“How would you like to see a dance?” Elk At Dawn broke Zach’s train of thought.
“What kind?” Zach responded, not really caring.
“The Society of Brave Dogs is having one,” Elk At Dawn said. “They are the ones who keep order in the village and punish those who do not listen. They are some of the bravest warriors in all the Blackfoot nation.” He plucked at Zach’s sleeve. “Would you like to go see them? We were not invited but I know how we can sneak in.”
The prospect of adventure was more than Zach could resist. Plus it would take his mind off his woes. “If you want, I will go.”
Earlier Zach had witnessed the Brave Dogs parading through the encampment in time to music. Each man had carried a folded blanket over his left arm and a rattle in his right hand. They marched in pairs, from the most prominent members to the least, announcing their dance as they went along.
The Shoshones also had societies, also held dances. But Zach had never seen any people so fond of singing and dancing as were the Blackfeet. Somehow he had got the notion into his head that they would always be grim and mean to one another. So bloodthirsty a people had to be. But the Blackfeet loved to laugh, to have a grand time. They were in love with life and showed it in all they did. Which only added to the mystery surrounding them.
Elk At Dawn led the way across the camp to where the dance lodges of the Brave Dogs were located. Silhouettes of figures flitted about inside one, accompanied by laughing and shouting and music. Elk At Dawn walked up behind the lodge, checking both ways to insure no one was watching, and, bending quickly, lifted the lower edge of the hide and squeezed underneath.
Bluebird went next, graceful as her namesake.
Zach came last, freezing momentarily when he saw the many spectators ringing the interior. But no one paid any attention to them so he crawled the rest of the way and stood beside the skinny duo.
The dance was already in full stride. Wearing only breechcloths and moccasins, the warriors in the society spun and leaped and shrieked in exuberant glee. A few had bone whistles on which they blew shrilly. Some sang. A quartet of dancers had been painted over with pale clay and held sticks adorned with eagle feathers. Two other dancers wore elaborate headdresses adorned with the ears of bears and numerous bear claws. Black streaks had been painted from eye to eye; the rest of their faces were painted red.
Elk At Dawn leaned close to Zach and signed, ‘‘Do you see the four smeared with clay? They play the part of wolves and are herding the other dancers toward the center of the lodge as a wolf pack herds buffalo.”
Indeed, the other dancers were pretending to be packed closer and closer together. At one point, when all the ‘buffalo’ were crammed tight, the two warriors dressed as bears came to their rescue, scattering the wolves. The spectators cheered the bears on while deriding the ‘wolf pack’.
“What does it mean?” Zach signed. Long ago his father had revealed there were always underlying meanings to everything Indians did, including their dances.
“Without the buffalo, my people would die,” Elk At Dawn signed. “So we ask for the buffalo to be protected that there may always be plenty for everyone.”
The Shoshones often did the same, only differently. Zach watched the dance be repeated several times, at a loss to comprehend how the two peoples could be so alike and yet one had the reputation of being the most fearsome tribe on the frontier while the other was known to be the friendliest.
After the fourth dance Elk At Dawn motioned and slipped out of the lodge the same way he had entered.
Zach held the hide up so Bluebird could pass under, and she gave him such a strange look that he feared he had done something grievously wrong. Outside, stars filled the firmament, and a cool breeze from the northwest fanned his long hair.
The three youngsters strolled toward Bird Rattler’s lodge, so alike in dress and appearance that a casual onlooker would have assumed they were three young Blackfeet.
“You have not answered my father yet, Stalking Coyote,” Elk At Dawn unexpectedly signed.
Zach was slow to reply. “I have not made up my mind. It is all too soon. I have only been here a few sleeps.”
“My father does you a high honor,” Elk At Dawn signed. “I do not see why you are slow to accept. And my friends all agree with me.”
Bluebird gave her brother a light shove. “Let him alone!” she chided. “If you were lost, among strangers, your heart would be as sorrowful as his.”
