When the Wolf Breathes (Madeleine Book 5)

by Sadie Conall

  She began to shiver from the cold and gladly took the fur which Deinde'-paggwe offered. Then they sat together silent and still, aware of the men sleeping just feet away. Yet each remembered the past and how it used to be between them. And after Deinde'-paggwe redid Madeleine’s wound, after applying the new poultice, she knelt back and held her gaze. Madeleine reached out and cupped the girl’s face in her hand, gently holding her and suddenly Deinde'-paggwe smiled. It was a fragile vulnerable thing, but Madeleine saw a hint of radiance in it, along with hope. And then Deinde'-paggwe reached out and put her arms about Madeleine shoulders, holding her close as Madeleine had held her so many times before when they lived at the Bannock village. And in her touch Madeleine felt the girl’s strength and took comfort in it. She would be alright, she just needed time to heal.

  Ryder watched them discreetly from where he lay on the other side of the fire. He had woken to the soft murmur of their voices, nothing more than whispers in the night and although it was his turn to take watch, he left them alone. For a little while at least.

  Five

  We rode as hard as we could in the following week, as anyone can do with a small child and five extra horses and our days and nights settled into a different routine now that Deinde'-paggwe and Kimana were with us.

  After the dream, the deep wound on my forehead began to heal, even though Deinde'-paggwe insisted on making a new poultice for it each evening when we made camp. Although I had a feeling that by the time we reached the Hŭŋkpapĥa village, the long thin scar would have disappeared completely.

  One night I was left alone with Te’tukhe by the fire. Ryder had gone off to check the horses and Deinde'-paggwe had taken Kimana off to a small stream nearby to wash. I was surprised when Te’tukhe leaned towards me, his voice harsh, his eyes fearful.

  “I tell you she is a forest witch,” he said, startling me. “For what woman other than you Esa-mogo'ne’ can live out in the wild alone while being hunted by four men, unless she is a forest witch.”

  I had heard the words forest witch only once before and that was many years ago when someone in the Bannock village had called me that name. So I knew the meaning well enough. A forest witch was a girl or young woman capable of living alone in the woods without the need of sustenance, the need of a man, or fear of beasts. To hear Te’tukhe call Deinde'-paggwe such a name, was disturbing.

  “I ask you this Esa-mogo'ne’, for what strange fate is it that we should all meet like this. So let me say it now and be done with it. I think others beside ourselves have had a hand in this.”

  And then I saw the fear and superstition in my brother-in-law’s lovely dark eyes and realized this conversation wasn’t really about Deinde'-paggwe. It was about spirits, of their guiding us. It was about the afterlife.

  “Would it be such a bad thing brother, if it were so?” I asked. “Would it matter overly much if we were sent to cross Deinde'-paggwe’s path, so we might help her?” I glanced up as Ryder came to join us. I knew he had heard some of our words. “I think not,” I said. “As for whether she’s a forest witch or not, I can’t say. All I know is that she did everything she could to stay alive, to get back to her daughter and find a way home. If that makes her special, or a forest witch, then so be it.”

  Te’tukhe and Ryder both looked at me in surprise, but then Te’tukhe nodded.

  “You are right sister and I will not speak of it again,” he said, pushing himself off the log. “She is a survivor, she is clearly someone special and not many girls would have been able to do what she did. I admire her for it.” He turned then and walked away, leaving me and Ryder alone.

  I glanced across at him, although Ryder had never been one to believe in ghosts, despite his childhood in the Wazhazhe village. Nor did he believe overly much in the stories he’d heard of hauntings from his servants in England, nor from boys at his boarding school. But an experience last year had changed his views on that subject forever.

