Savage Spirit (28 page)

But by damn, she thought, she would learn!

Cloud Eagle sat outside his tepee with his firing piece resting across his knee, shining the barrel. He cast occasional suspicious glances at Running Free, who sat outside in the shadows of his lodge,   fashioning a short bow from a cholla stick.

Running Free nervously glanced Cloud Eagle's way, his hands trembling as he twisted the guilla fiber to string his bow. Laying the bow aside, Running Free fumbled while making an arrow. Using reeds, he split the ends and precariously secured a pointed stone at the tip.

Cloud Eagle continued to watch Running Free, waiting and watching him with a spidery patience. He stiffened when he heard the low, haunting sound of an owl. He watched it as it flew just past Running Free's face, then rose into the air and disappeared into the low-hanging fog of morning.

Cloud Eagle's eyes moved to Running Free again and frowned. Never had he seen one of his warriors look so frightened and nervous and guilty. He was certain now that Running Free was plagued with "ghost sickness." Behavior of this sort always pointed to the guilt of a warrior who had kept something of a dead relative, fearing that the ghost of the departed might come back to claim it. Running Free might even believe that the owl was Red Crow, having returned to haunt him into revealing that it was he who stole his beloved knife.

Having seen enough, his suspicions confirmed, Cloud Eagle laid his rifle aside, rose to his feet, and sauntered over to Running Free, where he stood with his arms folded across his chest. Yet he said nothing. His eyes bored into Running Free, forcing him to look up at him.

"My chief comes early to the lodge of Running Free," the guilt-laden warrior said, inching slowly to his feet. "Why do you look at me with anger in your eyes, and suspicion? What do you think me   guilty of? Allow me at least to profess and prove my innocence.''

"Can you do those things?" Cloud Eagle said, his voice a low rumble. "Can you both profess and prove your innocence to this chief who has seen enough to know that you are suffering from the ghost sickness?"

Running Free's eyes wavered. He brushed his hands nervously down his fringed buckskin attire, then wove his fingers gingerly through his waist-length, coal-black hair. "Ghost sickness?" he stammered, his hands now idle at his sides, clenching and unclenching into fists.

"You saw the owl?" Cloud Eagle said, his eyes squinting even more angrily into Running Free's. "You deny the cause of the owl's presence?"

"The owl?" Running Free stammered. "Yes, I saw the owl. It has its days and nights mixed up. That is the reason for its flight of confusion this morning. Running Free is most certainly not the cause."

"You steal, then you stand there and lie so easily to your chief?" Cloud Eagle said, rage building within him.

Running Free stared at Cloud Eagle for a moment, then lowered his eyes. He became silent. He offered no more lies or explanations, yet not the truth that Cloud Eagle had tried to pull from him.

Cloud Eagle drew in a jagged breath, then brushed past Running Free. He entered the warrior's lodge. Running Free did not yet have a wife. His tepee was cold and dark. There was no fire in the fire pit, only a glow from dying embers.

The light seeping in through the smoke hole at   the top of the tepee was enough for Cloud Eagle to see while he searched Running Free's belongings for the knife.

Running Free came into the lodge. His breathing was harsh as he watched his dwelling being torn apart. His eyes shifted to a thick layer of grass just past his roll of blankets. He shuddered visibly with fear when Cloud Eagle stepped on the grass, his bare foot feeling the distinct outline of the knife against its sole.

Running Free turned to run away, but Cloud Eagle's voice, firm with a command, stopped him.

"You stay," Cloud Eagle said, then bent over and brushed the grass aside and took the knife from beneath it.

"That is Running Free's knife," the young warrior said, adding lie upon lie. "It is identical to Red Crow's because we traded at the same time for them, from the same traveler." He took a brave, awkward step toward Cloud Eagle. "Give it to me."

Keenly disappointed in Running Free, not only over the theft, but because of his ability to lie so easily, Cloud Eagle grabbed him by his hair with one hand, while thrusting the point of the knife against the flesh of his throat.

"You fear Red Crow's spirit?" Cloud Eagle hissed. "You best fear your chief who has caught you in lies and thievery!"

