Prophet John listened carefully. He put his hands in his pockets and cast his eyes to the ground.
“This little boy is just another peddler—raised to be neighborly like any good American and ignorant of your ways. Satisfaction? If he speaks to your daughter again, I’ll stake him out myself. But while the egg eater may be an innocent, chief, I’m not. I know the only reason to kill him now is to appear strong in front of all these young hotheads. Killing as a warrior is killing like the lion. Killing as a politician is killing like the weasel. The Gray One respects Standing Bear as the lion. It’s with that respect that I ask you to spare the boy. If you do, I swear he’ll be a light to your people. If you don’t, I won’t answer for the consequences.”
Standing Bear fixed Prophet John with a stare. Then he grunted at the old scout, rose and left the lodge. McGarrigle looked after the chief for a moment and turned toward Julius. He knelt beside the boy and untied his bonds.
“Well, for right now you get to live, young Jules. Where and as what I can’t say just yet. Be your poor luck to get hobbled or released into this wildness without a horse, but so far, so good. One thing, though—I told the chief that you would be a light to his people. If I was you, I’d get to work on that.”
Julius hissed with the pain in his ribs as the prophet walked him from the lodge. Waiting at its entrance was Younger Sister, a toothless widow with whom McGarrigle had been keeping intermittent company. She carried a striped blanket and an earthen crock of what Julius took to be firewater. The gray man bowed toward the boy and, taking Younger Sister’s arm, headed toward her poor tipi. Before long, all of the tribe had gone to their homes. Alone, Julius slumped to the ground in a haze of fear and relief.
“You look like hell, Jew boy. The chief tuned you up right good.”
Julius looked up to see Lady-Jane standing over him. She sniffed hard into her throat and wrapped her blanket tighter.
“I knew your big mouth would get you in trouble. Just because your yap can talk like anyone, don’t mean you should open it. You’d do well to take a lesson from us whores—we’re natural versed in discretion. How would it be for business if Mrs. Jones knew that Mr. Jones liked his back walked on in suede boots—or if Mr. Smith’s boss knew that Smith had a hankering to eat his mother’s apple pie off my behind? No, we keep our mouths shut or starve. Your case, it’s trap shut or die.”
“I think I’ve learned that.”
“Of course, that doesn’t mean that Chased By Owls or one of his soldiers won’t make you look like an accident. In case you haven’t noticed, in this place, people die every day. You spoke to a princess like she was a human, instead of a little gift from above. Even I think they ought to kill you for that. So, from here on, I suggest you stay out of sight and prick your ears. You might even stay alive long enough to pick up their gibberish plain.”
Julius rose and nodded but said nothing. Lady-Jane smiled.
“That’s a start. I don’t know why I bother to give you this advice. Maybe I’m honoring your uncle. Or maybe something tells me that if your white ass doesn’t make it out of here, my red one won’t either.”
Among the women of the village, it was one more scandal that the white whore still lived with her childhood name.
“Little Feather” was all right for an infant, but as adults, the Ponca were expected to take permanent names based on achievement or appearance. A girl who developed late might be called Bufferfly Suddenly Showing Wings, while one who laughed and cried with the lunar phases could be named Power Of The Moon. For a prostitute to go by the name of an innocent child seemed an insult to the entire custom. But then, who would wish to go through life as “Goes With Anyone” or “Plaything for Miners?” Clearly, she had been spoiled by the whites, becoming a creature of goose-down pillows and feather beds who awakened every morning to pain in her spine and limbs and then vomited at a breakfast of deer liver.
Through the work and filth, Lady-Jane kept a sharp eye out for a man. Yes, she was untouchable to every brave, but she knew sooner or later there would be someone, be he true love or meal ticket. Once he arrived, she would quit these savages as quickly as she had Omaha. It was a big world; and if she had to conquer it on her back again, so be it; only this time she would own both the equipment and the business. White or red, she would never again trust a man to hold her hand, much less her money.
Adrian Calhern had seen to that.
How simple it had been to kill him. Knowing his taste for the bizarre and degrading, it was the work of minutes to tempt him with a pink corset and tie him to the bed. When she lighted a large cigar and put it in her mouth, the fool began to laugh, believing it another part of her role, a bit of fun to make their play more fulfilling. She smiled, remembering his expression when she pulled the mattress from under him and then used the cigar to ignite a hay bale beneath the springs. Lady-Jane jammed the cigar into his mouth and watched as the smoke rose through his appeals for life. The ministers at school had often said that vengeance was an empty action, a fruitless exercise that left its practitioners depleted and unfulfilled. Smelling him burn, she could not imagine how they had been so wrong. This revenge was deeply rewarding, the act of taking everything from the man who had taken everything from her. For the first time, she understood why her fellow Indians tortured those enemies who stole their lives and lands.
She had debated long and hard over mercy for the others; but in the end, she wrote only two letters of warning. Everyone else would have to take their chances in a city where fire, accidental or intended, killed people all the time.
