Chapter 18

Chapter 18

I perfect my plan all night and leave before the sun to search for the ideal hide out. I finally find a deep cave behind some boulders. I remove a few of the smaller rocks and put down three of my buffalo robes inside. I make many trips back and forth with sacks of dried meat, dried berries, bladders of water enough for us to survive for one moon. My mother watches me remove the supplies from our storage lodge but says nothing to me about it. I spend the last week hunting for fresh meat that will hold my mother and little brother while I’m gone. The night before we’re to meet to plan the hunting trip for bear, I gather my usual hunting supplies and get my pack ready. Mother cleans up dinner then asks, “This is what you want?”

Without explaining, I say, “It is all I want.”

She nods, gives me a kiss, and goes into the teepee. I stay up late making arrows and rethinking every bit of the plan to be sure. I sleep only a few hours, and I’m up with the other warriors. When I see Mato, Chayton, and Otaktay riding toward me, the plan is now set in motion. I stay with them for one night but the next day, when they split into groups, I go off under the red sunrise and disappear. They will probably search for me for days, but it will only keep Mato that much longer. I race my pony to exhaustion, and my heart leaps when I see Zonta waiting there in front of the teepee, wrapped in her red blanket. But I slow when I see her unhappy face.

“Where is Wakinyan?”

She hesitates, and I know she is going to tell me something that will change my life forever.

“She has gone with the white man, Kohana.”

I scream and kick the pole holding her teepee, cracking it, and causing the teepee to lean. She stays remarkably calm, though. “I am sorry, Kohana. The Great Spirit changed our plans.”

“What do you mean?” I hit down to the ground with my hands, and I have to keep hitting things or else I’ll explode. I fall on my knees, look up to Zonta, and yell, “You promised me she would be here!”

I should have come back to check on things, but I was too busy preparing and pretending not to care for Wakinyan.

Zonta pauses, trying to get me to settle. “The next day after I spoke to you, Wakinyan found a white man washed up on the bank while she was doing her cleaning.”

“What white man?”

“It was a white man’s medicine man. Shot full of arrows in his back.”

“He was dead?”

“No, he was barely alive. When Wakinyan rolled him over she saw the symbol from her vision—”

I throw my hands on the ground and bang my head between them.

I hate her vision!

“Others in the tribe wanted to leave him for dead, but Wakinyan fought for his life. When Otaktay heard of her vision, he allowed her to nurse him back to health and Wakinyan felt as though it was a sign from the Great Spirit that she must go to the white man’s world if he recovered—”

An unearthly sound erupts out of me as something tears deep inside. I rock on my knees, back and forth, not even caring who sees me do so. Zonta just stands there, watching me with her hand over her mouth. “Kohana, I tried my best to help—”

“Did you? Did you tell her to wait for me? To forget about her foolish vision!”

She shakes her head. “No, it is not my right to tell one not to listen to their vision.”

I cry again but say, “I thought he was not coming back for one moon! It has been less than half-a-moon!”

She looks down. “He came back early, saying he finished his dugout sooner than expected.”

I throw up right on the ground. Everything rips from me. Zonta’s feet shuffle away, and Nagi lands on my heaving back. I get up quickly, shrugging him off, and scream, “What good is your medicine?”

I’m wearing the moccasins Wakinyan made me. I rip them off and throw them into the prairie where we used to run. Nagi hops to the ground, still by my side. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and get back on my horse to head to the hideout by myself. I see Nagi’s shadow opening and closing over my head, all the way there.