The Sacrifice (9 page)

She could not yet use a fire drill, and thus had no fire to roast the meat or to warm her, but she had waited a long time for roasted meat; she could wait a while longer. And although the nights were crisp, they were no longer uncomfortably cold. Fireweed blossoms burned along the forest edges, green berries appeared on brambles, and animals no longer showed themselves during the warm days.

Finally it was time to make the necklace. Her fingers, still stiff from their injuries, stumbled over the grizzly claws, slowly drilling holes with a bone sliver and sand through their knobby ends and again through their middles, so they could be double-strung with sinew. She polished each one against her shirt until it glowed. They were fearsome claws, mostly ivory, with burnt-colored bases almost too dark to catch the light. The front claws stretched as long as her fingers. She laid them out in a half circle as they would appear on the finished necklace, with the largest in the middle. Between each claw she laid a square of the red-gold fur. What a proud necklace it would be!

*   *   *

She was almost ready.

Her hands had healed with mostly small scars, though her left hand missed the little finger almost to the wrist, and had not regained its whole strength. In her side she felt only a thin pain, when she breathed in deeply. Her burnt arm was flexible enough to try her bow, and she was relieved to find the arrows true. The robe and necklace were finished.

Now for a new shirt. She could not return home with a grizzly robe wrapped around the wretched rag she was wearing. She picked up her bow. Also, she must admit, she would not mind tasting something other than bear meat.

Many animals had moved to higher country, following the tender new browse as snow receded up the mountains, and she was out two days before she caught sight of a tiny group of mule deer. She wounded a doe, and spent most of the morning tracking it into a thicket of brambles. She knelt over the weakened creature, which looked up at her with terrified eyes. Self-consciously she said, “Thank you for giving your life to preserve mine.”

That night she made fire for the first time since before her fall into the boiling waters nearly two moons ago. She savored the tendril of smoke as she drilled. Gently she scraped the little ember onto her knife blade and slid it into her waiting nest of tinder. Cradling the nest in one hand, she moved her arm in circles from the shoulder until a flicker appeared, like a much-missed friend approaching from a long way off. She laid the nest of fire on a flat stone, rested a few twigs across it, and soon had a comforting yellow flame large enough to cook over.

Her mouth watered at the succulent scent of mule deer flank beginning to roast. She pulled the thick grizzly robe closer about her shoulders as the night air cooled, and fingered the claws that encircled her throat. She could hardly believe these things were real. That she had truly killed a grizzly bear. That soon she would return home the Great One.

I am not no one anymore, she thought, and the idea repeated in her head like a chant: I am someone. I am someone. I am someone.

13

The girl pulled on her new deerskin shirt and slipped her bow and shirtsleeve quiver onto her shoulder. Heaving the bearskin onto her back, and gripping a pouch made of her old shirt and swollen with dried venison and bear meat, she started walking.

She followed the river, reasoning that she would find her way back easily.

As long as I do not fall asleep and sleepwalk away from the river, she thought. She was reminded again of Bull, and she hoped he had made his way all right and not fallen prey to some wild beast. He was only a horse, she tried to tell herself. There were other horses. But these thoughts only made her heart heavier.

It was a crisp blue day and an easy walk through grassy flats and pines; even the waterfall she came upon was easily skirted. But as the sun cast longer and longer shadows, the river began to twist and wind and seemed to be wearing into a canyon. Both the grizzly robe and her pouch of venison were growing heavier and more unwieldy with each step. She stopped and rolled them into a bundle and lashed it to her back. Standing a little unsteadily under the weight, she surveyed the river ahead, and was beginning to doubt the wisdom of following its meanderings when she saw a thin line of smoke rising above the pines in the direction of the sunrise. Or was it steam? She watched it drift and decided that steam would not hang in the air so long.

Where there was smoke, there might be horses to steal. Her journey would be much easier on horseback, of course, but even more important, stealing a picketed horse from an enemy camp was one of the four steps on the path to becoming a chief. She did not know if she would receive credit without witnesses, but perhaps returning home with a strange horse would be proof enough for the council.