The first of the notes had been to Eli Gershonson. Although he was unlikely to be at the Dime on any evening, Lady-Jane was taking no chances. She remembered how he had stood and bowed when she appeared for breakfast; how he brought her small trinkets from his journeys, not to impress her but to witness her delight. On mornings when she felt her humanity was gone and would never return, his simple talk over a few eggs had restored her to the living.
The other letter had been to Doris. Yes, she was the Dime’s top girl, but the chef always treated everyone according to their conduct. The good and decent received smiles and jokes and the impolite smashed noses or a hock of saliva in their food. This philosophy even extended to town pariahs like Lil Wilson, the lowest whore at the lowest whorehouse in Omaha. Lady-Jane remembered how a year ago, she had come to the kitchen for coffee just before the beginning of her workday. There was a knock at the outside door and Doris had gone to answer it. When the blind girl began to stumble inside, the big Negro had gently taken her arm and seated her at the long table reserved for the restaurant staff. Lil grinned and laughed as the chef chattered like a plague of locusts, filling her in on all the latest gossip. The meal he prepared for her that day was exactly the same as that served to his richest customers: no inferior cuts, no wilted vegetables. Lady-Jane remembered a rare stirring in her heart as she watched Lil slowly eat the steak and potatoes, her smile that of a child, her sightless eyes radiating gratitude. If there was a heaven for the black man, Doris was bound for glory; but she would not be the one to send him on his way.
Lady-Jane smiled bitterly. In her past life, a few words from her could stop a gun duel or start a political campaign. She had personally prevented an additional tax on Omaha’s taverns by offering herself to two of its alderman. But here, she was powerless: no one’s daughter, no one’s wife, not even anyone’s slave.
If the gray man and the Jew boy elected to pray for their lives, she thought, they might never see a better time. After all, with a Christian, a Jew, and eight hundred Indians present, when would they again find this many gods in one place?
By the final weeks of fall, Prophet John and Julius had managed to erect a makeshift shelter. They had built it a stick and leaf at a time, collecting the materials they needed only in the few brief moments they were not required to work. It stood apart from the colony proper, a rough lean-to bookended by large trees. Inside, its close quarters proved a boon; th
ere would be times in the winter when only the body heat of one man prevented the frostbite of the other. After a while, the smell became comparable to that of the hut Julius had shared with the prophet, counting in the presence of Jim Riley’s corpse. My God, he thought one night when the wind threatened to reduce their south wall to rubble. Hovel Number Eight on the Des Moines River was the Plaza compared to this.
Finding food was a daily struggle. As befitted his station, the prophet was allowed to keep his rifle, but had to make do with the limited amount of ammunition he already possessed. Julius was not permitted even a knife. McGarrigle showed his young friend how to lure rats and black-tailed prairie dogs from their holes and roast them on sticks. The rodents were hardly satisfying; hibernation had made them lean and their meat sparse and stringy. On the one occasion when they did manage to bring down an elk, the tribe’s warriors waited until the animal was butchered and then selected the choicest parts. The captives were left only with the animal’s back, bones, and lungs.
Starvation was staved off only by a weekly miracle.
One morning when they had been in the camp several months, Julius woke up and walked outside to relieve himself. On his way back to the lean-to, he noticed a white deerskin bag leaning against its entrance. He looked around carefully but saw nobody. He brought the bag inside and set it down beside his mat.
Inside were several pounds of buffalo jerky and several more of dried pintos and cherries; there was an earthen jug of goat’s milk and enough flour and oil for a few days’ worth of flatbread.
It took all of Julius’s character not to plunge his hands into the bag and eat his fill—to stuff his mouth with the raw flour and crack his teeth on the beans. After all, the gray man was old—he had lived his life; would it be such a crime to keep this food for himself so that Julius could live his?
Prophet John wasn’t happy to be awakened, but brightened considerably when the boy showed him the contents of the sack.
“Someone’s interested in our survival,” the old man said. “If we’re not pigs, there’s enough here to stretch out a week and more.”
“Who do you suppose sent it?”
“Can’t guess. But in the end, we’ve got to consider it comes from his lordship, himself.”
“Standing Bear? He is sending us food?
McGarrigle smiled. “Well, it might not be his doing or even his idea—but there’s nothin’ what goes in the chief’s camp that the chief doesn’t know about. Whoever it is that’s bringin’ us these vittles is doin’ it by his leave, whether that whoever knows it or not.”
“But why should he care if I live? Phony or not, you’re a shaman. I’m nobody.”
“That’s right, I’m a shaman—who told Bear that you would be a light to his people. You’ve seen how he speaks to you a little each day?”
“Yes.”
“Normal circumstances, you’d be beneath his notice. The only time he might talk to you is to let you know you was doomed. But he’s not stupid, boy. He sees that in less than fifty days in this camp, you’re yakkin’ like you was born in a wikiup. He keeps me alive because he’s afraid some god he’s never heard of might make his life even worse. Your case, he figures you’re maybe an investment.”
