The Sacrifice (10 page)

They set off in darkness toward the sunrise. One of the Pawnee mounted Bull, and their captive was hoisted atop a roan pony lashed between the horses of two others. Through her fear pounded one thought: she must retrieve the grizzly robe. Anxiously she scanned the starlit ground. One of the warriors riding beside her looked at her as if she were making him nervous. Just then she caught sight of a light, shapeless mass.

“My robe!” she shouted, leaning toward it.

The horses started and the Pawnee spoke angrily. Someone near the front maneuvered his skittering mount to the object, swung down to examine it, and scooped it up. Raising it over his head, he gave a victory trill with his tongue and brought the robe over for his fellows to admire. As she watched desperately, he draped the hide across his horse's withers.

“That's mine,” she said.

Someone spoke evenly, and several of the warriors turned to look at her. Though she could not make out their expressions in the dark, a cold feeling crawled into her that she had better keep quiet.

Everyone seemed tired, and soon a silence settled over the party. The tedium of horses plodding in darkness gave her time to think.

They must be taking her to their village. To be killed? Enslaved? Adopted? Married? The possibilities whirled through her mind. One of these awaited her, she was certain.

She had nothing to fear, she reminded herself; she was the Great One. She wondered for a moment whether Born-great was responsible for her capture. But his ghost was gone; she felt it. The owl had flown away that night and she was certain that he would not return. She must concern herself now with living enemies.

She would escape. But she could not go dashing off only to be cut down like a frightened rabbit. She would wait for the right moment, when she could escape with her robe. Until that moment came, she must keep her eyes open and remember the terrain so she could find her way back.

As the sky began to lighten she looked about her. They were traveling along a creek through pine forest, occasionally skirting dense stands of spruce. Discreetly she searched out her robe. It had been tied over a mare's rump, and hung down so that the horse's hocks bumped it as she walked. On the mare sat a different man from the one who had claimed her robe last night—the one who had saved her life.

He was about thirty winters old, and he appeared to be the party's leader. He had a sharp nose and a generally sharp look about him, and was dressed very strangely. A hawk hung from the right shoulder of his shirt, and from his left shoulder bounced what she thought was an ear of corn. She had seen corn once in a Big Belly trader's pack, but that was for eating, not wearing. He wore an otter collar around his neck and a twisted-hair belt. His cheeks were painted with red streaks, and his forehead with a red bird's foot. He carried his pipe in one hand while he rode, instead of putting it away.

The Pawnee numbered eleven. She wondered uneasily from which one she had escaped the skullcrusher. Her eye caught the motion of an iron-bladed hatchet slapping against the flank of the horse tied to her left.

On her right rode an old man with a gray scalp lock and a thick scar across his throat. He must be a man of importance, for had he been Apsaalooka he would have been considered too old for a raiding party. He seemed to feel her gaze and turned to meet it with kindly, wet eyes. Quickly she looked away.

The forest went on and on, and though the earth swelled into hills, the terrain looked like a hundred other places.

The Pawnee veered away from the creek up a steep hill, and at the crest stopped to gaze out over a towering waterfall plummeting like a cloud out of the sky into a gargantuan yellow canyon. She now knew where they were. The Elk River was well known for its wondrous falls, and for the yellow stone through which it had carved its bed.

They rode down to join the river well upstream of the falls, where it flowed wider and gentler through a broad valley. Occasionally the water drowned a flat into a marsh, where grasses and reeds brushed against the horses' bellies and ducks burst from under them. Although they saw moose, deer, and elk, the Pawnee were not interested in hunting. They hurried ahead, in a manner that worried the girl.

They rode past a group of mudholes and hot springs, forded the river, and continued following it to where it gushed from a lake so large that at times she could not see the other side. Then they wound their way between steep, forested mountains and picked up the trail of another river.

