The moon was halfway through her journey across the night sky, but still Honey Eater could not sleep. She lay quietly in her robes and listened to the nighttime noises outside in the camp. Closer at hand, on the other side of the center pole of her father’s tipi, Yellow Bear and her mother Singing Woman were sound asleep, oblivious to their daughter’s restlessness.
From down near the river came an owl hoot. Honey Eater heard it and idly wondered at it. Usually owls did not hunt so close to the camp. But her mind soon lost that thought and turned once again to the new arrival. Where had Arrow Keeper and he gone to when they rode away two sleeps earlier?
Thinking about him so much bothered Honey Eater. She was, after all, the daughter of a chief. He was only a pathetic outcast who looked Indian but acted white. She knew it angered her father to see her gazing at the stranger so often. But something about the tall, broad-shouldered youth was different—something besides his stature and pleasing looks. He was somehow marked for something great.
The young maiden had seen it when he was lashed to the wagon wheel and tortured over embers. Despite his shocking ignorance and white man’s contamination, he was strong and brave and good in a way that showed in his eyes, in the determined set of his mouth.
Her face flushing with warmth, she recalled their embarrassing encounter at the bathing pool. At first, she had believed he spied on her; now she realized he had simply blundered upon her in his ignorance. But still, they were not married and had seen each other naked! She could hardly be expected to be friendly toward him after such a breach of custom and still call herself a modest Cheyenne maiden. And why was a modest Cheyenne maiden, she scolded herself, thinking so often about how magnificent he had looked naked?
She lost her thoughts when another owl hooted, even closer than the last. Nearby, yet another owl replied, almost as if signaling. Honey Eater frowned. A sudden premonition of danger moved up her spine in a cool tickle. She slipped her buckskin dress over her slim shoulders and silently lifted the hide flap over the tipi’s entrance.
Moonlight limned the camp in a silver-white glow like brittle frost. From her family’s tipi, which sat on a lone hummock between the river and the rest of camp, she could see the dark mass of trees on the riverbank, the cone-shaped tipis, the darker, larger masses of the lodges. All was quiet and peaceful.
She was about to lower the flap and return to her robes when the night sky suddenly rained fire. It started with one lone orange streak that arced across the sky from the direction of the trees behind the corral. At first, she thought it was a brilliant falling star, one that came closer to the camp than most. Then she heard the hard, familiar thwap of an arrowhead embedding itself in a target. A moment later, the council lodge was in flames, and more fire was raining down on the camp. Flaming arrows whipped past overhead by the dozens, lodging in tipis, panicking ponies, lighting the entire camp in a strange orange glow.
Honey Eater screamed at the same moment a surprised sentry sounded the wolf howl of danger, shattering the quiet. Horses nickered in fright and crashed through the corral in a thunder of hooves; braves, many still naked, stumbled from their tipis. Their first priority, even before they knew who their attackers were, was to form a line of defense so the women, children, and elders could escape.
As the enemy poured out from the trees in the eerie firelight, Honey Eater recognized the dreaded Pawnee! Her heart skipped a beat. All Cheyenne women knew full well what these evil, cricket-eating marauders did to female captives.
Gunfire and shouting rang out with deafening intensity. Yellow Bear had already stumbled past his daughter to direct the warriors. When Singing Woman ran out, still wrapping her blanket, she grasped her daughter’s arm and started to lead her toward the others fleeing to a prearranged escape route downriver.
The next moment, her mother stumbled to one side as if she’d been violently tugged. Then she dropped like a stone, blood pumping in thick jets where a lead ball had just shattered her skull.
Watching her mother die before her eyes shocked Honey Eater into immobility. She stood rooted, even though the Pawnee were entering the camp, the firelight reflecting blood in their wild eyes. Their faces and shaved skulls were painted vermillion and ocher, their bodies smudged with ashes. They had been made brave and reckless by drinking the white man’s strong water. The kind the Pawnee warriors liked was traded from the unlicensed whites who added things to the devil water—things that made the Indians even crazier when drunk.
And they were surely crazy that night, Honey Eater saw from their fierce and relentless attack. Armed with bows, lances, clubs, knives, battle-axes, and tomahawks, the Pawnee cut down everything in their path.
