by Chuck Tyrell
“Woman!” he shouted.
Only then did Cat realize he shouted at her in English.
“Savage man,” she shouted back. “What right have you to attack this peaceful village?”
“Woman! Rifle down.”
“Savage man. Will you fight me? Can you fight me?”
“Fight?”
Cat took one step toward the man, holding the Winchester across her chest with both hands. “You fight me,” she said. “I win, you lose. Are you afraid?”
“Afraid?” the man shouted.
Cat stepped away from Lean Bear. She could tell he was conscious and ready to spring up. “Stay,” she said. “I fight.”
She raised her voice. “Crow man. Can you fight with me, a white woman? Are you brave enough?”
The Crow stuck his chest out. “Raven Wing fight with Yellowhair at Greasy Grass.”
Cat had heard of the Little Big Horn fight from Stryker. “You are alive. Did you run away?”
The Crow did not answer.
“Oh, Raven Wing. Come.” Cat laid the Winchester on the ground where Lean Bear could grab it if he had to. “We fight. You. Me.”
Lean Bear’s knife lay on the ground only a few steps away. Cat pointed at it. “Crow man,” she said, pitching her voice to carry. “Here’s a Cheyenne knife. I eat at a Cheyenne fire. I will fight you with that knife.”
Without looking right or left, Cat stepped over to the knife, bent, and picked it up. She turned to face north. Raising the knife as if it were an offering, she cried, “Lord God of all the Earth. Behold this Cheyenne blade.” She pointed the blade at the Crow. “Behold him who invades Cheyenne peace without reason. Be thou with this woman, O God, as I fight this Crow invader.”
Cat took two more steps away from Lean Bear. She beckoned to the Crow. “Come. Crow who ran away at Greasy Grass. Come. Come. See if you can kill this white woman who accepts Cheyenne hospitality. Come. Fight.”
The Crow threw a leg over his horse’s neck and slid to the ground. In his right hand, he held a war hatchet. In his left, a Green River knife. “White woman fool. I am Raven Wing. I am Crow.” He went into a semi-crouch and sidled out and around, circling Cat and making her turn to keep him in sight.
Cat held Lean Bear’s knife lightly in her left hand. She didn’t brandish it, nor did she hold it in position as a defensive weapon. It almost seemed that she had forgotten it, so intense was her concentration on the Crow who called himself Raven Wing.
So total was her concentration, that she did not notice the circle of Crow horsemen that gradually formed, encircling Cat, Raven Wing, the children, Jaya, Ma Ma, the wife of Lean Bear’s brother, the only other Cheyenne warrior in the small encampment.
Cat had called Raven Wing out, as it were, hoping to make the fight with him one that would decide the fate of Lean Bear’s family and his camp.
Raven Wing leaped at Cat, screaming his war cry. He led with his knife, the war hatchet held up and back to take advantage of any chink in Cat’s defense.
As Raven Wing came within arm’s length of Cat, she ducked his hatchet arm and swept his legs from under him with a bas Savate kick.
Raven Wing rolled and came up with his Green River knife ready to meet any attacker, set to make a killing thrust. But Cat stood several paces away. “Woman!” Raven Wing roared. “You will pay.”
“Think you so?” Cat said. Sarcasm dripped like acid from her words.
Now Raven Wing’s stance said he no longer saw Cat as a weak woman, but as someone who had fighting skills he should be wary of. Again, he circled, watching carefully as Cat turned. Again he looked for an opening, but saw none. One of the Crow men in the circle of watching horsemen nocked an arrow to the string of his war bow.
Cat had to turn her back to the horseman as Raven Wing moved, which she didn’t like to do, but had no choice. Another man on the opposite side of the ring of horsemen nocked an arrow, too. Raven Wing growled like an old bear. Cat tensed, readying herself for Raven Wing’s charge.
He sprang.
Cat shifted, ready for the attack. Lean Bear came to his knees, Cat’s Winchester in his hands. Without bringing it to his shoulder, he pulled the trigger and a .44 caliber bullet plowed its way through Raven Wing’s back, nicking his spine and exiting from just beneath his larynx. The Crow’s hands let go of his weapons and clutched at his torn throat as if to pinch off the flow of blood.
