Sundancer's Woman

by Judith E. French

  “Is that always a bad thing?”

  He frowned. “Not always. Women often have wisdom that men lack. It comes from always thinking.”

  “Exactly,” she replied. “We must get Jamie warm. If you land the canoe, I can make a fire and get him dry. You can take the others and go back and rescue Hunt.”

  “And the dog as well, I suppose,” he said wryly.

  “Hunt would do it for you.” Her son whimpered, and Elizabeth rocked him against her. “If I can’t stop Jamie’s shivering, he’ll sicken and die. Please, Fire Talon.”

  “You are a stubborn woman, never satisfied. First, you must have your children,” he said. “Now that you have them, you want Hunter of the Far Mountains and his dog.”

  “I don’t have to have the dog,” she murmured.

  “Ha!” He glanced back at Black Hoof. “Hear that?” he asked in Algonquian. “Her meek words say she does not want the dog, but later, what will she say to our women? Will she say we were too cowardly to save the courageous animal? Will our wives call us old men?”

  Elizabeth held her tongue, but nothing could still the singing in her blood when Talon signaled the other canoe toward the towering forest on the far shore of the river.

  Hunt lay crumpled on a small stretch of sand and rocks, hardly wider than a man is tall. His head and upper torso were above the lapping water line, the lower half of his body still submerged.

  Pain flared through his body, but he accepted it. Acceptance of physical pain was a lesson he’d learned during the ordeal of the Cheyenne Sun Dance when thongs were thrust through the skin and muscle of a man’s chest and tied, and the initiate must dance and pray until the leather ropes ripped out in a torrent of bright blood. Flesh could be broken and torn; a man’s spirit could soar above the earth and touch the light of the Creator.

  The world was dark and wet. Hunt remembered another black, wet night, on the endless prairie. He’d been hunting buffalo with bow and arrow, and he’d been separated from his Arapaho and Cheyenne friends by the torrent of shaggy animals. He was riding full out, ready to send an arrow into the heart of a young bull, when his pony missed a step. He heard the crack of the pinto’s foreleg like a gunshot. He had the sensation of falling ... and then nothing more until thunder and lightning had rolled across the sky. Rain hitting his face had awakened him. A cloudburst of water had poured from the heavens until the dry prairie earth became a multitude of brown rushing rivers.

  Hunt opened his eyes. Something was scraping the skin of his face. Something large and hairy loomed over him in the wet, cold darkness. A buffalo? He was too tired to care. He let himself sink down in the black void once more. But the buffalo would not let him rest; it continued to lick his face with a rough tongue.

  Hunt pushed back the Stygian night and drew in a breath of air. Immediately, he began to choke. Rolling onto his belly, he puked up his guts. When he’d emptied his stomach, he groaned and reached out to grab hold of Badger’s hair.

  The dog whined anxiously and pawed at Hunt’s face.

  Where the hell was he? Hunt tried to think. His head felt as though a tree had fallen on it. When he put his hand up, he found a swollen gash and caked blood.

  Sitting up required an effort greater than he would have imagined. Flashes of memory filtered through his throbbing headache. A canoe ... he remembered a canoe tipping over on top of him.

  His teeth were chattering. He was lying half in the water, soaked through and shaking with cold. If he didn’t move, he’d die, and then it wouldn’t matter whose canoe had turned over or what river this was. But when he tried to stand, he pitched forward onto his face.

  His right leg felt as though it was on fire. Gingerly, he felt for a reason and found it. His finger slipped through a hole in his thigh and hit something hard. His head might be full of river mud, but he could sure as hell tell when he’d been shot. And the damn lead ball was still buried in his leg.

  Instinct made him want to rip it out of his flesh, but he forced back the urge. He’d seen a wounded Cheyenne Dog Soldier dance a victory chant and feast on buffalo tongue for most of a night. Sees-Dust-At-Morning ... his friend ... Sees Dust. For seconds, the Cheyenne’s hawk-faced image surfaced in his mind, and he remembered Sees Dust’s hearty laughter. When the medicine man had dug out the Blackfoot arrowhead, Sees Dust had bled to death within minutes.