On and on they traveled. She ached from her bruises, and her hands were sore with being tied, but she was comforted by the knowledge that as long as they rode, she would stay alive. The sun arced over them and began its descent. The Pawnee never stopped. If one was hungry he simply leaned over, reached into his saddlebag, pulled out a new moccasin, and ate the food that had been packed inside. The old man offered her pemmican and sandy lumps she did not know were food until he signed that they were made of corn. The lumps were dry and flavorless, but she was hungry.

When they came to a grove of aspen, she made signs to the hatchet owner and the old scar-throated one that she needed to pass water.

The party halted and dismounted. Some spread robes and sat down to eat. Strong hands hoisted her from the roan to her feet. The scar-throated man followed her into the trees and untied her hands.

He said something to her in a startling voice that was really two voices at once, a sort of squeak above a deeper, gritty voice.

She squatted and worked her breechcloth aside.

They did not stop again until long after dark. For sleeping, they tied one of her wrists to the two-voiced man, and the other to the hatchet owner. She was awakened what seemed an instant later to push ahead in the darkness.

On the second night, as they were saddling their horses, the animals began to whimper and tremble. The leader's mare and a paint gelding collapsed to their knees and rolled in agony. The girl saw Bull straining his head back to chew at his saddle, and she walked toward him.

The two-voiced old man followed on her heels and with a hand on her arm pulled her around.

“The saddle is hurting him,” she said in Apsaalooka.

The other warriors watched warily. Apparently none of them understood Apsaalooka, but Two-voices was trying.

They are in pain,
she signed, nodding her head toward the other horses. The men looked at her and one another. “Take the saddles off,” she demanded. “It will not hurt your buttocks to get a little sore.”

The sudden pinched expression on Two-voices' face told her he did understand Apsaalooka. She blanched, expecting a blow, but he turned to consult with the sharp man. The leader was obviously displeased, but he shouted something at his men, and to her amazement, the saddles were removed. She wondered if these men somehow understood that she was someone to be respected.

They kept the same grueling pace for days, stopping rarely except for a brief rest at night. Two-voices never left her side. Traveling by day, by night, by night and then again by day, with so little sleep, she lost track of time. One landscape blurred into the next, and she began to pick out one big landmark for every stretch they traveled during light, something that could be seen from a distance—a river, a mountain. She would wait until they had passed it and crane her neck around and look at it until her eyes burned.

The warriors must have guessed what she was doing, but they made no attempt to stop her—perhaps because the notion was so ludicrous that she would escape to see that mountain or river again.

Soon the mountains and trees gave way to long, flat hills, spiked with tough grass, cactus, and sage. They rode for two or three days through this barren land, along a shallow river. Then the scrub turned to long prairie grass, and that evening she spotted a huge rock formation. As they approached, it took the shape of a big bluff, thrusting out of the plains. Beyond it a tall spike of rock jutted into the sky like a giant lodgepole. These cheered her, for they could be seen at least half a day away, and could never be mistaken.

That evening, she realized how important those rocks would be to finding her way home, when they turned away from the river, past the bluff and the giant lodgepole, away from all landmarks.

Dawn revealed only an endless prairie of grass, waving in the wind, rolling as far as the eye could see. All she had to guide her now was the direction of travel: toward the rising sun.

The horses were tired, and the heat and lack of water added to their discomfort. The next night the sharp-faced leader allowed the party to sleep almost until sunrise.

They were riding again by the time the Morning Star began to fade. Although she was exhausted, the warriors' manner snapped her fully awake. Something was about to happen.

Not far into the morning the leader slid off his horse, and lifted the pipe he always carried in his left hand. The other men also dismounted, and two of them kindled a flame and held it to the grass. The fire licked across the prairie for a time before withering out, leaving a swath of charred ground.

The men thrust their hands into the still-smoking grass and smeared charcoal on their faces. Then they sprang onto their horses' backs, and with a great shouting raced off with her on the trail of the fire. This could mean only one thing: the Pawnee village was over the next rise.

15

Out of big, round lodges that looked like hills the Pawnee people streamed, shouting as they ran. The warriors trotted their horses into the center of the village.

