Scarlet Plume, Second Edition (12 page)

“Yeh. Worse luck.”

“Are you hit bad, Joe?”

“A right smart clip over the cheek. It’s put my nose out of joint a little.”

“You far off, Joe?”

“Stay where you are. I’ll bandage it myself.”

“Joe, I want you with me when I’m killed.” Maggie Utterback’s voice softened. “Joe.”

“Woman, if you know what’s good for you, for godsakes stay put.”

More random shots smashed into the muck.

Benta screamed. She screamed and screamed. Presently she began to cry in a strangled manner.

Tallak tried to comfort her.

Judith called across to them. “Is she hit bad, Tallak?”

“They got her in the bowels.”

Benta groaned. From the sound of it she was dying. Benta moaned, “Stay where you are, Judith.”

“Ya,” Tallak said. “They will see you move through the grass.”

Theodosia prayed. “Father in heaven, look down upon us in thy infinite mercy. Thy servants are—”

“Ahhh,” Benta gasped, and died.

The four Aanenson girls began to wail.

“Kits!” Tallak bawled. “Shh! They will shoot us all.”

“Is Mama dead?”

“Shh.” Tallak sobbed. “Poor Benta. She never blamed nor blabbed.”

More balls snarled through the rushes. Seed tops spilled open.

“God!” Tallak groaned.

“Tallak?” Judith called. “Tallak!”

“They got me, missus.”

“Tallak?”

There was a long low moan. The moan tailed off. Silence.

The oldest Aanenson girl stopped crying. “Now Papa is dead.”

Dogs from Pounce’s village came trotting over the rise, pink tongues out and lolling. They had smelled blood and got loose. They ran down to where Reverend Codman and Silvers and Crydenwise lay. They sniffed the bodies, hesitated, then, stiff-legged, ruffs rising, backed away. After a moment, slinking, moaning a little, they ran back to the village.

“How be you now, Joe?” Maggie Utterback called.

“Like an old beaver, I can still wag my tail.”

“It sure is fierce the way things worked out.”

“It surely is.”

“Them fool red devils with their overdeveloped war bumps.”

Some of the braves began to use Mrs. Christians’ body for target practice. The body jumped on each shot and slid down the rise an inch or so. The braves jeered the dead woman.

“The whites are the greatest fools I have ever seen,” Pounce taunted. “Dakotas, look at the whites puffing there in the grass, where it is hot, while we sit here in peace on the rise, where there is a breeze.”

Bone Gnawer sat on his heels and looked at where Crydenwise lay. “It is fun to kill the white man. The white man runs away and leaves his squaws to be killed by the enemy. He is a coward.” Bone Gnawer’s spotted clout brushed the ground as he rocked on his heels. “One Dakota can kill ten white men without trying.”

“Good Book Woman, come out,” Pounce called. “We will not hurt the women and children. It is only the cowardly white men we want to kill.”

Silence.

“Come out.”

“Pounce?” Joe Utterback called weakly. “Come down here.”

Pounce snorted. “Ha, you are surrounded and cannot escape. You come up here.”

“I’m about done in. I can’t come up. I’m soon gone under.”

“Joe!” Maggie Utterback cried. “You can’t leave me now.”

“Maggie, old gal, if I had a tail like a dog, you know what I’d do. I’d wag it to show you how much I luv you.”

There was the sound of scrambling in the rushes. Footsteps squished in muck.

The Dakotas spotted Maggie Utterback wriggling through the grass. Immediately shots rang out.

Maggie Utterback found Joe. “There you be. Why, man, you’re mortal hit.”

“Yeh.” Joe Utterback spoke in gasps. “That last bullet . . . put a hump in my back. I feel like a cat . . . that’s et too much glue.”

“Joe.”

“Bye, Maggie. Sorry I stomped you . . . when we first got married.”

A short passage of heavy breathing followed; then ended.

“He’s dead,” Maggie said, flat.

Mad Bear called down. “Good Book Woman, you must be my wife.”

Theodosia at last staggered to her feet. “This has gone far enough,” she said. “We shall all be killed if we remain here much longer. We shall have to throw ourselves upon their mercy.” Theodosia stepped onto a wobbling hummock and waved her arm. “Pounce, brother in Christ, I am coming out.”

Pounce stood up. He held up his left hand to halt the rifle fire. “It is good. Let the Good Book Woman come up.”

Theodosia took Johnnie in her arms. She led Ted by the hand.

