Scalpdancers (36 page)

At a discreet distance two horsemen waited in a grove of aspens, their patience at last rewarded. For three nights White Buffalo had come to the grove, sensing the time was ripe for the captives to attempt their escape. He had never doubted Blind Weed's ability to lead the attempt or to secure the horses. He had seen her in a dream, riding a bald-faced bay mare. She held a rifle in her hand, and there was blood. She was a warrior woman worthy to lead the others. Yes, he had seen her then as he watched her now.

White Buffalo turned to the smaller man at his side.

“Drum, you will take your braves and follow them. See if this warrior woman leads you to others of her kind, perhaps even to my enemy, Lost Eyes.” The shaman instructed in a deep and resonant voice; his eyes were but patches of black beneath his headdress. “Bring me word of his death and great will be your reward.”

Drum, who had only just returned from a fruitless hunt, nodded, hiding his weariness. He longed to remain in the village, but he kept his wishes to himself. Even if they did not find the rest of the Scalpdancers, he and his companions might cut across some buffalo sign as they had once before, in the middle of the summer. Maybe this time the herd would not elude them.

“I will take only Crazy Dog Soldiers with me,” Drum replied. He had no intention of following a bunch of Scalpdancers any longer than was necessary. He'd give them a day, maybe two, and then loose the Crazy Dogs on these thieving women and teach them the high price of Shoshoni horses!

Well to the north of the village, two days by horse over switchback trails and along twisting, scarred valleys, in the heart of Singing Woman Ridge, a white-haired woman stared at the ceiling of her cave chamber and listened to the muffled voices beyond the stone walls of the home that had become her prison. Her exile was self-imposed. Illness had robbed her of energy and nearly of breath. She rolled on her side as a coughing spell shattered the stillness and kept her from much-needed rest. When the moment had passed and the sound of her own voice faded, the coughing was taken up by others; some of the women and children in the larger chamber back in the cave suffered the same sickness. The coughing came in lengthy spasms that rattled deep in the chest and left the person weak. Singing Woman closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on what must be done. It was difficult, not only because of her illness—other thoughts and feelings warred within her heart and mind. Her feverish sleep had become filled with vibrant swirling images that formed to reveal fragments of the past and the future.
I am the wind's daughter. I am the fire's bride
.

She had seen White Buffalo standing strong and invincible upon the plain. He seemed lonely and remote. Darkness swirled about him, and where he tread, the buffalo grass turned yellow and died. There was another … She began to cough again, and her thin frame contracted violently. She closed her eyes and endured the attack. When it had ended, she gasped and lay back; opening her eyes, she looked up at Sparrow's worried face.

“Grandmother, I am here,” Sparrow said in a gentle voice.

“Has the All-Father ridden across the sky again?” Three days had passed since the phenomenon. Singing Woman had interpreted the event as a harbinger of change. But whether for good or ill she would not say.

“Not while I watched. But Shoshoni camp fires no longer shine in the hills.”

The hunting party had left the morning after the meteorite. The Shoshoni had ridden past the waterfall without noting the cave behind the falls where Wolf Lance, Black Fox, and the other men had watched their enemies and yearned to ride forth and do battle with the hunting party. But the Shoshoni outnumbered them, and the Scalpdancers could not afford the losses even if they destroyed the hunting party. So they had remained hidden, their spirits hungry for a revenge that lay beyond their grasp. Remaining in the cave had been the bitterest blow of all. However, Sparrow felt no such remorse. The cave had become a home to her, and Singing Woman, as dear to her as her own mother.

“Then it is safe to leave?” the old woman asked in a cracked voice.

“I will never leave you.” Sparrow took the woman's hand in her own. The leathery flesh felt hot to the touch.

“Foolish one. Who else will bring us the red medicine to ease the suffering of your people? I have shown you the plant,” Singing Woman chided gently.

“Yes, I know it. The plant that grows in the valley of the Stone Bear,” Sparrow recalled. She scolded herself for not thinking of it earlier. Singing Woman seemed to read her thoughts.

“I did not think of it until a little while ago,” the medicine woman said. “But you must be watchful, for the valley lies between us and Elkhorn Creek. Take Wolf Lance with you.”

