Cheyenne Captive (26 page)

Bear’s Eyes’ fingers gripped his throat, and the ugly face smiled as he tightened his grip, slowly choking the life from him. Iron Knife tried to break the hold as he stared into the livid, scarred face but the heavier man was forcing him to his knees. He pulled at the man’s fingers as he gasped for breath and the Pawnee forced him down on his back on the ground.

Iron Knife started to black out. He realized it with a frenzy as he tried to break the choke-hold. He gasped for air and his throat seemed to be on fire as the torn face grinned at his struggles.

His knife! Could he reach his knife?
Somewhere on the ground near his head lay the big blade. Iron Knife fumbled above his head, feeling across the grass for the weapon. The Pawnee seemed blind to anything now but the death grip he locked on Iron Knife’s throat.

Frantically, he felt in the dirt behind his head, gasping for air, knowing his vision was fast fading into blackness. It seemed inevitable that his scalp would hang tonight from the Pawnee’s lodge pole.

He grasped the sharp blade by the handle! But he wasn’t sure he could achieve the effort it took to raise its suddenly heavy weight as he began to drift into unconsciousness. Then as he began to pass out and give up, he saw a small, pale face in his mind and he couldn’t die, he couldn’t leave her!

With superhuman effort, he willed himself back to consciousness and found the strength to raise the knife. His vision cleared in that split second and he saw the other’s eyes widen in surprise as the Pawnee saw the knife for the first time in his mad dog rage.

The blade flashed in the sun as it started downward. The Pawnee tried to loose his hold on Iron Knife’s throat in time to grab the knife but his fingers were locked and his eyes shone in terror as he seemed to realize that fact.

Bear’s Eyes screamed in panic and he turned loose of Iron Knife’s throat but it was already too late. The blade flashed downward burying in the man’s chest to the hilt.

The Pawnee stumbled to his feet, grabbing at the handle of the dagger and he almost looked bewildered by the bright blood pumping out between his fingers. He stood thus only a moment, the blood running through his hands and dripping to the dirt before he gasped and fell, crashing like a great tree that has finally been cut down.

With a shrill cry of victory, Iron Knife touched the man with his bare hand and shouted, “Oh,
Haih!
I am the first to count coup on this enemy!”

Then he retrieved his weapons and ran to help his embattled cousins, counting coup on another Pawnee as he fought his way across the ground.

But the tide of battle was clearly turning. The Pawnee who still could were fleeing the field, chased by victorious Cheyenne. In another minute, it had become a complete route, with the Skidi escaping before the smaller force.

They shouted insults after the fleeing losers and some mounted up to chase them. The rest stopped to take scalps and look to see how their own friends fared.

In stunned relief, Iron Knife looked around and realized though there were a few minor wounds, the Cheyenne had not had a single man killed.

He helped Lance Bearer pull his pin from the ground as they stared after the escaping Pawnee who weren’t even stopping at their camp but were joining their women in running across the plains.

Coyote Man approached Iron Knife. “Our men were frightened and fleeing before the superior force. You two gave them heart to ride back into the fray. Your names will be long remembered and stories told around the campfires of your exploits.”

Iron Knife smiled modestly. “We only did our duty, oh, chief of the Hofnowa.”

Clouds Above rode up and spat on the dead body of the Skidi chief and looked at Iron Knife proudly. “You have avenged my brother,” he said. “I have long awaited this day. Now let us ride into the Pawnee camp and reclaim what those worthless dogs have stolen from our people.”

The Pawnee still fled across the prairie. The war party did not pursue them but rode into the camp and looted it as victors have always done. From the tepee where he had taken the chestnut mare, Iron Knife found his father’s war bonnet very carefully put away in a parfleche box. He recognized it as his father’s immediately because along the band that held the eagle feathers were dragonflies to protect the wearer and on the front-most dragonfly, a tiny bluebonnet flower shone on its back.

His eyes misted as he stroked the feathers, remembering vividly both his parents and all the joy and pain of his youth. Long ago, he had vowed revenge and determined that someday he would reclaim his father’s war bonnet. Now he could hardly believe that after all these years, it belonged to his family again.

They looked throughout the camp for the Sacred Arrows, and not finding them decided the Pawnee had made good their threat to destroy the magic objects.

The Tsistsistas regrouped, and gathering up all the Pawnee horses, they headed back south, driving the great herd before them.

The trip back was so much easier than the trip up now that the battle was over and in spite of a few minor wounds, no Cheyenne had been killed. Iron Knife was joyous, for he had done all he had set out to do in retrieving the war bonnet and slaying his old enemy. Also, he would be a rich man from his share of the captured ponies. The little mare ran freely along next to his big Appaloosa and his heart sang since he had found not only a suitable mount for his woman but also a mate for Spotted Blanket.