“Where is your sister?” Pounce asked. “The woman with the sunned hair? She must be my wife also. I have need of many wives, now that the white man has been chased off the red man’s hunting grounds.”

Judith hugged Angela close.

Theodosia looked back. “Sister, I think you’d best come too. Let us accept this cup for the sake of our children. If we do it for the children, it will perhaps after all not be a fate worse than death. Christ will understand. He will forgive.”

Dumb, Judith got to her feet.

“Judith, you fool,” Mavis cried, “don’t you see it’s another trick? They will kill the children and then you two will be slaves for the rest of your lives. Slaves to a squaw.”

“I’m afraid Theodosia is right,” Judith said. “It is our only chance to save the children. Our men are all dead now. We have to look at it practical.”

“It’s a trick.”

Judith took Angela by the hand. Judith tried to smile; found her lips frozen stiff.

Theodosia stepped up the rise, stiff, erect.

Pounce held up the flat of his hand against Theodosia. “Wait. We wish to make sure the white men are all dead. Tell us if they are dead.”

“They’re dead, all right. May God have mercy on their souls.”

“Bring the guns with you. Go back and get them.”

“You see me with my children. I cannot bring the guns.”

“Where is the loud woman who has the voice of a man? Let her carry the guns.”

“Maggie?” Theodosia spoke calmly, utterly resigned. “Comply with his request, won’t you? We are in no position to argue. Come out with all the guns.”

“Comply, is it?” Maggie raged from her hiding place in the rushes. “When they’ve killed my Joe?”

“Please, Maggie.”

“No, and be damned to you.”

Theodosia sighed. “All right.” Again she started up the rise, tall, erect.

Pounce took her hand when she reached the top of the rise and shook it. “Look,” Pounce called down to those still hidden. “You see? We do not kill the women and children. Hurry out or soon the young braves will set the grass on fire.”

“Set the grass on fire?” Maggie snarled back. “After the rain we just had?”

Pounce smiled. Tiny muscles worked under the skin of his pockmarked face. “Come out. We have promised not to touch the women and children.”

Judith fought off the terrible headache cracking in her brain. “Mavis? Take Tallak’s children with you. We shall perhaps all be spared, at that.”

“Spared, my arse,” Maggie Utterback said.

After a moment Mavis appeared, carrying one of Tallak’s girls. The other three blond heads followed her. Mavis limped badly. There was a mat of blood over her thigh.

The braves of both Mad Bear’s and Pounce’s bands came running up. They formed two lines from the slough to the top of the rise. The women and children walked up through the gauntlet.

Whitebone and his men sat watching, impassive. They had put the pipe away.

Pounce also held out his hand to shake hands with Judith. The swirls of white clay on Pounce’s chest and the red paint on his nose and the yellow stripes on his chin had run some in the rain.

Judith, numb, was about to shake Pounce’s hand, when her eye caught something. Pounce was wearing a pair of leather work gloves. The gloves were those her brother-in-law Claude often wore when he worked in the garden. Judith shuddered. Judith could only wonder at what Theodosia’s thoughts were when she shook the gloved hand. Judith drew back her hand.

Angela’s deep-blue eyes opened like that of an animal suddenly alert to extreme danger. A little fire had come alive in her eyes. “Mother, now?” Angela spoke with thickened lips.

“Child.”

Mad Bear came stomping up. His big mobile lips were drawn back. His eyes boiled wild and worked in spasms. “Let us count coup on the women the white man way. Let us take them into the bushes and abuse them. I have said.”

Pounce held up his right hand. “Let my Dakota brother remember that the Good Book Woman and her sister are spoken for. They are mine to wive. The loose woman with the blood on her hip and the woman who talks like a man, those my Dakota brother can have.”

Mad Bear stood stock still. He swelled. The big yellow painted circle around his right eye gave him the look of a devil incarnate. He trembled to strike Pounce. “Let us count coup on all the women the white man’s way!”

Theodosia spoke up. “This you cannot do with me. The time of the red flowers has come upon me, and I must withdraw from the presence of men.” A blush stole over her freckled face. The blush made her look quite becoming.

Both Pounce and Mad Bear saw the blush. A knowing look flashed between them. The Good Book Woman was one of those who could not lie with a straight face.