The food continued to arrive each week, always in the leather bag, the contents more or less the same. The prophet made bread from the flour and oil, and soup from the jerky and beans. The portions were small, but together with what the pair could beg or kill, they sustained a hungry life. Upon the arrival of every new package, McGarrigle would seek out Standing Bear and thank him for his largesse; the chief would routinely disavow any knowledge of the favor.
On the night of the fifth delivery, Julius awoke to a deep growl outside the lean-to, followed by a series of yips and cries. At first, he thought it was one of the camp dogs, although he couldn’t imagine what would bring them out of the warm tipis into the Nebraska winter. Then he heard words in Ponca; a woman’s words. He sprang from his mat into the bright moonlight.
The wolf was the largest he had ever seen and all black; in its jaws was the white leather bag. On the bag’s opposite end was a young woman holding on hard to its beaded straps. Her face was bright in the light reflected by the snow, eyes wide with defiance as she cursed the beast. The wolf tried twice to get behind her, but the woman whirled and remained facing it, her grip on the tearing satchel loosened by blood on her fingers.
Julius ran inside the lean-to and picked up the oak cudgel he used for clubbing rabbits. Barefoot in the snow, he charged the wolf, bashing it on the nose. The animal yelped high. Feinting to his left, Julius brought the club down again, hitting a dark ear. With a whimper, the wolf dropped the bag but stood its ground. The boy raised the cudgel over his head once more and hissed like a timber snake. The wolf cocked its head and looked puzzled for a moment, then turned tail and loped through a huge, white drift. Julius watched as it emerged on the other side and vanished into the shadows of the Ponca tents.
“You are hurt,” Julius said.
“It’s barely a wound. My hand has been scratched by brother wolf’s paw.”
“Please. Come inside so that we may see to this.”
The woman betrayed nothing. No gratitude, no pain or fear. She nodded and followed Julius into the small, mean shelter.
The woman wrinkled her nose; the stench was horrible, the noise worse.
“How did you ever hear me through this?” she asked.
For the first time that night, Julius realized that he had again committed the crime of speaking to the daughter of Standing Bear. In his head, he heard the anger of the chief and the good advice of Lady-Jane; but to clam up now seemed the ultimate in disrespect. He only hoped that if he was caught, he could plead outburst by emergency.
“I am used to the gray one’s snoring. It has become like the call of an owl at night—just a part of darkness and sleep. I suppose I would hear anything unfamiliar over it if it was loud enough. I suppose the wolf was loud enough.”
Julius picked up a leather bladder near the fire.
“I know this place is a disgrace,” he said, “but this contains our clean water—what we drink and wash with. I also have a cloth to dress your wound. It is clean as well. Will Prairie Flower allow me to help her? No one in camp need ever know.”
Prairie Flower looked down and nodded. Julius took a white cloth from a nearby pile, dipped it inside the bladder and handed it to her. She opened her left hand and washed the blood from her palm.
“You speak our language well,” she said.
“Not so well. Not yet. But I am listening.”
“We have never seen a white who could speak so well so fast.”
“It is some sort of gift I was given. I am not proud of it. It simply happens. The gray man says that blessings are good only until they become curses.”
Prairie Flower laughed. Julius realized that the natural expression of her face was a smile.
“My father says the same thing. ‘Don’t be proud, Flower. Such things as god has given freely may, in the end, cost you dearly.’ He has no end of such parables. But it has taught me to approach all as equals. In my position, pride can be an ugly thing, something earned by birth, not work.”
Her laugh cut the cold like silver chimes. This face, Julius thought, is that of an Indian. The same race, even the same tribe—but it is the opposite of Lady-Jane’s. There are no ‘Indian bones’ here—no chiseled cheeks and sharp planes. It is round and smooth, the almond eyes merry servants of her grin. She glows in the firelight—like a happy moon.
Prairie Flower picked up the bag and inspected it for damage.
“It looks like brother wolf will have to find his own dinner today. All that I packed is here. I wish it could be more. But winter strains the stores of all of us. I hope the egg eater will remain quiet about this. Ponca politics are complicated enough. Chased By Owls will make my father’s life hell if it’s known that his daughter is bringing food to the heathen.”
&nb
sp; “Standing Bear knows of this?”
She grinned and rose but did not answer. She slung the empty bag over her shoulder and made for the doorway. Julius gently placed his hand on her shoulder and then realized what he had done. She turned back toward him, her serene face betraying no sign that his touch was an insult.
“I wonder if, amid all her other generosity, Prairie Flower might grant me one more favor?”
“If I can.”
“In the months that I have been here, no one has called me by name. It has been ‘egg eater, fetch the firewood,’ and ‘boy, curry my horse.’ Even the gray man calls me by a thousand nicknames. I beg that, if Prairie Flower should ever have cause to speak to me again, that she use my name—my real name.”
Prairie Flower laughed again. “This is a small task compared with slipping past guards and fighting off hungry wolves. If I can pronounce it, I shall be honored to call you by your Christian name.”
He smiled slightly. This was no time to correct a princess on religion and nomenclature.
“Julius,” he said.
“Julius,” she repeated with a grin.
She took the punctured leather sack and, with a slight bow, disappeared into the snow.
Magic Words Page 12
