He walked quietly among them, and they didn’t stir; it was as if they knew him, though most didn’t. Then he spotted Jawbone and his mother just as they spotted him. The yearling raced to him, squealed, lowered his big ungainly head, and pushed it hard into Skye’s midriff, forcing Skye back.
“Ho, there, you bloody devil,” he muttered, overjoyed at the sight of the medicine colt Skye ached to call his own. He knew he must be patient, cautious, and terribly circumspect if ever he would get his horses back. Anger filled him. These were his own horses! He pushed back a fierce notion to take them and get out. The Crows would catch him in no time. This needed diplomacy, something he hated.
Jawbone kept butting Skye and expressing his joy with odd little bleats until the mare whirled, planted both rear hooves into Jawbone’s butt, and drove the little rascal away. Then she bared her teeth at him just to show him who was still boss.
Skye laughed, albeit sadly. There was now an aching void between these horses and him, a gulf he had no way of bridging.
He knew he was being observed. Warriors, herd watchers, studied him. This was no secret. Everyone knew whose horses they had been, who took them, and what Walks to the Top had said about the colt in that faraway village on the Musselshell. So, if anything, young Crow males watched and waited, and Skye felt himself being weighed. He ran his hand under the mane of the colt, and then turned to leave. The colt followed.
“Avast!” he growled.
The colt, looking wounded, stared. Skye walked away and downriver, feeling miserable. The only good thing was that he had seen his horses and they were healthy. Maybe he should just try to forget, abandon them. But he knew he could not. They were his. There was some strange destiny about them, something larger than the reality of the day or the hour could voice.
He performed some simple ablutions at the river’s edge and walked back into the village. It still barely stirred. Especially in winter, people slept late, except for the ever-busy lesser wives, who were constantly burdened with dreary tasks, such as gathering loads of firewood and hauling it on their backs.
He would talk to Long Hair. That would be the first step, but he had no illusions about any of it. It would be late morning before he would be admitted to the chief’s presence. The legendary chief followed a well-known ritual. He slept late while his several wives did the drudge work. When he arose, his first business was to primp. His wives unfolded his hair and spread it on the ground, and sometimes measured it to see if it had grown longer. Usually this was done out of doors unless the weather was bad. After the hair was stretched, the wives curried it with a porcupine-quill brush until every strand was unknotted. Woe to the young wife who pulled a strand out of Long Hair’s head.
Then the wives folded his hair into hanks and returned it to his carrying case, which he kept at his side, or on occasion slung over his back. After the wives had attended him his next ritual business was gossip. It wasn’t called that, but that’s what it was. News givers brought him every detail of life in the village, every scrap of information. This morning they would tell him all about Skye’s trip to the herd, and how the medicine colt butted him and was disciplined by the mare. This morning Chief Long Hair would learn who visited whose lodge in the night, what the medicine seers had said, who was out of meat, whose wives were quarreling, what children were teasing whom, and on and on. By late morning the chief would know everything worth knowing, and everything not worth knowing, and he would use his vast knowledge, brought him by a whole network of talkers, to lord over his people in ways that seemed miraculous to them.
So Skye waited. Back in Arrow Giver’s lodge he noted that Victoria’s younger brother was paying close attention to his youngest woman, with smiles and merry little jokes, and Skye surmised who was his host’s favorite at that moment. But if anything was true of the Crows it was their fickleness. Tomorrow that wife, Sow Black Bear, might be flirting with someone else, and Arrow Giver would probably be favoring two or three others.
Meanwhile, he had a rifle to look at. The Hawken didn’t shoot true. He pulled the charge and studied it. The rifle had been abused by someone, and its bead, the little ridge of metal at the muzzle used for aiming, had a left tilt to it. The rifle had been used to pry something and the bead had been damaged. Actually, Skye’s heart lifted. If he could find a file he would reshape that bead. It took some while to convey to Arrow Giver what he wanted, but in time Victoria’s brother produced a rough wood file. It would have to do. Skye found some sunlight and patiently scraped away the cant in the bead, and hoped he could center on his target. Then he scraped at the top of the bead to lower it, hoping that would raise his aim slightly. It was good steel and his work went slowly, and the sun climbed and arced around the southern sky.
