Scarlet Plume, Second Edition (37 page)

A short silence followed. The three warriors studied each other’s features.

Finally the two strangers grunted assent. Scarlet Plume passed out the food. He himself did not eat. Both Mad Bear and Bone Gnawer smacked their lips loudly as they broke fast. The meat was good.

When they finished, Scarlet Plume passed the pipe. The three took turns smoking, leisurely.

Mad Bear was the first to speak again. “We are looking for game. The band is hungry. Have you seen many deer in this place?”

“I have seen sufficient for one.”

“There are not many?”

“For one brave, yes. For a band, no.”

“Where does Whitebone’s son go? What does he here?”

“I have stood at the foot of the bier of one of you. Along the stream to the south of here.”

“Is it not a strange thing that one of Whitebone’s band comes to cry under the grave of one of Mad Bear’s band?”

“I have said.”

“When do you return?”

“A vision has come to me. This I must do first.”

“Wakan?”

Silence.

“It is good.” Mad Bear turned to Bone Gnawer. “Come, kodah, we have much traveling to do.”

Both Mad Bear and Bone Gnawer got to their feet.

Scarlet Plume stood up with them. “Be careful of the puma. There is a great one skulking in the woods. Did you not hear him?”

Silence.

Abruptly the two visitors turned on grinding heels and were gone. There were no good-byes.

Scarlet Plume waited awhile, then once again sat in his accustomed place, directly upon Judith. He sat heavy. Judith had to labor for breath. More dirt rained down on her, in her ears and eyes.

Just when she thought she was going to smother to death, Scarlet Plume slid to one side, whipped back the wolfskin, and scratched away the crisscrossed branches. He smiled broadly down at her. “Would you have the breath of life?”

She lifted her nose from between her knees. “Help me,” she said weakly. “I cannot move. My limbs have fallen asleep.”

Gently he lifted her out. He set her before the fire. He covered her solicitously with the wolfskin. “Sit quietly, my kodah, and I will make thee yet another bag of soup to break the fast.”

It took her a while before she was breathing naturally again. She trembled all over.

After Scarlet Plume filled the hole in which he had hid her, he cut another serving of marbled venison steaks and spitted them on green sticks along the edge of the red embers. He took the boiling bag, the inverted stomach of a buffalo cow, and refilled it with fresh water and bits of meat and fat. He lowered it into the small cooking hole in the ground on the other side of the fire, carefully staking out the edges so the bag would hold up. Some of his heating stones were still in the fire and with green-twig tongs he picked them out, gray hot, and dropped them into the boiling bag, one by one, until steam rose. He sprinkled in a few sprigs of wild onion and a slice of wild turnip. While the food readied, he washed a handful of prairie sorrel for a green salad.

Judith found the square, lush sorrel leaves delicious, sourish wild. They made her mouth water. As an appetizer she had never tasted better.

The two ate in silent appreciation of the food. The soup was savory with primitive aromas. The broiled venison fell apart in the mouth. Judith believed she could actually feel strength returning to her body. The trembles left her. Her eyes cleared.

Presently both stepped down to the little stream. Scarlet Plume fancied a glassy spot for a mirror next to the dam and with a small pair of pointed stones for tweezers patiently searched his face for hairs to pull. Beards belonged to the white man. He sat with his back to her. Judith meantime slipped into the deeper part of the pool for a quick morning sponge bath. The warm food and the cold water restored her. She too found herself a pair of pointed stones for tweezers and pulled out the pesky four black hairs that grew on her upper lip. She did this stealthily for she did not want him to know of them.

When Scarlet Plume returned at dusk from a scouting trip, she had supper ready for him. With a fine sense of tepee etiquette he stepped around the fire on the right and settled himself in his accustomed place. He set his spear and shield to one side within easy reach.

After he had his fill, he spread the new deerhide, fur side up, on the matting and in a quietly assured manner stretched himself full length upon it, moccasins toward the fire.

Judith, though she was dead tired, removed his moccasins and bathed his feet. Gently she washed in between each toe.

