Later that afternoon, the four Cheyenne returned to their tribe’s summer camp at the fork where the Little Powder joined the Powder. His face stern but proud, Wolf Who Hunts Smiling led their packhorse by a lariat. The animal pulled a travois to which their prisoner, who had regained consciousness, had been lashed. Matthew’s legs had been left to bounce over the rough, rocky ground, in the course of the journey, they had been badly bloodied and bruised. In addition, one of his eyes had swollen shut from the impact of the trade rifle’s butt.
The entire village gathered at a huge open area surrounding the Council Lodge. The Indians stared, some more surprised than hostile, as the prisoner was lashed to a carved pole from which dangled enemy scalps.
For the rest of that day and through the night, Matthew was deliberately ignored by the men of the tribe. Occasionally, a small, naked child would dart forward to poke at him with a stick or yank his hair. Once, an old squaw, her wrinkled face twisted with hate at the sight of Matthew’s white man’s clothing, spat contemptuously in his face. A few of the younger females were less hostile toward the handsome prisoner—even openly curious when no elders were about to scold them for looking. One in particular found excuses to pass by him several times on various errands.
Despite his fear and the pain from his wounds, Matthew was struck by the frail beauty of the maiden’s high, finely sculpted cheekbones. She was clearly different from the other girls her age. While most of the young women in the tribe wore glittery beads, buttons or shells in their hair, her long black hair was braided only with white petals of mountain columbine. Her buckskin dress, which was decorated with elk teeth and eagle tails, had gold coins for buttons. Her bare legs were the color of wild honey.
From his position at the middle of camp, Matthew watched the entire village. The tipis, erected in circles by clans, were covered with tanned buffalo hides. Many had worn so thin they were bright with the cooking fire within. Dark plumes curled out the smoke holes.
A crude pole corral beyond the camp was filled with well-fed ponies and mules. Closer at hand, Matthew could see a group of women huddled around a huge side of fresh buffalo meat. They cut razor-thin slices and stretched them on pole racks to dry. Amazed, Matthew watched children old enough to walk still nursing at their mothers’ breasts as the women went about their tasks.
By the time darkness descended, fires crackled and blazed everywhere. Cramped and uncomfortable in his sitting position, Matthew realized that, unlike Bighorn Falls, the Cheyenne village had no official bedtime. Because it was noisy and active all night long, he slept little. Children played, braves bet on pony races through the middle of camp, and old women with their hair cut short in mourning chanted all night long.
The only thing Matthew craved more than sleep was food. It wasn’t until well past midnight that an old squaw approached him carrying a piece of bark with cooked meat on it. Her face stony and impassive, she held it up so he could eat.
Although the meat was tough and stringy, he chewed ravenously and ignored the queer taste. Only after he had swallowed most of it did the old squaw shift her position enough for him to see the carcass of a young dog on the spit behind her. The old squaw cursed and leapt back when Matthew suddenly retched up the meat. Her eyes were bright with contempt for the weak white man’s Indian who stupidly wasted such a delicacy.
Thoroughly miserable, homesick, and frightened, Matthew finally drifted into an uneasy sleep near dawn. Far too soon, he was shaken roughly awake by another old squaw with a face as cracked and lined as the clay of a long-dry riverbed. This one brought him a strip of dried venison, which he devoured as quickly as she could shove it into his mouth.
Most of the fires had burned down to embers. Even though it was not yet midmorning, Matthew saw plenty of activity around the Council Lodge, and he knew he was the cause of it. This central structure, which consisted of a wooden frame covered with elk and buffalo hides, was the largest in the camp.
Matthew had not been watching the lodge long when a lone horseman rode throughout the camp, shouting something over and over like a town crier. Men emerged from tipis and filed inside the council lodge, still carefully avoiding any glances toward him. They wore their best ornamental garments for the council. They were decorated with porcupine quills, stones, feathers, leather fringes, and hair from enemy scalps.
As the adult males entered the Council Lodge, Wolf Who Hunts Smiling and two braves approached Matthew.
“We will both attend the council,” Wolf Who Hunts Smiling said coldly. “It is customary that only warriors are permitted. But you must be there to hear the Council judgment, and I must be there to be your tongue.”
When Wolf Who Hunts Smiling finished speaking, one of the braves thrust his stone lance point into Matthew’s neck while the other untied his hands. But their precautions were wasted, for Matthew was so cramped from his position that one of the braves was forced to help him to his feet.
The Council Lodge was packed. Each clan had sent its Headmen, and they sat in a circle that took up half of the structure. In their midst reigned Chief Yellow Bear in a red blanket, his silver hair flowing over his shoulders. The other half of the lodge was filled with adult braves who were permitted to speak, but not to vote on Matthew’s fate.
