Scalpdancers (14 page)

Sparrow kicked at the unfinished travois and saplings. Sobbing, she wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her deerskin dress but could not rid herself of the taste of him. And what did the shaman warrior mean, “too late”?

There was blood upon the buffalo grass.

Lost Eyes counted the dead. Two Crows were sprawled at arm's length, one with a broken spear shaft jutting from his chest, the other with the lower half of his jaw blown away. A third brave lay thirty feet from his fallen companions. He had hidden in the rocks and loosed his arrows at White Buffalo; he probably accounted for both of the shaman's wounds. Brains and blood congealed on the warrior's skull where White Buffalo's war hammer had caved in his forehead. The vultures had already begun to feed when Lost Eyes entered the box canyon. These great ashen-gray scavengers seemed reluctant to abandon their dinners, and Lost Eyes made no real effort to disturb them. Shadows circled the canyon, gliding soundlessly over the rims and the granite cliffs cutting the narrow canyon off from the pass.

A brief violent struggle had been waged here with no mercy shown the vanquished. Even the horses were dead, sprawled pitifully where they had fallen, caught in the middle of White Buffalo's berserk attack. Broken bows, spears, and war shields littered the canyon floor. Three men, stout warriors all, had been killed in a matter of seconds by the one they had ambushed. Their torsos were streaked with war paint, their mounts wore spirit signs, but White Buffalo's medicine had been stronger.

The scavengers were gathered for their feast. Lost Eyes turned his gray about and rode at a gallop out of the box canyon. A few vultures flapped their wings and scolded the retreating figure; others remained aloft until the man thing was well out of the canyon.

Lost Eyes, oblivious to the carrion birds, noted instead a faint set of unshod pony tracks that led out of the canyon and immediately angled away from the course White Buffalo had chosen. It could well mean that there had been four braves hidden in the canyon and one had escaped to report White Buffalo's whereabouts. Lost Eyes considered himself as courageous as the next man, but he held no illusions about his ability to fight off an entire Crow war party. The sooner he and Sparrow left Singing Woman Ridge the better.

He touched his heels to the gray mare's flanks and the sturdy mount rode down the pass and quickly distanced itself from that place of death.

By the time he returned to the spring, Lost Eyes had expected the travois to be nearly completed. What he found were scattered poles and a truculent young woman already mounted and waiting for him.

Sparrow sat impatiently astride her mountain-bred pony as Lost Eyes pulled alongside her. She did not wait for his questions as he glanced from the woman to the unconscious White Buffalo.

“I am returning to our village.” Sparrow cast a quick glance in the direction of the wounded man. “Come with me.”

“Speak straight. What are you saying?” Lost Eyes could tell the shaman still lived. White Buffalo's chest rose and fell with every breath. “We cannot leave one of the People for the Crow dogs to hunt and kill.”

“White Buffalo has no people. He has said this,” Sparrow snapped at him.

Lost Eyes reached for her arm, tried to hold her back and reason with her. Had the lost spirits of this place driven her mad? Her conduct angered him. Whatever else, the wounded man was a Piegan, a Blackfoot warrior, and a man of the Scalpdancers. But these were arguments and he had no time to quarrel.

“Help me.”

“No. Leave him!” She pulled free. “I have spoken.”

“No.” Lost Eyes stubbornly refused.

“Then save him yourself.” Sparrow started to leave him, yet held back. What could she say to make him change his mind? That she had tasted his blood—that she feared White Buffalo for the desperate darkness she had glimpsed behind his flashing eyes? Words failed her. There was evil here, and despite the love in her heart and her yearning for this man without a vision, she turned from him and rode away.

Lost Eyes made no move to stop her, puzzled though he was at her abrupt shift in temperament. She had dared him and teased him and brought him to the spring, wholly unafraid and heedless of his warning.

“Yet I remain,” he whispered to himself. He knew, that he must stay, that he must carry White Buffalo to safety. He thought he knew why. But a man cannot glimpse all of the journey, only the path at hand, the few steps before and those few behind. Had he glimpsed the truth, had he been able to peer into the heart of the mystery, Lost Eyes might never have taken that first step.