He murmured his satisfaction. He closed his eyes and folded his hands over his lean belly, composing himself for sleep. Light from the orange flames played over his fingers, giving them a burnished coppery shine. His fingers were those of an aristocrat, slim, tapered at the tips, well-shaped. She observed his hairless chin and cheeks. They were as smooth as water-honed quartzite stone. She liked his calm in the tepee. His stance as compared to Vince’s was wise and lofty in mien.

It puzzled her that after that one glorious moment together he should have turned shy. He was different from other men. He was a potent male and at the same time a man of discipline.

In the morning, after a dip in the pool, Scarlet Plume told her he had seen antelope the evening before. “The meat of the antelope is very rich. It will chase away Sunned Hair’s roses of starvation.”

A frown crossed her eyes. “You will not kill another trusting mother?”

“Whichever comes nearest. The antelope cannot forbear to come close for a look when he sees a new thing.”

“May I see you catch the antelope?”

“I will hide you where you can see it all.”

He prepared himself a medicine to help him as a runner. He took scrapings from the four hoofs of the slain deer, next carefully selected four gray hairs from the tail of the wolfskin, then picked four silk-tailed seeds from a milkweed pod, and chewed them all thoroughly. Finally satisfied he had the right mixture, he smeared the juice on the soles of his moccasins.

Judith was fascinated. “Does Scarlet Plume know how many of each he has put into his charm?”

His brows came up surprised. “Four. Four is the sacred number of the Yankton. It is the number of harmony. Can one think of the great directions as having only three directions? There are always four.”

“And what does each of these do for my warrior?”

“The scrapings from the deer hoofs gives the hunter swiftness, the hairs from the wolf give him cunning, the milkweed seeds give him lightness of foot so that he can skim over the ground, and the spit from his mouth gives him reassurance that when he catches the antelope he will have the hunger to eat it.”

She watched him as he turned aside and opened a small pouch hanging from the belt of his clout. He took the point of his knife and touched something inside the pouch. What it was she could neither see nor make out. She watched his lips move as if speaking to someone. She guessed it was his helper.

“Come,” he said, thrusting his knife in his belt. “The antelope waits.”

They walked down the little stream toward the end of the wooded ravine. He secreted her behind some second-growth ash. He pointed quietly across the creek. There, up on a balding bluff, grazed a small herd of antelope. Two prongbucks, one young and one old, stood as sentinels on the near side.

“Watch carefully,” he said. “Make no outcry. The wind is in our face and I have taken the steam bath in the purification hut; thus they can not catch scent of us. I shall try to catch the young buck sentinel. Do you see him? His flesh will be tender. He will not yet have the musk smell from having covered a doe. The old father has kept him from it.”

Scarlet Plume covered his head and shoulders with his deerskin, then settled on his hands and knees and began to edge out through the tall slough grass. He moved as a grazing deer might.

Both the old buck and the young buck spotted Scarlet Plume immediately. They stared down at him. Presently both prongbucks left the band and came partway down the ribbed bluff. The old sentinel advanced in a reluctant yet curious mood. The young buck was more daring. He seemed to think Scarlet Plume was a lost she-antelope come to join their band. Here was his chance to form his own family.

Scarlet Plume rustled quietly along through the slough, stopping for a nip of grass here and a nip of wild sorrel there.

The old sentinel stopped. He was suspicious.

The young prongbuck, however, kept coming down the bluff.

Scarlet Plume reached the bank of the creek and stopped as though for a drink.

The young prongbuck approached for a drink too.

Judith watched it all from her covert, motionless.

Just as the young prongbuck reached the opposite bank of the creek, Scarlet Plume, drawing his knife, let his deerskin and clout drop to the ground, and leaped for the young prongbuck. Scarlet Plume’s flying torso glinted bright copper in the morning sun.

Scarlet Plume missed. Just barely.

With a startled cry the young prongbuck sprang straight up, then wheeled and was off down the valley. The old prongbuck halfway down the bluff and the rest of the band up on the bald spot all sprang straight up too, then jumped into flight, flashing white tails.

Scarlet Plume gave chase. Scarlet Plume was careful to run precisely in the tracks of the young prongbuck so that his medicine could work on the creature. The prongbuck bounded; Scarlet Plume ran. The prongbuck hit earth with all four hoofs gathered to one point; exploded ahead with all four hoofs thrown out. Scarlet Plume ran on his toes, with a skipping motion, hardly seeming to touch earth. The two of them raced, four and two, four and two, as fast as they could go.

