Scalpdancers (35 page)

“A foolish waste, Moon Shadow,” Blind Weed said, returning from the creek. She carried a water bag over her shoulder, bringing living water to the lodge she now shared with the older woman. Blind Weed had yet to be taken for wife by any of the men. Her sharp tongue cut like a knife and no brave wished the life of trouble she would bring him. With her strong build, clubbing her into submission would not work. No, it was better to have the women of the camp put her to work. And if she caused mischief—kill her outright.

Blind Weed set the water bag upon a post just inside the tepee. The dogs had retreated a few paces at her arrival; now Moon Shadow's soothing voice restored their courage and they drew near to receive a morsel of food. Blind Weed watched her and had to smile.

“You feed the strays and open your lodge to those without a home,” she said. Her own lodge had been burned and her people killed during the Shoshoni raid.

“It is a good way,” Moon Shadow replied. The last pup tentatively approached, stretched forth its muzzle, its brown tail tucked between its legs; the animal came closer … trembling.

White Buffalo on his lathered mount scattered the animals as he brought his stallion to a savage halt before Moon Shadow's tepee and alighted. The dust his horse had churned in its wake drifted across them. The pup, anxious for a share of the food, was too slow in making good its escape. White Buffalo's moccasined foot caught the animal on the side and dealt the camp dog a brutal kick. The pup landed ten feet away and scurried off.

For two hard days White Buffalo had pushed his horse, resting only when there was simply not enough light to see the trail. The stallion's sides heaved with every gasping breath; flecks of pink froth formed around its nostrils.

“Take my horse to water and then lead it to the meadow,” White Buffalo snapped as he approached, his rifle cradled in his arms. The notched feather in his hair fluttered as he walked. His eyes were shaded by the sacred white buffalo headdress and added to the aura of menace that surrounded him like some invisible shroud.

“You have ridden this animal to its death,” Blind Weed retorted.

White Buffalo reached in his pouch and removed a talisman he had fashioned from the rib of the sacred animal whose power he had stolen. The rib was painted with swirls of faded blood and one end had been sharpened into a point. A fragment of the buffalo's skin had been wrapped around the blunt end to serve as a grip. White Buffalo pointed the fetish at Blind Weed and began to chant in a voice barely audible to the young woman.

“
E-hoone-setse
,” the shaman said and he lowered the talisman to Blind Weed's chest.

Blind Weed shrank back from the relic, her eyes wide with horror. Her breathing suddenly became ragged; a sharp pain in her side caused her to wince. Her senses reeled as she struggled to fill her lungs with air. And all the while White Buffalo continued his chant, no louder than a whisper.

Moon Shadow acted on instinct to save the life of her friend. She pushed forward and with her great bulk shoved Blind Weed back toward the tanning racks and the winded stallion White Buffalo had ridden to the village.

“Foolish girl! Do as you are told!” Moon Shadow scolded, breaking the shaman's concentration. Immediately Blind Weed began to breathe properly and the stabbing pain in her side lessened to a dull ache. She gathered the reins of the stallion and hurriedly led the animal down to Elkhorn Creek. She could not withstand the power of White Buffalo, but she vowed she would escape or perish in the attempt.

White Buffalo turned on the woman at his side. Moon Shadow lowered her gaze and her shoulders sagged.

“You have come to my lodge, great shaman, but what have I to share with you?” She spoke in the same tone of voice she used to calm the wild dogs.

“Never stand between me and the sharp-tongued she-wolf again,” the shaman answered coldly, returning his talisman to the pouch at his side. He raised his voice so that the men and women in the surrounding tepees could listen to his words and know fear. “Or I will curse you that your entrails will burn as if you swallowed fire and you will writhe upon the ground and beg for water and die with only the taunts of the Shoshoni women for your death chant.”

Moon Shadow tried to make herself smaller, an impossible task for one so round and well padded. She did manage to dodge aside as White Buffalo headed for her tepee. The shaman ducked inside. Moon Shadow could hear him rummaging among her possessions. She looked around, helpless at the intrusion. There was no one to help her. The Shoshoni did not care what happened to her. The Blackfeet feared the wrath of their captors. Only a madwoman would defy a man like White Buffalo.