Two bows twanged and arrows sprouted from Lean Bear’s torso, one in front and one in back. He held the Winchester out to Cat. She ran to catch Lean Bear and hold him up, but before she reached him, he dropped to his knees, then fell flat on his face. No further movement. No dust rising from where his nose pressed into the dirt. Nothing. Lean Bear was dead.
The Winchester lay in the dust.
Cat took a deep breath. She had to move. Cheyenne friends were dying.
Dust rose from the hooves of Crow ponies as they pirouetted and pranced their dances of death.
The Winchester. Cat focused on the Winchester. She forced her body to act, leaping toward the rifle in a long, low dive. Her hands grasped the forearm and the action. As she rolled, she worked the lever, ejecting the spent brass and shoving a new cartridge into the chamber.
As she came into position to fire, a hard hand wrenched the Winchester from her hands and smashed its butt against her head.
~*~
“You know what else I hear, Matthew?”
“I got a feeling you’re gonna tell me.”
“You know anything about Nez Perce Injuns?”
They breed mighty good horses, but from what I hear, they stay pretty much west of the divide.”
“I heard different.”
“So?”
“So we’d better keep our eyes peeled. The chief they call Joseph’s coming this way.”
“I’ve rode more’n a mile in my time, Will Benson, I figure I can stay outta sight when I need to.”
“Gen’l Howard’s chasing ’em, I heered.”
“So?”
“Bunch a Bluebelly soldiers trompin’ through the range, shooting everthing in sight’ll mean Injuns’ll be out after any white man’s scalp they happen to see. You ever noticed? The Army starts shooting Injuns, and sodbuster and two-bit ranchers pay for it with blood and scalps, they do.”
“Well, I’m headed for Fort Benton. I reckon news of the territory’ll be floating around that burg. I need to find out where a Cheyenne by the name of Lean Bear is.”
“Fort Benton’s good enough for me,” Will said. “Let’s be gone. If you don’t mind me riding along, that is.”
“You can smell Injuns two mile off, I hear. Come along.”
Stryker and Will Benson traveled swiftly, yet took all the precautions good mountain men saw to if they expected to keep their scalps. They crossed the Musselshell where it ran shallow over a hard bottom. The water moved fast but never got above the Tennessee Walker’s knees. They kept the Missouri Breaks to the north and east of their path.
Halfway into the third day, Will came riding back from where he’d been scouting a trail toward the Judith River. He rode with his Winchester Yellow Boy across his saddlebows. Stryker shucked his new Winchester ’76 from its scabbard beneath his right leg, reined in the Tennessee horse, and waited for Will Benson’s ill news. Will brought his horse up head-to-tail with Stryker’s Walker.
“Injuns ahead, Stryker.”
“War party?”
“Don’t reckon. Maybe a hundred or so, but more’n half is women and brats.”
“Can we talk to them?”
“Can try. They’re looking mighty wore out. Hope that don’t make ’em touchy.”
“Lead on.”
“Keep yer powder dry, then.”
“That I will.”
The little band had stopped near a small creek that ran into the Judith. They’d made no move to set up the teepees that dragged behind some of their horses. Will and Stryker stopped at the tree line surrounding the little meadow where the Ind
ians camped. Everyone visible looked their way.
So much for stealth. “They expecting us?” Stryker said.
“I reckon they’re expecting just about anybody,” Will said.
“Not making camp. Only takes an hour or so to rig a teepee. Strange.”
“Not many horses, either.”
“I reckon they’re running.”
“You still wanna talk to them?”
“Let’s do it.”
“Come on, then.”
Stryker followed Will Benson out into the meadow. The Indians huddled together. Women. Youngsters. Two babies in cradles. “No braves,” Stryker said.
Will nodded but said nothing. He walked his paint pony toward the group.
“What tribe?”
Will held up a hand, telling Stryker to be quiet.
A woman with a cradle on her back and a tack-studded Henry of indeterminate age in her hands stood in front of the huddle. A boy of ten summers or so came to stand beside her, a boy’s bow in his hands and boy’s arrows in the quiver hanging from his waistband.
