by Judd Cole
Honey Eater was silent. His words held some truth, and she felt her guilt. It was a Cheyenne squaw’s obligation to put her husband and her tribe before her own needs. But her body rebelled against her conscience: She could not even pretend pleasure with another man so long as it was Touch the Sky she burned for.
Black Elk read the confession in her silence. Rage filled him for a moment. He felt the helplessness of a powerful warrior confronted with a situation where physical skill was not enough. But he found some comfort in the thought that, by now, Touch the Sky should be gone under—sent to his death by Wolf Who Hunts Smiling and Swift Canoe.
Again, his rage deep and black at the memory, he recalled his cousin and Swift Canoe swearing on the Sacred Arrows that Honey Eater was meeting with Touch the Sky in secret, that he was holding her in his blanket. He found it hard to accept, yet—they had sworn on the Arrows! His jealous rage had overcome even the Cheyenne dread of drawing tribal blood.
Before Honey Eater could reply, Arrow Keeper crossed to their tipi. Black Elk rose respectfully to greet their peace leader.
“The last word-bringers have returned to camp,” he said. “All of the far-flung clans below the Platte River have been notified of the chief-renewal. I have decided the ceremony will be held in the middle of the Moon When the Cherries Ripen. It will take place near our old winter camp in the Tongue River valley.”
Black Elk nodded at this important news.
Arrow Keeper pulled his blanket tighter around his shoulders. The old shaman’s silver hair was still thick, his eyes sharp despite the leathery mask of wrinkles surrounding them.
“Have your cousin and Swift Canoe returned yet with a report on the Pawnee?”
Black Elk’s eyes fled from his chief’s. Arrow Keeper noted this. He had not been fooled when Black Elk, shortly after Touch the Sky rode out toward the Black Hills, had sent Touch the Sky’s worst enemies on a “scouting mission.”
“Not yet, Father,” said Black Elk.
True, thought Arrow Keeper, River of Winds’ report was damning and seemed to prove Touch the Sky was either a turncoat or at least a dog for the white men, cooperating in their treachery. But Arrow Keeper refused to believe appearances. And secretly, he knew Black Elk respected Touch the Sky too much to kill him like this, sullying the Arrows, without further proof.
No, thought the old shaman as he glanced at Honey Eater—here was the reason for Black Elk’s shameful order. The girl was innocent, of course. But the Cheyenne way did not always allow for innocence.
“Perhaps,” Arrow Keeper finally said, “your two young warriors have lost their way. Or perhaps they have met an enemy who fights better than they.”
Both men understood the elder s hidden meaning. Arrow Keeper turned to leave. Then he turned back around and once again held Black Elk’s eyes with his.
“If they do not return soon,” he said, “Touch the Sky may arrive before them.”
Hot blood crept into Black Elk’s face. But he said nothing, holding his face impassive. Honey Eater stared at both men in turn, trying to read the real meaning of this strange conversation. Arrow Keeper watched Black Elk a few moments longer, disappointment keen in his eyes.
“Thankfully, Maiyun has His own battle plan,” said the old shaman. “I have seen a vision and I will hold by it. What must be will be, and no mortal warrior can change this.”
The next moment, like smoke caught on the wind, he was gone.
Chapter Fifteen
Near the spot where the Weeping Woman River oxbowed, Wolf Who Hunts Smiling and Swift Canoe rode into serious trouble.
The two Cheyenne youths had chosen this place to water their ponies. They were unaware that, recently, paleface miners had built a camp here. This followed the discovery of a modest amount of gold trapped in sediment pockets at the river’s bend. The color had long since been exhausted by eager miners. But rumors and gold fever still drew dozens of desperate whites.
Now, bitter and frustrated, they welcomed the opportunity to grant a taste of vigilante justice to these marauding renegades.
The Cheyenne had topped a long rise and spotted the buckboards, canvas pyramid tents, and Indian-style tipis. White men swarmed like ants, and some of them spotted the two riders before they could retreat out of sight.
“They will ride hard,” said Wolf Who Hunts Smiling as a group of whites raced to mount up for the chase.
