Scalpdancers (34 page)

Sparrow—

Wolf Lance hesitated, wondering if he should approach. His restlessness made him bold. The brave made as much noise as possible so as not to startle the young woman as he drew abreast of her.

“Cold Maker is near,” she said. The blanket covered her head like a cowl. Indeed the air had a bite to it, hinting of things to come.

“Then there will be hard times,” Wolf Lance said. “Men and horses leave tracks in the snow—tracks that might lead White Buffalo to us. The cave will not be so well hidden once the water begins to freeze on the cliff above.”

Sparrow could tell he was working up to something. Better that he should speak his mind. They were friends. He had always stood by Lone Walker and had argued against his friend's expulsion from the village.

“What are you saying?” she asked. “Speak clear. I will listen with the ears of a friend.”

“We cannot remain here much longer, hiding, waiting for one who may never …” Wolf Lance faltered as Sparrow gave him a sharp look. “Return,” he finished.

“Lone Walker is not dead,” Sparrow flatly stated.

“You are no shaman. How can you know?”

“Because my heart is full of love.”

Wolf Lance sighed, aware she had bested him with an insurmountable argument, one women always seemed to use in the face of grim reality. Lone Walker was alive because Sparrow, in love, would not permit otherwise.

“Still, we must leave before the Hard-Faced Moon comes. You and the old woman can remain. Two can hide easier than thirty.” Wolf Lance studied the dark ridges and spied what had earlier caught Sparrow's attention, the orange-red glare of the distant camp fire nestled among the trees just below the skyline. At first his own heart leapt excitedly at the sight; then he too realized what Sparrow had already concluded. Lone Walker would have ridden in by the light of the moon. This was a Shoshoni camp fire.

“Tell the others,” Sparrow said. “The children must remain in the cave.”

“All of us, until our enemies have left the valley,” Wolf Lance said. “We hide like whipped dogs. We do not even number enough to raid the village of Elkhorn Creek and free the women and children White Buffalo has captured.”

Sparrow heard the pain in his voice. Wolf Lance was a brave man. Had he been present when the Shoshoni attacked the village, he probably would have died rather than flee. Now he hid from the very enemy who had destroyed his village, and each day he died a little because of it.

“I shall stay with Singing Woman. And when Lone Walker returns, we will find you,” Sparrow told him.

Wolf Lance nodded. He was loath to abandon the young woman. Maybe they could all abide just a little longer. He might yet convince Sparrow to join them.

Suddenly the sky blazed with color. An unearthly green bathed the valley as a molten orb trailing fire streaked across the night sky. Every tree, every detail of the ridge behind them, shone with stark clarity. The waterfall, once a shimmering veil of quicksilver, for a few brief seconds radiated incandescent emerald light, transformed by a meteorite that arced across the sky.

It was gone.

Sparrow and Wolf Lance stared as darkness returned to the night sky. Momentarily blinded, they tried to focus on the moon and the stars and the valley around them and each other's features. Neither spoke. Words could not capture what each felt. One thing was certain. Sparrow recognized a warning when she saw it. As did Wolf Lance.

As did White Buffalo—for it was his camp fire on the ridge above the narrow valley. He stood transfixed as the meteorite ripped across the heavens. A dozen braves gathered round, rolled out their blankets, and uttered prayers to the All-Father, in whose presence they deemed to be.

Drum, the Shoshoni Dog Soldier, waited in White Buffalo's shadow and watched the shaman's features reflect the macabre green glow. Drum was not as unsettled as the others; he was too interested in White Buffalo's reaction to the strange and awesome event.

“Surely the Great One rides forth on his stallion of fire,” Drum said, looking up at the shaman. Drum was neither strong nor quick, but he possessed a shrewd mind and had a keen eye for the future. He could envision a time when the Shoshoni of Elkhorn Creek swelled in number and could move out to the plains and drive their enemies from the land of the buffalo. With the shaman's magic they could not fail.

As the Shoshoni prospered, so would Drum rise in stature. Wealth, many fine horses, and comely wives would be his. Drum was the shaman's right arm and the Shoshoni braves feared him as they did Stone Bear, who stood at White Buffalo's left.

