Sacajawea lived, approximately 26 or 27 years among the Comanches when her husband, Jerk Meat, was killed in a battle. It is a fact this was the first husband of her own choice and apparently she was devoted to him, therefore at his death she was heartbroken and very much depressed. At that time she was not in harmony with the relatives of her husband, therefore she declared she would not live among them any longer. When she said this the people did not take her seriously.
Reprinted by permission of the publishers, The Arthur H. Clark Company, from Sacajawea, Guide and Interpreter of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, by Grace Raymond Hebard, 1957, pp. 154–55.
During one of the hot, dry days of summer when there was no wind at all, only swarms of cicadas stridulating in the mesquite, Sacajawea gave birth to another female papoose. She was pleased with this papoose, who was small and perfect as her others had been. She hovered over the papoose, protecting it, keeping this link to her own mortality from the ravages of desert life, of Quohada living. She made a stout basket from willows in which to lay her new daughter. It was not in the manner of the Comanches. It was not in the manner of the Shoshonis, but more like the cradle that her first born, Pomp, had lain in while he slept at the edge of the Mandan village. She liked the basket. It was convenient to hang a strip of rawhide to a lodgepole, or from the limb of a tree while she worked outside. The baby was strapped in with wide leather straps so that Sacajawea could fasten the basket to her back, or take the papoose out easily to clean her, then hammock her in a soft blanket in a loop that placed the papoose close to Sacajawea’s breast. The other women did not make fun of her, but rather were curious and asked how to make such a baby basket for a daughter who was expecting or for a favorite grandchild.
Hides Well was amused. “Why must you always do things differently? Are the Comanche ways of making a cradleboard so awkward that you have to improve on them?”
“No, my mother, it is only that it pleases me to make my child warm and secure for the winter months.”
This new papoose affected Pronghorn. It helped him forget the death of Butterfly and the old, intelligent Big Badger. He would come into the lodge when Sacajawea was there with the child, and no longer did he seem to have the feeling of something missing slap him in the face. He found that his words were coming back to him and he was again remembering what was on his mind to tell the women, or in the council he could stand up and talk without a lump coming to his throat or an angry blaze in his chest when mention of white soldiers was made.
Also, it seemed that Jerk Meat was suddenly more cheerful and did not try to fill the conversation with inane speech such as “The berries seem bitter this year” or “The snow is white.”
The early winter weather was pleasant, and the sun shone warm and thin. The men were able to bring in many fat antelope for winter clothing and food. All the women were busy tanning hides, drying strips of meat and the soft, dark plums. They chopped pecans to add to their pemmican.
Sacajawea made tallow candles, with the dried fibrous mesquite stems as wicks, for Wild Plum and his young squaw, Hebo, Walking Against the Wind.
Jerk Meat teased Ticannaf one evening after a good meal. “Do you have many horses, my son?”
“No, my father. One for riding and one for carrying supplies. Why, do you wish to use one?”
“I do not wish to use one, but old Dancing Foot might like one or two.”
“Why would Dancing Foot need my horses?”
“If he is to be your father-in-law. I have seen you eyeing his youngest daughter, Happy Heart. So—your mother has also.”
Ticannaf reddened. He moved a step toward his mother, then added, pointing to his baby sister who cried in a fit of hunger, “Mother, aren’t you going to do something about the Yagawosier? That Crying Basket is loud enough to attract the mother instinct of female wolves.” Then he lifted the tepee flap and stepped into the night breeze. It was true that he had been seen walking with Happy Heart, daughter of Dancing Foot, many times lately.
“Crying Basket,” Sacajawea crooned as she put fresh cattail fluff in the leather pocket between the baby’s legs before nursing her. “Our papoose has a name. Yagawosier, Crying Basket.”
Jerk Meat watched the smoke drift up and out through the smoke hole just below the top of the tepee. He moved to the back of the tepee and sat cross-legged on the buffalo robe that covered his slightly raised couch, watching Sacajawea nurse Crying Basket and prepare the baby for the night. His woman always dressed with care, and this pleased him. The sky blue stone lookedgood against her brown throat. The beads on her long deerskin tunic glittered in the soft light of the tiny fire. Her dark eyes were outlined in yellow paint.
“Come and sit,” said Jerk Meat.
She knelt on the floor beside him. She did not speak. Her close-cropped hair framed a face that was good to see in the gentle light; the strong line of her jaw was softened.
“I am glad that you have come to me.” Jerk Meat stood up, but made no move toward her. It was as though their bodies had never joined and he was greeting a friend. He felt uncertain, like a boy.
Sacajawea said nothing, but she looked at him openly. Her eyes shone. She seemed ageless, yet quite young somehow. He could remember her when she had first come to the Quohada camp. She had sometimes played bull-roaring with the young girls, swinging the flat cedar board through the air, holding it by the thong tied to the handle, listening with delight to the whirring noise it made. Her eyes were as bright then as now.
‘Tonight I feel the time passing,” Jerk Meat said abruptly. “Our son is a man ready to take a woman. Together we have seen many good things and many bad. We have been happier than most and sadder also. I sit with wonderment at my wiseness so many moons back when I chose you among all the beautiful Quohada girls.”
“Tell me,” Sacajawea said. “I will listen why you chose me instead of a beautiful Quohada woman.”
Jerk Meat knew an instant of shame, shame that he chose his words wrong, that he did not tell his woman he thought her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and this feeling had never diminished through all the years he had lived with her.
“I will always love you. You make life strong and worthwhile; you give me health; you give me happiness. A man could want no more. Many have less and are content.”
“I feel that for you also,” Sacajawea said, stirring the tiny fire until it seemed to fill the tepee with light. “We have held our hearts in our hands and laughed. We have found our hearts on the ground. In time we have picked them up and lived again. We grow closertogether with time. You are the handsomest horse rider among all the Comanches.”
“Woman, I believe you talk with sand in your mouth,” Jerk Meat laughed, pulling her on the couch beside him. She nipped once at his ears. He did not wait, could not. He took her body, took it with a violence that was more than hunger; it was more need to love and be loved. When it was over, they were both weak and trembling. It passed, and their bodies stilled. Jerk Meat felt a warm, comfortable drowsiness, akin to lovely tenderness.
“Sleep now,” she said, her breath soft in his ear. “I will stay with you.” She pulled the buffalo robe over herself and lay close against his curled back.
Jerk Meat slept. Sacajawea slept. Crying Basket slept. Ticannaf crept inside the tepee, lay on his couch, and slept. Their dreams were good.
Mother and father were awake before dawn. They whispered and lay close together in the chilled air. They came together again, slowly. There was still plenty of time before the others awakened. It was like a greeting, a comfortable greeting filled with all the warmth and good wishes exchanged by longtime friends with great respect and admiration for one another.