  He had been camped near a river not unlike this one, yet the place had had a feeling of foreboding about it from the moment he arrived. And during the night, unable to sleep, Ryder had looked down over the river to see a group of men leave the shadows of the trees to walk along the riverbank. But they had been poorly dressed and their weapons primitive lances, nothing more than a long thin branch sharpened into a point by a piece of flint. But the most astonishing thing had been their ability to run along the riverbank, a place of sharp stones and small boulders as if they ran across soft grass, for their feet had been covered in nothing more than a thin strip of hide, held to their legs by strips of leather. And they ran as if in the light of day, not in full dark. When they disappeared as quickly as they arrived, as though they had never been there at all, Ryder had paced about his camp, feeling unsettled, understanding then that hauntings in this big open country were a completely different thing to those in England. For the spirits here walked the earth as though still alive, as though still hunters and gatherers, or guardians, and beware anyone who doubted it.

  He told me what he’d seen one night while we were still living with the Omaha, as we lay within the hide walls of our teepee, warm in our furs as the snow fell outside. And I had shuddered with unease as I listened, for I knew full well that spirit beings such as these walked this earth freely, along with ghost riders.

  But it wasn’t that experience which Ryder was remembering that night and later when we were alone, he told me about it. It was the strangeness he had felt the last time he was in the chapel at Millbryne Park.

  He had found a pistol still loaded with shot lying under a pew, where it had lain untouched since my deadly fight with Jarryth some fifteen months earlier. Because of the letters I’d left him, Ryder knew that the pistol had belonged to Jarryth, so he had retrieved it and thrown it into the dark depths of the tunnel which lay to the left of the altar. But as that pistol settled into the damp earth below the Chapel, as Ryder broke the spring sealing the tunnel door shut forever, he felt something shift and change within the old building, as if the evil that had remained there after Jarryth died, had finally gone.

  I was glad that Ryder felt at peace about the Chapel, because I could not. Where he had loved it from a boy of ten newly arrived in England, I now thought of it as Jarryth’s tomb. Even though we had been married there under English law, with Harry christened just after our vows. Perhaps one day I might think differently. I hoped so, for Ryder’s sake more than my own, for he still saw the Chapel as his sanctuary.

  We talked about other things until Deinde'-paggwe and Kimana joined us. And as I looked at her, fussing over her small daughter, I didn’t see a forest witch. I saw a resourceful young mother, desperate to stay alive and reach her child. Besides, what harm would come of it, if Te’tukhe insisted on calling Deinde'-paggwe a forest witch? Indeed, it might serve her well when we returned to the Bannock for along with her new-found wealth, it might very well secure a place of prominence for her within the tribe.

  *

  The night before we arrived at the Hŭŋkpapĥa village, as Ryder and Te’tukhe settled by the fire to smoke their pipes, I excused myself as dusk settled and moved down to the river just beyond our camp to find a secluded place to bathe. I hadn’t had a chance to bathe for days and I didn’t want to greet my son feeling dirty and unkempt. As I began to undress, the setting sun cast a stunning orange and yellow glow across the surface of the river and I felt a sudden, unexpected joy. Tomorrow I would hold my little boy in my arms.

  But I was also eager to be alone with Ryder, for although we had come together many times since leaving the Mandan village, it was always quick and out of sight of the others. I couldn’t wait for the nights when we could take our time, when we didn’t have to stand watch, where I could sleep through the night curled up around him within the privacy of our own teepee with Harry close by.

  As I dropped my clothes and swum out into the river, the water warm after the heat of the summer’s day and deep enough to reach my shoulders, I felt the str
ess of the past few months began to drift away. I dived under the water to get handfuls of crushed pebbles and grit off from the river bottom to scrub myself clean and as I came up for air I glanced back towards the riverbank and saw Deinde'-paggwe and Kimana had followed me.

  But as Deinde'-paggwe began removing the child’s clothing followed by her own, I was shocked by how painfully thin they both were. I could see the outline of their shoulder blades, along with the line of their ribs and hip bones. Old bruises and cuts had begun to heal on Deinde'-paggwe’s body but I knew she would always carry scars, not just of her time with the Hidatsa and Mandan, but of those weeks alone in the wild.

