“Brother,” said Little Horse, breaking the long silence of their ride, “I am glad to return to Cheyenne hunting grounds. But during our absence I fear our people may have turned their hearts to stone against us.”
Touch the Sky, easily the taller of the two young Cheyenne, nodded his agreement. Both youths had halted their ponies side by side on the rim of a long, grassy slope which formed the east wall of the Powder River valley. Below, a huge fork marked where the Little Powder joined the Powder.
Touch the Sky lifted one sun-bronzed arm to point at the tipis far below them. They were arranged in clan circles beside the fork, casting long shadows now that their sister, the sun, was nearing her resting place. Down near the water, a group of naked children were throwing stones at birds. Squaws knelt beside the tripods outside their tipi entrances, cooking elk and buffalo meat.
“At least,” replied Touch the Sky, “all appears well below.”
Both Cheyenne youths understood his unstated meaning: At least the tribe was not slaughtered while we deserted them to fight white men’s battles.
“Once the Councilors learn who we defeated,” said Little Horse, “perhaps the tribe will think differently.”
“Perhaps,” said Touch the Sky, though doubt was clear in his tone. “But will they believe us when we tell them that the paleface devils who tried to destroy my white parents were among those who rode with the scar-faced whiskey trader, Lagace?”
Little Horse was silent at this, knowing they had nothing but their word to prove their claim. In the eyes of the tribe, they had deserted their people when Chief Yellow Bear was sick—a vulnerable time for attack by enemies.
They nudged their ponies’ flanks with their knees, descending closer to Yellow Bear’s village. With each step nearer, Touch the Sky felt invisible flies stirring in his belly. His eyes swept the camp constantly as he tried to spot Honey Eater.
Was her father better now, or had Arrow Keeper’s strong medicine failed to cure him? Had their chief crossed over to the Land of Ghosts? Did Honey Eater too believe he had deserted his people? All these questions cankered at him as the two youths descended the long slope.
Touch the Sky was lean and straight, tall even for a Cheyenne. He had a strong, hawk nose and jet-black locks cut close over his eyes to keep his vision clear. The warm moons were upon them now, with the new grass well up—both youths were bare to the waist and wore beaded buckskin leggings, elkskin moccasins, and soft doeskin breechclouts. Leather bands around their left wrists protected them from the hard slap of their buffalo-sinew bowstrings.
“Brother!” said Little Horse when they had covered perhaps half the distance to the camp. “Look!”
He pointed to the lone hummock, between the river and the rest of the clan circles, which was reserved for the chief’s tipi. An old Cheyenne sat outside the entrance flap, smoking a clay pipe and watching the children play. The elder had long gray hair streaked with white and his face was a seamed mass of deep wrinkles, though still hatchet-sharp in profile.
But it wasn’t the face of Chief Yellow Bear. It was Arrow Keeper, the tribal medicine man.
“Our chief has crossed over while we were gone,” said Little Horse with conviction. “This can mean nothing else. Yellow Bear’s tipi has been taken down and placed on his scaffold with him. Arrow Keeper is our new chief!”
Suddenly, one of the sentries hidden in the trees circling camp raised the wolf howl of alarm.
The two Cheyenne bucks stared at each other, realizing they had just been spotted—and that the wolf howl was always reserved for announcing the arrival of enemies!
Even before they could nudge their ponies into motion again, a group of warriors rode hard from camp to meet them. Now the crier was racing up and down through camp on his pony, announcing their arrival.
The fierce young war chief named Black Elk led the warriors. He was accompanied by his younger cousin Wolf Who Hunts Smiling. When they reached the two arrivals, they formed a circle around them with lances raised.
“The white men’s spies have come back like dogs returning to their vomit,” said Wolf Who Hunts Smiling. “They are the eyes and ears of the Bluecoats!”
Touch the Sky locked stares with his sworn enemy. Wolf Who Hunts Smiling was small but hard-knit, with a guarded, wily face and furtive dark eyes that missed nothing. Ever since his capture, Wolf Who Hunts Smiling had accused him of being a spy. And one night he had deliberately stepped between Touch the Sky and the campfire—the Cheyenne way of announcing one’s intention of killing another.
“I have no ears for your lies,” said Touch the Sky. “Words are cheap, the coins spent freely by gossiping old squaws. Where is the proof that I or Little Horse have played the white men’s dogs?”
“There is the proof!” said Wolf Who Hunts Smiling, pointing toward the braves named River of Winds and Swift Canoe. “They were sent to spy on you. They saw you making big medicine with the Bluecoat war chief! They saw you make war against paleface settlers so that Cheyennes would be blamed for the attacks!”
“You speak in a wolf bark!” said Touch the Sky. But he and Little Horse exchanged shocked glances as they realized the horrible mistake the tribe was making.
“The Bluecoat we made medicine with is a friend to the red man,” said Little Horse. “He was—”
“Silence!” commanded Black Elk, speaking for the first time since the party had circled them.
Black Elk had seen only twenty winters, but already his war bonnet was filled with the eagle feathers of bravery. He was big and, unlike many red men, heavily muscled. His fierce black eyes were made even more fierce by the partially torn-off ear which he had sewn back onto his own skull with buckskin thread. His hair, like that of the others, had been cropped off short in mourning for Chief Yellow Bear.
“You say my cousin speaks in a wolf bark,” he said to Touch the Sky. “But I speak only the straight word. The Headmen have not yet voted against you, so I will not take you prisoner. Though the tribe is angry at Little Horse, this is his home. But you are not welcome here! Before you ride closer, surrender your rifle!”
Hot blood stippled his cheeks, but Touch the Sky obeyed. He slid the percussion-action Sharps, a present from his white father in Bighorn Falls, out of the buckskin scabbard he had sewn to his blanket. He handed it to Black Elk.