All eyes stared at Matthew as he was led to the center of the lodge and told to sit. Next to him, Wolf Who Hunts Smiling explained all that took place. Chief Yellow Bear stuffed a clay pipe with kinnikinnick. Before he smoked, the chief pointed the pipe to all the directions of the wind and to the sun, the moon, and the sky. When he had inhaled the mixture of tobacco and red willow bark, he passed the pipe on.
Soon the sweet, fragrant smell of burning willow bark filled the lodge. When the councilors had finished smoking, an old man called Medicine Bottle chanted a prayer. Normally the official tribal medicine man Arrow Keeper would perform that duty. But he had departed seven sleeps earlier for a fasting ceremony at distant Medicine Lake.
“Brothers!” Yellow Bear said when the prayer was finished. “We are called here today to decide the fate of this stranger. He rides into our country calling himself a Cheyenne, but speaks the language of the Long Knives. Let us first hear his story and decide if we can place his words near our hearts.”
“He is a white man in his manner and bearing. No white man has ever talked one way to the Indian,” protested a young warrior named Black Elk. “They are all liars. Kill him now!”
A murmur of approval from the other young warriors greeted the remarks. When Black Elk’s murderous black eyes met Matthew’s, the prisoner shuddered. One of the warrior’s ears had been partially torn off and sewn back onto his skull with buckskin thread. The wound made Black Elk appear as fierce as his words.
“Black Elk speaks as if he has drunk the white man’s devil water,” Yellow Bear said. “Let the prisoner talk first!”
Halting often so that Wolf Who Hunts Smiling could translate, Matthew did his best to explain his situation. But with all those hostile faces turned toward him, it was impossible to describe how he felt about Kristen—or how he felt as if a knife was twisting in his guts when white men treated him like an animal.
“His words do not ring with truth!” Black Elk insisted upon hearing Matthew’s story. “The white men are foxes who do not want peace. They send their spies among us to learn our plans. I say we kill him now!”
Again the younger warriors greeted his talk with shouts and raised fists. Yellow Bear folded his arms until they grew quiet. Turning to Medicine Bottle, he asked, “What is it you advise?”
Old Medicine Bottle was silent a long time before he spoke. At last, he said, “Brothers! I counsel as Arrow Keeper himself would, and I counsel for mercy. This stranger who arrives among us has Shaiyena blood coursing through his veins. True, he has been contaminated by living among our enemies, but even among the whites are some good, honorable men. Did I not see with my own eyes how a young Bluecoat officer was killed by his eagle chief for refusing to fire on our women and children? It is useless to fight the white men. Their numbers are like the locusts.”
“No!” Black Elk shouted. “We must drive the white men from the mountains of the bighorn sheep. We must save the valley of our river. We have no other hunting grounds left to us. I speak for my young cousin Wolf Who Hunts Smiling and many others present who saw our fathers and mothers slaughtered. We hate the whites even more than we hate the Pawnee and the Crows and the Ute. We must raise our battle-axes against them until death. This one stinks like the whites who sent him to spy!”
When the lodge erupted in an uproar, Yellow Bear folded his arms and waited for silence. When it didn’t come, he shook his fist and shouted above the din.
“Brothers! I have rinsed my mouth in cold, fresh water, and now I speak only true things. How many times have I cut short my hair for our dead? Have I not heard my brave wife Little Raven sing the Death Song because of a Bluecoat bullet?
“Hear me well, brothers! Yellow Bear has eaten his fill of this ugly poison called killing. He will never shed Cheyenne blood with his own hand. But let the headmen speak with their stones, for I have spoken and can say no more.”
Matthew watched, his mouth a straight, determined slit, as Medicine Bottle passed a fur pouch among the twenty voting headmen. The pouch contained forty small stones. Each councilor reached in and removed the stone of his choice—a white moonstone or a black agate—keeping it hidden in his hand.
When he had made the rounds, Medicine Bottle handed the half-empty pouch to Chief Yellow Bear. Yellow Bear grabbed it by the bottom and emptied it on the buffalo robe at his feet.
Twenty stones spilled out—a few white, but most of them black agates.
For the first time Yellow Bear looked directly at the prisoner. Deep lines like cracked leather ran from the corner of the old chief’s eyes, which seemed saddened by some grief that could not be spoken.
“My young men are thirsty for blood. Like their chief, my old men counsel mercy. But the headmen wisely understand. If we elders always turn stone ears to our young warriors, they will rebel and follow their own leaders. The headmen know that sometimes the old trees must bend so the new trees can grow straight. Now the tribe has spoken with one voice.”
The sadness suddenly left Yellow Bear’s eyes, and they turned hard as flint as ancient duty took over. He announced something else, and when Wolf Who Hunts Smiling turned to Matthew to translate, the young Cheyenne’s face glowed with triumph.
“Yellow Bear says the stones have spoken. You are a spy for the whites, and you must die!”