Savage Hero

by Cassie Edwards

  “I do plan to take him to Colonel Anderson,” Brave Wolf said thickly. “And he will want to know how Blackjack Tom was captured. Night Horse, what shall I say? You are still in danger of being hunted by the white pony soldiers, for they will want to question you about your role in Yellow Hair’s defeat.”

  “I thought all of that through and I believe it is my duty to go and tell everything to Colonel Anderson,” Night Horse said, his chin lifted proudly. “I know that you think Colonel Anderson is a good, wise man. I will take the chance that he will believe my story, and if he does, I will be free to return to my people, if they still want me.”

  “You are wanted, my son, by all who know you and have always loved you,” Pure Heart said as she came shakily toward Night Horse. “I heard your voice, my son. At first I thought your voice was coming to me in a dream. When I fully awakened and looked outside and saw you, I knew that my prayers to the First Maker had been answered.”

  She flung herself into Night Horse’s arms. “My son, my son, please do not leave me ever again,” she sobbed out. “It gets harder each time. I felt as though my life was slipping away when I saw you were gone again.”

  “Ina, I am sorry that I caused you pain again,” Night Horse said, gently stroking her thin, old back through her doeskin robe. “I have returned, but I must leave again to speak with Colonel Anderson as I deliver the captive to him. If Colonel Anderson believes me when I say that I had nothing to do with the attack on General Custer, and he tells me I am a free man, I will come home again. This time I will stay. I want to join the next hunt and bring much meat home for your plate. I want to be there for you always, Mother.”

  He looked over his mother’s shoulder at Brave Wolf. “I want to ride side by side with you on the hunt, to challenge you in games again, as we did when we were young brave,” he said earnestly. “My brother, I want to be everything to you.”

  “Night Horse, oh, is that truly you, Night Horse?” Dancing Butterfly cried as she came running toward him.

  Pure Heart stepped aside just as Dancing Butterfly reached Night Horse, tears flowing from her eyes when she saw her son reach out for the woman he had loved since they were children.

  “I am sorry that I hurt you again,” he said, holding her tightly. “I am here to stay, if the soldiers will allow my freedom.”

  “They will, oh, my love, they will,” Dancing Butterfly sobbed as she clung to him.

  Brave Wolf bent down, grabbed Blackjack Tom by an arm, and yanked him to his feet. “Your days of killing and maiming are over,” he growled out. “Your days of accosting women in the dark are over. I will see to it that you are taken in chains to be confined in the guardhouse at Fort Hope. You will never be able to touch my wife again.”

  “Your wife?” Blackjack Tom gasped out, paling as he looked quickly at Mary Beth. He glowered. “I was right to try and kill you. You are an Injun lover. You . . . you . . . actually married one.” He spat at her feet. “You whore.”

  Mary Beth gasped and took a shaky step away from him, then flinched when Brave Wolf slapped him hard across the face, causing his neck to make a strange snapping sound.

  Mary Beth gazed disbelievingly as Blackjack Tom’s head hung limply, his chin touching his chest as his knees buckled and he fell to the ground.

  “Is . . . he . . . dead?” she gasped out.

  “No, but he will be unconscious for a while, which is good since he has many miles to travel before Night Horse hands him over to Colonel Anderson for incarceration,” Brave Wolf said. He turned to Night Horse. “I will tie him more securely, in case he does awaken. Then, my brother, you should take time to eat before heading out for Fort Hope.”

  “I shall fix food for him,” Dancing Butterfly said. She glanced quickly at Pure Heart, who she knew would want to spend those moments with her son in case he was not allowed to return to his home again.

  “Pure Heart, I shall fix breakfast for you and Night Horse,” Dancing Butterfly murmured, smiling. “Go and be with your son alone. I shall join you soon with the food.”

  Pure Heart smiled broadly, locked an arm through Night Horse’s, and walked away with him. She stopped and looked inquiringly at Mary Beth when she saw the cat in her arms.

  “She came to me this morning,” Mary Beth said. She held the cat out to Pure Heart.

