Ashes of Heaven (The Plainsmen Series)

by Terry C. Johnston

  “What did you bring in?” he asked, pointing at the small bundles of waxed paper the two had placed at the rear of the lodge.

  “The Old Man Chiefs wanted us to bring in some of the food the Bear Coat sent with us—so they can have a meal before they smoke the pipe and talk about these important words you bring from the soldier chief.”

  “Food,” he repeated in Lakota, realizing his nervous stomach might also be very hungry. Johnny hadn’t eaten anything that morning at their breakfast fire, knowing that this was the day they would catch up to the village. He had sipped at coffee, reminding his hands not to tremble as they gripped his coffee tin.

  As Old Wool Woman started to rise, Johnny asked, “Where are you going?”

  “We are going to help bring more wood and water here to Coal Bear’s lodge,” she instructed. “The meal and all the talk will last long into the night.”

  “You’ll be back?” He surprised himself for asking what he might ask of his own mother.

  How close he felt to her after their days and nights of travel. Safe near her. Secure in the truths she shared with him. Knowing that she spoke honestly, bravely. Old Wool Woman had been right all along about everything: that she could get him into the village without being harmed, that he could reach this sacred lodge where he would be safe and he could speak with the Shahiyela leaders.

  “I’ll return soon,” she vowed as she slipped past him quickly.

  Antelope Woman followed and together they left the lodge. The frozen flap slid back across the entrance about the time the loud and angry voices quieted. He sat there a few moments, listening intently to the noises. Sounds of feet shuffling away across the icy, groaning snow. The snort of one of their horses. Voices of men and women and young children withdrawing, fading off gradually.

  Outside it grew so quiet that he was startled when the doorflap was pulled aside. Fully expecting to see Old Wool Woman’s face again, Johnny felt his breath quicken when a man ducked inside. The flap slid back over the door and the older warrior stood, closely studying Bruguier a moment before he stepped around the fire to the back of the lodge.

  There he knelt among the small bundles the women had delivered, sniffing at some of them, setting some of the parcels near the edge of the fire pit, placing others directly beneath the tripod that held the sacred bundle aloft at the head of his bed. That done, the old priest looked hard at Johnny with narrowed eyes and sighed.

  “You speak Lakota, I am told,” he said in the halting language of Bruguier’s Hunkpapa mother.

  “Yes, but I do not know much of your language.”

  “It is good that the old woman brought you here,” the man admitted, stopping a few times to remember words, to recall just how to phrase certain things.

  “She told me I would be safe in your lodge.”

  The older man glanced over his shoulder at the tripod and its sacred bundle. “You are safe here. Esevone will guard you with Her power.”

  “Everything the old woman told me about your people, about this lodge and you … everything she said is true.”

  The priest smiled. “Old Wool Woman has no reason to lie about the powers of the Everywhere Spirit.” He bent over the fire a moment and poked at it with a small tree limb. “She tells us you watched over her on your journey here to this place.”

  Bruguier shrugged slightly. “I brought her here, yes. To return her to her people.”

  “You are a tracker for the army now?”

  “Yes,” he admitted.

  “Will you speak to our leaders for the Bear Coat?”

  “I bring his words to your chiefs.”

  The priest tossed the limb into the embers. “My name is Coal Bear. I am Keeper of the Sacred Buffalo Hat of our people.”

  “The woman said you were a man of great power.”

  Coal Bear grinned while gazing into the flames, as if sharing in a private joke. “It is not my power, but the power of the Hat Old Wool Woman spoke of.”

  They were quiet for some time until Johnny asked, “When will the others come to smoke the pipe and talk?”

  “Later,” Coal Bear answered. “Perhaps you would like to rest now. To sleep some before the others come.”

  By way of an answer, Johnny shoved his coat to the side and laid his head upon it. Then he dragged his gun belt so that it pressed against his belly.

  “You are safe here,” Coal Bear said, bringing his eyes from the pistol to the half-breed’s face. “You will not need your gun. This is a sacred place.”

