Scarlet Plume, Second Edition (13 page)

Animal’s Voice came on. He grabbed her by the hair and jerked her head backward. He wrenched her so hard she almost broke at the hips.

Judith closed her eyes. She whimpered.

Someone bellowed in outrage beside her. It was Pounce. He roared something in Dakota. Animal’s Voice let go of her.

Judith opened her eyes. She saw dimly.

Animal’s Voice looked at Pounce, amazed. Were not the white women to be used as the white men had often abused the Dakota virgins?

“I have spoken for both the Good Book Woman and her sister,” Pounce raged. “They are mine.” Pounce’s big belly quivered. The white clay on his broad chest was now a smear of gray. “They will sit at my fire.”

Animal’s Voice gave Pounce a glitteringly envious look.

Pounce said, “Where is Mad Bear?”

Animal’s Voice said with a sneer, “He lies in the bushes with the Good Book Woman. Where you left her weeping bitterly.”

Pounce grabbed Judith by the wrist and started to run with her toward the wolfberry bushes.

“No!” Judith cried. “Where do you take me?”

“I wish to save your sister. Come.”

Even as he spoke, Mad Bear erupted from the wolfberries. Mad Bear adjusted his clout. He came straddling toward Pounce. His yellow-painted eye glared furiously. It seemed to protrude from his head. It resembled a ball of fire.

Mad Bear said, “Does my brother Dakota wish for something?”

“The Good Book Woman will sit at my fire. Not yours. Also her sister. I have said.” Pounce put his arm around Judith the white man way. He tried to nuzzle her cheek affectionately.

Judith ducked her head down and away. Pounce’s face was as rough as a warty potato.

Mad Bear snarled. “Ha, what is left of your Good Book Woman lies there a broken cornstalk on the ground.”

Pounce’s rough face slowly blackened over. The crazy squaw stood near and Pounce grabbed his war club back from her. He waggled his war club menacingly. It worked up and down like the snapping tail of an angry tomcat.

Suddenly Pounce was surrounded by members of Mad Bear’s war party. All carried clubs.

“What is this?” Pounce cried.

Mad Bear whipped off his clout and hit Pounce in the face with it.

Pounce seemed to constrict. “What is this?” he repeated.

Pounding hearts.

Then Pounce knew. Mad Bear had once more decided to turn on his own kind. “My father often warned me never to trust a Santee Dakota who is a Sisseton,” Pounce sputtered, “they of the fish smell. I see now that an outcast Sisseton is even less to be trusted.” Pounce had been a fool to align himself with the smeary Sisseton renegade killer. Pounce’s hair slowly rose on end like the quills on a porcupine.

Mad Bear’s painted yellow eye looked like a burnt hole in a blanket. He gestured, curtly.

Pounce was suddenly clubbed from all sides. One of the blows broke his left arm above the elbow and immediately the fingers below it splayed out as if paralyzed. Another blow caught him over the head and teeth sprinkled out of his mouth like kernels of wild rice threshed from a sheaf. He was killed on the spot.

Mad Bear grabbed Judith by the elbow. Mad Bear spoke to Bone Gnawer. “You, Gnawer of Bones, take this white woman to my tepee. Also the Good Book Woman lying in the brush.”

Bone Gnawer took hold of Judith and led her to one side. Bone Gnawer commanded another brave named Born Without Testicles to get Theodosia.

After a moment Theodosia appeared. With a great effort of will Theodosia managed to walk erect. White clay was smeared over the front of her dark dress. With her free hand she straightened out her slat bonnet.

Theodosia kept looking for something. Craning her neck, she finally saw it. Her husband, Claude. She said to Born Without Testicles, “I wish to weep a moment over the body of my dead husband.”

Born Without Testicles suffered her.

Theodosia knelt beside the mutilated body of Reverend Codman. She ignored the great bloody rent in his chest. She ignored the blasted back of his head. With her fingertips she touched his face, lightly, tenderly. She stroked his bold nose. She kissed his closed eyes, each in turn. Finally she kissed his cold, fallen lips.

