Heart of the Sandhills

by Stephanie Grace Whitson

  “He will die,” the old man said. He had been inside Two Moons’s tepee and assessed the damage. “Everything will mend but the leg. The black sickness will come into the skin and he will die.”

  Twenty-Four

  He woundeth, and his hands make whole. He shall deliver thee in six troubles: yea in seven there shall no evil touch thee.

  —Job 5:18–19

  Little by little, he was remembering. A war cry had lured him up into the pines above the battlefield. He had a flashing memory of what he’d heard about Fetterman and wondered if the war party they had seen was only a decoy. He had wondered if maybe a few thousand more warriors were waiting just over the hill to swarm down and annihilate the men inside the corral, and he had been determined to find out.

  All he’d seen was a flash of war paint in the trees up ahead, and he’d charged after it. Once he’d realized there were no other warriors and it was just the two of them, he’d pulled up, meaning to go back and join the fight. He had been near the rim of a canyon, and as he wheeled the stallion around to head back, he shuddered involuntarily as he neared the edge of a particularly tall cliff. Nudging the stallion’s sides, he was heading away from the rim of the canyon when a war cry sounded from the hill above and a single warrior on a dun pony came charging at him out of the pines.

  The surprise attack had caught him off guard and thrown him off balance. He fell off his horse and landed with a thud that both stunned him momentarily and gave the enemy the chance he needed to grab Daniel’s horse.

  But the white stallion was not a horse to be ridden by just anyone. His master was lying in the dirt and when the strange rider tried to climb aboard, the stallion sidestepped. That was all the time Daniel had needed to leap back to his feet and attack the horse thief. He had been enraged—he should be in the battle, not grappling with some fool over a horse.

  What happened next was still fuzzy, but he remembered a howl from a mountain lion and the white stallion rearing up and going over backwards. Somehow Daniel lost his balance and stepped backwards into nothing but blue sky, gray canyon walls … and falling. After that, he didn’t remember anything until he woke on the travois.

  He was better, he realized. The pain had confused him at first. So had the dream of colors and that feeling of flying. He understood both now.

  Brown eyes had been the next thing that confused him. If he was sick or hurt, Blue Eyes should be here. A woman was here, but not Blue Eyes. He understood that now, too, of course. He was in some Indian camp being tended by a stranger. He could see the worry in her eyes.

  When he finally managed to push himself up onto his elbows and look himself over, he worried, too. He still couldn’t feel his leg, and he could see enough of it to know it was swollen and red.

  He lay back on the skins, which he now realized were antelope, and inhaled deeply. Moving still hurt, but he could bear it.

  The next time the woman was in the tent, he opened his eyes to let her know he was awake. “Where am I?” he said in Dakota.

  Her gaze was not unkind, but it was clear she didn’t understand him.

  It took so much effort to sign his question he could hardly keep his eyes open to watch her answer, which was no help at all, because she simply signed, “With me.”

  She signed, “You are Dakota.”

  He nodded.

  “I am your enemy,” she signed, and then giggled and smiled. When he frowned, she added, “I am your friend.” She left and when she came back, she had filled a skin with water. She hung it near his head and handed him a tin cup before she left the tent.

  He drank and went back to sleep.

  The smell was bad inside the tent. It couldn’t be me, he thought, the woman washed me. She had even combed his hair with her small, gentle hands. He raised up on his elbows again. This time, he managed to sit up and what he saw made his midsection tighten with fear. His leg was worse. Sweat poured down his face from the effort to sit up. Maybe the sickness from my leg is spreading inside me and causing me to smell of death, he thought.

  The little woman came in and saw him sitting up looking at his leg. She saw the sweat on his forehead and made him lie flat. She washed his face and offered him soup.

  “I am going to die,” he signed.

  She didn’t answer and looked away.

  The next time he was awake and the little woman was beside him, he tried to make her understand that he wanted something from his saddlebags. Eventually she understood and brought him the little book with the pressed flowers tucked inside.

  At the sight of it, the wounded man blinked tears away from his eyes. He opened the book, turning the pages. He seemed to be searching for something. Two Moons realized he must be able to read the white man’s words. Presently he took the gold ring off his hand, tucked it between two pages, and handed the book back to her.

  “For my wife,” he signed.

  Two Moons took the book from his trembling hands, and nodded. His wife was called Blue Eyes and men at the fort would know her. She put the book and the ring back in his bags and left the tent. She walked away from the camp toward the snowcapped peak in the distance, thinking, He hasn’t begged for anything. He hasn’t complained or even seemed afraid. In the days she had tended the wounded man, he had only seemed intent on getting better. He had accepted her care, but he was always somewhere else in his mind. Waiting, she thought. Waiting to go somewhere. And when he realized he might be going to the spirit world instead, all he did was mention his wife and lie down to wait like a warrior who went into battle singing, “It is a good day to die.”

  The medicine man said the doctors at the fort would cut off the bad leg. He said he had seen soldiers hobbling around on one leg, an awful life—but it was life. If she could give this one man life, then maybe it would somehow make up for all the death in her past.

