Song Of The Warrior

by Georgina Gentry

  Willow started toward the dirt mounds, but an old man collapsed at her feet and Willow stopped to help him. There was blood on the snow and on Willow’s hands. The ancient warrior was dead. Willow raced to the ravine where Bear and Raven crouched.

  “Get down, Green Eyes!” Bear jerked her into the ditch.

  She was too scared to answer as she peered up over the edge at the soldiers. “I-I saw Lieutenant Warton out there!”

  The two brothers exchanged glances, and she knew they were thinking the same thing she was. For revenge, the treasure and possession of Willow, that ruthless officer would follow them to the ends of the earth.

  “It doesn’t matter.” But Bear’s expression said he lied as he aimed, knocked another soldier from his saddle. “They’re retreating!”

  She hardly dared to hope, but yes, the galloping horses had wavered and seemed to be milling in confusion without any officers as Bear and the others kept up their deadly rifle barrage. Finally, the soldiers turned and fled back behind the safety of the hills. “They’ve gone!” she shouted. “We’ve beaten them!”

  Bear shook his head. “No, they’ll be back. If we can just hold out until dark, maybe by then, we can escape through their lines.”

  Raven looked over at them. “If Joseph’s messenger got through, soon Sitting Bull will show up with thousands of warriors.”

  Her heart leaped with hope. “Yes, of course. All we have to do is hold out until then.”

  She started to raise her head, but Bear pushed her down again. “Watch out, Willow, some sniper will pick you off.”

  Behind her, a woman moaned in pain and somewhere a child screamed in terror. “I can’t just crouch here in safety; people need my help.”

  Both men reached out as if to stop her, but Willow avoided them and crawled across the frozen grass on her belly. She took a rock and broke a hole in the ice on the creek, took a long drink. It tasted cold and good. Somewhere a wounded woman cried for water. Willow crept to her lodge, got a canteen, hurried back to the creek to fill it. Around her, cannon boomed and bullets whined as she crawled toward the woman.

  It was someone she knew, a warrior’s woman. Willow winced when she saw how bad the wound was. “Here, I bring you water.” She held the canteen to the woman’s lips and the woman drank deep. “Someone ... someone must save the children....” The woman whispered and died.

  The children. Over the hell of gunfire and shouting men, Willow heard the frightened whimper of a child and looked around. A young girl was crouched down behind a dead horse, shivering in the morning chill. “Come with me.” Willow grabbed her hand. They ran toward an embankment where others huddled out of the line of fire.

  The cannon boomed again, throwing dirt and shards of ice in the air. An occasional horse galloped madly through the camp. All around her was smoke and screams and confusion. The scent of blood seemed so heavy, she thought she could taste it. Wounded women huddled protectively over their children, others manned the bluffs with the men, firing at the soldiers. Next to one lay the dead body of her warrior. Tears ran down the woman’s face, but she didn’t stop firing. Willow lost all track of time as she carried water to the men, reloaded guns for them.

  Raven looked over his shoulder at her. “Willow, be careful; the baby ...”

  She nodded. Yes, the baby was important; no matter whose it was. The babies and the unborn were the hope of the next generation; the promise that the Nez Perce would survive as a people, no matter what. She crouched down between the two of them, reloading rifles in the cold.

  Bear looked over at her, frowned, pulled off his heavy fur vest, put it around her. For just an instant as his fingers touched her shoulders, a spark seemed to pass between them and he looked into her eyes. She almost wept then, but she knew she mustn’t break down. That was what a white woman would do and she wasn’t a white woman, she was of the heart’s own blood people; a Nez Perce woman.

  The soldiers, with many of their officers dead, had ridden out of range.

  Willow looked from one brother to the other. “Look, they’re retreating again.”

  Neither of them said anything and she knew what they were thinking. Sturgis and Howard were coming soon; all these soldiers had to do was keep the Nez Perce pinned down until the other troops arrived.

  Raven looked over at her. “Remember, we sent a rider to Sitting Bull; maybe in a few hours or at least, a day or so, a thousand Lakota will come riding down from the north.”

  He was hoping to encourage her, she knew. Willow put her cold hands under the vest to keep them warm and looked toward the north, then to Bear. It wasn’t likely; she could read that in Bear’s grim face.

  The gunfire had died now except for sporadic shots echoing across the desolate, rolling hills. Around them, women wept and wailed, lost children wandered, crying and looking for their mothers. Here and there, a wounded man moved weakly.

  Willow stopped thinking about herself then and how scared and cold she was. “I’d better do what I can to help.”

  “Be careful,” Bear said, “the baby.”

  She nodded and crept away. Even to him, the unborn legacy was important.

  She and the others who weren’t hurt tended wounds and carried canteens of water. The old grandmother had left Atsi looking after Cub and was staunching the flow of blood from a warrior’s head. She looked up at Willow and shook her head.

  Willow winced. It was a bad wound, all right, and they had no medicine, not much of anything. There would be a doctor maybe with the soldiers but the soldiers never took good care of wounded Indians. The warrior might as well die among his own.