“Tell me what this means, shaman?” Drum said in a humble voice. He had never witnessed such a phenomenon. Even brash, outspoken Stone Bear stood in awe, leaning on his trade gun and waiting, ready for the worst. He searched the skies for another threat.

“A warning,” White Buffalo muttered. “He's closer than I thought. But why does he not come?” The shaman hurried to the camp fire and gathered his rifle, powder horn, and shot pouch. He knew what had to be done. White Buffalo only hoped he wasn't too late. He called for his horse. A young Shoshoni brave scampered off to do his bidding.

“Finish the hunt,” the shaman said to the smaller of the two, who had followed him from beneath the spruce.

“And what will you do?”

“I also will hunt,” White Buffalo replied. “But for this prey I need no gun.”

There is something about standing upon the Backbone of the World and being able to see across hundreds of miles of craggy snow-swept mountains that overwhelms even the most painful mourning. So it was with Morgan Penmerry, who in the time of the Starting-to-Freeze Moon, in what surely seemed the October of his life, stood at the edge of a granite precipice on the eastern face of the Continental Divide. He looked across a terrain of such immensity, it dwarfed even the pain that had poisoned his heart. It did not heal the hurt or drive it away, but the chaotic splendor unfolding before him and the lonely high-country trails he had followed with Lone Walker filled him with a sense of the Creator. If Julia had returned into the embrace of such a miracle, then all was not lost, merely transformed. If she had become one with the spirit behind such beauty, then indeed she must be happy.

Lone Walker rose just before daybreak and, noting Morgan's empty bedroll, looked around for the white man. The Indian stirred the ashes of the camp fire and added the dry twisted limbs from a pine tree whose stunted form was one of many scattered along the serrated ridge. Leaving the comfort of the camp fire, the Blackfoot ventured alone a few yards out from beneath the ledge where the two men had camped. His moccasined feet crunched the new-fallen snow that had dusted the pass during the night. He paused, sensing another's presence. He turned and spied Morgan Penmerry standing atop the overhang they had used for shelter. Lone Walker wondered why the white man had risen early—after all, he knew no medicine songs.

The Blackfoot shrugged and scooped up a handful of powdery snow and sprinkled it upon the wind, and as it blew away beyond the edge of the cliff, a fleck of gold appeared on the eastern horizon and Lone Walker began to sing softly a medicine chant, accepting his part in the drama of creation as the world began anew.

Morgan closed his eyes and listened to the soft voice drifting on the wind and he listened to the wind itself. He marveled at how one could hear it coming, like a locomotive barreling across the mountain slopes and roaring down valleys and glacial troughs. He could hear the wind long before he felt it upon his face, before it tugged at his greatcoat with unseen talons. Afterward, he could listen to its wayward course as it rushed away, like a living sentient creature, as alive as the mountain lion they'd spooked the day before or the golden eagle circling overhead. And he began to understand something of Lone Walker's belief in an All-Father and the sacredness of things found in the world around them, from the creatures of earth and air to the very earth itself, the shallow mountain soil underfoot, the granite cliffs, fire, rain, and, yes, the wind.

On a more practical level, being a practical man, Morgan had developed a working knowledge of signing and the Blackfoot language. Being alone with the young mystic warrior for seven weeks had forced Morgan to listen and learn quickly. He understood most of Lone Walker's prayer chant and thought with a moment's wry introspection that Lone Walker did more praying than any two Emile Emersons. The notion brought another pang of memory. If Lone Walker was any indication, it appeared the so-called “heathens” were on mighty personal terms with the Almighty without the help of the white man's religion.

Morgan climbed down from the ledge and busied himself by the fire. He had brought down a mountain goat only the day before, killed the animal with a single shot from his flintlock. Until yesterday Lone Walker had brought in all the game so far during their journey.

Morgan placed a couple of chunks of meat on the makeshift spit and set the cuts over the flames. Lone Walker's shadow fell across him as the Blackfoot returned to the camp fire. The sun had cleared the horizon behind him and hung between two distant peaks. The meat began to sizzle, and blood dripped into the fire.