  Two Moons looked up toward the white mountain peaks. The snows were coming. Nights were cold now. She might have already waited too long. The fort was many days away. The black sickness hadn’t started in the man’s leg yet, but it was coming. She knew because the skin on his leg was tight and shiny, and the liquid running from the wound had begun to stink. That must be how he knew he was going to die.

  Well, he wasn’t going to die, not if she could help it. Even if he did, then at least he would be at the fort where someone might know how to get the words and the ring to his wife, wherever she was. Maybe she was one of the loafers around the fort. That could be it.

  She, Two Moons, had nothing from her husband or her child, except the scars on her arms to remember them by. She remembered the beads High Hand wore around his neck. Her hand went to her chest and she wished she had those beads now.

  Two Moons hurried back to the tent. In less than an hour she had struck it down around the wounded man. She signed that she was taking him to the fort, but she didn’t know if he understood. The fever was on him and he was suffering more. It was late in the day. She would travel all night. She had to.

  The old women in the village gathered around, offering advice she didn’t want or need. Did they think she didn’t know she was being foolish? Did they think she didn’t know they would both likely die going out alone?

  The children had grown to like her stories, so they helped her tie her bundles in place on the travois behind her ragged pony. But when it came to getting the wounded man on the travois, she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to hurt him any more. It hadn’t mattered before. But now she knew he was brave and he had a wife somewhere—a wife who cared to know that he was alive or dead.

  Just when she was despairing of how she would load him, the medicine man arrived. He examined the wounded man’s leg and looked at her with the death message in his eyes.

  “I am taking him to the fort. You said the doctor there would be able to help him. You said you had seen men who had lived, even when the black sickness was on them.”

  The medicine man grunted. “You are crazy, Two Moons.”

  She lo
oked at him with sad, dark eyes, and said gently, “Is not all of life a kind of craziness?”

  He squinted at her for a moment. “If you are a spirit woman come to test me, you will see that I have passed your test,” he said, and he helped her load the wounded man on the travois.

  The men made their way along the old, well-worn trail, heads down, hearts discouraged. Visiting Lakota camps had not proven dangerous, after all. But it had been useless. No one knew anything about a white horse or a Dakota scout. The five of them had been wandering the hills for two weeks now. Unless they wanted to spend the winter with the Lakota, they’d better head back. It wouldn’t be long before a storm could blow down from the Big Horn Mountains and make travel almost impossible.

  Elliot had gathered more information about the “hostiles” than he’d dreamed possible. Of course he hadn’t written any of it down. He didn’t want the mission to appear “official” in any way, for that might risk too much. But this foray up the Tongue River had taught him things he’d use for the rest of his life. He wondered if that was why this had all happened. If Daniel were dead, at least it would bear lasting fruit in Washington.

  Aaron had paid attention and learned, too. He’d picked up a fair number of Lakota phrases by listening to Picotte. Growing up around the Dakota had taught him a lot about Indians in general, but he didn’t remember them before they had been “civilized” and taken onto the reservation. These Lakota had made it their duty to stay as far away from whites as possible. They were nothing like the Dakota Aaron had grown up with. If nothing else, he realized he had much yet to learn about Indians. And he’d been reminded of that sense of “a calling” Aunt Jane had told him about. The Indian Question was far from being answered, and Aaron had begun to think he could easily give his life to help find answers that could somehow preserve this proud, beautiful people. He wondered if that was why this had all happened. If Daniel were dead, at least it would bear lasting fruit in Aaron’s life and, through Aaron, on behalf of the Indians.

  Edward Pope had learned he was neither the coward he thought he was, nor was he stupid. He could do a lot more besides cook, although he watched the Lakota campfires with inborn curiosity and decided feasting on dog wouldn’t kill a man. He surprised himself with what Picotte called “amazing powers of observation,” and discovered a knack for setting people at ease, more than once saying something in a meeting that lightened the mood when things were getting tense. The Lakota weren’t fooled. They knew Aaron and Willets and Leighton were army. But Edward Pope eased their suspicions and made them almost believe their story about being deserters and looking for one of their friends named Two Stars who was going to join them for the winter up on the Little Bighorn.

  Captain John Willets soaked up Zephyr Picotte’s wisdom and experience. From Aaron and Elliot he learned what true friendship and love among men of God looked like. It didn’t take him long to realize both Aaron Dane and Elliot Leighton were the “Two Stars kind of Christian.” Picotte had made it clear he didn’t want any part of their religion, and to Willets’s surprise they both respected that and didn’t shove their beliefs at him. Still, there were times when he looked at Elliot or Aaron and would have sworn the men were praying silently. He watched them closely, wondering what would happen to their faith when they realized they weren’t going to find Daniel Two Stars.

  He thought too much about Genevieve Two Stars, and he didn’t like it but he couldn’t seem to do much about it. She was there, behind every thought he had of Daniel, a shadow beside her husband, and more often than not the reason he kept looking. If he was going to have to tell her Daniel was gone, he wanted to be certain he’d done everything humanly possible to prevent it. She was going to need someone to watch out for her if Daniel was gone. He wondered if she would go back to New York. He knew she hadn’t really liked it there. But he couldn’t let himself think of her beyond making certain Genevieve Two Stars would be well cared for. It was, after all, his duty to his men to do what he could for their families.

