Authors: Kerry Newcomb
Scalpdancers
Scalpdancers
Kerry Newcomb
For Patty, Amy Rose, and P.J.
Contents
Elkhorn Creek
PROLOGUE
1814
In the Time of the Muddy Face Moon
What do you want of me? Why don't you speak? Above Ones, send me my dreams, give me my vision. I will follow my dream quest wherever it may lead
.
I cannot bear the silence. The stillness in my heart, the shadows on the wall of the sweat lodge mock this poor one
.
I hear the chanting in the village. I hear the water's song as the ice cracks and life returns to Elkhorn Creek. And still, Cold Maker, you imprison my spirit. Morning will soon come to the world beyond the sacred circle of this spirit fire. Four days have I fasted. And four times this night I have crawled on hands and knees into the sweat lodge and brought wood to the sacred fire. I have sprinkled the flames with cedar. I have made offerings to the four horizons and prayed and sweat. My limbs shine with moisture; the breath burns in my chest
.
Just five mornings past I was in another place where the earth trembled beneath the hooves of a buffalo. I raced the wind and the smell of blood was in the air and I rejoiced to know there would be glad songs in the lodges of a hungry people, my people
.
Maiyun,
do not abandon me. All-Father, my spirit follows the path of the sacred smoke. Find me worthy, Great One, give me my vision
.
A man could get killed â¦
Sixteen hundred pounds of buffalo bull broke through an ice-crusted barricade of Russian thistle and took the first horse on the tip of its short curved horns. A brown mare neighed in anguish and its rider, Waiting Horse, kicked free. The bull raked horseflesh, disemboweled the mare, and veered toward a second tormentor, a Blackfoot brave who raised his short bow and loosed an arrow at the enraged animal. The shaft bit deep into the bison's tender hide just behind the shoulder, yet the bull never lost a stride.
Iniskim
was hurt and knew who had done the hurting. The animal bellowed and charged straight for the brave on the mountain-bred gray.
Lost Eyes notched another arrow. The gray mare responded to the pressure of his knees and cut to the left to avoid the buffalo's charge. Without warning, the plucky little gray went down, its forelegs buckling; the ground underfoot gave way as a prairie dog burrow caved in on itself.
Lost Eyes jumped free of his mount and tossed his bow aside. The last of his arrows spilled from his otter hide quiver. He landed shoulder down in a patch of snow, plowed a furrow in the white-mantled grass, and rolled to a stop a few yards from where he had landed.
He felt the earth tremble against his cheek and willed the world to cease its dizzying spin. Gathering his strength, the brave waited until the last possible second and then shoved himself out of the bull's path. The buffalo rushed past, an unstoppable avalanche of fury, as Lost Eyes slipped over the edge of the draw and slid to the bottom of an eight-foot drop in a shower of pink shale and loosened earth.
Two days of sunlight had scoured much of the meadow of snow, but here in the shadows of the draw Lost Eyes sank midway to his calves in a crusted drift. Shaking the grit from his long braided hair, he clawed his way back up the slope and reached the meadow in time to see Waiting Horse, the young man afoot, attempting to limp out of the path of the buffalo. But the great shaggy beast would not be denied this day and bore down on the helpless youth.
“Ho-hey-a, Iniskim!
”
Lost Eyes shouted and waved his hand, hoping to distract the buffalo.
The animal stumbled and lost a stride, then continued its attack. Waiting Horse glanced over his shoulder and cried out to the All-Father. He tried to run, but his leg had been injured by the falling horse. His ankle wouldn't support his weight.
Lost Eyes ran to his bow and searched wildly for one of the arrows he had lost. He found one hidden beneath some trampled grass, fitted the feathered shaft to his sinew string⦠Too late. He looked up just as the bull caught Waiting Horse on the tip of its horns and tossed him high in the air. The young man flopped to the earth and disappeared beneath the cruel black hooves of the beast not a hundred feet from Lost Eyes.
The Blackfoot sighted and launched a second arrow, but at that distance the arrow was only a nuisance to the bull. The first arrow, through the lungs, should have been a killing shot. However, the beast refused to die.
Iniskim
altered its course yet again but quickly lost strength and labored for breath as blood filled its lungs. Lost Eyes, enraged over the fate of his companion, welcomed another attack. He gathered another couple of arrows and hurried to catch the reins of the gray mare as it struggled to its feet. Lost Eyes swung up onto the gray and spied a trio of horsemen coming from the far end of the valley: the other members of the hunting party. They rode at a gallop across the snow-checkered meadow, anxious to be in on the kill. They must hurry, thought Lost Eyes.
The bull, though dying, lowered its head and charged. Its reflexes were dulled now and its speed diminished, but
Iniskim
was still dangerous at close quarters.
Lost Eyes leaned forward on the neck of his mount and rode straight toward the buffalo.
“
Ha-hayiia, Iniskim!
Horned killer, this day your flesh will nourish my people!”