When they returned, there would be a triumphant scalp dance and his woman could proudly wear the new coup stripes painted on her arm or across her light hair to boast of her man’s brave deeds.

There did not seem to be any dispute this time over whom the various coups belonged to as he had occasionally seen in the past. If that had happened, a meeting would have been called when they returned to camp. Each man who claimed a disputed coup would have to swear he spoke the truth about his claim while touching a specially painted buffalo skull placed with a rifle and four arrows representing the Sacred Ones. No one would think of lying as he took this oath, for if he did he would surely die.

The war party had found the enemy sooner than expected so they were returning several days before the camp would be expecting their return. It was important to them to make a triumphant entry. For this reason, when they had ridden close enough to their Cheyenne camp to hear the dogs barking on the other side of the ridge, they camped for the night and made ready to march through the camp in a victory parade at dawn.

They had won the right to paint the war robes, so they mixed animal blood with soot until they had a black paint to draw the designs on the buffalo robe each man carried. According to custom, a man who already owned a war robe received the honor of sewing the wolfskin trim around the edges for decoration.

With burnt willow branches, they made charcoal to paint their faces black to advertise that they had won a great victory without losing a single man in battle.

At dawn, they put on their finest battle gear and made ready to surprise the people. First the war party leaders rode in to the just-awakening camp, followed by those who carried the scalps at the end of poles. Those who had shown unusual bravery rode behind them, ahead of the regular lines of warriors. Now they all galloped in, yelling and shouting and beating their drums so the people would come out to meet them. The village gathered to greet the returning men, everyone waving and shouting happily.

His heart thrilled with the jubilant welcome as he rode in with his face blackened, and women ran out to meet him, trilling victory songs. But his eyes looked only for one person, and when he found her he saw no one else in the noisy confusion of the crowd.

It was all he could do to keep from throwing himself from his horse and scooping her up in his arms when he saw her anxious face. But that was not fitting for a great warrior, so he fought the urge and sat his horse straight and proud. He rode around the victory circle of the tepees.

When he dismounted, his eyes sought hers. While he did not take her in his arms, he could think of nothing else but how he would love her that night to make up to them both for all the long, lonely nights they had been apart.

Gray Dove watched the Cheyenne war party ride out of camp to raid the Pawnee. Some of the Arapaho braves had joined them, but, as was not unusual, her father and two older brothers were too drunk to even stand up. She felt a surge of contempt for the Arapaho men in general. Occasionally, a Cheyenne brave married an Arapaho girl but never the other way around.
And no wonder, she sighed. How could an Arapaho man compete with the spectacle of a Cheyenne Fox or Bowstring Soldier or especially with a Dog Soldier in full battle gear?

She paused in scraping the pegged-down buffalo hide to watch Iron Knife join his cousins and ride out in a whirl of dust. Her heart leaped as always at the sight of his fine, muscular body, almost naked now except for a brief loincloth and moccasins and the buffalo robe he carried. His brass earring and the bone whistle shone in the dawn’s light and on his head he wore the “straight up” chaplet of raven feathers that marked the Dog Soldier. He wore nothing else save the yellow and black war paint on his rippling chest and high cheekbones.

Her heart ached with hope as he turned in his saddle to look back. Then she realized he wasn’t looking toward her but at that pale blond bitch he had brought into the camp a few days ago.

Jealousy constricted her throat as she saw the look that passed between the two. She was furious that she hadn’t managed to get rid of the white girl or even give her a good thrashing the night of Two Arrows’ wedding. All these years she had turned down several marriage offers, hoping Iron Knife would bring ponies to her drunken father, and now she knew he never would.

The thought choked off her breath and she paused with the elk horn scraper in her hand and stared at his departing back.

“Kill many Pawnee so that we may have a scalp dance when you return!” she called after him. She knew that they were going after Bear’s Eyes and she gritted her teeth in fury, wishing she were a man so she might go with them as her father should be doing to avenge her mother. She had never told anyone in this camp all that had happened that day of her mother’s death; she had not even mentioned Bear’s Eyes’ name. But now, she remembered with a special hate and hoped the war party brought back prisoners so she could enjoy torturing them. It wasn’t likely, though. The Cheyenne seldom took men prisoners and when they did they killed them without enjoying the primitive pleasures of torture. As for the women, they often took them and children and made them members of the tribe.

She stared after the departing war party and Iron Knife on his unusual stallion. It rolled its china eyes at her as it looked back and she thought again that she had never seen a horse colored this way with a white rump and big red dots across it. The horse alone was enough to make him the target of any enemy, for there were few such stallions on the plains and every man would want it. Gray Dove looked after him wistfully long after he had faded into the red sumac along the edge of the woods.

