The Spirit Keeper

by K. B. Laugheed

  “I cannot give a sacred gift ’til I have had food and water,” I gestured with a shrug, and he sighed and commanded his women to feed me.

  The guards released Hector as soon as I finisht telling my “dream,” but when Three Bulls turned to yell at his two main guards, I knew my little invention was doing its job. I remembered how suspicious my brothers always were of their friends, e’er afraid those closest to them might betray them. It was a simple thing to sow the seeds of discord, especially in the fertile ground of a mad mind.

  The women brought us food, cringing because they were as afraid of me as of their leader. I nibbled what they brought, then gestured that what I really wanted was green corn, like the stuff they gave us during the feast. They said they would cook some, but I said no—I preferred it raw and in the husk. Exchanging surprised glances, they scurried to bring me three good ears, which I promptly tucked inside my pack. The women exchanged another glance, but were too timid to question me. I explained to Hector why I wanted the corn, and he nodded unhappily.

  I’m sure he wanted to argue some more about my plan, but we could scarce speak because by this time Three Bulls was loudly berating the two warriors who had been guarding us. One of the guards clearly resented whate’er Three Bulls was saying. The other was denying whate’er he was being accused of. I smiled at Hector, but he was too preoccupied with worry to smile back.

  As soon as we had eaten, we all tromped out to the prairie. The horse was led to me like a big dog, but e’en before I could unwind the reins I carried under my arm, he was nuzzling my pack because he could smell the corn inside. I cooed as I dug out an ear and peeled back the husk to let him nibble on the kernels. The entire populace watched with great interest.

  Now that I had the horse’s attention, I slipt my pack behind my back and held up the halter. The horse lifted his ears and sniffed the contraption suspiciously, but decided it posed no danger. He went back to nibbling the corn.

  This would be the tricky part. I asked Hector to come hold the corn. He was not eager to have his fingers so close to the animal’s huge teeth, but I believe if had I told him to go lie down in the fire and chew on the flames, he would have done so without question or a murmur of complaint. With the corn thus distracting the horse, I was able to slip the headgear o’er his nose. When the horse pulled back and whinnied, I purred soothing words both to him and to Hector, who had also pulled back. Reassured, the horse soon came back for more corn.

  I gestured to the warrior holding the leash-rope that he must link his fingers to give me a boost. He looked to Three Bulls, who nodded, and up I went.

  Several things happened at the exact same moment. The horse snorted and reared, Hector fell backwards, the crowd gasped and jumped, the man with the leash dropt it, and I pulled the reins to turn the horse’s head toward the prairie. The horse ran and I held on for dear life.

  What a beautiful animal! I let him have his head ’til I was sure I could keep my seat, then gently directed the way he ran. As I suspected, he had surely been trained, for the slightest touch of rein caused him to veer right or left. I swear he appreciated having a rider who did not bounce up and down, yanking at his mane. I urged him on ’til I almost couldn’t see Three Bulls’s village, then let him walk whilst I untied the rope ’round his neck and threw it away.

  A thought occurred. I could turn the horse east and ride, and no Indian would e’er be able to stop me. I raised myself up and gazed ’round at the distant horizon. Everywhere I looked was wide-open prairie, rolling out in all directions ’til it fell off the edge of the earth. I could go anywhere, do anything, and I thought to myself, “This is it—this is what freedom feels like!”

  Oh, it was sweet.

  But then I remembered Hector and all I owed him, and I remembered how worried he was about me, and I remembered how Syawa told me I ne’er really had a choice, and I remembered seeing Hector fall backwards when the horse reared. What if he was hurt?

  I turned the horse and nudged it to a full gallop again. I leant forward ’til we neared the clearing, at which point I sat up to slow the horse to a walk. I was relieved to see Hector standing in no apparent distress, watching my approach with his usual face of stone. Just to show what I could do, I made the horse trot ’round the crowd, weaving in and out between Three Bulls, Hector, and the guards. I stopt him and sat smiling down at Three Bulls.

