by John Norman
"I'm going to California," said Chance.
"Well," said Lucia, stoically, "if you insist on running off to California I shall certainly insist on running off after you."
Damn right, thought Chance. He wondered if it would be indecent to spank a fully grown woman.
"Before you leave," said Lucia, tipping her head up and kissing him, "you must of course say good-bye to your friends."
It would be hard, Chance thought, but I want to do it; I cannot leave otherwise.
Smiling, not letting go of his arm, Lucia guided Chance down the three wooden stairs from the porch and across the small dusty parade ground, toward the wooden gates of the fort. The colonel and McLaughlin followed.
Outside the gate Chance saw the Hunkpapa Sioux. With them were many other Indians he didn't know, except for a few of the Minneconjou who had fled to the Bad Lands with the Hunkpapa after Wounded Knee.
"Most of these Indians," McLaughlin was saying, "are Sioux–Hunkpapa, Minneconjou, Brule, Oglala–but there's Cheyenne in there, too, plenty of them."
"They want you to stay," said Lucia.
"You could make things easier for all of us," said the colonel.
"Well, Chance?" asked McLaughlin.
A boy pushed forward from the throng; it was William Buckhorn.
With his parents he had been at Fort Yates at the time of Sitting Bull's death; they had remained there, not fleeing; they had not been at Wounded Knee.
The boy came and stood before Chance and Chance asked him how he was feeling now, and the boy said all right.
Then the boy went to Lucia and tugged at her sleeve. He looked up at her, shyly. "I am well now," he said. "I will kill more rattlesnakes for you."
Lucia thought for a moment.
"Nonsense," she said, "from now on I will kill my own rattlesnakes–left and right."
Chance smiled.
William was looking up at her, puzzled.
"Yes," said Lucia grimly, "let them watch out for Lucia–let them watch out for Lucia Turner–" She looked at Chance, "–for Lucia Chance," she amended.
"You're crazy to hunt rattlesnakes," said William.
"Oh," said Lucia.
"You might get bit," said William.
"All right," said Lucia, confused, "then I won't hunt them."
"Good," said William Buckhorn. Then he added, "I won't either."
"Good," said Lucia.
"But can I have the rattles back?" asked William.
"Yes," said Lucia. She recalled that the baking-powder cans behind the soddy had still been there.
"Thank you," said William, and then turned and went back to his parents.
"Well," said McLaughlin, "what about it, Chance?"
Chance regarded the Indians; naturally his eyes sought out the Hunkpapa among them; with them he had ridden; he had been with them when they had fought; he had, in his way, shared their struggle, their defeat; with them he had found food, shelter and friendship; among them he had won the woman he loved.
Near the front of the Indians, astride their ponies, were Old Bear, Running Horse and Winona.
"Medicine Gun!" shouted Old Bear proudly, lifting his right hand in greeting.
"Old Bear," said Chance, returning the sign.
Running Horse walked his pony to Chance. He pointed back to Winona, happily, who shyly dropped her head. "The Hunkpapa do not die," he said.
"No," said Chance, "the Hunkpapa do not die."
He wondered if the child would be Totter's or Running Horse's; somehow it did not matter all that much; the important thing was the child, that the woman was bearing within her promise and life. About Lucia he did not yet know. It was possible, of course, that his first child would be Drum's. He could imagine speaking to the boy one day, "Yes, I knew your father; he was by the mixings of blood my brother; I killed him."
"No," said Chance to Running Horse, "the Hunkpapa–the people of Sitting Bull and Old Bear and Running Horse and Drum-do not die."
He put his arm about Lucia, happy and strong in her love and nearness.
"You know you must stay," she said.
"You might have told me," said Chance.
"It wouldn't have been a surprise," she said.
"You promised to be a good squaw," Chance reminded her.
"I shall make an excellent squaw," insisted Lucia. "It is also my intention," she said, "when you get around to asking me–to make an excellent wife."
"Marry me," said Chance.
"Say please," said Lucia.
"Please," said Chance.
"Pretty please," teased Lucia.
Chance decided, definitely, it would not be indecent, not at all, to spank a fully grown woman, especially a wench that deserved it like Lucia Turner, especially not if she were your wife, especially not if you could finish it up by removing her clothes and dropping her on the nearest bed.
"Nonsense," said Chance.
"All right," said Lucia, "I'll marry you anyway."
"Good," said Chance.
"Not that I have any choice," she said.
"Why not?" asked Chance.
"You didn't ask me like a true gentleman," she said, "you just said 'Marry me.'"
"So?" asked Chance.
"I must do what I'm told," said Lucia.
"Why is that?" asked Chance.
"Because," responded Lucia loftily, "I am an excellent squaw." She looked at him archly. "You have not forgotten, have you?"
Chance looked about, confused. The Indians were watching him. McLaughlin seemed puzzled. The colonel was looking off somewhere, studying cloud formations.
"Please, Lucia," whispered Chance.
"Have you forgotten?" demanded Lucia, one eyebrow quite high.
He kissed her to silence. "No," he mumbled, "excellent–excellent."
"Good rifle, good horse, good woman," Lucia was mumbling into his teeth.
"Please shut up," said Chance.
