CHAPTER
26 
It was the most uneventful week of my acquaintance with William Kindle. We traveled light, and as a result, were able to make thirty to forty miles per day without blowing our horses. Bob Johnson scouted ahead while one of his helpers scouted behind and returned to the camp each night to help with the watch. Aén
hé’ke hunted small game and cooked at night. Kindle and I helped as much as possible, and Henry continued to write feverishly, as if on a deadline.
As we drew closer to Independence, we encountered more people, whites and Indians, as well as Army columns marching from Saint Louis to various forts on the frontier. Trash littered the land, evidence of the hundreds of people who’d passed on their way to better lives. I could feel the pull of civilization, and thrilled at it. Aénhé’ke, however, got more withdrawn as evidence of white encroachment increased.
We camped under a large willow tree beside a rushing creek. Firewood was sparse on the ground, due to heavy traffic, so Aénhé’ke climbed a tree and was cutting small, dead branches with a hatchet and throwing them down to me. She straddled a thick oak limb and reached out for a branch. Her legs dangled down, exposed, and I noticed the scars I’d seen on her legs the night I saved her from Tuesday.
“Aénhé’ke, how did you get those scars?”
She held the dead limb in one hand, as if it was going to run away, and the hatchet in the other. She seemed to consider my question before cutting the limb with one quick hit, and tossing it down to me. “It is our way, when a loved one dies, to mark yourself with grief. Kiowa and Comanche cut their breasts. We cut our legs and leave them bare while we mourn.” She put the hatchet in her belt and climbed higher.
“Oh, be careful!”
Aénhé’ke grinned at me. “This is nothing, Motse’eoo’e.”
I smiled at the name. It was a fair sight better than Talks Like a Man Woman. When I told Aénhé’ke and Falling Stars Woman of my vision inside the cone-shaped mountain, they said I had been visited by Sweet Medicine, their holiest of holy men. They told me he visited very few people and his fortunes always came to pass. When word spread across the tribe, people looked at me with more curiosity, and a good deal of awe. Tall Buffalo summoned me and we smoked a pipe while I told him my vision. When I finished he was silent for a long time. He named me Motse’eoo’e—Sweet Medicine Woman—and gave me a medicine bag to wear around my neck. He said I would always be welcome by the Cheyenne and Arapaho, I had only to show them the bag I wore. He entreated me to never remove it, and I had not. Nor had I opened it.
“Who did you lose?” I asked.
“My son.” She chopped more dead limbs until I had a nice little pile to take back to the camp. She climbed down the tree and jumped from the lowest branch, landing lithely on the ground. She studied me, waiting for the question she knew would come.
“He was killed by a soldier at Washita.”
I placed my hand over my heart and another on her arm. “Aénhé’ke, I am so sorry.” Her face remained blank and I dropped my hand from her arm, wondering if every time she looked at me, Kindle, and Pope she saw the anonymous soldier who had killed her son, as I had seen the Kiowa and Comanche every time I looked at her. I knew there was nothing I could do, no solace I could offer for her lost child. I tried to smile encouragingly and said, “Let’s get this wood back to the camp. Hopefully Henry caught a fish.”
Henry was not an outdoorsman, and though he paid attention and tried hard, nothing ever seemed to come together for him. Surrounded by capable people it was endearing, but if I were alone with him in the wilderness, I would survive better on my own.
That night around the campfire everyone was subdued except Henry, who was so excited about catching a small fish one would have thought he’d birthed a baby. Aénhé’ke stared into the fire and I wondered if her distance was due to my bringing up the death of her son.
“In the morning, we can part,” Kindle said. Aénhé’ke and Bob Johnson looked up from the fish bones in their hands. “We’re less than a day’s ride from Independence, and seeing more and more people along the way. We can find our way easy enough. I will trade horses with you in the morning, Aénhé’ke, and you can go on your way.”
I’d forgotten about Kindle’s horse trade with Aénhé’ke, and based on her expression, she had as well. Bob Johnson looked to Aénhé’ke, who stared at Kindle. She nodded and went back to her fish.
I slept soundly, with my saddle as my pillow, and dreamt of Kindle playing the piano in my aunt Emily’s parlor and a child running in to say good night, wrapping little arms around my legs, jostling me into Kindle, and a discordant chord. I looked down at the child and saw Aénhé’ke’s face. She opened her mouth, but it was Kindle’s scream I heard.
Strong hands grabbed me and dragged me away from the fire. I woke to a chaotic, senseless scene. Bob Johnson sat on Kindle’s chest, blocking my view of his face. Aénhé’ke watched, holding a knife in her hand. My scream pierced through the grunts and groans of Kindle’s struggle. Bob Johnson lifted his arm, the hatchet Aénhé’ke used to cut firewood earlier glowing in the low firelight, and brought it down.
“NOOOOOOOO!” I struggled against my captor, knowing full well what came next. Pope, inconceivably asleep until now, woke and sat up with a dazed expression. Another Indian walked up and put a gun on him. Pope didn’t move.
Kindle had stopped struggling. I sobbed as the realization hit me. Kindle was dead.
