Fallen Stars, Bitter Waters

by Gilbert, Morris

  His one visible eye was closed, and his features were sharp, bony, like an old man’s. The natural burnt umber of his skin had faded to a sallow dark yellow.

  They had entered the canyon from the north so that they passed all of the huts where the Indians were living. Like an ill wind, Little Bird screamed, “Cody’s hurt! We’re taking him to the whites! Cody’s hurt . . .” Indians on foot ran after the horses. As they rode through, everyone in the canyon followed them.

  The soldiers were already up and were stoking the fire in the great room and boiling water for coffee and tea. Hearing the shouts, they ran outside.

  Little Bird, drawn and sobbing, jumped off her horse and ran to Con Slaughter. “Help him! He—it was wolves! A wolf ! Cody—he’s—”

  Con and his team pushed through the crowd that immediately surrounded the cart. With one look at Cody’s face, Con grew grim. Quickly he searched the crowd, then ordered, “Dr. Ives! Get a move on. He needs help!”

  Gildan Ives’s white skin grew even paler. “I’m—I’m just a veterinarian, Captain! You know that!”

  Con growled, “Well, that’s four more years’ medical training than anyone else here has, ma’am.”

  Gildan looked around helplessly as if she were a lab rat in a maze. Everyone was staring at her accusingly. With a gruff sigh, Niklas Kesteven, who looked like a grizzly bear just awakened from hibernation, stepped up to her side. “C’mon, Gildan. I’ll help you.”

  “All—all right, Niklas,” she said timidly.

  They climbed up into the cart, one on each side of Cody.

  “I—I need to see how badly he’s hurt before we try to move him inside,” Gildan said shakily.

  Niklas nodded and pulled back the blankets covering Cody.

  Gildan’s hand went to her mouth as she flinched in shock.

  His entire body was crimson red with blood.

  Grimly Niklas peeled back the makeshift leather strips that Little Bird had bound around Cody’s torn body.

  The silence was complete.

  Gildan made herself look closely at Cody’s chest and stomach. Then, standing jerkily upright, she said in a choked voice, “If he were a dog, I’d put him down.”

  She jumped out of the cart, landing hard, took two unsteady steps, and kept her back turned, her head bowed.

  Little Bird wailed, “You—you people! You white people know everything. You’ve—you’ve made—everything! Do something!”

  With unaccustomed gentleness Niklas was covering Cody back up. “Little Bird, if we had a crack thoracic surgeon, a sterile operating theater, the latest laser surgical instruments, I’d still give him only a fifty-fifty shot. Here . . .” He shrugged helplessly.

  “It’s because we desecrated the burial grounds,” Ritto said in a voice so filled with pain that he sounded more like an injured animal. “We never should have gone there.” Bluestone was uncommonly quiet, merely nodding sorrowfully.

  Little Bird looked around at the gathered crowd, and her face became twisted with anger. No one would look at her. “Someone has to help him,” she said between gritted teeth. “I—I don’t know what else to do.”

  Zoan, who was standing right by the cart, stared down at Cody Bent Knife with his characteristic lack of expression. “I guess I have to,” he whispered. “I promised him I would if he ever got hurt.”

  Suddenly Dancy, who was standing close by Victorine, stepped forward. “I’ll—I’ll help take care of him, Zoan.”

  “Oh, that’s just great!” Little Bird said savagely. “A half-wit and a little kid!”

  “Silence, woman,” Benewah Two Color said sternly, stepping forward to stand by Dancy. His dark eyes raked over Little Bird.

  “You shame us—especially Cody Bent Knife—by your dishonorable words.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Victorine said in a tight voice. Her eyes were like flint, and her voice was hard. “Dancy will do no such thing. She can’t possibly help someone who is hurt that badly.

  She—she can’t. She won’t.”

  Benewah turned to her, and his face was kind. “Your daughter looks like the little snow rabbits. She is small and quiet and meek.

  But she has the heart of a cougar. You must let her do this.”

  Victorine did not seem as much absorbed in the Indian’s words as she seemed stunned. Her eyes widened as she stared at Benewah, unblinking. But after long moments she dropped her eyes and looked away.