  The lunatic wasn’t exactly happy. He clearly resented having anyone get attention besides himself, and now that he could see how easy it was to control the horse with the headgear, he didn’t consider my gift much of a gift at all. Still, when I slid off the horse and handed him the reins, he took them and began speaking to his men.

  I walked to Hector, sure Three Bulls would want to ride the horse, but suddenly he was beside me again, grabbing my upper arm with one hand whilst gesturing with the other: “In exchange for this gift you give me, my gift to you is that your Guardian is free to go. But you must stay. I have no Holyman in my camp and require the one you keep.” He dismissed Hector with a wave of his hand.

  As two guards shoved Hector backwards, he gestured wildly he would not leave without me.

  “If you will not leave without her,” Three Bulls gestured with a smile, “then you will not leave at all.” He nodded to the guards, who grabbed Hector, one on each arm, and began dragging him toward the rotting corpses.

  That was when I noticed a new set of stakes had been set out, awaiting a new victim.

  • • •

  I have been in many fistfights in my life. I won some and lost more, but I learnt a lot from every fight I’ve been in. The biggest fight I remember was shortly after we’d moved to Philadelphia and my brother Thomas took offense at the way a neighboring family of London scumrats kept calling us “Taigs.” Thomas rallied the O’Toole clan and friends, and we fought hard, we fought dirty, we fought with everything we had. We fought for the pure fun of letting our frustrations and rage run free.

  I was probably ten at the time, as thick in the action as any of the two dozen or more children rolling in the street. I punched, kicked, scratched, pulled hair, bit, gouged, and used all the same tactics that had e’er been used against me by the very brothers and sisters alongside whom I was now fighting. I don’t remember if we won that particular fight or not, but I do remember the camaraderie I felt as we nursed our wounds and recounted the highlights of battle. And I remember that no one on that street e’er called us “Taigs” again.

  So when the guards began dragging Hector away, I didn’t hesitate. I pulled my free arm back and punched Three Bulls full in the nose, feeling the satisfying crunch and splat of my fist in his face before he fell backwards like a sack of apples falling off a cart. In less time than it takes to blink, I stomped on his groin with my heel, and when he rolled into a ball, I reached down to yank the French hatchet from his waistband.

  When Three Bulls went down, Hector broke free from his distracted captors and pushed them both to the ground as he grabbed a metal knife from one of them. By that time, I was swinging the hatchet at every man who approacht. Hector slashed his way toward me, but someone grabbed him from behind and he became involved in a wrestling match with first one, then two, then three of the warriors. When I saw them piling on, I began hacking my way to him, but two men tried to grab my arm, and I ducked down and chopt off their toes—three small ones here, a great one there. As those men crumpled, I dove forward and hacked at the backs of the legs of the men atop Hector. Two rolled off, clutching their gushing calves, which left only one for Hector to worry about. He and his opponent were flopping too wildly for me to get a clean hit in, so I rolled and jumped to my feet.

  By this time Three Bulls had recovered enough to be shouting orders in spite of his broken nose, tho’ he was still on his hands and knees, with one of his men trying to help him rise. I ran o’er and kicked him hard in the temple, which shut him up once and for all, but his assi
stant grabbed my kicking foot and yanked me backwards. E’en as I hit the ground I swung at the man’s knee, desperate to keep him from falling on me, but he dived for the hatchet, enabling me to roll to my side and kick him in the kidney. I still would’ve lost the hatchet to him had not someone come up from behind to hit him o’er the head with a big rock. When my assailant toppled, I gaped up at the grinning fellow who saved me, recognizing him as one of the captives. I looked ’round and saw all the captives were loose now, fighting Three Bulls’s warriors. It had become a complete melee.

  I jumped up and for a time hacked and smacked at random, leaving a path of destruction in my wake ’til someone finally managed to grab the wrist of my hand that held the hatchet. Just as I was about to bite the restraining fingers, I discovered they belonged to Hector. His face was pale and he was breathing hard, but, except for a few cuts and bruises, he was unharmed. “We must go now,” he said as he pulled me from the fray.

