“Hold up, son.”
Rea drew back on his reins and turned around in a half circle, gentling the lead mare who controlled their packhorses. Keeping an eye on Waits, Magpie, and young Jackrabbit, Titus waited several moments until he was assured they were close enough, then turned back to peer at the horsemen. The three riders in their front had already put their horses into motion, while the four off to the right approached more slowly, cautiously, at an angle.
“Pote Ani? Is that really you?” one of the voices called out.
“It is me!” Titus cried in Crow with growing excitement, squinting in the bright autumn sun at the trio, unable to discern which one had called out his name.
“The old shaman—Real Bird—he said he had seen you in a dream a few days ago … that you were going to return twice more,” the young man explained as he approached. “But after that second return, you would never leave the Crow again … without a terrible end coming to you and all those around you.”
A cold fingernail scraped its way slowly down his backbone with that prediction from the old soothsayer. He trained his eyes on the youngster and asked, “Who are you?”
“Stiff Arm!” the young man cried.
“No! You are grown so much in this past year!” Titus marveled, immediately forgetting the ominous prediction with the joy of returning home to his wife’s people. “When we left last summer you were but a youngster, growing quickly … but a youngster still the same … and look at you now! A young man! Is this what happens when you put away the things of a boy?”
“Do you remember me too?” one of the four asked as they came up and halted on his right.
Turning, Bass studied the youth’s face. “Is that you, Three Iron?”
“Has it truly been a year, Pote Ani?”
Titus nodded. “Long enough for boys like you to grow into such fine young men.”
He watched how that made both of them beam there before their peers.
“Could this be little Flea?” Stiff Arm asked with a grin, pointing out the young horseman sitting next to Titus. “The boy who was so small when you left us last summer?”
“Like my father said, a year is a long time in the life of a young warrior,” the boy replied, his face glowing.
Three Iron agreed, “Well said, Flea! Well said!”
Then a young man Bass did not know asked, “So that must be Magpie?”
Seeing how they all had trained their eyes beyond him, Titus turned in his saddle to find his wife and the other two children approaching with the lone travois horse.
“No, Turns Back,” Stiff Arm said, “that cannot be little Magpie!”
“But who else could it be, Pote Ani?” asked another youngster Scratch did not know.
“Pote Ani, please forgive our brash manners,” Three Iron apologized. “These boys—Turns Back and Don’t Mix—they are as amazed as I am just how beautiful Magpie has become in the year since she has been away.”
With a guarded sigh, he took a moment and studied his daughter as the last three members of his family came to a halt around him. The girl was every bit as beautiful as her mother must have been at that young age—which made Scratch wonder if Magpie herself would choose to wait for just the right man … or if she would allow herself to be swept off her feet by the first suitor who turned her head with sweet talk and a bevy of pretty presents.
“Magpie?” breathed the youngster named Don’t Mix. “You are now the prettiest girl in our camp!”
She dropped her eyes as Waits asked, “Husband, who are these young men?”
“We are some of the camp guards. My name is Stiff Arm,” the horseman introduced himself.
“Who is this one who talks to my young daughter without waiting for her mother’s permission?” Waits asked, her eyes boring into the guard next to Three Iron.
“I-I am Don’t Mix,” he answered, grown a bit anxious in the face of a mother’s sternness.
“Who is your mother, Don’t Mix?” she asked him abruptly. “Do I know her?”
“I d-don’t know—”
“Maybe I should know her first before you take the liberty of talking to my daughter, Don’t Mix.”
“I apologize for him,” Turns Back volunteered, off to the side. “Maybe we forget ourselves and our manners when we see how pretty a girl has come back to live in our camp.”
She turned to look at the one who had spoken up. “Do I know your mother?”
“Yes, I think you do,” the boy declared. “She has told me you and she were friends when you were children yourselves.”
“What is her name?”
Turns Back said, “Bends. Her name is—”
“Yes, Bends,” Waits repeated. “She is your mother?” When the youngster nodded, she looked him up and down. “Are you sure? You are not the skinny little boy I knew as the son of my friend. Where is that little boy who had such big feet and skinny legs that I was always afraid he would trip over his moccasins and break a bone?”
All around Turns Back the other youngsters were sniggering behind their hands, just the way young men would do when one of them had fun poked at him.
Turns Back swallowed hard to keep down his anger at them and said, “That little boy … he is no longer a little boy, Waits-by-the-Water. He has grown up … and wears even bigger moccasins now!”
“I can see,” she told him, gazing down at his sizable feet. “This name of yours, Turns Back, is it a new name?”
“Yes,” the boy answered. “I was given the name last spring.”
Stiff Arm explained, “Turns Back got his name when he turned back into a buffalo herd on foot to kill one more cow for his family. All the older men, they said it was a brave thing to do for his family, that no one else had ever done such a thing—and on foot! Later that day, the old shaman, Real Bird, said it was just as he had seen it in a dream.”
“So you were very brave that day?” Titus asked the youngster.
“My uncles gave me the new name for my bravery, yes.”
