by Shirl Henke
“Ride? Ride! You crazy bouffon, you missed being prairie paste by a gnat’s ass!” she shrieked, equal parts infuriated, amused and terrified as she threw herself into his arms and hugged him, still clutching the rifle. He held her up and swung her around as if she weighed no more than that proverbial gnat.
“Sorry I give yew sech a skeer, Sparky. Durn fool thang, I was watchin’ ta see no harm come ta yew ‘n purt’ near got myself pounded inta pemmican. But I’m nigh onta as good a rider as yew.” He put her down and fixed her with merry brown eyes. “Betcha yew never rode no buff’lo bull neither, did yew?”
“No, Micajah, and I never want to either.”
“Good. I ain’t ‘zactly fixed on doin’ hit agin myself!”
They both burst into gales of relieved laughter. Then the dust cleared as the herd raced over the horizon, leaving a field of dead buffalo to be butchered and carried back to the village. Micajah’s big gelding, none the worse for his spill and near goring, stood patiently beside the buffalo Against the Wind had shot. The mountain man whistled and the gelding trotted toward him.
After checking the shallow nick on the horse’s flank, he said, “C’mon. Let’s see thet fat young cow yew brung down.”
“Will they sing songs about Ember Woman’s hunting skill around the campfire?” she asked teasingly.
“More like they’ll sing songs ‘bout her stupidity—ridin’ inter a big stampede on a little bitty mare ta carry off an ole worthless grizzly th’ size o’ me,” he said warmly. “Yew saved my life, Sparky. “
“Perhaps, but that doesn’t begin to even the score. You’ve saved mine every single day since you rescued a silly, useless girl from a bear last spring.”
Together they walked toward the cow Olivia had shot, prepared to set to work.
* * * *
Time had no meaning. Samuel crouched in the welcome warmth of the sun, feeling it penetrate his bruised and lacerated flesh. Although it felt good, he knew in a few short hours when dusk came, the air would turn bitterly cold for a man clad only in the ragged shreds of britches. He had been forced to cut off most of his pant legs and use them to make coverings for his feet which had been so festered and sore from thistles and stone cuts that he could not walk on them for nearly a week.
He had managed to catch a few fish with his bare hands the first few days by the river. These he ate raw. However, once he was forced to leave the stream because of the proximity of Indians—hostile or friendly, he could not tell which—he found nothing to eat except a few handfuls of wild berries and some tubers he dug up with his knife.
That was about the time his head began to pound and his vision blur. The blow from that war club had done more damage than he had first thought. Only semiconscious and nauseously dizzy, he had spent countless days wandering in circles, reduced to crawling on his hands and knees at times when he was too weak and disoriented to walk. Several times he had slept through entire days. He was not certain how many.
Deep in the western woodlands that bordered the Great Plains, he had no idea how he could reach civilization before his badly drained reserves of strength utterly gave out. The slash on his side was steadily growing more painful and inflamed. Already he feared that the wound might prove fatal if not cleaned and treated. He had been avoiding Indian encampments, suspecting that they, like Man Whipper and his renegades, could be under the Englishman’s influence. But now he had no choice.
“It’s either possible torture and death or certain starvation and blood poisoning,” he mumbled grimly.
His tongue felt fuzzy and his mouth was dry and sour. Chills alternated with fever, but at least the damnable hammering in the back of his skull had abated. He could walk upright—if he had been strong enough to stand.
* * * *
The fire burned brightly, a huge blaze leaping skyward as glowing orange coals popped and hissed where the fat from the roasting buffalo sizzled and dripped. Several huge slabs of meat were spitted over the fire while dozens of big stew kettles around them gave off rich aromas. Everyone in the camp would feast tonight.
Olivia and Micajah were enjoying their last evening of celebration before packing up their share of the meat and heading east toward their cabin on the Gasconade. Much had been made of Great Bear’s ride on the huge bull buffalo, but even more was reserved for his “boy-daughter” whose medicine was spoken of with awe.
None of the warriors, however, had offered Micajah a bride price for her since she brought down the cow and rescued the mountain man from the stampede. Micajah told her that they feared being shown up by a slender wisp of a female who was a better hunter than most warriors. Such a wife might prove difficult to control.