Turning, she saw the white girl moving away with Pony Woman and Pretty Flower Woman. She could hear only bits of the conversation but it was enough to know they obviously liked the white girl and were teaching her the language and talking of the
Meenoistst
, the quilling society that only the most skillful women might join.

She took her anger and frustration out on the pegged-down hide, rubbing in a mixture of brains, fat, and soapwort to soften it. The Indians all traded the tanned hides to the whites for things they wanted or needed.
She didn’t like hard work
, she thought. She would like to live like the rich white woman with people to fetch and carry for them. As she labored over the hide, she thought of other hides that she and her mother had been taking to the fort near the Platte River to trade.

Yes, she knew Bear’s Eyes and his Lance Knife warriors
, she thought grimly. Ten long years ago on a prairie many miles north of here, his raiding party had come on the little group of Arapaho unexpectedly. Even now, she could remember every detail as though it had happened yesterday . . .

She was fourteen years old that year and she walked beside her pretty mother who rode the finest, swiftest pony in the group. Her father’s homely, pregnant second wife rode an old nag that pulled the travois loaded with hides to trade.

“Mother, will we be at the fort soon?” she grumbled. “I’m tired of walking!”

“Oh, .Gray Dove, you are so lazy,” her mother said, laughing. “We are several hours from the fort yet. Here.” She handed over the cradleboard with the plump, brown baby. “See if you can get your little brother to stop crying.”

Reluctantly, she took the cradleboard and looked into the baby’s eyes jealously. When her mother wasn’t looking, she gave him a good shake, making him cry louder. Since he had arrived, no one payed any attention to her anymore and she hungered to be the center of importance. Ahead of her, her slightly older brother raced up and down on his pony, trying to look the part of the warrior, although he had not yet counted his first coup. Her toothless old uncle rode just ahead of them on his tired old pony.

“I wish we had brought Father,” Gray Dove grumbled again and she shook the baby as if trying to soothe him now that he wailed.

“There was no need,” her mother said in Arapaho. “There are no enemies that we know of in this area and your father and big brothers were needed on the hunt.”

Her old uncle cackled with laughter as he called back over his shoulder. “What my sister-in-law really means is that she didn’t want to bring him along; afraid he would trade all the hides for whiskey like he did last time!”

“It is not respectful to speak so of my husband,” her mother said loyally, but Gray Dove knew her uncle spoke the truth. Like too many braves before him, her father had developed such a thirst for the white man’s firewater that he often took all the hides they could tan, all the bead work they could produce, and traded it for whiskey at the fort. In the meantime, his women who had done the work did without the small things other Indian women had.

Sometimes, there was not even enough to eat, for Father and her two big brothers would be snoring away in a drunken stupor while the other men went off to hunt. If it had not been for the charity of the other Arapahos in sharing their kill, sometimes the little family would have gone hungry.

Oh, the brother who rode ahead of her tried but he was not yet a skillful hunter. Her toothless old uncle tried, too, but his hands shook now when he held a lance and he couldn’t pull a bow with much power in his old age.

The Pawnee war party came out of the trees to the left as Gray Dove straggled far behind. Gray Dove saw the roached-haired devils first and she held the cradleboard and looked around for refuge. Only her mother rode a horse fast enough to outrun the raiders and Gray Dove knew instinctively that she wouldn’t try. Her mother would never ride off and leave the others to their fate.

The Pawnee yelped triumphantly as they saw the little group and galloped toward them.

“Save the baby!” her mother screamed and she jumped off her horse and started trying to undo the travois of Second Wife’s horse so she could ride away unencumbered.

Bile boiled up in Gray Dove’s mouth. She had never been so terrified as she clasped the cradleboard and started running for the Platte. If she could make it to the cottonwoods along the stream, she might hide there in safety since she had straggled so far behind, she wasn’t sure the war party had seen her.

She faltered as she ran, looking back over her shoulder. Her mother still fumbled with the travois, no doubt hoping they could all gallop away but the red-painted Skidi were too close. Her brother charged the enemy, trying to buy time for the women. His death chant rang in her ears as a lance took him from his horse and the horse stumbled and fell, too. She stared in frozen shock as the fierce braves raced to count coupon the dying boy.

Second Wife screamed, “Go on! You still have time to escape! Leave me behind!”

But Gray Dove’s mother acted as if she didn’t hear her and kept trying to unhook the horse. The smell of blood and sweat permeated the air and the shrieks of the warriors rang in her ears as Gray Dove ran. Gasping with fright, she glanced over her shoulder as she stumbled and saw her old uncle bring down a Lance Knife soldier with a well-placed arrow. Then a thrown lance caught his horse in the side and it screamed and stumbled. The old man was thrown clear and he was on his feet, bravely shooting arrows at the charging horsemen. One of them threw a tomahawk.

