The Elk-Dog Heritage (11 page)

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Authors: Don Coldsmith

BOOK: The Elk-Dog Heritage
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The three hunters
gingerly led their skittish horses across the warm and still-smoking ground. After a few hundred paces, Long Elk stopped, and they turned to watch the wall of fire as it raced up behind them. Darkness was falling, and the eerie yellow light of the flickering flames made Heads Off think of stories of Hell from his childhood.
The racing fire swept closer, and its noise became a roaring, increasing in intensity as it descended. A pair of rabbits, crazed with fear, darted past them and into the hazy dusk. Even at this distance they could feel the heat of the flames. To Heads Off, in his first encounter with the awesome might of prairie fire, the thing seemed alive. It was an evil, malevolent monster, intent on their complete destruction.
The fiery wall seemed to concentrate on the huddled figures, rising in intensity as it neared the point they had recently abandoned. The awesome blaze seemed to tower over them for a moment as its full force crashed against the edge of Long Elk's backfire. Then, falling back in frustrated fury, the wall of flame split in two, sweeping around them to the right and left.
Heat and roaring sound faded in the distance as the fugitives stood coughing and wiping their eyes in the dense smoke. The frantic horses began to quiet somewhat. The air was clearing, and occasionally a scrap of sky shone through a rift in the curtain of smoke above them.
“We should wait,” suggested Long Elk, “for enough stars to find our way.”
Calmly, he squatted in a position of rest, and relaxed.
It was full dark before the drifting smoke had cleared. The wind had died. The three men could see, in the far distance, the long line of fire snaking across the rolling prairie.
They had said little during the time of waiting. To open one's throat produced a spasm of coughing. Each, however, had done much thinking, along the same general lines. Each was thinking of the village, and how their families had fared.
There was little concern for their escape from the fire. The butchering party was near enough to the campsite to retreat there. The camp itself was protected by the circle of trampled and close-grazed grass around it. What small fires might approach could be easily stamped or beaten out, and if necessary, backfires would have been lighted.
The one gnawing concern in the mind of each was the same: had the village been attacked? It had become apparent that someone had fired the dry prairie. It was sometimes known for prairie fire to start from lightning, but there had been no storm. Therefore, human hands must have applied the torch.
And, who would benefit from the burning of the prairie? In the Moon of Greening, the People often set fire to last year's grass to hurry the growth of new grass and attract the buffalo to the lush green. The medicine man observed and carefully supervised the timing of the ceremony. But this was entirely the wrong time of the season. No one of the People could possibly benefit from the blackened and scorched landscape.
Therefore, the conclusion was inescapable. The fire had been set by the Head Splitters. Was it for the purpose of a diversion so that an attack could be launched?
As their lungs cleared, the three began to discuss the question, and found that all had the same fears. They must return quickly.
The stars were now visible in the still smoky sky, and they oriented themselves by the Seven Hunters and the Real-star. Long Elk pointed a general direction and started ahead, leading his elk-dog. The others followed.
The blackened world around them presented a strange and eerie landscape. Here and there a flicker of flame still sparkled. An occasional buffalo chip smoldered, producing a ghostly white wisp of smoke against the charred black background.
The time seemed endless until they finally reached a hilltop which enabled them to see the campsite. To their great relief, everything seemed calm. The dull red glow from cooking fires inside the lodges was a reassuring and comforting sight. The camp had not been attacked.
They hurried forward, raising a long shout as they came near, to be sure they were not mistaken for enemies.
The People, they found, had managed to divert the fire. They had chosen a place several hundred paces from the camp, where natural features would assist them. A small rocky creek bed, though dry, had provided a place to set backfires. A fortunate shift in the wind at the proper moment had helped. With only a little effort at beating out stray tongues of flame, the main force of the fire had roared past to the west.
Everyone was jubilant at the successful maneuver. White Buffalo, of course, was modestly taking some credit for the shift of the wind. The grass near the camp, needed for the elk-dogs during the coming moons, had been saved.
There had been concern, of course, for the three missing hunters. Again, however, the concern was not only for their ability to escape the fire, but the enemy.
Heads Off embraced his wife, who laughed at his smudged and blackened face. Her concern was apparent, however, as she brushed at his cheek.
“Did you see any Head Splitters, my husband?”
He shook his head.
“No. None came here?”