Olivia looked forward to returning to the peace and privacy of their cabin, away from the crowded socializing and rituals in the Osage great lodges. Compared to the war and peace chief’s houses, which were twenty feet wide and over one hundred feet long, their simple log structure was small indeed, but then it slept only two, not dozens. Each night she shared one end of Chief Pawhuska’s lodge with half a dozen of his daughters. They snored worse than Micajah. And when they weren’t sleeping they were giggling.
The only subject young girls thought of, it seemed to Olivia, was men. Of course, she had never been so foolish. There had always been so many more interesting things to do as she was growing up than to moon over the gaggle of suitors who had pursued her. Things such as riding Wescott’s fine thoroughbreds or going to the gaming hells with her parents. Life had been filled with such promise then, she thought wistfully. She had always believed that someday she would meet a man, doubtless of noble birth and fine breeding, who would sweep her off her feet the way Péré had Maman.
Without warning the swarthy rugged features of Samuel Shelby flashed into her mind, his beautiful lips dazzling her with one of those blinding white smiles. She tamped down the image, forcing herself to look away from the leaping flames which seemed to conjure him. Still a warm liquid rush filled her belly and made her breasts ache when she remembered that dark velvety night in the small tent when he had almost—Stop it!
Restlessly, she stood up and made her way through the crowded center of the big village. Everyone congregated around the two chiefs’ lodges, which were built side by side in front of the great campfire, a sort of town square where all feasting and ceremonial events took place. She walked past the smaller lodges where women were busy finishing up last minute chores, feeding infants, putting away the skinning and curing tools they used to work the buffalo hides, and setting their homes in order before joining the great feast.
Several women called out greetings and she returned them in the Osage tongue. Micajah and Iron Kite had taught her the rudiments of the Sioux dialect. Having a natural affinity for languages, she had learned quickly. Now her Osage was nearly as fluent as the European languages she had learned as a child.
But Olivia St. Etienne was no longer a child. Feeling some strange compulsion drawing her, she walked toward the river. It would be peaceful down by the water. She needed to be alone, to think about the future, about what she wanted to do with her life. She stood by the bank and looked at her dim reflection in the twilight, running her hands over the butter soft buckskin dress Wind Singer, Iron Kite’s sister, had made for her. Suddenly a loud crashing noise coming from the brush caused her to whirl around and reach for her knife.
But she had come out unarmed, all tricked out like some fool Osage princess! Peering into the thicket of elderberry and willow saplings, she began to backtrack slowly.
Samuel stared through the gathering gloom at the apparition in front of him. Not ten yards away the fantastical creature stood poised for flight. She was breathtaking, garbed in an elaborately fringed and beaded dress, like the wife or daughter of some very rich Osage chief. But she was no Indian. Her long fire-red hair shown like a beacon in the twilight, bound in two fat braids which fell over her shoulders down to the tips of her pertly upthrust breasts. He blinked and squinted, certain the fev
er was causing him to hallucinate. It was Olivia St. Etienne’s face with that stubborn chin stuck out defiantly and those slanted green eyes peering warily at his hiding place.
“Well, if I’m that far gone with fever, I might as well show myself and see if there’s any help available,” he muttered, taking several more steps, wincing with every one, for his makeshift moccasins had been lost two days ago fording a creek. He leaned heavily on the stout birch pole he had hacked off a dead tree a few days back. Without the crude walking stick he would never have made it this far. He stumbled out into the open and tried to speak to the apparition that looked like Olivia.
This must be my punishment for past sins.
All that emerged was a dry raspy croak. The earth rushed up to meet him as he slid down the pole and sprawled on his knees, weaving back and forth, struggling not to lose consciousness.
Olivia did not recognize him at first. In fact, she was not even certain he was a white man but thought he might have been a captive of the Sioux or the Kaws who escaped and wandered into Osage territory. His hair, uncut since the previous spring, hung below his shoulders in tangled burr infested clumps and his skin was so sun darkened and covered with abrasions that the discolorations made it impossible to tell his race. He was virtually naked except for the ragged buckskins hanging on his bony hips.