Sacajawea roused herself and built up the fire. They talked. He dressed. “The times are getting worse,” she said slowly. It was not good for a woman to complain. “This is a good winter with plenty of meat for us, but there will be sad times ahead. There will be sickness. Even the Comanches cannot withstand the sickness the white men bring in. Other nations will suffer.”
He shook his head. “It is shameful. It is wrong for some tribes to be herded like the taibo cattle to live in a place chosen by white men. This is Comanche land. The buffalo are still here, and the Quohadas will stay here. We are free.”
“For how long?” She looked at him, her yellow-rimmed eyes filled with words that could not be spoken. “The old days are gone. They were gone when I came here to you. The white men can move over all the land, and will.”
“Ai, but what of that? There has always been someone taking land from someone else. We took this land from the Apaches. We can fight the white soldiers.”
“Perhaps. It is not for a woman to say, but you know that I must say I do not believe so. I believe that we must all learn to live in peace and there will be less Quohada blood spilled on the plains.”
“You have always talked much for a woman,” laughed Jerk Meat deep within his throat. “I like the way you do it.”
“And I have been thinking.”
“My pia talks and also thinks,” grunted Ticannaf sleepily from his couch.
“I have been thinking that the nations of Indians need someone like a go-between to talk to the whites for them, someone who understands both people.”
“My pia talks like some chief,” Ticannaf teased his mother.
“Someday this may come,” said Jerk Meat seriously.
“It will come,” said Sacajawea. Suddenly she thought of her old friend, Chief Red Hair. He could understand both people, talk with either, live with either, and be friends with both. Then, as suddenly, it dawned on her that she was the mother of a cholo, half-white, half-Indian. She was a go-between herself already. She would save this to tell Jerk Meat when they were alone again. It would help him to understand that the whites and Indians could live together.
In the spring the band moved again into the buffalo range on the rolling plains. Ticannaf had a woman, Happy Heart, the daugher of old Dancing Foot, to whom he’d given his two horses. Sacajawea made a beautiful marriage tepee, painted in reds, blues, and yellows. Happy Heart fastened her tepee next to the tepee of Jerk Meat and Sacajawea. She was part of their lodge. In time Dancing Foot, a widower, came to live with them.
Jerk Meat told Happy Heart that she must have plenty of strong braves because he had only Ticannaf, who was not even brave enough to spank his woman the night she fed him cold soup. Happy Heart smiled, remembering the evening she had visited with Sacajawea and her cooking fire had gone out. For Sacajawea, the everyday work went much faster with someone to talk to and laugh with like Happy Heart.
The next spring, plans were made for a small raid into the Mescalero country to replenish the dwindling Quohada horse herd. No women were going. But many young braves were going who had not been on more than one or two raids. Bites Hard, the elder son of Kicking Horse and Gray Bone, was going. Ticannaf and Wild Plum were going. Ticannaf was busy for a day painting himself and checking his shield and bow; then he and the others danced the War Dance with the older warriors, trying to keep from showing too much either of pride or nervousness. That night, all members of the raiding party moved out in the dark.
The camp settled into the waiting period. The old men left behind watched the small horse herd, leisurely hunted antelope, worked on weapons, and slept. The women did not worry much. They knew that the raiding party had been strong in numbers and had gone for sport as much as for serious raiding. Jerk Meat, Ticannaf, Pronghorn, Dancing Foot, and Wounded Buck had gone. Sacajawea worked as she saw fit, going often to visit and gossip with Hides Well and Spring.
Sometimes Sacajawea sent Happy Heart to take the horse kept hobbled near camp to graze in the grass meadow. Sacajawea sometimes went out to the meadow to dig roots, Crying Basket strapped to her back. The sweet peas were beginning to put out their pale-lavender flowers, and she dug their roots for food. Occasionally she went for an hour’s walk from camp to a hill where yucca grew thick and where the soil was easy to dig. The roots of the yucca were good to use in bathing and washing things, also to put in a tanning mixture.
Out by herself, she would take Crying Basket from the basket and hold her under the arms, teaching her to walk. When the baby was tired, she would let her sit and crawl in the grass, poking at the bright wild flowers. Sacajawea thought of her life with the Quohadas and felt it was only good and satisfying when Jerk Meat was home.
It was nearing the time for Happy Heart’s child to be born. Sacajawea spent more and more time with her. The girl did not want to be left alone if her time came early because some old woman had predicted that ifthat happened the baby would not take a breath. Sacajawea was making a robe for the new baby from the tattered remnants of her beloved old blue coat. She had opened up the sleeves, which had frayed cuffs and holes in the elbows. She tried to sew them to the top and bottom of the coat, but the material was old and rotten. Finally, she gave up and sewed the coat to the underside of a soft white doeskin. Now the small robe reminded her of the quilts Judy Clark had shown her so many years back.
Happy Heart was pleased with the new blanket for her coming papoose. “It is the warmest robe a Quohada papoose has ever had,” she said, feeling the soft thickness of it.
“Ai,” agreed Sacajawea. “That blue coat has kept me warm for more seasons than I can count on my two hands. The man who gave it to me must be a grandfather several times over now.”
“A man? Not your man, Jerk Meat?” asked Happy Heart in surprise. “I thought probably Jerk Meat took it in a raid on a white man’s fort and brought it to you as a gift.”
Sacajawea clapped her hand over her mouth, instantly realizing what she had said to the girl. “Well, and so—it was from a taibo. This white man lived in a fort. He saw my need for warmth and gave me the coat. Even though you think the whites are our enemies, there are some who are friends and who do not have forked tongues.”
“Oh, Mother,” said Happy Heart, wide-eyed. “It was Jerk Meat who brought you to our camp. And then you were cold and hungry. He brought the warmth back into your body. Perhaps your mind wandered when you were so hungry and you supposed it was a white man who gave you the coat. Maybe it was Jerk Meat after all. You have forgotten.”
Sacajawea answered, “Ai, my daughter. Starving causes the mind to wander outside the body and see things no one else sees. You are right.” She thought, The man who gave me that coat had the reddest hair and the bluest eyes I have ever seen. His deeds will be told among the whites for many seasons. He will never be forgotten.
Several days later, some of the old men decided one morning that they should go to check on the raiding party in case they needed help. Two days after some of the old men had left, three scouts came back. They galloped to the center of the village. One of the men said, “They are coming soon now.”
Everyone asked at once about their own men. The scouts would say no more. Some women began to push their way back to the edge of the village. Some of them stopped first to paint their faces and put on their best clothes to meet their men, or fathers, or brothers.