He handed her the rein and lifted the grimy bundles of meat from the mare's back. Big Footed Woman cuffed the dogs away and started to work with the bundles, and Tall One joined her.
Heads Off led the mare around the lodge and to water at the stream. Coyote fell in beside him and walked in silence for a time. Finally the young chief spoke.
“What does it mean, Coyote? Why did they fire the grass?”
Coyote shrugged. “Who knows why Head Splitters do as they do?”
“But this would have been the time for them to attack!”
Coyote nodded. “They would fail to attack only if they had not enough men.”
Slowly, the thing began to make sense. It was apparent that the Head Splitters had known all along where the band had camped for the winter. They had so far avoided an open attack. Not since their defeat in the Great Battle had the enemy dared that.
But now, they had an opportunity. A weakened band of the People, isolated and low on provisions, could be observed for the proper moment to attack. It would be impossible to maintain a large force nearby to observe, but a scout or two might easily watch and report the actions of the People.
The enemy scouts, seeing the People scattered over the prairie for the elk hunt, had been unable to resist the opportunity to harass them with fire. Lacking the strength to attack, they could still make much trouble.
With this new understanding came a feeling of dread. Heads Off could see no way that the band could move. They would be under constant observation. Under threat of attack at any moment, they would dare not leave the protection of their present camp. Even hunting parties would be vulnerable to raids by the superior forces of the enemy.
The noose was tightening slowly but surely around the Elk-dog band. They had been lucky today. At the next encounter, they might lose a warrior or two. A sentry might become careless and fall to an arrow out of the darkness.
Heads Off could almost follow the thoughts of the enemy now. Not wanting to risk a frontal attack, they would harass, weaken, and starve the People until the proper time.
He thought of a scene he had once witnessed on the prairie. A group of wolves had encircled an aged buffalo bull. Once the sheer strength of the animal would have prevented their considering an attack. Now, old and weak, his reflexes slowing, he was making his stand. One wolf, then another, dashed in to harry and snap at the old monarch's heaving flanks. He whirled to meet each rush, only to be attacked again from another quarter. It was only a matter of time until the bull would go down for the last time.
Heads Off had, in a sentimental gesture, chased the wolves off with his lance. But, he knew they would return.
Now, he felt a close kinship to the old bull. The Elk-dog band of the People were in a very similar situation. They might fend off the minor attacks, might escape the prairie fire, possibly even avoid starvation through the winter. Eventually, though, would come the final rush.
Heads off could see no other ultimate outcome. Sooner or later, they would be overrun. It seemed highly unlikely that the Elk-dog band would ever move from the spot where they now wintered.
In the days
that followed the fire, the People of the Elk-dog band became more relaxed and happy. The weather was uncommonly fine. Sun Boy's torch shone with warm beneficence, and as the leaves ripened and fluttered slowly to the ground, it seemed that all was well with the People.
Much elk meat had been salvaged, and the women were busily preparing it for storage. The elk skins, also, must be dressed and tanned. It was a comforting return to a semblance of normality among the band.
But Heads Off was worried, and was joined in his concern by Coyote and White Buffalo. The People were far too complacent. There was not enough food for the winter moons, and though many realized it, they seemed unconcerned. The easy affluence of the past few winters had lulled the People into complacence. Only the older members of the band remembered hard times and starvation. The younger ones seemed to expect that something would happen without effort on their part.
Yet an even greater concern was felt by the young chief. He had now become sharply aware that the Elk-dog band was under observation. The Head Splitters might not maintain a continuous watch, but it was discomforting to know that they were out there somewhere, waiting. The People could never be sure whether, at any given time, they were watched or not. It mattered little. Sooner or later, the attack would come. Heads Off was inclined to think the enemy would wait until the Moon of Greening, when
the People would be further weakened by starvation. The greening time was a favorite time for raiding by the Head Splitters. The opening of the weather in springtime caused restlessness among the young men.
So, in his own mind at least, Heads Off had formed this definite idea. The major attack would be in the spring. In the meantime, the enemy would make their presence known from time to time, to prevent the People from moving about freely to hunt.