The crazy squaw broke through the braves circling the two white women. She headed for Angela to pinch her again. Judith quickly stepped in front of Angela, shielding her. Blocked, the crazy squaw began to rage. She grabbed Pounce’s war club from him and turned on Ted instead and hit him over the head with it. Ted, stunned, almost toppled over. Blood began to stream down his face. He screamed for his mother. Blinded by blood, he groped around for her. He staggered past her, unseeing.

That was all Pounce needed. He grabbed Theodosia so hard by the arm, he parted her from little Johnnie. Johnnie fell to the ground with a thud. Before Johnnie could begin to cry, the crazy squaw hit him over the head too, crying, “The soft flesh of the white child will taste very good stone-boiled.” Blood whelmed over Johnnie’s baby face. Ted staggered around until he fell over Johnnie’s body. The two towheads recognized each other and, still unseeing, hugged each other.

Pounce gave Theodosia another jerk, hard. Then he forcibly led her away to a small patch of wolfberries. He hit her over the back of the neck and she disappeared from sight. Drawing aside his clout, he also sank from sight.

Mad Bear grabbed Judith by the arm and tore her away from Angela.

At that, Bone Gnawer caught hold of Angela.

Two Two appeared from nowhere. He was crying. He put his arms around Angela’s middle and sought to wrest her from Bone Gnawer. Two Two cried, “What! Can a grown man desire to wive a little child who still plays with dolls?”

Bone Gnawer sneered at Two Two. “Little Brother, a war has come. We have lost many braves to the far-shooting wagon-guns of the white man. We thirst for the blood of the white man so that the spirits of our dead may depart happy. The spirits of our dead braves weep for the blood. We wish to be free of the weeping spirits. Thus the white man must die. He has stolen our land. He is losing the fight in the South. We will strike the coup the white man’s way. We will teach him what he has taught us.”

Two Two still clung to Angela. “But this child is a virgin.”

“Ha. Can it be that my little brother wishes to play at wiving in the bushes with this child virgin and thus at last learn the way of a man with a woman? Ha ha.” With that, Bone Gnawer bumped Two Two aside so hard, Two Two fell to the ground.

There was a roar of ruttish whoops. All was confusion. Angela vanished. Other braves grabbed the bleeding Mavis and threw her upon the ground. The crazy squaw clubbed all of Tallak’s little blond girls until they were dead. Still other braves ran down into the slough to flush out Maggie Utterback and Tinkling.

Judith felt herself being led along so swiftly she couldn’t get her heels set into the ground to resist.

It was all a dream. It had to be.

Suddenly Judith fancied she could hear her mother calling her. “Judith! Judith!” She remembered how her mother used to stand in the door of their old farmhouse near Davenport, gazing toward the broad mighty West with her deep and yearning eyes. Her mother had often wondered what life was like for her daughter Theodosia.

“Angela!” Judith shrieked.

Mad Bear threw Judith down. Sharp grass worked through Judith’s dress. It prickled into her back and buttocks. Mad Bear caught her by the throat with one hand and shook her like a mad dog shaking a doll. With his other hand he ripped up her clothes. A sudden punching knee and he stunned her in the belly so that her legs flew apart. He was already erect outside his clout. She gasped for breath. Mad Bear’s phallus resembled the neck of a wild swan. Judith scratched him. She clawed him. She tried to knee him in turn.

Judith’s struggling only helped Mad Bear. He was brutally, fiendishly strong. Through her mind shot the wish that oh! had she only taken to wearing bloomers. Bloomers had lately become quite the style. She remembered the advertisement she had seen in
Harper’s Weekly
just before coming down to Skywater. Bloomers would have given her a wee bit more time to fend him off.

Mad Bear’s big yellow-painted eye was immediately upon her. It glowed with an unholy fire right in her eye. She felt his necklace of human fingers tickling her. She felt him make entrance. For a moment it was cold. An urgent thrust or two and it became quickly warm. For a moment it also hurt. But then it became easier. Part of her body was betraying her.

Judith heard a child’s last cry on earth, piercing, desolate; choked off.

“Angela!”

Judith fainted.

Judith was already sitting up when she came to. Mad Bear was hurrying off toward the patch of wolfberries where Pounce had taken Theodosia.

There was loud laughter and japing behind a cluster of braves. It was where Judith remembered Two Two had fallen to the ground.

“Angela!”

Animal’s Voice came running for her.

Judith backed away, bowing deep at the waist. “Oh, God. Not you.” She could still see Animal’s Voice eating Reverend Codman’s heart slice by slice.