As the crowd closed around her, she half expected to be jerked from her horse and killed, but no one touched her. They stood back slightly and fell silent, as if in fear or awe. All eyes followed her as she passed. Perhaps they were staring at the sight of the grizzly-claw necklace hanging on such a slight girl. She straightened her shoulders, trying not to show fear.

The party advanced through the village and halted before the lodge of a man with a slight leering smile on his lips. They dismounted, and the sharp man draped the grizzly robe across Bull's back and led the horse forward. The leering man looked Bull and the robe over as if he had just bought them. The girl watched helplessly, but sure of at least one small satisfaction as the man bent to tether Bull by his lodge. The man let out a most undignified yelp as Bull's teeth sank into his buttock.

The sharp one and Two-voices escorted her through the tunnel-like entrance into the dark lodge. Bull's new owner followed, carrying the robe, still leering in spite of the bite. When he walked up and stood nearly touching her, she realized that he was not smiling at all. Something was wrong with his face that made his lips curl upward.

He sent away several women and children who were inside. The lodge was strange to her; it was a big dome, like the night sky, much larger than a tepee, large enough for thirty or forty people to live in. Except for a pillar of light in the center pouring through a smoke hole onto a fire pit, the lodge was dark.

She watched her robe as the leering man set it on a bench against the wall. He knelt by the fire pit, scraped away the ashes, and with his breath awakened the coals into flames. He stoked it into a large fire, and the girl now saw that the fire pit was surrounded by a ring of tree trunks reaching to the roof. Many more tree trunks circled around the edge of the lodge, supporting a ceiling of woven saplings and thatched grass.

All were silent. With long fingers the leering man unwrapped a large hide. The sharp man handed him the pipe he had carried. The ear of corn and the hawk were cut off the sharp man's shoulders, the hair rope untied, and all placed reverently on the hide. The leering man tied them into a bundle and placed it on a platform against the wall opposite the entryway. It was a sacred bundle, she realized. The man who always seemed to be smiling must be a priest.

The men seated themselves around the fire, waiting for something.

A boy burst into the lodge. Two-voices gave him a stern look and said something in his odd-sounding way. The priest stood, lit a bowl of buffalo fat and sweet grass, and held his hands over the smoke. He beckoned her with spidery fingers to move forward through the smoke to the sacred bundle. Then he bade the boy walk through the smoke.

Was she to be married to this boy? It seemed the only explanation. But why had all those men journeyed for so many days to capture a bride for this boy? Why didn't he marry one of his own kind?

Perhaps there was something wrong with him. He was about her age and, like her, tall, though not as thin. Like the men, he wore his hair almost completely shaven—nothing was left of it but a stripe sticking straight up in a roach from his forehead to the nape of his neck, where it grew gradually longer and hung like a crest of feathers. His large, long-lashed eyes looked girlish and frightened, she noticed disdainfully. He smiled out of the corner of his mouth at her. She looked away.

The two-voiced old man might have been the boy's father or uncle, for he came and stood next to the boy with a hand on his shoulder and seemed to be reassuring or instructing him. The boy looked up at the old man with pride.

The priest opened the sacred bundle and removed a pot of red powder. He mixed the powder with fat and, using a hide dauber, rubbed this grease-paint on her arms. She struggled angrily, but the sharp man and Two-voices held her firmly. The priest reached out to smear the red over her face and she squirmed, trying to turn her face away, but the sharp one gripped her tight by her hair. As the priest daubed down her nose and around her mouth, she sank her teeth into his hand. The sharp man jerked her head back and hissed something in her ear. She did not understand most of the words, but his meaning was clear. She stood still.

The priest reached into the bundle and pulled out a calfskin dress, the twisted-hair belt, a breathfeather, and a pair of black moccasins. He untied her wrists so she could remove her clothes and pull on the dress from the sacred bundle. Rubbing her sore hand, she did as she was bidden. The hair rope was tied about her waist, the moccasins put on her feet, and the downy feather laid on top of her head.