Child of the Dead

by Don Coldsmith

  Yes! This was even better than her original plan, to challenge Cold Maker in the Moon of Starvation. She could bring comfort to a dying child. Probably, she would then die with the sickness herself. It struck her as appropriate, somehow, that she would bring comfort to the dying, and then she, too, would cross over to the Other Side. What better place to be when one was ready to cross over than among the dead? She smiled to herself.

  It was not long before shadows grew long and the band stopped for the night. Running Deer was careful to place her saddle a little way apart as they settled in. She hoped that the mare would not be too hard to catch. She busied herself with her few belongings, managing to hide a stout length of rawhide thong for a rein. No one must suspect her purpose, or they would stop her. But once she was successful in reaching the abandoned camp, there was nothing anyone could do. She could not rejoin the People.

  She had been very careful to note landmarks that could be seen at night, so that she could find her way back. There should be a nearly full moon tonight to help her on her way.

  Her sons would come back to look for her, of course, but by that time they could do nothing. The People would long tell the tale of Running Deer, the old woman who took pity on a dying child. She did not know how painful such a death as this might be, but surely it was no worse than freezing. She would greet it with dignity. The People knew how to die with pride, and she could do this thing.

  She lay sleepless, waiting for the camp to quiet down. It seemed a long time. Finally she rolled out of her robe and stretched. This must look as if she were only going to empty her bladder, in case anyone noticed her. She might need the robe … At first she cast it aside, but then came back, hugging her shoulders as if she were cold, in case someone noticed her. She picked it up and drew it around herself, walking toward the brushy area which the women were using to answer the call of a full bladder. No one seemed aware of her.

  Once out of sight, Deer waded through the stream and paused to locate the young man who would be watching the horse herd. He must be avoided. Ah, there, by the tree! She edged around the other way, threading her way among the horses. It was dark … But now she saw the gray mare, and moved in that direction.

  Three tries she made. Each time the animal waited until Deer touched her neck, and then spooked away. Deer felt her anger rise. Well, enough! The longer she remained here among the horses, the greater the chance that she would be discovered.

  “Stay, then,” she muttered to the gray. “There are many better than you!”

  She slipped her thong around the neck of a bay that stood quietly and allowed her to do so. The horse did not object when she led it out of the herd and to the brushy area where she had left her saddle.

  It required some effort to swing up. It was a long time since she had mounted without one of her sons hurrying to help her. There was a satisfaction in it.

  Very quietly she walked the horse away from the camp. When she thought it safe, she urged the bay into a trot. It was a rough gait, not nearly so comfortable as that of her gray mare, but so be it. It was not for long.

  She sighted across the hills to verify her landmarks, and headed toward the village of the dead.

  6

  “Have you seen our mother this morning?” asked Singing Wolf.

  Beaver Track glanced up from his task, tying packs to the travois.

  “No … Why, Wolf?”

  “I do not know. No one has seen her.”

  “Were her robes slept in?”

  “Her robes are not here.”

  “Was she not with your family, Wolf?”

  “Near us, yes. You know how she draws aside to be alone sometimes. We thought she might have joined you.”

  “No!”

  Both were alarmed now. They widened the circle of inquiry. Someone thought he had seen her go to empty her bladder, but no one was certain.

  “Her horse!” exclaimed Beaver Track. “Maybe she rose early to catch her horse.”

  The two men hurried out to the herd, where people were catching their animals and preparing for travel.

  “There is her gray mare,” Wolf noted.

  Their attention was diverted by an argument between one of the young men who had guarded the horse herd and an older warrior.

  “I do not know, Uncle,” the young herdsman said respectfully. “I saw nothing.”

  Wolf recognized the older man as Quick Otter, a respected subchief.

  “What is it, Uncle?” he asked.

  “My bay pack horse, Wolf. It is not here.”

  “Maybe he strayed away.”

  “No. My black does that sometimes, but not this one.” Otter turned back to the nervous youth. “Nothing at all? You saw nothing?”

  “No, Uncle. They were a little restless about half through the night. I looked, but found nothing, and then all was quiet.”

  Beaver Track had left the group to circle the area, and now came trotting back, an anxious expression on his face in the early light of day.

  “Someone led a horse from the herd and across the stream there,” he announced.

  “Of course,” snapped old Otter. “Many have, this morning.”

  “No, Uncle, away from the camp. They stopped, to saddle maybe, in the brush there. Does your bay paddle a little on the left front foot?”

  “Yes! He does!”

  “This was the horse, then. I found the tracks on the sand bar where they crossed.”

  “But this makes no sense!” protested the herdsman. “If one steals a horse, he steals the best buffalo runner, not an old pack horse. Besides, we have no enemies here.”

  “Not that we know of,” Singing Wolf agreed. “But he is right, Uncle. Why? Would anyone want to play a joke on you?”

  “No. It is a bad joke, anyway. The bay was not worth much, but he was always easy to catch. Even a child could catch him.”

  The sons of Running Deer looked at each other, a light dawning.

  “Or an old woman,” said Wolf softly.

  “What?” demanded Quick Otter.

  “Nothing, Uncle. We will try to find your horse.”

