Savage Hero (14 page)

Dancing Butterfly swallowed hard. “I wish he was not ill,” she murmured. “But I mainly wish that he
had never left our village to ally himself with Yellow Hair and his evil soldiers.”

Mary Beth was stunned by Dancing Butterfly's attitude toward Night Horse, especially her openness, when everyone else avoided the mere mention of him. “Why would you care so much about Night Horse?” she asked, looking at Pure Heart's tepee. The glow of the lodge fire inside could be seen through the buffalo-hide cover, silhouetting Pure Heart as she sat vigil by her son's side.

Mary Beth had been told that Night Horse's health had improved, that the rattling in his lungs was gone. When he slept now, it was in quiet peace.

“Why?” Dancing Butterfly repeated, absently running her fingers over a long row of turquoise beads that were sewn up the front of her doeskin dress.

She wore a necklace made of the same turquoise beads, as well as a matching bracelet. Her voluminous black hair hung loose and flowing down her perfectly straight back. A headband with turquoise beads sewn onto it held her hair back from her lovely face.

“Yes, why,” Mary Beth said, hoping she wasn't pressing too hard for answers. It was so nice to have a friend among Brave Wolf's people.

“Except for his mother, and perhaps his brother and me, Night Horse is disliked by everyone else in our village,” Dancing Butterfly said softly. “I understand that, because he did so much wrong to our people. I cringe at his misdeeds, yet memories
of better times with him still cling inside my heart.”

“Was he special to you?” Mary Beth asked.

“When I was six winters of age and he was eight, we stole many kisses from one another,” Dancing Butterfly murmured, a sudden sweet light appearing in her eyes. “Those stolen moments continued until I was ten and he was twelve. It was then that we realized the danger of such kisses.”

She lowered her eyes. Her face grew flushed. “Those kisses started creating other feelings that felt too wonderful . . . that . . . we knew were wrong,” Dancing Butterfly murmured.

She lifted her eyes and gazed again into Mary Beth's. “We knew we were in love,” she said. “We grew up only tepees apart. We both knew that our hearts were bound to each other.” She laughed softly, then gave Mary Beth a shy smile. “When we grew older, Night Horse told me how he had watched my shadow through the walls of my family's tepee.”

Mary Beth was saddened to think that two people could love as Dancing Butterfly and Night Horse had obviously loved and yet be parted. She found it incredible that Night Horse could walk away from such a love.

She hoped that Brave Wolf was different from his brother in that respect. She would die if he ever turned his back on their love, a love that had come so quickly and wonderfully.

“We vowed to wait for one another until we were of marrying age,” Dancing Butterfly continued.
“But he seemed to forget. He . . . he . . . left one day and never returned.”

“When he left to join Custer and the others as a scout?” Mary Beth asked softly.

Dancing Butterfly only nodded, then wiped tears from her eyes and sat up straighter.

Just then several warriors walked into the circle of people. They were beautifully dressed in ceremonial clothes decorated with ornaments of feathers and seeds and brightly dyed porcupine quills.

Some carried drums while others carried tomahawks adorned with eagle feathers; others carried nothing at all.

They sat on one side of the cleared area and began singing the bear's song as they beat their drums in a rhythmic fashion.

Dancing Butterfly's confession was temporarily forgotten as Mary Beth gazed at those warriors a moment longer, then looked over her shoulder. She strained her neck as she watched for Brave Wolf, but instead of seeing him she spotted another warrior dancing through the seated crowd.

“That is Many Wings,” Dancing Butterfly whispered to Mary Beth. “He is the dance leader. Follow my lead, Mary Beth—when I stand, you stand. When I clap my hand to my mouth, you do the same. In that way you will prove that you are a willing participant in our customs, and someone who is worthy of our chief.”

Mary Beth's eyes widened. What Dancing Butterfly had just said about her being worthy surely
meant that he had confided in his people about his plans to marry her.

She blushed and smiled and nodded at Dancing Butterfly. “I shall do my best,” she whispered back.

