by Win Blevins
When Jim finished, the head man said that his young men did not like the Absarokas here. They remembered all the crimes of the Absarokas against their fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters. They did not like to see Pine Leaf dressed in clothes stolen from a Blackfoot woman.
He paused ominously.
If the Absarokas came on a rescue mission, why did they bring a woman with them? Everyone knew Pine Leaf was a warrior, but they wanted to see what answer would be made.
“It is the way of Pine Leaf,” Jim answered simply.
The head man pursed his lips, then nodded. “Let others speak,” he said softly. He turned and motioned to someone in the back.
Ginny stood up in the crowd behind the circle of councilors and captives. Silk thrilled a little to see her. She had changed into a gorgeous blue blanket dress ornamented with elk’s teeth. She waited a moment before speaking, her face flushed with reined-in excitement.
“My friends,” she began in English, making signs at the same time, and looking at the captives. Her voice was firm and deep. Silk was proud of her. “I say friends because it was a gesture of friendship to risk your lives to save me. I have spoken to the people of the Blackfoot nation already and asked, since you came out of good will for me, that you be treated as my friends, and your lives spared.
“That, I hope, is what your captors must hear. This is what you need to hear: The Blackfoot people are now my people. I am here because I wish to be by the side of my husband.”
Silk was sure he blanched. He thought maybe even Jim’s face moved.
She motioned broadly with one arm to the man sitting by the door flap, in the position of least honor. He stood up.
“This man,” said Ginny, “is…” Here she spoke a Blackfoot name Silk did not catch.
Silk glared at the young brave. He was tall and yet looked broad-shouldered. His entire face was painted blue. Across his forehead, clear to the bridge of his nose, hung a flat hank of black hair striped vertically with yellow. He wore a white-man shirt of heavy cotton, with German-silver arm bands. Between his hide leggings hung a full-length breechcloth of brilliant scarlet, elaborately quilled.
Sumbuck is dressed up to show off, grumbled Silk to himself. And he had to admit the effect was, well…magnificent.
“I carry his child,” Ginny said simply, her face radiant.
“I have spoken of you as friends. And I have asked my brothers and sisters for your lives. Yet you are not true friends, because like my father, you do not understand me.” She spoke decisively, Silk thought, boldly, even heroically.
“I address these words to you, and ask you to carry them to my father. It was foolish of you not to know that an educated woman, a lady, can love a Blackfoot man. Foolish and arrogant, in the way of the whites. You think yourselves superior to the people I have chosen for my own. You do not know them or me.
“My husband is a splendid man, his brethren a magnificent people. I am proud to be one of them, to have my son be one of them.
“Look with your own eyes and see my love. Hear me. Learn.
“Until your people change, we must be enemies. If necessary I would kill you, or my father, the grandfather of our child. For my love is the Blackfoot people and their way of life and the hoop of the people in which my son will grow to be a man.” Her arm took in all those gathered in the council lodge, and in the village beyond, and in all the village that made up the sacred encampment.
“I believe that you came here in good faith. And I want you to carry my words to the man who calls himself my father. Let my people be.”
Ginny and her husband sat down. Silk wished to hell she hadn’t said that about killing them if necessary.
A man next to the chief began to speak, half audibly at first, casually. Yellow Foot’s fingers said that he was asking why the Blackfoot should even talk of letting these captives go. They were Crows, barbarians, the authors of a thousand crimes past and future. A Blackfoot should not soil his eyes by looking upon a living Crow.
One by one the other councilors spoke their minds. All recalled the legion crimes of the Absarokas against The People, and some recounted the particular offenses of Antelope Jim and Pine Leaf. All talked briefly, in an offhand manner. What point, they seemed to be saying, could there be to debating the fate of Absaroka captives? Everyone knew what must be done with them.
Silk kept struggling for breath, and striving for control by reminding himself that he deserved what was coming.
