Sundancer (Cheyenne Series) (47 page)

      
A hush fell over the assembly when the Lone Bull stood still, transfixed by the sun. Everyone seemed to lean forward in anticipation. The chanting of the other dancers, the beat of the drums grew swifter, fiercer. Then he made one final lunge and tore free of both thongs at once. The “Aaah” of the People broke the silence as all rose to their feet.

      
Roxanna saw two pinpoints of light dancing in the blackness swimming before her eyes. Willow Tree helped her to her feet, where she stood swaying for an instant. Then she fixed her gaze on the Lone Bull, who at last sank to his knees, then crumpled to the earth. No one rushed to aid him until Sees Much, walking slowly, reached his side.

      
Willow Tree held Roxanna's arm in a firm grip. “You do not touch now. Shaman will tend him. Learn his dream. Come, I take you to our lodge. You wait for him.”

      
Numbly, Roxanna let her friend guide her back to their lodge as Sees Much and Leather Shirt knelt beside her husband. Was he conscious or had he at last passed out from exhaustion, dehydration, pain? She could not tell as the crowd converged, blocking him from her sight.

      
The Lone Bull lay on the ground, staring up into the face of Leather Shirt. “Grandfather?” he said in Cheyenne. His voice was a hissing rasp, so faint he was not certain the old man heard him until Leather Shirt smiled and leaned over, offering him a small sip of cool water.

      
“Do not speak yet, my son, child of my child.” Gently Leather Shirt let a few more drops trickle onto his tongue.

      
The Lone Bull closed his eyes in gratitude, letting the blessed balm of moisture ease the parched agony of lips, tongue, throat.
All will be set right
. Had Sees Much said it—or his grandfather? Or had it been some voice inside of him? Then Leather Shirt spoke.

      
“You are no longer Not Cheyenne. You will claim a new name among the People. Never has any warrior made a finer Medicine Lodge. Never have I seen one so pleasing before the Powers. The buffalo have come. The fall hunt will be good. Our women and children will not go hungry. The Everywhere Spirit blesses us all for what you have done. My heart overflows with gladness that you are my grandson.”

      
“Grandfather,” he said, raising his arm and clasping it around the old man's. “I am proud to be the grandson of Leather Shirt.” They held on tightly for a moment.

      
“Now go with Sees Much back to your lodge. Tell your uncle of your vision. Your woman worries for you. She has a strong heart.”

      
The old chief helped his grandson to his feet, then released him and stepped back as Sees Much guided him toward their lodge. Reverently people stepped aside, murmuring praise for the pledger who was truly one of the People now.

      
With a wintry smile the old chief turned to meet the hate-filled glare of His Eyes Are Cold. ‘‘The darkness inside you no longer holds your son. He takes his place in the light now.”

      
‘‘Savage superstition,” Powell spat. “I don't believe in such things.” There was a hollowness in his voice that even Andrew Powell himself could hear...and suddenly he heard something else as well. For the first time in almost twenty years, His Eyes Are Cold had spoken the Cheyenne tongue.

Chapter Twenty-One

      
Roxanna waited inside as Sees Much assisted her husband into the lodge. Cain walked under his own power, although Roxanna could not understand how he had managed to make it from the Medicine Lodge. Sees Much held one of his arms to guide him. His head hung limply and his steps dragged in the dust. Once inside, he faltered, then sank to his knees without seeing her. When Roxanna started to scramble up to assist him, Sees Much waved her back to the outer perimeter of the teepee where she had been instructed to sit.

      
The old man helped him onto the pallet specially prepared for the pledger, piled high with freshly cut willow boughs and covered with rich furs. Roxanna bit down on her lip to keep from crying out for his hurts. The torn flesh of his chest seeped blood more slowly now. There would be scarring from the wounds, a badge of honor he would share with Sees Much, Leather Shirt and other leaders of the Cheyenne.