“He was a man of God,” Theodosia said. “He would never lock the door of his home. His church was always open to the stranger, heathen or infidel or Christian. Often when we arose in the morning we found our friends the Dakotas camped on the floor.” Theodosia’s hazel eyes were calm. Her many freckles seemed to have faded. She shed no tears. “Husband, I have been outraged. Yet I have remained faithful in mind and heart to our redeemer Jesus Christ. Soon I shall be with you in heaven and we shall sit together on the right hand of our Lord and Saviour.” Theodosia put a hand on her knee and stood up. She turned. She looked to where her Ted and Johnnie lay bleeding together. “Treachery, thy name is Dakota.” A film slid over her eyes. “And yet, remembering Christ, I am commanded to forgive thee. I do forgive thee.”

There was a boiling of young braves nearby.

Judith turned to look.

The young braves were standing around someone lying on the ground. Their backs were toward her.

Off to one side Two Two lay quivering on the grass. Of a sudden he sat up. His black eyes rolled. He remembered. He panted for breath. His young mobile lips worked. He sprang to his feet. He grabbed a war club from the nearest warrior and in blind rage began to beat the coppery backs of the braves in front of him. His wild fury opened a path into the center of the japing braves. He cried a name.

Then Judith cried the same name. “Angela!”

With a desperate twist of her body, Judith broke free of Bone Gnawer. She gathered up her skirt and ran into the middle of the snickering braves. She stopped short, and rose on her toes. She covered her mouth.

What she saw not even the devil should see. It was all a scarlet nightmare.

Angela was lying on her back, slim child arms and golden legs staked to the ground and silver-blond hair outspread upon the grass. Her green dress was torn to shreds. She had been opened with a scalping knife and afterward had been outraged by God only knew how many bullish savages. Her child lips hung wyed off to one side in a last fixed grimace and her kittenish eyes still stared unseeing at the blue sky above.

Angela. Her sweet belly violated. And dead.

2

A silence spread around Judith. Even the boyish bellowing of Two Two was stilled.

Judith turned stiffly to look where the others looked.

A horseman was coming. He came swiftly from the northeast, from the direction of Fort Ridgely. It was an Indian on a spotted red-and-white stallion. The Indian rode hard. The spotted stallion was almost spent. The Indian rode naked except for a clout. A moment of sunlight made his body gleam, coppery, shining from the passing rain.

Judith blinked, blinked.

The naked Indian wore a single scarlet feather. It was Scarlet Plume.

Numbly Judith watched Scarlet Plume pull up in front of where Whitebone and his band of soldier Dakota sat. She watched Scarlet Plume slide to earth. She watched him sit on the ground in front of Whitebone, the others gathering around. She watched them light the pipe and pass it—the inviolable Dakota custom of never taking measure without first smoking the pipe.

Presently they finished the pipe and solemnly put it away. And at last Scarlet Plume spoke. He spoke shortly, a few words.

Whitebone bounded to his feet. He harangued his soldiers’ lodge with strong gestures, speaking rapidly. He reached down and picked up a pinch of dust and threw it into the air.

All of his braves instantly leaped to their feet and ran for their war ponies. A succession of sharp wolfish barks and they rushed straight for Mad Bear’s and Pounce’s bands. The dark riders came on with such ferocity, they scattered the standing savages. Both motley bands ran for the slough. It was only then that Judith saw there had been three other snickering clusters of Indians, each of them standing around prostrate women staked to the ground: Mavis, Maggie Utterback, and Tinkling. A dozen of the dark riders dropped to the ground and freed the three women.

Scarlet Plume came walking over. His exhausted spotted stallion followed him like a tame dog.

Scarlet Plume’s grave face was cracked with grief. He still wore the yellow dot inside a blue circle on his left cheekbone. The wind had combed his loose black hair back behind his ears. His single eagle feather glowed scarlet. Rain lay drying on his broad shoulders.

Scarlet Plume went straight for Two Two and put his arms around him. He murmured something to him. Then he turned him away and with a gentle brotherly shove started him toward Whitebone’s village.