The Cheyenne warriors—and even some boys and old men—met the attack bravely. No Cheyenne ever expected to survive if he were attacked before he could dress and paint and make an offering to the sacred Medicine Arrows. Yet, with only death to look forward to, they held fast to save the tribe.
Yellow Bear, his white hair flying like a mane, grabbed the lance of a fallen warrior. He tried to run forward. But two elderly headmen, knowing chaos would descend on the tribe if he were killed, restrained him. They forced him to retreat with them toward the escape trail, gathering children along the way.
Dead ponies lay everywhere, and Cheyenne braves used them as breastworks to stem the attack. While Honey Eater watched the skirmish, War Bonnet stood up to throw his lance at an attacker. But before the lance could leave his hand, a double-bladed throwing axe opened up War Bonnet’s chest and dropped him in his tracks, a bloody geyser spouting from his breastbone.
Abruptly the fierce Cheyenne war cry sounded close in her ears. “Hiya hi-i-i-ya!” And the warrior called Black Elk led a counter charge. He leaped toward a Pawnee brave, cracking him over the head with his lance to count first coup before he killed his enemy. Black Elk was fierce and magnificent in his wrath, and his counter attack roused his brothers to heroic deeds. As the Pawnee fell, young Cheyenne boys bravely darted forward to snatch up their weapons.
As the entire camp blazed with an eerie ghost-light, old Medicine Bottle picked up a crying child, then grabbed the stunned girl’s hand and led her toward the river escape point. Buffalo-hide rafts had been stashed in the event of an attack. The elders and the smallest children were being floated across by young boys big enough to swim.
But while he fled with Honey Eater and the child, Medicine Bottle took an arrow flush through the neck and fell, dropping the child. Finally prodded back into action by the old man’s sacrifice, Honey Eater sprang forward and scooped the infant into her arms. She ran toward the river as the Cheyenne braves waged a retreating battle all around her.
No rafts were available when she reached the bank of the Powder. Wolf Who Hunts Smiling was armed with the Colt rifle that he had taken from the newcomer. He had been ordered to protect the river escape route with his life. But with all his heart, he yearned to prove himself in the main battle.
Children who had just seen their parents killed stood naked and wailing, and old grandmothers tried to comfort them. Honey Eater held the child close to her breast, and the image of her own mother falling dead raced through her mind.
The river was swollen and fast from the spring melt. On the opposite shore, two boys were desperately unloading a raft so they could guide it back across. But Honey Eater glanced at the horrible scene behind her and realized that the Pawnee attackers were getting closer. If they reached the river, Wolf Who Hunts Smiling could never stop all of them.
In the middle of the camp, one of the Pawnee held a young, screaming Cheyenne woman down while another savagely raped her. Honey Eater recognized the girl as Morning Star of the Eagle clan, who had often served with her as a maid of honor for the Sun Dance ceremony. When the Pawnee’s lust was sated, he gutted her with his knife.
At Honey Eater’s side, an old woman named Rain Necklace said to her, “Prepare yourself for the Land of Ghosts, little daughter!” Then she began chanting the Death Song.
Despite the danger pressing closer, Honey Eater could not bring herself to chant the final words of her life. Instead, she tugged at a thong around her neck, pulling a small knife out from under her dress. All Cheyenne women wore one just like it night and day. It would be used to kill the child and herself if capture seemed inevitable.
“Prepare yourself to die, little daughter!” the old grandmother urged her again.
Honey Eater tasted the squalling infant’s tears even as she tightened her grip on the knife.
Arrow Keeper and Matthew rode hard without stopping to sleep. Eating while they rode, they paused only briefly to rest and water the horses. Once they were forced to shelter in the lee of a mesa during a brief but violent windstorm. They made the return to Yellow Bear’s camp in half the time they had taken to make the journey to Medicine Lake.
But Yellow Bear’s camp was no longer recognizable. Most of the tipis and lodges lay in blackened ruins. The ponies that weren’t missing from the ruined corrals lay dead everywhere, already bloating and starting to draw dark swarms of flies. The camp was terrifying and heartrending. Wailing over their dead braves, squaws sat bloodied from gouging themselves with sharp flints. All of the surviving warriors had cut short their hair for the dead. Those suffering extreme grief had gashed themselves with knives until blood streamed freely from the wounds.
