by Jenna Kernan
She prayed they would have a few more days together before that time came. But that did not come to pass. Not long before they set out, they were spotted by an Apsáalooke hunting party.
“What tribe?” asked Snake, shading her eyes with her hand.
“Low River,” whispered Raven, recognizing the shield instantly. The red arrow was distinctive even from this distance. “That is my brother, Bright Arrow.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Raven did not know if she should call to her brother or hide. All she had wanted had now happened. She had managed to spare these women’s lives, and with Running Wolf’s help, they had found her people. She was free.
But she was not free. She would never again be that lighthearted, foolish girl riding through the forest.
“I should go to him,” she whispered.
The other women looked to her and then to Running Wolf.
“No,” he said. “He may not let you return. I will go.”
“They will kill you,” she said, absolutely certain that her brother would shoot a lone Sioux warrior on sight.
What should she do?
“Together,” she said. “All of us.”
The women straightened their dresses and smoothed their blunt-cut hair as best they could.
“You must help me keep Running Wolf safe,” she said. She did not receive the rousing chorus of affirmation for which she had hoped. In fact, they stared sullen and silent. Clearly they did not share her sentiment toward their guide.
She looked from one to the next. It was Snake who finally spoke.
“He was there when we were taken four years ago, and while he did not visit our lodge, he did not try to see we were adopted. He and all the others except Spotted Fawn and Pretty Cloud treated us as enemy. Why should we do otherwise?”
“Because he will be my husband.”
Little Deer gasped and Snake choked. Wren stared in mute astonishment.
“Your father will not allow it,” said Snake.
Raven tended to agree with her. Her father had lost a brother to the Sioux and her uncle had lost his scalp. It might be on the war shirt of any of the older warriors of Running Wolf’s tribe. Her father had taken them to the lake that was past the point they had ever ventured before. Had he done so to escape the whites and their new fort or to provoke the Sioux?
Was their presence here no small skirmish but a well-planned invasion?
Raven looked from her brother, far across the prairie, to the women. “You all may go. I ask no more of you.”
Little Deer stepped forward. “We would have all died screaming if Raven had not made a bargain for our lives. She was willing to die for us and all she asks is that we help spare this man’s life.”
“This enemy,” said Snake.
“It is so,” said Little Deer. “And I will do this and anything else she asks. She is our leader by our election. She was safe until we asked for her help. Spotted Fawn would have adopted her. She could have lived in his lodge and been a second wife. Who will say this is not so?”
None of them spoke.
Raven saddled Song and Running Wolf drew on his shirt and took up his shield. Raven knew her brother would recall the symbol of the wolf emblazoned upon it.
Together they rode slowly toward the party of five Crow warriors. She saw that her brother rode an unfamiliar mount, a small chestnut stallion with a wedge-shaped head and powerful hindquarters. His favorite warhorse, Hail, still lived within the Sioux herd. Had they traded with the other tribes for these, stolen them in raids or captured wild horses? As she drew nearer she recognized her brother’s companions. There was Little Badger, shirtless as usual, and beside him rode Turns Too Slowly, his long braids reaching his waist and his forelock carefully roached and waxed so it stood up like a deer-tail headpiece. Raven felt the welling of joy at seeing them again. And there was Feeding Elk, Broken Saddle and Young Bear.
Her happiness was dampened by the growing unease, for surely they had recognized her horse. With her hair cut and her loss of weight, she did not know how much she had changed, but she thought she saw the moment her brother was sure it was her because his neck, stretched to its limit as he stared across the open space between them, shortened as he moved from standing in his stirrups to seated upon his saddle. He tossed his lance a few inches, changing the grip in preparation to throw.
“Get behind me,” ordered Running Wolf.
At almost the same moment, her brother’s order reached her.
“Move away from him, Snow Raven.”
She did not move behind or away. She nudged Song so that she stood before Running Wolf.
“You embarrass me,” he called. “Let us meet as men.”
“No. I have seen how men meet.” To her brother she called, “I am well and we come in peace. Will you give this man safe passage to our father?”
“I will not stop him,” said her brother.
Raven let her shoulders relax slightly. She glanced back to see that Running Wolf still held his shield at the ready. When she looked back to her brother she noted he still held his spear ready to throw. Raven stopped her horse. The women who had chosen her to lead them continued on until they were standing before the warriors of the Low River tribe. They told their tribe names and begged for help. They said that Snow Raven had helped them escape the Sioux snakes.
Raven heard Snake say that the warrior was Running Wolf, war chief of the Sioux, and that the dying chief had made him promise to bring them home.
The men seemed confused by this, judging from the nervous dancing of their horses.
Bright Arrow called to her again. “Is he holding you?”
“No.”
“Then, come to us.”
“No.”
He motioned for her to come.
“Safe passage to our father for us both. Promise.”
In answer he threw his lance so that it stuck into the ground between them, vibrating with the force of the throw.