  Nearby, Willow’s beautiful Appaloosa mare lay injured and kicking, attempting to get up, but it was hurt too much from the shell fragments from the cannon. The old grandmother killed it mercifully. “It is out of its pain, which is more than I can say for our people.”

  Once, Willow would have winced, wept for the dead horse, but that had been a long time ago before she had endured so much. “Raven says maybe the Lakota will come to help.”

  The old woman didn’t say anything for a long moment. “If I am wounded,” she said, “and you have a chance to get out, leave me; but take the children.”

  “Leave you?” Willow shook her head in horror. “No, we’ve come too far together, I couldn’t—”

  “A Nez Perce woman does what she must.” The grandmother sighed. “Some of us must survive. If the time comes, I have faith you’ll do the brave thing.”

  How courageous could she be? Willow turned and looked toward the two brothers manning the barricade. Even to save her unborn child, could she escape and leave them behind? She didn’t think so. “Maybe the soldiers will go away.”

  “They won’t go away,” the old woman said, “they only wait for us to run out of bullets and freeze to death.”

  Willow looked yearningly toward the north. It was afternoon now, but the wind was cold and the sun lost behind gray clouds. She shivered as she surveyed the death and destruction. Somewhere a woman wailed as she found her warrior dead. “We won’t dare build fires tonight, will we?”

  The old woman shook her head and looked at the dead horse. “Before this ends, we may eat meat raw.”

  Once that thought would have made her retch, but now Willow thought about Billy Warton out there waiting to capture her and how terrifying it would be. She would rather die here with her people than submit to his lust. Willow had no doubt he would treat her as a spoil of war, and she feared for her unborn child.

  With the soldiers retreating out of rifle range, there was nothing to do but wait, either for the Lakota or more soldiers to show up. The women moved cautiously, doing what they always do in war, binding wounds, scooping out shallow graves, feeding children, carrying water to the warriors who watched for soldiers to make another attack. At least they had water, Willow thought, even though in places, it ran pale pink. She wouldn’t even think about that. She and the other women worked for hours as Joseph and his chiefs met out of t
he range of fire to discuss what to do. She watched Bear’s face as the men talked, hoping for some clue. When he crawled back up the bluff next to Raven, Willow scurried over to them. “Have they heard from Sitting Bull?”

  Bear started to say something, seemed to reconsider, shook his head. “Time is on the soldiers’ side; they have food and tents.”

  She blinked back tears of frustration. “We don’t even have blankets for our wounded,” she said, looking up at the cold, overcast sky. The day had lasted an eternity and she knew that while the night might protect them from the soldiers’ bullets, the cold would be even a worse enemy. Some of the cannon shells had set tipis ablaze and destroyed others. There were some horses in the camp, but the army had run off most of the big herd. Willow looked toward War Paint. The big stallion was still in camp and her travois looked intact. What good would that do with the soldiers surrounding them?

  Finally, night descended on the Bear Paw Mountains and the Nez Perce knew what true misery was. There was not enough food or blankets and they dare not light fires for fear of drawing the soldiers’ bullets. The women did the best they could for the children and the wounded, but they knew some of them would freeze to death and die during the night. Willow took her one blanket over to the dirt bank where the children had dug into the side for protection and gave it to them. The old grandmother snuggled down with the children to keep them warm.

  Willow found some stale hardtack in her things from the Cow Creek army depot raid. She hurried up between the two brothers and held it out.

  “You’re freezing,” Bear said. “Here, take my buffalo robe.”

  “You’ll need it,” Willow protested.

  “Shut up and take it,” Raven said, “we’re both trying to look after you.”

  Had they come to some kind of truce? Of course, it only made sense if they were all going to die here anyway. She took the fur and wrapped up in it, grateful for the warmth.

  Raven sighed. “It’s going to be a long night.”

  “And a dark one,” Bear said, “no moon.” He looked around. “The soldiers’ lines are stretched thin tonight until Sturgis and Howard get here. A few people might manage to sneak away in the dark.”

  Her heart leapt with hope; then fell again. A few people. “Not everyone?”

  “There’s too many wounded,” Bear said, “some of them won’t last through the night and there’s no way to take them. The old ones can’t walk fast enough and there’s only a few horses.”

  She was horrified. “You’re not saying leave them behind?”

  “I’m not saying anything,” Bear said, looking out toward the soldiers’ tents in the distance, “Joseph has called a meeting later tonight.”

  The cold wind carried the scent of frying bacon and hot coffee from the distant soldiers’ camp. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, bit off a hunk of the hardtack. At least they had this and they were all alive. Now if they could just survive this terrible, chill night. There was so much she wanted to say to these two men, and yet, there was really nothing to say. She decided that anything she said would sound stupid and shallow. She had loved them both and they had both loved her. If the army began a night attack, the three of them might not see daybreak.

  Raven cleared his throat. “I wish it was a moonlit night,” he said softly, “or that we had a fire. Time would pass more quickly if you read to us, Willow.”

  “It’s just a novel,” she said, “real life isn’t like romantic novels.”

  “Maybe,” Raven whispered, “romantic novels are not about what life really is, but what it should be.”

  “Such idealistic thoughts.” Willow tried to keep her voice light. In her mind, she saw Sydney Carton going to his death in another man’s place for the love of a woman.