He made an incoherent croak, then slid down the walking stick he had been using to drag himself toward her, head pitched forward. Olivia knew he was too badly hurt to be any threat to her safety. She started to walk toward him as he fell to the ground. When he rolled over on his back and the dying rays of light fell on his face, she gave a gasp of recognition.
“Samuel!” Dear God he was half-dead, so emaciated and cut up it was a wonder he was still alive. What could have happened to him? She knelt beside him, cradling his head on her lap all the while screaming for help.
Micajah was the first one to reach her, his long brawny legs eating up the ground in devouring strides. “Sparky gal, yew all right?” He saw her crumpled on the ground, sobbing, and his heart stopped for an instant, until he realized she was tenderly stroking the man’s face, holding him protectively.
She looked up at him with tear blurred eyes. “Oh, Micajah, it’s Samuel. He’s burning up with fever. He’s been starved and beaten—”
“Hush, now. Hit’s not thet bad. He’s jest been out in th’ woods afoot fer a spell,” he said, kneeling beside her to examine the tall dark stranger while a crowd of Osage clustered around them, looking on curiously.
“He’s been run pretty skinny. I seen more meat stuck on a cook stick then he’s got left on his bones.” Micajah picked up each of Shelby’s feet and checked the raw festering soles. “If’n these here wuz moccasins, they’d have holes clean up ta his ankles.” He ran his big hands up Samuel’s legs and arms, then his torso, probing for broken bones and serious cuts and punctures. “Damn, child, this here’s one hell of a uglified mess!”
“He’s burning up with fever and that slash on his side is awful looking. Will...will he live?” she gulped out, holding her breath.
“Reckon I seen worse.” But not damn often, he added to himself, noting that for all her words of scorn and betrayal, his Sparky still seemed awfully attached to this young Long Knife. “He needs some tendin’. I done taught yew ‘bout herbs ‘n sech. Reckon yew feel up ta helpin’ me fix him up?”
“What do you want me to do?” she replied, her voice steady even though her heart still pounded fearfully.
“Thet’s my gal.” He looked up to where Iron Kite stood, scowling down at the white man Ember Woman held so lovingly. Speaking in Osage, Micajah made a series of requests.
Soon they had carried Samuel to the lodge of the Peace Chief, Pawhuska, whose head wife was steeping cherry bark, a fever reducing infusion. Several of the other Osage women gathered around, eager to help tend the hurts of Great Bear’s friend. Olivia politely, but firmly shooed them away and took the woven basin filled with fresh water to bathe him herself.
Micajah assisted her, examining the nasty head wound, crusted with dried blood that matted his hair. “This here might cud be bad—but hit won’t matter if’n he wakes up,” he hastened to add. Then he started checking countless angry red cuts and scratches marring Samuel’s skin. “Them on his arms ‘n chest ain’t nothin’ ta worry over,” he said, beginning to tug down what was left of the tattered buckskin britches.
“What are you doing?” she asked nervously.
He sensed Olivia’s embarrassment but ignored it. “We got ta see if’n he’s taken any pizen around his privates. Hit’ll kill a feller quicker ‘n anythin...or make him wish he wuz dead, anyways.”
Olivia could not stop staring at Samuel’s body. How pale his skin was below the waistband of his pants, almost as white as her own! Her eyes followed the slide of pants over the hard washboard of his belly, tracing that enticing narrow vee of body hair that seemed to travel like an arrow from the pelt on his chest downward to the black bush between his legs where his sex lay exposed as Micajah methodically examined him.
She remembered with scorching intensity how big and hard the now flaccid and innocent looking shaft had felt when he had loomed over her in the confines of the tent. She wet her dry lips and asked hoarsely, “Is he hurt…there?”
“Onliest thang serious, sides bein’ half-starved, is his haid ‘n th’ knife slice here in his side,” the old man said, pressing along the red swollen edges of the slash, which oozed a vile looking pussy liquid. He rolled Samuel onto his right side and raised his left arm, stretching open the deep ugly wound. “Hit’s in need ‘o some cleanin’, then sewin’. Yore right good with buff’lo skins. Reckon yew cud sew up a man?” He cocked one shaggy grizzled eyebrow and studied her pale face with shrewd brown eyes.