Then her eyes followed Many Wings. His forehead was painted red and two red stripes were drawn from the corners of his eyes down his cheeks. He wore a buffalo robe with the fur side out.

Four warriors and a boy followed him, all painted and dressed in the same manner. They began dancing in the east, came around the pole to the west, and then turned back to the east. They imitated a bear's movements, holding their hands in front of them with their fingertips pressed against their palms, shaking their heads, and stepping like bears on their hind legs.

Dancing Butterfly leaned closer to Mary Beth. “Now is the time to stand,” she said, gently taking Mary Beth by the hand and urging her to her feet. “Remember to do as I do.”

Flushed with excitement, Mary Beth nodded, but realized she couldn't do everything that was asked of her. The people were shouting things in their Crow language. And she knew not one word of it.

She didn't want to disappoint Dancing Butterfly, and especially Brave Wolf, yet how could she fully participate if she didn't know their language?

She saw the way Dancing Butterfly and the others clapped a hand over their mouths; that at least, was something she could imitate.

She was watching Dancing Butterfly and the others so closely, she did not see a young woman dance slowly up to the center pole. Mary Beth's attention was drawn there when everyone stopped shouting and clapping their mouths and gazed silently toward the center pole.

Mary Beth looked quickly toward it. She gasped when she saw the woman, who was dressed in a long, white fur robe with red paint in her hair, start rubbing her face against the bearskin on the pole. Then she began dancing rhythmically around it.

Soon she left and the male dancers moved around the pole, their bare feet pounding the earth in time with the beating of the drums.

Then everything stopped. All faces turned toward their chief's tepee.

Mary Beth's eyes followed. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw Brave Wolf come from his lodge wearing only a breechcloth and an otterskin headband, with a broad red stripe across his face.

As he sang the Bear Dance Song, he danced toward the pole. When he arrived there, he stopped and rubbed his face against the skin, then turned as a dish of prepared pemmican meatballs and a cup of water were taken to him. After he had consumed them, a young brave went to Brave Wolf with a bearskin robe.

Brave Wolf leaned down.

The lad placed the bearskin over Brave Wolf's head, then led him through the crowd toward a pole corral that had been only this morning
erected at the far right of the central fire.

In it stood a lone, coal black stallion, blindfolded and without a saddle, its hind legs tied.

Warriors were on each side of the steed, struggling to hold it still.

The people clambered to their feet and hurried to stand around the corral.

Dancing Butterfly led Mary Beth to where she could see, then held her hand.

“What is Brave Wolf going to do?” Mary Beth asked.

Her voice, though low, carried into the crowd. Several people turned and glared at her. The rest watched their chief, their eyes wide in anticipation.

“Our warriors often capture fine and spirited wild horses. This steed was captured only this morning just for our chief's performance tonight,” Dancing Butterfly explained. “It is unbroken and wild. Our chief will prove his skill today with horses. After he is with the horse for only a short while, the steed will be as tame as a newborn foal.”

“But why is he doing this tonight?” Mary Beth asked. “Is this a part of the Bear Song Dance?”

“No. The dance is over,” Dancing Butterfly said. “Taming the horse is just an added attraction. Watch. Enjoy.”

Brave Wolf stepped up to the pole corral.

The bearskin robe slid away from him.

The young brave grabbed it up from the ground, then stepped back and was lost in the crowd.

Brave Wolf's eyes never left the animal as he
leaned down and pushed his way between the poles.

Once inside the corral, he straightened his back and continued to stare at the horse. His muscles flexed, his jaw tight, Brave Wolf stepped up to the snorting horse.

Brave Wolf itched to run his hands along the steed's jet silk skin and huge withers. He would enjoy stroking the horse's muscled flanks, for he had perhaps never seen such a beautiful stallion in his entire life.

He was anxious to call it his!

As chief, he already owned many horses. A man who had many horses was not only a rich man, but also a warrior to be admired, for how could he acquire so many steeds without being brave?

He swung himself onto the stallion's back.

When a warrior handed Brave Wolf the reins, the horse stood still, its muscles trembling.