  Con, Rio, Darkon, and Benewah carried Cody into the great room. As gently as they could, they laid him by the roaring morning fire on several of the beautiful blankets. Benewah said, “You go. Zoan and the girl and I will see to him.”

  Like embarrassed children, the three soldiers shuffled out.

  Benewah began to tend the fire and see to preparing water to cleanse Cody with. Zoan knelt by Cody, gently removing the sticky red strips from his body and replacing them with big sterile Ty-gauze pads that were brought from the vet supply at the lab. Cody never moved, and his one eye remained closed. His breathing was shallow, ragged.

  Dancy stopped and stared around. It was dark, for this led into a great warren of rooms cut back into the heart of a mesa. The only light came from two window openings cut beside the door, and the soldiers had tacked canvas over them for the winter. Strange shadows from the firelight danced on the remote stone walls, and the ceiling was hidden in darkness. It was a bleak, barren room that offered no comfort. With a small shiver she hurried to Cody’s side.

  “Benewah Two Color,” Zoan said, the sound hollow in the big empty room, “we need more of these pads. They’re in a storeroom, down the first passage, left, then left again. And I guess you better get some morphine-X, Benewah.”

  Without a word Benewah hurried through a door at the back.

  Dancy sat cross-legged by Cody, and her eyes met Zoan’s over his still body. “He’s hurt really bad, Zoan,” she said. With a feather-light touch, she began to remove the bulky bandage from Cody’s face. He had three raw scratches down his cheek, from just beneath his eye diagonally down to his jawbone. But they weren’t deep at all, only raw and swollen. They were minor compared to his other injuries, and his eye was untouched. Little Bird had bandaged his face rather clumsily in her distress.

  “That’s better, hmm?” Dancy whispered.

  Cody opened his eyes. They were clouded, unseeing, but then he focused on Dancy’s face. “You . . . Dancy? You’re . . .”

  “Yes, it’s me, Dancy. You’re home.”

  “I’m here, too, Cody,” Zoan said in his childlike tones. “I’m going to take care of you, just like I promised.”

  Benewah Two Color hurried back into the room and knelt by Cody with a big stack of rolled bandages and pads. “Cody, my son,” he said in a deep voice, “I’m here.”

  Cody nodded slightly, then licked his lips. “I’m thirsty. Can I have some water?”

  Benewah jumped up, but Dancy said sternly, “No, Benewah.

  Not yet.” To Cody, she said, “In just a few minutes, Cody. But no water, not now.”

  Benewah seemed angry for a moment, but then his shoulders slumped with resignation. “All right, little girl. What do you need?”

  Dancy frowned. “I—I don’t know . . . let me think . . .” She bowed her head for a moment. Then she looked back up, her eyes a clear light blue. “Heat that water to boiling, please. And— and—” She turned to Zoan as if to appeal to him. “Would you go and get some sage, Zoan? Some fresh sage that’s still green?”

  Zoan made a move as if to get up, but Benewah laid his hand on his shoulder. “No. I will go.”

  Cody asked with difficulty, “Dancy? You—how old are you?”

  She swallowed. “I’m sixteen. I’ll be seventeen in two months.”

  Cody didn’t smile, for his face was riven with pain, but it did seem as if his haunted expression lightened for a moment. “Sixteen . . . when I was sixteen I went on a vision quest . . . I went out into the desert alone, and I didn’t eat, and I didn’t drink .
. . The sun burned me and the nights chilled me . . . I was seeking death, for the Apache believe that when you draw near to death and stare at it, you have visions . . . and I did.” His voice trailed off, and he tried to move his body. The pain grew to a savage heat, and he almost cried out, but he bit his lip so that no weak groan would escape him.

  Dancy said, “No, don’t move, Cody. I’ll go ask Dr. Ives how much morphine to give you—”

  “No,” he panted. “No drugs. I don’t . . . want to . . . die . . . not knowing . . . not understanding . . .”

  “All right, Cody,” Dancy said soothingly. “Here, let me see if I can make you a little more comfortable.” She rearranged his blankets, adjusted the rolled blanket under his head, covered his legs and feet with another blanket. All the time Zoan never looked up from searching his friend’s face.

  Finally Benewah Two Color came back in with a bunch of wild sage in his gnarled hands. He hurried to Cody’s pallet. Cody had closed his eyes again. “Is he—” Benewah asked fearfully.