Moon Shadow leaned forward and picked up a scraper, a crescent-wedge stone honed sharp from months of use. She continued to work on a deer hide stretched upon a rack made from pine saplings lashed together with sinew. White Buffalo emerged from the tepee carrying a worn-out buckskin shirt. He held it up for Moon Shadow's inspection.

“Tell me, old grandmother, is this the shirt of Lost Eyes?”

“Lost Eyes is dead,” Moon Shadow replied glumly. White Buffalo advanced on her, towering menacingly over his prisoner. Moon Shadow slowly nodded. What harm was there? She was saving her own life. “He wore it long ago,” she answered.

White Buffalo grunted a reply and hurried off through the village with the shirt. The braves in camp cleared a path for the renegade who had betrayed the Scalpdancers and made war against his own people. Even the Shoshoni who frowned upon such misdeeds kept private their opinions and rarely voiced them, for the powers of the shaman were not to be denied.

Blue Cap sat on the ground just outside the tepee she shared with White Buffalo. Being young, it pleased her that she should be the wife of the most important and powerful man in the village.

She waited and watched as he climbed the hillside to where her tepee sat all alone among the pines.

“It is good you have returned early, my husband,” she called out. White Buffalo failed to answer. He marched right on past the flirtatious and willing young woman he had taken for wife.

“Stay away from me,” White Buffalo warned. “I will come to you when it's time.” He spoke without looking at her, his words floating back to her as he entered the forest. Blue Cap settled into a sullen pout. She did not like being ignored. She was young and pretty and accustomed to being sought after, not set aside like a meal her husband was too busy to consume.

White Buffalo pressed on into the woods until he came to a clearing a dozen yards from his lodge. Here he had swept clean the ground. Here he had laid stones in a circle and piled dry kindling at the center. He shoved the mound of branches aside and removed his fetish, the sacred rib. He ripped a fragment from the buckskin shirt taken from Moon Shadow's tepee and placed the patch in the center of the circle. Then with the rib bone he drew four circles in the dirt around the piece of buckskin. With the pointed tip of bone he stabbed the patch four times. Then he turned the rib on himself and jabbed the pointed end into his forearm until blood oozed from the wound. He allowed four drops of the blood to fall on the shirt. Then White Buffalo covered it over with branches and tree bark and lit the ceremonial pyre.

“Death striker—

Trickster spirit—

My enemy is Lost Eyes.

Stand before me,

Hear my voice,

Follow my words,

For they have bound you.

Death striker—

Trickster spirit—

My enemy comes.”

So it was spoken. White Buffalo eased back on his heels and heard the crack of a twig along the path, and when he looked up, he saw Blue Cap gingerly approaching from the trail. Sacred smoke from the fire wafted toward the path, stirred by a passing breeze. The gray smoke caused her to cough and it momentarily blinded her. Still the young girl dared to approach.

White Buffalo had finished the ceremony and found himself both amused by the young girl's presence and angry that she had not obeyed him.

“I have news,” she hurriedly told him, unable to keep her secret any longer. “Blind Weed and some of the other Blackfoot women and children are planning to escape. One night soon, they intend to steal horses and ride from the valley.”

“And you with them?”

“You are my husband!” Blue Cap retorted, incensed by the mere suggestion of disloyalty. She came to within a foot of the ceremonial fire and stared in amazement as White Buffalo laughed.

“Good,” he told her. Flames lapped at the air, masking his expression. “I will let them go and send men to follow them. Perhaps these women will lead me to the other Scalpdancers. Perhaps even to the one I seek above all others. For I must kill him or he must kill me.”

White Buffalo walked around the crackling branches. The pyre shattered and collapsed in on itself in a shower of orange sparks. The magic was done, the curse set in motion. And as sure as his victim's name was Lost Eyes, there was no escaping his fate.

20

His name was Red Owl and he was to watch over the horses this night—a lonely vigil on the hillside above Elkhorn Creek. He was young and in love with a winsome Shoshoni maiden whose father had many horses and many scalps taken in battle. Red Owl had little to offer for the daughter, but he dreamed that one day he might. It was a cold, rainy night and even the desire he felt failed to warm him as he huddled in the darkness at the base of a lodgepole pine.

