Winona King’s heart was in her throat as she sped down the narrow trail toward the lake. Her beloved husband was at death’s door, as the whites would say, and now her daughter was in dire danger. She cocked her rifle on the run, crying out, “Blue Flower! Blue Flower! What is wrong?”
The shore spread out before her and Winona lurched to a halt. She had anticipated finding her child beset by another bear or a mountain lion, but instead she saw Blue Flower on her belly, the bucket upended in front of her. “What happened?” Winona asked, dashing to help.
“I tripped, Ma,” Evelyn said, her tone one of self-reproach. “Over my own blamed feet! And spilled all the water.”
“That is all?”
“What did you expect? I told you I’d fire a shot if something came after me.” Standing, Evelyn swiped at splotches of dirt smearing her dress. “Look at me. I’m a mess. Now I’ll have to wash it.”
Relief washed through Winona, and on its heels came laughter. Hearty laughter that gushed up out of her much as scalding water would gush from a geyser. Once it started, she couldn’t stop. Doubling over, she gave vent to a fit of uncontrolled mirth that went on and on and on. She laughed so hard her stomach hurt. Tears blurred her vision, and she sank onto her knees and pressed her sleeve to her eyes to clear them.
Evelyn was studying her as if she had gone crazy. “Are you all right, Ma? I never saw you laugh like that before.”
Winona tried to say she was fine, but more mirth spilled out. Maybe it was the result of her emotions being pent up for so long. Maybe lack of sleep was to blame. Whatever the cause, it was a good long while before she could stop. Sucking in deep breaths, she struggled to her feet, feeling as fatigued as if she had run a mile.
“I’m starting to get worried about you,” Evelyn said apprehensively. “You haven’t been eating enough and you hardly get any sleep. How about if I stay up with Pa tonight so you can catch up on your rest?”
“I can manage,” Winona assured her, and affectionately ruffled her daughter’s hair. “Right now help me carry this water to the cabin so we can brew tea.”
They filled the bucket to the brim and started up. Winona was trying to remember where she had placed a certain small wooden box in which she kept various dried roots, when her daughter asked the last question Winona ever expected to hear.
“Ma, if Pa dies, will you marry again?”
“Your father will not die.”
“But if he did, what would you do? Go live with the Shoshones? Find yourself a warrior to sew and cook for?”
Winona had never given the matter any thought. Talking about it troubled her immensely. “Since it will never happen, what does it matter?”
“But if it did,” Evelyn persisted. “As much as you love Pa, I can’t see you marrying again. But I could be wrong.”
“I love your father more than I can put into words. I love him with all my heart and all my spirit, and I would sooner die than lose him. He makes me whole.”
“How’s he do that? You don’t have any parts missing.”
“Not on the outside. But on the inside we all do. No woman is all she should be. Some have terrible tempers and need a man who can keep them calm. Some are never able to make up their minds and need a man who can help them make decisions. Some are shy and need a man to pull them out of their shells. I could go on and on, but you see my point. And it works both ways. Women complete men as much as men complete women.”
Evelyn mulled the revelation until they were halfway up the trail. “I never thought of marriage like that. How does a lady know when a man is the right one to complete her?” Winona smiled. “Believe me, you will know. Your heart will sing. You will feel as if you are walking on air. You will not be able to eat. And you cannot stop thinking about him. When the two of you are apart there will be an ache in your chest, and when you are together you will feel more content than you ever thought you could.”
“It seems like a lot to go through.”
“They call it ‘love,’ daughter, a treasure worth any price. You do not understand, and that is as it should be. No woman truly does until she experiences love for herself.”
“I’m in no rush, Ma. If I never find the right feller, it’ll be fine by me. Boys are too strange. I could never live with one.”
“I thought the same at your age.”
The cabin came into sight and Winona walked faster. She disliked leaving Nate alone so long. She had to stay at his side in case he took a turn for the worse. “I’ll take the bucket in. Would you be so kind as to gather some extra firewood?”
“Sure thing, Ma.”
