Willow no longer thought about anything except getting to safe refuge. What would happen once they got there, she had no way of knowing. She talked to neither man, only hoping that once they reached safety, there might be some way to work this out. She wondered if any of them would ever be happy again. The old grandmother and the two children struggled valiantly on, although there were days Willow wasn’t sure they could make it. Often, she gave them her horse and walked beside it.
Raven seemed to hesitate to come close to her, and she knew he feared making a bad situation worse. She had stopped trying to appeal to Bear, knowing he might never recover from her betrayal.
Bear watched her from a distance, loving her as he would never love another woman. But because he was a proud man and since she was carrying Raven’s child, it was only just that those two end up together. Yet, one day as he watched her walk beside the horse, her belly swollen and her moccasins worn, he could not stand to watch her suffer. He rode up next to her. “Take my horse, I will walk awhile.”
She looked up at him, so vulnerable and appealing, hesitated, shook her head slowly. “I do not need your pity.”
“It shames me to see you walk while I ride.”
“I shame you,” she answered softly and kept walking.
“Willow . . .” He didn’t know what to say. He steeled himself, remembering that when they reached their goal, he intended to ride away and hope Raven and Willow could make a life for themselves and their child.
Willow stumbled and fell. Before he thought, he was off his horse, sweeping her up in his arms. For a long moment, he held her close, remembering the feel of her small body curled close to his in the night and almost weeping for what had been before and would never be again. “Are you—are you hurt?”
“No.” She struggled to get out of his grasp and he sighed and let her stand.
Raven rode up just then. “What happened?”
How could he hate Raven for loving her when she was the most beautiful, desirable woman in the world? “She fell; I was trying to help her.”
“I’m all right,” Willow said and her tone was soft and gentle as he remembered from all those months ago.
Gruffly, Bear said, “Here, take my horse; I need to stretch my legs.” It wasn’t fitting that a warrior give up his horse for a woman, but he was past caring. She didn’t fight him as he put his hands on her waist. For a split second, he stared down into those eyes as green as forest pools and fought an urge to hold her close and kiss those soft lips. Very slowly, he lifted her to War Paint’s back, then looked toward Raven. His brother looked as miserable as Bear felt. They still had perhaps a hundred miles to go by white man’s measurements and they might not make it. If they didn’t, none of this would matter.
Willow nodded her thanks and looked at him almost shyly. “We could both ride.”
He shook his head, turned and began to walk. “No, it will stress the stallion.” He dare not tell her what he really thought. Once a long time ago, he had carried her on his horse before him and he remembered now how she had felt then, warm and soft in his arms, her hair smelling of sun and wind. The nape of her neck had been so appealing that he had wanted to kiss it. No, he dare not ride behind her; he might lose his resolve and hold her close, wanting nothing more than to share her life, no matter whose child she carried.
Behind him, Raven said, “Bear, take my horse for a while.”
He still could not accept this overture of friendship from his brother; he had been too wounded by him. “No,” he said and kept walking.
Willow watched them both, not sure what she could do to solve this horrible rift between the brothers. Maybe time would heal the wounds, she thought. It was something to hope for. Time; it was running out; the weather turning cooler as September advanced and the tribe moved stubbornly north. Even the exhausted and the dying smiled with a little hope now. It was just possible that they might overcome the odds and make it.
On September 29, after passing the main range of the Bear Paw Mountains, the exhausted, worn-out refugees finally reached Snake Creek and paused at midafternoon.
The wind was picking up as Joseph called a council of the men under a bluff, out of the wind so they could hear the talk. Someone lit a small fire and took out the ceremonial pipe. Behind them, the rest of the people sank down on the ground, thankful for the brief rest.
Looking Glass looked around the circle of respected warriors and smiled. “We are less than forty miles as the white man calls it from Canada and safety. As cold and hungry as the people are, we should stop a few days and rest.”
Ollokot frowned. “That seems unwise. I feel we should keep moving. In one day or at the most, two, we will be across the border.”
“But our scouts are watching One-Arm’s pony soldiers,” another argued. “We will be warned if they move close enough to catch us.”