  A loud crack sent Sees Dust’s face tumbling back into the past. For an instant, Hunt was confused. Was that the sound of his pony’s leg breaking? A second shot echoed across the river, either musket or rifle fire.

  He faintly recalled an overturned canoe. Now, someone was shooting. He shook his aching head to try to make sense of what was happening. Obviously, he had nearly drowned, and somebody had taken a definite disliking to him. The question was, who was looking for him—friends or enemies? And how could he tell them apart if he couldn’t remember who or where he was?

  Badger continued to paw at him. The dog ... his dog ... seemed to have a pretty good idea of what was going on. At this point, any opinion seemed more rational than his own. Using the dog for support, he gritted his teeth and stood up.

  Fragments of human voices drifted to him on the wind. A torch bobbed, and when Hunt wiped the blood out of his eyes, he could make out a canoe with Indians in it. They seemed to be paddling toward him.

  “Friends or enemies?” he asked the dog. His words creaked like a rusty hinge.

  The dog took a step toward the woods.

  Hunt glanced at the dog. “I was afraid you’d say that,” he rasped.

  The bank wasn’t steep; for that he was grateful. He crawled up it on his hands and knees, leaving a trail of blood behind him. He was stark naked; he’d lost his loincloth in the river, but he figured that might have been what saved him. If he’d had any clothes on, they’d have frozen stiff and him with them.

  He clawed his way upright against a sapling, took hold of the dog’s back, and took a step, then another. After a few yards, he managed a stumbling trot toward the south. Each jolt of his feet hitting the ground rattled his brain and sent splinters of white pain through his wounded leg, but he was putting distance between him and the men on the river.

  At dawn, he was still on his feet.

  The sun came up in the east as far as he could remember. His headache had become a roaring wave, and he was no longer cold. He was hot, and he was beginning to hallucinate.

  He kept seeing a white woman’s face ... a woman with red hair and green eyes. It wasn’t his sister, Becca. Becca had red hair, but she wasn’t the woman he kept conjuring up in his head. Becca used to sing him to sleep every night... something about a cherry tree. He began to hum as he walked and the words came tumbling back.

  ... Sweet Mary and Joseph

  Walked through an orchard green,

  There were cherries and berries,

  As thick as might be seen ...

  And up spoke Virgin Mary,

  So meek and so mild,

  Joseph, gather me some cherries,

  For I am with child ...

  He remembered the cabin where he’d lived with Becca and her husband, Simon. He didn’t like Simon much, didn’t care for the son of a bitch at all. He remembered Shawnee burning the house and taking him and his sister prisoner. He’d never seen her after that day. Simon was dead, but he supposed Becca was alive somewhere in the white settlements, probably remarried with a new family. He wondered if she ever thought of him.

  He supposed he ought to do something about making a fire, but he was so hot, he wasn’t sure he needed one. He wasn’t hungry either, but he was thirsty. Why a body would want more water after he’d nearly drowned was beyond him. The river wasn’t far on his right; he’d kept close to it, thinking that sooner or later, his head would clear. Water could tell you where you were, if you knew where you’d started from and where you were headed.

  Without warning, his bad leg gave way, and he fell hard against the ground. He called out to Badger, but the dog didn’t
come to help him. Instead the animal ran ahead into the trees.

  “Come back,” Hunt whispered. His voice was nearly gone. “Badger.”

  The bushes parted and an Indian stepped into the clearing. Hunt tried to speak, but the earth swayed beneath him and then opened with a groan and swallowed him up.

  Chapter 21

  Hunt lay in a cocoon of warm darkness. Lately, he had been plagued by nightmares. Only glimpses of the bad dreams remained, but he could remember floating or being carried horizontally above the ground so that he saw the trees and sky pass over him. He remembered intense heat and thirst, the torture of something digging into his leg, and strangest of all, the odd sensation of having food spooned into his mouth as though he were a helpless babe. He lay very still, afraid that if he stirred, the agony or the throbbing in his head would return.

  Instead, he heard familiar sounds from his past: a child’s laughter, barking dogs, and a flute. The musical notes rose and fell. He wasn’t familiar with the tune, but the poignant love song stirred emotion in his soul. He wondered if he had died and crossed the River of Souls to the heavenly hunting grounds beyond the bounds of earth. Surely, only spiritual beings could play so sweetly.