She hurried toward the smoke, abandoning the river for a more direct course. She tramped through the brush, through woods, and over hills, the big bundle shifting awkwardly on her back. Each time the smoke disappeared behind a hummock or bend she ran ahead until it came into view again. It might not last long, and it was her only guide in the search for the person who had made it.

Her thoughts raced as she rushed onward. Only one fire. Just a small party, then, or perhaps even one person. This would be much easier than stealing horses from a whole village.

She pulled up short at the distant sound of a human voice. She dropped to her hands and knees. Though the sky was still light, the sun was low and it had grown dim inside the forest. Her ears strained for further voices, footfalls, or any living sound. There must be at least one scout lurking among the trees, watching for enemies; she must take care not to stumble upon him. She crept forward.

She could hear several voices now, and ahead she saw a small clearing and movement through the trees. She lay still and watched. In the dusk she made out six different bodies. Suddenly fire appeared and she realized that someone who had been blocking it had stood up. That made seven. Plus any wolves in the woods. What nation were they? She could not see from here. No matter, as long as they had horses.

The horses stood somewhere beyond to her left, where she heard their occasional blowing.

She waited for darkness to settle. The men appeared to be eating, and afterward they talked well into the dark. When some time had passed, a man sitting by the fire spoke to the others and they rose and found their places and lay down for the night. The man by the fire sat up after the others had fallen asleep. She grew stiff and impatient from lying still, willing him to sleep.

Finally he lay down. When she was certain all the breathing she heard followed the deep, slow rhythm of sleep, she eased forward on hands and knees toward the horses. There was no moon, and the darkness at the floor of the forest was nearly complete. She strained to see the outlines of the trees in front of her. Moving slowly, feeling the pine-needled ground ahead to avoid sticks or cones that might give her away, she placed each knee in the handprint before it. She followed the sounds of the horses. After a time, she broke through the pines. Starlight glowed faintly in the clearing, like a mist. A grassy opening ran out one side of the meadow; this would be her escape. She could see the white that dappled some of the horses' coats, and when one tossed its head or gave a shake she could make out the whole animal. They stood in a row, ten or twelve of them, probably tethered together through their bridles.

She would take all of them, she thought excitedly as she stood and walked slowly toward the horses. Not only would stealing all their horses make it more difficult for the men to catch her, but it would make her homecoming even more glorious. She would keep only one and make gifts of the others—then how people would respect her.

She had reached them. She could scarcely believe her luck as they stood quietly while she cut one picket after the other, leaving the long rope between the animals to lead them.

She felt the rope toward its end; she would cut loose the last horse and ride this one in the lead, trailing the others behind her. The animal had no white markings and she could barely see it, like a shadow in the darkness, but its lead was visible, sweeping to the ground like a strand of spiderweb reflecting the starlight. As she bent to cut it, the horse snorted and sank its teeth into her buttock.

Stifling a cry, she snapped upright, bumping her head against the beast's jaw. “Bull?” He snorted again. She felt along the animal's neck to its back. Too high for her to mount without a leg up.

“Hush, Bull, quiet!” she whispered, her joy swallowed in fear.

A foreign voice rang out from the woods, answered by two or three others from different depths, like echoes. The wolves had heard. She slashed through Bull's lead and tried to swing the horses around toward the opening in the trees. She could hear the wolves crashing toward her on all sides and the men in camp awakening as she wedged her body between Bull and the next horse and heaved herself onto the smaller one's back. She vaulted from the small horse to Bull and kicked hard. Bull leaped almost out from under her and struck a gallop toward the opening at the other end of the meadow, while the other horses jerked along behind them.

The men had guessed her route and shouted as they raced to cut her off. Two already stood waiting at the mouth of her escape.

“I am the Great One!” she yelled, and bore straight down on them.