Bob Johnson stood, pulled Kindle’s arms over his head, and tied them. Another Indian did the same with his feet. I forced myself to look at Kindle’s face. It wasn’t bloody or broken. Still, I didn’t understand.
Aénhé’ke came to me and stopped an arm’s length away.
“Why are you doing this?” I said. “I thought—”
“We were friends?” Aénhé’ke said. “I like you, but we will never be friends as long as the white men kill and torture our women and children.”
“So you’re going to kill and torture us as retribution? We haven’t done anything!”
Aénhé’ke glanced over her shoulder at Kindle. “I would not have known him if you hadn’t shaved his beard.” She paused. “He killed my son at Washita.”
“No.” The denial was automatic, before I remembered Kindle’s story of the boy he’d killed reflexively after an arrow had knocked his hat off. “It was an accident. He didn’t realize it was a child.”
There was triumph in Aénhé’ke’s eyes. If she’d harbored any doubts about Kindle’s identity, she didn’t now. “Aénhé’ke, please. I saved you from the whisky traders.”
“It is because you saved me I am not going to kill him. But, he will pay.”
She walked to Kindle’s unconscious body.
“Aénhé’ke, please. Stop. You don’t have to do this. An eye for an eye never ends.” She straddled Kindle’s chest. “It has to stop somewhere. Please! Stop! I’ll do anything!” I was sobbing now. Pope’s face was pale and full of horror. I struggled against the man holding me. Aénhé’ke lifted the knife. “Please, please, PLEASE, DON’T!”
Aénhé’ke’s body shielded me from seeing what she did. Kindle’s body bucked. Bob Johnson and the other Indian pulled at the ropes tying his arms and legs, keeping him from fighting back against Aénhé’ke.
Kindle’s scream was inhuman. It reverberated around us, trapping us in a waking nightmare. Pope, who had a clear view of what Aénhé’ke had done, turned away and vomited. Aénhé’ke stood, a bloody knife in one hand, the other hand bloody and closed into a fist. She walked to me and opened her hand. “An eye for a life.” She dropped Kindle’s eye onto the ground.
“NO!” I screamed and went limp as sobs wracked my body. Aénhé’ke walked off and the man holding me let go. I fell forward onto my hands and knees. Bob Johnson and his accomplice had untied Kindle, who was screaming and writhing on the ground, covering his face where his eye used to be. I crawled to Kindle and tried to calm him, but he was too lost in his pain to respond.
“Pope, come here. Help me hold him.”
Pope wiped his mouth and came. We grabbed at Kindle, but he was too strong to subdue. “Sit on him,” I told Pope.
Pope sat on Kindle’s chest like a cowboy trying to break a colt. “William, stop. Be still so I can help you.” I knelt at the top of Kindle’s head and put my hands on his cheeks. “Shh, shh, shh,” I said.
Blood oozed between Kindle’s fingers. His remaining eye was wild with fear and shock. It moved around its socket, trying to focus and make sense of the new, foreign perspective.
“Look at me,” I said, in the calmest voice I could muster. Focusing on helping Kindle was the only thing keeping my horror at bay.
Kindle’s eye settled on me. “Good. I’m here, and I’m going to help you.”
“Laura?” His voice broke, and he cried.
“I know, William. You need to let me see it so I can help you.” I grasped his wrists and pulled his hands away from his eye. He fought me and when I got a good look at his wound, I wished he’d won.
Aénhé’ke had taken his eyelid as well as his eye, leaving a gaping hole pooling with blood.
“Oh, God,” Pope said in a strangled voice and turned his head away.
“Pope.” My voice held a clear warning for Henry to hold it together. He nodded but kept his head turned and his eyes closed.
Kindle was quietly sobbing, his good eye watching my reaction. I smiled encouragingly at him, though I wanted to sob as well. “Are you going to be still so Henry can get off?”
“Pope, go saddle the horses. Leave your whisky.”
Pope shot up, handed me his flask, grabbed my saddle, and headed for the picket. I retrieved my saddlebag and pulled a shirt out of it. I tore strips, doused them with whisky, and packed Kindle’s eye socket with it. He screamed and bucked.
“I know,” I said, trying to subdue him. “It’s almost over.”
I tore the sleeves from the shirt and wrapped it around Kindle’s head to hold the bandage in place. I helped him sit up and tied the fabric at the back of his head. I handed him the flask. “Drink.”
Kindle tilted the flask back and gulped the rest of the contents. He wiped his mouth with a shaking hand, and tentatively touched the bandage over his eye.
“Try not to touch it.”
He nodded and dropped his head. His shoulders shook and full-throated sobs broke from him. I pulled him into my arms and swallowed the lump in my throat. “We have to get to Independence. Can you ride?”
He pressed his forehead against my shoulder and nodded. I stroked his hair. Pope was back for Kindle’s saddle. “She left the gray,” he said.
I pulled Kindle away from me. “I have to help Henry. Stay here, but don’t touch your bandage.”
Henry and I saddled the horses and packed up in record time. We helped Kindle onto his gray and rode hard for Independence beneath a full moon.