‘My new wife,’ Red-Cloud said as a ravishing dark-haired girl of Polly’s age entered with a dish of sweetmeats.
A wide-sleeved scarlet shift, richly embroidered, reached to her knees and her leggings were fringed and tasselled, her moccasins gleaming with gold. There was gold too, at her ears and throat and dozens of bracelets circled her smooth brown arms. Red-Cloud was obviously pleased with his new wife.
‘I, too, have a new wife,’ Dart said. To admit to having no wife would be beyond Red-Cloud’s comprehension. He kept his voice deliberately careless. ‘One of your braves took her from the wagon train she was travelling in five days ago.’
With a click of the fingers the new wife was dismissed. Red-Cloud frowned. ‘Was she an important wife to you?’
‘Very.’
Their eyes locked.
‘Was her hair gold like the sun and her eyes blue like the sky.’
‘Yes.’
How Dart found the strength to speak, he did not know. He was experiencing a terror he had never experienced even on the battlefield. In the next few seconds he would know if she was alive or dead.
Red-Cloud’s face was grim. ‘It is true. Such a one was taken and brought here.’ Dart could tell by the intonation in Red-Cloud’s voice that she was still alive. The prize of some brave. Captive in a tepee perhaps only yards away. He had lived among Indians long enough to know how they thought—how Red-Cloud was thinking now. A wife was only one of many and a despoiled wife was of little use to a man. Red-Cloud would offer him one of the prettiest of the squaws in recompense for Polly.
He said, still sitting Indian-fashion on the pile of skins as the fire in front of them burned and the smoke wound upwards and out of the hole in the apex of the tepee,
‘Even if she has been spoiled, I want her back.’
‘She has not been spoiled.’ Red-Cloud’s face looked like a carving in wood. It was impossible, even for Dart, to know what was going on in his mind. Still only thirty, he was as inscrutable as a practised statesman of eighty. ‘Black-Feather brought her here. He wanted to keep her.’ He shrugged. ‘You know my feelings towards the white man, Fire-Dart. They bring trouble. As do the women. I told him he must enjoy her and kill her.’
How Dart remained immobile he never knew. ‘And …’ he asked, knowing that if he showed any emotion now he would lose all standing in his half-brother’s eyes.
‘The woman had her flow. Black-Feather has had to wait for his pleasure.’ Dart gave silent thanks to nature and to Indian superstition.
‘He will not like to let her go. He has argued with his wives over her. They, too, do not want her in the camp.’
‘They will not have her in the camp,’ Dart said, feeling his hands tremble with relief as they rested on his knees. ‘I shall take her with me.’
Red-Cloud nodded assent, but his eyes were dark. ‘Children by the white woman will not be Pawnee, Fire-Dart. They will be our enemies. My new wife has a sister—younger, nearly as beautiful. Come back to us and help us keep our lands from the whites.’
They had met five times since the fur trapper had taken him away. Once, when Dart was twelve, again when he was seventeen and then three more times when he had been in his twenties. At every meeting the distance between them had become greater. Blood brothers; their lives destined them, eventually, to become enemies.
Dart knew that this time was the last that Red-Cloud would ever offer him the old way of life. He knew, too, that he could never come back. The Indian life was the life of his childhood, not his manhood.
He shook his head. ‘My life is elsewhere.’
‘Then we will not meet again,’ Red-Cloud said, and there was sadness in the impassive voice.
He nodded at the brave who waited at the open flap of the tepee and the vermillion-tipped feathers on his head-dress swayed. ‘Bring the white woman. Tell Black-Feather she is my brother’s squaw. He must look elsewhere for his pleasure.’
Instinctively Dart’s hands clenched. When Polly stepped into the tepee she would have to react to him as a rescued wife and there was no way he could speak to her and explain. He had only his eyes. Pray God she read the message in his eyes and had sufficient wit to grasp the situation. He saw himself as she would see him; sitting cross-legged on the furs and skins, his shirt discarded and no sign of a reassuring blue uniform. The bandanna around his head turned him instantly from an arresting-looking man into an unmistakable Indian—a savage. That was the last word she had shouted after him. Would she behave any differently now? He stifled a groan. All his mental senses strained towards her. If he could not reach her by speech he must reach her some other way.