Winona was setting the bucket on the counter when she saw her husband crumpled on the floor near their bed. Fear knotting her stomach, she reached him in the blink of an eye and hunkered to roll him over. His body still burned to the touch, and when she cracked open an eyelid, his eye was dilated and dull. “Oh, Nate. My sweet, sweet Nate.” Had he somehow rolled off? Or had he revived and tried to stand? Winona attempted to lift him but was once again confronted by the daunting challenge of his formidable weight. She tried to work him up over her shoulders as she had when she carried him across the threshold, but he slipped off.
“Need some help, Ma?” Evelyn had returned unheard, carrying an armload of broken branches.
“Yes. Please.”
“How did Pa get on the floor?”
“I have no idea.” Winona sought to lever her body under Nate’s, careful not to jostle his bandaged shoulder, but couldn’t quite raise him high enough.
“Hold on,” Evelyn said. Depositing the firewood, she darted over. “We did this once before, and we can do it again.”
You would think so. But they tried twice to lift him and got him only halfway up, when he would start to slip off and they had to lower him before he fell.
“I do not understand,” Winona said.
“Could it be because you’re so wore out, Ma?” Evelyn asked. “You must be weak from no food and sleep.”
“Could be.” Winona wearily stood and contemplated how best to get her man back in that bed. Running a hand through her long black tresses, she had to admit she was stumped.
“Did you hear something?” Evelyn suddenly whispered.
“Hear what, daughter?”
As if in answer, outside their cabin hooves drummed. Winona stiffened. Were they friends or foes? She wasn’t expecting visitors. She started toward her rifle, but she hadn’t quite reached it when a gun blasted and a wild whoop rent the air.
Crows were courageous warriors. Not fierce, like the Black-feet. Or devious, like the Dakotas. But very courageous. Crows were also stubborn, and when face-to-face with an enemy, more than a little arrogant. It rendered them bold in battle but brought the most severe torture down on their heads when they were captured, because they invariably refused to cooperate with their captors.
The Crow glaring at Touch the Clouds was typical of his kind. Chin jutting defiantly, he pushed his body back when Touch the Clouds reached for his foot.
“Hold him,” Touch the Clouds directed.
Buffalo Hump and Runs Behind each seized an arm. Try as the Crow might, he couldn’t break their grip, and he heaped invective on them in the Crow tongue.
Again Touch the Clouds reached for the man’s foot. This time the Crow kicked at his hand, and when Touch the Clouds jerked it aside, the Crow surged upward and kicked at his neck. Typical Crow indeed. “Hold his legs as well.”
Three men leaped to do so. The Crow resisted fiercely, kicking at each and every one of them, but in due course he was flat on his back, Shoshones firmly holding him by each limb, the arrow still jutting from his right thigh. Blood stained his leggings.
Touch the Clouds removed the Crow’s moccasins. Both feet were callused, evidence that the Crow often went without footwear, as did a lot of Shoshones, during the warmer moons. Holding the knife low, Touch the Clouds bent down. The Crow had a good idea what was about to occur, and he violently twisted back and forth in a vain attempt to delay it.
Placing a knee on the Crow’s left instep, Touch the Clouds pinned the foot to the ground. He gripped the big toe to keep the Crow from wriggling it, and methodically began to cut the toe off.
A gargled snarl was torn from the Crow’s throat. Heaving upward, he made a supreme effort to break free but realized it was hopeless. He grit his teeth against the pain and hissed and sputtered like a rattler that had been trod on.
A moist, sticky sensation spread across Touch the Clouds’s hand. He sliced down to the bone, and when he reached it, sawed the knife back and forth. It took a while before the knife sawed all the way through. Holding the toe for the Crow to see, he placed it on the grass, then wiped his hands on the Crow’s buckskins. “Are you ready to talk now?” he asked in sign. “Nod if you are.”
The Crow stared balefully, radiating an animal lust for vengeance.
Touch the Clouds bent over the foot again. One by one he cut off the rest of the toes and aligned them beside the big one. Blood seeped from the stumps as he worked, forming a puddle under the man’s leg.
Every warrior not involved in the search had gathered to watch, and quite a few of the women besides. Some brought their children.