“Gros Ventre?”
Will shook his head. “Shoshone. But awful far north. Hardly ever see ’em north of the Yellowstone.
The woman cocked her Henry rifle. “Stop,” she said.
Stryker pulled up. “That’s English. Let’s talk to her.”
“Your party.”
Stryker shoved his Winchester back into its saddle scabbard, then urged the Walker horse forward. He held his hands shoulder high, palms out.
The woman raised her Henry to her shoulder. The boy took four steps to his right, separating himself from the woman. He nocked one of his boy arrows.
“Talk,” Stryker said.
The woman shook her head. “No. Go. Go now.”
“Talk. We will not hurt you. Promise.”
“White man promise no good.”
She knew more English than Stryker had thought. “Where are your men?”
“Come soon.”
Stryker pulled his Tennessee Walker to a halt. “I’m looking for a Cheyenne Dog Soldier and his camp. He has a white woman—”
“—yours?” The old Henry was still at her shoulder.
Stryker nodded. “Perhaps,” he said.
“You cannot have me.”
“Wha—”
“—No!”
“Don’t want you. Want Lean Bear.”
“Cheyenne run away. Lakota run away. White man lie. White man cheat. Some say better go north. Some say . . .” She ran out of words.
“Where do you go? Where are your men?”
“North. Red coat country better.”
The boy with the boy’s bow came around to stand almost at the Walker’s nose. He’d drawn his arrow back and seemed ready to let it fly. “Kai sunni nakkana.”
“What?”
“He says, Don’t do that.”
Stryker shook his head and started to lower his hands. The boy released his arrow. It plunged into Stryker’s shoulder, just inside the joint. The force of the boy’s bow and its boy’s arrow was not enough to send the arrow completely through Stryker’s body, but it brought a crash of pain as it burrowed through his coat, his shirt, his union suit, his epidermis, struck his upper ribcage, and stopped.
Stryker grunted and hunched. An arrow in the shoulder wasn’t like being shot by a Peacemaker or a Winchester, but that didn’t mean there was no pain involved.
The boy swiftly nocked another arrow.
The Tennessee Walker horse shied at the boy’s sudden movement, unseating Stryker, who dropped to the ground, landing on his neck and shoulders. His hat rolled away.
The boy snatched a small knife from a sheath at his waist and set himself to spring upon Stryker.
A rifle sounded and a bullet plowed a furrow between the boy and Stryker, who was struggling to get to his feet. “You’ll not use the knife, boy,” Will said.
The Shoshone woman laughed. “Look at the white man. Even Tocho, a Shoshone boy of nine summers, can fight good. More good than him.” She pointed at Stryker.
Back on his feet, Stryker grasped the boy arrow, twisted it back and forth, and jerked it from his body.
“Come,” the woman said. She beckoned at Stryker. “My son, Tocho, put arrow in you. Now I fix. Come.” She turned toward the pile of supplies on a travois across camp. “Come,” she said again.
To Stryker, it was just another small wound. But he didn’t know about the poison on the arrow’s tip.
Chapter Ten
Once again Cat regained consciousness belly down across the withers of an Indian pony. She suppressed a groan, but must have made a sound, because a hard hand came down on her bare behind.
“White woman.”
Cat did not respond.
The flint-hard hand slapped her backside again. “Woman!”
“Gumph.”
“Good. You hear.”
“Gumph.”
“Once you were Cheyenne. Now you are Absaroka. No. You are dog. Maybe. Or maybe nigger. Slave. You do what Absaroka men want. Nigger.”
Cat said nothing. Indeed, she drifted in and out of consciousness. The horse’s withers dug into her gut as the pony traveled at a rough trot. The man who rode behind her did so as if she were not a living creature, but a bag of grain or a long-dead deer.
Three days Cat and her captor rode. Three nights Cat was made to get down on all fours like an animal so the Absaroka men could have their way with her. She had no clothing. She was given no blanket. She was no virgin, but neither had she ever been forcefully used. Hurt. Punished with what was supposed to be a symbol of love.
