Sacajawea (9 page)

The midafternoon sun made the ivy-caused blisters on her legs and arms break and water. Once she thought she felt perspiration from the horse, but she was not sure. When the horse began to founder, Buzzard Beak used his quirt vigorously and the animal went a little faster. The horse made a sudden lurch and fell on its side, frightening Grass Child so that she cried out. Buzzard Beak leaped nimbly to the ground, pulling her with him. Holding the thong reins and Grass Child with one hand, he began to strike the horse. He kicked and pounded it over the head with the butt of the quirt. The horse tottered to its feet. Carrying Grass Child, Buzzard Beak leaped astride, and they galloped farther eastward.

Water Woman, nursing Blue Feather, with Drummer held tight in her other arm, sang to Grass Child in the night when she could not sleep. The captives were permitted to huddle around the fire now for warmth. Each day Water Woman soothingly told of the great improvement in Grass Child’s condition. Willow Bud tried to describe the land they rode over, sometimes rocky and hilly, other times flat and grassy with small gurgling streams. Grass Child’s eyes were swollen shut.

Only the day that her eyes opened did Grass Child feel she was improving. That day the grass looked greener than it had ever seemed and the trees taller and straighter, her friends’ smiles broader.

“Tomorrow,” Water Woman encouraged, “you will be strong enough to ride alone. You can ride with us. No more sitting with Buzzard Beak.” That night she and Willow Bud pretended to gather wood, but stood on a small hill to see if they could see any sign of the rescuing Agaidükas.

“We are as ants in the field,” Pine Woman sighed, smoothing her dirty tunic over her stomach.

“But if they travel along the river, sooner or later they will stumble on us,” said Willow Bud. “We will watch for them while we remember landmarks each day, like putting beads on a string. Today there was the big cotton wood broken by lightning. Yesterday there was the spring water coming out of the dark earth. It took us half a morning to get through that muck. Before that, there was the tall stone with vines on one side and—”

Fish Woman placed a blue-veined hand over Willow Bud’s and spoke as if to one of her own children. “Poor girl! Your head is swollen with knowledge of the trail we’ve followed, and still you want to push more into it. Don’t shove so much in that it pushes on the trail back to the People and lets some spill out, or don’t let these skunks beat it out of you.”

Moon Woman sighed—and shut her eyes. They were closed so long that everyone was beginning to think she had fallen asleep when suddenly she began to speak. Her eyes were still closed, but her voice had changed: it was soft, almost caressing, with a smile in it. “I was about as many summers and as skinny as Grass Child when the Arikara warrior carried me away. I was young enough so that I never knew that women were carried off for slaves. I just never thought about it. I lived in his lodge with two other woman. They made me fetch water, push down weeds between the mounds of corn and beans, make the stew, and sew. My sewing was bad. I was not old enough to be able to make good trousers. At night they beat me. When he came home he scolded them and fed me thin hot soup to stop my wailing. Then he sent me out for firewood. I could scarcely find a stick around those lodges, and then he would beat me.” Her eyelids fluttered open. “I’ll tell you about them. They are called Arikaras. I was their captive once, as I have told you.”

Willow Bud nodded, then everyone nodded, not knowing what to expect.

“The Arikara village is downriver a short trail from the Westersoon. Once I heard the Wetersoon eat worms.

Farther up are villages of the People of the Willows, our captors, the Minnetarees.”

“And they probably eat dogs,” said Willow Bud, making a distasteful face.

“The Arikaras’ lodges are heaped up like an anthill, made of wood and mud outside.” She made a face. “Ugh. But inside, like something from a medicine dream. Big, space to put many things, even a horse in cold weather. And warm, no wind could get in, even the smoke hole fixed so the wind would not go down. The sleeping places not on the ground, but up on logs and soft branches. And pots for cooking, not clay or willow, but black and hard, heavy; never break. Houses inside of the lodge made with skins. People in one house and people in another. No one to get in someone’s way. Tunics laid across branches to keep them clean. These houses are not moved. These people do not move. I worked hard sewing, cleaning, keeping out of the way of those two women. My man sometimes smiled on me, and sometimes I was too tired to do as he asked and he beat me. That was proper for him. Inside, I felt myself fading. Once I fell against the ground and stayed there quiet, feeling the strength of Mother Earth before I pushed and pulled on more weeds in his garden. But the fading never stopped. I was starving to death, even though I was eating. I didn’t know what to do. Then one day I was cutting a tunic and something came to me: I could find my way to the People. It was simple. I could remember every step of the way. From that time on, I smiled a little more and stopped fading.