Sacajawea hurried to her lodge and painted the pretty yellow circles around her eyes and tied the sky blue stone on the thin thong around her neck. She put a leather band around her flying hair and tied a string of blue-and-white trade beads around her waist. She went out with Crying Basket hung in a blanket on her back, following the crowd in anticipation.
One look at the dejected men, whose eyes were glued on their shuffling moccasins, caused Sacajawea’s heart to fall. She looked for Jerk Meat. Spring and Hebo ran out to look for Wild Plum. Some of the women were already keening with high-pitched shrieks. Sacajawea’s eyes fell on a couple of mules and a few spent horses, all with no manes or tails. Wild Plum had long red gashes along his arms, soot on his face, and a shorn head. He hardly looked at his woman, Hebo, but went directly to the front of the Council Lodge.
Sacajawea’s mouth was so dry she could not speak. She hardly recognized Ticannaf, who was skin and bone. A hard knot grew in her belly as she looked over the worn-out riders and did not find Bites Hard, Kicking Horse, Dancing Foot, Pronghorn—nor her beloved Jerk Meat. She wanted to sit in the dirt and pour dust over her head. It was unthinkable, but obvious, that no others were coming back.
Ticannaf kept his head low. It was hard to hear his words. “All I bring is a tick-infested mule and this Mexican captive.1 Her name is Choway.”2
The girl had not been noticed. She hung back, her black eyes darting from one to the other. She was about twelve or thirteen summers.
The women began crying and moaning. Some fellupon each other’s necks sobbing. Sacajawea was stunned. It just was not true. This could not happen. Jerk Meat was coming over the hill in a few minutes now. He would be here.
Hides Well was sobbing, “Pronghorn! Pronghorn! Where have they left you?”
The men who had returned got up and went to their lodges. The village was in mourning. During that first black night Happy Heart delivered a stillborn boy. The Mexican girl stayed outside Ticannaf’s lodge, bewildered and frightened.
The story of the unsuccessful raid finally took shape through visiting and sorrowful talking. The men had gone deep into desert country, then on past El Paso, finding it well guarded. They spent one night on the desert and began their return the next day. In the region between the lower Pecos and the Rio Grande, they camped at a spring coming out of a cave. This was a deep rock well with a large basin of water, and on each side a cave ran under the rock from the water’s edge. During the night they were surrounded by a large force of Mexican soldiers, who killed several of the horses and forced the Quohadas to take refuge in a cave. These Mexicans had several Mescalero Apaches with them. Even though the Apaches were enemies of the Comanches, they called out in the Comanche language several times for the Quohadas to hold out.
Inside the cave, the men were without both food and water. The Mexicans watched them so closely that they could venture out to the edge of the water only under cover of darkness to get a drink or cut a few strips of flesh from the dead horses. They ate the putrefying meat raw. Kicking Horse was shot in the leg while getting a drink of water. The smell of the dead horses was almost unbearable, but the hunger and thirst were even worse. The men were brave, but they suffered. Some of them, led by Pronghorn, explored the cave to see if there was any way out. They found that it ran along at a long distance and at the end there was a hole opening to the daylight. Pronghorn climbed up and thrust his head out, but he was seen by the soldiers and shot. The men buried him behind a huge rock in the cave. The soldiers closed the hole with large boulders.
The Mexicans were afraid to attack the Quohadas and were determined to keep them penned up until they all died of starvation.
Soon the decaying horse carcasses made the water unfit to drink. After about one moon of suffering, they realized that a longer stay meant dying in the cave, so they decided to make one last desperate attempt to escape in the night.
Before starting the escape, Jerk Meat and several others chanted the Death Song, in which they hurled defiance at death.
The walls were steep and difficult, but there was a cedar growing from a crevice, its top reaching nearly to the top of the cliff. The men thought that it might just be possible to use the cedar to climb out. They managed to get to the top without attracting the attention of the Mexican guards. Only one, Kicking Horse, who had been shot in the leg, was unable to climb the steep incline. He begged his friends to leave him. They did not. Jerk Meat fell twice with Kicking Horse on his back. Wounded Buck said it was the life of Kicking Horse against theirs, and if they stayed with him or lost more time trying to get him out, they would all perish together in the cave. The men urged Kicking Horse to have a strong heart and die like a warrior. He calmly accepted the inevitable, saying, “When you get home, rest. Then come back and avenge me.” Then he sat down beside the wall to await daylight, then death, when the Mexicans would see him. He was a brave man.
Jerk Meat pushed and pulled the men to hurry them to the top. Wounded Buck was first, and he saw the fires of the Mexicans burning in many directions about the mouth of the cave. The Mexicans had good ears and heard something. They fired in the direction of the cave many times and wounded Jerk Meat, who was shot through the left side. Dancing Foot was shot, and Long Hand was hit in the back. Several others were killed, and more were wounded. The rest found horses to carry the wounded. They hurried away from that place until they reached the Sun Mountain Spring. The wounded men were placed near the spring and given water. Ticannaf stayed all night beside his father. Jerk Meat died in the early dawn. Long Hand and Bites Hard diedsoon after. The men covered the bodies with stones to keep wolves away and moved the wounded under the shade of an old mesquite. As they prepared their horses to ride, one of the men heard Dancing Foot’s death rattle and found him with his face in the spring, dead. They pulled him back and placed his body near the others and piled on more stones. Toward midday, the men spotted a band of poor Mexicans traveling slowly in the opposite direction. When night fell, Wounded Buck and Ticannaf went back and raided the Mexican camp, killing no one, but getting two old mules and the girl, Choway, who had run after the Quohadas waving an ax and shouting Spanish obscenities.
The men set fire to the prairie grass to hide their trail. They killed several skunks and dragged them behind their horses to stop the Mexicans from sending dogs to follow them.
Sacajawea wanted to go back and gather Jerk Meat’s bones to be brought home for burial. The men said it was too far and too hazardous. They would not let her go. Much of the time she sat alone at the edge of camp in an area of rocks and stunted cedar. Her grief was deep inside. She could not weep.
The sense of awe and of uncertainty hung over the Quohadas’ actions. They went about their activities quietly. Hides Well took the medicine bundle of the dead chief and placed it in the creek. She took down the big tepee of Pronghorn, which had always dominated the center of their camp, and burned it along with his other belongings.
The wives of Kicking Horse, Together and Flower, distributed his belongings to members of the band that did not seem to have too much. They burned all his medicine things. Those that would not burn they placed in the creek under a large rock.
Ticannaf visited his mother often, giving her Choway, the Mexican girl, as a gift to ease her sorrow, but the sorrow was something he could not reach. She existed, but did not live. She moved about and prepared hides Ticannaf brought to her; she kept the kettle full of stew meat; she kept Crying Basket clean and well fed; but she did not speak to the child, or pat her, or hold her in the evenings. She ignored Choway. She didnot throw away the possessions of Jerk Meat, but left them where he had left them. Other women eyed her uncertainly, and some began to talk and discuss her past idiosyncrasies. Hides Well was appalled at Sacajawea’s behavior, and Spring looked at her, saying, “You never could behave in the proper Comanche manner.”