His voice as sad as his eyes, Yellow Bear described the raid to Arrow Keeper. The outcome would have been even worse, the old chief assured him, if a Sioux hunting party had not been camped nearby. Hearing the battle sounds, they rode in and scattered the surprised Pawnee.
Matthew stood rooted in the middle of camp. He was overwhelmed by the suffering and death surrounding him. Since the raid, the dead had been washed and dressed in new moccasins for their journey to the Land of Ghosts. But not all the screams came from mourners. A Pawnee prisoner was lashed to the same wagon wheel he recognized from his own torture session. Embers glowed beneath the Pawnee, and the sickly sweet stink of scorched flesh filled the camp. Nearby, another prisoner sat lashed to a tree. He was just conscious enough to watch ravenous dogs feed on the warm intestines that had been pulled through the slit in his gut.
His heart thudding loudly in his ears, Matthew wandered the devastated camp until he spotted Honey Eater. She was helping an old squaw prepare Singing Woman’s body. It had already been washed and wrapped in deerskin and soon would be hauled to its burial scaffold. Once high in place, she would be wrapped tightly in buffalo skins.
Matthew’s gaze met Honey Eater’s long enough to give him a sharp pang of pity and sorrow at the grief in her eyes. But mixed with that feeling was a glimmer of hope. For he could see that she was relieved to see him alive again.
When Matthew turned away, he ran into Black Elk, who had witnessed their exchange of glances. The jealous young brave scowled fiercely at him. Then he approached the group of headmen and braves gathered around the Chief and Arrow Keeper.
“Fathers! Brothers! Hear me well! When did Black Elk ever show the white feather to an enemy? Did he ever hide in his tipi while his brothers were on the warpath? No! Count his scalps, count his war feathers! Black Elk swears the scalps of those who did these things will hang on our lodge-poles.”
Yellow Bear heard Black Elk’s words in silence. Then he turned to Arrow Keeper. The old chief’s eyes were sad with a grief too great to express. He too had hacked off his hair.
“Was not Singing Woman the soul of my medicine bag? Twice now have I lost good wives to my enemies. I have fought on the plains and on the icy slopes of the Wolf Mountains. Long now have I sung the songs of peace like the friendly Ponca. Long now have I counseled my young men not to dance the war dance. But from this time forward my heart is a stone. There is no soft spot left in it!”
“I have ears for this talk,” Black Elk approved, his dark eyes fierce. Again Matthew stared in gruesome fascination at the angry, crooked scar where Black Elk’s ear had been sewn back on. “Yellow Bear speaks of the peaceful Ponca. Do they not raise corn and gardens and cows? And yet, are they not constantly raided and attacked just as we were attacked here? Women live in peace and grow gardens. True braves hunt and fight. Give me warriors, Father, and I will avenge Yellow Bear’s people.”
Yellow Bear met Black Elk’s declaration with a silent nod. Unfortunately, he knew, revenge would be a difficult matter. Cheyenne trackers reported that the fleeing Pawnee had cleverly stuck to a buffalo run, where their tracks would be obscured by stampeding herds. Even more discouraging was the fact that precious few braves were left in the Cheyenne tribe.
“Yellow Bear cannot give Black Elk warriors,” the old chief finally said. “Instead of tall trees, I have only acorns.”
Yellow Bear’s tired eyes prowled the devastated camp as if painting a memory for eternity. For a moment, his eyes lingered on young Wolf Who Hunts Smiling, who stood near his cousin Black Elk.
Then Matthew was startled when the tribe leader’s gaze fell on him. “I have only acorns,” he repeated. “But acorns become trees. Black Elk will take charge of all the bucks who have twelve winters or more, but are not yet blooded warriors. He will train them well and quickly. For until he does so, our clan circles are unprotected.”
Black Elk’s eyes showed a fierce but dignified pride when he received the important order. But he too glanced again at Matthew. It had not escaped his notice that the newcomer’s arrival had been suspiciously close to the time of the attack. Could the spy have left secret messages for the Pawnee in the forks of nearby trees?
“All the bucks?” Black Elk demanded, scowling at Matthew.
Arrow Keeper gave a determined nod to the chief. “All,” Yellow Bear said.
Black Elk exchanged a secret, knowing glance with his young cousin. Both then stared hard at Matthew.
“As you say, Father,” said Black Elk. “But perhaps not all will survive the hard training.”