The tepee flap was flung back. ‘She is here,’ the brave said, and flung a dishevelled and terrified Polly before them.
Chapter Nine
Polly had kicked and struggled, but there had been no mercy in the arms that had captured her.
Lydia Lyman’s terrified face receded, thudding hooves covered the icy plain at breakneck speed. If the iron arm released her now she would be crushed instantly by the horses behind. The air was squeezed from her lungs and with a sob she capitulated, hanging as weakly as a rag doll. The Indian heaved her unceremoniously up and across his horse so that she hung like the sacks of wheat Jared brought home from the mill, her fingertips only inches from the snow that flashed beneath her semi-conscious eyes.
She could hardly breathe for the pain in her chest. If she did not raise her head she would pass out completely, yet she could not. Movement was impossible. She could do nothing but grit her teeth and pray for survival.
The horse sweated beneath her and against her body she could feel the rough leggings of the Indian and his heat and his smell. Dear Lord. What sort of survival? She had heard rumours of what happened to white women if they fell prey to marauding Indians. She remembered the men in the dry goods store in Corrington. She had thought that nothing could have been worse than that. From her undignified position she caught fleeting glimpses of the other riders. Near to the painted faces were even more terrifying. She became dimly aware of a shouted conflict between her captor and the others and hope rose within her breast. Perhaps, after all, they would let her go. A hand came down hard on her calico skirts as the Indian emphasised a word that was an unmistakable no. Polly closed her eyes and fought hysteria. She had not been taken by the raiding party as a whole: she had been taken by one warrior and the hand that came down, slapping her where no one, not even her father had slapped her, was one of ownership.
Fear drowned all thought. Her mind was paralysed with it. The incessant movement of the horse beneath her chest was too much to be borne. She could breathe no longer. The snow swam, merging into blood red and then darkness and her last conscious image was not of Lydia Lyman’s outstretched hands, or of Jared’s agonised face, but of Dart Richards. If he had been with them she would not have been taken. Yet it was she herself who had driven him away, calling him a savage. She had not truly known what the word meant, but she did now. She whispered his name helplessly and sank into merciful oblivion.
She was returned to consciousness by being thrown brutally to the ground. The Indian slipped lightly from his horse and again she was aware of angry voices and of conflict. She struggled to her knees, her hands clenched tightly in her lap, her legs too weak to support her.
The ground of the campsite had been cleared of snow, churned into mud by many feet. The raiding party had dismounted, hurrying squaws led the steaming horses away. Children stared at her curiously. She strained her eyes beyond the tepees and into the distance, hoping vainly to recognise some landmark. All was strange and devoid of any other habitation. They were in a valley bounded by ice-covered rocks. A stream ran nearby, rushing swiftly with melting snow. Stark, leafless willows clustered on its banks.
The children were joined by dogs and from the nearest tepee squaws in shifts of rough linen and beads eyed her hostilely. She rose unsteadily to her feet. The tepees were clustered in threes and fours, and then,
from one far bigger than all the others, she saw the brave who had taken her emerge. He had been to his Chief. She saw the rich bison skins that covered the tepee, the wolf’s ears that crowned the apex, the ornamentation of crosses, circles and arabesques that surrounded the entrance. Perhaps the Indian Chief would have pity on her, would allow her to return to Richardson Point or the Chariton.
Her captor’s headband was black and beaded, his feathers a blue-black plume. The expression in his eyes as he caught hold of her was no different to the expression in the eyes of the men at Corrington.
‘No … Please …’
There was no way she could escape him and throw herself on the Chief’s mercy. He began to drag her in his wake and she called imploringly to the squaws who watched.