Touch the Clouds cleaned his hands again and signed, in effect, “Why did you and your friend attack us? Are there more Crows nearby?” He didn’t expect an answer, and the Crow didn’t disappoint him. So he pinned the other foot. This time, instead of cutting off the toes one by one, he elevated the bloody blade above his head, tensed his enormous arm, and arced the knife in a powerful stroke that cleanly lopped all five off in one fell swoop.
Stiffening, the Crow uttered a strangled howl. He tossed his head from side to side, his lips drawn back, his entire face as scarlet as the blood pumping from the stumps of his toes. Huffing like a bull buffalo, he sought to surge up off the ground, but the Shoshones holding him were much too strong. He failed and sank back, limp and whimpering like a kicked puppy.
“Question,” Touch the Clouds signed. “Where did you get your rifle?”
Their captive clenched his jaw muscles in spite.
From behind Touch the Clouds, Drags the Rope said, “He will never tell you what you want to know. He would rather die first.”
Buffalo Hump agreed, adding, “Why go to all this trouble? Do what has to be done so we can tend to our dead.”
“There are mysteries here,” Touch the Clouds said. Mysteries he would like to solve. Were it up to him, he would keep the Crow alive as long as possible.
But at that juncture an old woman stepped from among the onlookers, waist-length gray hair framing her wrinkled face in thick braids. “Shall I call them?” she asked, her ancient eyes glittering with relish. “It is the custom,” she stressed, as if afraid they would be denied permission.
Touch the Clouds ran his blade across the Crow’s shirt to remove the blood, then slid the knife into its sheath and stood. All eyes were on him, the women aglow with anticipation. “Assemble them, Raven’s Wing,” he said.
With agility belying her years, the old woman spun and sped off to spread the word.
“I am glad I am not this Crow,” Runs Behind commented.
Out of the trees trotted Shoulder Blade and Six Feathers at the head of forty more warriors. They had information to impart to Touch the Clouds. Welcome information in one respect, yet disturbing in another.
“There is no sign of a Crow raiding party anywhere in the vicinity of our village,” Shoulder Blade reported. “It appears the two Crows were alone.”
“Crows have no brains!” Buffalo Hump declared, and some of the younger men grunted their agreement.
“Crows are not stupid,” Touch the Clouds said quietly.
Buffalo Hump missed the point. “They are if they send two warriors against an entire village. The Blackfeet and the Dakotas would never be so foolish. They have more respect for our fighting ability.”
Shoulder Blade, a man of forty winters whose right shoulder blade had been kicked by a horse when he was five, giving him a perpetual stoop, glanced at the two dozen women who had gathered nearby. “I will rejoin the hunt. I would rather search than watch the Crow meet his end.”
“Can it be you have no stomach for it?” Buffalo Hump asked sarcastically.
Shoulder Blade was not one to be trifled with. “Have a care, young one. I have counted more coup than you and most of your friends combined.” He reined his mount around. “But to answer your question, I prefer to face an enemy in combat. What our women are about to do is not warfare. My wife and my oldest daughter will take part, and when they do, they are not my wife and daughter.”
“Your words have no sense to them,” Buffalo Hump said. “How can such a thing be?”
Shoulder Blade and Six Feathers applied their quirts to their horses, and most of the mounted warriors went with them. Touch the Clouds almost wished he could go too. But as a leader he must stay and observe. To not do so would be a slur the women would never forgive. “You can let go of our captive. He is not going anywhere.”
Disquiet was spreading, and the men were happy to comply. Most moved a fair distance away and stood in close knots as more and more women streamed in from all parts of the village.
Drags the Rope stayed at Touch the Clouds’s side, but his countenance was that of a man sickened by the horror to come.
“You can join Shoulder Blade and Six Feathers if you want,” Touch the Clouds said.
“You are my friend. I will stay.” Drags the Rope forced a grin. “We have been through this before, have we not?”
“Do not remind me.”
“I, too, have bad dreams for many sleeps afterward. Not of the prisoners, but of what is done to them.”
“If you or I were captured by the Dakotas, their women would do the same to us,” Touch the Clouds noted.