  Some of Three Bulls’s men were bleeding on the ground, some had fled, and the ones left standing were fully occupied with vengeful captives. Hector had left the metal knife in the chest of the warrior who had his stone knife, which he was now carrying. As we ran to the creek, I saw the sharp stone blade was again red with blood.

  A screaming young man intercepted us. He held a wooden club with both hands, raised to knock one of us in the head. He should’ve chosen his victim more carefully, because as he went for Hector, I stept up and punched him hard in his unguarded gut. I’ve been punched like that before and I know how completely it takes the wind out of you. The poor fellow froze in mid-air for a long moment before falling sideways, his club still raised above his head. After looking at me with wide eyes, Hector bent down to slit the man’s wrists. It was my turn to look at him with wide eyes. Then he grabbed my arm again and off we ran.

  We raced down the riverbank. Hector pushed our canoe down to the water as I hacked holes in the two larger canoes. There were only four other boats, so I hacked a hole in each whilst Hector grabbed up all the paddles he could find and threw them into the front of our canoe. Then he shouted for me to get in. With a dozen or more paddles in my usual spot, I had nowhere to sit, but Hector pulled me into the back of the canoe with him. From that position, I couldn’t very well paddle, so he bade me lean back and let him reach ’round as he changed the paddle from side to side.

  I’d seen Hector paddle hard before, but now that we were going with the current, we truly flew. It reminded me of being on the horse, only this time Hector was the animal, and I had to move with him as he pulled, up and back, up and back. I don’t know about him, but for me this intimacy became nothing short of pure torture. I tried not to notice his powerful muscles pulling as I leant against his chest, enwrapt as I was by his strong arms, but try tho’ I might to ignore it, I felt his mouth right beside my ear, his heavy breath warm upon my neck. I had to force myself, again and again, not to turn my face to meet his, not to let my cheek rub deliciously against his chin. I wanted to so badly, but I knew I must not. This was Hector, my only friend in the world, and I could not risk putting him in an awkward position or embarrassing him with a momentary whim. I turned my face away and held it there through an act of sheer iron will.

  What had been a half-day’s hike on foot was a canoe ride of less than an hour. We arrived at our campsite and gathered what was left of our things. I packed the canoe as Hector threw the extra paddles into the Misery, where the current quickly carried them away. I jumped into my usual seat in front and picked up my paddle. As Hector pushed us into the river, I asked, “Do you think they will follow us?”

  “I think they are afraid of you,” he declared. He jumped into the canoe and slid his paddle into the water as he added, “I think I am a little afraid of you!”

  I turned to look at him, taken aback. He smiled at me then, his whole smile, unlike those stingy little half-smiles he usually gave. I’d ne’er felt the full force of Hector’s smile before, and I inhaled sharply, feeling as if I’d just been punched hard in the gut. Something inside me melted.

  I turned back to the front of the canoe, o’erwhelmed. Syawa’s smile had warmed me, but this—this was something else altogether. This was a white, hot, pulsating blaze that rivaled the sun in intensity. Maybe it was the leftover exhilaration from the fight, or maybe it was the heat generated between us as we rode presst together in the canoe, but . . . I suddenly knew it was not. My hands shook as I put my paddle into the water. After everything we’d just been through—the captivity, the fight, the escape—the only thing I could think about was the fact that despite my best efforts I had fallen desperately in love with Hector.

  And so Syawa was right after all.

  ~25~

  HEADING NORTH ON THE Misery once again, we paddled determinedly ’til darkness prevented us from seeing. Then we pulled under the cover of an overhanging tree, keeping the canoe in the water. Hector propt a large rock beside it and showed me how to kick it aside to push the canoe back into the river should pursuers appear.

  In darkness we gnawed some dried meat and the two ears of corn I carried, listening to the loud babble of the river as it beat upon a nearby sandbar. Then Hector surprised me by speaking, his voice so soft I could scarce hear him. “Did you . . .” He stopt and I leant toward his end of the canoe. “Did you think you were captured that day, at your family’s lodge?”