He had heard Black Elk and some of the Headmen speak of this thing. Soldiers of the Southern Dog Cheyenne had attacked and killed miners along the Platte. There were only a few of these Dog Soldiers, drunk on strong water and following the battle chief named War Horse. But white men needed only a few small acorns to conclude that a tall oak forest was in their way.
Wolf Who Hunts Smiling had been right—the white miners rode hard, dogging them like shadows. But their horses were fat from graining and lazy from prolonged grazing. Whites trained their horses for obedience, not endurance. They were good for short bursts of power and speed, not the sustained run.
Soon the iron bits of their mounts were flecked with foam. Meanwhile, the leaner, smaller, more spirited Indian ponies were opening the distance.
The miners abandoned the chase near sunset. The two Cheyenne found themselves in unfamiliar country, their ponies exhausted. The terrain was mostly hills covered with long Sudan grass, interspersed with jagged, red-dirt ravines.
They were skirting the steep bank of a dried-up creek when a startled fox bounded across their path.
Swift Canoe’s paint, riding nearest to the creek, shied in fright and side-jumped. The left foreleg came down on clay and the bank crumbled, tumbling horse and rider down a steep decline to a dry, rock-strewn bed of hard-baked clay.
Even out of sight up above, Wolf Who Hunts Smiling heard the sickening noise when the pony landed head first, its neck snapping fast and clean. By the time he dismounted, calmed and hobbled his own pony, and climbed down, the paint was heaving—great, wracking death gasps. Bloody froth bubbled from its nostrils.
Swift Canoe had been thrown clear. But he was just now regaining consciousness. And his broken right arm lay at a ridiculously impossible angle to his body. Wolf Who Hunts Smiling winced when he saw a jagged stump of white bone protruding through a tear in the skin. It was a serious break. On the plains, it was a potentially deadly wound.
“Brother!”
Swift Canoe’s strained voice hinted at the incredible pain. He had glanced at his pony, then his wound, and lost the color in his face.
“Look here! My pony is dead! And my arm! Brother, help me, I fear I am gone under!”
Swift Canoe’s fear of dying showed now in his eyes. Wolf Who Hunts Smiling felt his face twist in disapproval. This was a bad situation, truly. But he was of the Panther Clan, as was his cousin Black Elk. The men of that clan placed high honor on never showing fear in their voice or face.
“Any good warrior may find himself upon the ground helpless,” said Wolf Who Hunts Smiling. “There is no shame in this. But you are a bull, not a cow! Do not whine like a woman. Are we not both Cheyenne? Do we not take care of our own? Cease this talk of fear and death!”
But his words were wasted—Swift Canoe no longer heard him. The pain had washed over him in ever-increasing waves until numb shock took over. He lay with his eyes wide-open but glazed, unseeing, while his teeth chattered like an elk-tooth necklace.
Wolf Who Hunts Smiling considered: Swift Canoe’s Wolverine Clan were complainers and shirkers, true. Their women were notorious for hiding their meat rations, after a hunt distribution, and then lining up for a second allotment. But Swift Canoe, while certainly no battle leader, had counted coup and taken scalps like a man.
Besides—he was a loyal follower, and Wolf Who Hunts Smiling needed loyal followers. He was even more ambitious than his cousin Black Elk. He was not content, as Black Elk was, to serve as a war chief who ruled only in battle. He wanted to head his own band. He would lead the fight to drive the white dogs from the pea
ks and valleys and plains of the Shaiyena homeland.
For this, he would need loyal followers like Swift Canoe. Like Black Elk, Wolf Who Hunts Smiling was covered with hard bark. But he was also wily like his name—he must try to save Swift Canoe.
He thought about a travois. But what would he construct it from out here on the plains, no trees in sight? Besides, that would be too much weight for even his sturdy black, across such a distance.
Leaving him now and riding for help was also a bad plan. Wolf Who Hunts Smiling was not even sure where they were, nor how many sleeps it would require to find the tribe. The only sensible choice was to remain with him. He would tend to the wound and slaughter the dead pony so they would have meat—albeit raw meat, since they lacked wood for a fire. When Swift Canoe was able to survive on his own, Wolf Who Hunts Smiling could then return to camp and send help back for him.
