Running Wolf

by Jenna Kernan

  Her grandfather had been a far-looking man, one with the gift of seeing things before they happened. Snow Raven would give anything for that gift right now. Would she live to taste freedom again? Would this woman use her knowledge to dash any chance she had of survival?

  “I used to be those things. But now I am just a captive. My life is no longer my own.”

  “But you still long for freedom. We all do. You could lead us. It is in your blood to lead.”

  Raven lowered her head, knowing what would happen if she tried. The risk was too great. “If we go, I will lead you to your deaths.”

  “Winter is coming,” said Mouse. “Little Deer will not have enough to eat.”

  Raven stared at Mouse. “What did she eat the past two winters?”

  “Last winter was mild. The one before she stayed with me when I had no men. But this one will be hard and the men will want a woman on cold nights. If she is in my lodge they will take her, too. Snake has a baby. When her milk stops, he will die like the last one.”

  Raven pressed her lips tight together against the urge to act. None of this was her fault. It was not her place to intervene. But was it her duty?

  Mouse’s face went hard as she stared at Raven. “You ride. I saw you arrive seated on a horse. We can steal horses and you can lead us home.”

  “They will catch us and kill us. We must wait for rescue from my father.”

  “Wait? I hear the warriors boasting. They come to me with tales of great deeds. Weasel tells of stealing all the horses of your village. Is that true?”

  Raven lowered her head. “Yes.”

  “So I ask you, without horses, how will they hunt buffalo? And how will they come for you?”

  Without horses, they would be wiped out. Suddenly Raven did not want her father to come for her. The cold dread of certainty took hold of her like an icy wind. Her father must look to his people’s survival. He could not waste precious time searching for her.

  Mouse waited for an answer. “If he comes on foot, they will kill him.”

  For the first time she understood, truly understood what she faced.

  “He would be a fool to come, and Six Elks is no fool,” said Mouse.

  Even as she recognized the depth of this cold reality, Raven could not relinquish hope. “He will come.”

  Mouse snorted. “Do you know that I have a husband and a son? My husband is handsome and kind and loved me very well. Four times seasons have turned, but he has not come for me. Now I still tell myself that he will come, but I fear he has found another. We had a son, Otter. He was four when they took me. If I do not return home to my boy soon, will he even know his mother? I dream of them in my sleep. I think of them when I wake. They are what has kept me alive.”

  Raven understood now what she had not before. If she was to find rescue, she must find it herself. Something else crept into her thoughts and she straightened.

  “How is your husband called?” asked Raven.

  “Three Blankets.”

  Raven stilled at the name.

  Mouse continued on, not noticing Raven’s shock. “Oh, he is very brave. He had his first eagle feather for slitting an enemy’s throat when he was only sixteen winters old.”

  Raven’s hands had gone still, for she knew that Mouse’s son had fallen through ice in the river. Raven had been there in the winter camp when his body was brought back to the village.

  The following spring, Mouse’s husband had been killed on a raid led by Far Thunder, the chief of the Shallow Water tribe. She knew because many of her tribe had gone with them, including her brother. They had told of Three Blankets’s brave death and sang at his funeral platform.

  Raven opened her mouth to speak but Mouse was talking again.

  “Without them, I would have died so many times. They have kept me alive, my husband and my son.”

  Raven closed her mouth tight.

  “I worry that if he learns what I have done to stay alive, he might not want me. But then I worry about hiding the truth from him. What would you do?”

  Mouse looked up at Raven, waiting for her reply. Raven held her tongue as dread made her skin prickle.

  “What?” asked Mouse.

  “I...I am...” She pressed a hand over her mouth and tried to think what to say.

  Mouse’s eyes narrowed and she closed in. “What do you know of my husband? Has he taken another wife?”

  “No.”

  “Then, why do you look so guilty?” Mouse grasped Raven’s shoulders and gave a little shake. Raven met her gaze. The scowl disappeared. She released Raven and stepped back, now protecting herself from the news by folding her arms before her.

  Mouse’s eyes went wide and her face went chalky white as if she already knew. Her next words confirmed Raven’s fears. “What has happened to him?” Her fingers clawed into her hair, holding a fist at each temple. “To my husband. To my son.”

  Mouse swayed as if the energy to shout had stolen the last of her strength. She placed a hand on the riverbank.

  Raven sank down beside her and spoke in a rush, racing to finish as Mouse blinked up at her. She spoke of the raid and the victory and the losses. How her husband was killed in the raid of the Shallow Water tribe and her son in the icy water.

  “I am sorry. They are both gone,” said Raven.

  Tears streamed down Mouse’s face and then she threw herself to the ground, curling into a ball. Her cry of agony was terrible to hear.

  Raven stayed with her, but she worried that they would be missed and that would make it harder to leave the camp. When Mouse had no more voice to cry she folded into Raven’s arms.

  “I have no one now. My sister and mother walked the Way of Souls before me. They died in the spotted sickness winter, the same winter that took your mother from you. My mother-in-law hates me.”

  “She’s still alive.”

  “Moon Rise is a good swimmer. Why did she not save my son?”