  Twenty-Five

  It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.

  —Psalm 119:71

  The man on the travois now had a raging fever. He hadn’t really been behind his eyes for hours, and the leg was worse. Two Moons lifted the blankets and what she saw sickened her. All she could do now was hurry. Faster and faster she went, running until she could no longer stand the burning in her lungs, yet slowing only long enough to catch her breath before running again. She had kept moving all night. She thought they were only another day’s journey from the fort, but she didn’t know if it would matter. The wounded man had been delirious for a while. Now he was silent, his face a gray mask, his breathing shallow.

  Two Moons stopped only long enough to let the pony walk.

  She was worried about her old mare. She had been surprised when the horse managed to get the wounded man to camp the first time. Asking her to pull him back again might be too much. Some time in the night the pony began to wheeze and gasp for breath. Two Moons made her keep moving, and although she didn’t want to, she prodded the little mare every now and then with a stick when she threatened to stop.

  Only when she could no longer force herself to put one foot in front of another did Two Moons rest. She pulled a blanket off the travois and, wrapping herself in it, slept. She would not lie down lest she sleep too soundly. She had had no reason to live for a long time, but now that she had one, she was obsessed. She drove herself and willed the man to live. She prayed to her own spirits and whatever spirits the man believed in to come to her aid.

  On the second day she was tugging the mare down a steep incline when the old creature stumbled and went down onto her knees. Two Moons yelled and screamed at the pony, pulling with all her might until the old girl wobbled upright and walked on. But sometime that afternoon, the pony went down first on her knees, then on her side, threatening to spill the travois as she sank down, wheezing and gasping.

  Two Moons pounded the pony with her fists and wailed at the wind. When she realized the little mare was dead, she untied the travois poles from atop the pony’s withers. Unloading everything except the man and his book, she braced herself against the poles. Straining everything in her, she managed to pull the travois along, inch by impossible inch, down an incline. She made progress for a while, until they reached another hill. Evening was coming on, and at last Two Moons gave out, completely spent. She sank beside the wounded man, looked down at her scarred arms, and closed her eyes. Then, as the sun set behind the mountain peaks, she lifted her voice in a death wail.

  “Shhh.” Picotte held his hand out and cocked his head, listening. He looked at Captain Willets. “You hear that?”

  Willets lifted his chin slightly, closed his eyes, and listened. “The wind. Not human.”

  Picotte took his pipe out of his mouth and squinted, working at listening harder. “The wind’s bringing it, but it’s human. A death song, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “Where? From what direction?” Willets opened his eyes, suddenly wide awake in spite of their long day.

  “North.” Picotte listened again. He sniffed the wind like an animal. “Wolves, too. But it was human at first.”

  Willets scrambled up. He went to where Leighton and Aaron had bedded down atop a cushion of pine boughs. “Elliot.” He shook Elliot’s shoulder. “Need to check on something.”

  Aaron lifted his head. “What? What is it?”

  “Don’t know. Picotte thinks he heard a Sioux death wail. We both heard some wolves in the distance.”

  The men scrambled out of their bedrolls.

  “You’ns go and check on it.” Edward Pope was up, too, stirring up the fire. “I’ll keep the extra horses here. And I’ll have coffee when you get back.”

  In less than half an hour the four were on the trail, grateful for the bright moon, hoping the sound was more than their imagination, trying to follow it through the night.

  When the wolves first app
eared, Two Moons was ready. She had built a fire to keep herself and the man from freezing in the night. It was a strong flame, and although the creatures surrounded her, she thought she could stave them off. There were only a few. But as the night went on and the flames grew small, Two Moons realized more wolves had come. They were restless, and they watched her with glowing yellow eyes, waiting for the flames to die. She untied the travois and worked to get one of the poles free. She would use it as a club and fight as long as she could. She and the man were entering the spirit land tonight, but they would not go until she had fought the wolves. She shivered with fear, hoping they would kill her quickly.

  When the first creature lunged at her, snarling and snapping its jaws, it was only playing at the attack and she fended it off easily. A second one came and she landed a good blow across its head. It yelped and trotted away, shaking its head like a child after its mother boxed its ears.

  Two Moons sang, hoping it would frighten the creatures and for a time it did. She punctuated her song with shouts, and the wolves backed away. But as the night wore on and the fire began to smolder, the wolves grew bolder. One of them charged at the wounded man. Two Moons landed another crushing blow across the animal’s back and it tumbled over and then scrambled away. She positioned herself across the man, one foot on either side of his body. The wolves came closer. More than one, this time. Two Moons raised the stick over her head and screamed just as three of them lunged.

  There was the blistering roar of a rifle, and one of the wolves fell dead across the wounded man. A second was thrown back and slunk away, yelping from pain. The others disappeared. The third wolf slashed Two Moons’s leg as it streaked across the wounded man’s body. Two Moons lunged at it with her stick, but she tripped on the man she was trying to protect and fell. She covered her head with her arms and, curling into a ball, waited to die.