  Wolf and Beaver Track drew aside.

  “Could the tracks have been hers?” asked Wolf.

  “Maybe. They were small. I was thinking of a young person … a joke.”

  “But where would she go, and why?”

  It took only a little while for Beaver Track to determine that the rider on the stolen bay had headed straight on their back trail.

  “Maybe she forgot something,” he suggested.

  “Maybe,” his brother agreed. “But I am afraid there is something more here, Beaver. Our mother has been acting strangely, has she not? I am afraid that she has some strange idea about that camp of the dead.”

  “But what …?”

  Wolf was already turning back toward their own camp.

  “I do not know. Let us get our families ready for the trail, as quickly as we can. Then we will go back, you and I.”

  Running Deer had reached the area she sought a while before the gray-yellow of the false dawn began to make itself seen in the eastern sky. She stopped the horse and slid to the ground. It had been an uncomfortable trip at best, and slow. The frustrating slow walk of the old pack horse had driven her nearly to distraction, and any faster gait jarred her bones unmercifully. She had not realized how grateful she should have been that her husband had always insisted on the best of horses for the family. Even her gray mare … aiee, what a difference.

  She stripped the saddle from the bay, and untied the bridle thong from its lower jaw to release it. The horse ambled away, grazing contentedly. He paddles on the left front, she noticed. Maybe that would partly account for his rough gaits. Beaver Track would have known. He was the horseman of the family. No matter, now …

  Deer sat down, waiting for daylight. She did not want to go wandering around in the dark looking for the child. A night bird called from the trees downstream, where the burial scaffolds were. An eerie sound … There
was a time … When she was a child this whole scene would have been filled with terror. Now it almost pleased her to face it. From another direction came the hollow cry of Kookooskoos, the great hunting owl. His was a powerful spirit of the night. She had always felt a closeness to Kookooskoos, and as he called the hollow rendition of his own name, it was a comfort. Then a soft, noiseless spot of darkness floated past her against the paling sky, and was gone.

  “Thank you, Kookooskoos,” she murmured. “Good hunting!”

  As it grew lighter, Deer could begin to recognize landmarks from the day before. Yes, over there … that was where she had last seen the dying child. The girl might even be dead now. If so, she would abandon her plan, catch the horse, and follow the People, she supposed.

  But there … yes! There lay the child, near where she had last been. The girl was sitting up, looking around in confusion, and crying softly. Running Deer hurried toward her, and the child started to run away.

  “Wait!” called Deer.

  The girl turned to look, and paused, still anxious. Deer quickly made the hand sign for peace, which says literally “Look! I am unarmed!”

  The child seemed to relax a little, and Deer approached slowly.

  “How are you called?” she signed. “Gray Mouse, is it not?”

  The little girl nodded, perplexed.

  “How are you called?” she signed.

  “I am Running Deer.”

  “Will you hurt me?”

  “No, no, child. I want to help you.”

  “It cannot be. They told me. They went away!”

  The girl pointed in the direction where the wolves of the People had discovered such a trail.

  “I will not go away, little one. I came to stay with you.”

  There was doubt in the pitiful little face. Gray Mouse made the sign for a question. It can be used for many purposes: who, where, when … But in this case it was almost surely “why!”

  Running Deer held out her hand encouragingly.

  “I want to be with you. You will be my daughter.”

  “You are my grandmother?”

  Deer thought for a moment, and then smiled.

  “Yes, child, if that is what you wish.”

  With a sudden rush, the little girl flew into her arms. For a moment Deer felt a revulsion at the scabbing sores. They were even worse when seen at close range. She closed her eyes, and that helped. Now the child was a person again, a small person who needed someone very badly. Running Deer enfolded the sobbing little form in her arms and rocked gently. Tears flowed down her own cheeks. She drew her warm buffalo robe around them both, warming the shivering little body.

  There flitted through the back of her mind an undeniable fact: there was no turning back now. Close on the heels of that came another, in the form of the words of the Death Song.

  The grass and the sky go on forever,

  But today is a good day to die.

  At least, to begin to die, she thought.

  The two men approached the area which was already being called the Camp of the Dead before mid-morning.

  “Look!” exclaimed Beaver Track.

  A bay horse grazed peacefully in the meadow where the People had stopped to wait while they had scouted the camp.

  “It may not be the same bay,” suggested Wolf, but in his heart, he knew.

  “Why would she come back here?” Beaver Track wondered aloud.

  Singing Wolf was afraid that he knew that, too. The child … the hearts of many had gone out to the pitiful figure. It had been a shame to abandon the girl, but the safety of the People had demanded it. Anyone who touched the child would undoubtedly risk death, but worse, the bad spirit would be carried to the rest of the band. Then everyone might die. Wolf wondered whether that was how it had been with the people who lay dead in the ravine just over the ridge.

  But a more pressing problem lay with his mother. If, as he suspected, she had come back to look after the needs of this dying child, Running Deer must not be allowed to rejoin the People. She, too, would die here, among the other victims of the dreaded poch.

  “Smoke!” muttered Beaver Track, turning his horse aside.