  “I do not know. I only remember hearing of your husband and son because I spoke to Moon Rise. She now has no son to hunt for her and must rely on the gifts of others.”

  Mouse stood woodenly and began to walk up the bank.

  “Where are you going?” asked Raven.

  “To the woman’s lodge. Perhaps I will never come out.”

  Raven stopped her with a hand. “I am still bringing you home.”

  Mouse snorted. “I have no home.”

  Raven watched her go and wondered if she had made a mistake. Should she have kept the deaths of Mouse’s family secret until they were safely back with the Crow?

  But what if they never reached them? Didn’t Mouse have the right to mourn and pray for her husband and son? Was it her decision to keep the truth from a wife and mother?

  Raven hurried back to Running Wolf’s tepee, hopeful that she might sit near the fire.

  When Raven reached the lodge, she was received with sharp words from Ebbing Water, who snatched the basket back and sent her to the river to wash the blood from her body. The water stung but she managed. As she was leaving the river, she ran into a group of women who’d come at their customary time to wash. They shouted at her that she could not use this place and must bathe downriver so they did not get the stink of the Crow on them.

  Raven hurried back to the tepee and found Running Wolf seated inside. His eyes followed her every movement as she returned to Ebbing Water.

  “Can you not cover her?” he asked his mother.

  “She must earn her clothing.”

  “Cover her while she is inside, then.”

  Ebbing Water gave Raven a blanket. The warm rough wool scratched her skin and made her cuts burn. But it took away the chill and soon she was not shivering. She smiled at Running Wolf, but before she could offer her thanks he rose and
stalked out, leaving a half-finished bowl of stew beside him. She eyed his leavings eagerly as her stomach gave a loud gurgle. She’d had nothing to eat since Running Wolf gave her a strip of dried buffalo last night.

  “He does not want you here,” said Ebbing Water. “So you will sleep outside.”

  Ebbing Water turned back to the fire and Raven snatched up the bowl and left the tepee. Had Running Wolf left it intentionally for her?

  She sat behind the tepee to gobble down her prize. She knew Ebbing Water would miss her bowl eventually, and placed it just under the base of the tepee, hidden between the outer wall and the inner hanging lining that served to keep out the cold.

  In a short time, Ebbing Water left the lodge, closing the flap of hide that covered the circular entrance. Raven knew this was a sign that she didn’t welcome visitors or had gone away. Once she made sure she’d gone, Raven retrieved the bowl, wiped it clean and then placed it with Ebbing Water’s other cooking things.

  Raven was going to leave again, but she spotted the rawhide parfleche box covered with brightly colored geometric patterns. Her grandmother kept pemmican in just such a box. Pemmican was portable and could keep her alive. The mixture of fat and pounded dried meat might even contain some dried Saskatoon berries or wax currents.

  Such food was meant for traveling and for the long dark nights of the Deep Snow Moon when hunting was hard and game scarce. It might keep indefinitely, as long as it was kept dry and did not mold. But stealing would get her a beating or worse.

  She weighed her options.

  A weak, starving woman could not fight and she could not survive the winter. She crept forward, untied the soft leather bindings and then lifted the stiff rawhide lid.

  Inside sat the pemmican, but they were unlike the long rolls that her grandmother fashioned. Ebbing Water’s food stores looked like flat skipping stones, the size of her fist. They lay one upon the other in no order. Raven wondered if she would know if there was some missing.

  She quickly took five and rearranged the top layer to cover their absence. Then she continued out the opening only to find Running Wolf waiting for her. She was caught with the stolen food.

  He grasped her arm and several of the pemmican rounds fell at her bare feet.

  “So you ride and shoot and fight, and now I find you steal as smoothly as Weasel.”

  Would he kill her? He could. Captives had died for less. Raven found it difficult to stand—her legs began to shake and sweat popped out upon her forehead.

  She pressed her lips together to keep herself from begging for her life, although that was what she wanted to do.

  “Would you slit a man’s throat with the same ease?” he asked.

  When she did not answer he tugged her forward so that she fell against his broad chest and felt again the power of his body.

  “Why did I ever take you?”

  “I do not know.”

  He gave her wrist a little shake. “I wish I had killed him.”

  “Who?”

  “Your war chief.”

  Raven shuttered at the thought of her brother’s death earning this man one more eagle feather.

  “I would rather have you earn the feather of a gull.”

  His eyes widened at this and then went hard. He knew what she was saying. The killing of an enemy woman might earn a gull feather, dipped in red paint. She was saying she would rather die than have him kill her war chief. She met his glare, realizing she had never seen him look so angry.

  “Why didn’t you kill me?” she asked, wondering how she even found enough wind to speak. His proximity continued to make her body quake and her stomach quiver. It must be because he was an enemy and because he had the power of life or death over her. It must be that, for the alternative was too terrible to consider.

  “Why?” he asked. “I have been asking myself just that same question since I first saw you. The easy answer is because of the way you dressed. But now you have no clothes and still you intrigue me. It cannot be good for you or for me. Perhaps you are a witch, as Red Hawk says.”

