Broken Promise

by Theresa Scott

  "Go where you are wanted, girl," said her mother. "And you are wanted here."

  Star touched her stomach. "And the babe"

  "Of course we want the babe! What foolishness is this? He will be my grandchild."

  "Perhaps it is a girl."

  "Whoever it is, she will be loved," promised Blue Jay.

  Star reached for one of the nut cakes. Her appetite had suddenly returned.

  If he did not look so handsome, none of this would hurt, thought Star. If he were ugly and squat and short and had a mean temper, none of this would matter. But he is not ugly or squat or short with a mean temper. He is tall and handsome and, when he is not trying to cast me aside, very pleasant, even playful.

  He came up to them and stared at the nut cakes.

  Blue Jay, hands on hips, said, ''Get away from those nut cakes, Jaguar man. The man who throws away my daughter will not eat my cooking!"

  In disbelief, Star saw a smile start to curl at one corner of his mouth. He thought it was funny, did he? Let him go hungry then.

  She bit into a nut cake and chewed it slowly, ignoring him. "These are delicious, Mother," she announced.

  Blue Jay frowned. "What are you going to do about the babe?" she demanded of Falcon.

  Star took another bite of the nut cake as she awaited his answer.

  "What do you mean?" He was watching her. She chewed very, very slowly.

  "You fathered it. You take care of it."

  Star sat up in alarm. Her mother had promised that the child would be taken in with the Badger People. What was going on?

  "You want me to take care of the babe?"

  Star wanted to laugh at the sheer incredulity in his voice.

  "Someone must teach the child to hunt. To snare birds. To fight. If you do not teach your son, who will?"

  Sometimes her mother's blunt talk was a blessing from the Great Spirit.

  Falcon's jaw was set and Star could see his scar flicker. He was silent.

  But his eyes met Star's. Tell me, she said silently. Tell me you will help me raise our child. Tell me you will not cast me aside. She waited, uncaring that her eyes pleaded with his.

  But his dark eyes were cold and he turned away.

  So, she thought. He will not take responsibility for his child. So be it.

  "Well?" Blue Jay was still waiting.

  "Enough, Mother," said Star. "If he chooses to leave me, leave his child, let him." She stood up and walked over to him. "I will stay with my people." She thought her heart would break as she said the words.

  Falcon looked sadder than she had ever seen him. Star's chin came up. "I cannot force you to stay. I cannot force you to love me. Or our child. It is best if you go."

  "It is best," he whispered.

  She could hear her mother move up behind her. "I love my daughter," said the old woman. "I do not understand you, Jaguar man. I think you are a lazy fool to treat my daughter like this!" She spat on him.

  Star watched in shock as the spittle dripped down the scar on Falcon's face. He brushed it off. He stared at her, stolid.

  "Just tell me, Falcon," Star burst out, unable to stop herself, "just tell me you want me as your wife. I will stay with you!" Hope beat in her breast. Did he realize now how much she loved him? Would he grasp for their love? Or would he let the promise of their love, their marriage, be broken?

  He remained silent.

  Blue Jay stepped in front of Star. She lifted her hand and pointed to the trail leading away

  from the Badger camp. "Go," she said. "And do not come back."

  Falcon's dark eyes locked on Star's. "Please," she begged, over her mother's shoulder. "Do not leave me... ."

  "I must." He whirled and loped down the trail. He was going out of her life. Forever.

  Sobbing, she ran to her mother's tent.

  Chapter Forty-five

  Falcon glanced around the forest. What was he doing here? How had he gotten here? He had been so dulled to the pain of leaving Star that he had wandered, unknowing, wherever his legs had seen fit to go. And so he was here, staring out from the forest at the top of a cliff, down, down at the churning water below.

  He had done it. He had taken Star home to her Badger People. He had found a place for her, with people who would help her more than he could to give birth, to raise their child. Why then did he feel as if he had cut off his spear arm? Why then were the bird calls gone from the forest? And the brightness gone from the sun?