  Pure Heart didn’t take the cat. “The cat has never looked as content in my arms as she does in yours. If you wish to have her as yours, I understand,” she murmured. Then she smiled. “And I soon will have Night Horse to fill the empty spaces in my heart with his smile and laughter. I do not need the animal.”

  Mary Beth heard the hope in Pure Heart’s voice. She prayed that Night Horse would be allowed to return to the village.

  “Then I shall keep her,” Mary Beth murmured. She ran a slow hand over the cat’s tummy. “But if you wish, you can have a kitten very soon to call your own.”

  “I would like that,” Pure Heart said, smiling radiantly.

  She turned her eyes down to the unconscious man. “He may be a bad man, but he might just be the reason for my son to be set free,” she said. “If Night Horse is seen as the one who is responsible for capturing the man that the pony soldiers are looking for, might not they reward him by allowing him his freedom?”

  “I would hope so,” Mary Beth said, giving Brave Wolf a questioning look.

  “Yes, I, too, would hope so,” he said. “I do hope that my brother is given his freedom and allowed a fresh start with his life, for I believe he deserves it. By capturing Blackjack Tom and saving us from what might have been a quick death, Night Horse has redeemed himself. He deserves a second chance.”

  Mary Beth gazed down at Blackjack Tom, again reliving what he had done to her. “Not everyone deserves a second chance,” she said, shuddering. “This man . . . this Blackjack Tom . . . doesn’t!”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Is it, in Heav’n a crime,

  to love too well?

  To bear too tender or too

  firm a heart?

  —Alexander Pope

  It was the last cicada-shell moon of old summer and the second leaf-falling season at the Crow village for Mary Beth. She was now the happy, proud wife of the chief of the Whistling Water Clan. She knew this was the season when new tepee poles were cut and the women busied themselves making certain their lodge skins were renewed and whitened.

  Mother Earth’s bounty had provided a rich harvest again this year. The Crow people had plenty of geese, ducks, sage hens, deer, and antelope. Much game had been brought into camp and smoked, as well as fish from the nearby river. In the plum thickets and blueberry bushes, there had been plenty of sweetness.

  The Crow people had worked hard to prepare for Mother Earth’s change of dress, when the hungry moon of winter would shine down on the breathless nights, when bears slept and the small buffalo herds would be pawing through the snow for grass after the downy snow fell from the sky.

  Soon Mary Beth would wear a long robe of the softest, whitest doeskin which she had proudly sewn for herself.

  But today, when the air smelled of the delicious scents of autumn, reminding Mary Beth of all of her autumns in Kentucky, she was not overseeing the making of new tepee poles, nor was she concerned about making certain their lodge skins were readied for the long months of winter which lay just ahead of them.

  She was with Dancing Butterfly, acting as midwife with Pure Heart, as her friend readied herself for the second child that would soon be born to her and Night Horse.

  Night Horse, who had not been arrested by the United States Government, who was free to live his life now with his Crow people and wife, could not even be near the birthing lodge. Dancing Butterfly moaned and groaned in heavy labor in the lodge, which was set far back from the others of the village. It had been built of bent willow branches and was to be used only for the birthing of this one child; then it would be dismantled, its willow branches never to be be used again for anything.

  “
I wish my husband could be with me,” Dancing Butterfly said, grabbing at her huge belly when another sharp pain caused her to bear down. “My husband. Oh, my husband. Why cannot he be here with me? I wish so badly to be held by him.”

  “This is your second child. You know the custom, Dancing Butterfly,” Pure Heart said as she bent to her knees and planted one stake into the ground at one corner of Dancing Butterfly’s pillow. Mary Beth knelt at the other corner and hammered the second stake there.

  “Hurry, oh, please hurry,” Dancing Butterfly said as she tossed her head from side to side, her sweatwettened hair spraying moisture with each toss. “I feel it is time. I . . . feel . . . it. I know that the baby’s head is coming down. Soon. Oh, soon my child will be in my arms.”