Then one of the men removed the horse's blindfold and hurried with the other warrior from the corral. The animal snorted, bit at Brave Wolf's legs, then reared, only now becoming aware that its hind legs were tied.

All that it could do was spin quickly around. That was enough to throw Brave Wolf from its back.

As Brave Wolf slowly rose to his feet, his dark eyes holding the horse's, two warriors came quickly back into the corral, roped the horse and held it steady again for Brave Wolf.

“Untie its legs,” Brave Wolf said tightly.

The warriors questioned him with their eyes, then did as they were told when Brave Wolf glared at them for even a moment questioning his command.

The warriors stepped quickly away as Brave Wolf grabbed the reins and leapt onto the stallion's back.

Brave Wolf held on to the reins tightly, using his knees to hold himself solidly in place. The horse reared again, then ran wildly toward the corral poles and leapt over them.

The crowd ran screaming as they hastened out of the horse's way. Mary Beth and Dancing Butterfly ran with them, then turned and watched again.

Mary Beth's pride in Brave Wolf grew as her eyes followed his every move.

She gasped when she thought he was going to be thrown again, then sighed when he managed to stay on. She knew he was fighting the horse's will as much as its strength.

Making a valiant effort, Brave Wolf headed the steed away from his people and the tepees. In moments he found himself riding along a wide open stretch of land.

Too stubborn to give in to the animal's meanness as it bucked again, then nipped at Brave Wolf's bare legs with its large, yellowed teeth, Brave Wolf winced in pain. But he knew horses well and knew that this animal was nearing the breaking point. He must withstand the pain it had inflicted on him.

He held tightly to the reins. He kept his knees pressed hard against the stallion's sides.

He smiled when the horse stopped rearing and began running at a slower pace. It no longer snorted. Its whinnying became low and tentative.

Brave Wolf smiled, ran a hand across the steed's muscled neck, then leaned low and whispered words of encouragement and friendship in the horse's ear.

Suddenly the horse stopped, hanging its head and breathing hard.

“You are now mine,” Brave Wolf said, leaning low to put his arms around the animal's neck. “We will be devoted friends forever. Together we will be as one.”

The horse nodded as though it understood.

“Let us go home,” Brave Wolf said, straightening his back.

He wheeled the horse around and headed back in the direction of his village, where he saw everyone standing at the edge of the camp, their eyes anxious.

He heard the cheers and claps as he grew closer.

Mary Beth smiled and waved, the pride she saw in Brave Wolf's eyes matching the emotion in her heart.

When he got closer, she ran out and met him.

She was not at all surprised when he reached down and swept her up from the ground and onto his lap.

“Thank God the moon was so bright tonight,” Mary Beth said, gazing lovingly into his eyes. “It
enabled us all to watch you. It was so beautiful, Brave Wolf, how you and the horse came to peace with one another.”

“We
are
as one now,” he said. “Midnight, the name I have just given him, will be my main steed now. The one I have ridden so proudly for so long is now yours . . . if you will have it.”

“Truly?” she gasped. “You truly want me to have it?”

“
Hecitu-yelo
, yes,” he said huskily. “It will be my first gift to the woman who will soon be my wife.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, beaming. “I accept the gift with much pride.”

She hadn't even thought about how it must have looked to his people when she had run to meet him. Now he held her tightly against him as he rode up to them.

Mary Beth scarcely breathed as she looked from person to person, the moon's glow white on their copper faces.

She couldn't believe the lack of resentment they showed toward her. They seemed mostly interested in their chief, who had once again proved his worth to them . . . his masterful ways.

He dismounted, then reached up for Mary Beth, who went willingly into his arms as she slid off the horse. “We shall now eat, sing, and be thankful to the First Maker,” Brave Wolf said as Mary Beth stepped away from him.

He gazed at her violet eyes, her lovely face framed by long, reddish-gold hair; then he looked around at his people.

“My woman will leave tomorrow. She goes to Fort Henry, to seek the pony soldiers' help in finding her lost son,” he said. “My warriors, those of you who searched for the child before, I ask you to leave again tomorrow and resume the search while I see to Mary Beth's safe arrival at the fort.”