Murmurs, in agreement and disagreement among the warriors.
Joseph seemed to be giving all the opinions serious thought as he smoked the pipe and passed it to Bear. “Hohots, you are a wise warrior, what do you think?”
Bear considered as he accepted the pipe. The tobacco smoke drifted as he took a puff. “There is much to think about. The wind smells of snow and if it comes, it will slow our march.”
Joseph nodded and looked toward Raven. “What think you, Raven?”
Bear watched his brother. Only a few weeks ago, he would have been so proud that Raven had finally come into his own as a warrior; now all he could think of was the image of Willow in his brother’s arms.
Raven said, “If the weather slows us, it will also slow the soldiers. Our ponies are bone thin and need time to graze or some of them won’t make it across the border.”
So the discussion went, each respected warrior offering an opinion. Bear looked at Joseph. The ordeal had taken a terrible toll on the leader. His face looked drawn and weathered and there was gray in his black hair that Bear hadn’t remembered before. The weight of responsibility hung heavy on Joseph’s shoulders, Bear knew.
Ollokot said, “I think we should press on. We can rest when we are safely in Sitting Bull’s camp.”
Another shook his head. “Listen to that wind! It cuts like a knife and the temperature is dropping. Our scouts are watching the Cavalry Pony Soldier and he is many miles to the south. We have plenty of time tomorrow to pack and move north at our leisure.”
Bear had been a warrior too long to take such a chance, yet he had seen Willow’s thin and exhausted face as she slid from her weary horse a few minutes ago. The old grandmother looked even worse and might not survive a bitter cold night on the trail.
Joseph looked at him. “Bear, I respect your opinion as I do Looking Glass and my brother. Having heard all this, what think you?”
In his heart, Bear was certain they should keep moving, but now he thought only of Willow and how ill she looked. Food and a warm lodge was what she needed now. “Perhaps those who want to camp for the night are right; we know where Sturgis’s pony soldiers are, so we have plenty of time tomorrow to resume our march.”
Joseph nodded. “I agree. It is so decided then. Get plenty of rest and hot food tonight. Tomorrow, when the weather clears, we will take to the trail again. Two suns from now, we should be sitting around Lakota fires, eating fat haunches of buffalo!”
The warriors smiled at one another for the first time in weeks, their dark eyes bright with hope. After leaving so many dead on this long trek, they were going to win this bitter struggle after all.
The meeting broke up and Bear and Raven walked out into the cold wind. The pale gray sky was spitting snow and somewhere a solitary wolf howled.
Willow came from behind a straggly line of brush that broke the wind. “Do we go or stay?”
Bear hesitated, awkward with her now. “We stay.” The relief on her face rewarded him and made him forget his uneasiness with Joseph’s decision.
“Good!” She sighed. “If you two will put up my shelter so I can get the old wom
an in out of the cold and maybe hunt some rabbits, I’ll cook food for all.”
Willow watched them both as they nodded. Tomorrow, she thought, or maybe the next day, we will be safe in Canada and this whole thing will end somehow. She wasn’t certain what would happen after that, but she was almost too weary and weak to care.
Later, as they all sat around the small fire in her lodge, the two children huddled close to her, the old grandmother asleep and snoring. Willow held her book and looked from one brother to the other. “I haven’t been able to teach the children for several weeks.”
She wished she knew what Bear was thinking; he looked so sad.
Raven stared at the book in her lap. “It seems like a thousand suns ago,” he whispered, “that you were teaching me to write my name and reading aloud from that.”
Two men in love with the same woman, she remembered the novel. How ironic that she was caught in the same situation.
Sleepy Atsi yawned. “Will you teach us again when we reach Sitting Bull’s camp?”
Willow nodded and smiled at her. Cub had curled up asleep in Willow’s lap. Maybe someday, when the old grandmother died, she would have to raise these two, but Willow didn’t mind. She looked up suddenly and caught the two brothers staring at her. No one said anything and she glanced away. She couldn’t stand to hurt either of them, but her heart belonged only to the older one. That one didn’t want her; well, maybe she couldn’t blame him. About that time, the wind blew so hard, the lodge shook. “It is bad out there tonight,” she thought aloud, “I’m glad we are all safe and warm inside.”