“No. Better to go alone,” Sparrow told her. “It does not shame me to run to cover.”

Singing Woman understood. It galled her to feel so weak when strength above all else was needed.

“He is near,” she said softly, fearful of raising the girl's hopes too high.

Sparrow grew pale. She forced herself to take several deep breaths. “What … are you saying?”

“I have said it,” Singing Woman rasped.

Sparrow thought of Wolf Lance and his intentions to take the Scalpdancers away from this place, beyond the reach of the Shoshoni. Might she be able to leave with her people—and with the man she loved by her side?

“Lone Walker does not return to you alone. He has changed. He will know what must be done.”

Sparrow felt a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. She hated to hear any more and yet had to press the matter.

“What do you mean?” Singing Woman had begun to nod off to sleep. Sparrow nudged her awake. “Grandmother, hear me.”

“He must kill White Buffalo.”

Sparrow drew away from the fever-wracked old one. “No man can do such a thing.”

“I can help him,” Singing Woman told her, wheezing as she spoke. “There is much I know of the shaman.”

“You are the spirit of the mountain. You are the old woman of the waterfall whose songs no longer frighten us away. What can you know of White Buffalo?”

Singing Woman cackled, her voice a rasping whisper. She closed her eyes. “He is my grandson.”

Singing Woman began to snore. Sparrow was tempted to try and shake the white-haired one awake but at last took pity and allowed the woman her much-needed rest.

She stole from the chamber and entered the larger area of the cave that had become the Scalpdancers' temporary home. She walked over to where Yellow Stalk tried to calm her distraught infant. The baby had recently been taken ill, and worry lines etched the woman's features.

“The old one …” Yellow Stalk began.

“She burns with the same sickness.” Sparrow noted that Yellow Stalk did not look too well herself.

Black Fox was standing close at hand. For the first time in months he had lost some of his arrogance and air of disapproval. He was worried for the life of his son. Nothing else mattered now.

“We need her,” Black Fox grumbled. He'd come as close to pleading as pride would allow. He knew his sister had learned much of the healing arts from Singing Woman.

“I will leave at first light and gather the berries and leaves of the red medicine plant. Your little one will grow strong, and one day he will hunt at his father's side.” Sparrow glanced up at her brother and saw his expression of gratitude.

“Your horse should be fed and taken to water before you leave,” Black Fox stated. He made his way through the torchlit chamber.

Wood smoke collected in a ghostly layer along the vaulted ceiling and lent an eerie quality to the stalactites protruding through the thick gray layer like enormous fangs. Black Fox slipped through the entrance to another part of the cave where the horses were brought for the night.

“He is grateful,” Yellow Stalk said, watching her husband. She lifted Little Elk to her breast, but the infant refused to eat. It mewed halfheartedly, a pitiful sound.

“
Pouokahyo
, do not cry.

The hunter may hear.

And take you home.

Pouokahyo
, do not cry.”

Yellow Stalk sang her lullaby as Sparrow looked on enviously. Would the day ever come when she might cradle her own child to her breast, hold in her arms the son or daughter of Lone Walker?

Sparrow's pulse quickened, remembering the medicine woman's words. “
He is near
”. But there was nothing she could do to bring him any sooner. If nothing else, she had learned patience lo these many months. And there was work to be done.

“
Pouokahyo
, my little elk,

Why do you cry?

What do you fear?”

Morgan Penmerry stared up through the latticework of branches overhead. Here in this timeless garden towering fir, aspen, and ponderosa pine seemed to absorb all unnecessary sound, leaving only the chatter of ground squirrels and the cry of a hawk on the rushing wind. The previous night's storms had passed them by, leaving Lone Walker's campsite unscathed by rain or lightning. They had slept well in this aspen grove near a spring-fed pond. Distant thunder had lulled them to sleep. After the barren battlements of the Continental Divide, it was good to have made camp in a safe place.

Morgan sighed and raised himself up on one elbow and looked at Lone Walker, who was standing in the middle of the buffalo wallow cupping icy water over his naked torso. “I have seen much buffalo sign. It is good,” Lone Walker said.