  Something damp brushed his right eyelid, then his lips. The tickling sensation brought him higher toward consciousness. Before he could drift into deep sleep again, he heard a merry titter, and a drop of cold liquid rolled down his forehead and into the folds of his left eye.

  “Is you ‘sleep?” Small fingers pinched Hunt’s eyelashes and pried his right eye open. A tiny girl child stared into his face. “You not ’sleep!” she declared with a giggle. “You ‘wake.”

  “Go away,” Hunt groaned.

  The wet object dripped over his lips and chin. “What—” he demanded. He opened his eyes and tried to sit up, but a wave of dizziness laid him low again. “Ohh,” he moaned. The dome of a skin-lined wigwam slowly spun round and round over his head. He sighed heavily and closed his eyes again.

  “No,” the sprite cried. “No ‘sleep. Sleep two many.” She giggled again. Minute fingers marched spiderlike over his nose. “Wake high. Nooo.” More giggles. “Wake up.”

  When he looked again, he saw what appeared to be a wet turkey feather dancing over his forehead. “Get that thing away from me,” he said. He brought his hands up to cover his face. His joints moved stiffly, and one arm ached, but his body seemed whole from the waist up.

  The dancing feather tickled the backs of his hands.

  “Stop that,” he growled, grabbing the feather and yanking it away from his small tormentor. “What are you, an evil woods’ dwarf?”

  The child’s lower lip quivered and two tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “Don’t cry,” Hunt said. “Here.” He shoved the offending feather at her. She drew in a long sobbing breath, let out a banshee shriek, and fled. He pushed a blanket back and forced himself to sit up. The room tilted, then slid properly into place.

  Hunt raised the blanket and checked to see that he still had two legs and his prized possessions. One leg was bandaged above the knee, but he had the required number of feet and toes. His male parts were intact and uninjured. He also discovered that he had an urge to empty his bladder. With a groan, he swung both legs over the edge of the sleeping platform.

  The large wigwam was snug and well stocked with food and blankets. Fur rugs covered the floor; firewood was stacked neatly by the entrance curtain. His own rifle and powder horn hung on deer antlers above the doorway. Nothing was out of place but a single feather, a wooden cup, and a child’s corncob doll, all discarded on the rug near Hunt’s feet.

  Absently, he rubbed his chin and was startled to find a full beard. Hadn’t he shaved just yesterday? He blinked and tried to reason out the passage of time, while the scent of grilling fish and browning bread tantalized him. He remembered going into the river after Elizabeth’s boy, and ... He took a deep breath and tried to make sense of the situation. He must have been hit worse than he’d thought. He looked around the room again to reassure himself that this was a Shawnee wigwam, not an Iroquois longhouse.

  Yes ... he reasoned. The little girl he’d frightened ... she was Elizabeth’s child. He’d gotten the boy out of the river but—

  The entrance flap to the wigwam moved, and a blast of wind cut short his reverie. “Hunt!” Elizabeth’s anxious face appeared in the doorway. “You’re awake.”

  He started to rise.

  “No, you don’t,” she ordered, coming to him and laying a gentle hand on his forehead. “Flat on your back. This is the first day you’ve been without a fever.”

  “I’ve got to go outside and—”

  “You’re going nowhere,” she replied brusquely. “What did you say to Rachel? You frightened her half to death.”

  “She attacked me.”

  Her concern turned to relief and amusement. “Nonsense. She’s just a child. How could she attack you?”

  “Your child,” he replied. “Capable of anything.”

  Elizabeth’s fingers strayed to his hair. “You’re really going to be all right, aren’t you?”

  “Let me up.” He started to rise, and she pushed him back with surprising strength.

  “You’re going nowhere.”

  “I’ve got to pee.”

  “You can pee in a jar just like you’ve been doing for weeks.”

  He felt his face grow warm. “In a jar?”

  “You wet your bed, too,” Jamie said, bounding into the room. More frigid air blasted from outside. Badger squeezed through the doorway and shook himself vigorously, sending spatters of moisture and mud flying across the room.

  Elizabeth turned toward her son. “Close the door. That wind will blow out the fire.”