  I sat back, surprised. “You mean the day you captured me?”

  I heard his sharp intake of breath. “We did not capture you! We saved you.”

  I laughed a little, softly. “You pointed a bloody knife at me whilst my family was being slaughtered. I was bound and forced to march for days with the constant threat of death hanging o’er me. I know now that all was not as it seemed, but Hector—I was your captive.”

  “But those men had already planned their attack! We went along only to save you. For two years, he talked of nothing but saving you.” Hector sighed. “I . . . I did not realize how it seemed to you.” There was a long, long pause during which wild dogs howled in the distance. “You know you are not my captive now?”

  “Yes,” I said, wishing I could see him.

  “And you are free to do as you will?”

  Now it was my turn to let the croaking frogs fill the silence. I thought about that moment on the prairie, how good it felt to believe I could do anything, and how quickly that moment passed. “I am not free, Hector,” I whispered at last. “And neither are you. We’re bound together, you and I—to each other, to his Vision, to this canoe.” Silence wafted like the light fog arising from the dark water. “But I’m not complaining. I’m rather enjoying it. Aren’t you?”

  I heard him chuckle and my pulse quickened. He told me I should lie down and sleep, but I insisted he must sleep first, as was our habit. When he hesitated, I dug out the hatchet, still crusty with blood, and said I could do what must be done.

  Dark tho’ it was, I knew he was frowning. “That ax will not stop an arrow,” he said bluntly.

  “Nor would anything stop an arrow from hitting you,” I pointed out. “Either way I am dead. So, as a free woman, I tell you this: I sleep only after you do.”

  He had no choice but to curl up in his end of the canoe whilst I sat at my end with the hatchet in my hands. Now that all the excitement was o’er, my hand was aching from the fight and I rubbed it absent-mindedly as I gazed at the thick darkness of the surrounding trees, the pulsating darkness of the river in both directions, and the twinkling darkness that was the moonless sky. But no matter where I looked, again and again, my eyes were pulled back to the dark shape curled up in the rear of the canoe. All my thoughts were of Hector, and I stared at him the way our cat used to stare at a mouse hole—intent, unblinking, hungry.

  I watched as he woke up. It was still very dark, but I saw him move, heard his breathing change. Finally he sat up and leant over the canoe to splash water in his face. With arm outstretched
, he asked for the hatchet, and at the last moment I purposely moved so that he grabbed my hand instead of the handle. It was a silly thing, but I wanted him to touch me. He jerked his hand back as if it had been burnt. The second time he reached more carefully.

  I slept curled up in my end of the canoe, enjoying the way it rocked with the passing current. When I awoke we were already moving. I sat up slowly, trying to get my bearings. “How long have you been paddling?” I asked.

  “Long,” Hector said, and because the sun was scarce o’er the horizon, I knew he must have started well before dawn.

  Shortly after noon we encountered four large canoes heading downstream, all heavy-laden with furs, four men to a canoe. They told us they were going to the Big Bend to trade; we told them about the ruffians. Hector explained how we fought our way out of the camp and said it was possible some of the miscreants might be following us. The traders listened with growing displeasure. One man apologized for what we had been through, saying his son may have been one of the marauders. The unhappy father assured us we need not worry about pursuit—no one would get a canoe past them.

  After that, Hector was less tense. Late in the day he suddenly dived into the water and killed a fish with his knife, for the ruffians had broken all his spears. I was amazed, but also a little frightened—it was up to me to paddle the canoe to shore.

  This was the first time in a long time we camped alone. Tho’ we were silent as we set up camp and prepared the fish, everything felt different to me. Any time we happened to catch one another’s eye, a split second passed before we turned away. Whene’er this happened, something in me flared up, like grease dripping on a log.

  As we waited for the fish to cook, Hector sat across the fire, staring into the flames. I felt as if he was working up to something, and, sure enough, after a time he said, “Did he give you that dream?”