He was worried, though. True, they had shaken the white miners for good. But they had made no effort to cover their trail when they fled from Medicine Lake. What if the sharp-eyed Pawnee picked up on their sign?
Wolf Who Hunts Smiling thought of the Colt Model 1855 rifle in his buckskin scabbard above. He had plenty of bullets and percussion caps since the tribe had begun exchanging the season’s beaver plews at the trading post in Red Shale. If lice-eaters attacked, he was at least in a good defensive position: open country in front of him, a deep creek bed behind him. He would sell his Cheyenne scalp dearly.
Thinking of the Pawnee made him also think of Woman Face. By now his enemy should be either dead or dying.
Swift Canoe groaned, begging for water.
Dead or dying, Wolf Who Hunts Smiling told himself again as he climbed the steep bank, struggling for hand- and footholds, back up to his pony and the bladder-bag of water. But by now he had begun to wonder if the minors about Touch the Sky could possibly be true.
The rumors about strong medicine guiding his fate and protecting him.
Eluding the angry silvertip was only one of many times when the tall stranger had knocked Death from his pony before the Black Warrior could count first coup on his mortal soul. Wolf Who Hunts Smiling hated him. What right did he have, riding into a Cheyenne camp with the stink of murdering whites all over him? He drank strong water with whites, he laid secret plans with them, he left talking papers for their Bluecoat pony soldiers in the hollows of trees. He even held one of their yellow-haired squaws in his blanket and made love talk! Besides—clearly Arrow Keeper had great plans for this tall stranger. Plans that Wolf Who Hunts Smiling’s ambition would not abide.
This two-faced, many-tongued interloper deserved whatever fate the Pawnee had chosen for him. But now, as he climbed over the bank and stared out across the rolling plains, Wolf Who Hunts Smiling felt it again: the nagging suspicion that, in spite of everything, he would face his enemy again.
~*~
His cousin, the lake, lay calm and still when Touch the Sky finally began the ordeal of invoking a medicine dream.
He had no fear of the Pawnee returning soon. Much time had to pass before any lice-eater would visit an area known for bad medicine. They would face bullet or blade bravely. But at the first hint of enemy magic, they showed the white feather.
He had rested through the night, preparing for this day. To supplement his supply of venison, he had killed a plump rabbit and enjoyed his first taste of fresh meat in many sleeps. Now the wound in his side was merely a dull ache, like a bad memory blunted by time.
Though he rested well that night, sleep eluded him for a long time. He found his mind carefully considering the question of red man’s medicine, the Indian’s way of dealing with the supernatural. Some of the stories the elders told were foolish, of course. No Cheyenne believed all of them. But had he not seen proof of Arrow Keeper’s big medicine?
There was the time when Pawnee attacked Yellow Bear’s camp. Touch the Sky had watched a lice-eater fire point-blank at Honey Eater, twice. But Arrow Keeper had thrown his magic panther skin over her just before the warrior fired, and the bullets went wide. And once Arrow Keeper had blessed Touch the Sky’s horse with power, speed, and endurance—had the dun not flown like a fierce wind across the plains, easily catching the whiskey trader Henri Lagace on his magnificent cavalry sorrel?
Before his sister the sun rose for the day, Touch the Sky built a huge fire beside the lake. With the eerie tongues of orange flame casting his shadow against the trees, he began the rhythmic dancing that helped an Indian focus his mind. He moved in a wide, loose circle about the fire. He rattled stones wrapped in soft bark and lifted his knees high to the steady cadence of “Hi-ya, hi-ya!” His mind began to grow quiet; intrusive thoughts drifted into a fog that blew away.
With the first rays of dawn, Touch the Sky stripped naked. He touched his medicine bundle one last time, drawing strength from the badger claws within. Then he took his place atop a lone hill at one end of the lake. While sandpipers and other small shore birds stared at him curiously, he stood silent and stone still.
The dancing had already prepared him for the trance state which must happen if he were to endure the upcoming ordeal. He felt it coming on, a gradual but steady shutting down of the body as it moved into a state almost like hibernation. His muscles grew heavy said slack as they lost all unnecessary tension. His mind was clear, totally aware, not lost in the past or the future but existing now in the becoming that was the gateway to visions.
