by Kelly, Carla
“Let’s hope it works, Will,” she said. “I’ve pretty well exhausted my skills.”
Mary picked up the canteen Sergeant Blade must have left for her or Will and dipped another hunk of her material in it. She swabbed at the wagon bed until it was less bloody and set the brown paper down that had wrapped the fabric.
“If you can scoot onto this, it will tell us if the bandage is working,” she said. “I’ll help you.”
She made him as comfortable as she could, with his head propped against a bag of cornmeal, then covered him with an army blanket. “It’s the best I can do right now,” she said. “I wish it were more.”
The private leaned back with a sigh. “All things considered, Miss Blue Eye, I’m fine.”
She smiled at that. “You’re a liar, Will, but thank you.”
“No, it’s the truth,” he insisted. “Just hold my hand now and then, and I’ll be the envy of the entire Fifth Cavalry.”
He honestly looked as though he meant it. Mary felt herself relaxing. There wouldn’t have been time to make a dress for herself anyway, and this was more important. She poured a tin cup of water from the canteen and held it to his lips, because bravado aside, his hands shook. Hers were remarkably steady. Mama would be impressed. When he finished, he sighed again and closed his eyes. “Wake me up if you need any help,” he joked.
She laughed, which made Casey, still kneeling by the wagon seat, look at her in surprise. He shook his head and turned his gaze outward again.
She sat beside the sleeping private and held his hand as the firing diminished and finally stopped. Obedient to the order from Sergeant Blade and from her own caution, she waited.
“Mary? Is he still alive? How’re you?”
“We’re fine.”
Funny thing was, they were. A most pleasant feeling had shouldered aside her apprehension. For the first time in her admittedly cosseted and comfortable life, she felt useful and needed, with the sleeping trooper not remotely concerned that she was at least some part Indian and young. It was a pleasant sensation, and she wanted more of it.
Her euphoria disappeared when Sergeant Blade threw back the canvas and dropped the tailgate again. He carried a young Sioux with his upper arm crooked at a strange angle.
“Ready to tackle another project?” Rowan asked, as casually as if he were commenting on the weather. “He fell off his horse. He’s not too happy.”
“He says his name is Smooth Stone, or something like that,” Rowan told her as he stood there. “Obviously he’s having some trouble with sign language at the moment, what with one arm bent out of shape.”
He peered into the wagon. “How’s Private Lemaster doing?”
“Well enough, I think. I made a strong pad for the wound and bound it tight, but he needs a surgeon.”
“We’ll get him one. Help me with Mr. Smooth Stone, who I don’t think is a day over twelve, if that.” He sighed. “Bring along more of your fabric. We have some scrapes and nicks to bandage.”
Will opened his eyes when she released his hand. She took a moment to lift the blanket and check the brown paper. No stains, which relieved her heart and mind. “I have to help someone else,” she told him. “Go back to sleep.”
“I’ll watch Will.” The teamster leaned his carbine against the wagon seat. “Don’t think he’ll want to hold my hand, though.”
The rest of her own material in hand and holding the shears, Mary let the corporal help her from the wagon. She leaned into the wagon for another blanket and spread it on the ground for the sergeant to deposit his burden, who looked none too pleased.
To call him twelve years old was generous. Mary would have thought closer to ten. “You’re a little young to be doing this,” she told him.
“Wasichu. Wasichu,” Smooth Stone said.
Mary looked at Rowan and shrugged.
“I think he wants to know if you are white,” Sergeant Blade said. He looked over his shoulder. “Private McIntyre, front and center.”
Private McIntyre came forward, his hand against his head, blood on his fingers. “Thought I was just going to feel the whistle as the bullet passed, but it took a little detour, Sarge.” He sounded apologetic that he hadn’t leaped out of the way.
“How’s your Sioux, Private?”
“Not bad, Sarge,” McIntyre said cheerfully. “It’ll get better once the little lady lets me have a strip of that material. Pretty stuff.”
“Yes, isn’t it?” Sergeant Blade said drily. “Sorry, Mary.”
