Spirit Pouch (37 page)

The procession starts to head back to the village.  Women and children lead the group, dancing and singing.  We follow, holding the tree high above us.  When we get back to the village, the Holy Men decorate the cottonwood pole, then they place the trunk into a hole and hoist the pole upward.  Not only is it solid in the ground now, but they tie the tops, with ropes stretched out at various angles.

Everyone cheers as the Holy Men declare it ready for the ceremony.  I see several Sioux women carrying wood to a fire pit.  In a few minutes they have a small community fire burning, and several people have gathered around the fire.  I see the shadows from the teepees and trees getting long as the sun settles down behind the distant blue-gray mountains.

“Seven o’clock,” I say to Ty as I glance at my watch.  “This afternoon went by fast.”

“It took longer to get that Sun Dance pole than I thought it would,” Ty agrees.

I follow Ty over near the fire pit and sit down.  For a long moment I watch as some women place meat over the fire to cook it.  “Ty, what is the Sun Dance ceremony?” I ask.

“All I know from reading on the web is that it is a time when a few, who think they are ready, seek blessings from their god.  It is how a warrior shows his ultimate expression of faith.”

“What do you mean?”

“The men who participate in the dance are pierced through the skin on their chest by a sharp piece of bone.  The bone is tied to that pole.  Then the man tries to pull the bone through his flesh.”

I imagine how painful it would be if someone stuck a piece of bone through my skin and I shudder involuntarily.  Just the thought makes me wince.

“It symbolizes tearing free from the evils of the world, and to them it is a great sacred sacrifice.  Not everyone is physically able to do it.”

“Not me,” I say.  “That would hurt so bad.  I would pass out.”

“Maybe we can show our faith in other ways,” Ty says.

“Hey,” I hiss quietly.  “There’s Elizabeth.  Over there, preparing food.”

At that moment, Talutah steps in front of us and holds out a bowl of food.  “Thank you,” I say smiling.  I am really hungry and I appreciate the food.  I take the bowl and so does Ty.  Talutah walks away.  I taste the meat in the bowl and it is tender and juicy.

I finish eating and watch the flames of the fire swirl in the soft breeze.  “There she is again,” I nudge Ty.

“I see her,” Ty responds.

“We should go talk to her,” I whisper.  “She’s probably frightened to death being kidnapped like she was.”

“No,” says Ty.

“What do you mean, ’no’?”

“When she was taken by the Sioux warrior, she became Sioux property.  At least in their eyes that’s how they see it.  If we go talk to her, they may interpret that to mean that we want to take their property away from them.”

“Well, we
do
, don’t we?”

“You just barely earned your privilege to stay in this village.  You go over there now and you will destroy what little trust you have built with the Chief and you will forfeit your privilege to stay here.  Very likely you will not live to see the morning.”

“Then what can we do?”

“Nothing, right now.  She is alive.  We are alive.  Besides …”

I look at Ty.  He has stopped talking and I follow his eyes over to where a Sioux warrior is escorting Elizabeth away.  I can barely see her through the last evening light and flickering shadows, but I see her enter a teepee.

We sit by the fire for another hour, watching the Sioux.  Some sit by the fire and eat.  Some talk and gesture toward the Sun Dance pole.  But everyone glances at Ty and me.  I’m sure we make quite a topic of conversation.

Ty leans over and whispers, “They are probably saying, ‘Look.  There’s the White Man that beat Fast Bear in the race.’”

“Or, ‘Look.  There’s the brave one who won a fight with Black Hawk’,” I whisper back.

“Well, for sure they are arguing the pros and cons of having two White Men in their village,” Ty says.

“Yeah.  We probably make them nervous.”

“Or they are prejudiced.  After all, our skin is a different color.  How does it feel to be the minority?”

“Definitely a lesson to be learned here,” I say.  “But whether they have an ethnic prejudice or not does not change the fact that they kidnapped William’s mother and are holding her captive like some sort of slave.”

“Well, we can’t talk to her tonight,” Ty says standing up.  “And it may be weeks before we can talk to her without destroying the fragment of trust that we have built up. So, I’m tired and I am going to bed.  I didn’t get a nap like you did today.”

Ty edges away from the fire and heads toward our teepee.  I follow him, thinking about trust and slavery and how much William and Annie must miss their mother.  We enter our teepee and close the flap.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The Rescue

“I
know you don’t think it is a good idea,” I say to Ty as I sit down on my stack of buffalo skins, “but I am going to go rescue Elizabeth tonight.  I know where her teepee is.  It is close by.  Just three teepees away, actually, and one over.” I point with my hand.

“You can’t just go rescue her,” Ty says, rolling his eyes and sounding totally exasperated.

“Why?” I snap back.  “Because it will mess up the time continuum, or something?  Well, I don’t care about the time continuum.  We probably already messed that up just by being here in 1866.  And that’s what probably got Elizabeth captured by Indians.  When I rescue her, it will probably
fix
the time continuum.”  I shut my mouth.  I didn’t mean to be so hostile.

“Yeah, well,” Ty says quietly.  “You mess with history and history messes
you
up.”

“I don’t think so,” I say confidently.  “History will be kind to me because I intend to write it.” 
I am pretty sure that Winston Churchill
said that,
so I expect Ty to be properly impressed.

“It’s just that you won’t get away with it,” Ty says, ignoring my Churchill quote.

“And just why is that?”

“Because there is a Sioux warrior watching us twenty-four hours a day,” Ty says quite matter-of-factly.