Eyes averted, with delicate consideration, Scarlet Plume stooped down and straightened out Angela’s green dress. He drew his knife and cut the thongs binding her to the stakes. He composed her limbs. He gently touched her eyelids in the corners, and her eyes closed of themselves.

He rose, turned, and stood towering over Judith. The low sun struck a glancing rainbow off his red-brown chest. He held out his hand the white man way. He spoke. There was thoughtful regard in his voice. It was almost impersonal. “The white woman feels sad. I want to shake hands with her. That is all I have to say.”

Judith, numb, let him take her hand and shake it.

“We shall bury your daughter in the proper manner.”

Judith nodded.

Mad Bear was the only one of his band who had stood his ground.

Whitebone rode directly up to Mad Bear. Six of Whitebone’s stern armed soldiers’ lodge rode with him. They surrounded Mad Bear, bows and arrows drawn.

Without ceremony Whitebone said down to Mad Bear, his voice full of contempt, “Hear me. Scarlet Plume brings the news. The white man with his wagon-gun wins at the fort called Ridgely. Hear me. The Bad Talkers with their forks also win at The Place Where There Is A Cottonwood Grove On The River. New Ulm. What was begun in foolishness now ends in foolishness. We must fly. Hear me. Your people have taken away the riches of the whites in this place. Well, we shall take what is left, the white women. You are neither a true Dakota nor a cut-hair Christian. You are worse than a white fool. Once again we must drive you away from the council fires of the good Dakota. You are a bad creature. You have the black hungers of an evil spirit. You count a bull’s coup on the white women like the white fool. You marry your relations. It has been told that some of your men cohabit with animals freshly slaughtered. Therefore we shall take the white women from you and keep them safe from your bad warriors. Also we need them.”

Mad Bear heard him out with slowly mounting rage. He foamed at the mouth like a wild beast.

Whitebone waited.

There was nothing Mad Bear could do. He stood alone. His cowardly men, and Pounce’s shabby warriors, had been scattered into the prairie slough like frightened quail.

Mad Bear looked at Judith. He looked at Theodosia. He looked at craven Tinkling. He looked at cursing Maggie Utterback. He looked at bleeding Mavis. Finally he said, “I will take the shot-up white woman there.” He pointed at Mavis. “She will be a burden to you as you fly across the prairie. But to me she will be better than two dead squaws.”

Whitebone reined in his restive war pony. He sneered down at Mad Bear. “We will take all the white women. You cannot have the shot-up woman. We will keep them all. We will also keep the trader’s wife, the red woman with the bent neck. Go. Join your cowards in the deep grass. I have said.”

A sudden loud wail of lamentation rose nearby. It was Sunflower. She had just found Pounce, her husband, dead. She still carried the Bible under her arm and the gold lettering on it glinted in the falling sunlight.

Then another squaw set up a death cry. The second squaw had just found Angela lying dead upon the ground. The second squaw was the sister of Sunflower. From her lament it was apparent she had planned to adopt Angela to replace a lost daughter. “My white daughter. Why were you killed? Now I shall miss you as much as I miss my own red daughter.”

Light faded in Judith’s eyes. She fell on the prairie grass.

PART TWO

Dell Rapids

Young hands tugged at her. They were urgent. A young boy’s voice in a strange tongue called to her again and again. “Woman With The Sunned Hair, arise. The time has come to hurry.”

Judith opened her eyes. It was Two Two. His earnest Indian face almost touched hers nose to nose. He was weeping over her.

“Where?” she whispered.

“Come. Hurry. The camp removes to another place. My father has said.”

Judith sat up. The rose of a lingering sunset tinged the grass and the trees. The sky above bloomed with a luminous pink. Everything seemed to have been rinsed in warm blood.

“Come.” Two Two took her by the hand and helped her to her feet.

It was as if Two Two were breaking her out of a cast of ice. Her whole skull still cracked with the terrible headache. She also felt beaten deep in the seat. Someone must have kicked her many times while she lay unconscious.

“You must hurry. The great wagon-guns come and they will kill us.” Two Two tugged at her hands.

