by Kat Flannery
“Hotah, who was shooting at us?”
He was silent, unsure if he wanted to tell Ivy of his brother and what had become of their relationship. “Are you ready?” he asked.
She nodded and slid down to sit beside him.
He did not want to discuss Kangi—not now—and he was thankful she did not push him further.
“I will pull the arrow from my skin, and you will place the blade over the wound.”
“First I will clean it.”
“We have nothing to do this with. My canteen was on the horse.”
She pinched her lips together and tapped her finger to her cheek.
“We have no more time.” He took the knife from his sheath, when he heard her rip the hem of her dress.
“We will use this to wipe the blood away before placing the yarrow on it.”
“Put the blade of the knife into the fire.” He grabbed her hand and brought it exactly where he wanted it within the flames. He then gripped the end of the broken arrow, inhaled a loud breath, and pulled. He could not contain the guttural moan as the stone slid from his flesh. Wasting no time, he took Ivy’s hand, the blade glowing orange, and slapped it onto the bleeding wound.
A loud cry blew from his lips as the skin sizzled and the sweet smell of burned flesh filled the air.
“What are you doing? I haven’t placed the yarrow on it yet.” She tried to tug the knife away, but he did not let go until the wound was closed.
Hotah growled low in his throat as he fought the blackness that wanted to invade his mind. He released his hold over her hand, and the blade fell to the ground. He collapsed back onto the fallen tree, closed his eyes, and wheezed.
She went to work placing the yarrow over the still-hot flesh and wrapped the calf with the fabric she’d ripped from her dress. Hotah could no longer remain conscious, and each blink of his eyes came slower until he passed out from the pain.
Ivy listened as his breathing became slow and methodical. He was no longer awake, and she continued winding the cotton around his wound. She prayed infection did not set in. She’d have to check it in a few hours. The sun was still hot, a sign it was still several hours until night. She’d need to find some provisions.
She unbuttoned her blouse, felt the earth for the infant boy, then plucked him up and placed him inside her shirt before closing the buttons to keep him tightly pressed against her. They were twenty-seven paces from the stand of trees. She’d need to go to the burned home and rummage around for water and food. Ivy did not know how old the child was, but, by the feel of him, she figured he could be no more than five months old. He’d need milk, and with his mother dead, she doubted they’d find any nearby. Ivy had long given up on having a family of her own, but holding the child had given her renewed hope.
She glanced at Hotah. Ivy’s fingers caressed her lips, remembering the kiss they shared. The passion warmed her belly, making her want more of him. He’d given her the one thing she thought forbidden to her: affection. The chief of the Paha Sapa had forced his way into her heart, and it scared Ivy to death.
She lingered for a few more minutes before she trekked through the forest to the open field. There had to be something left around the burned-out home. If she had her spectacles, this would be much easier. The thick lenses did not make her see things clearly, but she was able to make out a whole lot more than she could without them. She knew ahead of her more than thirty paces must be the cabin. With no urge to go there, she glanced to her left, but nothing was within her scarred view, and she assumed it was open valley. She looked to her right. A brown smudge was all she could see in the distance. With no other choice, she took off that way. Ivy placed her arm under the baby so he didn’t jostle awake.
As she drew near the structure grew larger, and the smell of burned wood saturated the air. She took smaller steps until her knee hit something hard. She reached out her hand, feeling the wooden boards still warm from the fire that had ravaged them. She hoped there had been no animals within the building before it was set on fire. Ivy scrunched her nose; the smoke was heavier and condensed closer to the barn.
The barn would have food for the animals, and she wasn’t sure if they’d been fed anything else other than grass or hay, but she hoped to find something of nourishment in there. But as she stood within the rubble it became clear everything had been burned. She refused to go back until she found some sort of nourishment.
“There must be fences if there were animals.”
She shaded her eyes with her palm and squinted at the scene before her. Veiled colors stood in the distance, too far ahead to make out or guess what they were.
“Lord, help me,” she breathed, and stepped over the wood she’d hit her knee on earlier. She’d need to make her way to pasture. But how far was that?
Ivy wiped the sweat perspiring on her brow, placed her lips to the crown of the boy’s head, and contemplated which way she’d go. She’d need to remember the paces she’d taken from the forest to the barn and so on. If she forgot, they’d be lost out there in the middle of nowhere.
She should go back and wait for Hotah to wake. He’d know what to do. Ivy frowned. No. She needed to do this on her own. If she had any chance of making it without her sisters, now was the time to prove it.
Twelve more steps had her holding on to the top rail of a wooden fence. She couldn’t contain her joy as she held the fence and skipped the next two steps. She followed the length for what seemed an eternity before she came to a gate. Sixty-seven steps. What would greet her inside? Memories of when she’d been chased by the neighbour’s bull as a child flashed through her mind. Heart racing, she undid the latch, when her left hand touched a metal pail.
