Ghost Dance (29 page)

With a startled cry Chance's hand flung up to catch Drum's hatchet arm and the two men grappled fiercely for an instant in the darkness.

"Medicine Gun!" said Drum.

"Goddam," said Chance, "where in hell have you been?"

Drum dropped his hatchet arm and Chance pulled his sleeves down again over his wrists.

"Many soldiers," said Drum, by way of explanation.

Nearby Chance saw six braves, painted and geared for war. He was covered by their rifles, but they were lowering them one by one.

"It is Medicine Gun," whispered one of them to the others.

Drum saw Old Bear and went to him. "We have come to join you, my Chief," he said.

"I welcome Drum," said Old Bear, "the son of Kills-His-Horse."

Chance saw that erect in the hair of Drum was a single feather, white with a black tip, the feather of an eagle.

"We will kill the white people in the lodge of dirt," said Drum to Old Bear, "and then we will bring the big birds with us to your camp."

Out of the corner of his eye Chance saw Sam Carter coming around the corner of the soddy with his shotgun.

At the same time he was aware of Drum's braves fanning out and lifting their weapons.

Carter would have six bullets in his chest before he could find a target, or jerk a trigger.

Chance waved his arm cheerily to Carter. "Just some of the boys," he said. "Merry Christmas!"

"Just some of the boys, eh?" said Carter, not altogether convinced. Chance wondered if he thought he was just going to wave his shotgun and watch the Indians run.

"That's it," said Chance. "No trouble. Just some of the boys."

Carter looked at the war paint.

Speaking in Sioux, Drum addressed Old Bear. "Let us kill this man," he said.

Old Bear then spoke loudly, and to Chance's astonishment, he spoke in English. "This man is my friend," he said.

Drum scowled, and the other braves once more lowered their weapons.

"Well," said Carter skeptically, "Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas," said Old Bear, slowly, speaking each syllable.

"Let us kill him," urged Drum, in Sioux.

"Drum," said Chance, speaking in Sioux, "on this night the Son of Wakan-Tonka is born. On this night, of all nights, it is bad medicine to take the warpath."

Drum now scowled at Chance but Drum's braves grunted in agreement, almost enthusiastic agreement.

Chance gathered there had been some theological discord on this point earlier in the evening.

"Then," said Drum to Chance, in Sioux, "as the Son of Wakan-Tonka has asked, I will love this man tonight–but tomorrow I will kill him."

"No," said Old Bear, "tomorrow we ride to Pine Ridge. There will be no war."

"I will fight," said Drum.

"Well," called Carter, backing away, "Good-night."

"Good-night," called Chance pleasantly, waving.

"Merry Christmas," said Carter, disappearing around the corner of the soddy.

"Merry Christmas," called Chance.

"Merry Christmas," said Old Bear.

And then the old Indian, sitting on his pony, lifted his arms and looked up at the stars. In Sioux he said, "Wakan-Tonka, I am glad for You that on this night Your Son is born. It makes my heart happy that on this night a Son is born to You." And then he cried out to the stars, in English, "Merry Christmas, Son of Wakan-Tonka!"

Yes, Chance thought to himself, Merry Christmas, Son of Wakan-Tonka, on this night You are born, and on this night You begin Your journey to Calvary. Somewhere on this night a dark tree is growing and nails are being forged.

"We will make a feast," said Old Bear.

"Yes," said Chance, smiling up at the old Indian, "we will make a feast."

The braves began to gather the birds, whose frightened clucks and squawks startled the December air. The noises ended quickly, one by one.

Old Bear, Chance and Drum walked back to bring the horses of the war party to the soddy. They were tied in a clump of trees about two hundred yards downwind from the soddy. It had been an unnecessary precaution. The Carters, for some reason, had no dog.

In the trees Chance stopped abruptly, straining his eyes into the darkness. He bent forward, approaching a slumped object among the horses. In the trees, almost under the hoofs of the horses, kneeling barefoot in the brush, slumped over, her hands tied behind her back and her neck roped to a sapling, was a woman.

Chance crouched beside the figure, taking her face in his hands, lifting it to his own.

"Good God," he whispered. "Lucia–Lucia!"