8

The banks of Elkhorn Creek were ablaze. Camp fires burned throughout the village but none more brightly than the great council fire in the center of the circled lodges. The north end of the valley was filled with sight and sound. Tonight, a man's fate would be decided. It was a dark and bloody business, but it had to be done.

Distant drums summoned the elders to council to decide whether a man must live or die. The drumbeat continued steadily; it never varied, neither swelled nor faded but stayed the same, monotonous and insistent, like a beating heart. An eagle, disturbed by the sound, surged for freedom.

The council drums beat on as the elders made their way through the village, moving with one mind toward the ceremonial lodge. Here came the leaders of the clans or warrior societies: the Kit Foxes and Crazy Dogs, the Bear and the Bowstring clans too, for the council was open to all men unafraid to die—men who had counted coup and proved their bravery in battle. Such a man was Black Fox.

Sparrow's brother kicked at a mongrel pup as it gingerly approached, looking for food. The little scavenger whimpered as the brave's moccasined foot connected with its backside. The pup fled. Black Fox immediately regretted the action. He was not by nature cruel. Among the Kit Fox Society he was considered brave and generous to a fault. There were few to match his skill with the elkhorn bow. He seldom returned from a hunt empty-handed. And those of his clan who were less fortunate were free to share in his bounty. So with regret, he watched the pup scurry past his wife, who maneuvered her child-swollen frame out of the frightened animal's path.

It was the twilight hour. As the sun lay beyond the mountains, the western horizon donned luminous robes of wine and purple and pink. But the onset of night brought no peace to the Blackfoot village nor to the lodge of Black Fox. It galled him still how Sparrow had finally returned in midafternoon on a well-lathered mount. She had ignored her angry brother's interrogation other than to admit she had been with Lost Eyes. Such lack of respect for one's older brother was intolerable.

Yellow Stalk watched her husband a moment as if considering whether or not to approach him. He was displeased with her as well, for she had interceded on Sparrow's behalf and placed herself in the path of his anger. Before long, word reached him of Lost Eyes' arrival and the wounded man who had returned to the village of the Scalpdancers-White Buffalo.

Even Black Fox was too young to have known the shaman, but the stories were as familiar to him as to anyone. He would attend the council this night and listen to the tribal chiefs, men like Kills The Bear and Dog Chases The Hawk and Fool Deer and Crow Striker. These elders spoke with wisdom. They would know what must be done.

Sparrow emerged from the tepee and, pretending not to notice her brother, started down to the creek, bearing a pair of empty water bags over her shoulder. Yellow Stalk resisted the urge to delay her husband from the council. She saw Tall Bull hurrying toward her husband. Yellow Stalk wrinkled her nose with distaste as he approached. She was not impressed by his courage or feats of bravery. She knew only that Tall Bull kept a stout willow branch to beat his wife, Owl Bead, whenever the mood touched him. Yellow Stalk was by no means the only one who resented the brave's behavior. There had been talk among the elders of the Kit Fox Society to expel Tall Bull from the circle if he did not mend his ways.

Yellow Stalk tried to catch her husband's eye, to reassure herself that everything was all right between them. But he still blamed her for defending Sparrow's disobedience. Black Fox retained his sullen expression and pointedly avoided eye contact. Yellow Stalk muttered a meaningless sound that expressed her feeling of exasperation. Warriors, for all their deeds of glory, were so much like children, at times tamed by love and at other times as wild and unpredictable as the coyote, the great trickster. Yellow Stalk winced as the child within her moved, and she mentally told her baby,
Yes, that is your stubborn father. Be like him. But not in all things
.

Her child-to-be was ample compensation for the discomfort of the moment. She would give birth in the Season of the Sun.

The music of the drums carried to the creek where Sparrow knelt to fill the water bags and reflect, there in the sweet green rushes, amid the shadows. The council would decide whether or not there would be peace. What if Black Fox had his way and Lost Eyes was sent away, banished like White Buffalo? What would she do then? Abandon all and follow him? Foolish. She had warned him. She had pleaded with him to leave the wounded shaman behind. He was a cursed one. Now Lost Eyes might well be cursed with him and suffer a fate similar to the wounded man's.