She remembered now that the sun reflected off its blade a split second before it caught the old man in the throat.

Dropping his bow, he pulled with dying fingers at the hatchet embedded in his neck as red blood gushed out over his hands. She didn’t think he was yet dead when the whooping savages counted coup and scalped him.

Her heart pounded as she ran for the river and the baby cried anew. He was slowing her down with his weight and his noise would give away her hiding place in the grass.

Save the baby!
She hesitated only a moment with the crying child in her arms. Alone, she might make it to the river and swim away or hide in the tall grass. She could not save both herself and the crying boy. She dropped the cradleboard and ran on. Behind her she could hear the women shrieking as the warriors surrounded them and the screaming of her little brother abandoned on the prairie. She ran for the river. Her mother had been stupid to try to save the others, she gasped as she ran, knowing if the choice had been hers, she would have ridden away on the swift horse.

Until this moment, she hadn’t realized how important her own life was to her. It wasn’t so far to the water now and she began to think she might make it as her lungs strained for air. And then she heard the hooves thundering up behind her. She didn’t make it to the river. A brave with wolfish yellow teeth swooped down and picked her up, throwing her across his pony as he turned to ride back to the group.

Another brave with unusually large ears walked over to pick up the cradleboard and bring it back. The women’s clothes were shredded and they clutched them around their breasts as the wolfish one threw Gray Dove unceremoniously down next to her father’s wives.

Her mother tried to fight the big-eared one for the baby, but he shoved her down and took the wailing infant from its cradleboard, holding it upside down by its tiny heels at arm’s length.

The chief rode up and dismounted. He was incredibly scarred and ugly. His face twisted in a livid forever grin and his left eyelid drooped almost closed. Whatever had grabbed him had done everything but scalp him alive.
He was lucky
at
that
, Gray Dove thought as she watched him. A man scalped is a dead man to the Pawnee and they would treat him as such even if he lived.

“Now we shall have some sport!” said the leader in Pawnee and he turned hungry eyes toward Gray Dove’s pretty mother.

“Shall we kill them all?” the wolfish one asked. “Bear’s Eyes, as leader, you decide!”

“Let us enjoy the pretty one a little first,” Bear’s Eyes answered.

Gray Dove struggled to keep her face impassive so they would not know she spoke a little Pawnee that she had learned from the traders at the fort.

Her baby brother wailed loudly as the big-eared one dangled him by his feet. Her mother fought like a female bear to protect her cub while Bear’s Eyes held her and laughed at her struggles.

Now he ordered, “Someone silence that worthless pup, his crying annoys me! You, Hawk Wing, you hold him, you silence him!”

Gray Dove was too numb to think or feel, but she saw Second Wife staring about as if she could not believe what was happening and her own mother screamed and fought to reach the baby.

The big-eared one called Hawk Wing raised the baby by his tiny heels and slammed him against the rocky outcrop at his feet. He slammed him against the ground three times before the child stopped crying. Then he tossed the small body carelessly to one side as her mother sobbed and struggled to break Bear’s Eyes’ grip.

The leader turned toward homely, pregnant Second Wife. “We have no use for that pig!” he snarled. “Kill her!”

Gray Dove started to scream a warning, for she knew by the woman’s face that she didn’t understand. But Gray Dove didn’t want to give away the fact that she understood Pawnee. The wolfish one slit Second Wife’s throat and took her scalp before she died.

They tossed Gray Dove to one side and she watched in terror as the men took turns raping her mother, grunting in satisfaction as they used her. Gray Dove listened to their conversation, understanding they were on a raid to hit the Hevataniu band of Cheyenne. By traveling fast and light, they expected to mount a surprise attack to destroy their enemy. By their talk, she knew they were Kitsita, Knife Lance soldiers, one of the cruelest and most fierce of the Skidi Pawnee warrior groups.

The war party spent several hours enjoying her pretty mother’s body and when they tired of mounting her, they staked her out helpless and tortured her with knives and coals from the fire they built to cook their food. The one called Hawk Wing laughed in delight each time he touched her with a burning stick and the woman screamed.

Gray Dove was too terrified to think or feel, knowing that unless she thought of something, she was next when they tired of her mother.

The man put a burning stick in Gray Dove’s hand and urged her to poke her mother’s belly. She hesitated, fighting to get away but he dragged her back. She wanted to live! She would do anything to live! She would never forget the way her mother looked at her when she touched her with the burning stick.

Forgive me, Mother,
she prayed silently.
I just want to live! I will do anything they tell me if they will just let me live!

Someday, she knew, the great God, Heammawihio, would punish her for this unspeakable crime of helping torture her own mother to death with fire. But now, she could think only of her own terror and how badly she wanted to live!