by Jenna Kernan
“Always.”
“Possession of your body can cause ghost sickness. You would feel fevered, nauseous and sometimes have the sensation of suffocating. Usually those with ghost sickness see visions that are not there.”
“I have seen things that are not there. But not the fever or suffocating sensation.”
She nodded. They could not rule out ghosts then.
“Any recent deaths of someone near to you?”
“I lost a friend in the same battle when I was injured.”
She straightened at this revelation as possibilities danced in her mind. “Injured. When?”
Night Storm hesitated, rubbing the back of his head as he stared at the ground.
From the lake, bullfrogs began their deep belching call. The burning wood popped and crackled as the fire consumed it, but Night Storm seemed to notice none of it.
Skylark was just about to remind him that she could do little without knowing what troubles he had and everything she could learn about his injury. Her grandmother was very insistent that she discover all she could about a person seeking care. That included minute details regarding his habits and all his past wounds.
At last he met her gaze and she again felt the punch of physical attraction hit her low in the belly. He held her attention and the pull to move near to him became more insistent. She set aside the remains of her meal, knowing that she had no further appetite for food. A different hunger gnawed.
His shoulders lifted and then settled as he blew out a long breath. Then he gave a little nod, as if he had decided something.
“We battled against the Lakota who were pursuing the white men who dress in the colors of the wolf. We had seen the white men who dress in blue cross our territory with people of a tribe we do not know. These warriors dress like the whites, but their skin was like the people and their hair was long and black and braided in the proper way.
All the white soldiers travel in groups and carry large guns, like the ones in the forts, and so we let them pass. We might have let the gray men pass, as well, but they brought our enemy into our territory. So we attacked. I have had many coups in battle. This I would say first. But in this fight, I was unseated and one of my horse’s hind hooves struck me here.” He pointed to the back of his head.
She drew air through her teeth at the image of him being kicked by his horse. “May I feel this place?”
Instantly she realized the problem with this request. She had touched the wounds of countless men and women in her tribe from the very old to the very young. But never had she anticipated the contact with such a yawning need. Eagerness, yes, that was what she felt.
He nodded his consent and she fairly leaped to her feet to close the distance that separated them. She knelt beside him and began as she had been taught, with a gentle touch to his arm. It was not right to immediately grope a place that might cause pain. She worked from the strong column of his neck to the base of his skull, trying to ignore the tingling awareness her fingers relayed with the contact of her flesh to his flesh. Her physical enjoyment of the contact ended when she found the place where he had been kicked. There was no lump. Rather, she found a shallow depression.
“Were you kicked or stepped on?” she asked.
“I was struck here with a war club.” He pointed to the tiny red scar that sliced through one of his eyebrows. How had she not noticed that before?
“This was a glancing blow. But it caused me to lose my balance. Then our horses collided and I fell backward.”
She examined the scar, her awareness of him now mixed with the need to solve this puzzle.
“Do you remember the blow or the fall?” She released him and sat at his side, turning toward him as he spoke.
“Neither. My friend, Two Hawks, saw the blow and watched me become unseated. He said I killed the man with my lance, but he hit me before leaving his horse. Two Hawks said that I did not fall like a man who knows he is falling. He said the horse’s rear foot hit me here and that after they had chased away the intruders they came back for me, surprised to find me alive. I did not wake until late in the evening and I do not recall the battle or the blow or the fall or even the days that followed.”
“I am not surprised. The bone of your skull was crushed. The swelling from this break should have taken you from this world and into the next.”
“Perhaps it did,” he muttered.
“Yet here you are,” she countered. “How can that be?”
“I think I walked the ghost road and then came back.”
They stared at each other. Owls...a death, his death, and then his return to this world. She drew up her knees and hugged them tight. Her heart beat in her throat as she resisted the urge to draw away from him. Had he walked across the sky to the spirit world? Had he stopped on his own or had the one who guards the road set his feet back to the world of the living?
Was that why he heard the owl?
She shivered against the clammy chill that took her.
“My shaman said he sang me awake,” said Night Storm.
“Did he give you anything to bring down the swelling?”
“He called on the power of the spirit world to heal me or take me.”
“But no medicine?” She could not believe his shaman had not given Storm something for pain and to bring down the swelling.
“You said that someone close to you died?” she said.
“Yes. My friend and cousin. We were raised together. We went on our vision quest together, and we were inducted into the same medicine society.” He shook his head and looked truly miserable.
She did not ask the name of his cousin because it was both impolite and dangerous to speak of the dead. To do so was to disturb their rest and risk inviting them to return to haunt the living. But some souls did not rest because they refused to walk the ghost road to the spirit world, lingering instead among them. These ghosts could cause havoc if measures were not taken to send them away.
