Running Wolf

by Jenna Kernan

  Running Wolf started to rise and then recalled his place and settled back down. Inside his mind he was running back to Raven, taking her to his horse and letting her go. Why hadn’t he done that when he had the chance? He knew she could have reached her tribe.

  But she would not leave her people, and he had still believed he could have her. His selfishness would cost Raven her life.

  Turtle Rattler handed the staff to the chief.

  “I withdraw my favor from Running Wolf, and he is no longer welcome in my lodge.” He looked at Running Wolf now. “I hoped to see my youngest wed to a fine man. I still hope she will choose such a man, but I will not live to see this.” He looked back to his advisers. “As to my successor, I make no recommendations but leave this to the council, who I trust will choose wisely.” He had to pause here because the wind had left his body. His lips were now a constant and unnatural blue, and the whites of his eyes had turned the color of the yellow clay used to stain buckskin.

  How many more days did he have left? Running Wolf knew he had disappointed the man who had treated him like a son and he had embarrassed his youngest daughter. The shame smoldered like the coals beneath the charred wood of a fire, burning hot.

  Iron Bear regained enough wind to speak, but his voice trembled. “As to the captives, I begin with the one who remained behind. I agree with Turtle Rattler. She should be rewarded, adopted as a member of this tribe. The others I would put to death, for a captive who runs needs two to watch her, and that makes her a burden. As to the one they call Kicking Rabbit. This one may look like a woman, but her heart is that of a warrior. So let her die like a warrior.”

  “No,” said Running Wolf. The word was just a breath, but he had spoken out of turn. Interrupted the chief. He stood to take his leave.

  “Send warriors to watch him,” called Red Hawk. “He will go to her and try to set her free.”

  Running Wolf found himself surrounded and escorted to the lodge of Turtle Rattler. Then a guard was posted. He knew he could take the man but he did not wish to add murderer to his list of failures. Once a man did that, he had left the Red Road. Such a man would never reach the Spirit World, but would be condemned forever to the circle of ghosts.

  If they killed her, then he would die and they could be together.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The following morning, Raven was examined by Laughing Moon and Buffalo Calf, who quickly determined that she did not bleed. They dragged her from the small lodge into the sunlight, where she squinted and shivered at once. Her lodge was cold, but not as cold as it was outside.

  Her eyes were still adjusting to the light when her wrists were bound by Living Elk under the supervision of Weasel, who looked apologetic, and Big Thunder, who looked as angry as a storm cloud.

  “Where is Running Wolf?” she asked.

  To this Weasel just shook his head and sighed.

  Big Thunder answered, “You have destroyed him.”

  “What?”

  Weasel spoke now. “Red Hawk was outside.” He pointed to the lodge. “He heard you and Running Wolf. He told the council. Running Wolf is under guard.”

  “No,” she whispered.

  “Yes,” said Big Thunder. “You shamed him and you have shamed the most wonderful woman in this entire tribe. If it is permitted, I will gladly kill you myself.”

  The look in his eye left her no doubt that he would do exactly as he said. He grasped her arm in a punishing grip and tugged her along to the front of the common women’s tepee where the others stood, already tied in a line from wrist to wrist, so they looked like ponies ready for travel. Big Thunder tied her to the back.

  “She should be in the front,” said Weasel.

  “If she had followed, they would not have escaped. Let her eat their dust for a change,” said Big Thunder.

  The line of captives was led to the central place before the lodge of the council of elders. The gathered assembly seemed to include the entire tribe. The people moved aside to watch them pass. They did not hurl insults or rocks, which surprised Raven.

  It would have been better.

  Now she did not know what to expect, but she found it took all her courage to put one foot before the next. It was hard to move forward when your mind told you to run. The other women hunched in a posture of humiliation and protection. The last defense of defenseless women. It made her angry.

  “Lift your heads,” she ordered. “You are Apsáalooke women, not dogs.”

  The women obeyed, straightening and lifting their chins. Raven felt a moment’s pride in them. Then they were lined up to face the elders, now wrapped in their finely painted buffalo robes against the cold, frosty morning.

  The people gathered to hear the decision of the council. Their once great chief, now stooped and forced to hold his eldest son’s arm for support, stood before them. The captives stood, arms tied behind them. Laughing Moon and Buffalo Calf reported that only Mouse had broken her link with the moon.

  Raven heard Buffalo Calf mutter, “Her link is always broken. Do you think it is from all the men?”

  Ebbing Water shook her head. “You saw her breasts. They are full of lumps like the bites of a horsefly and some of the sores bleed. She is sick as a rabid dog. I don’t know why they even took her along. Stupid. She can barely stand.”

  The chief lifted his hands and swayed. His son looped an arm around his waist to keep him from falling, and the entire tribe gave a gasp and then fell silent.

  Iron Bear’s voice was so weak it reminded Raven of an infant’s wail. He coughed and wheezed and finally motioned to Red Hawk to step forward. The man was dressed in his finest war shirt. As he lifted his arms for silence, Raven stared at the fringe of hair on his sleeves, suspecting it was horsehair from raids, rather than from the heads of his enemies. Still, it was an ominous sign that Iron Bear had chosen this man, her enemy, to speak for the council.