  I called out a greeting before once more diving under the water, not only to reach for more grit to scour myself, but to give them some privacy. When I came back up they had entered the water, Deinde'-paggwe carrying Kimana on her hip. I swam across to meet them, unperturbed they had joined me for I was used to bathing with the Bannock woman, not only for company, but security. As Deinde'-paggwe held her, Kimana began splashing about, delighted like any child to be in the water, although Deinde'-paggwe soon hushed her, aware of the night coming down and knowing that sound carries easily in the dark. For we could hear the soft murmur of Ryder and Te’tukhe’s voices coming from our camp just beyond the trees, along with the smell of tobacco and wood smoke and the last of the roasting meat we had shared for supper.

  I turned to watch the sun set, finding the sound of the river soothing as it rolled on by and when I glanced back at Deinde'-paggwe she was looking at me, smiling.

  “This is too much to believe, Esa-mogo'ne’. That I am here when only days ago I was alone and running for my life, not believing for one moment that I would ever see my babe again, or you, or my parents or my Bannock friends. Sometimes I wake in the night desperately afraid and then I see Kimana sleeping next to me along with you and Mi'wasa and Te’tukhe and I have to pinch myself to make sure that this is real and not a dream. That I’m not still alone in the woods, frightened and hungry, waiting for daylight to come so I can move on again.”

  She paused as we moved back to the bank, allowing Kimana to play in the shallows. “Yet how do I look my parents in the eye, Esa-mogo'ne’? Knowing what I’ve been through? What if they turn me away? What if they are repulsed by their own grand-daughter, for she is half Mandan.”

  I looked across at her. But she wasn’t upset, she was just stating a fact. Yet how did I answer such a question. I thought on it for a long moment, then I turned to her and spoke from my heart.

  “You were younger than Kimana when I first came to live with your family in the Bannock village. I owned no blood ties to any of you, yet your parents accepted me as one of their own. So I cannot imagine they will love you any the less, for how could they not? And as soon as they see Kimana, they will adore her as we all do.”

  “Haa but you never killed before, Esa-mogo'ne’. I killed the man who fathered my child. I killed the man who was my lover,” she paused and looked at me, her eyes deep pools of hurt. “Because of that and everything else I’ve been through, I feel unclean Esa-mogo'ne’. And no matter how hard or how long I scrub myself, that feeling never goes away. So how do I look my parents in the eye and expect them to love me as they once did, for they will see what I have become,” she shook her head. “I tell you, it is not possible. Nor do I expect you to understand, when you have known only my father and Mi'wasa. You have never known fear or hate or self-loathing as I have known it. As I still know it.”

  I paused again before I answered her, for even after all these years, I had no care to tell it. But as I looked at the girl lying beside me in the shallows of the river in the soft glow of dusk, her young body revealing the physical scars from a life she had endured for five long years, I thought Deinde'-paggwe had a right to know what I had also endured. And I heard myself begin to tell it, words that only two other people had ever heard me speak. One was Ryder, the other was this girl’s mother, Paddake’e.

  “Oh, but you’re wrong my darling girl. For I know better than anyone how you’re feeling, because I once knew a man like your Loĉhín’míla. But I succeeded in getting away from him after only a few months, where you endured his brutality for years,” I turned to look at Kimana still playing happily in the shallows, confident she wouldn’t understand our words, for we spoke in bannaite’.

  “But think on this for a moment, if you will Deinde'-paggwe. If a man were abused as you were, if he were continuously intimidated and threatened and physically and sexually assaulted over a period of years, would he judge himself for killing his attacker? I think not. So recognise your strength in surviving what you’ve been through and be proud of that, for the alternative would have been so much worse had Loĉhín’míla lived,” I saw the shadows cross her face at such a thought, then she turned to me.

  “You also knew a man like Loĉhín’míla?” she asked, although I don’t think she truly believed me.