“Which is why it is better to die in battle than fall into an enemy’s hands,” Drags the Rope said. “I have often thought that if I were to be wounded and about to be taken prisoner, it would be wiser for me to take my own life than submit.”
“Who of us has not had such thoughts? Let us hope neither you nor I ever find ourselves in that position.” Touch the Clouds looked at the Crow, who had grown ashen faced. Their captive’s dark eyes were fixed apprehensively on the females, his feet all but forgotten. “I will let you die quickly if you tell me what I want to know,” Touch the Clouds signed.
The Crow’s hands flowed in reply. “I am not afraid to die.”
“I believe you. But this is not a death any warrior would choose.”
Tearing his gaze from the swelling ranks of females, the Crow signed, “I know of you, Shoshone. Among my people you are called Mountain-That-Slays. The scalps of many Crows decorate your lodge.”
“I never sought trouble with your people. I fight only to protect my own.”
“As do I,” the Crow signed. “I am called High Hawk. Remember that name. If your people are ever again at peace with mine, tell them how I met my end. It will give my family peace of mind.”
“I will do you this favor,” Touch the Clouds signed. “Now you do one for me. Why did you and your friend attack us? What purpose did it serve?”
“As I told you, I fight to protect my own.”
“Shooting some of us from ambush was pointless. We were not attacking your people.”
“But you are planning to,” High Hawk signed, and glanced toward where Hungry Wolf still lay. “I heard about that one. He was your war chief. And he planned to lead a raid on the village I am from.”
“You are mistaken,” Touch the Clouds responded. “I am war chief of the Shoshones, and I have no plan to attack your village or any other Crow village unless your warriors attack a Shoshone village first.”
High Hawk’s eyebrows pinched together. “You are war chief? How can this be? He gave his word that he spoke with a straight tongue.”
“Who did?”
“The one who warned us of your attack. He said he overheard your war chief talking about it.”
“Who?” Touch the Clouds signed emphatically.
At that moment feral yips rose in strident chorus. Scores of women were advancing on the Crow, old Raven’s Wing in the lead. Most held knives. Some had tomahawks. A few were armed with lances. One woman wielded a sharp stick.
High Hawk looked longingly to the northwest, in the direction of Crow territory. His throat bobbed and sadness fleetingly rippled across his features. Then he sat up, closed his eyes, and commenced to chant his death song.
Frustrated at not learning the identity of the person who had instigated the attack, Touch the Clouds quickly stepped closer and poked High Hawk to get his attention. High Hawk went on chanting. Touch the Clouds shook him, but the warrior had withdrawn within himself and would not respond.
Raven’s Wing gave voice to a trilling cry that brought goose bumps to Touch the Clouds’s skin. It was imitated by the pack at her heels. Nearly every woman in the village was now there, and they were terrible to behold. A deeply disturbing change had taken place. Gentle mothers had been transformed into avenging furies. Aged grandmothers had become bloodthirsty specters. Unwed girls, normally so sweet and kindhearted, wore aspects as cold as frigid winter ice.
Touch the Clouds couldn’t back away quickly enough. Men were not permitted to take part. This was for the women alone. As it was after a battle, when they roamed the battlefield dispatching enemies who showed the slightest signs of life and mutilating the bodies beyond recognition.
High Hawk chanted louder, but the trilling drowned him out. In solid rows the women ringed him, four to five deep.
A shiver passed through Touch the Clouds, spawned by a blind, fathomless fear as ancient as time itself. He wanted to tear his eyes away, but he couldn’t. It wasn’t what the women were about to do that affected him so deeply, it was the knowledge that they were capable of it. Shoshone women were raised to be brave in the face of danger, and to rally to the defense of their village when it was raided. But this went beyond that. This touched on the fundamental nature of all human beings, and the implications were enough to shrivel the soul of anyone discerning enough to penetrate the truth.
A sharp cry fluttered on the breeze. In somber, silent ranks the women were closing in on the Crow. High Hawk’s death chant abruptly ceased, to be replaced by the unmistakable sound of human flesh being hacked and chopped and rent to tiny bits.