He stopped fighting the pain and discomfort, lost his fear, felt no hatred or jealousy or envy. Time and place became a river, flowing all around him, at first, then carrying him with the current.
He stared, unblinking, into the sun now, feeling no pain, doing no damage to his eyes. Gradually, as she tracked higher across the blue dome of the sky, his head tilted to follow her. His shadow was long behind him, grew short, now stretched out longer again in front of him as the sun finally eased toward her resting place. But the Cheyenne felt no sense of time passing, no reminder that he was rooted to the earth.
And then, at some point, he simply blinked once, and he was aware again in the usual way.
His body felt stiff, and the location of the Grandmother Star told him the night was well along. The air felt chilly, a harsh wind blew steadily from the north. But without debating it, Touch the Sky walked down to the lake and waded in.
The water was torturously cold against his sunbaked skin. But he kept moving out until the water reached his chin. Then, again, he untethered his mind from its usual awareness, freeing it from the little day and letting it seek the Vision Way.
Arrow Keeper had once told him how most people misunderstand visions. They assumed that visions came easily to the sick, sad, and dying because they were weak in their minds. They were not weak, Arrow Keeper insisted, they were ready.
And now, after his long ordeal on the plains, the dancing, his long day staring into the sun—Touch the Sky too was ready.
First came the voices. But not dead voices from a dead past. Living voices guiding him now, here, on the upward path known as the medicine dream.
Old Knobby, the hostler at the feed stable in Bighorn Falls: The Injun jiggers he belongs to the land. The white man jiggers the land belongs to him. They ain’t meant to live together.
John Hanchon, his white father: I’ve worked until I’m mule-tired, but I still go to bed scared every night.
He heard more voices, his mother and his friend Corey Robinson and Kristen Steele and the brevet officer Tom Riley and Little Horse and Honey Eater. And he felt no fear when the ghosts of the dead paraded past—Chief Yellow Bear, High Forehead, True Son, all trying to warn him, trying to tell him something. But he couldn’t quite make out the words.
And then words gave way to sounds and mind pictures. He saw horses rearing, their eyes huge with fright, while red warriors sang their battle cry. Rivers of blood flowed everywhere, cannons roared, steel clashed against steel. From across the vast plains red warriors streamed, flowing like the blood they must soon shed. One br
ave led them, his war bonnet streaming coup feathers. But Touch the Sky could not see his face.
He saw glimpses of the ice-shrouded lands to the north. He saw the faces of his enemies, Hiram Steele and Seth Carlson. He saw a long ragged column of starving Cheyenne, again being led by the mysterious brave whose face he could not see.
Then, once again, he blinked, and he was aware of everything around him. Aware in the little day. But it was as if the night had been painted in brilliant hues, glazed in ceramic.
Overhead, the same eagle that had guided him here now circled gracefully, a ghostly silhouette in the moonlight. On shore, watching him with intent curiosity, was the huge grizzly. Only, now it showed no anger. It simply watched him with open curiosity. The moonlit lake shimmered like black ice, the eerie cries of the loons seemed to extend, distort, now grow distant and low, now shrill and close in his ears.
When the voice of Chief Yellow Bear came again, high, clear, right in his ears, Touch the Sky felt no fear.
“We who have crossed over,” said this voice from the Land of Ghosts, “know everything that will pass. I have seen you bounce your son on your knee, just as I have seen you shed blood for that son and his mother.
“Touch the Sky, place these words close to your heart forever, for they will save the Shaiyena nation: When all seems lost, become your enemy!”
The voice faded, the mind pictures returned, and now Touch the Sky again saw the mysterious warrior leading his people. Only this time the war leader turned for a moment to look back, the war cry on his lips, and he recognized himself.
~*~
Touch the Sky wasn’t sure how much longer he stood rooted in the frigid lake. But at some point he became aware that his teeth were chattering, his muscles cramped with cold. Stiff muscles protesting, he waded back to shore. As he stepped up out of the water, he spotted the eagle one last time: It completed one full circle of the lake, then headed out across the plains.