  That charge was worse than being a common woman. Witches were dangerous. Witches were killed.

  “I am no witch,” she whispered.

  “I believe you. But my opinion does not matter. You must convince Turtle Rattler.”

  “How?”

  “I do not know. But you must or you will die.”

  He released her and gathered up the food she had stolen. Then he handed it to her. “Are you going to eat it?”

  “No. Hide it.”

  “Then, do it. And come with me.”

  Chapter Six

  The evening breeze brushed Running Wolf’s face. How much colder was it on her bare skin? he wondered as he watched her dress with the loincloth and draped buckskin he’d handed her across her shoulders.

  “Come,” he commanded, and turned and walked before her because it was unseemly for her to walk beside him as an equal. As he went, he listened for her tread and could hear only the whisper of her feet upon the grass. It was better to have her behind him, for then he did not have to look at her perfect form or the angry bruises that covered her skin like the spots on his horse.

  When he was away from her he knew what to do. Everything was clear. He would be generous and offer his captive to the one in the village who needed her help the most. Perhaps an old woman whose hands were knotted like the trunks of old cottonwood trees. Or to a young mother who had several children to look after. That would be charitable.

  What he would not do was make her a common woman.

  The thought of her lying beneath man after man made him sick. With Snow Raven, he felt possessive, and that was not the way of his people.

  But when he was with this enemy captive he began to notice the fine curve of her shoulder and how her breasts were high, firm and round. He noticed the way she walked and the subtle sway of her hips that was not meant to be seductive, but still was more enticing than any female he had ever seen.

  He led Raven to the tepee of Turtle Rattler and called a greeting. The shaman bid him enter and Running Wolf ducked inside, then motioned to Snow Raven to enter. As he took his place beside the shaman, he glanced at the small frail woman with hair streaked with gray. He had never noticed her before, though he knew she had been here on each of his visits. Now he watched her intently, a captive that he recalled Turtle Rattler had admitted to his lodge on her first winter.

  It occurred to Running Wolf that she and Snow Raven might know each other or even be from the same tribe. He had been there at the taking of this woman. There were two, but they had not been taken in a raid, so Running Wolf did not recall the tribe.

  After the formal greetings were exchanged, Running Wolf turned to the reason for his visit.

  “I have brought my captive,” said Running Wolf. My captive, he had said. Not the captive. Inwardly he groaned.

  Turtle Rattler straightened in anticipation. “Bring her in.”

  Snow Raven did not wait to be summoned, but stepped through the opening, gracefully sweeping into the warm interior and kneeling, closest to the door, as was proper for the one of lowest rank. He was glad that she took this position without him having to tell her.

  She sat in the firelight, hands on knees and shoulders back; it was impossible not to be affected by her. Her long hair covered her breasts and the buckskin hid her shoulders and arms, but the smooth skin of her belly and enticing indentation there all provoked his interest. His arousal stirred, and he growled at his body’s unwelcome response to her beauty.

  She kept her head down and waited to be spoken to. Running Wolf looked at her fingers, long and elegant, splayed upon her strong, bruised thighs, and felt an unfamiliar tug in his chest. He stilled. Lust for a woman was common enough, but this aching at his heart was new, unfamiliar and
unwelcome.

  She was Crow, so he should feel nothing for her. Running Wolf realized the tepee was suddenly very quiet. He tore his attention from Snow Raven to find both Turtle Rattler and his captive, Frog, staring at him.

  His face grew hot.

  Was he supposed to speak? One did not introduce a captive. Still, somehow he felt that Turtle Rattler expected this. He had some strange ways. He said he sometimes confused the future and the present because he could often see both at one time.

  “This is Snow Raven of the Low River tribe of Crow people and my captive.”

  Turtle Rattler nodded and waited. Running Wolf felt increasingly uncomfortable. But this time he held his tongue.

  “So this is the one everyone is talking about,” said the shaman. “Some say you flew off your horse like a spirit. But the one who says this the loudest is the warrior who ended up on his back in the dirt. He has said that you are a witch.”

  Snow Raven’s head came up at this accusation. She parted her lips and seemed to wish to speak but there had been no question and so it would be impolite to reply. She correctly remained silent but her fingers were no longer relaxed, curled into fists upon her bare thighs. She swayed a little but quickly righted herself.

  Was she weary from lack of sleep or from this new threat?

  Neither of them had slept since the raid, though he was sure many of his men had spent the day in their buffalo robes, while he would not find his until late into the night.

  He wondered where Snow Raven would sleep.

  “I see a young woman. Not a man. Is that correct?” the shaman asked.

  “I am a woman,” she replied.

  Running Wolf could see the pulse at her neck now beating hard and fast. Surely she knew that if she was denounced as a witch, they would kill her.

  “But you also fight like a warrior?”

  “I have learned to ride and fight from my father.”

  “Why does he teach a woman such things?” asked the shaman.

  “My mother died after my tenth winter. After that, I preferred the forest to the village. I would not gather berries or cook meals. My grandmother did not know what to do with me. I started following my brother but they would not give me a horse. So I ran after them. I am a good runner.”