Olivia almost swallowed her tongue. “Sew him up?” she squeaked. “I—I suppose so.” She looked at the angry slash and felt her gorge rise, an unusual occurrence since learning to live in the wilds with Micajah. But gutting and skinning bison and deer were quite different than working with a man’s flesh and blood, especially when that man was Samuel Shelby.
“Wall, don’t fret jest yet. First off we gotta poultice hit ‘n git th’ fever down.” Then he swore to himself. “Damned if’n I didn’t fergit my medicine bundle when I packed up my possibles.”
“Don’t the Osage have the same herbs and such?”
“Some, not all, but whutever they is, they’ll have ta do till we kin git him back ta th’ cabin.”
Olivia continued to bathe his body, taking special care with the deeper cuts and the infected slash on his left side. When she got to his raw, lacerated feet, she nearly wept, realizing what he must have endured.
Micajah went in search of the tribal healer to secure what herbs he could to stave off further infection and help Shelby fight the fever. After conferring with Sun Carrier, Micajah waited while the old man prepared his potions. Just as they were about to leave the medicine lodge, Pawhuska entered.
Dismissing Sun Carrier and several of the women, he turned to Micajah and said, “I would speak for your ears alone.” The tall old man’s hawkish countenance was grave. He was past sixty winters, a great age among the Plains Indians, yet his hair for which he was named, was thick and shiny as January snow. A great beak of a nose was balanced by a strong square jaw. His brow was high and straight and his eyes were fathomless ebony. He studied Johnstone intently as he took a seat on a big pile of buffalo robes before the smoldering fire in the center of the lodge. Then he gestured for Micajah to join him as he prepared a pipe for them to share.
“My brother White Hair does me honor,” Micajah said in Osage as he hunkered down on the soft skins and took a puff from the proffered pipe.
“I would speak of the Long Knife Ember Woman discovered. The father in Washington will not be pleased to find one of his soldiers near death in our camp.”
Micajah’s shaggy eyebrows rose fractionally as he passed the pipe back to Pawhuska. “He wore
no uniform. How do you know he is a soldier?”
“The one called Samuel Shelby visited our village many months ago, wearing the blue coat of a soldier. My daughter Meadow Dancer came to tell me she recognized him, although he is so badly hurt no one else has.”
Micajah scratched a gnarled hand in his bushy beard. “What did he want of my Osage brothers when he was here last?” Sparky had speculated about Shelby’s mysterious reasons for leaving Lisa’s party to search for the Osage.
“He searches for the one he calls the Englishman, but that is not what he told us,” Pawhuska replied with startling candor.
It had been Johnstone’s experience of Indians—and he had much—that they seldom spoke directly to an issue but rather skirted around it obliquely, alluding to the point with metaphoric language, approaching it gradually. He nodded, waiting to see if the old chief would say more.
Pawhuska obliged him. “He. made a fine speech for our elders, asking that we remember our treaty with the father in Washington. He said that the Englishman would come among us spreading lies and making empty promises.”
“And has he?”
Pawhuska nodded his head. “Yes, and he returns. There are young men among my people who have listened to the words of this Englishman...and drunk the firewater he brings,” he added bitterly. “There will be a war between the Americans and the English, I think. And my people will be squeezed between the two.”
Isolated as he was, Micajah had heard vague rumors of such from the occasional trader or trapper whom he encountered in the wilderness. He felt sorry for the Osage, for all the tribes. Whenever white governments went to war, it was always the Indians who lost the most. “Will you choose sides or not?” he asked.
“I have touched the feather. My pledge was made to the Americans. But”—Pawhuska leaned forward earnestly—“I am one old man. A chief, yes, but still there are many voices who will be heard at our council fires. The young warriors grow tired of seeing more and more white settlers cross the Father of Waters, pushing us farther and farther away from the great rivers, toward the setting sun. Some elders on our council listen to their complaints.”