  “The stakes are planted,” Pure Heart said, settling down at the foot of the bed of pelts beside Mary Beth, who would assist in the childbirth in any way she could.

  Mary Beth was proud to have been chosen as one of Dancing Butterfly’s midwives. It proved just how close their bonds were as friends.

  She glanced over at Pure Heart, whose old eyes were filled with eagerness; she was going to be a grandmother for the second time in two years.

  It made Mary Beth sad that Pure Heart’s first grandchild had not been Brave Wolf’s and Mary Beth’s, nor even her second.

  Mary Beth had not been able to conceive. It was hard for her to understand, because on her very wedding night with Lloyd, she had become pregnant.

  She had always believed she never got pregnant again because of the scarcity of times they had shared in lovemaking.

  But she had been with her beloved Brave Wolf every night since their marriage except for that time of month when she had her weeps, and no Indian husband even came near his wife at that time.

  Mary Beth had finally grown used to spending that time of month in the village menstrual hut, where all women went and sewed or did other handiwork to pass those days and nights away from their husbands.

  Yes, it just did not seem right that Mary Beth had not gotten pregnant after all those wondrous moments in her husband’s arms. She could only conclude that it had to do with David not having been found, that she could not relax in the right way to become pregnant.

  She didn’t understand, nor could she change anything. She had learned to take the bad with the good and be content for the moment.

  What would make her happiness complete was to have a child born of her and Brave Wolf’s love. Although she hated to admit it, she had given up on ever seeing David again.

  It had been too long now.

  And after all the searches by not only Brave Wolf and his warriors, but also his Crow allies, as well as Colonel Anderson’s men, David had not been seen anywhere. Mary Beth had no choice but to accept that her son was lost to her forever.

  Now if only she could get pregnant. Surely another child would fill that empty space in her heart left by David’s absence.

  Her thoughts returned to the present when Dancing Butterfly screamed and gripped the stakes. Mary Beth listened to Dancing Butterfly say many rapid words in the Crow tongue, smiling when she recognized them; she now knew their language as well as her own.

  Dancing Butterfly had just said many unpleasant words to express her frustration over being in labor for so long and having nothing to show for it!

  If it were Mary Beth, she would say a few choice words under those conditions, but they would soon be followed by a prayer. On the other hand, she would give anything to be having those labor pains.

  Surely she would not be as impatient as Dancing Butterfly or speak such words of frustration. Mary Beth’s frustration came from being childless.

  Pure Heart sat beside Dancing Butterfly with a small vial that held a combination of ground roots and broth from a cooked horned toad.

  “This will help your pain,” Pure Heart said as she slowly rubbed the liquid across Dancing Butterfly’s swollen abdomen. “Close your eyes. Breathe in . . . breathe out. Soon you will make me a very proud grandmother again.”

  “Both Night Horse and I are proud to give you another grandchild,” Dancing Butterfly said. She tossed her head back and forth and gritted her teeth when another pain slammed through her.

  “There is one more thing I can do for you,” Pure Heart said. She reached over and grabbed a small jug. She held it to Dancing Butterfly’s lips with one hand as she slowly lifted her head with the other. “Drink it slowly. This will hasten the birth.”

  Dancing Butterfly swallowed the liquid in small sips. When she was finished, Pure Heart set the empty jug aside and moved to Dancing Butterfly’s side. She held her tightly above her swollen abdomen. “Push,” she said, her eyes watching as Mary Beth moved closer to Dancing Butterfly’s outspread legs. “Mary Beth, reach inside her. Help the child. Help the child now.”

  Mary Beth blanched at the thought, but nodded weakly. When Dancing Butterfly screamed and gave another hard push, Mary Beth reached slightly inside her just as the head of the baby slid down into her hands.

  Soon the child was in Mary Beth’s arms, its first cries filling the small space of the hut.

  Pure Heart came to her, her eyes shining with happy tears and waited for the afterbirth to slide free, which it did in a matter of seconds.

  Pure Heart placed it in a wooden basin, then gazed at length at the child.