  Soon the signal went out for the noted warriors to gather. Bear and Raven went. Joseph stared at the ground as if his mind were a million miles away. “The soldiers are going to wait us out.”

  Old White Bird’s fierce face hardened. “We may not have another night like this one, dark and foggy. When the other soldiers come, we will have no chance at all.”

  Joseph stared at him. “What is it you say?”

  The old chief looked around. “I say we make a run for it tonight, slip through their lines. We could be almost to Canada by dawn.”

  Bear said, “We can’t take everyone; someone has to stay and hold the soldiers back so the others can go.”

  Joseph nodded. “And there’s the wounded.”

  Looking Glass shook his head. “They slow the march down. They will have to stay here and take their chances along with anyone who can’t move fast; small babies who might cry. We can’t risk alerting the soldiers.”

  Chief Joseph sighed. “I am chief; I cannot leave any of my people behind while I escape to safety.”

  “But if we stay,” another argued, “the soldiers will kill us all.”

  “I am not asking any man to stay, that is for each man to decide in his own heart,” Joseph said, “but as chief, I cannot leave any behind.”

  There was more talk, each man attempting to decide what he would do. Bear stared at the pipe in his hands. He was an honored warrior and he had already made his decision. “If the soldiers suspect anything, they may begin shooting their cannon again.”

  Everyone paused at his words. The cannon had left the camp littered with broken bodies. The frozen snow was still red from them.

  White Bird said, “Someone must lead those who escape, they will need a chief.”

  “Then you take the people out,” Joseph said. “I will be one of those who stays behind to hold the soldiers off. Each man makes his own choice, but I will need good warriors to protect those who cannot go.”

  The meeting broke up, but Bear had already decided what he would do. They returned to the bluff. “I will stay,” he said, “you take Willow out of here.”

  “As always,” Raven said, “you want to be the noble one, the great warrior.”

  Bear shrugged and in his heart, he was sad. “She is carrying your son; it is only right that you be the one to go with her. Perhaps you two should have been together from the start; I was always too old for her, but from the first moment I saw her . . .” His voice trailed off and he could not continue. “Besides,” he said a little too brightly, “I promised our mother I would take care of you.”

  “I will never hear the end of that, will I, big brother?” Raven shrugged, but his voice wasn’t angry. “You’ve saved my life twice now; isn’t it time I got to be the honored warrior once?”

  “Raven,” Bear reasoned, “she’s expecting your child; it is only right that you become her man. Now go help her load her travois, there’s something stirring out there, I think the soldiers will try to run off the rest of the pony herd, maybe, and in that excitement, a small group like White Bird’s might get away.”

  “You’re right,” Raven said, “and we don’t have a lot of time to argue this; White Bird will be leaving soon. He must put a lot of miles between him and the army before dawn when they discover some are missing.”

  Willow hurried up just then and knelt between them. “There’s rumors among the women that we are going to try to sneak away in the darkness.”

  “That’s right.” Bear warned Raven with his eyes. “Now get your travois and take War Paint; he’s strong enough for anything that might come up.”

  “But you’ll need him yourself,” Willow protested.

  “Of course,” Bear said, “I’ll explain later. Just get everything ready. White Bird will be leaving in a few minutes and I hear soldiers scurrying around out there in the darkness. We only stand a chance of escaping if we leave during the confusion.”

  He saw the relief shining in her eyes. “We’re all going?”

  Raven hesitated. “Of course, now let me help you get your things together.” He gave Bear a long look and then the pair crouched down and sneaked through the chill darkness.

  Bear sighed, watching them go. This was t
he way it should be. The woman he loved was carrying his brother’s child. There was no way to work this out except that he stay behind so those two could escape. She might protest a little, but her first thought must be of her baby. Bear didn’t care what happened to him anymore; it only mattered that the tribe survive, that his beloved Willow live free in the vast wilderness to the north.

  He tried not to remember the way she had felt in his arms, the taste of her sweet mouth. She belonged to Raven now; and his brother had matured into a respected warrior. Raven would take good care of the woman they both loved.

  Behind him, he was vaguely aware of movement as horses were bridled and the people who were going made ready. He was glad it was dark so he could not see the faces of the old and the wounded, the ones who would stay behind with him to face death or capture. Bear had faced death many times and lived, but this time, he knew it was a hopeless cause. He could only hope to sell his life dearly, make the soldiers pay in blood if they tried to follow those escaping toward the border.

  There was noise out ahead of him. Bear closed one eye and looked down his rifle barrel. The soldiers were getting ready to try something; hoping for the advantage of surprise, hoping to catch the people asleep again as they had this morning when they had killed so many. Bear was not afraid to die. He would do so willingly to save the woman he loved. And he had his warrior’s song ready to sing when the soldiers mounted the attack.

  Behind him, Raven and Willow came up.

  “She’s ready,” Raven said, and he sounded calm and brave.

  Willow seemed to bristle. “What do you mean, ‘she’s ready’? I thought we all were going?”

  Instead of answering her, Bear asked his brother, “Where’s the old grandmother and the children?”