  Dancy shook her head. “No, he’s just resting. Thank you, Benewah. Will you help me a minute?” She and Benewah went and stoked the fire underneath the cast-iron pot of water. It was almost boiling. Dancy picked out the smallest, most tender shoots of the hardy plant. A delightfully spicy scent, like a cold and clear day in the desert, permeated the room.

  Cody’s eyes were still closed, but he shifted his head a little. Zoan watched him and saw that he was sniffing. “That smells— refreshing . . . it’s a clean smell . . . so clean . . .” He opened his eyes and almost smiled at Zoan. “Sweet smells . . . a hot fire . . . a good friend . . . not a bad way to die, is it, Zoan? This death . . . it’s better than my visions . . . they were—they frightened me . . .” He was quiet for a moment, watching Zoan’s somber face. “They were lies, weren’t they?”

  Zoan answered in a strong voice, “I don’t know. Maybe it was God trying to talk to you, Cody, in a way that you would understand. He talked to me that way until I could hear Him. He talked to me with music.”

  A dark light, perhaps of hope, lit Cody’s eyes. “Do you—do you think—He still would talk to me, Zoan?”

  Zoan almost smiled. “I think He’s always talked to you, Cody. I think He’s talking to you right now.”

  Cody was silent a moment. His shadowed, pain-filled eyes met Zoan’s fathomless gaze, and neither of the two young men moved.

  But something, something felt rather than seen, perceived rather than known, passed between them. They were brothers, and they loved each other as much as two men, so unlike, so alien to each other, possibly could.

  “He’s your Father, too,” Zoan said quietly.

  A single tear slid down Cody’s carved cheek. “It—seems— cowardly. Self-serving . . . for me to—to—pray to Him now. Now that I’m—dying . . .”

  Zoan took Cody’s hand. There was blood on it, and it smeared onto Zoan’s palm and fingers. “I don’t know what that means, Cody. All I know is that He will hear your voice, and He will know the truth of your heart. ‘The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith . . . that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.’ ”

  A shadow, whether of pain or doubt, twisted Cody’s face. “My heart longs to be saved . . . my mouth—I’m—thirsty for God . . . but faith, Zoan? Do I have faith?”

  “You’ve always been a man of great faith, Cody,” Zoan said in his childlike sincerity. “It’s just never been faith in the right thing.

  In Jesus Christ.”

  Cody took a breath; it was long, shuddering, and deep. “Will you pray with me?”

  “Sure, Cody.”

  Cody Bent Knife, the last of the true Apache warriors, closed his eyes and prayed, “God, I believe in You, and I believe that You sent Your Son, Jesus, to this earth as a man. I believe that He died for my sins, and rose from the dead in three days, and now reigns in heaven. Forgive me, Father, for my sins. Thank You for Your Son, Jesus, who died for me. Thank You . . . for . . . my life . . .”

  Dancy was bending over the steaming water, slowly dropping the small leaves of the desert sage into it. Her eyes were closed, and her lips moved in prayer. Benewah Two Color watched her, amazed, for her face was lit, though the light was uncertain, and she seemed to glow. As he watched, a single tear slid down her cheek and dropped into the steaming water below.

  When Cody fell silent, Benewah hurried over to the pallet. Every time Cody closed his eyes, Benewah was afraid he’d died. “My son, Cody . . . he is at peace now?” he asked. His voice was filled with fear.

  Zoan looked up. “He’s at peace now, Benewah. But he’s not dead. God hasn’t taken him home yet.”

  In a low voice, Dancy said, “It might be—a while yet. I’m going to . . . wash his wounds. It will make him feel better, to be clean . . .”

  Though his eyes were still closed, Cody murmured, “Clean, yes. I want to be . . . clean . . . again . . .”

  Dancy set the heavy pot down on the floor beside Cody, then knelt down. She dipped a clean rag into the water, wrung it out carefully, then sponged his face and neck. Cody shifted, just a little, and said, “All my life I’ve had the smells of the desert in my nostrils. I never knew that sage, just a desert weed, could smell so . . . wholesome, so refreshing . . .”