“Hallelujah!” She squealed and gave another yelp when she placed her hand inside and the hard kernels of corn met her fingertips. Pig’s food, but it’d do. She lifted the pail from the post and began making her way back. The rustle of the leaves from the faint breeze greeted her as she happily walked the line of the fence. She came to the last step and turned right.
“Twelve paces to the barn.” Ivy set out, when she remembered they’d need water to boil the corn, and the baby would need to drink. Fern had a rain barrel for such things, and Ivy was sure there’d be one on the farm somewhere. She made it to the barn and back to the trees’ edge where she’d started. The sun was stifling, and the baby began to squirm inside the shirt.
“A few more minutes, love.”
There had to be a garden. It seemed the only sensible place for the rain barrel to be, and most were situated by the homestead. Ivy knew it was thirty paces to where they’d stopped when they first arrived. She took a deep breath and blew it out in one long sigh before she set out.
“One, two, three…,” she said, more self-confident than she’d ever been before. If Fern and Poppy could see her now! Unsure if she’d had it in her at all, Ivy had proved she could succeed. The desire to be on her own, living life the way she wanted and not dictated by her sister’s, was what she’d craved for years. The freedom, the delight of being able to choose, filled her with such excitement she couldn’t contain the smile as it widened her face.
Ivy may not have been able to see, but, darn it, she was not a burden. She squeezed the child to her, relishing in the comfort the infant offered. With no mother, he’d be left an orphan, and the mere thought broke Ivy’s heart.
She’d raise him.
The decision came out of nowhere. She wasn’t sure if it was because of her newfound assurance or the compassion she felt for the child. Either way, it did not matter.
A flash of brown darted ahead of her. She stopped, narrowing her eyes to try to make out the object, but it was gone. Unease crept up her spine. Ivy swivelled on her heel, then walked briskly back toward the forest and Hotah.
Another muted image, this time grey, ran past her vision, and then another, and another. She spun around, losing her step. She stumbled to right herself, when the fur of something grazed her hand.
A low
savage growl rumbled in the distance.
“Wolves,” she whispered. Frozen with fear, she clutched the child to her. Sweat trickled down her temples. She heard their paws beat the ground as they circled them. Ivy tried to focus on one, but they moved too quickly, and she could not concentrate. She turned around so many times she forgot which direction the forest was. Dread drained all the confidence she’d had replacing it with fear. Her ribs ached from the quick breaths she took.
The baby squirmed within her shirt. Ivy prayed the infant didn’t wake. She took an unsteady step, her knee knocking into one of the wolves. Startled, she leapt backward, turned, and ran. She did not know where she was going except she needed to escape. She had to protect the child. The pail she held clanked, the dried corn swishing about inside, but she did not stop.
A yelp, followed by another, and she kept going until she ran straight into strong arms and an even stronger chest. Hotah! He’d come from the bushes to rescue her and the baby, and she couldn’t contain the sobs as they burst from her lips. He held her tightly to him.
“Shush,” he said into her hair.
“Are they still coming?” she asked, afraid to pull her face from his chest.
“The threat is gone.” He shifted and groaned.
The baby let out a shriek so loud they both jumped, and Ivy reluctantly pressed herself away from him. She rocked the child back and forth while rubbing his back.
“Your leg… I’m sorry you had to come for us.”
He took her arm and led her back to the forest. “Why did you go?”
“We needed food.” She held up the pail. “The baby needs to eat.”
“Yes.”
“But we cannot make the corn mash without water, and I didn’t get to it.”
“How do you know there is water on the homestead?” He stopped her. “Lift your foot—there is a large branch.”
She did so, and they carried on. The leaves from the trees brushed her arms, telling her they were within the tall elms and pine trees.
“I assumed there was a rain barrel.”
He grunted.
The child whimpered.
“He is hungry,” Hotah said.
Ivy nodded but did not know what to do without any water.
“I will take you to the place we were before and seek out the rain barrel.”
“Thank you, Hotah.”
“Where did you find the corn?”
“Twelve steps from the barn and then sixty-seven paces down the fence line, I found a gate. The corn hung in a pail there.”
“You were not afraid?”
“Not until I ran into the wolves.”
“Those were not wolves,” he said.
“What were they?”
“Wild dogs…worse than shunkaha.”
Ivy shivered.
“They smelled the bodies and came to eat.”
Her stomach pitched.
“We are here.” He walked her to the fallen tree, and she sat down. The baby rubbed his head into Ivy’s chest and began crying.
“Shush,” she crooned, but he did not stop, and his sobs grew louder.
“Give him to me.”
She unbuttoned her blouse, careful not to expose herself, and handed the child to him.
“You are hungry, ciqala.” He walked the child around the perimeter of the small clearing as his cries grew more intense. “He needs milk.”
“We have none,” she said, irritated.
He grunted, and she listened as his footsteps and the baby’s cries got further away.
“Where are you going?”
He did not answer.
Ivy wrung her hands together, about to follow them, when the child grew silent, and she could hear him suckling.
“This will suffice for now,” Hotah said, his voice getting louder as he came near.
“What did you give him?”