Wrapped in his blanket with his head lowered against the rain, Red Owl never noticed the subtle shift of movement in the village as shadow shapes crept from silent tepees and made their way upslope, coalescing as they came on into a body of women and children numbering twenty in all. After four months, the Shoshoni had lowered their guard. By now it was reasonable to expect the Blackfeet prisoners had been assimilated into the tribe. Indeed, some had, but not all.

Red Owl stirred as a branch cracked nearby. His nodding head came up; he straightened. Grabbing his flint-lock, the young sentry scrambled to his feet and cocked the weapon but covered the flash pan with the palm of his hand. He squinted at the darkness surrounding him and stepped back behind the pine for protection. He considered raising a cry of alarm or firing a warning shot—and he would have but for the woman who emerged from the blackness of the forest.

Blind Weed walked to within a few yards of the brave. Her tall, muscular physique was hidden by a trade blanket. Her black hair was matted to her skull. She did not seem to mind the autumn shower.

In fact, to Red Owl's amazement, she allowed the blanket to fall to the ground and walked away from it, naked and vulnerable, a feast for his hungry eyes. Rain plastered her long hair to her bare shoulders. Rivulets of water rushed between her rounded breasts and fell in sumptuous cascades down her belly.

Red Owl lowered his gaze and licked his lips, and for the life of him, he couldn't even remember the name of the woman he had moments earlier been longing for. The Shoshoni brave recognized Blind Weed as one of the prisoners they had captured in the aftermath of the raid. He wondered if all the Scalpdancers were prone to such madness. However, he wasn't about to bring this one to her senses.

Red Owl watched as the madwoman raised her hands to the downpour and arched her back so that the water spilled over her lithe form. The sentry lowered his gun. Blind Weed seemed to notice him for the first time. She appeared startled at first; then a wicked smile brightened her features and she held out her arms to the keeper of the horses. Rain or not, Red Owl was aroused. He leaned his rifle against a tree and slipped off his powder horn and shot pouch and motioned for the woman to come under the canopy of branches. Blind Weed gingerly approached, taking one step, hesitating, then another. He reached out to her, his fingers trembling, his breath ragged from anticipated pleasure. He never saw the hand that took up his rifle, never heard the whisper of the barrel as Moon Shadow swung the weapon like a club. The rifle butt caught the warrior alongside his head. There came a sickening sound of crunched bone as he slumped against the pine, cupping his head in his hands. Blind Weed scampered up and yanked the rifle from Moon Shadow's grasp and, swinging it in a vicious arc, laid the rifle barrel across the wounded man's skull. He toppled like a felled timber.

A third woman stepped forward and handed Blind Weed a buckskin shift and leggings. Blind Weed gratefully pulled the clothes over her shivering limbs. She caught the woman by the arm and turned her benefactor about.

“You are Shoshoni,” she said, suspecting treachery. “What is your name?”

“I am called Magpie Woman, sister of Broken Knife.”

“Why are you among us?”

“I will not stay here. White Buffalo will destroy my people. He has stolen the power of the Sacred One. He is evil. I will go with you or go alone, but I will not remain.” Magpie Woman was small but resolute, and the defiance in her voice lent credence to her words. The Blackfoot could not deny her.

“Come,” Blind Weed said. She motioned to the women and children clustered back in the trees. At her command the younger women moved quickly along the hillside, finding mounts for all who intended to escape. The animals recognized the scent of the village on the women in their midst and allowed themselves to be led back into the trees. Half an hour later, everyone had a horse. It took Blind Weed and Magpie Woman to help Moon Shadow up on the back of a big-boned roan gelding.

Once firmly astride the animal, Moon Shadow swore she would never dismount until they were safe from the reach of the Shoshoni.

Blind Weed took the lead on a bay mare. She chose a path that followed the contour of the hill toward the entrance to the valley. The route was far more precipitous especially during a rainstorm, but they were less likely to alert the village of their passing if they stayed above the valley floor. They kept to the hill trail until the pass widened and the cluster of tepee around the creek was lost to the shadows of night. Only then did Blind Weed bring them down from the forested slopes. When they reached the valley floor, the fugitives urged their stolen ponies to a gallop, trusting the rain to muffle the sounds of their horses as they made their bid for freedom.