“Come, then,” said Bright Arrow.
There was little choice. Raven nudged her horse forward and Running Wolf proceeded at her side.
“Why didn’t you let me kill him?” said Bright Arrow.
“When we get home, I will tell you.”
The other women returned to their camp to strike the lodges and pack their belongings. Young Bear accompanied them and seemed to be taking a special interest in Little Deer. Raven sat between her brother and Running Wolf, upon her horse, Song.
In all the times she imagined this reunion, it was never so cold or so tense.
She began to fear that Running Wolf was right. Her people would not accept a Sioux warrior in their midst any more than the Sioux would accept a Crow maiden for their war chief’s wife.
For better or worse, the camp of the Low River tribe was only a short ride through thickening pine. Raven knew this place and recalled the river where they had camped many times when the south wind gave way to the west wind.
Feeding Elk rode ahead and so her entire village was there to greet them. But there was no drum to announce them, or cheering or dancing. All stood and stared as Raven returned to her people.
Only one woman stepped forward to meet her. She was crooked and her hair was as white as a summer cloud, but she opened her thin arms to her grandchild.
“Welcome home, Little Warrior.”
Raven slipped off her horse and rushed to her grandmother’s embrace. The skin drooped from Truthful Woman’s arms, but her grip was strong, and Raven was so happy that she was alive and here.
“Now it feels like home,” she whispered.
When her grandmother released her, Raven saw her father approach. She smiled and then realized that her father looked past her. She turned to see Running Wolf had dismounted and
now stood with the rein of his stallion in one hand and his shield lowered to his opposite side.
“Take him,” said her father, Six Elks.
“No,” she said, but it was too late. Running Wolf was surrounded. He did not fight as they took him to the ground and pinned him there.
Raven grasped her father’s arm.
“He brought me home. Father, he kept me alive.”
He ignored her. “Tie him.”
She left her father and tried to reach Running Wolf as he was yanked upright with his arms bound. But her brother swept her over his shoulder. She yelled and kicked, but they marched Running Wolf away. Once he was gone, her brother dropped her back to the ground and followed the young warriors.
Her father spoke to Truthful Woman. “Talk to the others and report to me all that has happened.”
Raven watched her grandmother turn to Little Deer, Wren and Snake, now carrying Stork safely in his cradle board. She welcomed them and motioned them to follow her. All of the women in her tribe trailed away after them, leaving her alone with her father, two of the elders and Thunder Buffalo, their medicine man.
“Father, you must listen to me,” Raven said.
“I will. Come to my lodge.”
She listened to the men shout.
“No! You will tell them not to hurt him.”
“The last I checked, I was still chief here.”
“Please, Father. They will kill him.”
Her father said nothing to this but she recognized the look of hatred in his eyes.
“He did not kill Iron Heart,” she said, speaking her uncle’s name aloud.
Her father looked shocked. “You do not speak his name.”
“Will you stop them?”
Her father looked away.
“Then, I will stop them.” Raven ducked inside the lodge of her father to find her bow and quiver hanging on their usual peg, as if awaiting her return. She grabbed them both and set off at a run.
When she reached the warriors, it was to find them lowering Running Wolf’s feet onto a bed of hot coals.
She shrieked and shot a warning arrow into their midst. The men scattered and Running Wolf, arms and legs tightly bound, rolled away. She used the iron tip of one arrow to slice through the bonds at his wrists before the young men in her tribe regrouped and closed in.
She pointed a finger at her brother. Then she aimed the arrow at him. “You promised him safe passage.”
“Yes. Safe passage to the village, and he has arrived safely. My promise is done.”
She renotched the arrow and drew back the bowstring, readying death for any foolish enough to approach.
“Look what they have done to her,” said Bright Arrow. “They have made her lose her mind as well as her hair so that she protects a snake.”
“She cannot shoot us all,” said Feeding Elk.
She aimed the arrow at him. “But I can kill you.”
“You would kill one of your own people over this man?” asked Turns Too Slowly.
“I would kill all of you for this man,” she said.
“She is one of them,” said Young Bear.
“I am not.”
“Rush her,” said Bright Arrow. “She won’t do it.”
They closed in and she realized that Bright Arrow was right. She couldn’t do it. She released the tension on the bow, gradually bringing it back to rest. Then she tossed the bow aside, keeping hold of the metal-tipped arrow.
“He is right,” she said. “But I will do this.” She lifted the sharpened point and pressed it to her throat, feeling the point puncture the skin at her neck.
“No!” said Bright Arrow, lifting a hand to halt the others.
“Step back and leave us,” she ordered.
Feeding Elk moved closer. “Do not be foolish, Little Warrior. There is no need to fuss.”
She pressed harder and the arrow drew more blood. She felt it, hot and sticky, as it rolled down her neck.
Someone grasped her wrist and dragged the arrow from her throat. She turned to see it was Running Wolf. He looked at her with regret.