Elk At Dawn grinned and signed mockingly, “Stalking Coyote’s Shadow! Stalking Coyote’s Shadow! Stalking Coyote’s Shadow!”
Squealing, Bluebird delivered a slap that would have made her sibling’s head ring but Elk At Dawn skipped nimbly aside and ran off, calling her new nickname aloud over and over. She muttered in her own tongue, then glanced at Zach and signed, “All brothers are idiots! I do not know one girl who does not agree with me.”
“I might have a sister of my own soon,” Zach signed, then stopped, the uncertainty eating at his insides like a handful of tiny ravenous shrews.
“I would love to be your sister,” Bluebird signed brightly. “But I know that I am not the one you are thinking about.”
They neared Bird Rattler’s lodge with its promise of light and warmth and caring and Zach abruptly wanted nothing to do with it. Veering off, he made for the plain, planning to spend time alone to sort his thoughts. An elbow brushed his and he found Bluebird keeping pace. “You should go back,” he signed. “The air is chill.”
“Am I a baby that I cannot stand a little wind?” she shot back.
“I would not be good company.”
“You cannot possibly be worse company than my own brother,” Bluebird responded, “and if I can endure his, I can tolerate yours.”
Halting, Zach placed a hand on her arm and nearly jumped when a tingling jolt coursed through him clear down to his toes. She seemed to feel the same sensation because she voiced a little, “Ahhh!” and took a step back as if she’d been bitten by a black widow spider.
“I am sorry,” Zach signed. “I do not know what caused that.”
“It is as my father says,” Bluebird replied. “You have powerful good medicine.”
“Your father said that about me?”
“And much more. He thinks you will grow up to become a mighty warrior of great benefit to your tribe. I heard him say, ‘The Shoshones’s loss is our gain.’ He has seldom been so impressed by a boy.”
“Incredible,” Zach said in English, and resumed walking until he stood outside the border of pale light cast by the lodges. He welcomed the darkness. It closed around him like a sable garment, seeming to shut his cares and woes out like a robe that kept the cold from him on a bitter winter’s day.
Twisting, Zach admired the celestial spectacle, a habit he had picked up from his father who was enamored of lying out late on any given summer’s night and gazing long and thoughtfully at the stars. Zach had once asked why his pa did such a thing, and Nate had answered, “To try and figure it all out, son. To try and figure it all out.” Zach still had no clear idea of what his pa had been talking about.
Bluebird primly folded her hands at her waist and stared at his profile. “I do not want to upset you any more than you are already, but if you would care to talk about the things that have been bothering you I would be very glad to listen.”
The blissful moment of inner peace was gone. “I would not know where to begin,” Zach lied.
“With your family would be the logical place.”
Zach looked at her. Women, his father had once told him, had a keen insight into the innermost nature of things and people. They often pretended to be silly and shallow when in truth they were more perceptive sometimes than men. Now here was this snip of a girl seeing into the secret depths of his soul, proving his father right once again. “I miss them,” he signed frankly.
“I do not blame you.”
“My heart is torn in half,” Zach continued, the emotional wall he had er
ected beginning to crumble. “It would be different if I knew for sure they had been rubbed out. But I do not.” He gazed forlornly southward. “For all I know, they might be scouring the area around the Yellowstone for me. Or one or both of them might be laid up somewhere, hurt and dying, needing me. Yet I am stuck here.”
“They are not anywhere near the river,” Bluebird signed, and swiftly lowered her hands as if she had blundered in revealing the information.
“How can you be certain?” Zach demanded.
Bluebird hesitated. “I should not be telling you this,” she signed. “My father wanted to do it when the time was right.” She bit her lip, then continued. “He sent men to hunt for your parents the first day you came to our village and they have been searching ever since. Each evening they send someone to report. I am sorry to say that so far they have not found a single sign.”
Her use of the word ‘hunt’ rekindled Zach’s dormant fears about the Blackfeet. “Why is he doing this?” he asked, worried Bird Rattler was going to capture his folks, torture them, and rub them out.
“It was to be his secret,” Bluebird signed with reluctance. “He hoped to be able to take you back to them.”