At last the head man himself spoke again. He acknowledged the arguments of his councilors, so strong as to need no emphasis and brook no rebuttal. Yet he confessed himself moved by the pleas of Little Prairie Dog Woman, as he called Ginny. Maybe he was getting weak of will, to be swayed by a woman’s tenderness. Yet he was.
Also, he said, he could see some small reasons to grant the captives life. It would be nice to think of these two fighters, Antelope Jim and Pine Leaf—what a boneless nation the Crows were, that a woman could be a war leader—in debt to the Blackfeet for life itself. For the rest of their days, at any moment of pleasure, such pleasure in living as a lowly Crow could find, they would have to think they owed this pleasure to the generosity of the Blackfeet.
Silk was thinking that he could tolerate dying—it was something anyone could do—if only he didn’t have to be tortured.
Suddenly he wondered if he would have to see Jim and Pine Leaf and Yellow foot tortured. He heaved a little and was glad he had nothing inside to throw up.
Besides, the head man went on, it was funny to see the great woman warrior reduced to housewife garb. If the Absarokas were men, one of them would keep her so always, and big-bellied, and not permit a woman to fight their battles. Maybe one of the men of the Blackfeet would want to keep her, and teach her to be a woman—would she not make a better Blackfoot woman than a Crow man? Pine Leaf’s face was blank as ever.
Silk had a terrible thought. Had he not turned his thoughts away from Pine Leaf to a woman he’d never seen, had he remembered whose banner he swore to lift high, Pine Leaf would not be about to die. Silk Jones was a darned traitor.
The head man had another thought or two in favor of the captives: He admired the spirit of Absarokas who would come so far to rescue a friend, especially a friend who was not of their people. And he respected the courage of anyone who would come only four strong among the Blackfeet, outnumbered as the herds of buffalo outnumber the boys who scout them. But this was also Absaroka arrogance, so perhaps it should be punished.
He shrugged. He didn’t know if they should live, his shoulders said—it was a matter of no great importance.
Perhaps, he said lightly, the young boy, the white-man Crow, could be allowed to take word back to the trader and the Crows, and the other three given the honor of dying bravely.
Silk felt a huge revulsion. He could barely keep himself from yelling out “No!” He was furious at the head man for angling toward that suggestion.
Suddenly a voice came from the rear—a woman’s voice. Silk thought Yellow Foot’s face almost showed feeling as he translated.
This woman, he whispered, was the woman of virtue chosen by the nation to lead the dance of the sun tomorrow. Her chastity spoke of the strength of the people, to be renewed once more tomorrow during the next sun.
The people should not be distracted by these captives on the eve of the great ceremony, she said. All minds should be turned to tomorrow, and to the sacrifices of the young men who would pay homage to the sun with their blood. Why not decide the fate of the captives on the day after? No one wanted to give these Crows any thought today, and certainly not tomorrow. Even Crows, if the ending of their lives started today, would not all be dead by morning.
Silk flinched at the hint about torture, and glanced at Yellow Foot’s face in shame—and saw there what looked like a glint of hope. And then Silk thought of it: Two days of life may give Antoine time to spring us.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
To one of woman born
Silk wasn’t gonna let it happen. He wasn’t going back to the Crows all rosy-cheeked with his friends dead. And he wasn’t gonna be no Blackfoot messenger boy.
He couldn’t tell if his friends thought he would. When they came into this lodge under guard, Jim signed for no talking, even English. Silk tried to talk with his fingers, but Jim shook his head and made the sign for thinking. Silk couldn’t say much with sign language anyway.
So he had to wonder what his friends were thinking, and figure how to let them and the Blackfeet know he didn’t mean to live if Jim and Pine Leaf and Yellow Foot died. And maybe calculate how to get the best of the guard on the lodge once dark came. And keep his mind off whether Antoine would show up.
He took a long breath and let it out. It truly hurt to breathe.