"Do . . . not . . . kill me," Running Free pleaded, his eyes wild.

"Now you even beg for your life?" Cloud Eagle said, stepping away from Running Free. "You do not deserve to be called Apache."

Running Free placed his hand to his throat,   where he felt a trickle of blood oozing from the wound that Cloud Eagle had made with the knife. He slowly backed away from Cloud Eagle, fear locked in his expression.

"You have no more to fear from me," Cloud Eagle said, stroking Red Crow's knife as though it were his friend. "But you still have much to fear from Red Crow's spirit. As you know, since he was buried without his war knife, he is not yet able to begin his long journey to the hereafter."

"This I know," Running Free said, swallowing hard.

"Then you will see that his journey begins today," Cloud Eagle said. He slapped the knife into Red Crow's unwilling hand.

"What will you have me do?" Running Free gulped, the knife heavy in his hand.

"You will be punished for what you have done," Cloud Eagle said, folding his arms across his chest. "You will go to the burial cave. Without assistance, one by one, you will remove the boulders until the bodies are revealed to you. You will go into the cave. You will place the knife with Red Crow."

The Apache experienced great horror in the presence of a corpse after it has been buried. Running Free stiffened and tossed the knife to the floor. "No," he cried. "Kill me. That will be my punishment. I cannot do this other thing that you command."

"Killing would be too easy," Cloud Eagle said, a slow smile forming on his lips. "No. You must do as I have commanded. You have no choice. You as well as I know there is no other way. Even if I killed you, you would still be plagued with ghost sickness. Your soul would never rest. You would   not be allowed to travel the road to the hereafter while such guilt was your companion."

Cloud Eagle stooped over and picked the knife up again. He held it out for Running Free. "Take it and do as you must with it," he said. "Then move onward, away from my stronghold. Never return. In your chief's eyes, you have lost the privilege of living among your Apache brethren."

"You banish Running Free as you banished Ten Bears and his sister?" Running Free said, his voice drawn. "How many more Apache will you send from your village?"

"As many as is required to cleanse our stronghold of those who are not fit to live among us," Cloud Eagle said firmly. He raised a hand and motioned toward the entrance flap. "Go. Red Crow awaits the return of his war knife."

Running Free cowered for a moment beneath Cloud Eagle's steely stare, then turned and fled from the lodge.

Cloud Eagle looked slowly around him. No one would want to possess anything that had even remotely touched Running Free's life. Cloud Eagle saw no choice but to destroy the lodge. That would erase from all of his people's lives even the slightest memory of such a man as Running Free.

Cloud Eagle left and went to the large outdoor communal fire. Bending, he withdrew a log that was only half burned, the fire still eating away at one end.

Determinedly, and with people staring at him with wonder, Cloud Eagle took the flaming log and tossed it into Running Free's tepee.

Soon flames engulfed it, roaring and sending spits of black soot into the sky.   Alicia heard the commotion outside. She soon discovered the smell of fire and could hear the crackling of flames. Rushing outside, she gasped when she saw the lodge totally engulfed in flames. She looked over at Cloud Eagle. Never had she seen him look so fierce, so filled with loathing.

Then she had to guess whose lodge was burning, and how it had started.

She ran to Cloud Eagle and clung to his arm. "Why did you see the need to set his lodge on fire?" she asked. She looked into the distance and got a glimpse of Running Free as he walked away toward the canyon.

"Now I am totally free of Running Free," Cloud Eagle said. He gazed down at Alicia. "As I suspected, he was the thief. He takes the war knife even now to return it to its rightful owner."

"He is going to roll the boulders away and place the knife with the corpse?"

"That is the only way."

"But Cloud Eagle, shouldn't you go with him, to see that it is actually done?"

"It will be done," Cloud Eagle said. "Running Free now fears death more than life while the knife is in his possession."

Cloud Eagle took Alicia's hand and walked her back to his lodge. "My heart is weary," he said thickly. "Food will be brought to you soon. But my body does not need the nourishment from food. It is my spirit that needs to be fed. I must go and be alone, to commune with the Great Spirit. I will send a warrior to stand watch over you while I am gone. You are forever in my protection,
Ish-kay-nay
. Nothing will ever harm you again."