Some of the men talked about the need for a council. They talked and waited in uneasy silence. No one took the lead to do anything.
Sacajawea sat by the drinking spring one morning. It was gray and gloomy. Clouds hung heavy across the sky, and a little rain drizzled down. Her thoughts wandered back to the time long before she came to live with the Quohadas. She was near the Pacific Ocean with Chief Red Hair, and it was raining, raining, for days it rained. The men were not sad. They played games, joked, managed to keep things fairly dry. They even made little wooden toys for Pomp. Pomp was a beautiful child. He was happy. Was he a fine-looking man? she wondered. Was he now working with the whites? And Tess, where was he? He had the same terrible temper his father had. Had that temper pushed him into trouble? She swung her head from side to side.
Happy Heart came with a kettle for water. “Oh, my mother, please go to your tepee. It is not good to sit on the wet ground in the rain. The other women talk. They say you do not know if it rains or if the sun is glaring down hot and dry.”
Sacajawea laid her thin hand across the young woman’s and looked into her face. She was pretty. She was a good worker. She loved her man, Ticannaf.
“Who do you suppose they will choose as the new chief?” asked Sacajawea.
“They might choose Red Bull or Tabananikah, Hears the Sun Rise, or the man of Spring, Wounded Buck. Or they might choose Ticannaf, but he is young, without much experience. It takes a lot of qualifications, my mother. The man must have made a name for himself in war and mean something to the other bands.”
“When another chief is chosen, I am leaving this band.”
“Mother! Why? You can’t do that!”
“Yes, it is the thing for me to do. You have a goodman, and he will love and look after you. You do not need me here. No one really needs me here. The others talk behind my back. Even Hides Well and Spring look at me as an outsider. It is not their fault; it is the days we go through.”
“What about Crying Basket and the Mexican girl, Choway?”
“I will take Crying Basket. You may keep Choway. She is a good worker. Find her a good man.”
“Where will you go?”
“I will go north, maybe to your cousins, the Shoshonis. I may try to be a go-between with the whites for our band here. Maybe not. I have not yet decided.”
“See, you are not serious, pia. You would not go to see our enemies, the whites. You would not even be a go-between; that is something a man would do, a man who was as well-thought-of as a chief or shaman. For a little while I thought you might be serious. But you are only joking.”
When the first flecks of snow fell, slanted in flight by the wind, the band headed south to get away from the place where memories of the dead warriors were strong. Sacajawea carried Crying Basket on her back, and Choway led the two packhorses. They had walked only a few miles when Sacajawea saw something in the brush, a movement. She turned and stepped outside the procession to investigate. Behind a mesquite thicket was an old woman with a mangy dog and a small travois.
“It is cold,” said the old woman. “I am going south.” She looked thin and cold; her tunic was torn and dirty.
“Do you have food?” asked Sacajawea.
“A little,” said the woman, not wanting to admit she had none.
“Let me see,” said Sacajawea.
The woman opened a small parfleche. Inside were three or four kernels of parched corn, that was all.
“That was from a Mexican supply cart,” she explained. “They were camped by a water hole, and in the night I was hungry, so I filled my sack, but the food is hard and dry.”
“Come, travel with us a few days,” suggested Sacajawea.”You will be fed, and I have extra clothing to keep you warmer.”
The woman looked at Sacajawea, and it seemed tears came to her eyes. It could have been the way the light shone.
The two traveled a little way side by side.
“Kicking Horse? How is he?” the old woman asked.
Surprised, Sacajawea looked at the stranger for several moments before answering. “You cannot speak his name.” Then she looked still closer and this time recognized the old woman as Gray Bone. She did not know what more to say to her. She looked around at the others, but none had recognized Gray Bone. They were buried in their own thoughts or trying to keep warm in the wind and biting snow. “There was a raid in Mexico. Many of the men did not return,” she said finally. The moment she said it, Sacajawea was sorry. Gray Bone did not need to know that the Quohadas were so vulnerable and unprotected. Gray Bone was pathetic, but she was trouble.
Gray Bone grinned broadly, so that her broken, rotting teeth showed as a jagged yellow slash across her face. She trotted up ahead and pushed herself into the procession along with her scraggly yellow dog pulling the small travois.
At the midday rest, Gray Bone had found her friends and was chatting freely with some of the older women. She had come back to the band. She had been invited back by Sacajawea. There was no one in command to keep her away. The council had not yet been able to agree on a new chief. Spring shook a finger in Sacajawea’s direction but did not come to talk with her.
Sacajawea kept her promise and took a fresh tunic and some clean but worn leggings and moccasins to Gray Bone, who grabbed for the clothing.
“I see that you are not so generous with your old friend. These leggings have holes in them. You were about to throw them away.” Gray Bone gave the leggings a toss over her shoulder. She Cat let out a stifled tee-hee. Gray Bone stared at Sacajawea. “You cannot throw me away like cast-off leggings. I am still a Quohada Comanche. And I have some knowledge that would interest you, Lost Woman. I have been as far north asthe white men’s fort. For the use of one of your horses, I will tell what I know.”
Sacajawea shook her head, but said no word. She could not tell if Gray Bone were truthful or not. She went back to her packhorses and pulled out dried meat for Choway and Crying Basket.
Hides Well shuffled by and shouted a warning, “Gray Bone is there!”
“I have seen her,” said Sacajawea.
“Who invited her to travel with our band?”
“I did, my mother,” said Sacajawea.
Instant anger showed in Hides Well’s words. “Woman, there is talk that you act strangely. Now I can believe it. This is a black day.”
“She was cold and hungry.”
“She is trouble. Her mind is evil.”
“Perhaps she will live quietly with her friends.”
“Hah!” said Hides Well. “She watches us from the corner of her eye right now. You have become soft and stupid. Maybe you should have been kicked out of the band also.”
Sacajawea wiped a piece of stringy meat from the chin of Crying Basket, but made no reply.
They traveled through rough terrain and much snow, finally coming to a small valley with red-clay slopes. In the valley were other Comanche villages: Penatuhkas, Honey Eaters; Kotsotekas, Buffalo Eaters; and Tanimas, Liver Eaters. The Quohadas chose a winter campsite upstream from the other villages. The Tanimas told of a white man named Bill Williams, who had spent two winters with them. They said he knew all the white men in that part of the country and those up north.
Sacajawea hoped Bill Williams would come back this winter. His woman and child were with the band, so he might be back.