Jim was sitting there, his face unmoving and mask-like in the half darkness. Pine Leaf lay with her head on his lap, the first time Silk had seen such an outward sign of intimacy. Yellow Foot had his eyes closed and face lifted to the smoke hole, as though praying.
Silk kept catching himself humming. Any old piece of any old tune, like as not hitched to another piece of a different tune in a way that made no sense. He swore he’d stop it, and heard himself humming as he swore.
How could he die with his friends? Better death, for sure, than dishonor.
He could stab himself. Maybe he could kill himself, or hurt himself too bad to travel. They’d taken his knife, but he had a piece of obsidian in the rat’s nest of his shot pouch. That thing would shave peach fuzz. Yes, that would make a dandy cut. Course, it was too small to get in very far with. Might end up just scratching himself and being laughed at.
But he could cut his throat. It would do that slick. Nothing tough about a throat. Cuts easy, bleeds aplenty.
Silk braced himself to stop the swaying.
So. The picture of his own blood made him sick. He shook his head.
Silk wished he had the stuff of a hero. But he didn’t—that was plain. He didn’t. Sick at the picture of his own blood. He looked at that bit of awareness, like staring sober into a mirror.
Well, if he wasn’t naturally a hero, maybe he could still act like one. That’s what he would do.
He caught himself humming “Onward Christian Soldiers.”
At least he hoped he’d act like one. When the time came.
If only Antoine could keep the time from coming.
Just then the lodge flap opened and someone stepped in from the bright sunlight outside. Ginny’s young man, with a armload of something, which he laid down. Ginny followed with a big load, and set it down. As Silk’s eyesight readjusted, he saw powder horns, bridles, blankets. Most of what they’d left at camp, but for the saddles and guns.
Silk reeled.
“Our young men found your camp,” Ginny said faintly.
Antoine.
“What about Antoine?” Silk asked impulsively.
“He is feeding the magpies,” she answered, eyes cast down.
First Hairy and now Antoine. Silk wondered if he was conscious yet when they found him, or still conked out. Was that Silk’s fault too? Then Ginny spoke at Jim sharply. “You should have told them about him.”
Jim shrugged.
“Red Bull wanted to help you,” she went on, sounding angry. “Now he can’t.”
Jim paid her no mind.
“I’m doing what I still can for you,” she said, and let it sit there. Silk readied himself. She nodded toward her husband. “We will come back in the dark, very late, and fix it with the guard, and save you from torture.” Her eyes were dark with death.
She darted out the flap, and her man followed with measured step.
Silk heard roaring, as though from sea shells, in his ears.
Yellow Foot kept his face lifted, unchanged. Pine Leaf didn’t stir on Jim’s lap. Careful not to move her head, Jim started rummaging in the pile of goods. After a moment he came out with Silk’s flute, and held it out to him.
Silk couldn’t reach for it.
Jim smiled a light smile, easy and benevolent.
Silk took it.
“I’m sorry,” Silk said.
No one answered, or acknowledged, or maybe noticed.
After a few moments, Pine Leaf said, “Silk, you should know that Antelope Jim and I are going to get married.”
No more. Just that, flat and matter of fact. Are going to. Her style—run up the flag as the ship is sinking. And the way her scar made her lip pucker was very endearing.
So. The woman Silk carried a torch for belonged to his friend. Always had.
Silk Jones was growing up just in time to die.
Silk couldn’t bring himself to play the flute. But a tune sang in his head, plaintive and beautiful:
I am a poor, wayfaring stranger,
A-traveling through this world of woe,
But there’s no trouble, no toil or danger
In that bright land to which I go.
I’m going home to see my father.
I’m going home, no more to roam.
I’m just a-going over Jordan,
I’m just a-going over home.
CHAPTER THIRTY
If this be magic, let it be an art
—The Winter’s Tale, V.iii.
They were sitting there in the dark, stiff and weary from hours of waiting, when the song came.