A half mile downstream the young prongbuck tried jumping across the creek and doubling back. Scarlet Plume followed the prongbuck as if he were its inseparable shadow.

The young prongbuck tried to speed up. He fled like a swiftly bounding ball. Scarlet Plume, smiling, did the same. His sudden spurt of speed gave the illusion he was more than just running one leg after the other—both of his coppery limbs seemed to be running even with each other. His motion was like the pulsing of a hurrying heart.

The two darted past where Judith crouched hidden.

Scarlet Plume taunted the springing buck. “Ha. You are not the only one on this prairie who can run. Your brother is directly behind you. He is a Yankton runner and he has a knife. His kodah needs the meat. Begone. Run very fast. Go!”

Again the young prongbuck dodged, jumping across the creek. Once again Scarlet Plume followed him like a shadow. They came beating back.

They ran and ran. Down the valley and up the valley. Back and forth. They ran a half-dozen miles.

Scarlet Plume began to gain ground on the prongbuck. The prongbuck tired badly. Presently the prongbuck was gasping for breath, mouth wide open, tongue hanging. A few leaps more and Scarlet Plume was running beside the poor buck.

Scarlet Plume, running high and lightly, reached out with his free hand, got hold of the hair in the crotch under the prongbuck’s hip. Scarlet Plume’s knife gleamed in the sun.

The prongbuck threw Scarlet Plume an agonized look. A muffled cough broke from the prongbuck. He was done, winded.

Yet the prongbuck had in him one last spurt of power. He sought to break away, slanting off to his right. He slipped out of Scarlet Plume’s grasp.

Again Scarlet Plume closed the gap. This time Scarlet Plume caught hold of the young buck’s pronglike horns.

The prongbuck lunged the other way, almost throwing Scarlet Plume off balance.

Yet Scarlet Plume hung on. Then Scarlet Plume’s knife flashed across the young prongbuck’s throat. Blood blew over the slough grass.

The prongbuck bounded a short ways, coughed deeply and wetly, fell to earth.

Judith jumped up from her covert. A cheer broke from her. She couldn’t help it. What she had seen was a marvel. Her scarlet lover was a matchless hunter.

Scarlet Plume let his pace slacken gradually, and slowly came to a stop. He turned, came back.

Scarlet Plume stood over the slain prongbuck. He spoke down to it. “Brother, we thank you for the meat.” He reached down and plucked a few stems of grass and scattered them over the prongbuck. “We needed the meat. We shall not forget. Soon the Yankton bodies will be feeding the grasses and then it will be your turn to eat us. It is all one.”

Judith stood looking down at the antelope. “I never thought it possible,” she whispered, “that a human being could outrun an antelope. Never.”

Scarlet Plume stood quietly, even negligently, beside her. He was stark naked. His limp phallus dangled like an empty slingshot. He hardly puffed. Only his copper skin showed evidence of his tremendous effort. It was slicked over with a sheen of sweat.

“I never thought it possible. Lord, Lord.”

“Let us skin him and see,” Scarlet Plume said. “He could not run very fast. Perhaps he was a cripple. He may have had a broken limb at one time.”

“My scarlet husband!” Judith cried, clutching him by the arm. “You know there is nothing wrong with him. You just outran a perfect specimen.”

“My charm was wakan. My helper whispered in my ear as I ran. He told me what to do.”

The next day Scarlet Plume came to her with a changed visage. Startled, she stared up at him from where she sat making a new tunic.

He asked in a gruff voice, “Are you now strong enough to remove to the white cities?”

“Is there something wrong?”

“Are you strong enough to walk as many as four sleeps?”

“Let us remain in this place yet another day, my husband.”

At the word “husband,” Scarlet Plume’s face broke. His eyes glazed over with a film and his rose-brown cheeks took on the color of scratched slate. His large lips worked, thinning out and turning down at the corners.

She sprang to her feet. “What is it? What has happened?”

“You are not ready?”

She placed a slim white hand on his bulging coppery arm. “Please, my husband, what is it?”

At her touch he shivered from head to foot. A moan broke from him. He ground his teeth together with a terrible sound. Then, abruptly whirling, he stalked outside.