The change of camp and talks with other bands were good. The Quohadas gained a clearer perspective and began to believe that their lives would go on as they always had. After their great grief they needed this change, and now they were able to laugh, to send children to play games, and to visit back and forth with the other bands.
Some scouts brought back messages of white soldiers in all directions—north, west, south, and east. They talked of a man named José Castro in the southwest, who wished to attack white traders, especially one named Frémont.
Sacajawea was bewildered by the fact that white men were fighting or attacking other white men.
The Buffalo Eaters told of the Kiowas, who had bought blankets in the spring from white traders. They were good woolen trading blankets, but children wrapped in them to keep the spring winds out at night fell ill with high fevers and red blotches on their bodies. If they were rushed to the cooling stream to halt the high fever, they were dead by morning. If they were not and the fever burned within their bodies, some died, some became blind, and others survived but were dull-witted. Very few of that Kiowa band survived the disease that was in the blankets of the white men. The Buffalo Eaters warned all the bands not to buy the white men’s trading blankets. They told the bands not to trust any white man.
One day four Penatuhka men rode into the Quohada camp. Wounded Buck invited Wild Plum and Ticannaf to sit with them in front of his lodge. The Penatuhka were polite and ate and smoked before talking.
“We traded beaver pelts to some white men on Prairie Dog Town River,” said the man wearing a red flannel shirt. “There white men said one day all of us will live together in one big camp. What do you make of this?”
“I’ve heard that whites tell plenty lies,” said Wild Plum, picking at his teeth with a straw.
“Well, and so, one of the whites said they had men ready to show us how to put eyes in the ground to grow something called potatoes.”
“How can anyone have confidence in white man’s words?” said Ticannaf.
Sacajawea was inside the tepee listening. She pushed aside the door flap and blurted, “White men, did you say? Was any of them called Chief Red Hair?”
The four Honey Eaters looked at her dumbfounded, then whispered together in low tones. The man with a silver belt buckle in his hair said, “Do you Quohadasalways let your women interrupt men talk? We Penatuhkas consider such a woman highly unmannerly.”
“This is Lost Woman,” said Ticannaf, trying to cover his embarrassment. She used to live with some whites and is anxious to hear news of them.”
“Ai, one old man had red hair and a red and white beard. He knew how to speak with several tribes. He said he lived at the edge of the Father of Rivers, the Mississippi.”
Sacajawea felt like a bubble about to burst. “What was this red-haired man’s name?”
“This man you could not know. He was a truly great chief among his people. He traveled far across the land to the Shining Mountains and the Great Stinking Waters of the West. I do not remember his name.”
“It is him!” shouted Sacajawea. “So—he is still here!” She let out a great sigh and her eyes lit up as she continued questioning. “Did he talk about houses that float on the river, and the iron moccasins for horses, and the thin, snow white robes used on sleeping couches? Did he? Were his eyes sky blue?”
The four men again stared at the woman asking all the questions, and whispered among themselves. The Quohadas were staring at Sacajawea. Then their whispering began. “How does she know of these new things? She never told us about them before. Do you suppose she could be a spy? Her ways are strange.”
“Say, Quohadas, do women usually speak up in your councils?” asked a Honey Eater with a blue blanket.
Now all eyes were on Sacajawea. She trembled and mumbled, red flames of excitement in each cheek, her piercing black eyes seemingly on the ground, but she saw the Honey Eaters. “I am sorry. I listen to white traders and hear things. It seems many of these things the white men offer are not bad. There is some good.” Her legs shook. She sat on the ground.
“Ha!” exclaimed Broken Horn. “The voice of Lost Woman is like that of the Honey Eaters. She hears things that are new and she thinks they are good.”
After thanking Wounded Buck for his hospitality, the four visitors did not stay much longer.
Once or twice, some of the bolder women asked Sacajawea how it was she knew so much about the waythe whites lived. She was evasive in her answers, usually saying she listened to traders talk. The women suspected more, but did not say so in front of Sacajawea. The gossip came back through Hides Well.
“The women are uncertain about you and ask if you ever lived in a white village,” said Hides Well.
“Tell them I lived many places,” she answered. ‘Tell them here I have been the happiest.”
“Sometimes I find myself looking at you in an uneasy light. I’m not saying I actually distrust you. But you did ask the crazy one, Gray Bone, back into the band. You gave her food and clothing. And from what I know, you have every right to stay completely away from her. Then there is this. You save meat fat. You make something like the yucca washing juice, only much better. It is true you do not hide your knowledge because I know several women who now save ashes in a parfleche and pour water over them, then collect that dripping water to mix with their leftover meat fat. Their tunics and leggings have never been cleaner. Now, I am wondering where all your knowledge came from.”
Sacajawea’s heart sank. “My mother, there is a bond of friendship between us. Let us not break that. I will show you how to make the washing liquid this afternoon.”
“Is it true that you are some kind of woman Shaman?”
“No, my mother,” said Sacajawea, aghast, “that is not true.”
“And so—now how do I know?” Hides Well walked away to her own tepee, not waiting to be shown the wonders of crude soapmaking.
Late that summer, Ticannaf and Happy Heart had another son, this one very much alive. They named him Waigon, Thunderbird, because his cry was as loud as any thunder that woke them in the night.
Gray Bone came to the tepee of Sacajawea several times. She did not stay long, but the women of the village were aware of those visits. One day late in the afternoon, she came in bringing a dead turkey with her.
“I wish to give you this,” she said and moved around as though restless.
“Thank you,” said Sacajawea, reaching for the bird swinging by its neck in Gray Bone’s hand.
“You do not know what it is like to catch a bird with one’s hands.”
“Is that how you got the gash on your arm?” asked Sacajawea, bending nearer to see the wound better.
“Not exactly,” said Gray Bone. “It happened on a hunt. I ran into a coyote. She turned on me. Afterward, she drank much water and did not turn on me again. The wound is not new, but takes its own time healing.”
“Let me look.” Sacajawea took the woman close to the tepee fire.
“Many have said that the sister-in-law of the new chief has special medicine powers. I recall something like that—but at times my mind wanders. Can you heal it?”
“New chief?” asked Sacajawea.
“Ai, your sister’s man, Wounded Buck, has been named the civil chief of our band. So—it is true they do not tell you everything now. You are becoming the outcast!”
Gray Bone then did a peculiar thing. She put her hands to her mouth and rolled her eyes heavenward. She shrieked and screamed and tore at her hair. Sacajawea tried to calm her with herb tea, but Gray Bone pulled an old, broken rifle from under her robe and tried to swing it at Sacajawea. She missed, and it hit the other side of the tepee wall. Gray Bone seemed unable to swallow. She had great difficulty breathing. Finally Sacajawea calmed her, but the spittle continued to roll down the sides of her mouth as though she could not swallow.