‘Please! Help me! Oh please!’
No help was forthcoming. The women turned their backs. The children watched and the dogs nosed at their heels. She was flung inside a tepee full of strange smells, dark and overpowering. A girl not much older than herself spat angrily at her captor and was rewarded by a stinging blow to her cheek. As Polly was flung on to a pile of skins the girl was ejected forcibly.
He stood above her and in the darkness white teeth flashed in a smile of anticipation.
‘No …’ She tried to scramble to her feet, but with animal speed he pinioned her to the ground. She screamed and screamed, but this time there was no Dart to hear her and to save her.
Her legs were cruelly parted and then, as suddenly as he had seized her, he let her go with an oath, kicking at her violently. She shrank back, panting. The triumphant expression on his face had turned to one of cheated fury. With a shower of abuse he kicked at her again and then turned on his heels, the tepee flap opening and falling closed behind him.
Polly began to tremble and then to shake. She wrapped her arms around herself, hugging herself tightly, fighting for control. For some reason she had been given a respite. She had to make use of it. She had to overcome the paralysing effect of her fear and think. Slowly the shaking eased. Her teeth no longer chattered. She took deep, steadying breaths. Think. She must think. Instinctively her arms lowered to press against the ache in her stomach and then halted. The inconvenience that she had to endure each month had saved her. She had more than minutes in which to think of a way of escape: she had days. He would not touch her again until her time of the month had passed.
The squaw came back into the tepee and sulkily handed Polly a plate that contained meat and beans. Unwillingly she ate; whatever happened to her she would need her strength and she would need allies. The squaw might prove to be one, for she obviously resented Polly’s presence in what appeared to be her home. Was the Indian who had taken her the squaw’s husband? If so, it would account for her bitter anger. The food warmed her. The ache in her stomach comforted her. She was, for the moment, safe. She had only to gain the squaw’s compliance, and escape would be easy. Even without help she would achieve freedom. She was filled with determination and confidence. It received its first dent when the squaw adamantly refused to enter into any sort of communication with her. No matter how much she wanted to be rid of Polly, she feared Black-Feather’s wrath too much to be active in aiding her.
That night Polly was ejected from the tepee and left with a covering of skins on the frozen ground, staked by the wrists to a stout wooden pole. The squaw’s eyes had been gloating as she retreated into the warmth of the tepee with her brave. Polly wished her well of him and concentrated on freeing her wrists from the thongs that bound her.
The dogs prowled around, growling and then falling silent and sleeping. She chafed the leather against the poles. She chewed it with her teeth and she cried in exasperation as nothing weakened it. In the morning she was still bound as ignominiously as a beast of burden.
For the next few days that was how she was treated. The hard work she had endured on the trail was nothing to the work Black-Feather’s squaw demanded of her. At her first proud refusal the squaw called her husband and the Indian had whipped her back until it had bled. She had not refused again. Her determination and optimism was gradually eroded as the third day slipped into the fourth and she was still no nearer escape. The braves were constantly armed, small tomahawks at their belts. On the fifth day she washed in the bitterly cold stream and knew there was no longer any reason for Black-Feather to refrain from taking her inside his tepee.
The squaw knew too, and her eyes were malevolent as Polly ground kernels of wheat for bread and carried back-breaking buckets of water from the stream to the camp.
The weather was changing. The stream gushed with the melted snow from the hills in the distance. Spring was coming, but it was a spring Polly doubted she would see. That night, and perhaps for several nights after, Black-Feather would take her in his tepee and then he would kill her. The escape she had thought so easy had proved impossible. Dusk was approaching. Across the campfire she saw Black-Feather nearing her, and she realised that he knew she was no longer untouchable.
She brushed her hair away from her eyes in a helpless gesture. It would have been better if he had taken her days ago. Better if she had died that first or second night and not lived for days with vain hopes of escape or rescue.