  Rocking up on his elbow, Johnny asked, “Do you want to keep my gun? I do not want you to think I am afraid in your home. If you say I am safe here, I will trust your words.”

  “No,” said Coal Bear, waving his hand as if dismissing the whole matter. “I do not want to take your gun. You keep it for when you leave and go back to the Bear Coat’s house at the mouth of the Buffalo Tongue River. Out there you will need a gun. But here, in sight of the power of Esevone, all men are at peace. All tongues speak the truth. And all hearts are set on the right path.”

  Johnny laid his head back down on his coat and stretched out his legs. He let out a sigh, telling himself to sleep. Listening to the crackle of the fire, listening to the noises the old man made for a long time.

  After some time, Coal Bear said, “It was a good thing the old woman brought you here to this lodge.”

  Bruguier opened his eyes slightly, and said, “Old Wool Woman and I watched over one another, we kept one another safe on our journey here.”

  “Yes—but it was the power of Esevone that watched over the old woman, the power that kept her safe.”

  Chapter 9

  Mid-February 1877

  “The soldiers fed us well,” the old woman told those leaders gathered in council. “We had a good place to stay out of the cold, and the guards watched us so that nobody bothered us.”

  Johnny Bruguier looked from face to face of those ringing the fire here in Coal Bear’s lodge, eager for something that might betray what they thought of the woman’s story. Some of the war chiefs and head men glanced at one another momentarily; others murmured or grunted, nodding their heads as the woman described the conditions for the Shahiyela captives at the Bear Coat’s fort.

  Having shown up just after dark, the leaders of both tribes had talked quietly among themselves during their meal of pork and hard bread, dried fruit and boiled white beans, finished off with cups of steamy coffee, sweetened with sugar. Then Coal Bear unwrapped his pipebowl from the skin of a mountain cougar and the long ash stem from the folds of a red-haired buffalo calf. Putting the two pieces together, he next laid out his willow bark, dried dung, and wild rosehips, mixing these with some of the soldiers’ tobacco. It was clear to Johnny that the old priest had prepared more than enough for one pipeful.

  With the bowl loaded, Coal Bear nodded to the warrior seated to his right. The one called White Bull scratched among the embers at the edge of the firepit and, with two small twigs, extracted a small piece of coal. White Bull placed the glowing coal atop the tobacco in the bowl and leaned back, while Coal Bear lit his pipe. The Sacred Hat Priest murmured his prayers in Shahiyela to the cardinal directions—to the earth and sky and all the sacred persons—then passed the pipe to his left, following the path of the sun. Crazy Horse was the next to take the pipe. Then one after another the rest drew breath through the bowl and stem, sending their smoke toward the sky above as they uttered their prayers in either Lakota or Shahiyela.

  When the pipe reached the doorway, it was handed halfway round the lodge to Coal Bear who passed it to White Bull so that it might continue its journey. When the pipe finally reached the half-breed, Coal Bear spoke slowly in Lakota so the stranger could understand.

  “You are the one the Ohmeseheso people call ‘White,’” the priest explained. “You may smoke with us, because this is a sacred occasion. Smoke, and let your moment with the pipe be your vow that only the truth will pass your lips.”

  Bruguier nodded, feeling t
he eyes of nearly half-a-hundred warriors and old man chiefs concentrate on him at that moment. In his mind he remembered those few occasions when his mother’s people had invited him to sit in on special ceremonies: a naming, a memorial, perhaps a song-making. Johnny remembered how he was taught to smoke so that each breath was a prayer uttered before the Lakota’s Great Mystery. He hadn’t prayed in a long time. But here tonight, he found himself praying harder than he had ever prayed before.

  With each puff he waved some of the exhaled smoke back toward himself. The first time he brushed some smoke over his head, and down each side of his long hair. The second time he rubbed some smoke over his chest. On and on, with each puff he brushed some of the sacred smoke over his arms and his legs.

  Once he had finished, Johnny passed the pipe back to his right. As it began its return journey to Coal Bear, the priest said something in Shahiyela. The warrior nearest the doorflap scrambled out the door, returning momentarily with Old Wool Woman, who was wrapped in her gray army blanket. She entered and stepped to the right, settling in the last vacant place between Johnny and the door.