The other horses swung alongside as they charged through the opening. A hand grasped at her ankle but was ripped away as she galloped past. She knew arrows must be flying around her, but she looked straight ahead.

Behind her the sharp voices trailed away.

But suddenly the grassy channel narrowed into an upward draw, and she realized the horses could not pass through abreast. She urged Bull faster, trying to break ahead and string the animals out one after the other, but Bull was not fast enough. The space was closing. She reached over to cut the line that tied her to the other horses. There was a great whinnying and screeching as the horses tangled and collided around her. Just as her blade touched the rope she was jerked over it. She felt Bull falling away as she was thrown over his head.

Even as the heels of her hands struck the ground and she tumbled headfirst over onto her back, her body knew what to do, and as she rolled over onto her feet she sprang upright, and stumbled into a run. She forgot horses; escape was all now. Her feet were light and she ran like a jackrabbit, swerving around trees she could see only an instant before crashing into them.

Suddenly she realized how she was running so easily: there was no heavy bundle slapping against her back. Her grizzly robe! She staggered to a stop and whirled around, eyes frantically raking the ground, but she could hear human footsteps galloping toward her, and in agony, she turned and sprinted up the draw.

It grew steeper and rockier, until she was no longer running, but clambering up a rocky slope. Soon she was clawing at sheer cliff. Trapped.

Balancing against the wall, she jerked an arrow from her quiver and in the same motion strung her bow, but as she turned to face the enemy, someone swatted the bow out of her hand and raised a skullcrusher over her head.

Just as it began to descend, she slipped her feet off their precarious footholds and let herself fall down the rocky slide. The crack of the stone skullcrusher against the cliff reverberated like a thunderclap. She tried to keep her feet beneath her, but they caught and pitched her into a roll over the rocks and she did not stop until she slammed sideways into a man's legs. He staggered back, almost falling, then nudged her motionless body with a foot, as if to check whether she was dead.

The grizzly attack flashed through her. If I play dead, will they leave me alone? she wondered. She tried not to move as he rolled her onto her back, but she could not stop gasping for breath. She could hear or feel the footsteps of the other warriors approaching. Excited voices ricocheted off the rock walls so that she could not tell where the speakers were. She opened her eyelids just a slit.

An iron hatchet was slicing toward her head.

Before she could throw herself out of the blade's path, a fist flashed out like a rattlesnake and snapped up the handle, halting the hatchet's plunge in midair. Sharp words were exchanged. Her eyes were wide open now. Two or three men were peering down at her in the darkness. The man who had stopped the hatchet wrested it away and, speaking angrily, thrust the blade toward her chest. She flinched, sucking in her breath. A third warrior poked his bow under her bear-claw necklace. They seemed to be arguing.

A torch was handed forward and the men hovered over her. They could see her better now, as she could see them. Their faces and shaved heads gleamed in the harsh yellow light. They were Pawnee.

In terror she remembered having heard from some Shoshone traders that the Pawnee cut out the hearts of captive girls.

It's just an old tale, just a tale to frighten children! she told herself frantically, struggling not to lose control. I am the Great One. I fear nothing.

The man with the hatchet seemed to be speaking to her. She did speak a little Pawnee, for there lived in her village two women and a boy who were once Pawnee, and she had learned some of their talk. But she pretended not to understand. Now he was making signs, asking something. She would never convince them that she did not understand sign language, for all Plains people knew it, but she avoided answering until he squatted down and made the signs right in her face:
Question—you female?

She looked him in the eye and signed,
Yes.

14

Abruptly the warriors seemed to break into good humor. They talked with hands on one another's shoulders as they walked back toward their camp.

The man who had saved the girl's life grasped her hair, twisted it twice around his wrist, and dragged her to her feet. He placed his hand on her head, lifted his face to the sky, and spoke briefly in measured tones, as if praying. Then he tied her wrists in front of her and led her back to the meadow, where the others had rounded up the horses and were already breaking camp.