      
She ached to touch him, to reassure herself that he was alive, that within his cruelly lacerated chest his heart still beat. But the old shaman positioned himself between them, then opened his medicine bags and began to arrange the items he needed. Roxanna’s gaze remained fixed on her husband's face. His eyelids fluttered open. There was an unfocused opacity to the usually sharp black glitter in his eyes as he watched Sees Much feeding sweet grass into the flames in the fire pit. Then his eyes closed once more and he seemed to drift in and out of consciousness.

      
“We will need living water,” the old man said quietly to her, indicating a bucket beside the fire pit. She took it and quickly left the lodge to draw fresh water from the river.

      
When she returned a few moments later, the silvery smoke of the sweet grass rose in a thin curl, drawn up through the hole at the apex of the lodge. Its pungent aroma hung in the warm evening air. Sees Much placed his hands over the smoke and rubbed them, then stretched them out across Cain's chest over the twin wounds, chanting in a low voice for a moment. Then he extracted some sacred white sage plant from one of his bags. Accepting the water bucket from Roxanna, he motioned for her to take her seat in the darkness across from him.

      
Cain continued to drift in and out of consciousness, restlessly moving his arms and legs as he lay on the pallet. She knew he must be in terrible pain. The old shaman was a skilled healer. She had watched him work wonders with his herbal remedies and the soothing touch of his gnarled hands.
Please; help him!

      
As if responding to her silent plea, Sees Much poured some water from the bucket into a drinking gourd and let a few drops at a time trickle past Cain's parched lips. At length he set aside the gourd and used a pair of metal pincers to remove two red-hot rocks from the fire pit, placing them one at a time in the bucket to heat the water. The sizzling hiss roused Cain for a moment, but then consciousness faded again. Once Sees Much was satisfied with the temperature of the water, he added fistfuls of the white sage to the liquid, immersing it until it was pliant and soft.

      
After testing it with his hands, he squeezed the excess moisture from a handful of the sacred herb and began to sponge the wounds, one, then the other, leaving a clot of sage on each. When the poultice began to penetrate, its cooling balm seemed to partially revive Cain. The old man leaned over him and gazed into his eyes.

      
“Now, nephew, it is time for us to study the vision you received in the Medicine Lodge.”

      
His voice raspy, Cain replied so low he could barely hear himself over the crackle of the flames. “How do you know I was given one?”

      
Still half conscious, he replied in English just as his uncle had spoken to him in that language. Roxanna too leaned forward to hear what he said. She could see both their faces etched in the flickering light of the flame. Daylight was fast dying outside and the lodge was cast in shadows. The old man's eyes looked up for a moment and met hers. They glowed like the embers in the fire pit. Like a cat's eyes.

      
“You received a vision,” the shaman replied with certainty. “Even full-blood whites are given them...if their hearts are good. Tell me your vision.” He picked up the gourd and this time raised Cain's head, allowing him to take a few sips of water for himself.

      
Cain struggled to remain conscious as bits and snatches of his vision flashed once more through his mind. He was incredibly weary, more exhausted from dehydration and lack of sleep than from his injuries, which now had settled down into a dull ache as the poultice did its work. When he finally gathered his scattered thoughts enough to speak, his voice was low and hoarse. Halting and weak, he relived the vision bit by bit.

      
“I saw a great bull buffalo. Seemed to come straight at me in the lodge...as I danced...then the lodge vanished and we...no—not me...the buffalo and the woman...woman with hair glowing gold and silver like sun and moon melded together...she was...she was dressed all in white...coming toward the bull…”

      
Cain tossed fitfully and Sees Much placed a restraining hand on one shoulder, saying nothing, only waiting. When the shaman raised his head once more and looked across at Roxanna, she was struck again by the glowing incandescence of his eyes. A strange prickly tingle traveled down her spine as her husband resumed his narration.

      
“She shouldn't approach the buffalo bull... Blood...there's blood on his horns. He shakes his head...warning her away...but she does not stop...”

      
For the first time Sees Much interrupted at a pause in Cain's story. “Is the buffalo bull angry with the woman?”