“We can look into this possibility. Did he die a good death?” She was asking if he had fought bravely or, if captured, if he represented his people and himself with pride and dignity under torture.
“His death was good, quick. The gray white men shot him with their rifles.”
“And his body was recovered?”
“Yes, and he was sent on a scaffold with his things.”
“That is good. You said that you have seen things that were not there. Will you tell me of them?”
“Not tonight.”
She pursed her lips at this delaying tactic and thought to remind him that he said he would be forthcoming. But he rubbed his forehead again, as he had done earlier when he said he had pain. She did not want to cause another fall by her questions.
“These wounds look recent.” She laid an open palm on the scarred flesh at his chest. There were two ragged, raised places on each side of his upper torso that could mean only one thing. This man had tested his devotion and bravery in the most sacred of all ways.
“I have the honor of success in the sun dance,” he said, his voice humble.
This was no small feat. She had watched the sun dance in her tribe. Young warriors volunteered to have wooden spikes inserted through the skin of their chest or upper back. The spikes pierced in and then out at a different place, like a bone awl through a buckskin. From these dowels, long rawhide tethers were tied. The other ends of these ropes were fixed to a tall pole, set deep in the ground solely for this purpose. Then the men would dance as sweat streamed down their bodies. They would dance and chant and blow whistles made from the bones of an eagle’s wing. All the while they would stare at the sun and try to tear free of their bonds. This might take a day or more. Some men passed out during the dance only to revive to try again. Not all tore free. To voluntarily submit to such an ordeal was a true test of courage. And
this man had succeeded.
“I was the first to free myself.”
“The first?” It was a great coup. Skylark did not think she could be more impressed. “That is amazing.”
“It was not. I tore free only because I fell.”
Unease prickled.
“Your second fall.”
Beyond the circle of their fire and past the open ground now fading with twilight came the hoot of a great horned owl. She stilled as the chill of night seemed to seep into every pore.
Chapter Five
Night Storm did not seem to be bothered by the nearness of the owl, while she was completely unnerved by the sound. What had her aunt always said? If you hear an owl, ghosts walk near.
“The sun dance was my second fall,” said Night Storm.
“Did you not hear that?” she asked.
“What? The owl?” He blew away a long, suffering breath. “I hear them...everywhere.” He fixed his gaze on her and she wondered again who was this man?
“Would you hear of the sun dance?”
She nodded numbly.
“It was my hope that the sun dance would cure me. I blew my whistle, and I prayed for the Great Spirit to rid me of my weakness. That my prayers would rise up like the sacred tobacco smoke to the Great Spirit. I leaned away from the attachments in my chest.”
She flinched at his words but he continued on.
“But the pain did not bring me closer to the spirit world. I smelled burning flesh and the ringing began. At first I thought it was the eagle whistles. But the sound was inside my head, and I fell before I could prove myself worthy of answered prayers.”
“You fell in front of everyone?”
“I did. I was staring at the sun. Praying to the Great Spirit for his blessings. Instead, I had my second fall and the thrashing caused me to break free. I did not feel it. I did not suffer as I should have, and all who watched thought I was showing great strength, when, in fact, I was revealing my greatest weakness.”
“How did they not know?”
“Many dance and twist and foam and bleed. It was all expected.”
She nodded, wondering if she had been watching, if she would have known.
“You said you fell three times.”
“The last fall came when I was walking by the river. The day was clear, and the water sparkled like the stars above. As the sun set, the colors danced from sky to water. I knew that time that it would come. I felt the urge to get away from my companions, but I could not run. The ground was shaking as it does from thunder. But I do not know if it really shook or if it only seemed to shake. I looked back and they all seemed as they did when I left them. They did not totter or weave. Then my vision went bad. I do not know what happened after that. Only you have seen.” He waited, but she said nothing. “What did you see?”
She lifted a stick and poked at the fire. Eventually she did tell him what she’d witnessed.
“You stopped breathing and your skin began to turn blue. That was when I went to you. You went still, slack as if you had died. I listened to your chest and heard your heartbeat, but the wind of life had left you and blood filled your mouth. So I rolled you. You choked and then began to breathe. So I moved away and watched you.”
“You covered me with my saddle blanket.”
She nodded.
“And tied my horse’s reins to a tree.”
She stared at the fire, shy now to tell him how she had stood over him. Tended him. Washed him.
“Were you still there when I woke?”
She peeked up at him. “Yes.”
“Why did I not see you?”
She pointed at the sky, now showing the glow of the first stars. “I was in a tree.”
He chuckled. “I have not thanked you for saving my life. Instead, I attacked you and threatened you. I ask your forgiveness now and...” He hesitated, as if he had changed his mind about what else to say. “And...”
She cocked her head and waited, wondering what he wished to ask her beyond her forgiveness.