“If this is my home,” said Little Horse, “it is also Touch the Sky’s home. If he is not welcome, I am not welcome.”
“Speak carefully, your place here is not assured,” said Black Elk. “If you desire it, perhaps you can join your brother when he is banned from Cheyenne lands forever!”
Touch the Sky and Little Horse were both silent as they were escorted the rest of the way down to the camp. Black Elk’s ominous words had evoked the memory of something old Arrow Keeper had once told them: A Cheyenne without a tribe is a dead man.
The hostile stares and accusing faces of the others, as they rode in, stirred unpleasant memories for Touch the Sky: memories of that day when, beaten and lashed to a travois, he had first been brought to camp as a prisoner and suspected spy.
His present misery still wasn’t complete, however, until he caught his first glimpse of Honey Eater.
Again, just as he had when he was still called Matthew Hanchon and saw her for the first time, he was struck by her frail beauty—the high, finely sculpted cheekbones, the long, black hair braided with white petals of mountain columbine.
But it wasn’t the mere sight of Honey Eater that made Touch the Sky’s heart constrict in agony. It was the fact that, as she met his eyes, she was staring past the flap of Black Elk’s tipi—and she was wearing the beaded bride-shawl of a newlywed!
~*~
Two sleeps passed, though in his misery Touch the Sky hardly noticed whether moon or sun owned the sky.
Out of respect for Yellow Bear, he and Little Horse had cropped their hair short like the other warriors. But Touch the Sky made no further attempt to join tribal life, nor was he welcome to. He kept to his tipi by night, spent most of his days in the huge rope corrals working his ponies—the same ponies he had hoped to offer as the bride-price for Honey Eater. Only Little Horse was friendly to him. Arrow Keeper seemed to be avoiding him.
He knew that the Councilors would soon meet to decide his fate. But curiously, in his sorrow he was indifferent to his future. Let the Headmen vote with their stones to kill him, banish him, it was all one to him.
The others ignored him, looking right through him as if he were odjib—a thing of smoke. The report by River of Winds carried much weight. His word was well respected, and he had a reputation for fairness.
Tragically, the meetings he had witnessed between the Bluecoat pony soldier Tom Riley and Touch the Sky were not what they appeared to be. The officer had secretly joined forces with the Cheyenne to help them fool the paleface army. But Touch the Sky knew he could never prove this.
True, returning to Bighorn Falls and seeing Kristen Steele again had rekindled the dormant feelings in his heart for her. Seeing her had once again plunged him into a crisis—was he a white man, a red man, or an eternal outsider? Then, that first sight of Honey Eater, upon his return, had convinced him he loved the Cheyenne maiden too.
She had once crossed her wrists over her heart for him—Indian sign talk for love. Now she was Black Elk’s wife!
On the third night after his return, Touch the Sky was walking back to his tipi after bathing in the river. A familiar voice called to him out of the grainy twilight.
“Woman Face!”
Touch the Sky drew up short. He was near the center of camp, nearly deserted now as most of the tribe prepared their late meal. The hide-covered frame of the council lodge loomed out of the darkness like a still, shaggy buffalo.
Only Wolf Who Hunts Smiling still called him Woman Face—a mocking reference to his old white man’s habit of letting his emotions show in his face.
“So? Have you finally decided to make good on your threat to put me under?” said Touch the Sky. “Best to look before you wade in further—your cousin has my rifle, but he did not take my knife.”
“Why should I risk dirtying the Sacred Arrows by shedding your blood now?” said Wolf Who Hunts Smiling. “The Headmen meet tomorrow to discuss you. Thanks to River of Winds’ report, you will either be killed or banished. Either way, I am satisfied.”
So his fate would be settled tomorrow? He was ready.
“Yes, you are satisfied,” said Touch the Sky. “Just as a filthy pig is satisfied to eat its own droppings.”
“Brave talk, Woman Face. But perhaps if you were more of a man your sweet Honey Eater would not be lying naked right now with my cousin!”
Hot rage surged into his face. Touch the Sky reached for the obsidian knife in his sheath.
“Sing the Death Song, Cheyenne,” said Touch the Sky softly as he drew his blade, “then draw your knife. If I am to be banished or killed, let me earn my punishment now!”
In a moment Wolf Who Hunts Smiling’s bone-handle knife was in his hand. “As you will, white man’s dog! Tonight one of us crosses over!”
Wolf Who Hunts Smiling lunged. Touch the Sky pivoted hard to his right and felt his enemy’s blade nick the leather band around his left wrist as it passed harmlessly by. Touch the Sky leaped on top of the small but powerful Cheyenne and wrestled him to the ground.
Wolf Who Hunts Smiling wriggled free, rose to his feet, raised his knife, and prepared to leap again.
“Stop!”
Both youths glanced toward the speaker, barely discernible in the faltering light.
Arrow Keeper!
“Listen to your chief, young Cheyenne bucks! I speak words I want you to carry away with you. I forbid this fighting. Have we not enough enemies outside the tribe trying to kill us? I am still the keeper of the sacred Medicine Arrows. Any Cheyenne blood shed by another Cheyenne stains the Arrows. I will not let you dirty the entire tribe!”
“But, Father,” Wolf Who Hunts Smiling said, “he—”
“Silence! Return to your clan circle.”
After Wolf Who Hunts Smiling had departed, his face a mask of hatred for his enemy, Touch the Sky sheathed his knife and likewise started to leave. But Arrow Keeper called his name. He turned around.
“Yes, Father?”
“Return with me to my tipi, I would speak with you about urgent matters. I have had a medicine dream. The vision tells me you will die soon!”