She was not allowed to walk. Everywhere or anywhere she went, she crawled. Her palms tore and bled, as did her knees. Her shins scraped the ground and soon looked as skinned and bloody as her knees and hands. She was allowed to drink water from rivers and creeks after the horses had their fill. She received one or two pieces of dried meat each day, and she surreptitiously searched for leaves and shoots, and ate them raw. Except for an occasional humping, the Absaroka men, who seemed to be led by Black Eagle, ignored her, unless she tried to stand. If she tried to gain her feet, any nearby brave kicked her down. She was never able to gain the balance or the upright position she needed to take advantage of her Savate skills.
Bishke, they called her, dog, and by the fifth day, her hair was so matted that Black Eagle, the Absaroka who always carried her across the withers of his horse, took out his Green River knife and sawed her hair off close to her head.
Time went by in a haze. The Absaroka warriors never let her remember what it was like to walk upright. Anything she did to prove herself human brought stripes across her back with a birch switch. On all fours, she was no match for anything, not even the camp dogs.
Camp. Yes. Camp. Nothing civilized like Brussels or even Denver. But Cat could not remember those civilized places. She was more concerned about not being switched or pinched or kicked, punished for something even a dog knew not to do.
A man called Black Eagle fastened a collar of rawhide around her neck. Its protruding loop took strap or rope or whatever met the needs of the moment. Cat learned to be an animal, to sit on her haunches, waiting for her master’s next command. Always she was naked, even at night. Always she could be taken by any warrior in camp, even young boys practicing to be men. Always she crawled deep into her own mind, wrapping her soul in darkness and salting away the memory of Catherine de Merode, a woman who walked straight and tall, and bowed to no man save her king. Sometimes she wondered where the man she knew as Matt Stryker was. But mostly, she concentrated on survival.
The Absaroka Black Eagle and his wife, that is, the woman who seemed to be his wife, were the only ones who fed Cat. In camp, it was more difficult to keep from starving as she could not go outside the circle of teepees, which meant no augmenting the meager pieces of dried meat with leaves and shoots. She watched the dogs gnaw at bones, some with shreds of meat still clinging to them. Could she take a bone away from the
dogs?
The weather turned cooler, dropping to nearly freezing at night. Cat was an animal in the eyes of the Absaroka, and a fairly useless animal at that. No one seemed concerned whether she lived or died.
Of all the dogs, only one old bitch, gray of muzzle and in no way spry, showed any interest in Cat.
One night, as Cat shivered in her nakedness, dreaming of something she couldn’t remember, the old bitch lay down beside her and wriggled her back into Cat’s belly. Warmth. Cat wrapped her arms around the old dog. They slept.
It became natural, then, for Cat and the old bitch to snuggle together in the cold nights. Then a younger bitch joined them. By her markings, she was related to the old dog. Soon Cat lay surrounded by Indian dogs, and they were warmer than any wool blanket.
The Absaroka never recognized Cat as human. They treated her as a dog, even calling her Bishke, as they did every other dog. Their apathy caused her to doubt her own humanity. But with the friendship of the female dogs in camp, Cat once again saw herself as a human being.
In her mind, she called the old bitch Maman. Then she ventured to whisper the name in the old dog’s floppy ear. The dog seemed pleased. She began to lick Cat clean. Face. Ears. Neck. Butt. Genitals. The other dogs accepted Cat as one of them, one not as strong or as fast or as warm, but one who shared their pack, and their comforts, such as they were. And they began to protect her.
Absaroka men were first growled at when they came to hump Cat. The growls became snarls. First the boys who had practiced on Cat stayed away. Then the men came less and less. The women of the Absaroka camp ignored Cat. She was dirty—not as dirty as before—but still an animal. Something kept for the use of men and growing boys.
When night came. When the cooking fires dimmed and turned to gray coals. When Absaroka people retired to teepees where central fires warmed the inside and bear hides kept the cold from sleeping pallets. Cat stood on her hind legs. Maman stood by her side, watching. Other bitches stood further away, forming a circle of sorts, heads away from Cat, eyes watching for intrusion of any kind.