  “It is a wiyanna, a girl child,” Pure Heart said, sighing as she slowly took the baby from Mary Beth and cradled it in her own arms.

  “My granddaughter,” Pure Heart said as Mary Beth measured off three fingers on the wet unbilical cord and sliced it with a knife, cutting the navel cord.

  Since the child was a girl, Mary Beth rolled the cord up in a piece of cloth and put it into a beaded sack that would be fastened to her cradleboard.

  When the child was old enough to wear an elktooth dress, this bag would be tied to its back.

  Mary Beth knew of the other procedures which followed childbirth. Two days from now, Dancing Butterfly would heat a steel awl and pierce her child’s earlobes with it. She would then stick a greased stick through the perforations. When the wounds healed, tiny earrings would be inserted.

  Four days after the child’s birth, Dancing Butterfly would cover the baby’s face with a sacred red paint and lift her four times while the village shaman, Many Clouds, held smoking bear root to the child’s wincing eyes. Then he would name her.

  Now that Mary Beth had completed the first chores, she was able to stop and take a longer look at the tiny thing in Pure Heart’s arms. Dancing Butterfly leaned up on an elbow, finally free of pain, and her eyes were filled with love as she gazed at her newborn.

  Ah, the child, Mary Beth marveled to herself. She was so pure and so beautiful, it made tears come to her eyes, for she had always wanted a daughter so that David would have a sister.

  Now Mary Beth didn’t have a son or a daughter, but she could, she would enjoy her best friend’s child to the fullest. She was anxious to see the newborn placed in the cradleboard that Mary Beth had made for her. She had lined it with beautiful white rabbit fur and decorated it with pretty beads for the baby to look at and play with.

  She looked forward to helping feed the baby when she was old enough to be fed stew of boiled corn and crushed berries.

  “She is so tiny,” Mary Beth said, reaching over to take one of her hands and marveling over how little the fingers were.

  Her gaze shifted to the feet. She smiled at the tiny, curled-up toes.

  Then she moved her eyes slowly over the naked baby, seeing her beautiful smooth copper skin, the darkness of her eyes as she peered up at her grandmother for the first time, and the shock of black hair on her head, almost enough already to braid!

  When the baby smiled that first time, it was pure heaven for all who witnessed it.

  “We must cleanse her and then give her to her mother for feeding,” Pure Heart said, slipping the child into Mary Beth’s arms. She reached for a wooden basin of water that had been prepa
red what seemed to Mary Beth hours and hours ago. “Mary Beth, you hold her. I will wash her.”

  Mary Beth didn’t take her eyes off the child as she was washed. She smiled as Pure Heart wrapped the clean child in a soft doeskin blanket and placed her in her mother’s waiting arms.

  Mary Beth almost turned away as the child was placed at her mother’s breast for the first time. It was almost too much for Mary Beth as she recalled the first time her David had suckled from her own breast. At this moment, her longing for her son was twofold.

  But she knew that she must get hold of herself. She wanted to be happy for Dancing Butterfly and Night Horse, not envious!

  She watched as Pure Heart took a bowl to Dancing Butterfly. While the child suckled, Pure Heart helped Dancing Butterfly eat what was required of her after having just given birth to her child . . . a piece of broiled buffalo hump which had been dipped in fat. Dancing Butterfly would eat it just once. Then she would be made to abstain from any cooked meat for several days.

  “And now it is time to get the proud ahte, the father,” Mary Beth said, crawling toward the small entranceway. The birthing hut was not tall enough for anyone to walk within it.

  She hurried outside, where both Brave Wolf and Night Horse stood, their eyes anxious.

  “I heard my baby’s first cry,” Night Horse said, glancing from the entranceway to Mary Beth. “Tell me. Is it a micinksi, a son? Or a wiyanna, a daughter?”

  “Your son has a sister, you have a beautiful daughter,” Mary Beth said.

  She moved into Brave Wolf’s arms as he reached out for her. She wished that she was telling him she had just given him a child. She was afraid that just possibly she might never be able to.