  “Welcome to the Sacred Lodge of the Medicine Hat,” Coal Bear addressed her. “Tell us all of your travels to the soldier fort.”

  She began to tell these leaders how well the Bear Coat and his men had treated their captives. While most of the soldiers at the post lived in canvas tents with log walls, she and the other prisoners were eventually given a place of their own inside a timber lodge almost as big as the Bear Coat’s.

  “While the soldiers are given three meals each day,” she explained, “any time we asked for food, it was brought to us.”

  A special place was made for the women to relieve themselves in privacy. Twin Woman’s two young children, Red Hood and Crane Woman, were special objects of affection and attention for the soldiers. Many of the ve-ho-e came by each day to play with the youngsters, to talk to them, to learn some of the Shahiyela tongue from them too.

  “We did not feel we were at war with the Bear Coat and his men,” she declared.

  “But these are the same men who have made war on us,” Last Bull roared, the veins in his temples throbbing. “They have made war on our villages and our families.”

  “But Old Wool Woman is showing us that the Bear Coat can make a strong peace,” White Bull countered, “or he can make a strong war.”

  “Go on,” Coal Bear instructed her. “What message do you bring from the Bear Coat?”

  Old Wool Woman said, “He wants you to know he is your friend. The Bear Coat wants you to come in to his soldier camp and surrender.”

  “What then?” asked Black Moccasin. “What happens?”

  “All will be well if you go to the soldier camp,” she answered. “You will have plenty to eat too. No one will be harmed and the rest of the prisoners will be returned to you.”

  “Why did the Bear Coat keep the younger women there?” Two Moon asked. “Why did he send you?”

  Her eyes dropped a moment, then came back to gaze at Coal Bear. “The soldier chief said he chose me because I was the oldest. He wants to make peace. He does not want to harm the Shahiyela. He wants to have you come in so no harm comes to you with more war.”

  “The soldiers will make more war as soon as the snows are gone?” Little Wolf asked.

  “Until all have surrendered,” she answered. “That is why the Bear Coat sent me here with Big Leggings. To say you have a choice. You leaders must decide if the People will move in to the soldier camp … or if we will have more war.”

  Several men questioned Old Wool Woman, while others questioned the half-breed, late into the night. Then Coal Bear announced it was time for the council chiefs to discuss the matter between themselves. Their discussion went past the setting of the moon and Johnny grew weary. So late was it that Bruguier was awakened by the tap of a finger at his cheek.

  Old Wool Woman knelt over him. The fire burned low at the center of the lodge. The Shahiyela and Lakota leaders were standing, stretching, working kinks out of their legs.

  “Did they decide?”

  Wagging her head sadly, she whispered, “There are many for making peace with the Bear Coat now; so many are hungry and the horses are poor. Our warriors have little ammunition and the hunting hasn’t been good. But it seems there are many chiefs who speak out for continuing the war.”

  “So … what is going to happen?”

  “Coal Bear and the Old Man Chiefs have turned the matter over to the leaders of the warrior societies,” she told him. “They will meet tomorrow afternoon to come to a decision.”

  “Tell me,” Bruguier begged in a whisper, feeling the prickly rise of apprehension, “does it look good for making peace with the soldiers?”

  She shrugged a shoulder and pursed her lips a moment. “I don’t know how to answer you right now. I can only trust to the power of Ma-heo-o to watch over His people, and to have His people do what is right for them.”

  * * *

  Antelope Woman shivered more with anticipation than with the brutal cold, while a sun, pale as mare’s milk, slid off midsky.

  Leading her brother’s ponies back from watering at the frozen river, she suddenly stopped, turned, and gazed back at the hills, at the willow, and other trees along the bank. Looking north, she saw the shadow of a magpie cross the crusty snow. She remembered that hot day the summer before. Back then the great village had stood not far north from where the ponies were hovering. She remembered. And her heart grew confused. How was she supposed to feel about all that was happening to her people, to her friend Old Wool Woman—about what was happening to her?