Something changed in camp: it was, in fact, the time when Chief Long Hair would hear petitions or counsel of whatever a Crow wanted to say to the headman. But this time there was more: the whole of the Kicked-in-the-Bellies were waiting for Skye to make his petition. This moccasin telegraphing was a thing Skye hardly understood. How could everyone know his business?
He finished his work on the rifle and thought to aim and shoot it later, but now he had a case to make. He wondered how to make it. He set the rifle aside and started toward the chief’s oversized lodge. There he discovered the village elders gathered outside in the bright winter sun, and all of them in ceremonial dress. This was no ordinary occasion.
Skye stood and waited for the summons, which came at once.
He knew there would a great deal of talk. They would seek to hear his case, there would be a lengthy debate, and then a verdict. He would need to summon all his Crow words and add some sign language too.
He decided on a simple approach: the young men took his horses, the horses of a friend and adopted son of the Crows. He wanted them back. He would honor their bravery, but he wanted his horses back.
Thus he approached the chief, who sat in a reed backrest, with several robes scattered about him. His hair pouch rested in his lap.
“You who married one of my people, approach,” he said. “I have heard your story and will decide now.”
“But I haven’t told it …” Skye suddenly realized he would not be allowed to tell it. This was not a matter for debate nor did he have standing. This was going to be something directed at him, and he would have only the choice of heeding it or leaving the village.
Skye stood awkwardly and removed his hat. He was the center of attention. Headmen at the innermost circle, then warriors, and then women and children, as was the custom in Crow life.
Long Hair was plainly enjoying the moment.
“Our fine young men, Badger Tail and Wolf, have acquired a mare and a colt. This mare and colt were taken in an act of war, and now belong to these young men, who are entering into the manhood of the Crow people. These horses are said to be medicine horses by the visitor among us.” He did not refer to Skye by name, which was a bad sign. “But we know that the Tobacco Planter, Walks to the Top, has said this colt is a bad omen and will bring evil to the Otter Clan people who are wintering on the Musselshell. He required of you that you destroy the colt so to spare the people his evil. You brought the colt and its mare here, intending to escape that verdict.
“Some of my headmen think it should be heeded. The colt should die. Others say that Walks to the Top was speaking only about the fortune of his village, not ours. And so we are divided. Some say when Badger Tail and Wolf return from their crying for a vision, they should heed what was said by the Tobacco Planter. Others say that the young men won war honors, and the horses are the sign of it, and it would dishonor their victory and dishonor us if we require them to destroy their prize.
“I have decided. Let my word be heard. The horse colt will belong to Badger Tail, the mare will belong to Wolf. I will wait and see whether the presence of this pair of horses harms my people. You visited the horses this morning. You will not visit them again. They must be left to the young men. If you visit the ho
rses you will not be welcome here. I trust you have listened.”
Skye nodded. “I have listened,” he said, “but I wish to talk about those horses. They were the gift of Magpie to Many Quill Woman and me.”
“Enough,” said the chief.
The horses would live for the moment but only until the next trouble. Skye turned slowly and walked away. He had not been allowed a word of explanation, not a word about how Victoria’s life had been saved. Not a word. It was most unusual and bespoke some strange chill, or fear, or dread, soaking through these people. How could a feisty little colt like Jawbone evoke all that? Skye didn’t know, but he knew he must not say a word, not a whisper, to anyone.
twenty-seven
So the day had begun badly but it was to grow worse. Later that morning the young men who had been on their vision quest returned a day early. They should have stayed four days, fasting and praying to the Above Ones and the spirits in all the directions of the winds for their vision.