Dazed, Judith stumbled along beside Two Two. She saw Whitebone riding ahead. Warriors of his soldiers’ lodge rode on either side of him. Theodosia was being led by Scarlet Plume, Mavis was being led by Scarlet Plume’s brother Traveling Hail, Maggie Utterback was being led by a brave named Bullhead. Tinkling walked alone. All were headed straight for Whitebone’s camp.

An evening wind from the west had come up and the deep grass rolled in pink waves toward them. The smell of sweet rain still hung in the grass.

Whitebone stopped in front of his tepee and slid off his horse. Two Two ran to hold the bridle. Judith stood alone. Whitebone called a name. An old man known as Walking Voice, the village crier, emerged from a nearby tepee. He came over in a shuffling run. Whitebone spoke to him quietly in a low voice.

Walking Voice listened carefully. His old rheumy brown eyes looked from side to side. Slowly his old eyes lighted up with intelligence. Walking Voice was being given something to do. When Whitebone finished speaking, Walking Voice turned and, again in a stiff, shuffling run, made the rounds within the camp circle, proclaiming aloud in a clear, deep voice so all could hear: “Hear me. The white man has a new weapon. Where once he wore a long knife, he now shoots a wagon-gun. It is a terrible weapon. It kills many women and children at one time. He is coming with it. We must flee. Game is now a long distance from our camp. Therefore make ready to remove immediately. We will journey in the dark until the moon rises. It is late in the day yet it must be done.”

The dusky people came out of their tepees. They looked to where an emblem adorned the top of Whitebone’s lodge. The emblem was part of the jawbone of Unkteri. Two great teeth, the size of teacups, were still left in the jawbone. The two teeth together were just enough to suggest what had once been the grin of an ancient terror, the dinosaur. The white emblem was Whitebone’s medicine, after which he had been named. No female was allowed to touch his great medicine. It was said to be fatal if she did.

Whitebone took hold of one of the loose lodgepoles of his tepee, the one to which the white jawbone was attached, and gently lowered it. He pointed the emblem southwest, away from the wagon-guns. He hung the emblem near the ground on a tripod. It meant the journey would be a long one.

Whitebone settled on a stump for a last smoke on his gossip pipe. Other braves also sat down near their homesites for a last smoke.

“I ache so,” Judith said.

No one heard her. Each of the four white women was encased in her own desolation.

An old woman came out of Whitebone’s tepee and set out a papoose wrapped in a buckskin cradle. The old woman leaned the cradle against the stump Whitebone sat on.

Squaws boiled at their work in the lingering pink twilight. Tepees collapsed, and were rolled up almost as if by magic. Tailless dogs were harnessed to short travois and given light loads. Tame ponies were harnessed to long travois and loaded down with heavy goods. The womenfolk worked grimly, swiftly.

After a bit, Whitebone noted that Judith wasn’t helping the old woman take down his tepee. Also the papoose squalled beneath him. A gathering frown pinched his old lips, making his sharp cheekbones jut out even more. Removing his short red pipe, he finally said to Judith, “Woman, can you not help her?”

Judith mouthed soundless words.

“Woman?”

Judith licked dry lips.

“My wife has taken the south road. She is gone and my little son cries. Therefore the old woman of my lodge, my mother, Smoky Day, has come to live with me to care for my little son. But my mother is very old and feeble. Therefore you must help her with the lodge.”

Judith glanced around. Theodosia still stood with head bowed where Scarlet Plume had left her. Mavis, still bleeding down her thigh a little, was trying to take down a tepee for Traveling Hail and getting herself all tangled up in the folds of the hide shelter. Maggie Utterback stood balky in front of Bullhead’s lodge.

The papoose squalled and squalled. It struggled to be free of its bonds.

“Woman?” Whitebone asked again.

“I can’t,” Judith said helplessly. “I know nothing of this.”

“Have you milk? Perhaps you can give him breast to pacify him.” Whitebone threw her a turtle’s wrinkled look.