They had no plan, for they did not know how many men would come with Ginny and her man. Jim had told Silk to take care of Ginny himself, probably because she was small, like Silk. He had his piece of obsidian in his hand. “Be sure of her,” Jim said. Silk would. It hurt to picture it.
So the Blackfeet would come to snuff out their candles, and they would fight—as the Blackfeet surely knew—and it would be over one way or another quickly.
Then they heard the song, softly on the night air.
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made:
The voice was unmistakable.
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them,—ding-dong, bell.
Silk felt Jim’s hand on his arm, warm and firm. Silk did not speak, but sang in his head: Shakespeare.
Shakespeare. They were going to live.
They moved at a trot through the moonlit night. Silk was uncomfortable at that pace on the rough-gaited horse, but kept pace without flagging. Beside him, grinning huge and fierce in the dark, was his partner Hairy, come like Lazarus from the dead.
It was magic, and so be it.
The big dipper said short of midnight—early in the northern night—so they had miles to go to the south. No time to talk yet. Just accept, and wonder.
Every bump on the strange horse hurt, reminding Silk that he was alive.
A couple of hours out Jim stopped to let the horses blow and talked quietly with Hairy’s two Blackfoot companions. When the party rode on, the Indians turned back.
It was still dark when they hit the trail. It was a main trail, heavily traveled, leading to the Missouri River and Crow country—home.
Jim turned the wrong way on it urging his horse uphill, kicking it to a lope. Pine Leaf, Yellow Foot, Shakespeare, and Silk Jones followed as fast as they could go.
A couple of miles further, in a little valley, they stopped to let the horses drink. Silk asked Jim why they were headed the wrong way.
“They’ll be after us. Already are. Not too many, because of the dance, but enough.”
Jim took a deep breath. The sky was beginning to lighten. “This trail is too full of tracks for them to pick out ours. They’ll figure we headed toward home. Fool ’em.
“Up ahead is Marias Pass. The west side of the mountains. The home of the Nez Percy and further on the fish India
ns.” He grinned. “The long way home. Might as well see a little of the country while we’re here.”
At mid-morning they laid up, well off the trail and deep in a thicket. Jim disappeared uphill with Silk’s spyglass. And Shakespeare told how he came to be alive.
He held up his stump of a finger, leering at it. “This is what I got ’em with,” he bragged. Pine Leaf and Yellow Foot were asleep, but Silk was much too excited.
“Got us, too,” Silk complained with a smile.
“Sorry, lad. In the crucible of life and death, I didn’t think of fooling you.”
They had come on him in the last of the long northern twilight, just stood up suddenly around his campfire, perfectly silent. Four boys and a buck, Piegans. They motioned Hairy not to touch his guns, and walked into camp without even a bow raised.
Real solemn, they were, faces like death masks. The leader asked if the white man knew how to die bravely.
“That was where I got the idea,” Shakespeare explained. “I told them I was braver than any of them. Told them I wanted to show them how to bear pain easy as birds bear the wind.”
He handed Silk something strange from his shot pouch—a little ball made of many facets of mirror, on a thin gold chain.
Shakespeare took the ball back and held it up into the sunlight. It turned on the chain, throwing off glints of sunlight almost magically.
“Mesmerism,” Hairy said. “This child can mesmerize you or himself or your mule, likely.”
As Shakespeare told it, he lay down by his small fire while the Piegans watched curiously, suspended the ball from a stick above his head, and gazed into the reflected firelight while it twirled. He seemed to be mumbling to himself. Pretty soon he looked half asleep, though his eyes were still cracked open.
Hairy had his patch knife, wickedly sharp, in one hand. He held up the finger with the walnut nail. Then he began to make a thin cut around the middle section of bone. He did it calmly, slowly, even savoringly.
“You’d be surprised how little I felt,” he told Silk. The pain was there, but small, like something at the wrong end of the spyglass.
