CHAPTER
23 
I sat out of the way and watched through tear-filled eyes as Falling Stars Woman and Aén
hé’ke tried to heal Kindle. He lay on a buffalo robe at the back of the tent, naked and unconscious, his scars and injuries stark against his pale skin. His head jerked forward and vomit bubbled from his mouth. I reached toward them, but couldn’t get out the order to turn him on his side before the women had done it. I settled back on my heels, hands in my lap, and made myself consider what I would do if Kindle died. Where I would go, yes, but mostly how I would live with myself knowing my inattention had killed him.
If I’d let Kindle put a bullet in the Pinkerton none of this would have happened. I would’ve thought to inspect all of Kindle—he’d fallen in the middle of the rattlesnake den as well—instead of being so worried about saving a man who would most likely do to me what the Comanche had on the Canadian River.
“What about the Pinkerton?” Pope had asked when Kindle was being taken from the wagon and into Falling Stars Woman’s tent.
A fly buzzed around Reed’s slack face and landed on his eyelid.
I walked off, tears pooling in my eyes. It had all been for nothing. I’d risked Kindle’s life to save a dead man.
Falling Stars Woman held her hands over the smoking fire and brought them toward her, directing the smoke over her body, and did the same for Kindle’s knee. It was a routine she’d done four times now. Singing would come next, along with shaking a rattle, followed by biting the afflicted area to suck out the illness, and ending with smoking a pipe that sat between the fire and Kindle’s body, with the pipe stem pointing toward the door.
I had little faith in the efficacy of the ceremony, which seemed to be based on spirituality instead of science. I’d always inwardly scoffed at people who put so much faith in prayer and God to save their afflicted kin instead of trusting medicine and my skills as a doctor. Since I had nothing to offer Kindle by way of healing, I was in no position to ridicule. Instead, I remained silent and observed the ritual. The calmness with which it was performed managed to quiet my spiraling mind.
Aénhé’ke handed Falling Stars Woman a cup. They lifted Kindle up and put the cup to his lips. He sputtered, drank, and was laid down again.
Aénhé’ke came to me, and as she’d done with most of Falling Stars Woman’s actions, explained. “To make him cold.”
Falling Stars Woman chewed a root, spat it into her hands, raised it in ceremony to the four cardinal directions, and rubbed the poultice on Kindle’s knee. Aénhé’ke sat next to me. “Medicine root,” Aénhé’ke said.
I wanted to know specifics: How does it work? What is it made of? Where do you find it? But I didn’t ask. Their medicine wasn’t based on facts, but rather spirituality and knowledge passed down through the years. They didn’t concern themselves with the why or how, only knew it effective more often than not. Whether it worked was up to the spirits.
Falling Stars Woman sat down and smoked a pipe as food was brought in. After she finished her pipe, cleaned it, and set it back down with the stem facing the door and the bowl directed toward Kindle, she placed five pieces of meat in her hands and presented them to the sky, earth, and four cardinal directions. She left the tipi and returned a few minutes later with one remaining piece of meat, which she placed between the fire and the door. She returned to her place and we ate. Though I had no appetite, I knew to refuse food was to give the highest offense.
“Will he live?” I asked, after the silence became oppressive.
“He is strong,” Falling Stars Woman said. “He wants to live.”
The relief that washed through me was short-lived. Aénhé’ke looked to Falling Stars Woman, who nodded. “The poison is strong as well,” Aénhé’ke said.
“What can we do?”
“We will give the medicine time to work.”
“Wait, you mean. How long?”
“The night. When the sun rises, we will know what to do.”
I wanted to lash out at her cryptic mumbo-jumbo, to force her to give me a straight answer to the question. Didn’t she realize what was at stake? Couldn’t she try harder? Do more? Why did she sit there so calmly, eating, talking quietly to Aénhé’ke, while Kindle lay behind her on the precipice of death?
Aénhé’ke left the tent. Falling Stars Woman leveled her steady gaze at me and I knew she’d heard every angry thought I’d hurled her way. “Tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“Why your spirit is broken.”
Falling Stars Woman shook her head. “Death follows you.”
“Yes, I know.”
“It is your companion.”
“My companion?”
“You understand each other. He knows you will fight him. He enjoys the fight. As do you.”
“I do not enjoy death. My life has been about banishing death.”
“And you will always lose. It is why if Spotted Beard Man dies you will mourn, but you will move on.”
I shook my head vehemently. “No.”
Falling Stars Woman watched me complacently. I wanted to jump across the fire and rip her face off, to take a hatchet to her jaw as the Kiowa had done to Maureen. “How dare you sit there and pretend to know me. You know nothing of me. Of what I’ve been through—at the hands of your people.” Falling Stars Woman raised her eyebrows. “Yes, I know the line. Your people are the true People. They are the ones trying to make peace. I saw what those warriors paraded around the bonfire the other night. The blond pigtail? It was obtained through butchery. You cannot deny it.” She didn’t try. “You sit there and entreat me to heal when my wounds are the direct result of people like you.” As the words were leaving my mouth I knew the hypocrisy of them. Hot shame mixed with a determination to hold on to my anger, to direct it at her, at anyone but myself.
I walked around the fire and knelt by Kindle. I took his hand in mine and stroked his long, thin fingers, remembered them massaging my broken hand patiently, gently bringing it back to life. I closed my eyes and saw him sitting at a piano, dressed for dinner, his hair brushed back, accentuating his clean-shaven face and the scar that had brought us together all those years ago. He looked up at me and his eyes sparkled with good humor and happiness as Bach turned into a country jig. My hand, which had been resting on his shoulder, moved to ostensibly rub his neck, but truthfully to feel his silken hair beneath my fingers. A child laughed and I was caught around the legs by small arms, jostling me into Kindle. The piano keys clanged a jarring chord.
“Laura.”
My eyes opened to a dim, firelit room and the aroma of burning sage and sweetgrass. Smoke curled and danced through the hole in the ceiling, first obscuring, then revealing a full moon amid a sea of stars. My gaze traveled down to Kindle, hoping he’d spoken my name. His breaths were small and sharp, like the last gasps of a dying man.
I placed my hand on the center of his chest and watched it rise and fall. I could hardly bring myself to look at him fully, to see what throwing in with me had wrought on him physically. His body was a riot of contrasts between the healthy man he had been and the wasted version he’d become. A pelt of dark hair covered his chest and stopped where his ribs protruded like a cliff above his flat stomach. His left leg was noticeably thinner than the right, due to atrophy from the arrow wound, which would be exacerbated by the snakebite on his knee. My vision blurred and a great sob escaped my throat. I blinked and tears fell onto my lap. “The bite was so small,” I whispered.
“The smaller the snake, the more dangerous they are.” Aénhé’ke sat across Kindle’s body from me. We were alone in the tent. I hadn’t noticed or heard Falling Stars Woman leave.
“If I lose him, I lose myself.” I laughed, wiping away the tears running down my cheeks. “God, Catherine Bennett would be appalled at the sentiment.” I inhaled and exhaled deeply. “The hope of a future is the only thing keeping me sane. Every day, multiple times, I remember what happened to me. How it felt. Physically.” I fought against the memories that had become clearer and clearer the further in the past they were. The lone whisker on the chin of one warrior. The smell of mud and dead fish. The pain as they drove themselves deep within me. The sticky blood between my thighs as I curled into a ball during their breaks. My legs being pulled apart and it starting over.
I stared at Aénhé’ke. Only a yellow bruise around her eyes remained of the beating she took at the hands of the whisky traders. “Help me,” I pleaded. “If he dies, I won’t ever leave the bank of that river.”