Alicia wanted to go with him. But this time she knew that it would not be proper to ask him to   allow it. She understood his need to pray. Privacy was needed for such meditations. She did not feel that she should interfere.

She crept into his arms and hugged him. He led her inside the tepee, embraced her again, then left.

She had only gotten comfortable beside the fire when a tray of food was brought to her. She thanked the lovely Apache woman.

After the woman left, Alicia eyed the different variety of foodstuffs, but did not have the appetite just then to eat. Without Gray or Cloud Eagle there, she felt too alone. She looked guardedly toward the closed entrance flap when a figure outside shadowed it.

Then she sighed. This was her assigned guard.

She fingered the food, sorting out strips of venison to nibble on. Yet she still could not relax. Something seemed to be nagging at her consciousness.

"A warning?" she whispered. "But what about?"

She leaned back, her heart pounding, but attributed her uneasiness to all that had happened, making her wary of what might still happen. She didn't feel as though she could let her guard down.

Not yet, anyhow.

She wondered if she ever could while living the life of a white Apache.

It seemed as though someone or something was always there to complicate their lives.  

Cloud Eagle had sought his usual place for meditation, on a small hill that was surrounded with the whispering and sighing of cottonwood trees.

Still lost in prayer and meditations, he turned his eyes to the turquoise heavens. As the birds sang in the treetops, and while small animals played among the branches of the trees behind him, Cloud Eagle poured forth his remorse to his Great Spirit and asked that his burden be lightened. He offered a prayer to the sun, the source of all fire and light.

He closed his eyes and bowed his head for a moment, then opened his eyes, ready to return home. His eyes swept over his stronghold below him in the distance. He had only one regret that nagged at him. He wished now that he had brought Alicia with him so that she could have released her agony to the wind, the sky, and the mountains.   Yet he understood that she had her own god to go to in time of sorrow, and he expected that she was even at this moment reaching out to this god in her moment of privacy. When he returned to her, they both could put the bitter past behind them and begin their future with no regrets or sorrows. The future was theirs for the taking.

Suddenly Cloud Eagle stiffened. He was aware that everything had gone silent around him.

And then he heard a sound that made his heart falter in its beatsthe sound of a twig breaking behind him and the snorting of a horse not far from where he rested on his haunches.

He had not brought his horse.

That had to mean that . . .

Before he could react to the danger he had sensed, a rope fell over his head and tightened around his upper arms, rendering him helpless.

Ten Bears yanked on the rope and caused Cloud Eagle to fall clumsily to the ground, on his side.

Cloud Eagle glared up at Ten Bears. "You would do this to your chief?" he snarled.

A soldier suddenly appeared. He tied Cloud Eagle's hands behind his back.

"The moment you banished me from your village, you were no longer my chief," Ten Bears said. He yanked on the rope, causing it to eat into Cloud Eagle's flesh. "You disgraced me before my people. I disgrace
you
now."

"You disgrace yourself over and over again by your careless deeds and actions," Cloud Eagle said, attempting to stand.

Ten Bears gave him a shove that made him fall to the ground once again.

Cloud Eagle turned livid eyes up to Ten Bears. "You will never walk the peaceful path of the   hereafter," he said, his teeth clenched. "If you should die today, you would be trapped in a place where there is only fire and pain. And what about your sister? How does she fit into your plan?"

"She is safe," Ten Bears mumbled. "She is better off without you."

"Never is she safe while she is in the care of a brother who goes against his own people," Cloud Eagle said.

"Not my people as a whole, only one man," Ten Bears corrected. He looked over his shoulder and motioned with his free hand toward the trees.

Cloud Eagle watched incredulously as several more blue-coated soldiers appeared from hiding in the shadows of the trees and surrounded him.

Cloud Eagle eased to his knees and looked from man to man, their rifles reflecting the sun into his eyes. He recognized many of them. They were from Fort Thomas. Until now, he had considered them to be friendly.

But with their eyes filled with hate and their rifles aimed at Cloud Eagle, he saw just how mistaken he had always been to trust the white eyes.