Judith started. It was as if someone had ripped her dress from the neck down, exposing her bosom. She looked at the little brown face sobbing its heart out on its cradleboard.

“Have you milk?”

Judith kneeled beside it, her seat and hipbones aching so sharply she thought she would break. “There, there,” she crooned. “There, there, little one.” She rocked the cradleboard gently.

The little mouth fell silent and the little black eyes opened. Two trickles glistened under its nose in the pink dusk.

Smoky Day smiled an old cracked grimace. “The child’s name is Born By The Way.” Smoky Day puffed as she rolled up the lodgepoles in a bundle. “Have you milk?”

Judith shook her head.

Whitebone next spotted Tinkling standing alone, head bowed. Again removing his gossip pipe, he said, in a kind voice, “Has no one taken you to wife? Come then. Help my old mother with the lodge. You will live with us until some warrior takes you to wife.”

Tinkling was as one forgiven of a crime. She awoke from her standing trance, shook her head to clear it, then rushed to help Smoky Day.

Whitebone went back to puffing his gossip pipe and contemplation.

Judith rocked the papoose.

Bullhead, smoking his pipe, big head held meditatively to one side, soon saw that his tepee wasn’t coming down. Instead his new wife, Maggie Utterback, was standing in the grass as stiff and as unmoving as an old gooseberry bush. Bullhead reared back on his seat, greatly offended. He grunted. “Woman That Walks Ahead Of Her Man, it is late. Soon the blue soldiers come to shoot us. Take down your tepee. Hurry.”

“Go to hell,” Maggie Utterback growled, hands on her hips and a sneer on her whiskery face.

Bullhead did not understand the white words. But he understood the intonation. He leaped to his feet in sudden wrath. “My woman was killed by a horse. I have taken you to replace her. She was a good worker. Now it is your turn.”

“The nerve of these brutes,” Judith thought. “Yet if we don’t act like their way is dead right, we’ll be killed too. Like my poor Angela was.”

Maggie Utterback glared at Bullhead. “My turn? Why, durn you, after what them squaws done to me there in the slough, it ain’t never gonna be my turn. Not never.” She began to froth at the lips over the outrage she had suffered. “Getting that durn dog to run his tongue into me, and then trying to have him line me, with me staked to the ground, that was awful. Awful. Why, it’s enough to make a body gall-sick to think she might’ve had a litter of pups. And the worst was when them durn squaws laughed at me that I was no good that even a dog would not use me.” All of a sudden Maggie Utterback’s hands came off her hips and she swung a fist at Bullhead with all her might. She caught him full on the jaw, and he went down as if cut off at the ankles by a scythe. He lay stunned on the ground.

Work stopped. Everybody stared. A gasp went through the camp. Even Whitebone removed his gossip pipe from his lips a moment.

Maggie Utterback said, “By God, I never let my Joe boss me around. So I sure as hell ain’t gonna let you start, you filthy red nigger.”

Bullhead recovered his wits. He bounded up from the grass, war club in hand. His big head seemed to swell to twice its size. His cheeks burned black. Maggie Utterback had put a bad face on him. Unforgivable. Bullhead spoke in a tight, choked voice. “Once I saw a white man strike another white man with his hand made up into a club. But never have I seen a white woman strike a man in this manner. Also you walk ahead of a man. You must be one of those whom the gods gave a wrong spirit at birth. I do not want you for a wife. I put you away. Also you have offended the memory of my wife. She was a good worker. Therefore you must be punished.” Bullhead rose up on his toes and with his war club hit Maggie Utterback over the head with all his power. She plunged more than fell to the ground. She was instantly dead. Her head lay open on the grass like a decayed pumpkin stepped on by a horse.

Another gasp of astonishment went through the village. This time all eyes turned away.

Judith sat as one who was sightless. A lullaby mummed on her lips.

Bullhead looked around. He spotted Theodosia standing alone, head bowed, waiting for the inevitable.

Bullhead stepped across to her. Bullhead said, “Good Book Woman, has Scarlet Plume taken you to wife? I saw him leading you to our camp.”

Theodosia did not move.