  How many days had he been wandering, lost? He shook his head, trying to remember. He thought it must be his third day of wandering. He drew a breath as he stared down at the churning white water below. He must get back to his people. He must return to them or he would wander and become lost from them and die.

  Somehow the thought did not scare him. If he died, who would care? The wolves would still run in the forest. The birds would still call to their mates. There was no Great Spirit to receive his soul. He had no soul. None. Only a man with no soul could do what he had done: cast aside his pregnant wifethe wife he loved.

  The white water below him called out his name. "Come down and play," it called. "Falcon, Falcooon, come down and play."

  He shook his head to clear it. Something was wrong with him. The water could not call to him. He glanced around. It was getting dark in the forest. He should build a fire, make camp for the night. He should not be leaning over this cliff listening to the water calling him.

  More ominous now, "Falcon, come and swim. You were always so good at swimming. Come and swim in my white depths. Foreeeverrr ..."

  He leaned over, the better to see who was calling him. White mist rose and he could feel it kiss his face. "Falcon, Falcon, cooome ... come into my aaarrrms... ."

  He leaned over a little more. "Yesss, come ... No more painnn ..."

  He fell into the swirling depths and took no breath as his head sank below the boiling surface.

  Chapter Forty-six

  Falcon blinked, struggled to open his eyes. "Whatwhat happened? Where am I?" He squinted, could make out the caves up on the hill.

  The shaman's wrinkled face hovered above him. "Red Hawk and Horn pulled you from the water. You almost drowned. They carried you back here. Some of us thought you had already gone to join the Great Spirit at his camp."

  Falcon closed his eyes. "There is no Great Spirit," he whispered.

  The shaman laughed and shook his head in amusement. "Good joke."

  The shaman began to gather up his things, and Falcon turned his head to see what he was doing. There were several dull green, leafy plants and two colored rocks and eight small sticks and feathers with some black sticky substance on them. "Ho," said the shaman. "Do not look upon these things. They have great power."

  "There is no Great Spirit," retorted Falcon, his voice stronger now.

  "You should know," said the shaman, and by his voice Falcon thought the man was trying to humor him. "You went to visit him, not I."

  "II did not visit him," rasped Falcon. It hurt to speak.

  The shaman stopped stuffing his precious items into a leather sack and he stared at Falcon. "You are a strange man," he said at last, then resumed putting away his implements, shaking his head as though baffled.

  Falcon turned away. "I must get up," he muttered.

  "You do that," said the shaman and walked away.

  Falcon pushed himself up and rested on his elbows. He was lying on a bedrobe. Horn came up to him. He squatted down to meet Falcon's eyes. "I am glad you live, Falcon," he said soberly. "Red Hawk and I thought we were too late to save you. You were very limp and cold when we dragged you from the water."

  Falcon did not answer. He was trying to remember how he had come to be in the water in the first place.

  "Here," said Horn. "I will help you up." He helped Falcon to his feet just as Claw arrived.

  "Falcon! You are alive!"

  "I am," answered Falcon wryly. "You had given up hope on me, Claw?"

  "We all had," the headman an
swered. "Even

  Betafor. Only the old shaman kept chanting and praying. The rest of us went home to our caves."

  Falcon frowned. Now he owed his life to the shaman. "Why did he bother to save me?" muttered Falcon.

  "What did you say?" asked Horn.

  "It is nothing," answered Falcon. He did not feel like explaining his feelings to Horn and Claw.

  With a man propping him on each side, Falcon staggered up the gravelly hill to the caves.

  Horn led him over to the cave that Falcon and Star had shared.

  "No," murmured Falcon. "Not there."

  The other two men looked puzzled, but Falcon would not explain. "Very well," he said at last. They helped him inside and set him down on the elk hide beside the cold hearth. Falcon felt weak and dizzy.

  "I will bring some food," said Claw and left the cave.

  "Will you be all right?" asked Horn in concern.

  Falcon nodded. Horn glanced around the cave. "I will light the fire for you." He built up some wood and then scattered some wooden shavings over it. He hurried off.