Zach was flabbergasted. Fortunately he was using his hands to communicate. “He would do that for me? Why?”
“He feels very sorry for you. When he was about your age he lost his father.”
Once again Zach was jarred by the gulf between his ingrained notions of the Blackfeet and how they really were. “I will not let on you told me,” he assured the girl. “And I am very grateful to your father.”
“He is the most wonderful of men.”
“I feel the same way about my father.”
Minutes elapsed and neither moved or signed. Zach fidgeted, uncomfortable. He had the feeling something was expected of him but no idea what it might be.
“I must be honest with you,” Bluebird signed at length. “I would be very happy to have you live in our lodge. I like you very much.”
“And I like you.”
“My mother says I care for you too much.”
This was new territory and Zach floundered, unsure of the proper response or action. “I did not think it possible to care for anyone too much,” he signed.
“Come,” Bluebird signed, turning. “Let us walk together a while.”
Zach would rather have stayed where they were but she was already strolling along the perimeter of the light, delicate hands clasped under her chin. He caught up and leaned close so she could see his fingers when he signed, “We must not be gone too long. Your father and mother will worry.”
“Not very much. I am a long way from becoming a woman.”
Puzzled by the statement, Zach did what all men do when flustered by women: he changed the subject. “How long have your people camped at this spot?”
“Two moons,” Bluebird disclosed. “In another moon we will strike camp and head northwest to the mountains for a council with the Piegans and the Bloods.”
A ripple of despair flowed through Zach. Once the Blackfeet left, any chance he had of seeing his folks again was gone for good. He owed it to his parents to escape before then.
Bluebird did not notice his agitation. “The council will be a long one,” she had gone on. “There is much the three tribes must talk over. And there is a grievance my father must lay at the feet of the Piegans.” She laughed. “I wish I could listen in on that meeting!”
“Why?” Zach asked, not really caring.
“It concerns Cream Bear. I believe you have met him?”
“Yes. I tried to poke his eyes out with a spear.”
“It is just as well you did not. He has enough problems with his new wife. Six moons ago he traded nine fine horses and a rifle to a Piegan for her, and she has made his life miserable every moment since.” Bluebird laughed gaily. “Adults! They can be so silly.”
“So what does Cream Bear intend to do?” Zach inquired to keep the conversation going while racking his brains for a way of slipping from the village unnoticed.
“He wants to give her back to the Piegan who sold her and have his horses and rifle returned. He claims the Piegan deceived him by saying she would be an obedient wife and that she knew how to cook and sew and tend horses well. The truth is that she hisses at Cream Bear like an angry snake all the time, burns his food at every meal, and when she sews his clothes, they soon fall apart.”
“Can she tend horses at least?”
“She is as capable there as she is at everything else. So far she has lost three of them.”
“I am glad she is not my wife,” Zach joked, and wondered why Bluebird laughed longer and louder than was called for.
“Cream Bear has had enough of her. If he had not given so much, he would have cast her out of his lodge long ago. She would surely starve to death because no one else would take her in. Not even my father, and he is the kindest of men.”
“Why does she act the way she does?”
Bluebird stopped and faced him to respond. Abruptly, she pointed upward and cried out in the Blackfoot tongue.
Tilting his head back, Zach spied a shooting star blazing across the heavens. He longed to be like it, to be able to fly wherever he wanted to go. Had he the power, he would streak straight into the arms of his folks.
“Do you see that?” Bluebird signed. “It goes to the northwest, the same direction we must go when we break camp. The medicine men will take it as a good omen.”
For a strange and fascinating moment, as Zach gazed on her awestruck features, he was struck by her beauty and felt an almost irresistible urge to kiss her. He’d never experienced anything like it before. The urge startled him, and he drew back, afraid of doing a deed guaranteed to see him parted from his hair.
Bluebird had eyes only for the shooting star and gazed longingly at the sky long after it had disappeared. “Our lives are a lot like that,” she signed.