“How many more days until we reach your people?” Morgan asked. Lone Walker was amused. His “people” were Sparrow and the old medicine woman, the ghost of the mountain. What if they were no longer by the falls? What if the Shoshoni had captured them? Or worse, White Buffalo himself? The shaman's magic might have found them out.

“When the sun is born three more times, we will be close,” Lone Walker said.

Morgan's thoughts were filled with still another question. Once they reached their destination and Lone Walker was reunited with his woman, what then for the former sea captain? He had come along because finding a boat to captain was impossible and remaining at the mission was unthinkable.

Lone Walker read Morgan's expression. The expression on the white man's face was obvious in its pain.

“There was nothing you could do to save her,” Lone Walker said.

“There is always something.”

Morgan had replayed the scene on the hill over and over again in his mind: the flame-engulfed inn and Demetruis Vlad standing his ground, the guns in his hands spitting fire, the flash of powder smoke, the pirate's leering smile before Morgan brought him down, and Julia running toward him.
Protect her, oh, God, protect her!

“I could have done something,” he said.

“It was her time to die. Yours will come. And mine,” said Lone Walker.

Morgan sliced a morsel of meat from the spit and plopped it in his mouth. He wiped the blade of his throwing knife on his shirt sleeve. Maybe the Indian was right. Better not to think. He changed the subject. “And when we reach the cave, what then?”

“I must prepare myself. I must find White Buffalo, my enemy, and kill him.” This path had revealed itself to Lone Walker in a dream. Yet for all he had seen and done, the young Blackfoot dreaded the confrontation. White Buffalo's magic was strong for all the evil manner he had come by it. How could Lone Walker hope to prevail? Or any man, for that matter? Somehow, he resolved, he would do what must be done.

Morgan patted the rifle, the cutlass, and the brace of pistols he'd brought from Astoria. Whatever else happened, he had a debt to repay. Lone Walker, though a stranger, had risked his life to free Morgan from the cross.

“I shall stand with you,” Morgan told him.

“There are many Shoshoni.”

“I shall stand with you.”

“And White Buffalo has stolen a sacred power. His magic is strong. It is said no man can destroy him.”

“I shall stand with you,” Morgan repeated.

“Why?” the Blackfoot asked, still puzzled.

“Because you are my friend.” Morgan had spoken from the heart. The two men stared at each other with the flames between them, a fiery gulf between two cultures. Yet did not the fire warm them both, cook their food and nourish them both?

Lone Walker studied the darkly bearded, grief-worn features of Morgan Penmerry, whose gaze never wavered. The white man had come to Lone Walker in a dream and become part of the warrior's vision quest. They should have been enemies, yet the Above Ones had bound them together and set them upon the same trail.

But Morgan, not the All-Father, had made the choice to be here now, to make Lone Walker's war his war.

“Friend?” said the Blackfoot brave. He stood and clasped the forearm—wrist to wrist—of his companion, the white man, Morgan Penmerry. “Let it be so.”

These days Moon Shadow felt as homeless as the mongrel pups that gathered round her lodge of a morning. Too old and ungainly to flee when the Shoshoni attacked the village, Lone Walker's aunt had remained behind and now endured captivity in the place she had once called home. Rather than killing her outright, the Shoshoni women had given Moon Shadow and many of the other Blackfoot women menial tasks to perform. Theirs was a life of slavery, from which they sought escape. With so many of the Shoshoni men out hunting, and more leaving with every passing of the moon, the time was ripe for the Blackfoot captives to make their bid for freedom.

Blind Weed was the most vocal of the captives. The women looked to her to lead them. She was determined to seek out the surviving Scalpdancers and be reunited with them.

Escape, Moon Shadow thought with a sigh. She did not look forward to riding a horse. Surely she was too old and too fat. One the other hand, once her usefulness had ended and she was no longer able to work the fields or tan hides or make war shields for the warrior societies, she would be driven out to die alone in the mountains. Wasn't it better to be killed than to be enslaved? She knew Blind Weed's answer, but as for her own, she wished she had courage.

Moon Shadow broke pemmican cake into morsels and scattered it among the camp dogs, who made a mad dash to consume every last crumb.