Lost Eyes was a young man in his seventeenth winter, built strong and lithe, and he sat his horse as if he were one with the galloping mare. The horse's breath mingled with his own, clouding on the cold high-country air. Waiting Horse lay broken and lifeless in the buffalo grass, but Lost Eyes forced himself to concentrate only on the deadly beast bearing down on him.
Horse and rider rapidly closed the gap. Lost Eyes' pulse quickened. The young bull bellowed and plunged toward the gray mare. But the horse quickly danced aside, and the bull viciously swiped empty air. Lost Eyes twisted; the bowstring snapped his left wrist on release; the arrow flew straight and true. Its hardened-sinew warhead passed a rib and pierced the bull's fighting heart.
The beast staggered another twenty yards from the sheer momentum of its charge. Then its legs gave way and the animal collapsed and rolled on its side. The buffalo kicked, fitfully for a moment, then settled into death.
Lost Eyes rode around his kill and hurried to the side of his fallen friend. He dismounted and knelt by Waiting Horse. The young brave was still alive, but the light was fading fast, and Waiting Horse, seeing the steam rise from his ravaged belly, began his death chant.
“All-Father,
I have run with the horses,
I have stalked the blackhorn antelope
And stolen the feathers of the hawk.
But today
Iniskim
has killed me.
I am young, not old. A young man should die
In battleâan old man in his lodge surrounded
By his children.
I am in neither place.
Find me, All-Father.
Let me not wander in search of you.
Let meâ”
Waiting Horse grimaced. His features were deeply etched in pain. The dying man's eyes opened and for a moment he recognized the brave at his side. Lost Eyes' hair was unadorned with eagle feathers. His buckskin shirt and leggings were simple and bore no markings or designs. No spirit symbols linked him to animal or element or to the power of the Above Ones. These were things received in visions. And he was Lost Eyes. He had yet to walk in his soul. He had yet to see what was beyond seeing.
Waiting Horse knew him even through his pain-clouded vision. He reached up and touched Lost Eyes' features, smearing the man's cheek with blood.
“Now you are marked,” Waiting Horse said in a dry, rasping voice. He lowered his gaze to his own ripped belly, a curious expression on his face. After all, it wasn't every day a man saw himself with his insides torn out. Suddenly he arched his back. Lost Eyes struggled to hold him down. Then Waiting Horse relaxed and fought no more and entered the Great Mystery.
Lost Eyes looked to the ice-glazed ridges lying golden in the sun and the gleaming snowcapped peaks of the Big Belt Mountains stretching across the western horizon. These were barrier ridges of bald-faced granite rising above the tree line, a veritable wall of mountains broken by a gap several miles to the south where a high-country meadow threaded its way across the Continental Divide, the Backbone of the World.
In this meadow the Scalpdancers had settled along the banks of Elkhorn Creek. It was a place of beautyâone that Waiting Horse would never see again. But the mountains in their sun-bright mantle of gold were places of power where a man's spirit might ride with the Above Ones forever. So Lost Eyes looked to the mountains as he waited at his friend's side. The other hunters would be there soon.
The camp fire made a beacon in the night and led the last four stragglers out of the darkness of ponderosa pines and barren-limbed aspens. Two travois, one bearing a buffalo carcass, the other the blanket-wrapped form of Waiting Horse, entered the circle of light.
The arrival of the four caused quite a commotion among the half-dozen Blackfeet huddled near the flames, especially when the one travois's tragic burden was revealed. Waiting Horse had been a popular youth, well liked by young and old. Lost Eyes dismounted and ground-tethered his horse while the other braves clustered around the slain man. Only Wolf Lance, who had hunted alone this day and returned to camp empty-handed, made the effort to approach his friend. Wolf Lance was a year older than Lost Eyes and carried an extra twenty pounds on his chunky frame. His moccasins padded across the hard-packed earth. Joy and sorrow mingled in his expression.
He asked only one question, how? and listened without recrimination as Lost Eyes recounted the events of the hunt. The rest of the Scalpdancers who had ridden with Lost Eyes lost no time in embellishing the tragic death of Waiting Horse and shifting the blame onto Lost Eyes. Many of the Blackfeet standing by the travois had grudgingly joined this hunt. Men had died on other hunts, but they believed nothing good could come of keeping company with the man called Lost Eyes. The Above Ones had turned away from him. Why tempt disaster by riding with him? In the end they had listened to Wolf Lance and Waiting Horse and joined the hunting party. And now, after five days, they had nothing to show for their efforts but one buffalo and one corpse.
Their voices carried on the still night air.
“He counseled us and called us women because we feared,” Black Fox said. “See what has happened.” He was a burly man of twenty-three, the oldest of the party and a natural leader by strength of arms and cunning.
“Waiting Horse is dead. We warned him,” Tall Bull added. A man of average height, he was quick in battle and two Crow scalps decorated his buckskin shirt.
Another brave, Broken Hand, whose deformed left hand had only two fingers and a thumb, carefully tucked the blanket beneath the corpse. He had been closest of all to Waiting Horse, and when he lifted his gaze, it was to focus blame on Lost Eyes. He stepped around the travois and started across the clearing as Lost Eyes moved toward the camp fire. Broken Hand blocked the other brave's path.