The problems of the band, then, were two in number. That of winter survival was most immediate, but there remained the other need. A plan for defense of the village must be devised. Heads Off studied the geographic features of the area from the top of the lookout hill. His mind wandered back to his studies at the academy, so far away now. As Cadet Juan Garcia he had been instructed in such things, but had never been a good student. He kept thinking in terms of Roman defenses, walls and barricades and buttresses. There had been pictures in some of the books in the academy library.
But, the People had neither the manpower nor the equipment to build earthworks. Their best efforts could do little more than pile flimsy barriers of brush around the lodges. This had been done for many generations, to break the force of the wind and to catch the drifting snow..
Heads Off began to see that such a barricade might be useful across the narrow place where the meadow opened onto the prairie. It was there that the charge by yelling horsemen would come. Any barrier to slow the thundering rush of the enemy would be helpful. He envisioned such a brush device as he studied the area below him. Yes, it would slow the charge, as horses paused to jump and riders found it necessary to give full attention to their mounts for a moment. Now, if he only had a hundred foot-lancers
to hide behind such a barrier! The charging enemy could be decimated by a well deployed force.
But, he sighed, he had no squadron of lancers. There were only the thinned ranks of the People. The older, more experienced warriors were bowmen, needed to defend the flank against enemy on foot, attempting to infiltrate through the trees.
Their few skilled lancers were young men of the Elk-dog Society, those who had not followed the rebels. They would have little opportunity to mount a counterattack on horseback in the cramped confines of the village. It would probably be necessary for them, also, to fight on foot.
Aiee
, if they had a hundred pairs of hands, if only to hold spears. Slowly, an idea, born of desperation, began to dawn. Yes, it might work! He hurried down to explain his plan to Coyote.
In a frenzy of activity, the People began next day to cut and drag brush for the barrier. Heads Off could imagine the unseen watchers of the enemy chuckling at the futile efforts of the doomed band. Such a flimsy barrier could be easily jumped by charging horsemen, even pushed through.
In fact, Heads Off was carefully supervising the construction personally. He did not want the structure too high or too wide. It must invite the overconfident enemy warrior to jump his elk-dog over the barricade. There lay the potential success of the plan.
Along the inner edge of the brush barrier lay hidden a deadly surprise. Sharpened poles, propped at an angle and camouflaged by thin brush, jutted to meet the enemy. Dozens of these makeshift spears of varying heights were concealed along the barrier, forming a defense almost as effective as the squadron of lancers the chief had wished for. Better, perhaps. This plan had the additional element of surprise. Heads Off felt a resurgence of confidence.
Soon came the night when Cold Maker swept down on the
camp. Icy rain pelted on the lodge skins, making the distinct drumming sound now familiar to Heads Off since he joined the People. The smoke-flaps were tightly closed and the Elk-dog band settled in for the storm to pass.
Next morning icy crystals sparkled on the trees, brush, and the grass of the prairie. The few remaining leaves dropped quickly from the trees along the stream. Only the majestic oaks in the grove retained their foliage. Previously turning a warm red, the oak leaves now became dead, curled, and brown, but would cling tightly to the branches, until replaced by new growth in the Greening Moon.
The importance of this quality of the oaks was, for the People, the shelter they provided. Shelter, not for the People, but for the occasional deer that might find their way into the area. They would become potential food for the lean moons.
The People proceeded with their preparations for the winter, optimistically deferring thought of the coming conflict.
Their predicament was sharply recalled one crisp afternoon when two small children ran screaming from the grove where they had been gathering firewood. Warriors seized weapons and ran to their defense, to find nothing.
Nevertheless, the children insisted that they had encountered a heavily armed Head Splitter. The man had sprung at them with a horrible grimace as they dropped their sticks and fled.
There were those who were inclined to discount the entire story. The children, it was said, had vivid imaginations, and had been frightened by a shadow or a deer in the dark woods.
“What do you think they saw?” the young chief asked his father-in-law in private.
Coyote was slow to answer. “I am afraid, Heads Off, that they saw a Head Splitter.”
The young man nodded. This fit the pattern he had envisioned.
The enemy would show himself just enough to keep the People alarmed and under stress. They would be unable to pursue, or even to organize a hunt for food outside the environs of the camp itself This incident was a clear message. Even the woods were not safe. The noose was tightening around a doomed band of the People.
Heads Off again felt that he had failed in his responsibility to his wife's people. What would be said at the Sun Dance next year, he wondered? There would be an empty place in the circle of chiefs at the Big Council.

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