Bullhead looked toward the center of the encampment. “I see that Scarlet Plume helps the soldiers’ lodge take down their tepee. I see he does not want you. Come with me. All that I have is yours. All that was my wife’s is yours. I will hunt every day for you. I will bring you many scalps and much honor. Come, take down the tepee. Read in your Good Book if you do not know how. Also, I will help you the first time.”

Theodosia finally looked up. Her face was as an ash leaf in winter. All color had faded from it. She looked up at the high red sky of dusk above. Her lips moved in silent prayer. Then she stepped toward Bullhead’s lodge and set to work.

Bullhead helped her. To Bullhead’s surprise, Theodosia knew much about the tepee. Neither one looked at the slain Maggie Utterback lying to one side in the deep slough grass.

Walking Voice, the camp crier, continued to make his rounds, urging the people to hurry. They had a far way to go before the moon rose.

When all was ready, Scarlet Plume strode over and stood in front of Whitebone. Scarlet Plume’s sweaty body gleamed a deep red-brown in the purple dusk. “The people and their tepees are all afoot. They stand to go.”

Whitebone knocked the ashes out of his gossip pipe. He got slowly to his feet. “Where is my horse Snort?”

Two Two came running with a black-and-white spotted pony. “I have him ready, my father.”

Whitebone smiled. His old face crinkled with it. “My son, take the horse to Traveling Hail’s new wife. Tell her that she must not walk with her bleeding limb. We wish her a long life with her new husband. Tell her that Snort will carry her safely if she will not sit the white woman way, with both legs ready to jump down, but as a man with legs apart. I have said.”

Two Two beamed a wide boyish smile. It made him glad to see that his father wished to be kind to a stranger. He ran over with the restive pony and helped Mavis get on. Traveling Hail seemed pleased too.

“I will walk at the head of my people as in the old days,” Whitebone said.

But something still was not right for Scarlet Plume. Scarlet Plume’s black eyes glittered. He towered over Whitebone. His head jerked every now and then to one side, shaking the loose black hair on his shoulders. The yellow dot inside the blue circle on his left cheekbone was almost worn off. A tremble shook his legs.

“Why are your eyes black, my son?” Whitebone asked.

Scarlet Plume looked over at where Maggie Utterback lay dead in the grass. “We cannot let her be eaten by the wolves. She also had a people who once loved her. Even as the girl child of Sunned Hair.”

“My son, do as your heart tells you. But afterward, you will guard the rear of our marching camp?”

“Traveling Hail, my brother, and two others will help me. He has a robe which we shall wrap around her body. We will place her on a scaffold. Will this offend the Good Book God? We do not wish to offend Him, but to save her bones from the wolves. Her spirit will weep in our dreams if we do not help her.

“Have you spoken with the Good Book Woman about this?”

Scarlet Plume considered. “It is a good thing to ask.” He went over and talked to Theodosia in a low voice. For a quick moment the trace of a wan grimace came to Theodosia’s lips.

Scarlet Plume returned to Whitebone’s side. “The Good Book Woman says it is a good thing to do. I have said.”

“Afterward, guard the marching camp well, my son.”

A muscle twitched in Scarlet Plume’s left cheek. He still seemed agitated.

“Well, my son?”

“Father, you are my mother’s brother. You know that nothing lies between us. We have no secrets from each other. I ask this. Is it not time we removed Bullhead from our camp? When he becomes angry he is like one demented. He is like some of the whites, wild without reason. Father, he belongs with Mad Bear’s renegades. Let us throw him out.”

“My son, he is a good fighter. He brings in the game. He feeds many mouths. He is a great stealer of horses. All this I cannot forget.”

“He will kill the Good Book Woman before we reach the game in a new place. This will be a bad thing. She has never done anyone harm. She has shown us many times that she loves the red man.”

“My son, I will watch him. I will see that he treats her as a good Yankton should treat his woman. He is a sad man, even as you and I are sad. He too has lost a good wife on the south road.”

Scarlet Plume’s eyes half closed in reverie. A sad expression touched his large, mobile lips; then, willing it, he put it away.