“I could feel my thoughts racing toward the People. In the spring when the land was green, I put some seeds in a pouch and hid jerky inside my tunic on a string around my waist. I went out to push the weeds down. I never stopped walking—I went through the saplings across the ditch that surrounded that village and, with one foot ahead of the other, headed in the direction of the People. It was not long before the seeds and jerky were gone, but I found roots and berries and skinned a rabbit with a sharp stone. I found the People. But they did not celebrate my coming home. They did not know who I was for a long time. I could not talk to tell them. I was sick and tired and only wanted to sleep for manysuns. I could not remember my name. Then I found that my family had been killed in a raid and I had no close relatives to look after me. No one to hunt meat or get hides for me. I took what was left over or what was thrown my way. I closed my heart and mind to the People. In my mind I lived with
him.
And I do not even remember
his
name. Now I am old, and I am going back near
his
village. I do not fight it; I do not look forward to it. They will not know that I was there among them once. So now it is time for me to wake up and use my knowledge to help my friends. This is my work.”

She looked at her friends with blazing eyes. Her hands reached out to them as a benediction.

“Oh, Moon Woman,” cried Fish Woman, jumping to her feet and reaching out toward her friend. “If we’d only known. But you never said a thing. I can’t remember any stories about you. Only that you were always so shy and quiet and never laughed with the others. You made your own tepee, and I never wondered much why, I was always so busy with my own man and my work.” Fish Woman babbled on and on quietly beside Moon Woman. Moon Woman smiled kindly at her.

Willow Bud edged over beside Grass Child. “I’m going to get back to the People.” She whispered so no one might hear. “Eat and become strong and you go with with me, maybe tonight.”

“Ai,
but I cannot make it,” whispered Grass Child. Still, she began to nibble slowly at a heat-dried rib with stringy meat.

“That is a horse that would no longer walk,” said Willow Bud. “It will give you strength.”

“Aaagch,”
replied Grass Child, but she continued to gnaw.

“We will wait until the skunks sleep. We will take two horses and ride back to our village.”

Grass Child felt calmer. This was a good decision. If Moon Woman could walk back, surely they could ride faster. And even nonrecognition among the People was better than the unknown agony that lay ahead.

Because there were no robes and the blue blanket had been taken away, they all lay close together for warmth. Grass Child was always made to lie beside Buzzard Beak. On the other side of her was Willow Bud, then another Minnetaree, then Water Woman with Drummer and Blue Feather, then a Minnetaree, and so on.

Buzzard Beak smelled of horse sweat and body filth, so Grass Child tried to pull away and lie closer to Willow Bud, but he only pulled her closer to him. She felt nauseated but held it down because it was warm inside the encircled arms of her mother’s murderer.

Sleepily she wondered where they had tethered the horses. A quarter moon rose over the meadow, giving very little light. That was in their favor, she thought, and snuggled further into the strong arms of Buzzard Beak, who breathed deeply through his mouth, making a
swish-swash
sound like trees scraping together in a strong wind.

Grass Child remembered hearing that “Men who snore on the warpath can never go far with other braves, nor a man who sneezes unexpectedly.” Such men were in the class of horses that stumble. Maybe Buzzard Beak was not so much respected among his people after all.

Grass Child awakened to a kick on her behind. It was not yet dawn, but the Minnetarees were up and preparing for the day’s march. She had slept too long. Willow Bud had not wakened her. While the Minnetarees were eating raw horse meat, Grass Child looked for Willow Bud. Had she gone alone? Had she actually escaped? No one seemed aware of anyone absent. Where was Willow Bud? An acute loneliness engulfed Grass Child.