  “These women are not like our women,” said Red Hawk. “Once they ate our food, tended our sick and saw to the needs of our young men.” He looked at Raven as he spoke. “Some have even tried to forget that they are enemy. But I do not forget. They steal our horses like Crow warriors. So they will die like warriors.”

  There was a gasp from the tribe, for all knew that captive warriors were tortured in the cruelest of methods, their bodies mutilated over days so they could not pose a threat in the Spirit World.

  Frog, the only one of them who had elected to remain behind, fell to her knees and wept. Her sobs echoed loud in the still morning.

  Little Deer fell forward in a faint, taking Wren to her knees.

  Snake held her baby in her bound arms. “What of my son?”

  Red Hawk’s mouth twitched. “He will not grow to be a warrior. One less to kill later on.”

  Now Snake fell to her knees with Wren beside her. Both wept. Only Mouse, at one end of the line, and Snow Raven, at the other, remained standing.

  Raven looked to Running Wolf, who stood between Spotted Horse and Yellow Blanket looking pale and grim. But he did not speak in their defense, and the way he was flanked by the two warriors made it appear he was now a captive, too. What would they do to him?

  He was yet a member of the council of elders, so he could speak, but he could not vote. Whatever he had done inside the lodge of the council to save her, it had failed because Red Hawk had known what they had said last night.

  Now her people were doomed to the most painful of all deaths and an afterlife where they would carry the wounds inflicted upon them through eternity. Would her own mother even know her when she stepped from the Way of Souls to the Spirit World?

  Little Deer cried and Snake held her child and rocked. Only Mouse’s eyes were dry.

  Mouse spat and muttered, “Better to die than live a whore.”

  * * *

  Sp
otted Fawn stepped from the gathered women and spoke to her father before the tribe.

  “Many of these women are loved. What will Pretty Cloud do without Wren?”

  “This captive should have thought of that before she left her,” said Ebbing Water.

  “And Kicking Rabbit is mine. Running Wolf gave her to me. It is not fair that you take what is mine.”

  Clearly, none had yet told Spotted Fawn what had been said. Perhaps none on the council would ever tell her. Still, Raven worried that she would be shamed, for such gossip would not remain secret for long.

  “She ran,” said Laughing Moon.

  “But I want her back,” said Spotted Fawn. “She is my friend.”

  Raven felt the stab of guilt for having slept with the man Spotted Fawn intended to wed. Raven had even considered allowing Running Wolf to take her as his second wife without even consulting Spotted Fawn. Raven knew that Spotted Fawn did not love Running Wolf. She was infatuated with him and with several others, truth be told.

  Still, she deserved better.

  “No longer,” said Red Hawk. “The council has decided.”

  “But my father has the right to make such decisions without them.”

  It was true, but unwise for a chief to make decisions without the support of his advisers.

  “Daughter, come here.” Iron Bear lifted his free arm, and Spotted Fawn stepped beneath the shelter of her father. He now stood, supported by his eldest son on one side and his youngest daughter on the other. When had his daughter grown taller than the chief?

  “Take them to the common women’s tent and place a guard on the entrance. None go in without the council’s permission,” said Red Hawk.

  They were roughly dragged to their feet and hustled away. Raven found herself tossed inside the tent. Stakes were driven into the ground and each woman tied to one, with her hands behind her back, except Snake. She was first struck because she would not release her baby’s cradle board. One of the warriors took Stork from her and passed the cradle board to another outside.

  The warrior staked her with the others and she screamed and screamed until her voice grew hoarse.

  Outside the drums began to beat.

  “They are going to begin today! Now!” cried Little Deer.

  Snake began to rock and babble in gibberish.

  Raven stared at the closed flap of the lodge. There must be something she could do to save them.

  And then she knew.

  She was not sure if her idea would work, but she knew that she must try.

  * * *

  By the afternoon, all was ready. The drums pounded a steady beat. The stakes were driven deep into the earth so that the struggling women would not escape as bits of their flesh were cut from their bodies. They would receive water to keep them alive for a day, perhaps two. But eventually the pain and the loss of blood would be too much.

  Running Wolf had not been selected to administer the punishment, thank the Great Spirit. But he would be here to witness it under guard unless he could stop it.

  His efforts to speak to the council members individually had failed. The chief refused to see him. So he stood beside his mother, wondering if he should kill the captives to spare them this torment. It would be a mercy. But the thought of driving his knife into Raven’s flesh made his palms sweat and his stomach heave.

  “You look ill,” asked his mother. She pressed the back of her hand to his forehead. “Sweating.”

  “My heart is sick.”

  “Best she die here. She has already cost you too much. Once she is gone you can begin to repair your reputation.”

  He did not think he’d so quickly recover either his heart or his reputation, and he found that he did not want to live in a world without her. But he could not follow her, because to take his own life would keep him from the Spirit World.

  He looked to Red Hawk, who had volunteered to be the one to torture Raven. He looked gleeful, excited, his eyes dancing brightly. At last, Red Hawk’s revenge was near.

