The Bride Wore Feathers (5 page)

"Redfoot," he supplied, his expression grim. "You cannot go to the fort alone. In this dress, a soldier will think you are a squaw and perhaps he will shoot you."

"Don't be ridiculous," she scolded, her mind clawing its way through the final mists to sanity. She flipped her long golden-red curls down across her shoulders and laughed. "With this hair? Who's going to think I'm an Indian?"

Relief dissolving any fears Dominique still harbored about the savage, she pressed her fingertips against one of the long thick braids he wore pulled forward and draped across his chest. "Thank you for saving my life, Mr. Redfoot. I'll be going now."

"You are welcome, crazy one." He sighed. Then he drew back his fist and drove it into her chin.

* * *

Maybe he'd hit her too hard. Redfoot grew alarmed as the first slivers of sunlight snaked across the thin blanket of snow covering the meadow, and still the woman remained curled against the base of a leafless sapling. He'd darted across the clearing with her draped over his shoulder the second the sentry disappeared around the corner of the fort. After dropping her as close to the gates as he dared get, he returned to the cover of the trees. She'd had plenty of time to awaken.

Redfoot measured his chances—against the light of dawn, against the soldiers if he should return to check on the woman and be discovered. She wasn't worth the risk, he reminded himself. And yet something deep inside wouldn't let him just leave her there.

The crazy woman stirred, then sat up, relieving him of the dilemma. Still unable to leave her alone and vulnerable, he waited until the soldier reappeared and discovered the dazed woman stumbling about in the snow.

Redfoot watched a moment, his clear sapphire-blue eyes twinkling with mirth, as the Long Knife reached out to steady the woman. Then he laughed as she jerked her arm from the soldier's grasp and began flapping her tongue at him.

"Take this gift to your chief, the Long Hair," he whispered into the wind. "May she visit her craziness on him. May she also give him something to think of besides ways to rob the Lakota of what is theirs."

Then he wove his way through the trees to his horse and sped back to the Hunkpapa's temporary home. After caring for the stallion, Redfoot strode into a camp already bustling with early morning activities.

"Ah, so you return," called an old squaw as she glanced up from the buffalo skin she kneaded with dry cracked hands. "The Father looks for you in the warriors' lodge."

With a nod of thanks, he continued on toward the lodge in the center of the camp. As he passed by a circle of women heating stones with which to cook the morning meal, Spotted Feather fell in step with him.

She carried a parfleche filled with buffalo chips under one arm and a pouch swollen with water under the other. Small fires of jealousy lit her slanted obsidian eyes as she looked up at him and said, "What called you to the hills so early this morning?"

"A mission that is no business of yours, woman." Although he instantly regretted snapping at her, Redfoot, a true Lakota in his heart, didn't apologize. Instead, he relieved her of her burden. "Go and fetch me something to eat. I have the hunger of a grizzly." Then he turned, carrying the supplies he had taken from Spotted Feather, and stepped into the warriors' lodge.

"Ah, Jacob Redfoot." Chief Gall regarded his adopted son and smiled. "We have been speaking of you—and of your golden-haired treasure. I see she leaves marks of her great passion for you on your flesh."

"Hah." Redfoot rubbed at the scratches on his neck, then opened the buffalo-hide container and removed several dried chips. He tossed them into the fire as he eased into position at the side of the man everyone called Father. "This treasure was a curse, Father. I have returned her to her people at the fort."

"You have shown yourself to the Long Knives?" Sitting Bull, a shaman revered by all people of the Lakota nation, dropped the pipe he was carving and narrowed his close-set eyes. "You have risked our mission?"

"I was not seen by the woman or the Long Knives," Redfoot assured them all. "My identity is safe. I am known to no one but the Lakota."

The shaman's broad features sagged into a scowl, but he picked up his pipe and resumed carving.

The doubts of another warrior, one of the chief's natural sons, were not so easily assuaged. "So says he, Father. Does not the wolf raised by sheep turn on them when he is grown? Does he not gorge on the bones of those who sought only to protect him?"

"Silence." Gall glanced around the room, daring any to side with the jealous son of his loins. He knew there would be doubts about this plan. He understood the temptations he would be placing at his white son's feet, yet instinct told him to continue on the course he'd set for Redfoot so many winters past. When his hunting party first found the boy, orphaned and alone, Gall had sensed that Jacob would fit well with the Hunkpapa, knew through his uncanny ability to glimpse the future that someday the loyalty of the white youngster would be of great benefit to the entire Lakota nation.

Now the time had come; now it was Jacob's turn to give back to the Lakota what they had offered to him—his very life. Gall turned to his son—to the tribe's hope for the future—and said, "What if this woman should recognize you when you become a soldier at the fort?"

"I am a shadow in the dawn to her."

"Even shadows have their identity, my son. Can you not tell the silhouette of a deer from that of a horse, a soldier from a warrior?"

Jacob frowned, suddenly doubting his judgment. "The crazy woman is from Bismarck." Then he thought back to the scene in the meadow when the soldier offered assistance to the woman. He laughed and added, "The Long Knives will take her back to her home before I go to the fort. Her tongue is a torment, even to them."

Redfoot regarded his father as the older man considered the possibilities, and his heart swelled with pride. Clad in his ceremonial dress for this, the final council before their plans were set in motion, Gall was a stunning figure to behold. His six-foot frame was draped in a shiny buffalo robe that reached the ground when he stood, and his head was adorned with a long headdress of eagle feathers that skimmed along the hem of his robe. The crown of this headpiece was finished with strips of prime mink, and the legs and tail of the animal hung down on either side of his proud, kind face.