“God Almighty!” Orley Harrison bleated, lowering his spyglass. “Do you see what those squaws are doing? Do you see?”
Artemis Borke nodded and showed his yellow teeth in a satisfied smirk. “It worked out pretty much as I planned.” He tweaked the eyepiece to his own spyglass to increase the clarity. “They shot that uppity buck who wanted to close down our post. But the big cuss, Touch the Clouds, is still alive. That just won’t do.” They were astride their horses on a hill half a mile to the north of the encampment. Shoshone warriors were scouring the forest below, but none were anywhere near.
Orley raised his spyglass again. “Those heathen bitches! One of them is waving that feller’s dingle-dangle in the air!” He shivered from head to toe. “Lord, if they ever get their hands on us ...”
“They won’t,” Borke assured him.
“What if that Crow talked? What if he told Touch the Clouds who sold them the rifles? And about the lies we fed him?”
“Relax. The Crows promised they wouldn’t tell the Shoshones a thing.”
“And you trust a couple of heathens to keep their word?” Orley shook his head. “If you ask me, you take too damn many risks.”
“I didn’t ask you,” Borke snapped. “And the reward is worth it. More money than any of us have ever seen. Gold, silver, maybe diamonds. Enough for all of us to set ourselves up in style, with mansions and carriages and servants to wait on us hand and foot.”
“So you keep saying. But I can’t live in luxury with my throat slit. If the Shoshones find out the Crows have been sneaking into their territory to pay our trading post a visit, there will be hell to pay.”
“How are they going to find out?” Borke demanded. “Are you fixin’ to tell ’em? I sure ain’t. And the Crows won’t, neither, not if they want to go on gettin’ guns and trade goods from us.”
“I just don’t like it,” Orley said.
Borke’s temper flared and he lowered his spyglass. “No one held a gun to your spine and forced you to come along. I was honest with all of you from the start. I explained the dangers, and I gave you plenty of chances to back out.”
“I know. I know. And I’m not faulting you there.” Orley’s next sentiment was expressed in an appalled whisper. “I just don’t want to end up like him.”
Borke raised his spyglass again. The women had completed their handiwork and were dispersing, their faces glistening with sweat, their expressions strangely empty. There wasn’t enough left of High Hawk to fill a whiskey bottle. Not flesh, anyhow. His bones had been stripped clean, as if by a flock of buzzards, and stomped into the dirt. The women had literally flayed him alive. He saw one of them stop and pick something up, a white, pulpy, ropelike object that took him a minute to identify. “A piece of intestine,” he breathed.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing.” Borke would never admit it, but he was every bit as appalled as Harrison.
“Promise me that won’t happen, Art,” Orley said. “Promise me we won’t be chopped up like so much rotten liver.”
“I promise,” Borke said. But the confidence he felt wasn’t quite equal to the confidence he exuded.
Orley nodded at the village. “They’re worse than savages. They’re monsters. A painter or a bear would never kill like that.”
“All the more reason not to have any qualms about fleecin’ these red scum for everything we can. They deserve it.” Borke spied movement in the woods a few hundred yards off. “We’d best skedaddle before they see us, or that big buck is liable to put two and two together.” Reining around, he clucked to his horse.
“What about that big buck?” Orley inquired. “Touch the Clouds is bound to keep buttin’ his nose in. How can we be shed of him?”
“I’ll have to think on it a spell,” Borke said. As his grandpa used to say, where there was a will, there was a way. But savvy was called for. It had to look like an enemy was to blame. The Crows would be reluctant to try after losing two of their own, but there were always the Piegans and the Bloods.
“Maybe Touch the Clouds will do us a favor by falling off his horse and breaking his thick neck,” Orley joked.
Artemis Borke grinned. An accident. And why not? It would be a lot easier to arrange, and certainly a lot easier to control. Give him a couple of days and he was sure he could think of a means of eliminating the giant without pointing the finger of suspicion at him or his men. “Orley, you’re a genius.”
“Huh? What did I do?”
“Thanks to you, Touch the Clouds is a goner.”