  He returned with a lit brand and touched it to the shaved wood. Tiny flames leapt and crackled.

  Claw entered carrying a stone bowl. "Here is some deer stew," he said and set the bowl down beside Falcon.

  Falcon glanced at it, but he was not hungry.

  "Is there anything else we can do?" asked Horn.

  Falcon shook his head. The two men waited around for a while but when Falcon merely continued to stare at the fire, they left.

  Now what? thought Falcon listlessly as he slumped by the fire. The fire is lit. I have food. He glanced around the cave. All signs of Star were gone. There was no pain when he thought of her. Only a dull calm.

  He thought about his fall into the water. He had leaned forward, heard the water's voice calling him, and fallen... .

  I tried to kill myself, mused Falcon. If it had not been for Horn and Red Hawk, and the shaman, too, he added wryly, I would be dead. The thought brought him no pleasure, no pain, just a dullness.

  He stared at the fire. The dullness persisted in the very center of him. I have nothing to live for, he thought. Nothing at all.

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Summer

  Star smiled at Blue Jay, who sat across the fire making baby clothes for Star's soon-to-be-born babe. By Star's reckoning on her fingers, it would be another four full moons before the little one arrived. She smiled to herself in anticipation and patted her stomach gently, reassuringly, to the little one nestled inside.

  It was not quite what she had planned, this life back among her Badger People. Her mother and she were getting ready for the birth, and that she had always wanted and planned. But she had no husband, and there her plans had gone awry. A man had always been part of her dreams, a man who wanted to be with her, to share the joy of a family.

  But what she had learned so late in her life was that things did not turn out as one planned. Oh, she could make choices, but those choices did not necessarily come to fruition. Something else made them happen, and she thought it must be the Great Spirit. And so far, the Great Spirit had not seen fit to bring Falcon back into her life.

  But He had seen fit to bring Camel Stalker back. When the young man had first appeared in the Badger camp, worn, thin, but with his eyes ablaze with freedom, the Badger People had gone wild with rejoicing. And when Finds the Marten appeared, staggering out of the forest behind Camel Stalker, Chokecherry's screams of happiness could be heard echoing in the distant mountains.

  The two men had escaped the Fish Eaters and hidden in the forests during the days, walking the trails at night until they had found their Badger People.

  Star was glad for Chokecherry, for now her friend was being courted by Finds the Marten. There was a quiet glow in her eyes every time Star looked at her, and she was very different from the haunted woman she had been as Cat Lurks's wife. Perhaps she would have a happy marriage, mused Star. She certainly hoped so.

  As for Star, herself, Camel Stalker had started to court her, but she was reluctant to be alone with the young man. If anything, his sojourn among the Fish Eaters had hardened him, and he was pressing his marriage suit very strongly.

  ''I invited Camel Stalker to eat with us tomorrow eve," said Blue Jay.

  Star's lips tightened as she sewed a fine seam on the soft deerskin covering she was making for the cradleboard.

  "I think he is such a fine young man," added Blue Jay. She sliced at the sinew with a knife, then knotted it again. She was sewing a tiny deer design on a blanket covering for the babe. "He would make such a good husband."

  "Yes," murmured Star, as she had murmured every night for the last seven, which was when Blue Jay had first learned that Camel Stalker had started his joining suit. She had learned it because Camel Stalker had sent over his old aunt to tell her so.

  "He is a very good hunter," continued Blue Jay, undaunted by Star's listless response. "The woman he marries would never go hungry. Neither would her children."

  The baby gave a kick and Star winced.

  "He would make any woman happy."

  She had been made happy once, thought Star. She did not need to be made happy ever again. "No, thank you," she muttered.

  Blue Jay raised one brow and went back to sewing the deer design. "I think I will have the fawn lying in the soft grass," she mused, holding up the hide blanket. "That will look pretty."

  "Yes," murmured Star dutifully.

  Just then Camel Stalker walked by, wearing a long cloak of tanned hide that his mother had made him in honor of his return from the Fish Eaters. He had told very few of the Badger People what had happened to him when he was a slave. Finds the Marten, too, spoke little of it, though it was known in camp that both men suffered bad dreams and cried out in their sleep.