Sparrow submerged her hands in the icy creek and cupped water to her face and sucked in her breath, gasping at the cold bath. She rocked back on her haunches, her flesh tingling.

“
Saaa-vaa
,” she muttered and dried her features on the sleeve of her dress. She glanced up, taking comfort in the first stars twinkling against the cobalt horizon to the east and enjoying the last few lingering rays of sunshine reaching up from the other side of the Backbone of the World.

Sparrow found a fragile peace in this solitude. What else was there but to sit alone and wait for the council to decide White Buffalo's and Lost Eyes' fate—and, indeed, her own.

Lost Eyes circled his lodge yet again, checking on his spear and war shield and the rack of smoked meat. He stopped by the gray mare, ground-tethered close at hand. All the while he listened to the tap-tap-tapping of the council drums. His father would have spoken for him, had he lived. But Lost Eyes was alone and had no place at the council of elders. He hated having to stand apart and allow others to decide his fate. It went against his grain, but there was nothing to be done. He secured the gray mare for the third time that evening and paused to study the faces of the women circling his lodge. They kept their distance, fearful of the wounded man within. Lost Eyes ducked into the tepee, where Moon Shadow waited with living water to slake his thirst and a bowl of venison stew to take the edge off his hunger. But the hunger he felt could only be appeased by knowledge, not food. He wanted to know what the elders had in store for him and he did not relish his prospects, not if men like Black Fox had their say. Sparrow's brother could be very persuasive. Lost Eyes tried to hide his misgivings from his aunt as he reclined upon his pallet and willow backrest and accepted the food she placed before him.

He sacrificed a morsel of venison to the All-Father by placing the food directly into the flames. The meat sizzled and turned black.

“A waste of food,” White Buffalo remarked gruffly, watching the young man.

The lodge smelled of wood smoke and sage. Firelight bathed the walls with a comfortable glow. Everything was as it should be within the tepee. Against the walls were parfleches of herbs and medicine pouches containing roots and seeds. A bow and otter skin quiver of arrows hung from one of the lodge poles. And nearby lay a deerskin bag of White Buffalo's belongings that had not been examined despite Moon Shadow's natural curiosity.

If the rotund old woman held any ill will toward her wounded guest, she did not express it other than in her concern for Lost Eyes, which was plainly evident in her features. Worry lines etched her brown face, flared out from beneath her eyelids, creased her forehead where her black and silvery hair spilled forward to frame her round cheeks.

White Buffalo watched in bemused silence as Lost Eyes finished his prayer offering and managed a tentative sip of meat broth. He dabbed his fingers in the wooden bowl and scooped a chunk of venison into his mouth. He wasn't truly hungry. Eating was only a pretext to please Moon Shadow, a sham he couldn't continue for long.

Lost Eyes set the bowl aside. White Buffalo reached across and took the bowl and greedily devoured its contents, shoveling meat and broth into his mouth with his fingertips. He tossed the bowl at the feet of Moon Shadow, who dutifully set it with the other bowls in a stack near the door.

Lost Eyes panicked for a few brief seconds—just long enough for the gravity of the situation to sink in. What had compelled him to bring White Buffalo back to the village that had banished him? He shivered as ice seemed to fill his veins. The shaman warrior was grinning at him. And Lost Eyes sensed something of the power in the man and shuddered, no longer feeling in control of his own actions. He told himself that he would have brought any wounded Blackfoot to the village.

“Do not fear the drums,” White Buffalo said. “What are they but stretched hide and willow sticks.”

“I do not fear them,” Lost Eyes retorted, not wishing to be thought a coward. “But in council men will decide your fate and mine.”

“They are mere men,” the shaman said contemptuously. “Does Bear Cloud still live?”

“He died two winters ago.”

White Buffalo seemed pleased. “And Red Hat?”

“Killed on the Bear River by the Shoshoni,” Lost Eyes told him. “But there are other elders. Fool Deer has no liking for me. Kills The Bear and Crow Striker will also decide.”

“No,” White Buffalo said. “I will decide. You have saved my life. It is a debt I will repay, young warrior. But tell me, why are you called Lost Eyes?”

“Because I have received no vision.” He stared into the embers of the fire in the center of the lodge.