“You have eaten something bad?” asked Sacajawea.
Gray Bone shriveled, her eyes opened wide, and the muscles of her mouth and larynx moved with spasms. She moved around and around the tepee. She could not speak.
“Rest here,” offered Sacajawea. “I will take care of you until this sickness passes.” When Choway came in, she handed her the dead turkey. “Get rid of this. Destroy it. It is not fit food. Those who eat turkey becomecowards and run from their enemies in the same fashion turkeys run away. Keep Crying Basket with Happy Heart for the rest of the day.”
Then Sacajawea sat back on her heels looking at Gray Bone. She had never seen anyone act this way. What have I done? she thought. Now I am obligated to care for this woman, and I do not really like her. I hate her. I am frightened of her. Once she cut my nose. Would she again? Perhaps in the middle of the night?
By the next morning, the whole village knew that Wounded Buck was chief. He was young and could fight. He understood the old way and could see the coming of a new way.
For the next two days, time dragged for Sacajawea. Gray Bone seemed to get better; then she would become feverish, restless, and want to walk outside. Sacajawea and Choway tried to keep her tied down to a sleeping mat with thick rope. Choway bathed her face, but her maniacal behavior discouraged much washing or cooling with water.
On the third day, a whippoorwill swooped low over the camp, trailing behind him his mournful yet urgent cry. The Quohadas heard this and during the morning looked at one another asking themselves, “Who?” They believed the cry of a lone whippoorwill flying low over a camp meant violent death to some particular member of the band.
Sacajawea pulled her tired limbs from between her robes and crouched over the fire, which had gone out. Crying Basket began to whimper with hunger pangs. Sacajawea looked toward the child. Then she saw the empty sleeping couch, clothing torn off hooks, a parfleche of pemmican partly emptied on the floor, the tepee flap partially open. Gray Bone was gone! She woke Choway. “I’ve got to find that old sack of bones,” said Sacajawea. “Who knows what she can do? She’s rotten as an egg lying too long in the sun.” She left the fire unlit and asked Choway to straighten the lodge, light the fire, and look after the child.
“What is her disease, pia?” asked Choway. “She looks very sick. I do not like the smell of her.”
“I think it is from the coyote that cannot swallowwater. It is bad. I should have fed her mayapple roots when I first knew.”
“There are no such roots here, pia,” said Choway, shaking her head.
“Well, so—there are other death powders.” Sacajawea packed jerky in a parfleche hurriedly.
“Pia, my mother, please, no—” called Choway, but Sacajawea had turned toward the entrance of a gully, riding her horse swiftly along the slow-winding curves of the dry course.
Gray Bone was not there. Sacajawea soon realized the search might take all day. She listened and heard only the twitter of a small bird, the thumping of a rabbit, and the gnawing of a porcupine at a cottonwood stump. It is quiet, she said to herself, surely. Then she corrected herself: Nothing is sure.
Some of the gullies had rocky steps beyond which a horse could not go, and in those, brought up short by the rock barriers, she turned back. In others the sandy bottom ran clean and free all the way to a far rim, and in those she saw nothing, not even a snake or lizard. The catbirds and jays went about their normal business, making it certain that there was nothing new around. The sun pushed beyond a grove of stunted oaks filtering a sickly green light to the ground.
About noon, she saw plants growing in lush profusion below two strong jets of clear water. The stream fell straight down the rock wall for a small distance, then was broken by the banding of rock into a sequence of short falls, as water might run down garden steps during a heavy rain. This was an oasis of greenery that contrasted agreeably with the otherwise arid aspect of the land shimmering under dry waves, heralding a heat that would crack the ground, already sucked dry by a thirsty sun. A cascade of scarlet monkey flowers tumbled down the slope, the whorled stems of horsetails grew thickly among the rocks, and everywhere the shiny leaves of poison ivy glistened in the sun. How ivy had found this place puzzled Sacajawea. She had not seen any in all her years with the Quohadas. Mother Earth provides a small secret place and somehow sees to it that the plants find the place. I must find the secretplace of Gray Bone, thought Sacajawea. She may be near the spring, resting.
She led the horse to the cold and delicious water. She ate a small piece of jerky. The horse grazed on the grassy bottom for a while, then came back to her. She led it to the bottom again. The animal tossed its head and pulled back. Then Sacajawea knew that what she had sniffed a few moments back on the gentle breeze was not her imagination. Twenty yards away, beside another pool formed from the waterfalls, lay a dead coyote, her head near the water, as though trying to take one last drink. Sacajawea left the horse and examined the animal. There had been a considerable scuffle. She could see moccasin tracks. The coyote’s skull had been crushed. Near it lay an old, rusted muzzle-loader. The rifle had once been the pride of Kicking Horse. The stock was broken in half at the breech. The butt was smeared with the blood and brains of the coyote.
The coyote was not large. It was female. Her muzzle and lower jaw had a mottled look from dried froth that extended clear back to her eyes, which were open and peculiarly yellow. The moccasin tracks led away across the other side of the water.
Sacajawea jogged her horse slowly, keeping the pigeon-toed tracks before her. Far ahead, she could see that this clear land was becoming broken again. During the warm afternoon, she went up a slight incline to a plateau, beyond which a rise of catclaw-dotted hills foretold more abrupt walls of limestone. The wind was hot even in the coming evening. The sky was clear. There was small chance of rain washing out Gray Bone’s tracks. The great dome over Sacajawea filled with twilight as the sun went under.
Sacajawea hunched herself down on the horse for an evening’s ride. She looked behind every small bush. Once she held her horse still, straining all her senses, and she became aware of the little sounds, the hollow call of an owl, now there was no wind, but she heard the rattle of a dusty mesquite, and knew some creature was stirring about a night’s business. She heard the singing whir of some insect at work or travel.
The night became black. She hobbled her horse andslept in a shelter formed by an overhanging stone ledge. She woke at daybreak, ate some jerky, and resumed her ride. She came to a place where there was a milky, warm stream. The stream was only one or two feet wide, but from the size of the canyon it had cut, it was obvious that it could be quite formidable in a flash flood. The sandy banks cut from the rocks were thickly grown with mesquite and catclaw. The gravelly benches were a desert garden. Sacajawea stopped to look for telltale moccasin tracks in the sand by clumps of orange mallow and yellow flowers. She tied her horse to a mesquite and bent to search the sand where it was crisscrossed with lizard, mouse, and insect tracks. There were no moccasin tracks. An occasional butterfly drifted in and out through the patches of yellow and shade. The voice of the creek was soft. The motion drifted into the heart of the little canyon where the sun filtered through the leaves in a sickish warm green. The swell of the white sand dunes, the soft bubblings of the milky water, the yellow of the rock across the stream, and the arc of blue sky seemed a clean, bold contrast to the nauseating incubus of green that flowed through the small chasm, like a scrim in the hot breeze. Farther down the canyon the stream was gone, dried to dust in the ovenlike heat.