Waits took a deep breath and rocked back in her saddle, wriggling there between the tall cantle and saddlehorn, both of them ornamented with long fringes and colorful porcupine quills. “I am glad to see you again, Turns Back, who is no longer a little boy with big feet. I am very much looking forward to seeing your mother again. I want to tell her how proud she should be that you remember your manners so well … when there are other young men who do not remember what their mothers tried to teach them.”
As she said these last few words, her eyes fell on the youngster called Don’t Mix. His eyes were promptly downcast, and a crestfallen look crossed his face. By all appearances, he was duly chastised by an older woman, the mother of a young and beautiful girl—right in front of that girl, no less!
“Tell me,” Bass inquired, “where is Yellow Belly’s village headed now? Are you still hunting for buffalo?”
Many of the others turned their eyes to look at Stiff Arm, but it was Three Iron who spoke up first.
“The One Who Used to Lead Us … he died night before last.”
“Y-Yellow Belly,” Titus stammered, forgetting the custom of not speaking the name of one who had passed on. “He’s dead?”
“Yes,” answered Stiff Arm. “The old ones met for a long time last night, but they did not decide on a new chief. So they went off to their beds and will meet again tonight.”
“He wasn’t killed?” Titus asked, astonished at the news.
“No, he fell sick many days ago while we were far to the north,” Three Iron stated. “He immediately ordered the camp to start south again for the Elk River.”*
“The One Who Used to Lead Us firmly believed that if he got back to the Elk River and could cross it to the south, touching once more the land where he was born,” Stiff Arm continued the story, “he would be healed.”
“But …” —and Three Iron paused—“he did not live to make it back to the river.”
Titus gazed at Waits a long moment, watching how the gravity
of this news struck her too. When he finally looked back at these youngsters, all of them less than a third of his age, Scratch said quietly, “He was … your chief was younger than me. Healthy, and strong as a warhorse. I cannot believe that he would be brought down by anything but the hand of his enemies in battle.”
“Everyone thought the same thing,” Turns Back suddenly commented. “That is why the news caught every man in camp by surprise. Our chief was so strong and vigorous.”
“How did this happen?”
Three Iron explained, “He grew sick one day while we were out hunting buffalo—most of the men in our camp were on the hunt.”
“Who was with him?” Titus asked. “Any of you?”
They turned to look at Don’t Mix.
The brash youngster now said, “I was near him, watched him rein up his horse. By the time I got my head turned around to find out why he was stopping in the middle of the buffalo chase, he had both hands clawing at his chest … and he was slowly falling off his horse.”
“Did you go back for him?”
Don’t Mix nodded. “I called for help, from anyone in the sound of my voice. Those who were close enough to hear came running to help, but I don’t think there was anything any of us could do.”
Now Stiff Arm took up the story, “The older men called up one of the travois the women had brought out to the hill overlooking the buffalo herd. We loaded him on it and hurried him back to camp.”
“Real Bird was called to make ready his medicine,” Three Iron said. “Even before we got our chief back to camp.”
Titus asked, “Was he still alive when he reached the village?”
“Yes,” Stiff Arm replied. “He was breathing hard, like a man running uphill on foot. And sweating too, even though it was a very cool day.”
“Did he say anything to you?”
It was quiet a moment, then Three Iron said, “He did not speak until Real Bird was standing over the travois when it arrived in camp, when the healer started to pray. That was three nights ago.”
“What did he say to the old shaman?”
Three Iron looked at Titus, explaining, “Our chief wanted the healer to hurry him back to the Yellowstone as fast as the men could drag him on that travois. To start immediately and not stop until he was on the south bank.”
Stiff Arm continued. “He swore he did not want to die north of the Elk River.”
For a moment he studied their young faces, their averted eyes. These young men had something more to say than they were telling him. Finally Bass prodded them, “Why was your chief so afraid to die north of the river?”
When the rest would not speak, Turns Back admitted, “When our chief finally stopped breathing, Real Bird made his announcement to the camp … and said that he had always been afraid of dying so close to Blackfoot country.”
“Why was he afraid of that?” Titus asked. “Many a good Crow warrior has died in Blackfoot country.”
“It was the old seer, Real Bird, who made him afraid—many, many summers ago, when he was a young man like us,” Stiff Arm declared. “Back before he became a war chief, Real Bird told him that he had a vision that as long as He Who Is No Longer Here stayed close to the Elk River, he would live long as a leader of the people. But if he ever stayed too long north of the river, venturing too far into the land where the Blackfoot roamed … that the spirits would not be strong in him and he would be weakened, grow sick, and die.”
“Then your chief had every reason to be afraid,” Titus said. “The old healer had seen his end in a dream … and it came to pass.”
“And the same for you?” Three Iron asked. “Will it come to pass too? What Real Bird saw in a dream about your final day?”
Bass strove to wave off the old seer’s prophecy, saying, “Not every dream comes true.” He looked at Waits a moment, saw her eyes cloud with doubt.
“That old man has rarely been wrong,” Stiff Arm declared.