  Camel Stalker stared hard at Star, then continued his walk through the camp, stopping to visit at Finds the Marten's fire. Camel Stalker was tall, well formed, and prior to his slavery, he had been gently spoken. But now Star thought she did not know him as well.

  Truth to tell, she was feeling a little afraid of his pursuit. He had followed her to the river twice, each time reminding her of their previous agreement to join. She tried to explain that she still felt married to Falcon, but Camel Stalker had laughed cruelly and reminded her of how she had been cast aside.

  Star did not talk to him after that and two days later he had come to her at her mother's tent and stiffly apologized. She had accepted his apology but she still did not feel comfortable around him.

  "His mother would be very happy if you two joined," prodded Blue Jay. "Grouse's old sister is my old friend. We would be related." The old woman sighed.

  "Grouse's old sister must be the only woman you are not related to in this encampment," snapped Star. "Pleasing Grouse's sister is not important to me."

  "Star!" gasped her mother. "How you have changed!"

  "Yes, I have," she answered with more spirit than she had felt in a long time. Since she had been left by Falcon, in fact. And it felt good. "It is my life, Mother, and I will choose whom I marry."

  "Better not wait too long," advised Blue Jay. "Or your child will be grown and gone."

  "That is unlikely."

  "They grow fast," warned Blue Jay. "They eat much, too, once they are weaned. You will be hard-pressed to provide food."

  Star stabbed at the cradleboard covering. She picked up a porcupine quill and jabbed the needle into the hide.

  "Do not take such huge stitches," cautioned Blue Jay.

  Star wanted to scream in frustration.

  Camel Stalker wandered by, this time the other way. Again, he stared hard at Star. She clenched her jaw and stabbed at the deer hide, hoping he would not approach her fire and add to her woes. Her mother was enough to contend with this night. And Star had thought sitting and sewing for her children with her mother would be so wonderful! Ha!

  "Greetings, Camel Stalker," called out Blue Jay, and Star groaned. The you
ng man took the greeting for encouragement, which it was, and veered toward them.

  Star groaned again.

  "Silence," hissed Blue Jay. "You will scare him away!"

  Star groaned again, louder.

  "Hush," warned Blue Jay. To Camel Stalker, she asked, "And how is your old mother this evening?"

  "She does well."

  Star could feel Camel Stalker's eyes on her. When she peeked up from her sewing he was staring at her. He nodded stiffly.

  "Your babe grows," he said, his eyes dropping to her stomach.

  Star gasped. Blue Jay studied her sewing intently.

  Camel Stalker squatted by the fire and absently poked at the flames. "I did not like living with the Fish Eaters," he said. "But I learned from them. One thing I learned was that each day of life is precious."

  "That is most wise," murmured Blue Jay to her sewing.

  Camel Stalker met Star's eyes. "When a woman has been left by her husband, I would think she would know this, too. Each day is important."

  Star shrugged. "I suppose so." She had not actually thought of life like that.

  "I know what I want," continued Camel Stalker, "and I will not let things, or people, slip out of my grasp."

  "Oh." Star attacked her sewing with her awl, drilling the hole too big. Now she would have to disguise it with a design.

  "Yes." He rose to his feet. "Good evening," he said to Blue Jay. To Star he nodded and walked away, heading in the direction of his tent.

  "He is like a strong wind that whips across the hills," observed Blue Jay. "Think you that you can hold such a one off for long?"

  Star stared at his disappearing back. She would have to. For a while, at least.

  Chapter Forty-eight

  "What do you think is the matter with Falcon?" whispered Claw.

  His wife shook her head. "I do not know. I have not seen such a thing happen to a man."

  "He just sits by his fire day and night," muttered Claw. "If the fire dies, he does not start it again, oh no. He just sits there. If someone lights the fire for him, he still just sits there. He does not care if he is warm or cold. He does not care if he has food or not. If you did not bring him food every day"