Something caught Sacajawea’s eye. She climbed from her horse. Nestled among the pebbles and sand was a small potsherd, about two inches square. Its gray-white surface was decorated with black Vs. The inner V was further embellished with little black dots. She picked the fragment of clay pottery up, then looked around her feet and saw the ground strewn with dozens of other ancient shards. Some, like the one in her hand, had white-and-black lines; others had designs on a white background, or black on red. Still others, probably from vessels of a more utilitarian nature, were unpainted but adorned with a corrugated design, as if the wet coils of clay had been pinched by the maker and marked with his fingernails. She crouched back. The Ancient Ones had lived here. Still squatting on her heels, she continued examining the fragments. Suddenly there came to her a premonition of danger. It seemed a shadow had fallen upon her. But there was no shadow. Her heart had given a jump up into her throat and waschoking her. Then her blood slowly chilled, and she felt the sweat in her tunic cold against her flesh.
She did not stand up or move; her eyes darted around the ground. She was considering the nature of the premonition she had received, trying to locate the source of the mysterious force that had warned her. She felt the imperative presence of some unseen thing. There was an aura too refined for the senses to know. She felt this aura, but could not tell how she felt it. It seemed that between her and life had passed something smothering and sickening—ghosts, as it were, that waited to swallow up life.
Every force of her being impelled her to turn and confront the unseen demon, but her soul dominated and she remained squatting, in her hands a black shard. She did not dare look around, but she knew by now that there was something behind her and above her. She looked at the shard, examined it critically, rubbing the sand from it and noticing tiny dull red dots that formed a circle at the edge. All the time she knew something above her was looking and watching her.
She pretended interest in the clay fragment in her hand, listening, but she heard nothing. She realized her predicament; she was caught in the camp of the Ancient Ones.
She shifted her weight ever so slightly, but stayed squatting on her heels. She was cool and collected. Her mind considered every factor. She would have to rise sooner or later, move from this spot, and face the incubus that stared at her back. As the moments passed, she knew she was nearer the time she must stand. She wanted to run, to rush to her horse and on to safety. But her intellect favored a slow, careful meeting with this thing that she could not yet see. And while she debated, a loud crashing noise burst on her ear, like a stone falling down a wall. At the same instant she felt a stunning blow on the left side of her back. She sprang up, noticing a wide niche in the yellow wall far up a steep, rocky slope, but her feet crumpled and her body fell like a leaf dried by the rays of the all-conquering sun. The air was expelled from her lungs with a sigh, and her body lay upon the hot earth, defeated, but it only appeared so. The human body, a vast and inventiveorganization of living cells, survives even when it seems lost.
Above, on the yellow ledge, another great stone in her hand, Gray Bone looked for a long time at the motionless body beneath her. After a while she replaced the stone and went away from the ledge toward the wall. She was breathing hard when she reached the niche. Set back under an overhang were five or six little rooms, each about six feet long, four feet high, and three feet deep. Each had its own door to the ledge where she stood. The sticks that served as lintels of the doorways were perfectly preserved in the dry air.
Gray Bone panted for breath and fought the ominous feeling that she was on the private property of others and they were squeezing the very life-force from her lungs to remove her from that property. She bent to examine a tiny corncob, much smaller than the corn she had seen. Her head ached, and her throat contracted with spasms as she tried to gulp the hot, life-giving air. Her skin prickled as the breeze went through her tangled hair.
She looked down the slope to the bottom of the canyon where she’d last seen Sacajawea. Her eyes squinted in the fading sunlight, but she could not locate the body of Sacajawea she thought she had left for dead a few moments before. She wiped her hand across her eyes, but she could not see clearly. Her hand slid down across the side of her face where a rush of flame went through her flesh. She moved to the edge of the cliff and began descending, resting on each stone cut. She wanted to see the dead body of Sacajawea just once more.
Slowly, in a peculiarly disjointed fashion, she walked to the dry creek bed. Gray Bone did not go in a straight line. She trembled as though shaking off the ghosts of the Ancient Ones who lived in the walls of the cliffs overhang. The apparition in front of her stood out like an overlord, a protector, in the twilight.
It lifted a hand and made a motion to come on. The sand dune was circled with piñon and deadfall. Gray Bone made her way cautiously. Her tunic was torn and hanging in ribbons. Her arms and legs were deeply scratched and bruised. Her face was hard, with dry skin over the skeleton to defy desiccation of the small inwardmoistness. One side was red and swollen where the flesh had been torn from the cheek to the chin. The gashes were scabbed over, but the wounds were inflamed. Through the shredded right leather sleeve, Gray Bone’s arm was exposed. It was badly scratched, and it, too, looked swollen and red.
“I have not much patience with curiosity-seekers,” rasped Gray Bone. Her voice was thick, as though retarded by some fleshy barrier. “There is no way to get me back to that camp, which stinks from human and dog excrement and rotting horseflesh. It is an eyesore upon Mother Earth with its ragged skin lodges and poor inhabitants.”
She had fallen into the loner’s habit of soliloquy. She tried to smile. It broke open the scab on her cheek, and the wound started to ooze. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, and then wiped her hand in the sand at her side.
“The thought of water is good. I wish I could drink. Smells nice in the desert.” Jerkily she inhaled the hot, sweet breath of the canyon through nostrils that dilated and quivered.
“Ever know a camp that stunk more?” She moved down the dry creek a few steps. Not once did she take her eyes from the form at the creek’s bank. “Out here there are no old crones named She Cat and Weasel Woman pawing over you, pretending you used to be something. When you know you are not anything, only a creature confined to a narrow band of time.”
She leaned forward in a confidential manner. “At least Coyote is like me, conscious of certain things, whether she is conscious of time or not. She was my sister, and she turned crazy on me!” Her voice rose to a tight pitch. Her eyes half closed in the faded memory of that painful fight. She folded her feet under her and sat on the ground still talking, frequently pausing to gulp deep drafts of air. She babbled about how Kicking Horse had protected her. She rambled on about how she had fought with Kicking Horse many times, but in the end she had won because death had claimed him and his arguments. She wiped her mouth again.
Gray Bone constantly looked at Sacajawea, who was not dead, but sitting quietly on the sand and listening.
A flicker of awareness showed in Gray Bone’s sunken eyes, to be replaced by an expression of scorn.
