Wolf Shadow (17 page)

Winter Rain, Corn Woman, Yellow Fawn and Leaf carried
Mountain Sage’s body out of the hut and placed it on the travois Chance had
built. Followed by Chance and the others, Winter Rain led the travois pony away
from the camp to a hill where Chance had erected a scaffold. They tied ropes
around the body and then, as was custom, Winter Rain and Corn Woman climbed up
on the scaffold and pulled the body up, while Yellow Fawn and Leaf pushed from
below.

Chance stood nearby, watching. Listening to the high-pitched
keening that rose in the air as the women voiced their grief at the loss of
their friend.

He watched Winter Rain climb down from the scaffold,
listened as she added her voice to the others. There were dark shadows under
her eyes, fresh cuts on her forearms where she had expressed her grief.

While he watched, she cut off a lock of her hair and tied it
to the burial scaffold, thereby leaving a part of herself behind. That one
small act touched his heart as nothing else had.

Gradually, the others returned to the camp, until only
Chance and Winter Rain remained.

Chance frowned thoughtfully as he looked at the
blanket-wrapped body. Some believed that somewhere on the journey to the After
Life the spirit of the deceased had to pass by a woman whose name was
Hihankara
,
the Owl Maker. It was
Hihankara’s
job to examine each spirit for the
proper tattoo marks that were to be found on the chin or the wrist or the
forehead. If these marks were not found, the spirit would not be allowed into
the After World. Instead, they were pushed off the Hanging Road and returned to
earth where their spirits would wander for eternity. If a spirit made it past
Hihankara
,
it was then judged by
Tate
, the Wind before being judged by
Skan
,
who ruled the sky.

Moving up beside Winter Rain, Chance took her hand in his.
She looked at him through red-rimmed eyes and then she rested her head against
his shoulder. With a sigh, he took her in his arms and held her close.

“You won’t leave me, too, will you?” she asked in a small
voice.

He hesitated only a moment before he answered, “No,
sweetheart. I won’t leave you.”

Chapter Fifteen

The next few days passed quietly. Winter Rain continued to
mourn for her mother. Chance knew she also grieved for her friends, especially
Dawn Song and Strong Elk, even though she continued to hope they might be
alive. There was, of course, always a chance, however slight, that they had
survived the attack, that they might come riding into camp the way Pony Boy
had. When Chance questioned him, Pony Boy said he had seen Strong Elk wounded
in the battle and then had lost track of him. Chance figured Strong Elk was
probably dead, but he kept his thoughts to himself. There was always a chance
Strong Elk and Dawn Song and some of the others had survived but were unable to
make it to the Hills.

Chance left Rain alone when he thought she wanted solitude
and tried to be there when she seemed to need comforting. Corn Woman had taken
Winter Rain into her hut so that she had another woman for company; Chance had
moved in with Kills-Like-a-Hawk.

Chance spent his days hunting or sitting at
Kills-Like-a-Hawk’s side, encouraging his cousin to eat, telling Hawk that, as
shaman
,
the people needed him now more than ever.

There were eleven men in the camp, fifteen women, and
twenty-two children, all looking to Kills-Like-a-Hawk for guidance now that
their chief was dead.

Four days after Chance had arrived in the Hills, he helped
Kills-Like-a-Hawk outside for the first time. Hawk looked gaunt and pale, his
eyes sunken and filled with grief, but Chance knew his cousin had turned his
back on death.

And life went on. One of the women whose husband had been
killed by the Crow delivered a healthy baby boy and Kills-Like-a-Hawk decreed
that they hold a feast in honor of a new life, a new warrior.

Hunting was good in the Hills. Chance killed a deer and
asked Winter Rain to make him a new clout and a pair of leggings from the skin,
not only because he needed them but because he thought it might take her mind
off her loss.

Pony Boy and Running Hawk killed a buffalo and the camp
feasted on fresh tongue and hump and ribs.

Two days later, three Lakota warriors arrived in the camp,
along with their wives and children. The next day, another warrior arrived, and
Chance began to hope that their losses were not as severe as he had first
thought and that more of the People had survived, that they were holed up
somewhere waiting for their injuries to heal.