  Should her people make peace with the ve-ho-e soldiers who had killed her nephew, Noisy Walking? She remembered: how proud he was to be one of the suicide boys who paraded through camp. It was the day before the Yellow Hair’s soldiers attacked the villages clustered beside the Little Sheep River. He and the handful of others had vowed to give their lives in the fight they knew was coming.

  “Look at these!” the elders had exclaimed as the boys slowly rode through the Shahiyela camp and the women cried out in tremolo. “Your eyes will not see these fighters again!”

  Noisy Walking had been so proud to give his life to the Spirit Persons in such an honored way. So how would Noisy Walking feel about this talk of peace with the Bear Coat? He had laid down his life in the fight with the soldiers; so how would the young man have felt about Old Wool Woman returning to this camp with her glowing stories of how well the enemy had treated her, fed her, and kept her warm, when that same enemy had destroyed nearly everything the Ohmeseheso ever had? When that enemy had taken away all of young Noisy Walking’s remaining days?

  Many, many more Shahiyela warriors would have been killed that day had not Ma-heo-o caused the ve-ho-e soldiers to go crazy and turn their guns on themselves.

  Stepping from the misty fog of the ponies’ breathsmoke, Antelope Woman continued toward the village, where gray curls spiraled from the tops of the new lodges hardly browned from this winter’s fires. Since the glory days of their culture, her people had watched Three Finger Kenzie’s soldiers and scouts burn all but one of their lodges in the valley of the Red Fork. With nothing, the survivors limped north in search of the Crazy Horse people. Where they could, the Shahiyela crowded in with the Little Star People. Still, some of the survivors preferred to build themselves crude shelters of rock and brush that did little to hold back the winter winds. But in these days since Antelope Woman’s people had come across good buffalo country, the women and girls were again busy scraping, curing, tanning the hides. One by one, day after day, these new, white lodges rose against the pale sky, arranged in the grand half-moon of the Tse-tsehese,* the horns of the crescent facing the rising sun each morning.

  “Sister!”

  Antelope Woman turned, finding White Bull riding up slowly behind her.

  Bringing his pony to a halt, he smiled and said, “My horses are in good hands with you.”

  She watched him drop
to the snow. Together they continued walking toward the lodges. “You were not in the lodge this morning when I awoke. Your horses needed water for the day so I took them down before breakfast. You must have much on your mind before the council starts.”

  “Yes, the council,” he repeated.

  “You are going to speak, aren’t you?”

  “That is why I was gone when you awoke this morning,” White Bull explained. “Sleep was elusive last night, so I finally dressed and took my pipe into the hills before sunrise.”

  “Did my brother find the answer he sought?”

  White Bull was a moment in answering. “There are many answers, Antelope Woman. And I thought on each one of them.”

  “You are not so quick to speak and act as Last Bull and some of the others—”

  “Let them be,” he interrupted his younger sister, a stern look of disapproval creasing his face. “If a man wishes to make a fool of himself, a wise person does not seek to stop him.”

  “I think you are one of the wisest, brother,” she said contritely.

  Shrugging at her compliment as they entered the camp crescent, White Bull said, “Sometimes … I do not feel so wise, young one.”

  “But you will speak at the warrior society council this afternoon?”

  “This is a very critical time for our people,” he explained almost in a whisper. “We stand at a crossing of trails: one black and one red.”

  “Old Wool Woman told me this morning she hopes the council decides to make peace with the Bear Coat.”

  He replied, “Yes, while so many others want us to continue walking down the red road of war.”

  They stopped beside his lodge where she lived with White Bull’s family. He knelt and tied his pony to a tentpeg.

  After a long moment she asked, “What road will you walk, brother?”

  Brushing his pony’s neck with his blanket mitten, White Bull said, “I will set my feet on that road the Sacred Powers told me to walk when I smoked my pipe this morning.”

  “What road is that?”

  The warrior tried out a valiant smile on his sister. “For many winters now, I have been asked to walk the hardest road.”