  They rounded the shoulder of the hill, to see a fire and a woman kneeling beside it.

  “Mother!” called Beaver Track, kicking his horse forward.

  “Be quiet!” she scolded. “The child has just gone to sleep!”

  “But … I …”

  “Do not come any closer!” Deer warned.

  Singing Wolf glanced around the area. It was well chosen. Some shade, from a cottonwood partway up the slope. Level ground … Not too far from water … Upstream from the abandoned village …

  He got the distinct impression that this was not a temporary camp. His mother’s entire attitude said so. The statement suggested by the presence of her camp-fire was unmistakable, a message to the spirits of the place: Here I intend to camp. It was a challenge, a statement of defiance to the spirits that carried the poch.

  “Mother! What are you doing?” blurted Beaver Track.

  “I came back to care for my child here.”

  She pointed at the sleeping girl.

  They noticed that she was gently fanning the fevered little face with a hawk-wing fan, brushing away the flies.

  “But Mother …”

  Running Deer interrupted.

  “My sons,” she declared firmly, “there is nothing to say here. It is my choice, and you can do nothing about it. I have chosen … I have sung the Death Song, and I will fight. I have the right to do this, to help this child in her last days, and mine.”

  Her sons were speechless, and there was an awkward moment of silence.

  “Give my lodge to someone. There will be a gift dance this fall, no?”

  “Well, yes …”

  “Then so be it! Go now. There is danger here.”

  “But not all die with this poch, Mother,” Singing Wolf argued.

  She shrugged. “Then so be that, too. If it is to happen that way, I will rejoin the People.”

  “Winter camp will be on the river of …” Beaver Track started to tell her, but she interrupted angrily.

  “I do not care where winter camp is to be, Beaver! Now go, you will bother my child’s rest!”

  The two turned their horses and walked slowly away. There was nothing more to do, nothing to be said.

  “She is crazy!” muttered Beaver Track, glancing back over his shoulder and wiping a tear away.

  “Maybe,” answered his brother, his voice unsteady, “but it is hers. She has had little that was hers for many moons, Beaver.”

  Running Deer watched them go, with tears streaming down her face. She would have loved to hold them in her arms one last time, but it would not have been possible. They would have stopped her in her plan if they had known. And they would have suspected something if she had acted differently in any way.

  “Goodbye, my sons,” she whispered. “May all go well with you and yours.”

  The hearts of all three were very heavy.

  7

  “What can we do?” asked Beaver Track as they rode away.

  “Nothing,” his brother muttered. “She planned well, so that we could not try to stop her. But it is as she says. It is hers to decide. Here, let us catch the horse and take it back to old Otter.”

  He dismounted and fastened a lead thong to the horse’s jaw. It followed willingly.

  “But …”

  “Look, Beaver,” Singing Wolf interrupted, “you remember … no, maybe you were too young. The People had a bad winter. The Fall Hunt had been poor.”

  Beaver Track nodded. “I was small, but I remember the telling of it.”

  “Yes. Well, that winter in the Moon of Snows, there was an old man, a warrior of many winters. He walked out to fight Cold Maker, singing the Death Song.”

  “Aiee! He was crazy?”

  “No, no. There was much talk about it. It was that he could see that food would be scarce, and some would starve
. So, he wanted to save his grandchildren. He fought Cold Maker that way, and won. His family survived, and Cold Maker was cheated.”

  “But that has nothing to do with this, Wolf.”

  “Yes, it has. You know our mother. She is gentle and caring. She feels that the dying child needs care, so she decided to do it.”

  “But she risks her own life.”

  “Yes. She does it willingly. I am made to think that she does this as a challenge to the spirits that cause the sickness.”

  “But Wolf, that is a challenge she cannot win.”

  Singing Wolf swallowed hard around the lump in his throat. “Maybe not. Yet she might think so. You saw … She has already brought comfort to the child. Maybe she thinks that a victory. You have seen her sadness these last few moons. She has seemed tired. Aiee! It is a while since I have seen such fire in her!”

  “It is like the old stories of people who asked to be left behind when the band moved on, maybe,” mused Beaver Track. “Someone was tired, and asked to be left alone …”

  “Maybe so … That has not happened in our lifetime. It was before the People had horses, I think. The hunt was hard, and food scarce. Many starved.”

  “But it is not that way now.”

  “That is true. But maybe it is the same. Someone gives himself to help the children. Anyway, our mother planned it so that we could not stop her.”

  Riding at a slow walk as they discussed the matter, they were now some distance from the dead village. They rounded the shoulder of a low hill to confront a small band of buffalo. The creatures were perhaps a hundred paces away, two old cows, their summer calves, and one yearling.

  “There,” said Singing Wolf quietly, “is something we can do.”

  The breeze was favorable, or the buffalo would have scented them already. The animals’ vision, however, was poor, accounting for their lack of alarm.

  Singing Wolf dismounted and drew his musket from its decorated buckskin case. A case she made for me, he thought. He checked the priming, closed the frizzen, and readied the flint. The buffalo appeared restless, and he moved into a better position quickly and smoothly. A stray puff of wind, they would be gone. The yearling would be his quarry, fat and tender.