All morning she rode, staring at the sweating brown back of Buzzard Beak as he led her horse. The spring sun seemed like midsummer to Grass Child. She began to think of the Ninambea, who were known to the Shoshonis as elfin people with an evil disposition. These miniature men lurked in the dark recesses of mountains and looked eagerly for a chance to shoot arrows of misfortune at the Shoshonis who displeased them. She recalled all the times she might have displeased the Ninambea. The only way to be safe from these little men at night was to be in tepees, which the little men could not enter. Maybe the Ninambea had shot all of them full of arrows of misfortune. This miserable bobbing up and down on a frothing, perspiring horse, heading for the village of a strange people, and Willow Bud gone, was surely misfortune. To add to her predicament, she was afraid to speak to any of the Agaidüka women about Willow Bud, even though she knew for certain that their captors would not understand. She longed for the self-confidence Willow Bud always managed. She longed to talk with her at the end of this long day’s ride.

At last the Minnetarees stopped for camp, and Grass Child waited for an opportunity to ask about Willow Bud. No one had mentioned her name. Scar Face suddenly stood before Grass Child. Rage ignited his face. Poising his quirt above Grass Child’s head, he brought it down so hard that she fell to the ground. Again and again he raised new welts across her thin, aching back.

The Agaidüka women and small boys huddled closer and closer together, no one daring to cry out or come to Grass Child’s rescue. At last Scar Face seized her by the arm and talked with signs. He wanted to know where the other girl-child and his spotted horse were, or she would get more beating. Would she like that? Grass Child cowed to the earth and shook her head no. He indicated that he wished her to make signs to tell what she knew. Her hands shook as she raised herself and explained that she did not know anything about his horse. Two riders came quickly into the camp, dismounting near Scar Face and waving their hands back and forth in front of them, indicating: all gone, disappeared. These two had been sent out to find the runaway. But the girl was nowhere—gone. Willow Bud had escaped, and there was no way to know if she would find the People and tell them where the Minnetarees were headed so rescuers would come, or if the wolves would find her first. With that thought, Grass Child gave in to her pain. She was little comforted by Pine Woman’s sudden, long, deep-throated death howl; it climbed to a shrill crescendo. Fish Woman joined her in the wailing song of Agaidüka women mourning for a loved friend.

A lump grew large in Grass Child’s throat, and she could not swallow, nor could she spit it up. The wailing of the mourning song pounded with deadening anguish inside her head.

“All right,” Water Woman said. “Shut your mouths. Dry your eyes. Our captors now believe we think the child is dead. Let us not speak her name again. Let us pray to the Great Spirit that she arrives in the village of the People in good health. There is something to be done here. We must put balsam pitch and bear’s oil on those welts of Grass Child’s.” Her voice, calm as ever, was heavy with sudden fatigue. Now they could all think of Willow Bud going home to the People, with no fear that the captors would send out more scouts to hunt for her. Grass Child felt an overwhelming gratitude toward Fish Woman and Pine Woman. From the quietness around her, something emerged through her fear, an impulse like love for these women.

Two days later, in a misty rain, they angled down a long slope aiming to the right, toward the river. There was a wide trail worn by wandering buffalo, and the avenue of elk and other hoofed creatures. Grass Child no longer cared where they were, or that Scar Face continued to torment her, even though Buzzard Beak had given her water and protected her at night, wrapping her in the blue blanket. She was dizzy from pain and loss of blood, and she seemed to be riding through cold mist. She was nauseous. Nothing seemed real.

“Grass Child, are you sick?” The voice sounded a great way off. It was Water Woman. Grass Child nodded. There was no use denying it.

“Hold tight to your insides. Open your eyes and look way down there by the river. See! Held in a large cage of tall sticks are mounds, like large anthills.”

Grass Child opened her eyes and fought down the nausea. Surely, she thought, no anthills are that large. “What is it?”

“The village of the Minnetarees,” said Moon Woman.

Buzzard Beak rode up to them and grinned before he nudged his horse with his quirt and galloped faster and faster down the slope.

On a barren undulation the riders let their horses rest. They sat in their sweat, their breath blowing white, as they gazed through the cold mist to the flat, gray-green prairie sloping to the east ahead of them.

A rising breeze came from the northwest; the lowgray clouds of the early spring afternoon moved with it. Even in the wind’s raw breath there was some warmth, and the women began to feel an impending excitement.