  I nodded and reached for her hand, clasping it in my own. “Only three people in the world know of it. Two of them are your parents, the third is Mi’wasa. And if I reveal him to you, I ask you to keep it to yourself, for I buried my memories of it a long time ago. Although it wasn’t until I met your father and Mi'wasa and knew them to be good, honest men that I finally found some peace, because for too long, like yourself, I felt shame. But in fact, the shame belonged to him, not me. I was an innocent without power and what he did, he did only to please himself, without care or respect for me. And like you, I killed in self-defence. When you saw a chance to escape, you took it. Be proud of that. And be proud of yourself for having the courage to step forward and help me, for had you not, Loĉhín’míla’s axe would have struck me,” I paused as the tears filled her eyes and moved to wipe them away, even as I smiled, willing her to find some peace so she could move forward with her life.

  “I hope one day you’ll find a good man like your father or Mi'wasa and build a happy life with him, because not all men are like Loĉhín’míla. And celebrate who you are and what you have Deinde'-paggwe, not what you lost. You will never forget the past five years, but don’t let them define who you are, or destroy what lies ahead for you and Kimana.”

  And then I began to tell her of the monster I had met in the wild some fifteen years earlier. And Deinde'-paggwe listened in silence as I spoke of him and of the morning I tried to flee from him.

  “I have no memory of killing him, but yes, he died at my hands. I left him where he lay, took what I needed and rode out. Your father found me lying close to death on a riverbank some weeks or months later, I know not how long, from both starvation and dehydration for I didn’t have your skills of surviving in the wild. And while others might have left me there to die, your father took me back to the Bannock village where your mother tended me. As I healed, your parents accepted me as part of your family. And even though I have a life with Mi'wasa and our son now, you will always be a part of me. You are my sister, as Paddake’e is my sister.”

  Deinde'-paggwe was silent for a long moment then she nodded. “I often asked my mother how you came to live with us, but she always said you were sent to us by the ancient ones. I believed her of course, for you were always special.”

  I laughed. “Then I shall tell you another story, for now I think, you will understand.”

  I told her of the old man I had met in the wild, of his touching me and leaving a small mark on my left wrist which resembled a burn and of the senses I now owned because of it, senses that were like those of an animal.

  “I have all these things to be grateful for Deinde'-paggwe. I don’t dwell on what happened to me, for I can’t change it. But through it all I met the ancient one and he, or fate, sent me north to your father and through him and your mother I was given another chance. I should have died out there in the wilderness, but I survived and because of it I not only met your family, I met esa and then Mi'wasa and then our son. Don’t re-live the past, Deinde'-paggwe. Let it go. Life is too precious to waste tim
e on what has been.”

  Deinde'-paggwe nodded and looked across at Kimana. “I understand Esa-mogo'ne’. And she is my happiness. That you could suffer as I did yet be so strong, then I too can be strong. So I will put the past behind me and think only of my daughter and the future which lies ahead of us. For she is too quiet, too introverted, for she has seen too much of the ugliness of life. I want her to know the childhood I had, growing up with the Bannock. I want her to grow up strong, to know when to fight and when to be still. I wish I had known those skills, as I know my mother tried to teach me, but I was always so wilful and stubborn that I never saw the danger, especially living with a violent man with little self-esteem,” she paused and looked out across the river, full of shadows now, the sun almost set.

  “I think that five years is a long time to be away from home and I wonder sometimes if my parents are still alive. I have nightmares that I reach the Snake River Plain and there’s nothing there for me, that the Bannock no longer make that place their winter home because of the violence that took place there.”

  I nodded, for I too had thought of this. “I hope they will be there, Deinde'-paggwe. But know that you will always have a home with us, with Mi'wasa and me and our son, so until we reach the Snake River Plain which is yet some five months away, let us just get safely to the Hŭŋkpapĥa.”

  We waded ashore and dried ourselves and dressed, but before we turned back towards camp Deinde'-paggwe reached for a sheath lying on the bank. Within it was the knife I had bought for her father in New Orléans. She handed it to me and I took it.