“At this point, I don’t care,” she said and ripped off a strip. “Sit down. I can do this better than you.”
With a glance at Rowan, who nodded, Private McIntyre sat down. Practiced now in the art of medical improvisation, Mary dabbed the bullet furrow with water, then bandaged the private’s head, with the knot over the wound for best pressure. “That should do until something better comes along,” she said. She looked back at Smooth Stone, who waited more or less patiently because he didn’t have much choice.
“Can you tell him that I am an Indian?”
“I’ll show you how to sign it,” McIntyre said. Despite what she suspected was a massive headache, he seemed to be enjoying himself.
He showed her, rubbing the back of his left hand twice with his right hand. Smooth Stone added some commentary of his own.
“He wants to know what nation.”
Her nation. I have a nation, same as Smooth Stone, she thought. The Keepers have traveled the path of the white man longer than the Sioux. Whether that is good or bad, who can tell?
“My nation,” she said softly. “Private, tell him I am a Keeper of the Western Door.” Pride filled her heart. “Tell him I live very far away from here, to the place where the sun rises.”
“Your wish is my command,” McIntyre said and signed her message. “Don’t know what he understands, because I’m not so good.”
“Better than I,” she said. Once back home, she would improve her education. The Seneca let their women speak and make decisions. She could ask to learn more and not be ignored.
When Private McIntyre finished, Smooth Stone reached out his good hand and touched Mary’s hand. He said something, and she looked at McIntyre.
“‘Cure,’ as near as I can translate it.”
“Tell him I’ll do my best.”
“You tell him. It’s like this.”
She watched the trooper, then signed. The boy closed his eyes.
“Better tell him it might hurt,” she added.
“He knows that.”
“I’ll help you, Mary,” Rowan said. “Private, get Casey to find sticks about eighteen inches long. I signed a bill of lading for window shades, so he should find some slats inside those.”
Rowan ran his hand along the odd-shaped upper arm as the boy steeled himself. Gently he manipulated the area where the bone digressed from its usual path. Mary pressed her hand against Smooth Stone’s chest.
“It’s bent for certain, but it’s not snapped off completely,” Rowan said. “I think I can realign it.”
Mary touched the boy’s face and looked deep into eyes much like her own. His stoicism vanished, but she saw no fear. “I want to be this brave someday.”
“You already are,” Rowan said. “Maybe you needed a reminder. Here goes.”
It was over quickly. Smooth Stone tensed and gasped, and Mary tightened her grip. He lapsed into unconsciousness long enough for Sergeant Blade to probe a bit, then nod. Rowan cut Casey’s window slats and held the boy’s arm as Mary ripped off more strips of her beautiful calico and bound the arm and the improvised splint from shoulder to elbow.
Smooth Stone opened his eyes and looked at his arm. He raised it tentatively and nodded. Sergeant Blade signed, and he nodded again. Mary took another length of fabric and made a sling. Smooth Stone sat up so she could circle it around his neck and secure his forearm inside.
“We need to get him back to his people, and then I am riding for the surgeon,” Rowan said. “We’re m
uch closer to Fort Russell than Laramie, and I want the surgeon to see to Private Lemaster.”
“That sounds too dangerous,” Mary said.
“I would have agreed, if Smooth Stone hadn’t fallen off his horse and landed, so to speak, in your lap.” He touched her shoulder. “Do you feel brave?” He leaned closer. ”There’s really only one answer, oh Keeper of the Western Door.”
“Since you put it that way, yes, I feel brave,” she told him, even though she didn’t, not at all.
“We’ll ride him back to his people. I doubt they’ve gone far.”
“That sounds terrifying.”
“Less than you think. I have no idea who Smooth Stone’s parents are, but they’ll be happy to see him.”
“Certainly they will,” Mary said. “Perhaps Private McIntyre could come along, too, if we need to say something. Would he mind?”
“You forget who he works for,” Rowan said with a smile. “It’ll be an order.”
“Why doesn’t this frighten you?” she asked.