  Zoan lifted his sad eyes to Dancy. She nodded slightly, and Zoan pulled down the blankets, then lifted the pads that covered the wounds on Cody’s chest and belly. They were already sodden with blood. Dancy’s mouth twisted, and for a moment she looked like what she was: a frightened half-grown child. Then she washed the cloth out in the fragrant water again, set her jaw, and began to wash Cody with a touch as light as a butterfly’s wing. Benewah, sitting beside her, flinched as she touched Cody’s skin.

  But Cody seemed comfortable, even happy. “God is good. The pain . . . it’s not as bad as it was. I even feel a little warmer . . . Zoan? Would you please . . . sing to me? Something about . . . Jesus?”

  Zoan was thoughtful, then he straightened his shoulders and began to sing in his clear, light voice:

  Tell me the story of Jesus,

  Write on my heart every word;

  Tell me the story most precious,

  Sweetest that ever was heard.

  Cody had a deep, long wound from his right shoulder down across to the left side of his chest. It was wide and bleeding freely. No gauze pads would staunch it. He also had savage bites, and some tearing from sharp fangs, on his side and right arm. Even his legs were bitten, some of the bites leaving long gashes and shredded flesh.

  But those wounds alone would not have been life-threatening.

  It was Cody’s stomach, torn open, that would surely kill him. It was impossible, in this time, in this world, to repair that kind of internal damage.

  Dancy hesitated for a moment, then decided to cleanse the mortal wound last. She reflected—with a calmness that surprised her greatly—that probably Cody would die when she cleaned it.

  But she also knew that God was telling her insistently to wash his wounds with the sweet-smelling water. Is this Your way of—of— taking him home, Lord? He’s in so much pain . . . but I know that he could linger on for—hours, maybe even days . . . and if I let him drink water, he’ll get rehydrated and the blood will flow . . . But, Lord, wouldn’t it be better for him to—to—bleed to death instead of— going into shock when I clean out that wound? I—I don’t think I can—it would seem like I’m killing him!

  “He’s not dead. He lives.”

  Dancy jerked, splashing the warm water onto her lap. “What— what did you say?” she asked Zoan accusingly.

  He stared at her, his eyes enormous in the half-light. “I was singing. I didn’t say it, Dancy.”

  “Oh,” she said uncertainly. Looking down at Cody, now with wonder, she saw him looking back up at her with a sweet expression, so unlike the hard, distant desert wandere
r he’d always been.

  Dancy swallowed hard. “Cody, do you—would you—um—” Feeling a bit desperate, she looked up at Zoan.

  Zoan looked puzzled for a moment, and then his plain features lit up. “Cody? Do you believe that God can heal you?”

  Cody answered dreamily, “Of course. He’s God, isn’t He?”

  Zoan nodded to Dancy.

  She stopped her hands from shaking. Then she slowly laid the damp cloth on Cody’s shoulder—right where the wolf had begun his long, tearing path. Almost imperceptibly she moved the cloth down, tracing the wound, but just above the cloth, where Dancy had started, there was no wound. There was only clean, bronzed skin.

  Benewah Two Color started, then muttered, “What—how—”

  “It’s all right, Benewah,” Cody said, watching him. “It’s all right.”

  Dancy, her eyes as wide as the sky, moved the cloth a little more.

  The wound, as if it were being cleaned off, was disappearing.

  Dancy carefully, unhurriedly, kept moving the cloth down the long, jagged red road across Cody’s chest.

  Behind the cloth’s trace, there was only healthy skin, not even new scar tissue.

  In front of it were blood and torn skin and muscle.

  Dancy’s cloth moved.

  Finally she had traced the entire long wound, and it was gone. Dancy lifted the cloth.

  Benewah, his age-creased face stunned, snatched it out of her hand and stared at it. It was clean, damp, smelling of the sweet savor of the sage. No blood was on it. Benewah blinked.

  “That didn’t even sting, Dancy,” Cody said dreamily. He wasn’t looking down at his torn body; he was watching her face, thinking what a pretty, ethereal girl she was. How odd he’d never noticed the light that shone in her face and eyes and lit her dark golden hair. Idly he thanked God that he could see such innocent loveliness for his last sight of this world. “I’m getting warm . . . I almost feel . . . normal, like I’m just tired or something . . .”