It was unusual for them to seek their vision in winter, unusual to go together though nothing forbade it. They had been boyhood friends and were warrior-brothers now, bonded by vows to defend each other. So they had headed up to the sacred bluff in the Pryor Mountains, through which the Big Horn River passed in a deep canyon, there to fast and thirst and beseech their helpers until they should receive that which came out of the mists.
And now Badger Tail and Wolf limped into the village, each carrying the heavy robe that was their sole comfort in the mountains. And even as they entered, a wail rose, for the youths were injured. Both had been bitten around the face, and Badger Tail on his calf and forearm as well.
Skye followed the crowd as it collected around the young men, back early from the sacred mission.
They looked frightened and desolated. Already the women had surmised what had happened, and began a quiet moaning. The men stood silently, absorbing the tooth marks and blood that covered those youths.
Little Horse, powerful and sinewy, approached his son.
“The time of pleading has not passed,” he said
“Father, a wolf came. We thought he was our spirit helper.”
“A wolf came so close?”
“He came right up to me and was not afraid. I saw madness in him, but then it was too late. He was not a spirit helper, but a wolf with the madness. Foam and spittle dribbled from his jaws. And then he shook his head back and forth and pounced, biting my cheeks, my jaw, my nose, and for a moment I did nothing for fear of angering him, for this might be a dream and I was waiting for the vision.”
Skye listened sadly. Hydrophobia. Rabies. A rabid wolf had bitten the boys, and he was staring at two doomed youths, barely reaching their manhood.
The women keened. Badger Tail’s mother rushed to him with a sopping deerskin rag and washed her son’s blood away. The tooth marks, especially those of the fangs, remained clear upon his gray flesh.
Wolf, the other boy, seemed less bitten, but bore the marks of his fate as well. Both youths stood there, knowing their fate, frightened and yet brave, their gazes almost defiant. What terrible thoughts were running through their minds now? They had sought manhood and a name and protector, and found only doom.
Skye puzzled over it. Hydrophobic animals usually showed up in the summer, not winter. But no matter. If these lads had been bitten by a rabid wolf, they would perish in the midst of excruciating pain and thirst. It would take the disease only a short while, a few days, because of the head wounds. If they had been bitten on a limb or foot, they might survive as long as two months. Soon they would face fevers and convulsions and pain in the throat and esophagus that would make them unable to swallow, and no matter how much they craved water, they could not stand to drink it. It was an awful way to die and there was no cure.
Some of the trappers believed in a madstone, a porous stone that was to suck the lethal poisons from the body. Others believed in bloodletting. Cut open each puncture, where the infected tooth had pierced, and let the blood carry away the sickness. But Skye had never heard of a success. Everyone who had been bitten by a rabid animal, wolf or skunk usually, perished.
And here were two boys, the very boys being celebrated by the entire Crow nation, stepping from boyhood into the adult world where they would help the People and keep them safe.
This great and saddened crowd had at last attracted the attention of Long Hair, who made his stately way, his wife carrying the hair chest behind him.
“What is this? What do I hear? Tell me,” he said to the young men after inspecting them.
They slowly described the bites of the rabid wolf, which they had thought was only a dream, a vision, the strange initiation of their spirit protector who was testing them.
Now a great circle of villagers surrounded the youths. Chief Long Hair walked slowly around them, two wives dutifully carrying his sacred hair, until at last he stood before the young men.
“This has never happened. Not in all the winters of our lives. Not in all the stories handed down by the grandfathers. No young man seeking a vision has ever been hurt by anything. Some came back defeated; no vision came to them. Others came back weakened by fasting, but they soon recovered. But this is different. The Other Ones must be displeased with us. Those who inhabit the west winds and the south winds and the other winds have found fault with us. We harbor evil in our midst, and must purify ourselves. The whole People must purify themselves and drive out evil.”
Skye suddenly intuited where this was going though Chief Long Hair had not yet gotten down to specifics.