“For more winters than any of you have been alive, I have come and gone from Absaroka,” Titus explained to them. Just the saying of those words, made him suddenly feel all the older here before these youngsters. In those days among the hardwood forests of Boone County, he had been like them: their blood running hot like a potent sap through their veins—undeniable and unstoppable, with their whole lives ahead of them.
Sore from the long rides they had been making every day on this journey north, he flexed his sore back. Then Scratch responded, “Then—if old man Real Bird’s dreams are true it means I am destined to leave and return to the land of the Crow one more time. From that day on I must make sure I never leave my wife’s people again, so no trouble comes to all who are around me.”
Three Iron smiled, glancing quickly at Magpie when he said, “I think some of our young men truly would like it if your family never left the Crow at all!”
Gazing at his daughter, whose high cheekbones were blushed with the rose of embarrassment, her eyes fixed on the withers of her horse, Scratch said, “You be sure to tell all those who have ears that it will be a long time before Magpie’s father entertains a suitor for her. This is only her fourteenth winter, so they are wasting their time if they come scratching at our lodge door.”
Some of the older guards quickly turned their eyes on the younger members of their group. But instead of looking away, Don’t Mix said, “Your daughter is a fine prize, no matter how long a man has to wait.”
“But you stay away from her,” Bass reminded. “Don’t come around our lodge at all.”
Looking squarely at the father, Turns Back asked, “Will you let the camp know when you decide Magpie is old enough for us to court her? In the old tradition of telling the camp that your daughter is ready to take a husband?”
For a moment he caught his wife’s eyes. Waits-by-the-Water barely lowered her lids and dropped her chin slightly, just enough to signal him. Scratch turned back to the handsome young warrior and said, “Yes. We will tell all the people when Magpie is ready to leave our lodge and start a life of her own, with a husband of her choosing.”
Don’t Mix tapped himself on the chest and asked, “You will give your daughter away to one of us?”
“Perhaps,” Scratch replied. “Maybe only Real Bird knows what the future holds for any of us. As for you and me … the seasons to come will have to remain a deep mystery.”
Which is the way he had always preferred it.
* Yellowstone River.
TWENTY-FOUR
“T-T-Ti-tuzz!” Waits whispered softly.
As he awoke Waits-by-the-Water was already huffing—gritting her teeth while her breath came quick and labored. Scratch rolled toward her, onto his right hip, and propped himself up on an elbow, about ready to ask her what troubled her so … then felt the dampness. Slipping a hand between them, his fingers brushed over the blanket she had been sleeping on every night for the past two weeks. Initially he had thought she folded the blanket up in four layers beneath her to provide a little more insulation from the frozen ground.
But that first night she stretched out upon that old red blanket, Waits had explained, “I think this child’s time is soon.”
Now he discovered the blanket below her buttocks was damp, quickly growing chill. Worried, he immediately brought his fingers to his nose and sniffed at them. Not the smell of blood, more so her fragrance.
“How long ago?” he asked as he sat upright.
Her head plopped down onto the horsehair pillow, weary from the effort. “Not long now,” she said, exhaustion apparent in her voice.
“Why didn’t you wake me before?”
She turned to gaze at him in the dim light, a grin written on her face. “What are you going to do to make this any easier for me, husband?”
Turning, he pitched some small pieces of broken limb onto the embers. “I could make more light, warm the lodge for you too.”
He leaned forward, grabbed his long hair in one hand to keep it out of the ash and coals, then blew several times on the fi
re to excite the flickering flames. “And,” he continued, considering whether he could call upon the services of a midwife, “I could go get Bear Below to help us—to help you give birth to this child.”
Before she had a chance to answer, Waits-by-the-Water looped her hands beneath her thighs and scrunched up with another strong contraction, her eyes clenched shut as she huffed noisily. So noisily he thought she was going to awaken the children. Titus turned and looked at Magpie’s side of the lodge. The girl was already awake, her eyes wide as capote buttons as she watched in silence. He turned to the boys’ side of the lodge, finding Flea’s eyes open. But Jackrabbit hadn’t moved.
“Is your brother awake, Flea?”
The boy looked closely, then said, “No.”
“Let him sleep,” Scratch whispered. “Do you want to stay while your little brother or sister is born?”
For a moment Flea looked across the fire at Magpie, then answered. “I’ll stay here with our mother while she delivers this child.”
“Magpie?” he asked his daughter.
“S-stay,” she confessed. “Last time—when Jackrabbit was born—I was too little to understand. Now I can see, and I want to know how a woman suffers when she gives life to a child.”
“This is a good thing,” he said, but thought better of it and turned back to Waits. “The children, they can stay to watch this event with their own eyes?”
She nodded clumsily, huffing her way through the end of that long contraction. “Y-yes, they can stay with us.”
“Flea,” Scratch directed, “put on your coat and go to Bear Below’s lodge. Tell her your mother’s time has come and we need her here now.”
Carefully crawling over his little brother, Flea sat down next to the rekindled fire and pulled on his heavy, thickly furred winter moccasins. Then he dragged his blanket coat over his arms, stood and lashed it around his waist with a sash before ducking from the lodge door. A cold gust snaked its way through the portal before Flea got the stiffened door flap closed, along with a dusting of powdery flakes.
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