"Later," said Lucia breathlessly. "Please later."
"Pretty please," mumbled Chance.
"Pretty pretty pretty pretty please," said Lucia.
Mr. McLaughlin coughed rather loudly, twice, the second cough somewhat louder than even the first.
Chance disengaged Lucia's arms from his neck, which he had to do again.
"Well, Chance?" asked McLaughlin. "The proposition stands. What about it?"
Lucia was looking up, at him.
"We want you here," said the colonel. He gestured to the gathered Indians. "They want you here–Medicine Gun."
Chance smiled.
"My fiancé," Lucia was saying, "is leaving immediately for California."
"Lucia, will you please shut up," said Chance.
"Certainly," said Lucia.
"You will stay with us, won't you?" asked McLaughlin.
"My Brother," said Running Horse, "you will not leave us?"
Chance looked at the young Indian.
"No," said Chance. "I will stay. You are my people."
McLaughlin was shaking his hand, and the colonel, and Lucia kissed him; the Indians were shouting; they stamped their feet and crowded about him, to touch and hold him.
Chance felt Lucia's lips against his cheek; she was crying; her warmth was marvelous in his arms; her happiness.
It was good, Chance decided, it was good.
Chapter Twenty-Five
In the spring the grass came as usual to Standing Rock, thrusting itself up green between the melting snow and the black earth. The prairie became sweet and flowed with grass and wind. The Grand River, swollen in its banks, rushed its cold, muddy waters downstream to the wide Missouri.
The Messiah had not come and the Ghost Dance was only a memory of the Sioux.
On an April Sunday, a day the white men called Easter, Old Bear, a chief of the Hunkpapa, rode his pony across the sweet-smelling spring prairies.
He had not ridden very far when he stopped his pony and dismounted. Heavy and sharp in the damp earth was the print of a hoof, wide, deep and
fresh. Old Bear knelt beside the print and bent close, inhaling even the smell of the earth in which the print lay. His heart leaped. In many years he had not seen such a print. It was the print of a buffalo. Most likely the animal had drifted south from Canada, separated or driven from its herd; probably for days it had been browsing southward across the North Dakota prairie; at last it had come to Standing Rock.
Old Bear began to follow the sign. He sang softly to himself as he rode, an old buffalo hunting song. His right hand carried his unstrung bow. The quiver at his side held four hawk-feathered arrows and one long, fine arrow, an eagle-feathered buffalo arrow which Old Bear had been saving for many years.
Toward noon his eye found a place where the buffalo had rubbed its back on an outcropping of stone. Old Bear trembled as he looked at the stone. Caught in the chinks of rock and fallen to the grass, here and there, were coarse hairs from the animal. These hairs were white. Old Bear had found, at last, the trail of the white buffalo, the Medicine Buffalo. He had seen the old robes that proved such animals existed, but he had never spoken to a man who had seen one alive.
Without stopping to eat or drink, Old Bear urged his pony ahead in the hunt. At last, near dusk, he saw the animal shambling along in front of him. It was a thin, shaggy buffalo, an old animal, a bull, one ready to die. It didn't hear him nor did it smell him.
Old Bear, heart pounding, strung his bow quickly; he fitted the long buffalo arrow to the string.
Trembling, Old Bear edged his pony close to the old animal, until they were side by side.
The old bull, its wide, pale eyes understanding nothing, watched Old Bear draw his bow taut. For a long time Old Bear held the bow taut, the arrow poised over the heart of the bull. He watched the shaggy white hair lift and fall with the beating of the heart; he listened to the buffalo's slow hard breathing; he watched the muscles of its neck swell and fall.
At last Old Bear lowered his arm, slowly relaxing the bow. "Old Warrior," he said, "do not be afraid. I will not kill you."
Old Bear unstrung his bow and put the long buffalo arrow back in his quiver. Then he turned his pony and began to ride slowly away, leaving behind him the thin, shaggy bull. The animal stood, its hoofs planted wide in the dust, watching him go. There would be no white robe in the lodge of Old Bear. The time of the white robes was gone.
Gone too were the days of painted horses and the feathers of eagles; the days of Kills-His-Horse and of Drum, his son; Old Bear lifted his hands to the sky; the Messiah had not come; the wire remained on the prairie; the buffalo had not returned. Tears from the eyes of the old man fell in the mane of his pony.
Weeping he rode from the place where he had found and spared the white buffalo.
He would go home now, letting the white buffalo go where it might, untroubled, eating what grass and drinking what water it could.
He rode away, weeping.
He would go home now. The hunt was done.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © © 1970 by John Norman
Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media
ISBN 978-1-4976-0030-0
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
345 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
Open Road Integrated Media is a digital publisher and multimedia content company. Open Road creates connections between authors and their audiences by marketing its ebooks through a new proprietary online platform, which uses premium video content and social media.
Videos, Archival Documents, and New Releases
Sign up for the Open Road Media newsletter and get news delivered straight to your inbox.
Sign up now at
www.openroadmedia.com/newsletters
FIND OUT MORE AT
WWW.OPENROADMEDIA.COM
FOLLOW US:
@openroadmedia and
Facebook.com/OpenRoadMedia