forth. Rebecca saw the gleam of firelight on his knife blade as he slid the ten-inch weapon from the fringed sheath at his waist.
Her heart skipped a beat. She clapped a hand over her mouth and backed away as full realization hit her. Talon had repeatedly promised that he would kill her if his father died at the hands of the English. Until this instant, she had never believed he would. Now . . . It took all her will power to keep from fleeing the wigwam.
He’s going to murder me, she thought. I’m going to die here and now.
But pride wouldn’t let her grovel. She was Irish born and bred, and if he wanted to kill her, he could do so with her staring him full in the face.
But he made no threatening move toward her. Instead, he slashed his own arms until blood ra
n down to sizzle in the flames of the fire.
Sickened, she turned away. I will never understand him, she thought. Never. Cold air brushed her cheek, and when she looked again, he was gone.
The squaw’s seamed face contorted in grief as she crouched down and began a high-pitched keening. Rebecca glanced back toward Mary, but the laundress’s eyes were shut and her head was slumped to one side. Rebecca wondered if she was dead, but when she drew closer, she saw that Mary’s chest still rose and fell, and she heard her harsh breathing.
Rebecca wasn’t sure what to do. Staying here with these two was unthinkable, but if she followed Talon outside, would he remember his threat and carry it out? Cautiously, she pushed aside the deerskin and peered out. Men and women were gathering beside the unfinished Big House. The steady throb of a drum rose from the left. No one looked at her, and she stepped into the cold air.
“Becca!”
A familiar voice called her name. She turned to see Siipu coming around the wigwam.
“You come,” Talon’s sister said in her dry, rustling voice. “Not good people see white woman.”
Rebecca didn’t need to be told twice.
Siipu led her a short way to a round dwelling near the edge of the trees and motioned her to enter. This must be the aunt’s home, Rebecca thought, and was surprised to see Counts and Osage Killer inside instead.
Counts His Scalps sat on a sleeping platform with a fur robe drawn up to his waist. His chest was bare; wrapped around his shoulder was a thick bandage of cedar bark. He glanced at her and gave a grunt of recognition as she stood up.
The other man, Osage Killer, sat cross-legged by the fire sharpening a knife on a whetstone. He said something to her in Algonquian and made a hand sign of welcome.
This wigwam was smaller than either Siipu’s home or the hut where Ready Mary was being cared for, but Rebecca was struck by the neatness of this dwelling. Weapons, animal skins, and baskets hung from the ceiling and walls, but each piece seemed in its proper place. The fire pit was lined with round fist-sized rocks, and wood was stacked carefully beside it. The house smelled of tobacco and fresh pine.
Siipu waved Rebecca to sit. Awkwardly, she knelt and then crossed her legs. Osage Killer watched her with dark, hooded eyes.
“My brother knows,” Siipu said.
Counts frowned. “You should have told him.” His English was heavily accented, but Rebecca understood his words. “Wrong for witch to keep word of shaman’s death from him.”
“What will happen now?” Rebecca asked Siipu.
“He go for father’s body,” Counts replied tersely.
“To give burial,” the masked woman added.
“And me?” Rebecca gazed into her eyes. “What of me?”
“That is for Fire Talon to say,” Counts answered. coldly. “He has no time for you now. He must send the shaman across the river with prayer and reverence.” He nodded toward Osage Killer. “This warrior will go with him.”
“Until my brother come back, you stay this wigwam,” Siipu said. “Best you not anger people.”
“Unless her moon-time comes,” Counts said.
“Do you bleed, woman?” he demanded.
Heat scalded Rebecca’s cheeks. “No,” she stammered. She had had her woman’s bleeding while she stayed with Siipu, and Talon’s sister had provided her with a soft skin belt and cedar bark padding to keep herself clean.
“This man will have no moon-time woman in his wigwam,” Counts declared adamantly in Algonquian. “White or red.”
“If her cycle comes, I will take her to the woman’s hut,” Siipu assured him. “I know the customs of my people. I would never endanger you so.”
“A woman’s moon blood is taboo for a warrior,” he continued. “Female power does not mix with a hunter’s weapons. You will cause my rifle to misfire, my arrows to fly crookedly, if you let this white captive defile my house.”
“I give you my oath,” Siipu replied. “It is not her time. It is safe for her and for you to sleep here.”
“Just so we are clear on that,” Osage Killer said with a wink. “Counts fears nothing like a bleeding woman.”
“I fear nothing, least of all a moon-time female,” Counts retorted. “But a man must guard his luck, and a man who has been called to be a shaman must follow the laws of custom more carefully than an ordinary man.”