She opened her eyes, which were numb with shock and cold.

"No," she said. "No, please don't."

Chance shook her.

The eyes, glazed, stared at his face. "I never hurt you," she said. "Please don't."

Chance slapped her twice, hard, trying to jar life and recognition into her.

"I will," she said weakly. "I will."

"Lucia!" he yelled. "Lucia!"

She looked at him, slowly, as if she couldn't see him or understand him.

Then she said, "Edward?"

"Yes," wept Chance, "yes!"

"I can't feel my feet," she said.

Angrily Chance whipped out his knife and with it slashed apart the rope knotted about her neck, then carefully, prying with the tip of the blade, cut the rawhide thongs, one by one, that had sunk in even with her flesh. Chance picked the girl up in his arms and carried her from the trees, heading for the Carter soddy.

Drum barred his path.

"Get out of my way," said Chance.

For no reason he clearly understood Drum stepped to the side, and Chance carried Lucia, who had fallen unconscious, to the homesteader's soddy.

The kerosene lamp still burned in the window, like a star on the prairie.

Chance kicked at the door.

The girl stirred in his arms. "Edward?" she asked.

"Yes," said Chance, "it is." He kissed her on the forehead. "Merry Christmas," he whispered softly, almost crying.

"I'm so cold," she said. And then she said, "I love you."

"I love you," said Chance. "I love you."

The girl closed her eyes, falling asleep against his shoulder.

Sam Carter opened the door and Chance pressed past him, carrying Lucia gently into the soddy.

 

 

 

 

Chapter Sixteen

 

The Indian troubles were over.

Chance was glad.

On a butte at the edge of the Bad Lands, Chance, with Running Horse, watched two bands of Sioux begin the long, cold journey to the Pine Ridge Agency.

It was two days after Christmas.

Last night, Big Foot's band of Minneconjou Sioux had camped with Old Bear in the Bad Lands on their way to Pine Ridge. The Minneconjou had come all the way from Cherry Creek, which lay in the Cheyenne River country.

A few days before, several companies of soldiers had suddenly appeared at Big Foot's reservation, tenting in loose bivouac rather than the orderly formation of a more permanent camp. Apparently these men had meant business and whatever business they had in mind they did not expect to last very long. Big Foot, fearing his people were to be massacred, had led his Minneconjou by night from the reservation, while their campfires still burned, eluding the troops and making his way to the temporary safety of the open prairie, but it was a winter prairie and in time, not much time, with no food and almost no shelter, his band would starve or die of exposure.

Big Foot, who himself was dying of pneumonia, had decided to surrender at Pine Ridge, taking his chances with the soldiers there.

Last night he had ridden into the Bad Lands, tied upright on his horse, a shape in blankets, eyes glazed with fever, every breath like a knife twisting in his lungs, and had found Old Bear and with him had smoked and held council.

This morning, as Big Foot's band left the Bad Lands, Old Bear's Hunkpapa silently joined their ranks.

Chance had decided to ride with the Hunkpapa as far as Wounded Knee Creek on the way to Pine Ridge. There, he would cut southwest across country to Chadron, Nebraska. After buying supplies at Chadron, he planned to cross overland to California. If Grawson followed him, he would turn to meet him, but he would not deliberately seek him out. Perhaps, with the Indian troubles and the confusions of the past days, Grawson had lost the trail, and would never recover it. If this were true, Chance would let it go at that. If it were not true, at some point he would confront Grawson.

The ride to California would be long, and hard, lasting several weeks. Chance was glad to have the company of Running Horse and Old Bear for a portion of the journey. Also he anticipated with regret the moment in which he must say good-bye to these men, Old Bear, who was his friend, and Running Horse, who was his brother.

Wounded Knee seemed to Chance a good place to break away from the march. The Indians would camp there, so he could spend the night with them, and Wounded Knee was about fifteen or sixteen miles northeast of the Pine Ridge Reservation, and accordingly was about as close to civilization, to white men with their law and their curiosity and questions, as Chance cared in these days to come.