Bear stuck his head out the lodge flap. “It is spitting snow; let us hope we don’t get a blizzard tomorrow.”
Willow’s heart filled with dread at the thought. The Nez Perce had come so far and suffered so much. Now all they needed was a little luck for a few more hours and they would be safe. “Is there any danger of the soldiers surprising us?”
“No,” Raven said, “our scouts are watching the colonel Sturgis and his pony soldiers. They won’t be moving in this weather, either. In another two days, we won’t care where they are.”
Bear’s brow furrowed. “I wish I could be so sure. After all the time and trouble the army’s gone to, it doesn’t seem like them to let us escape.”
“Looking Glass isn’t worried,” Raven snapped.
“But Joseph is.” Bear frowned at him. Again, Willow felt the tension between the two.
“Why don’t we try to get some sleep?” she suggested. “The pace will be hard all day tomorrow.”
Soon they were all lying around the lodge. It was crowded with the six of them sleeping close to the fire. However, Willow didn’t drift off to sleep for a long time. She lay listening to the wind blow and thinking about her child, wishing for the one millionth time that it was Bear’s. Yet all those regrets wouldn’t change a single thing, no matter how hard she wished it.
She heard Bear move restlessly on his side of the fire and knew that he didn’t sleep, either. How she wished she was curled up in his arms, but things were changed now; forever changed. She made a decision then; when she got to Canada, she would see if she could get a job with the Canadians to teach all the Indian children. She would find herself a small cabin and raise her child alone. Without her in their midst, maybe the two brothers would finally make peace. She didn’t see any other solution. The wind howled around her lodge again like a ghostly warrior’s song and she wondered if it were an omen of bad luck or was she reading something into it that simply wasn’t there?
Two Arrows rode across the prairie in the cold darkness. The Cheyenne scout was used to riding alone; in fact, he almost preferred it. Soon it would be dawn. Right now, the wind felt chill against his brown face and a light crust of snow had formed on the ground. It crunched under his stallion’s hooves as Two Arrows loped across the rolling hills of the Bear Paws.
He rubbed his hand across his mouth, wishing he had a hot cup of coffee. Once he had been a respected warrior; a Dog Soldier of the Cheyenne. Now he was a hang-around-the-fort redskin, he thought with bitterness, scouting for the bluecoats. What had happened to his pride?
He frowned, remembering. It had been a chill day in the season of Hikomini, the freezing month that the whites called November, a dawn much like this coming one; cold and snowy. Two Arrows was asleep with his woman, Pretty Flower, and their children, safe and warm in their lodge on that river called the Washita. The officer called Yellowhair had hit that camp hard on the cold, gray dawn. How long ago had that been? Nine winter counts. What did it matter to anyone but Two Arrows? Even Yellowhair was dead now on the Little Bighorn River.
Two Arrows rode up to the top of a hill and looked across the rolling prairie. Bear Coat Miles was waiting in his camp not far away while the Cheyenne scouts searched out the Nez Perce for him. Two Arrows strained his eyes in the early gray darkness, searching the vast landscape for lodges and grazing ponies. For the man who found the Nez Perce, there would be a reward. Nothing much mattered now that Two Arrows’s woman and children were gone. He was dead, too; dead inside, only it didn’t show and he tried not to think about it. Where his other relatives were, he didn’t know; all the Cheyenne battles had scattered them or imprisoned them on reservations where they starved now because the buffalo were almost gone. Once the great brown beasts had been as numerous as the leaves on the trees, now there were only a handful.
Once Two Arrows had fought the soldiers, now he scouted for them. Pride meant nothing anymore; all that mattered was surviving and getting enough to eat. He stood up in his stirrups, taking a good look at the distant scene. Yes, that was the Nez Perce camp, all right. Two Arrows watched the vague outlines of the horses pawing up grass, the thin ropes of gray smoke drifting from the small lodge fires. As cold as it was, the Nez Perce might take their time breaking camp this morning, certain they would soon be safe with Sitting Bull.