Zach failed to see any comparison but refrained from saying so in order not to offend her. He scanned the village, saw some of the camp dogs frolicking and yipping at one another. Bird Rattler’s lodge was much farther away than he had figured. “We should start back,” he signed. “I do not want your parents mad at me.”
“I suppose you are right,” Bluebird signed, patently disappointed.
Their shoulders touched now and again as they walked, and Zach was sure she did it on purpose because when he moved slightly to the right she did the same. “Thank you for listening to me,” he told her.
“I wish I could do more,” Bluebird replied.
Suddenly Zach thought he heard the rustle of grass off in the night. Automatically he stepped between the girl and the prairie to protect her in case a wild animal or worse prowled nearby. “Did you hear that?”
“A rabbit, perhaps. Or a coyote.”
“Or a bear. Or an enemy warrior.”
Bluebird giggled. “Do you always expect the worst?”
“My father taught me to always expect the best but be prepared for the worst,” Zach clarified. “Only a fool lets down his guard in the wilderness.”
“Grizzly Killer must be a very wise man.”
The reminder added fuel to Zach’s sadness and he walked on, into the dim glow of the outermost lodge. He deliberately kept his face to the plain so she couldn’t see his face. Bluebird, though, tugged on his sleeve. He had to plaster a smile on his lips and swung around to see her hands move.
“I am so sorry for you,” she signed.
“Do not be. I will see my father again. My mother also.”
“If the situation were reversed, I do not know if I would have your confidence.” Bluebird glanced in all directions, then reached out to clasp his hand and give it a gentle squeeze.
Zach was taken unawares. She had no sooner touched him than her hand was gone, giving him no time to react.
Just then, from the ring of darkness, came a womanly titter. Zach and Bluebird stopped. From out of the grass strolled a young warrior and his swee
theart, hand in hand. They walked past, the warrior giving Zach a knowing wink and his sweetheart patting Bluebird on the head. In moments they were gone among the lodges, the woman’s titter wafting on the wind.
“I would like to be her,” Bluebird signed.
“Let us hurry,” Zach said, doing just that.
A pair of night-singers riding double on horseback appeared, their melodious voices matched in perfect harmony. The man handling the reins stopped and leaned down, regarding Bluebird critically. He addressed her in their tongue.
“Use sign for the benefit of our guest,” Bluebird responded, her hands moving stiffly as if she was annoyed. “And to answer your question, Raven Wing, yes, my father knows I am out this late and does not object.”
The rider studied Zach. ‘‘You must be trustworthy, boy. But I would never let my daughter out without a chaperon at Bluebird’s age.” Clucking to his horse, he rode off and the two men took up their song where they had left off.
Bluebird sniffed, then walked faster.
Zach wondered if he would be in trouble for going off alone with her. Engrossed in his thoughts, he didn’t notice the lodge in their path until he nearly blundered into it. On its side had been painted the likeness of a large white bear. From within issued the shrill voice of a woman in a language Zach understood, and it was the very last language he expected to hear in a Blackfoot village.
“Don’t like the way I cook your venison! So what? You can choke on it for all I care, you miserable red devil! You and all your kind should be wiped off the face of the earth, just like President Andrew Jackson wanted to do!”
Stunned, Zach gaped at Bluebird, who apparently guessed why and signed, “Oh. I forgot to tell you. That woman Cream Bear bought from the Piegans is white.”
Chapter Fourteen
Nate King could have drawn his butcher knife or tomahawk and sprung to meet the threat of the enraged Pawnee warrior named Red Rock there on the bank of the river by the Pawnee village, but he didn’t. He stood calmly, arms folded, as the brave stepped up to him and waved a knife in his face. And he could be so composed because he knew that members of a Bear Society were renowned not only for their skill in combat but also for their integrity and character. A man of Red Rock’s standing could no more murder someone who would not fight back than he could slay a tribal member in cold blood. The brave was bluffing, trying to scare Nate into leaving. Or so Nate hoped as he looked the Pawnee in the eyes and refused to be cowed.
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