I crawl over to the teepee entrance and part the flap slightly.  I stare into the shadows for several minutes letting my eyes adjust until I spot a slight movement by a nearby teepee. 
Ty is right.  There is a warrior keeping watch on our teepee.
  I feel sufficiently stupid.  I didn’t realize how closely we are being watched.  I didn’t really see that while we are welcome here, we are actually prisoners. 
All the more reason that we need to escape.  All of us.

I carefully close the flap and crawl back to my pile of skins.  Without saying a word I lie down. 
No one deserves to be held prisoner by Indians in 1866.  I’m going to escape and I’m taking Elizabeth with me.  Ty can stay if he wants.
  I lie quietly for what seems like forever.  Finally I hear steady in and out breathing coming from Ty and I know he is asleep.

I pull my knife from my pocket and open it with a soft click.  Slowly I inch my way to the back of the teepee.  In the soft moonlight entering through the roof of the teepee, I spot a seam where two buffalo hides are stitched together.  Carefully I locate each stitch and one by one slice them with my blade.  I work steadily for twenty minutes, maybe more, until I have cut the leather stitching about eighteen inches.

I push my hand between the heavy buffalo skins. 
Huh?
I almost say out loud. 
There is … something … holding …  Of all the crazy things … There are two layers.
  I reach through the inner layer and rub my fingers along the outer hide until I find the outer seam.  Fortunately, it is close by, and using both hands, I manage to cut the stitching of that layer, too.  I push open the edges and carefully advance, head first, until my head is outside.  The night air is cool, with only a hint of a breeze.

I let my eyes adjust for several minutes, slowly scanning the shadows. 
I feel like a prisoner in Alcatraz tunneling out.  After years of digging I finally break through the outer wall.  I can taste freedom.
  My mind comes back to reality. 
But even reality these days is a long way from Arizona and home and …
  I push the thought out of my mind. 
It looks like the coast is clear,
I think to myself.

With a little push from my toes and elbows, I shift forward inch by inch and eventually emerge from the teepee.  Rising to my hands and knees, I crawl like a cat on a hunt, making almost no noise.  My shoe scuffs a rock and I freeze, not moving for a full minute.  Anyone listening needed to think the scuff was just a random night sound, and not a human passing by.  My knee breaks a small twig.  I wait.  I stay in the shadows and move very slowly.

Finally I reach the teepee that I had seen Elizabeth go into. There is no security guard outside this teepee, which seems odd to me. Parting the entrance flap I let myself gently inside, where I crouch, motionless, picking shapes out of the dim moonlit room.

Three … no, four figures asleep on buffalo hides.  No wonder there is no guard outside.  There are three in here!  One of the sleeping figures has light hair, the other three have dark hair.
  I move noiselessly toward the woman with light colored hair and touch her shoulder.

“Aaah,” she gasps, waking quickly from her light sleep.  Her face is frightened and I can see that she is ready to scream.

“It’s me.  Jared,” I whisper.

“What … what … are you doing here?” she whispers back.

“We came to rescue you,” I say to make a long explanation much shorter.  I couldn’t very well tell her that we were a distraction so William and Annie could escape, and that Ty fought Black Hawk so we could come here, and that I raced Fast Bear.

“Rescue me?” she hisses.  “Who else is here?”

As if on cue, Ty pushes the teepee flap open and slips inside.  I look at him with eyes that say, ‘What are you doing here?”

“Ty?” she hisses angrily again.  “Did William come, too?”

Across the teepee a small figure with black hair rolls over, then abruptly sits up.  She mutters something in the Lakota language and slides toward the teepee entrance.

“It’s okay,” Elizabeth says calmly to the young woman.  “They are friends.”  The young woman pushes back against the walls of the teepee moving away from us as much as possible.

“We obviously do not have much time,” I say.  “We need to get you out of here.”

“You boys should not have come,” Elizabeth whispers angrily.

“We can’t leave you here, captive,” I protest.

“They probably will not harm me,” Elizabeth says quietly, “Or they would have done that by now.  “But if they catch you boys in this teepee, or trying to escape with me, they will kill you.  Sioux Indians are not known for compassion to White Men.”

I hear a scuffle behind us and we all turn our heads to see the young Sioux woman scurry out the flap of the teepee, faster than a squirrel up a tree.

“She will alert the guard,” Ty says.  “Come on!”

I look at Elizabeth.  “Go!” she says.  “Fast!”

I duck out of the teepee and plow right into Black Hawk.  He grabs my arm and pulls me away.  I look back and see Elizabeth.  Wet streaks smudge her face and reflect in the moonlight.  In seconds another warrior joins us, dragging Ty with him.  I can guess where we are going and I am right.  We stop in front of the teepee of Four Bears, the Sioux Chief.

In a moment Four Bears emerges from the teepee and Medicine Eagle joins us.  Black Hawk speaks for a short time and then the other warrior.  I see the anger wash across the face of Four Bears, and disappointment in the eyes of Medicine Eagle.

“Black Hawk says you were in the teepee with the White Woman.  That you were planning to take her from us.”

“She does not belong here,” I say with more passion than I intend.

“So it is true then” he says.  “Also, that The-Brave, who you call Ty, was found near the teepee.”

“She belongs with her family,” I say.  “We want to return her to her children.”

“She belongs to the warrior who captured her,” Four Bears states.  “And you were trying to take her from us.  That makes you an enemy of the Sioux.  For this you both will die by fire.”

“Great Chief,” Ty says.  “We meant no disrespect, for you are indeed a great chief of these people.  Perhaps you will spare our lives …”

“You did not live by our traditions and our customs and our laws for even two days.  You are like all White Man.  You say one thing and then do another. Because Runs-Like-Deer has the greater transgression, he will watch you die by fire first, then Runs-Like-Deer will die by fire, also.  I am Four Bears, Chief of these people, and decree that this punishment take place tonight.”