Now it was after midnight. The campfires were out, the
People had gone to bed. Unable to sleep, Chance wandered down to the river.
Standing at the river’s edge, be stared across the slow-moving ribbon of black
water. A faint wind stirred the leaves of the pines. The horses were a dark
shifting shadow where they grazed a short distance away.

The faint rustle of a leaf drew his attention. He glanced
over his shoulder to see Kills-Like-a-Hawk slowly making his way toward him.
His cousin leaned heavily on a rough-hewn crutch Chance had fashioned for him
earlier that day.

“
Hetayetu waste
,
tahunsa
,” Kills-Like-a-Hawk
said. Good evening, cousin.

“
Hetayetu
,” Chance replied, then gestured at the
crutch. “That working all right for you?”

Kills-Like-a-Hawk nodded. “
Pilamaya
.”

They stood there in silence for a moment, enjoying the quiet
of the evening, before his cousin spoke again.

“Something troubles you,” Kills-Like-a-Hawk said. It was not
a question, but a statement of fact.

Chance grunted softly.

Kills-Like-a-Hawk hobbled over to a fallen log and eased
himself onto it. “Do you wish to talk about it?”

Chance sat down beside his cousin. “Is it too late for me to
seek a vision?” He grinned at the look of astonishment that spread over
Kills-Like-a-Hawk’s face. It wasn’t often that he took his cousin by surprise.

“It is never too late, if it is what one truly desires. I
will arrange it, if that is your wish.”

“It is.”

Kills-Like-a-Hawk nodded. “That is not all that troubles
you.”

“No,” Chance admitted, “it’s not.”

“It is Winter Rain who keeps you from your bed.”

Now it was Chance’s turn to look astonished.

Kills-Like-a-Hawk laughed softly. “One does not have to be a
shaman
to see the way you look at her, or the way she looks at you. The
air between you is hot with need. So, what is it about her that troubles you?”

“Many things,” Chance said. “You know that her
wasichu
parents sent me here to find her and bring her home.”

Kills-Like-a-Hawk nodded. “You remember what I told you
before?”

“Yeah. You said I couldn’t take her unless she wanted to
go.”

“That has not changed. She is one of us. If you take her against
her will, you will be as our enemy.”

“I understand.”

“Has she refused to go with you?”

“I have not asked her since we came here.”

Kills-Like-a-Hawk used his crutch to gain his feet. “Give
her time,” he advised.

“Time,” Chance repeated as he watched his cousin make his
way up the path to the camp. It was the one thing he couldn’t spare. He stood
up and began to pace as an idea popped into his mind. The more he thought about
it, the better it sounded.

Whistling softly, he hurried after Kills-Like-a-Hawk.

* * * * *

“Leaving?” Winter Rain stared up at Wolf Shadow. “Where are
you going?”

“I have some business to take care of.” He tightened the
cinch, picked up the reins.

Her thoughts in turmoil, Winter Rain glanced around the
camp. How could Corn Woman and the other women be going about their duties as
if this was just another day? Kills-Like-a-Hawk was sitting in the shade,
smoking his pipe as if nothing had changed.

She looked back at Wolf Shadow. “Are you…” She bit down on
her lower lip, stifling the sudden urge to cry. “Are you coming back?”

A faint smile tugged at the corners of Wolf Shadow’s lips as
he swung into the saddle. “I’ve got ten thousand good reasons to come back,” he
said enigmatically, his smile widening.

She stared after him as he rode out of sight. Only the night
before, he had promised never to leave her, and now he was gone. She had known
him only a short time. In spite of the kisses they had shared, she wasn’t even
sure how she felt about him.

Business, he had said. What kind of business? It suddenly
occurred to her that she knew very little about Wolf Shadow. All she really
knew was that he had come here to take her back to her
wasichu
parents.

Questions floated through her mind. Where did he live when
he wasn’t living with the People? Did he have a
wasichu
wife waiting for
him at home? Children? How had he met her
wasichu
parents?

Turning away from the activity in the camp, she walked down
to the river, surprised at how empty she felt inside now that Wolf Shadow was
gone. How had be become so important to her so fast? From the first day she had
seen him, he had never been far from her thoughts. His kisses had made her feel
things she had never felt before, made her want things she didn’t fully
understand. He had rescued her from the Crow, comforted her when her mother
died…sadness tugged at her heart.