“And,” he said again. “I owe you my life.”
Her eyes rounded at the implications of that. For she knew that if the opportunity arose, he would give his life for hers. But, more than that, she was responsible for the life she had saved.
She stilled and stared in silence for a long moment. Then she nodded, shouldering this responsibility. It was what a woman did, lifted and carried, often more than she could manage. Skylark was small, but she was strong. Was she strong enough to bear this burden?
“And I will help you find the cause for this falling.” She returned to her idle poking of the fire with the glowing stick. “I do not think you are haunted. But you may have touched the spirit world after your injury. You might touch it each time you fall. I think you should look through the shimmering light and see what is beyond.”
Again the horned owl hooted, closer now. He looked to her and he thought he could see the hairs on her arms rise up as her face went ashen.
“I am haunted. They follow me.”
She was on her feet now.
“Ghosts,” she whispered.
He came to stand beside her, resting an arm across her shoulders. She wrapped her arms about his back and clung like a frightened child. He cradled her body next to his and was suddenly grateful to the owl for giving him a reason to hold her again. He dipped his head to breathe in the sweet floral scent of her skin. She carried the fragrance of everything green and alive. He held her and made a shushing sound.
“They are not here for you,” he assured.
“But I do not want them to take you, either.”
This surprised him. He was a stranger to her. Was it his words or her new promise to help him that made her say such things? She was so small, but her arms were strong and her determination rang clear in her voice. He petted the back of his fierce little defender, suddenly sad. He should be protecting her. But he could not because somehow fate had brought him this sickness or haunting or possession. But it had also brought him Skylark.
He did not know how she could help him, but he did believe that she would do all in her power.
The hooting came again. This time she released him and snatched up the glowing stick. Then she walked in the direction of the owl. It was an act of extreme bravery or foolishness. No one ever pursued an owl. In fact, most people he knew would have already run in the opposite direction. But not his little medicine woman. She shouted and shook her glowing stick as she ran toward the owl’s call. A moment later the owl sailed silently through the trees, its body a dark silhouette.
She returned a moment later. “It is gone.”
He could barely keep from laughing. She looked so serious, with her tiny glowing spear and fierce expression.
“What?” she asked.
“You are a very brave woman, unusual, but brave.”
Skylark giggled and tossed the stick back into the fire. “When I get angry, it is my emotions that take over.”
They stood there grinning at each other until the moment turned awkward and he glanced about at their camp.
“Let’s bed down for the night,” he suggested.
That made her eyes widen and she lost the brave expression she’d been wearing. She clasped her hands before her. The result was the unintentional drawing together of her breasts.
He looked away from this new temptation. She had not agreed to stay with him for that and he would not take what was not offered.
He went to his packs and withdrew the single buffalo robe that suited him well for sleeping. Then he collected the rolled red woolen blanket, a prized possession he’d received for the trade of many beaver hides. He offered them to Skylark to see if she would make one bed or two. She made two.
Then she set to work crushi
ng leaves between rocks and making a paste that she added to water in two separate horn cups.
“I wish I had my cooking kettle,” she said. “I could steep this in hot water.”
“What is in there?” He asked.
“Spotted Alder. This is very good for wounds.” She pointed to the second cup. “This is Throwwort. It quiets nerves and calms the blood. I have seen it used for trembling conditions. It might help lessen your spells.”
Storm watched her work. He had shared a meal and a fire, and would shortly share his buffalo robe with this woman. And his most intimate secrets. That frightened him nearly as much as his falling.
She was all motion and sparkling eyes. She came alive with her plants, explaining each new withdrawal from her pouch, and he listened just for the pleasure of hearing her voice. Her familiarity with illness and cures impressed. Such knowledge was unusual for one so young. She divided the bounty into two groups, food and plants to heal. This last group she divided again into plants to help him and other plants for various conditions to restock her supplies. Some she hung to dry by the fire, others she carefully wrapped in bits of leather. It occurred to him that her skills must be highly valued by her tribe and that the Low River people were lucky to have her.
Her hands were steady and sure. She did not shake or tremble or fall down and foam. She was exactly the sort of woman he found physically appealing, with her slender frame and enough curves to keep a man interested in the day and warm at night.
He glanced at the sprinkling of stars, knowing that during this moon the nights were short and warm. But somehow he feared sleeping beside her would make the time bend back upon itself like a river. Despite the physical awareness they shared, he should not touch her. He could not. It was wrong to take a woman he could not provide for. And he did not think he could suffer the shame of having a woman provide for him. This was why he had yet to married Beautiful Meadow. He could not bring enough game for one wife, let alone two.
It was one thing, when one was old, for a son to hunt for him and a daughter to help move their tepee. But he was young and strong...or he had been. Was he well enough to take a woman if she asked?