Morgan rubbed his eyes and glanced at the empty rum bottle near his bedroll. He remembered last night and how the Blackfoot had eagerly informed him that they were indeed near their destination, Singing Woman Ridge. Hell, that was reason enough for Morgan Penmerry to celebrate, so he had finished off his last bottle of rum. The rest of his life in this wilderness promised to be mighty dry, he glumly considered. His stomach growled and he glanced over at the camp fire, where a quartered rabbit was spitted above the flames.

He noticed a rawhide vessel in which Lone Walker had steeped a kind of tea by adding a handful of dark-green leaves and roots to water in a tin pot of Morgan's.

“My throat's as scratchy as the underside of a johnny boat,” Morgan muttered.

The “tea” certainly smelled strong enough to clear the cobwebs from his head. He dipped a clay cup into the brew and tasted it. The liquid left him gasping as it burned a bitter passage down his gullet.

“What's this called?” he gasped.

“Kha-ohk-tsi-me is-tse-hi,”
Lone Walker replied.

“What does it mean?” Morgan asked, taking another mouthful.

“It-passes-from-a-skunk.”

Morgan doubled over and spewed out the contents. “Good Christ!”

Lone Walker threw back his head and laughed. The white man made a funny spectacle indeed. The Blackfoot emerged from the bitter-cold water and shook the moisture from his torso and moved with pantherlike quickness into the grove, where he donned his garments of brushed and beaded buckskin.

“I don't see what's so funny,” Morgan said as the Blackfbot continued to chuckle at his expense.

They were a study in contrasts, the broad-shouldered, bearded Cornishman and his smaller, agile red-skinned companion. The Scalpdancer took the clay cup from Morgan and helped himself to his own concoction. He grimaced and spat out the liquid and emptied the rest of it onto the ground.

“This comes from the Spotted Horses people,” Lone Walker explained in a rueful voice. “They eat their dogs.”

Morgan shook his head. “Well, by my oath, with enough of that in his belly a man would take a bite out of anything.”

He picked up his cutlass and sawed a portion of rabbit meat from the spit. He passed the cutlass to Lone Walker, who seemed continually fascinated with the heavy-bladed weapon. It was Morgan's last link to his former life, one he wasn't quite ready to sever.

Lone Walker hefted the weapon. He had little use for Morgan's other weapons. A flintlock rifle and pistol were deadly enough, but in the time it took to reload them, the Blackfoot could pepper an enemy with arrows from his elkhorn bow. But the long knife, now this was a weapon. He secretly coveted the blade, but he had nothing of equal value to trade for it. Lone Walker stabbed the weapon into the ground near the fire and tore a leg quarter from the spit. He held up the meat and pointed to it.

“Rabbit,” Morgan said in English. “I hope,” he added under his breath.

“Rabbit.” The Blackfoot nodded, repeating the words, adding it to his growing English vocabulary.

They continued to eat as they had throughout the many weeks on the trail. They sat facing each other across the camp fire and trading words back and forth, using sign language to help in the understanding. When they had finished, Lone Walker took one of the bones and drew in the dirt. He made a mark for the cave by the falls and another for the valley of the Elkhorn, then a third mark in between the two and slightly off to the side.

Lone Walker drew an indirect route that allowed for the condition of their horses, a pair of sturdy brown geldings given them by a grateful Reap McCorkle. Lone Walker's gray had served as a pack animal for part of the journey and was reasonably rested. It carried a relatively easy load: extra blankets, some provisions, and powder and shot for Morgan Penmerry.

“We shall reach the cave before the sun wakes again,” the Blackfoot said.

“And what will you do?” Morgan asked.

A sheepish grin lit the Indian's features despite his best efforts to hide his feelings.

“I mean after that,” Morgan said.

Lone Walker turned serious. He brushed his matted hair back from his forehead to reveal the furrow of scar tissue left by White Buffalo's bullet. “I will find the shaman.”

“From the way you make him sound, it might take both of us.” Morgan sheathed his cutlass. The scabbard hung from a broad leather belt draped across his chest.

“I must face him alone.”