The Indians, leaving the Bad Lands, passed within a few hundred yards of the Carter soddy, and Sam Carter, in front of the soddy, still in his red wool Christmas shirt, with his family behind him, watched the long, slow, quiet lines of Sioux, both Minneconjou and Hunkpapa, begin their journey to the Pine Ridge Agency, a journey which for many of them would be their last, a journey which in its way was also to be fateful for the Carters.

Hunched in their blankets, mounted on their scraggy ponies, the ribs of which were prominent jutting against the brush of their winter coats, the Sioux rode.

Some of the warriors clutched their rusty firearms beneath their blankets, to keep the guns warm and prevent their hands from sticking to the cold metal. Others held the rifles by the stocks, letting the barrels ride the ponies' backs. Many of the Sioux, particularly the women were on foot. Some of the squaws dragged travois behind them, leaning against the traces like beasts of burden. The Indian children most of whom had known nothing of the old life and were bewildered by the cold and the loss of rations, were quiet, their eyes dull with the depression of hunger, their lips pressed against the ragged swiftness of the wind, the sharpness of the December cold.

Chance, on horseback, Running Horse near him, watched the loose grim lines of Sioux pass from the cruel shelter of the Bad Lands to the shelterless cruelty of the prairie.

These, he thought, are the mighty Sioux, who once ruled a country bigger than Texas. Now they are old men, like Old Bear or Big Foot, who was dying; or they were rebellious braves, like Drum, who scowled as he rode, men whose blood and whose culture had prepared them to take a place in a world that no longer existed; or exhausted women, or frightened, hungry children.

Chance and Running Horse urged their horses down the steep, white side of the butte.

When Chance and Running Horse reached the lines of Sioux, Chance cut north to make one last visit to the Carter soddy, telling Running Horse that he would join the march later.

For the last two days Chance had spent most of his time at the soddy, treating Lucia's frostbite, gradually helping her regain her strength, mostly just seeing her. Mrs. Carter's hot broths and fresh hot bread had burned some warmth and substance back into Lucia. The frostbite had not been as serious as Chance had feared and the first night, soaking her feet in cold water, he had managed to restore circulation and feeling. He had not massaged the frozen areas to avoid bruising the tissues, with the result of perhaps predisposing the extremities to gangrene. He had, however, near the frozen areas, rubbed with a dry, coarse towel, working toward but avoiding the frozen parts. At last he could gently move the joints, and then, though it might have seemed cruel, he forced Lucia herself to move about as she could. Perhaps even beyond the effective simplicities of his treatment, matters almost of physiology alone, Chance was most satisfied to feel that his presence, his own presence, had helped to revive the girl from the horror of her capture, helped to thaw at last from her soul the most terrible ice of all, the hidden, invisible ice of numbness and shock, ice that formed a last brittle, frozen barrier behind which she, for days a delicate, brutalized creature on the tether of Indian warriors, had sheltered her sanity.

Now as this girl sat across from him, propped up in the Carters' bed, wrapped in blankets, she was smiling.

Chance wondered how it was that this girl could be happy.

Mrs. Carter had had a knowing look about the house the last two days, and Sam Carter, Chance thought, had whistled a great deal, and both of them had found numerous chores to attend to outside the soddy. More than once both Carter boys, one by each ear, had been escorted from the soddy by one parent or the other.

Had Chance been of a more suspicious nature he might have suspected that he was the object of a benevolent conspiracy, but as it was, trained in medicine and tending on the whole to think well of his fellow man, he did not quite put all of two and two together. He was, however, vaguely grateful that he had had as much time to spend with Lucia alone as he had.

"I'm riding out with Running Horse," said Chance to Lucia. "I'm going to California."

"I'll like California," said Lucia.

Chance stared down at the dirt floor of the soddy, past the colored patchwork quilt on the bed.

Lucia began to kick under the covers and blankets, and finally kicked them off, sitting on the bed, quickly tucking her nightgown, from Mrs. Carter, about her ankles. She wiggled her feet and toes.

Chance could see there would be rope scars where her ankles had been bound. The same sort of mark would be carried on her wrists.

"Two days ago," said Lucia, "I couldn't even do that."

"That's right," said Chance.

"You might check the joints or something," suggested Lucia.

"They're all right," said Chance, "or you couldn't move like that."

"Oh," said Lucia.