Rebecca looked from one to the other in confusion. What were they arguing about? And why had Counts His Scalps asked such a personal question of her? Even Ready Mary and the old woman seemed more hospitable than the cold and scowling Counts. She could feel the hostility in the air. Counts blamed her in some way for Talon’s father’s death, and he would not hesitate to kill her without remorse. “Please,” she said to Siipu. “If he does not want me here—”
“This best place for you,” Talon’s sister answered.
“I need to talk to Talon before he goes,” Rebecca said. “Will you ask him if he will see me?”
Siipu shook her head. “He mourns our father, he whose name we do not say. No see wife of Simon Brandt.”
“But I must,” she argued. Talon cared for her—she knew he did. And she loved him, in spite of all that had happened. Memories of her own father’s death assaulted her, and she felt Talon’s pain. If she could make him understand how sorry she was, then perhaps . . .
But Siipu would not be swayed. “No,” she said. “When he return with the body of our father, when we have sent him to the spirits with ceremony, then will be time to do what must be done with prisoner.”
The next two days passed slowly. Rebecca did not leave the wigwam except to attend to her personal needs, accompanied by Talon’s sister. Fortunately, the injured man, Counts, was seldom there. The village was in mourning for their dead shaman, and Counts His Scalps joined other men in the unfinished Big House for the greater part of every day and evening.
Drums beat continually, and the sound of many people chanting filled the nights. A fire burned in the center of the village. Women gathered there, and Rebecca smelled the odor of roasting meat coming from that direction. But Siipu didn’t join the others; instead, she remained in the wigwam and busied herself by stitching a pair of beaded moccasins for Counts.
“He has no wife to sew for him?” Rebecca commented, when the silence between the two women had gone on for hours.
Siipu’s soft laughter filled the wigwam. “No. Counts have no wife.” She punched another series of holes in the soft buckskin, matched the top and bottom and laced the sole tightly with sinew. “Counts His Scalps not like women.”
“But this is his wigwam.”
Siipu nodded. “His and Osage Killer’s.”
“So why are we here, if he doesn’t like women?”
“This one heal Counts’ wound. You, my brother leave with Counts. Counts honored warrior in tribe. You no run, stay safe until he come back.”
“I think I’d rather sleep in a rattlesnake den,” Rebecca replied tartly.
The Indian woman held a needle to the firelight and threaded it. “Maybe best you do sleep rattlesnake. Best you, best my brother. Trouble you make for each other.”
“You could let me go again. This time, I’d run so fast and so far—”
“No.” Siipu shook her head. “No run. Wait.”
On the third morning, Rebecca was awakened before dawn by Counts nudging her arm with the toe of his moccasin. “Siipu say you come,” he said.
She sat up and rubbed her eyes. She had slept fully dressed, so it was no trouble to rise, throw her coat around her shoulders, and follow him out into the bitter gray dawn. The wind was howling around the wigwams like a wild beast, and she lowered her head against the stinging bite of sleet. Somewhere, a drum still sounded, but other than that, the village seemed asleep. Not a single dog barked or person showed himself. Bits of flying debris struck her exposed skin and found their way into her mouth. Shivering, she squinted against the force of the blast.
Counts led her back to the hut wh
ere she’d last seen Ready Mary and left her there. “Inside,” he commanded.
When she pushed aside the deerskin and entered, Siipu was waiting. Mary lay flat on her back on a blanket near the hearth. Rebecca took one look at her and shuddered.
Mary’s face and arms were sprinkled with hundreds of fiery eruptions. Her eyes were shut, and she was moaning, her swollen face flushed with fever.
Siipu knelt beside her and pressed a wet cloth to Mary’s forehead. “You know this sickness?” Talon’s sister asked.
Rebecca clenched her hands into tight balls at her sides as fear churned her stomach to nausea. Spots could be anything, she rationalized in desperation. Measles . . . chicken pox. But that wasn’t what she was looking at, and she knew it. “I do.”
“Ah.” Siipu motioned Rebecca to her side. “She suffers.” Even with the mask hiding most of Siipu’s face, Rebecca could still see the strain and worry etched there.
“Yes.” Rebecca could feel the heat radiating from Mary’s body. “Yes.” Rebecca had seen this before, when she was a child in Ireland. She’d come upon one of the maids lying on the kitchen floor . . . a village girl named Margaret. The other servants had been terrified, mostly because the master’s precious daughter had been exposed to the dread disease.
“This has name,” Siipu said. “In English.”
Rebecca nodded.
“You say the word.”
Rebecca looked down at the laundress in horror. Ready Mary was bad, very bad. Margaret had been like this. She hadn’t died, but Rebecca could remember the stench of the disease and Margaret’s groans of pain. Someone had tied Margaret hands to the bed so she couldn’t scratch at the weeping sores, and when the scabs fell off nearly a month later, she was blind.
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