“You above all others,” he said.
The next instant they were on them, dragging them down and apart. She reached for Running Wolf and missed.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Let them up.”
Raven knew the voice. It was her father and his men obeyed instantly.
“Separate them.”
Raven was dragged kicking and screaming from Running Wolf, who made no sound as they marched him away. Would they kill him the moment he was taken from her sight?
Raven spent the day in her grandmother’s tent, under guard, eating little and waiting to be summoned.
Her grandmother tried to reassure her. “If they were torturing him, you would hear the drums and his death song.”
Raven shuddered. “Why does my father hate them so much?”
“He lost a brother.”
“And you lost a son, yet you do not seek revenge.”
Her grandmother smiled. “I am not a man. Men are different. They have trouble moving past death. Women bring life, so for us it is part of the wheel. Life, death, rebirth—a baby is born, an old woman dies.”
That made Raven hug her grandmother, who looked well enough but was already past her sixtieth winter, ancient by any standard. Still, she had most of her teeth and could manage her lodge with little help with the lodge poles. After what Snow Raven had been through, it seemed a great accomplishment to have lived so long and seen so much.
“What will I do when they ask me to say what has happened?” asked Raven.
“You were ready to protect this man with your life and follow him into death. You must protect him with your words. Show our leaders that there is a way to let you live with him in peace.”
“But he is Sioux. That cannot be changed.”
Her grandmother did not respond to that, but she rose slowly to her feet. “I must go see our medicine man.”
“Is one of the women sick?”
“I will return and go with you to speak to my son. He may not like what I have to say, but he will still hear his mother.”
Raven waited with the other former captives, as impatient and twitchy as a rabbit in an open meadow, until her grandmother returned. They were kind and tried to distract her with stories, but the stories turned to hope for their homecomings and this made Raven more anxious.
Finally, as the sun began its descent, her grandmother returned, walking beside their medicine man, Thunder Buffalo.
“These women must come to the river and bathe away the taint of the enemy,” he said to Raven. “You must go with them. After, I will bring you to the council.”
“Is Running Wolf alive?” asked Raven.
Thunder Buffalo did not answer. He often ignored questions, especially from her. But her grandmother nodded her answer.
“Have they tortured him?”
“He is captive. Nothing else is decided,” said Truthful Woman. Her grandmother stroked her cheek. “I went to look at him.” She gave Thunder Buffalo a smile and then returned her gaze to Raven. “While I was there I gave him my special berry juice. At first he did not want it, afraid of poison, perhaps. But I told him who I was and we talked. He is very handsome, your young man. I also brought him some elk stew.”
Thunder Buffalo made a growling sound in his throat.
Raven hugged her grandmother. “Thank you.”
She patted Raven’s arm. “It is nothing. Come, now. We must all bathe.”
All the women of the tribe were there to accompany them. They were thoroughly washed. Thunder Buffalo instructed from the bank that the women all be submerged three times and, when they surfaced, he proclaimed them clean.
All taint of Sioux was gone and the baby, Stork, was now free of any Sioux blood and was Crow again.
This last proclamation made Snake cry tears of joy. Thunder Buffalo then left the women to dress. Raven dried with a soft bit of deer hide and then pulled on her rabbit dress.
Women from her tribe came forward and gave each new arrival a fine two-skin dress. The dresses had each been dyed a bright color. Truthful Woman stepped forward with a new dress for her granddaughter.
“I made this while you were away. I knew you would return because you came to me in a dream and asked me how to make a dress.” She laughed and pointed to the rabbit skins that Raven had made into some semblance of a garment. “Now I see why. Not bad for a first try, and with such small pelts, that would challenge anyone.”
Her grandmother extended the bundle to her. Sitting on the folded dress were two leather moccasins, the tops of which were completely covered with beautiful quillwork of a black medicine wheel divided into the four directions, each with its associated color—white for the north, blue for the west, yellow for the east and red for the south.
“Oh, they are too beautiful to wear,” gasped Raven, already reaching for the fine-looking footwear.
“You must look your best tomorrow,” she said.
Some of the happiness went from Raven as she realized she would be wearing them when she spoke before the council and possibly the entire tribe.
“And this,” said her grandmother, gripping the dress by each shoulder and letting the folds open until she held the dress out for Raven to behold. It was the finest garment Raven had ever seen.
Her grandmother had rubbed berry juice into the tanned leather until the entire garment was the deep red color of a ripe cherry. The dark color served to make the even rows of elk teeth across the upper chest stand out in sharp contrast.
Raven fingered one rounded white tooth. “You must have been saving for years.”
Her grandmother nodded. “And I gave you a long fringe.”
She met her grandmother’s eye. Most dresses had a short fringe, so the long strands of leather did not catch when carrying firewood or dangle in the fire when cooking. War shirts, or dresses made for special occasions, had a longer fringe.