The youths stood somberly, in need of rest and attention but unable to move until they received permission. The chief scarcely noticed their distress or the pallor in their faces.
Long Hair repeated himself several more times, as if he wanted his message ground deep into the heart of every listener, while the poor youths endured in the chill air.
Then suddenly Long Hair paused and faced Skye and pointed.
“He brought evil here. The very horses condemned by the Tobacco Planter, Walks to the Top.”
Skye felt the gazes of scores of his friends, his adopted nation, his wife’s family and kin, and the somber suspicious study of impressionable children, and all their gazes hammering him like sledgehammer blows.
At that moment the old seer, Red Turkey Wattle, most revered of all the Absaroka medicine men, raised his old hand, palm forward, and such was his authority that even the chief fell silent.
“Our friend Mister Skye, husband of Many Quill Woman, did not bring the horses here. The horses, sacred to him, were taken from him and brought here. I have burned sweetgrass and heard the whispers. The colt, named Jawbone, will live to be a great ally of the People. In the troubles that come, he and his owner, Mister Skye, will be like a hundred warriors fighting for us. The mare has already spared one of us, carrying Many Quill Woman to safety. Do them no harm. That is what I have seen, and what I say.”
Contradiction. Skye found himself witnessing a struggle of a sort he had never seen among the Absaroka. There was the word of the elder, Walks to the Top, a Tobacco Planter, considered wise and all-knowing by the People but not necessarily one who communes with the Other World. And there was Red Turkey Wattle, a true medicine man, venerated for his insights, one who did receive gifts from the Other Ones. And now the chief, once a war leader, powerful, whose word was law, following yet another course. And it was the chief’s own words that Red Turkey Wattle had challenged. Jawbone and the mare had not been brought into the village by Skye but by the youths who stood miserably at the center of all this. Skye waited uneasily, knowing that whatever happened, his own fate lay in the balance.
The chief took offense, glared at the seer, but did not dare challenge the old man. Instead he whispered to his wives, who withdrew the long hair from its casement and slowly spread it until it trailed behind the chief, an amazing hank that ran perhaps fifteen feet. This was his medicine, and now he was displaying it. He walked slowly, letting that cascad
e of hair pull along behind him for all to see. He circled the young men once again, so all might see his hair, and then paused before Skye.
“The People will suffer for as long as you and the cursed horses remain among us. Go,” he said.
Skye stood there a moment. “It will be as you wish,” he said. “I will make it my first business to track down the rabid wolf, and if I find him, I will kill him. The wolf will be glad of it. And the People will be released from danger.” He paused, gazing at his many friends, hunting companions, kinfolk by marriage, and others who had shared village life with him. “You are my only nation, and I remain your friend.”
He was alone again. Ever since he had been ripped out of London, he had been alone. He walked through the crowd, which parted, and headed for Arrow Giver’s lodge, where he gathered his few belongings. He headed for Little Horse’s lodge to collect what the boys had taken and found his packsaddle and tack awaiting him outside the lodge door.
These things he lugged out of the village and into the sheltered bottoms of the Big Horn, until at last he reached the sunlit herd. He spotted Jawbone and the mare and headed their way. Jawbone squealed and raced up to him, butting him and making himself obnoxious.
“Avast!” Skye bellowed. But in truth, he was grateful the little fellow was alive and returned to him, even at the terrible price of his exile from the Crow nation.
Skye settled the packsaddle on the mare, tightening the cinch and tying it. Then he anchored his bedroll on it, along with the few things he still possessed, preferring to carry his Hawken in hand. He had his colt and his mare. He had, in a distant village, his wife, and she had a new lodge, and there were four ponies there awaiting him, the gift of her elder brother. All that was wealth. And he had a Hawken, shot and powder, to make meat and collect hides and protect himself. He was whole again, but once again he was a man without a country: not an Englishman, not a Yank, not a Crow, not a fur company employee, not any damned thing at all.
The Fire Arrow Page 14