She turned her head sharply as she heard the sound of a galloping horse. The hunting parties had returned long ago, and a wild, unreasoning emotion surged briefly through her. It was extinguished almost immediately. Why should she think that he would come and save her? He did not even know of her capture. He would be in St Louis now, or at his fort. Yet she felt so near to him. She began to cry. Not for the fate that awaited her, but for Major Dart Richards, who would never know that she loved him. Jared, foolish and headstrong, had seen to it that they had parted in anger. She wiped her tears away. It was possible that Dart Richards had already forgotten her. Possible that he had never wanted her love in the first place.
The stranger was entering the bison-covered tepee with the wolf’s ears on its crown and Black-Feather was approaching.
She began to run, making one last attempt to throw herself at the mercy of the Indian chief, but Black-feather had seized her shoulders. Time had, at last, run out.
The squaw had gone, but a meal was prepared: a meal that Black-Feather ate alone, the whip on the ground beside him, within hand’s reach if Polly dared to move from the pile of skins that served as bedding.
From outside Polly smelt the now-familiar aroma of wood smoke mingled with buffalo chips. Black-Feather sat cross-legged, eyeing her lasciviously whilst he ate. There seemed to Polly only one decision left to make: to be killed making a hopeless attempt to escape, or to be killed after being subjected to the violation of her body. The first choice seemed preferable. She saw the whip and the tomahawk in his belt. She knew she would never succeed, but she was beyond caring. She would not go to her death passively and after satisfying Black-Feather’s lust. He rose and threw the bones of his dinner to the dogs outside. Polly sprang to her feet and hurtled towards the open flaps. He caught her so violently that she screamed with the pain, and then she was on the floor, thrashing in the straw and dirt, fighting to free herself of his weight and the unspeakable, brutal, searching hands.
The voices were loud and sharp and authoritative and the nightmare paused. He was on his feet and she was being dragged to hers. Dragged by braves who had never shown interest in her before. Dragged outside, away from the tepee—away from Black-Feather whose fury showed in every line of his face and in the virulent words he hurled after her.
Polly felt fleeting relief and then increasing panic. She had been saved from Black-Feather’s attentions, but for what? What further horror awaited her? It was dusk now. The Indians were quiet and watchful as they crowded around the camp fires. Half falling in the wake of the two braves who held her, Polly saw the tepee with the wolf’s ears loom large.
The Chief. She was being brought before the Indian Chief. Her eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness of the tepees and this one was large, a fire burning in
the centre, smoke escaping through the apex above.
Behind the flames was a large bank of rich furs and skins and two men, one with a vermillion-tipped headdress of hundreds of white feathers, the other an unadorned replica.
A squaw she had seen before only at a distance, with gold at her ears and throat, glided past her and for the first time Polly was almost sure the glance she was given had been friendly.
The braves who had brought her had now released her. She stood upright and free. She tilted her chin defiantly. Whatever the reason for her summons she would not plead nor cry.
The Chief was speaking and asking a question, but not of her. The voice that answered was unmistakable. Polly swayed on her feet, her eyes searching the firelit gloom. Where was he? How had he found her?
‘Dart …’ She stepped forward and then halted.
The flames from the fire crackled and burned brightly. The Chief’s face, framed by its headdress, was impassive. As impassive as the face of the man next to him. The Indian next to him. Familiar eyes burned in the still, expressionless face. They held hers, forbidding her to cry out, halting her where she stood.
‘My woman,’ Dart said in a voice of near-indifference, ‘has not been well looked after.’
Her hair had not seen a brush for a week. There was dirt on her face from her struggle with Black-Feather. Her gown was rent and filthy with mud.
She opened her mouth to speak, but his black eyes gleamed with a desperate urgency that did not accord with his indifferent manner.
She remained silent and uncomprehending. The Indian Chief nodded, and with a clap of his hands the gold-ornamented squaw reappeared. He spoke to her in Pawnee and the girl took hold of Polly’s arm, intent on leading her away.
A Many-Splendoured Thing Page 14