“They weren’t a war party. We surprised them, which I was afraid might happen. I believe they’re Brulé, heading north to Spotted Tail’s Whetstone Agency, because winter is coming.”
Rowan clapped his arm around Mary’s shoulder, then turned her toward the supply wagon. “Check on Private Lemaster, if you please, and pull on your riding boots.” He gestured to Private McIntyre. “Tell Smooth Stone we are returning him to his people.”
Mary pulled on her riding boots, her eyes on Private Lemaster, who smiled faintly and returned to the half doze of a wounded man.
She stopped Casey before he swung her down from the wagon. “We should probably bring along gifts. If you don’t think the army will be too upset with me, could you fill the pail with raisins? And please hand me the rest of my material and those shears.”
She set the full pail beside the wagon and eyed the beautiful calico. She kept back three yards so she could change Private Lemaster’s bandage, then folded the rest. Maybe Smooth Stone’s mother could use it.
She let the sergeant throw her into the saddle again, then waited while he tied the fabric to the saddle.
He swung into the saddle and held out his arms for Smooth Stone, handed up by Private McIntyre, who mounted his own horse. The sergeant wrapped Smooth Stone in an army blanket, careful not to jostle him.
“How do you know where to go?” Mary asked.
“I don’t. I’m following the direction where they last fired on us,” he said. “I can’t help but think they haven’t gone far.”
They rode west through terrain that the teamster had earlier told her was perfect for buffalo and Indians. “You might think it’s all level ground, but see how it dips,” he had pointed out. “The whole Sioux Nation could probably hide here and we’d be none the wiser.”
Down in one dip, up another, rinse and repeat, and then there they were, a gathering of Indians that made Mary suck in her breath and hope Sergeant Blade hadn’t heard.
As they rode up out of the gully, a line of horsemen turned and faced them, effectively barring passage. Behind them she could make out horses pulling travois, and women with babies on their backs. She remembered that Mama still kept the beaded cradleboard into which she had popped a much younger Mary.
“It will be yours someday,” Mama had said. At the time, Mary had politely refrained from shaking her head over old-fashioned ways in modern times. As she watched Lakota babies in their cradleboards, she knew she wanted that pretty thing now. It was practical and lovely, and a woman could carry her baby and have hands free for housework.
Smooth Stone was leaning forward now, straining toward his people. “We’ll get you there, buddy,” Sergeant Blade said.
Rowan kneed his horse ahead, and Mary and the private fell in behind. She held her breath as the warriors moved into a v shape and effectively funneled them toward the main body of the travelers. She heard the horses and riders closing the gap once they passed through.
One warrior came close enough to strike Sergeant Blade on his shoulder, then cup that same hand against Smooth Stone’s cheek. He smiled, and Mary let out the breath she had been holding.
“Imagine that. He just counted coup on me,” Rowan told her. “Here goes.”
He pulled back the army blanket so Smooth Stone’s father could see his son’s splinted arm and sling. “He fell pretty hard,” Rowan said.
Private McIntyre started to translate, but the warrior held up his hand. “I understand,” he said slowly, as if he were trying out his English for the first time in a while. “He is too young, but he argues. His mother wanted to kill me.”
Sergeant Blade laughed at that, and the warrior smiled. Between the father and the sergeant, they lowered the boy carefully to the ground.
Rowan dismounted next, then held his arms out for Mary, who lifted her leg over the upper pommel and let him help her down. She touched Smooth Stone’s shoulder. “He was very brave and did not cry out once,” she said.
The warrior made no comment to her but turned at another sound. A woman had dismounted and pushed her way through the warriors. Mary tried not to smile as she shook her finger at Smooth Stone, said something succinct that needed no translation, then carefully pulled him close.
Mary glanced at Rowan, who watched the whole scenario with appreciation all over his face, mingled with relief.
“We should probably go now,” the sergeant said. “You know, while the going’s good.”
Mary nodded. It was enough to see Smooth Stone back where he belonged and to get her first up close glimpse of the power and might of the Sioux. She wondered if her own people had once looked this way. Now the Seneca were farmers and clerks like her own father, living different lives. Again she felt a strong urge to know more about her own.