  * * *

  The captives shuffled forward, each flanked by two warriors. The rope between them was cut and they stood facing Iron Bear, each before the four stakes where their wrists would soon be bound.

  Iron Bear lifted his arms and the drums ceased. He looked even more ill than this morning, and now both his sons, Two Knives and Curling Horn, flanked him. His third son, Takes to the Sky, had died, Raven knew, in the raid where Mouse had been captured.

  “The Crow captives are to be killed as warriors, and as warriors, they are permitted to speak before us. Do any have words?”

  Raven looked about, waiting for the others to say anything they might choose, but realized that all looked to her. She returned her attention to the council and then to Iron Bear.

  “I am the daughter of Six Elks.”

  There was a murmur that grew to rabid conversation all about her. Two Knives lifted his hands and Yellow Blanket called for silence. Iron Bear had been seated on a raised platform covered with fur because, Raven assumed, he could no longer stand.

  When the gathering had quieted, Raven spoke again.

  “I am my father’s daughter, though he raised me like a second son. I am a warrior and I have counted coup against this man.” She lifted her bound wrists and extended one finger at Red Hawk.

  He brought his arm across his chest and slapped her. She rocked and staggered, but she did not fall. Blood now dripped from her lip.

  Big Thunder stepped up beside Red Hawk. “She is permitted to speak.”

  Clearly Red Hawk did not want her to tell this story.

  “She is a Crow. They are liars. No one believes her words.”

  “But she speaks the truth,” said Running Wolf. “I saw her unseat you.”

  There was a long silence. Then Red Hawk spoke again. “No one will believe the words of a man who betrays his people.”

  “What about my words?” said Big Thunder. “Do you have reason to doubt me?”

  “Or me,” said Weasel.

  “Or me,” said Yellow Blanket.

  Red Hawk’s face turned scarlet but he said no more.

  Yellow Blanket motioned to Raven to continue.

  “I am a warrior and I am the daughter of a chief. I would make a fine servant to any chief.”

  “She makes a plea for her life?” said Red Hawk. “No! This one will die. The council has decided.”

  This time it was Iron Bear who spoke. “Silence. Let the warrior woman speak.”

  Red Hawk looked murderous, but he clamped his lips together and Raven thought that he would not interrupt again.

  She spoke in a loud voice, so all could hear. “I stole Iron Bear’s horse. I took it because I wished to bring this fine animal to my father. This horse is worthy of a chief. But I was wrong to do this because this horse must go to the Spirit World with his master. He must have his weapons and his blankets on the trip to the Spirit World. And he should have one with him who has sworn to serve him. I would be that one.”

  The interruption did not come from Red Hawk, as she expected, but from Running Wolf.

  “No. She cannot.” He seemed not to realize that she would die either way and that being smothered or having her throat slit would be an easier death than the one the Sioux had decreed.

  Their eyes met and she silently begged him to understand. Then she looked about to see if there were any other objections, and her gaze fell on Red Hawk.

  He stood with a disgruntled expression and arms folded tight across his chest. Did he see his chance to take personal revenge slipping away?

  “I have never heard of such a thing,” said Iron Bear.

  Turtle Rattler spoke now, his voice pleasant and loud enough for all to hear. “I have heard of such a thing in the time before I walked the
Red Road. Perhaps some of you are old enough to recall. A wife who lost her husband in a terrible accident, a drowning. When her husband died, she cut her hair and blackened her face as is customary. She also cut her legs and arms, and this is also expected. She went a step beyond and cut away two of her fingers.” He lifted his hand. “Many of you have seen this done. But this woman was not finished. All this still did not let the pain and sorrow drain away, so she took up her knife again. And she cut very deep and joined him on his scaffold and went with him.”

  Some of the oldest members of the tribe nodded as if in memory of this.

  “But one cannot take one’s life and expect to walk the Sky Road,” said Two Knives.

  Turtle Rattler shook his head. “That is for the Great Spirit to decide. Did she take her life or only give the fullest measure of her devotion to her husband? Who can say?” He looked at the chief now. “I only say that it has been done. I do not say that I have ever seen a captive sacrificed, but I have never seen one offer herself, either.”

  Raven watched the chief consider this and was afraid he would reject her. If he did so, the others would die. So she spoke again.

  “You have said that I am brave. And you are brave. Such a man deserves a strong servant in the Spirit World.

  “I, the daughter of Six Elks and Beautiful Song, granddaughter of Winter Goose and Tender Rain, Truthful Woman and Night Storm, will lie beside him on the funeral scaffold. I will travel the Ghost Road, and once he has crossed to the Spirit World, I will serve him and his first wife, Elk Teeth. This I will do, if he agrees to free the other captives and lead them home.”

  The tribe waited in silence for their chief’s response.

  Iron Bear rose, swayed and then found his footing.

  “I am honored by your offer and I accept. On the day I pass from the Red Road and place my feet upon the Sky Road, this one will be with me. When I take this journey, Running Wolf will lead the others to their people. He will not return until he has taken a dream quest. When he returns he will be welcomed. These are my words.”