      
Cain shook his head. “No...not angry...afraid. He is afraid...of her...she can hurt him...she'll leave him...but she does not leave...does not stop. She keeps walking, her hands outstretched...to caress his shaggy mane...”

      
His voice faded as he drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. The restless tension in his body seemed to drain away then. All at once he resumed speaking. “Sun and Moon Woman reaches up to touch his horns...the bloody horns. And the blood vanishes at that touch. The hurt and fear go away.”

      
His breathing was even now, although he did not sleep, only lay staring up at the night sky overhead, visible through the lodge opening. Sees Much looked over at Roxanna. The tears which had burned behind her eyelids ever since that awful day in Denver when she had overheard his cruel words to Lawrence, those tears now flowed freely for the first time. Her cheeks were wet with shiny silver rivulets. Through their blurry sheen, she looked back at the old shaman, whose eyes now glowed so intensely she seemed to feel their warmth from across the lodge. Then he once more offered the water gourd to his nephew for a few more sparing sips.

      
Still unaware of his wife's presence, Cain spoke to Sees Much once more. “The sacred buffalo skull White Owl Woman brought into the Medicine Lodge seemed to speak to me then. I was myself again, back in the lodge, dancing around the pole, when it said, ‘Behold.’ I looked outside the door. High-Backed Wolf stood there with his arms folded across his chest. He wore no war paint. There was no anger, no hate. We exchanged a look for a moment and he was gone. In his place stood Blue Corn Woman. I could feel her pride in me and it made me glad. Then Enoch appeared beside my mother, smiling his gentle Good Heart smile.

      
“They waved, then vanished as my brother had. The sacred buffalo skull spoke again, telling me that I was no longer the Lone Bull. From this time forth I would be Brother of the Spirit Bull. He will always be with me and I with him. Wherever I go, the People will be with me.”

      
Sees Much's wizened face suddenly seemed smooth and clear, all the lines of age and care erased as Roxanna watched him smile. “Sleep well, Brother of the Spirit Bull. You have earned your rest. The Spirit Bull has cleansed you of your rage and your guilt. Sun and Moon Woman has healed you and made you whole,” he said.

      
Cain's head turned to the side and his eyes closed as an exhausted sleep finally claimed him. All the restless energy, the tension had been purged from him in the telling of his vision.

      
The old shaman arose and motioned for Roxanna to follow him outdoors. “You must never speak of what he has said until he is ready to share it with you. Before he does, you must tell him of the vision you had the first time you came to us. The Powers clearly mean for you to join your lives. There is no other reason for the way you have shared in his sacred Medicine Lodge vision.” He paused, studying her with shrewd dark eyes. “You will once more be his wife?”

      
“I will always be his wife.”

      
Sees Much grunted in pleased assent. “It is good. Let him rest awhile, then bring him broth with these herbs in it to strengthen him.” He handed her a small pouch. “He will need to be bathed. You have already had practice at this, I think,” he added teasingly as she flushed.

      
“I will care for him.”

      
Smiling, Sees Much went in search of his brother. Leather Shirt would be greatly pleased when he explained the medicine dream of Brother of the Spirit Bull. Then they would have to decide the fate of His Eyes Are Cold. After all that had passed, the shaman was certain Leather Shirt would be inclined to show mercy and release the Iron Horse man.

      
Roxanna spent the day hovering over Cain, watching him sleep, trickling water over his lips and sponging his injured chest with the healing white sage poultices. Several times he awakened during her ministrations. She was able to get two bowls of Sees Much's herbal broth down him in those brief intervals, but his eyes were clouded by the medicines Sees Much had given him to promote rest and healing. He smiled at her and called out her name but did not try to speak more before drifting back into slumber each time.

      
By the following morning he was awake and sitting up when she returned from the river with fresh water. He leaned against one of the heavy parfleches, using it as a backrest. When he sat forward and reached out his hand to her, the wound on his chest ached sharply, causing him to wince and sit back.