Gall's features—softer, less angular than those of the others at the council—relaxed as he shrugged. "Then we shall hope it is so, and the woman can be forgotten. Now you must prepare to join the soldier we have borrowed from his people."

All the warriors shared a hearty laugh. Then Redfoot announced, "I am ready, Father."

Through a broad smile, Gall answered, "Then let us begin. I fear if you do not join this poor woman of a soldier soon, his timid heart may give out on him."

Little Wound, nephew of Sitting Bull, chuckled and said, "The Long Knife cries in his sleep. He fears that we plan to roast him over a large fire at dawn and feed him to our dogs."

Again the warriors laughed, and then the small circle broke up and the men began to move about, this one opening the flap and retrieving the supplies the women had left outside for them, that one stripping Redfoot's clothing from his body, and yet another sharpening the blade of his knife on a stone.

Redfoot filled his belly with buffalo pemmican as the other warriors draped him in the clothing of an unfortunate homesteader who now rested beneath the soil he'd hoped to farm one day. When they'd finished dressing him, right down to a pair of too tight boots, Chief Gall approached him. In his hand he carried the newly sharpened knife.

Holding the weapon between their bodies, he addressed his son. "The Great Spirit,
Wakan Tanka
, shall watch over you. Little Wound will leave now and return to Red Cloud's camp in the Black Hills. He will inform the chief of our plans, and Red Cloud will send his thoughts to help you in your mission."

Chief Gall paused as Little Wound took his leave, then Sitting Bull joined him. The great shaman pulled a medicine bag made of deer hide from beneath his breastplate of bear claws.

"This medicine," he announced, taking a small portion from the bag, "is made of eagle heart and brain mixed with dried aster flowers. It will protect you and bring you good luck." He rubbed some of this on Redfoot's chest and offered him the rest. "You must chew this, Jacob Stoltz, and you will have good medicine until you return to our camp as Jacob Redfoot again."

Jacob took the mixture into his mouth then slid the pouch and its leather string over his head. Tucking it well inside his shirt, he turned and faced his adoptive father.

"From this moment," Gall went on, "you are called by the name of your birth. My son Jacob Redfoot is no more. Now you are Jacob Stoltz." He circled behind him and sliced off his braids in two quick motions. "You are a white man and we spit on you."

Then the warriors set upon him. They spat on his flesh, punched at his body, and tore at his clothing until he became dizzy and his mind swam in darkness. When he regained consciousness, Jacob Stoltz was lying in the dirt at the back of the prisoners' tipi.

"Mister? Hey, you all right, mister?"

Jacob lifted a bruised and puffy eyelid and tried to focus on the man. "I—I do not know."

"Boy, those bloodthirsty Injuns really pounded the bejesus outta you. Maybe some of this water will help."

Jacob watched as the man made his way across the floor with the pouch, but he kept his swollen mouth closed. Instead of speaking, he moaned his gratitude as the stranger soaked a piece of material torn from his shirt and bathed his battered features with it.

"These danged Sioux are just plain loco, there ain't another word for it. They oughta do themselves and us a favor and go back to the reservation where they belong before we have to waste the lead and shoot em all."

Jacob's fists tightened, but he kept his silence.

"Can you talk, fella? What's your name?"

Through barely parted lips, he whispered, "Jacob."

"Well, despite the circumstances, it's nice to meet you, Jacob. I'm Lieutenant Barney Woodhouse, Seventh Cavalry, at your service."

Jacob tried to smile at the man, but his lip cracked and a trickle of blood crept into the corner of his mouth.

"That's all right, Jacob. Don't try to talk yet. If you can, just listen and think. I've been here two days now—wouldn't be here at all if I hadn't been so stinking randy that I went across the river and got all drunked up at a hog ranch. These damn Sioux found me passed out in the back of a wagon."

"You ..." Jacob moaned, eager to get on with his lessons in the ways of the white man, "you were captured while stealing pigs?"

"No," Barney laughed. "Guess you ain't from around here."

Jacob shook his head slowly, carefully. "Black Hills."

"Oh," the soldier commented, wondering if this man had been one of the gold-crazed prospectors who'd driven the Sioux from their reservations. "Anyways," he said with a shrug. "A hog ranch in these parts is a bawdy house. You know—women and whiskey. I went over to the Dew Drop Inn. Get it? Do drop in. Anyways, I guess I stayed a little longer than I should have." The soldier slapped his hands against his thighs. "General Custer's gonna skin me alive when he finds out what happened—that is, if these Injuns don't get to me first."

General Custer?
The Long Hair. "I have heard this Custer's name spoken."

"Hell, who hasn't? I'm proud to say he's my commanding officer, and I answer to him personally—at least, I did."

Jacob smiled as he thought of how well Little Wound and Spotted Horse had chosen their random target. If he could strike up a friendship with this man, then convince him he'd saved his life as well, the Lakota would know the Long Knives' plans sooner than they had hoped.

This time suppressing the urge to grin, Jacob moved forward with his plan. "Have you thought of a way to escape?" he rasped through a groan. "We must find a way to escape."

"Hey, take it easy, mister. From here on out, you just nod yes or no. I'll do the talking."

Which was exactly what Jacob and the Hunkpapa had counted on. By the end of his ten-day confinement with the Long Knife, his superficial wounds would have healed and he would have refreshed his knowledge of the white man's language and learned the phrases used by soldiers at the fort. By then, if all went according to plan, Jacob would blend into life in the army like any other recruit.

In just over a week, Jacob Stoltz would be ready to take his place in a world he hadn't seen since his eleventh winter.

Chapter 3