  With a yelp of joy, the dog flung himself on Hunt. “Badger,” Hunt said, rubbing the animal’s head and ears. “Good dog.” The animal wiggled and thumped his back leg, then began methodically to lick every inch of Hunt’s bare skin. “Easy, easy,” he said to the dog, but a lump rose in his throat as he looked into the big shining eyes and patted his side.

  “Have careful,” Jamie said in awkward English. “Badger hurt with bullet. Better now.”

  “Badger was hit?” Hunt’s fingers found a hairless spot on the dog’s shoulder. The jagged furrow was pink and tender but healing. “Good boy,” Hunt said. Just below the scar, a beaded strip of leather was woven into Badger’s hair. Dangling from it was a tuft of feathers. “What’s this?”

  “Jamie thought Badger deserved an eagle feather for his bravery, but he keeps eating them,” Elizabeth explained.

  “Give him owl feathers,” Jamie supplied. “No eat. Still have brave.” The boy shrugged off his cloak and dropped it on the sleeping platform. The fur slid to the floor, and Elizabeth pointed at it. Jamie started to protest.

  “I don’t want to hear it,” she said. “Put your cloak where it belongs.” Then she turned her attention back to Hunt. “You want the pee jar?”

  “I don’t want the damned jar,” he said, feeling instantly foolish. He still suffered from the effects of the herd of buffalo that had undoubtedly stampeded over his head, but he had no intention of relieving himself in front of Elizabeth and her son. “I want my moccasins and a shirt so that I can go outside and—”

  “You fright my sister,” Jamie accused.

  “Exactly what did you do to her?” Elizabeth demanded, fussing with Hunt’s blanket. “She’s only a child. You could show a little patience.”

  “She was torturing me with that damned feather.”

  Jamie giggled.

  Elizabeth picked up Rachel’s doll. “Are you sure your mind’s clear?” she asked Hunt. “You’ve had a high fever ever since Counts His Scalps removed the lead ball from your leg. He had to do a healing ceremony twice and—”

  “Elizabeth, can we talk about this later?” His voice sounded peevish to his own ears, but damn it, he felt weak as a newborn rabbit and he had to go.

  “You wet the bed,” the boy r
eminded him in Seneca.

  “Speak English or Shawnee,” Elizabeth said.

  “I am Seneca,” Jamie replied. “I will—”

  Elizabeth turned on her son. She didn’t raise her voice, but her tone became firm. “A Seneca man shows respect at his mother’s hearth, and you will speak English or Shawnee until you learn it properly. Once you’ve improved your vocabulary, you can use sign language for all I care.”

  Jamie flushed and looked at the floor.

  “She’s right,” Hunt agreed. “All real men, be they English, Shawnee, or Cheyenne, show respect for their mothers.”

  “Hahhah, Onna,” Jamie answered in subdued Shawnee. Yes, Mother. He thrust out a small chest and proudly displayed his English. “Brave Seneca warrior show respect for mother....” He flashed Hunt a mischievous grin much like Elizabeth’s. “And you—poor hurted captive.”

  Elizabeth reached out and touched Hunt’s cheek again. “Hunt is a guest here, not a captive, Jamie.”

  “Not captive,” the boy echoed. His lower lip protruded in a pout. “If my father have him—”

  “Your father does not have him, we do.” She glanced at Jamie. “And I believe you have something to say to Hunter of the Far Mountains.”

  Jamie pursed his lips and frowned. Staring at the floor, he rubbed one moccasined toe in a small circle. “This man has thank of you, for save life of river.”

  “For saving your life, not the river’s,” Elizabeth corrected him gently. “Now, take Badger, put your cloak back on, and go to Sweet Water’s to get your sister. Oh, take your sister’s outer wrap as well.” She fixed Hunt with a disapproving glance. “You frightened Rachel so that she ran out of here without her fur.”

  “Onna,” Jamie protested. “Me just—”

  “Me just go and get your sister. She spends more time at Sweet Water’s than she does at home.” She turned back to Hunt. “Sweet Water is the wife of Chief Fire Talon. They have a little girl, Star Girl, younger than Rachel, but still old enough for her to play with. The children are inseparable.”