“Syrup from the maple tree.” He laughed. “He feasts on my finger.”
Ivy could not make out the picture he described, as they were too far from her, but she smiled imagining it.
“Seventeen paces directly to your left is the maple tree. Once there, touch the trunk until you feel the sticky syrup. Cover your fingers with it.”
She did as he told her and came back to where he stood.
“I will go find water.” He placed the child in her arms. “Give him a name,” he said before walking away.
Chapter Seven
Hotah walked alongside Ivy and the child. They kept to the perimeter of the forest, using the trees for shelter in case Kangi was near. He was amazed at how she functioned when given the proper direction, but what he found more appealing was the way she cared for the child. After he’d found water, she boiled and mashed the corn for their meal without any help from him. Her exuberance at what she could do was evident in the way she walked. Head held high, lips turned upward in a radiant smile, and a bounce in her step.
He observed her now, the child tucked into her blouse, suckling on the sap she’d placed on her finger. She’d insisted they take some for the journey, as there wasn’t much corn left from the evening before. He’d need to find them something else to eat, but with only a few arrows left, his aim would have to be accurate.
“What did you name him?” he asked.
“Abraham.”
“No.”
She raised her brow. “I like the name.”
“The child is not an Abraham…too long.”
Her hold on his arm tightened.
“If you had a name in mind, why didn’t you tell me?” she snapped.
Hotah was silent. He did have a name. It came to him the moment he looked into the infant’s eyes when he pulled him out from underneath his mother. He ignored the urge to say it for fear he’d make it so. But when he looked upon the sweet face, and the wide blue eyes, he knew without a doubt he’d protect the child with his life.
“Chaska,” he said.
“What does it mean?”
He did not answer her. General Davis would take the child if he were to bring him back, and Hotah did not want to think of it. For now, he’d consider the child as his own until he left him with Ivy and her sisters. Their lives were to take different paths instead of the one he desired.
“How long until we stop?” she asked.
Hotah could see the weight of the baby was tiring her. He reached into her blouse and plucked the boy from the warmth and into his arms. Ivy gave him a protective glare, and he laughed.
“What is so funny?”
“You are his mother now.”
“Well, I… I…he doesn’t have anyone else.”
“It is good. He will love you.”
She smiled.
“How is your leg?”
The bone throbbed with each step and stretched the burned skin taut. It hurt like hell. He fixed his lips into a firm line.
“It is well.”
“You should rest it soon.”
“Need a horse first.”
“How do you suppose we do that?”
She had no idea how his people lived before they had been quartered onto reserved land. A drop of remorse for all he’d lost fell onto his heart.
“I will capture one.”
“You can do that?”
Pride puffed his chest. “I am chief of the Paha Sapa. Of course.”
They walked for some time, Chaska’s blue eyes round with wonder as he stared at the nature around them. He tossed his pudgy arms into the air and cooed as Hotah spoke to him in Lakota.
“Your language is very beautiful. What are you saying to him?” she asked, her hand within the crook of his arm.
“I tell him of the acorn, the elm, of earth. All the great things Wakan Tanka created.”
She nodded.
He watched as her features changed. The smile replaced with a straight expression, lips turned downward, and her blue eyes distant.
“You wish to see the world as you once did,” he said.
“I do.”
>
He heard the despair in her voice.
“You cannot wish for the past to change.”
“Why not? You do,” she countered.
He was silent. He was captive just like her, she to a sightless life and he to a confined one. Neither could live as they wanted.
“It is true. I wish to be with my people on the land as we once were.”
“We aren’t so different.”
He touched her hand in the crook of his arm.
“Who was shooting at us?”
“My brother.” He no longer wished to keep the past from her. Ivy had eased her way into his heart, and he trusted her.
“Why would he do this?”
“He has hate within his heart.”
“But you are his family—surely that amounts to something.”
“In the early days of his life, yes. We were as close as two cubs. I was the eldest, and so I taught him how to shoot his arrow, hunt elk and buffalo, and how to be a warrior.”
She was quiet, and he continued needing to expel all he’d kept hidden. “When Red Swallow was killed, Kangi changed. His hate festered inside of him until one day he came upon a white woman…” He paused. Throat thick with anguish, he swallowed past the pain of what he’d found that day. He’d never spoke of it to anyone. Instead, he had cast Kangi from their tribe, disowning him.
“Hotah, what did he do?”
“He killed her.”
The baby laid his head on Hotah’s shoulder. Chaska could sense his sorrow.
“I am sorry.”
“General Davis has asked me to find Kangi…and bring him in. I do this for my people so that they may eat without fear of being sick. For blankets to keep the elderly warm.”
“The general does not give them these things?”
“The Paha Sapa has looked to their chief to help them.”
“You will capture your brother for the welfare of your tribe.”
He nodded.
“You are a kind and generous chief, and the Paha Sapa are lucky to have you.”
“But I am a traitor to my brother, knowing he will die when I bring him in.” The reminder of what he’d need to do struck his heart.