“I have gifts,” she said to Rowan. She unhooked the pail from the saddle and untied the fabric from its binding. Gifts in hand, she held out the raisins to Smooth Stone’s mother.
Mary handed her the fabric next, which made her eyes widen in appreciation. The woman smoothed down the fabric, then put it to her cheek. She held it up against Mary’s face and took a good look. She spoke to her husband, who cleared his throat against more English.
“Woman asks, who are your people?”
“I am a daughter of the Keepers of the Western Door,” she said, pointing east. “We are of the Iroquois League, many, many sleeps that way. I am Mary Blue Eye.”
He nodded and told his wife, who came closer, pressed her forehead against Mary’s, and looked into her eyes. She spoke to her husband, who laughed and said, “No blue.”
“It is an old family name,” Mary said. “I am proud of my people.”
“Good for you, Mary,” Rowan said. He looked around. “Let us see if we can extricate ourselves gracefully. Personally, I think Smooth Stone should stand in a corner for a while, if tipis had corners.”
“Oh, you!”
“We need to leave, and you need to be on your way,” Rowan told the warrior.
The father held up his hand to stop them because his wife was whispering to him with some energy. He answered and she hurried away.
“Now we wait,” he said.
Did nothing faze Sergeant Blade? Looking as casual as if the warrior sat in a parlor chatting about the weather, he asked, “Are you going toward Spotted Tail’s camp?”
“We are. The winter moon comes soon.” The warrior gestured overhead and made the obvious sign for birds. “In the moon of green leaves, we will return to seek buffalo.”
“May you have good hunting,” Sergeant Blade said. “Look, Mary.”
Smooth Stone’s mother had returned quietly. Shy, head down, she held out a small deerskin pouch on a leather cord. She gestured for Mary to bend down.
Mary did as she asked, and the woman put the pouch around her neck. Mary admired the quillwork on the small bag. “How do I sign ‘thank you’?” she whispered to Rowan.
He showed her, and she made the sign. “Wha
t is it for?” she asked Smooth Stone’s father.
“Good medicine,” he said. “Thank you for my son.” His voice hardened. “The Crow or Arikara would not have brought him back.”
The warrior turned away and mounted his horse. His wife walked alongside him, her hand firmly on Smooth Stone’s neck. The other warriors followed, and soon the three of them were alone again.
“They just vanish,” Mary said.
Sergeant Blade helped her into the saddle. She breathed deep of the deerskin and touched the buttery softness of the pouch.
“What’s my good medicine?” she asked Rowan.
“Whatever makes you happy,” he replied and mounted.
They rode back to their makeshift bivouac in silence. Private McIntyre peeled off to join the other troopers standing by a fire. Mary smelled coffee.
“I’m taking two troopers with me to Fort Russell,” he told her, after helping her down. “There might be cloth blown into Private Lemaster’s wound. The surgeon will take him back to Russell and probe around a bit. He doesn’t need an infection.”
“But . . . but . . . you don’t know that those Indians will not hang around here and try again,” she said. He couldn’t be seriously thinking of leaving them.
“They are not going to bother us,” he said. “Don’t worry, Mary. My corporal is in charge, and I have taught him everything I know.”
“It’s not me. What about you? Can’t you send someone else for the surgeon?”
He seemed genuinely surprised at her concern. “What kind of a leader would that make me? Hey, don’t worry.”
He prepared to mount again, then stopped and looked down at his uniform. She had noticed earlier that one of his brass buttons was starting to dangle on its thread. As she watched, he worked the button loose, leaned close to open the pouch around her neck, and dropped it in.
“It’s only twenty miles. Think of me, Keeper of the Western Door, and I’ll be safe.”
Private Lemaster appeared to be sound asleep in the wagon, so Mary indulged in a bout of quiet tears as the three soldiers rode away. She touched the pouch, then rubbed it against her cheek and stowed it out of sight inside her shirtwaist.