It struck him then how much this winter camp on Snake Creek resembled that long-ago Cheyenne camp on the Washita River down in the Indian Territory. Just like that one, when the pony soldiers attacked and took the people by surprise, there soon would be dead women and children scattered across the bloody snow. That was not his worry; it was only his task to report what he saw. His own woman was dead; his children slaughtered; he could not feel for other tribes’ families anymore.
He rubbed his hands together, wishing again he had a hot cup of coffee and some tobacco. Back at Fort Keogh, there was plenty. Bear Coat Miles would pay him well for finding the Nez Perce; that was all that mattered. Wheeling his stallion, he took off at a gallop to report. In two more hours, there would be blood on the snow, but Two Arrows must not think about that or remember the slaughter at the Washita. Nothing would bring his family back to him; or restore the proud past glory of the Cheyenne. No, nothing mattered anymore but surviving and the gold the soldiers paid him.
Twenty-six
Willow came awake with a start. The first cold gray light was filtering into the lodge. Thunder? Did it thunder when it snowed? For a split second, she puzzled and then she knew what the sound was, drumming across the earth. “Soldiers!” she shouted as she jumped up. “Soldiers coming!”
Everyone came awake, the toddler crying. Bear and Raven raced from the lodge even as rifle shots echoed through the camp.
What to do? Willow ran from the lodge. Around her in the cold, snowy morning, confusion reigned. People ran and shouted, dogs barked, horses reared and neighed in confusion. Then she saw them, cavalry galloping across the frozen crust, led by Cheyenne scouts. The blue uniforms stood out against the white dust of snow. Among the soldiers, she saw Billy Warton’s grinning face as he aimed and fired at the running Indians.
“No!” she shrieked. “No, it isn’t fair! We were so close! So close!”
Around her, women screamed and children paused in confusion, only to be cut down by rifle fire. From somewhere, a cannon boomed. On the perimeter of the camp, she saw Bear and Raven behind a rise, both of them firing
at the soldiers as the horses came on. Here and there a bluecoat cried out and tumbled from his plunging, running mount. The scent of blood set all the horses rearing and snorting.
Bear yelled, “Get down, Willow, save yourself!”
The children; she must save the children. She ran back into the lodge. The old grandmother had little Cub in her lap, her arms around Atsi’s shaking shoulders. “I don’t understand how—”
“Cheyenne scouts,” Willow yelled, grabbing up food and blankets, “it must be someone besides Sturgis! Let’s get out of here!”
They ran outside into a foggy gray morning that seemed almost ghostlike in the cold mist. What to do now? She turned toward the old woman, who grabbed the children and was hurrying toward an earthen bank. From here, Willow saw other women with digging implements tearing at the earth, trying to hollow out refuge from the cannon that boomed and echoed.
A shell hit nearby, throwing dirt and snow in the air. Willow paused to help a woman to her feet. “Take cover!” she shouted, “under the bluff!”
She paused, breathing hard herself, watching Bear organize the warriors around him, he and his brother fighting side by side as he had once envisioned. Willow blinked back tears and put her hand on her belly. It wasn’t going to matter now; none of them was going to make it to Canada. She looked over her shoulder. Less than forty miles. It didn’t seem fair that they had come all this way and were going to die here in the snow only a few precious hours from freedom.
Chief Joseph looked exhausted and bewildered, attempting to lead the women and children to safety, but there was no safety anywhere. The warriors had rallied now under Looking Glass and Ollokot, joining Bear and Raven who concentrated on the officers, picking them off one at a time, knowing that leaderless troops would be milling in confusion. In the distance, she saw a big white man wearing a fur coat and hat, a man with a gray handlebar mustache. She recognized him from the newspapers. Bear Coat; Colonel Nelson Miles. How had he managed this surprise attack? Billy Warton. She had seen him in that charge and there had been hatred burning in his eyes. As long as Billy lived, she could never feel safe.
Song Of The Warrior Page 34