“And your man is gone. And your white man has gone under.” Her laugh was like the screech of a crow announcing it had found carrion on the canyon floor. “He was named Charbonneau. I heard your talk with the Mexicans. So—I have asked around since leaving the Quohada stench. That Charbonneau was in the village named Saint Louis two summers past. He was with one called Joshua Pilcher, who gave him wampum, money, so he could buy a hunting knife. He then returned to his young Ute woman. This old weasel, Charbonneau, bragged about a Snake woman he had. This women, he said, went with him and white soldiers to the Stinking Western Waters with a son on her back.”
Sacajawea could say nothing. Her head pounded; her back ached and throbbed. She started forward a little, then stopped and watched Gray Bone, whose hands covered her throat as though it was a great effort to speak.
“That old weasel liked women young. That is why he let the Snake go. He wanted a fresh child to keep him warm. I could understand a man like that,” she croaked. “I like young girls with slim, firm bodies. They make my blood run and my head swim. My man beat me for looking at my own child when she was ripening.” She wiped her mouth again and gasped for air.
Sacajawea realized that Gray Bone never swallowed—that she could not.
Gray Bone pointed a clawlike finger at Sacajawea. “You were that Snake woman! I know it!” Then she swayed and it seemed she could not speak more, but after several moments she seemed to have a second wind.
“This Charbonneau died near a white man’s fort up north. It was a frightened young Sioux woman who buried him under layers of damp earth, where he will no longer see blue sky. You wonder where I learned this? It was from the mouth of a white man, Charles Larpenteur. He said that old man never carried a gun, only a hunting knife, and wore a red trading shirt, and offered his young women to any man in camp. It was some custom with him.”
Gray Bone’s hand twitched. She leered into the darkening air with contempt.
Sacajawea bent forward, rubbed her back, and felt a large stone bruise. She knew the disease of the coyote had nearly taken possession of Gray Bone’s body, but her mind was working. She had heard many times that lucky ones bitten by crazed animals took only a few days to die—but the unfortunate ones took weeks. Gray Bone was fortunate.
“There was a chola—part Shoshoni, part white—who came to a fort, far north—Bill Bent’s—with furs on a donkey charrette. He could scratch on paper. Once I hid in the fort at the side of a building, a lodge of logs, and watched.” Gray Bone’s head nodded, and her hands went to her throat. Sacajawea feared the words would become incoherent. She wanted to ask questions, but was afraid Gray Bone would say no more. “I put things together. The one with the furs was called Charbonneau. Sometimes Bap. So—he is the son you asked the Mexican trader about?”
Sacajawea could not answer. She could not speak. And now Gray Bone seemed unable to stop. She exulted when Sacajawea sat motionless. She looked about herself until she had established the continuity of her existence and identified Sacajawea’s form sitting passively across the dune from her.
“Now I was not so bashful. I found an opportunity when this Bap was walking alone and went up to him. I asked in good Comanche if he had a pia, Wadzewipe, or Lost Woman. He looked and asked for a repeat of my words; then he said no, his pia ran away and was never found. She is dead—maybe eaten by a coyote.” Gray Bone laughed raucously. “I said his mother lived with the Quohada Comanches. He said no, she liked to live like the white people.” Gray Bone tried to lick her parched lips. Her voice was hoarse. She choked, then quieted, and her voice was no more than a loud whisper. “I told him I know his pia. He laughed and gave me chewing tobacco. Nice man.”
Sacajawea shivered as a breeze stirred the dead gray dawn air. Gray Bone’s mood varied. “The wind,” she groaned. “It will skin me alive.” She ran her left hand lightly across her bosom and down her thigh. The touchseemed painful. As the breeze grew, she groaned, “Can’t you stop it? See what it is doing to me?” She wiped her mouth and seemed to forget Sacajawea was there. She began to explore her body with her fingertips, muttering something about heavy clothing.
“Where is this place—Bent’s? The chola—where is he?”
“What?” Gray Bone rasped, straightening up abruptly, an expression of wonderment and awe overspreading her face as she peered at Sacajawea. Her mouth twitched. “The white men are north.”
“How far?”
“Six, eight suns by horse, maybe farther; it is hard to say.” Her face moved as if in a spasm, and she hesitated a few moments. She again pushed a hand against her throat, then wiped her mouth.
“Can I get you water?” offered Sacajawea.
“I cannot drink it. Do not bring it near.” Her voice was hardly audible.
“I will go for help.”
“No, I cannot use help. Do not leave.” She pierced the stillness with a shrill laugh. She moved closer to Sacajawea, then with one swift motion struck out with arms and legs.
Sacajawea’s legs felt a jerking grip that overthrew her. Swiftly as the grip had flashed about her legs, just as swiftly Gray Bone brought a stone down, grazing Sacajawea’s left hip. And like the crack of a beaver’s tail on water, Sacajawea hit Gray Bone with the flat of her hand on the good side of her face, and with a quick thrust of her other hand, struck Gray Bone’s hand. The stone was thrown out and thudded into the sand. The next instant Gray Bone felt Sacajawea’s hand grip her wrist. The struggle was for the butcher knife Gray Bone had grabbed from Sacajawea’s waistband, each woman striving to hold it. Gray Bone could see only dimly; then she was blinded by a handful of sand deliberately flung into her eyes. In that moment she slashed the knife across Sacajawea’s shoulder and her grip slackened. In the next moment Gray Bone felt a smashing darkness descend upon her skull, and in her brain the darkness filled with nothing.
Sacajawea had grabbed the stone. She hit again andagain, until she was sure Gray Bone was not breathing, except for the dying of the pulsing heart. Sacajawea tossed the stone over the white dune; she was breathing heavily. She sat beside the body of Gray Bone. Sacajawea sobbed and panted for breath. “That old woman wanted me on the trail to the Unknown with her!” Sacajawea was half crying from anger and exhaustion. “Why would I want to go with her?” She peered at Gray Bone’s bloody face, with the eyes staring at the sky, the head twisted to one side and sprinkled with fine particles of sand. It was difficult to distinguish the features.
Sacajawea scrubbed her hands and arms with abrasive sand, instinctively knowing she had touched the unclean body of someone diseased. With her hands she covered Gray Bone’s body with clean white sand from the dune. She carried half a dozen large boulders to place on top. “That is the best I can do,” she said aloud, cleaning her butcher knife with sand.
She thought she heard the wild, half-human scream of a chimbica. She moved toward her horse in the mesquite thicket. She had never heard a cougar cat scream in the afternoon before.
She mounted and left the body of Gray Bone as she would leave a scrub oak leaf fallen in the winter’s wind. Leaving the past, she rode down the dry canyon, across the bits of potsherd poking out of the sand. The cry of the cougar cat became a whisper as she passed under the niche in the wall where once life had lived in balance with nature, simply and happily, until something had abused and abased those Ancients and they no longer walked on the sand or watched the flight of birds, but passed on to the trail of the Unknown.