Mountain Sage and Eagle Lance were dead. Wolf Shadow was
gone, and she was alone, truly alone, for the first time in her life. She had
no husband or father to hunt for her, no one to protect her. It was a sobering,
frightening thought. What if Wolf Shadow never returned? Had she made a mistake
in refusing to go with him? Would it have been so bad to meet her
wasichu
parents?

Sitting down on the bank, she tried again to remember her
childhood in the
wasichu
world. Had it been so awful she had blocked it
from her mind? Or had she blocked it because it made it easier to adjust to her
new life with the Lakota? If her
wasichu
parents had been looking for
her all these years, they must have loved her, cared for her.

She had a sudden memory of her
wasichu
mother holding
her, singing to her. “Mama…”

The word, so long unsaid, whispered past her lips and
brought tears to her eyes. Had she made a mistake? But no, Wolf Shadow said he
was coming back. He would take her home. Home. The image of a canopied bed
jumped to the forefront of her mind. There was a pretty pink and white quilt on
the bed, fluffy pillows, a doll with long, golden curls.

She remembered then, remembered all of it, the big house on
the hill, the wrought iron fence, her dog, Heidi, and her pretty little pony,
Snowflake. She remembered thinking her mother was the most beautiful woman in
the world, and wanting to marry her handsome daddy when she grew up. She
remembered Mrs. Squires, the housekeeper, and Mrs. Rochefort, the plump French
cook who had baked her cookies shaped like trees and stars at Christmastime.
Mrs. Rochefort had taught her to make gingerbread men and had, on more than one
occasion, snuck her treats before dinner. And there was Hart, the butler. And
Marie Vachon, the pretty little French maid. She remembered catching Marie
kissing Hans, the stable boy, in the barn one morning.

And her name was Teressa. Teressa Bryant. She murmured the
name aloud as she recalled her excitement when Daddy said he was taking a
business trip and that she and Mama could go with him. They had ridden on a stagecoach,
and then a train. They had spent a month in a hotel in New York City. Her
mother had taken her sight-seeing while her father took care of his business,
whatever that might have been. At night, they had gone out to dinner in fancy
restaurants. People had fussed over her wherever they went, complimenting her
mother and father on having such a well-mannered little girl. She had basked in
the attention. She had loved New York City, loved shopping in all the stores,
loved the presents her father had bought her: a beautiful porcelain doll
imported from France, complete with a crib and several changes of clothing, a
doll house filled with cunningly made furniture, a hoop-stick.

She remembered taking the train again, and then the stage,
remembered her excitement at seeing the Indians riding toward them, excitement
that had soon turned to fear and then horror as the coach turned over.

Iron Arrow had grabbed her from her mother’s arms and given
her to Eagle Lance. And Eagle Lance had taken her home to Mountain Sage. She
remembered it all now. She had been afraid at first, but not for very long.
Mountain Sage had looked ill when Teressa first saw her. She had been scarecrow
thin, her cheeks hollow, her eyes filled with a deep sadness. Young as she was,
Teressa had known somehow that it was her presence that had given Mountain Sage
a reason to live and taken the sorrow from her eyes. The Indian couple had
treated her kindly, giving her time to get used to living with them and with
the Lakota.

Believing her natural parents dead, feeling guilty because
of the love she felt for Mountain Sage and Eagle Lance, Teressa had blocked the
memory of her parents and her other life from her mind.

A touch on her shoulder jerked her from the past. “You!” she
exclaimed with a smile. “You startled me.”

The filly tossed her head, then nuzzled Winter Rain’s
shoulder again.

Rising, Winter Rain stroked the filly’s neck, then glanced
at the trail leading away from the hollow.

“Do you think he’ll really come back?” she wondered aloud.
“And what will I do if he doesn’t?”

Chance knew a moment of regret as he left the Lakota camp
behind, but time was running out. His debt at the bank had to be paid before
the end of the month or he would lose the ranch. In the meantime, the Lakota
would spend the rest of the year in the Black Hills. Kills-Like-a-Hawk and Corn
Woman would look after Winter Rain until he returned.