In the Season of the Sun (24 page)

Tewa had already shucked her leggings and coat and wore only a soft doeskin smock that hung to mid-thigh. She was no longer laughing. She moved silently to the edge of the spring and stepped down into the pool's warm depths. As the water rose above her knees, she hesitated, then pulled the smock up over her head and tossed it onto her other clothing. She finished lowering herself into the pool, her long hair floating on the surface as the water climbed to her rounded breasts. She waited for Jacob.

The sight of her, like this, left him aroused. There was no hiding it as he removed his clothes and padded barefoot, to the pool. The water was hot as he worked his way toward her through the water. Tewa moved to him, emerged streaming from the water to stand naked before him. Droplets of water clung to her like tiny jewels.

She reached out and touched his eager flesh, tracing a path that led to his chest and neck. She stepped into him; her breasts, like hardened buds, brushed his chest.

“You are very beautiful,” she said in a whisper.

“Stand with me,” Jacob said with all the longing in his heart, and he opened his arms. He held no blanket; all he had to offer was the strength of his embrace.

It was enough for Tewa.

26

J
acob and Tewa returned to the lodge shortly after dusk. A full moon lit the way across the snow-covered earth. Against a sky scattered with star jewels, gossamer clouds trailed like ghostly bridal veils, passing south on the gentle wings of the wind.

“And if my father is angry?” Tewa asked. Having tricked Wolf Lance, she was willing to bear the brunt of his anger yet dreaded it all the same. She did not understand her father of late, he had become a stranger to her. Still, she loved him, would always love him, even now, in her fear and uncertainty. How would he react to her decision to end her exile and return to Medicine Lake?

“Then let him be angry,” Jacob said. “We are called together. You and I. And I will not leave unless you are by my side.” Tewa placed her hand in his and then trudged across the glade to the lodge. Jacob pulled the door open and they stepped inside, leaving the cold night air behind.

Lone Walker, squatting by the fire, looked up from the elk ribs he'd been roasting over the flames. He was alone in the lodge and on recognizing the young man and woman seemed relieved, though the revelation of Wolf Lance weighed heavy on him. He lifted the ribs off the fire and with his knife hacked away portions for himself, Jacob, and Tewa.

“Where is my father?” the woman asked as she and Jacob fell to their knees around the comforting fire.

“Gone to bring in the horses,” Lone Walker said. There was a makeshift corral in back of the lodge where the animals were kept at night. “Don't worry. He's already eaten his fill.”

“I must speak with him,” Jacob said from his place by the fire. He looked up at Lone Walker, studied the warrior's expression. Jacob felt as if he could keep no secret from the man. “When we leave, Tewa is coming with me.”

Lone Walker had suspected as much. In fact, from the moment he had set out with Jacob in search of the wolf girl, Lone Walker had sensed this inevitable development. But he hadn't foretold the danger involved. Wolf Lance was a man to reckon with. Jacob, for all his size and strength, was no match for a seasoned fighter like Wolf Lance.

“I have no wish to eat,” Tewa sighed. Suddenly the sound of a galloping horse could be heard from outside. The lithe young woman sprang to her feet and hurried through the door, clutching her wolf-pelt coat about her shoulders as she plunged into the wintry night. Jacob rose and started to follow her, but Lone Walker reached out and caught his arm. A moment later Tewa returned, looking confused, her cheeks flush from the cold night air.

“My father … is … is gone,” she stammered.

“A man knows what he knows,” Lone Walker said. “What he does with that knowledge is something else again.” The Blackfoot brave motioned for the two young people to sit by the fire. He reached into the parfleche he carried at his side and brought out a pinch of a powdery-looking mineral, which he tossed into the cookfire. Bright, Livid orange flames flared for a moment, then died. Lone Walker wafted a silky black feather through the trailing vapors. He lifted his gaze, fixed on some faraway point now, and spoke.

“Hear me. And I will speak to you of men and dreams …”

Morning came. It etched the rims in gold, then sunlight poured down the broken slopes like spilled honey. The grove of trees where Wolf Lance had passed the night fractured the dawn's fiery glow into shafts of sunburst yellow that roused the warrior from his slumber.

Wolf Lance had camped back in the woods well out of sight of the lodge. He'd weathered the night in the old way. First he'd dug a shallow depression in the earth, as long as he was tall. Then he'd built a fire and when he had a good supply of coals, extinguished the flames and scattered the glowing chunks of charred wood all along the depression. He'd covered the coals with a bearskin robe and settled into the warmth. Another covering of pelts for a blanket and Wolf Lance slept snug and warm. And much too long, he scolded himself, for he had wanted to be waiting at first light, ready to do battle the moment Jacob stepped outside. He had no love for what was about to happen, but a man must follow the path set before him by the Above Ones.

Wolf Lance moved out across the snow. He cupped the frozen moisture to his face and neck. His charger, ground hobbled among the aspens nearby, whinnied at the sight of the brave. Wolf Lance scrubbed his chest, gulped in a lungful of that brisk cold air. He exhaled, his breath clouding the air and trailing off through slanted shafts of sunlight. Wolf Lance said, “It is a good day to die.”

He knelt down and gathered up his buckskin shirt, quickly pulled it over his head, and then pulled back his bedding to reveal the charcoal-lined pit in which he'd slept. He dipped his fingers into the ashes, mixed in a little wood, then drew a black streak across his eyes and another higher up on his forehead. He dabbed charcoal onto either hand. And he was satisfied. Now he was marked as one who followed a dream path.

Wolf Lance took up his Hawken rifle and checked to make sure it was loaded and primed. Then he left his camp and returned to his horse. The animal tossed its mane and called to him as he approached. The Blackfoot spoke soothingly and pressed a soot-blackened hand to the animal's buckskin-colored neck, leaving an imprint on the horse.

Wolf Lance freed the horse from its hobbles and swung up on the buckskin's back. Reins in hand he turned his mount and rode out of the woods and back to the lodge. He followed a deer trail that ran the length of the valley before climbing over the divide. The trees thinned in a matter of minutes and the lodge angled into view.

The warrior headed straight toward the clearing in front of the lodge. He had picked the time and place to fight. Wolf Lance wore no coat. He wanted to be free for combat. His long black hair streamed away from his features. His expression was tight lipped and betrayed no emotion as he held his horse firmly in check. The animal wanted to run but was forced to trot through the snow, its hooves throwing up ice-crusted clods of dirt.

About sixty feet in front of the lodge Wolf Lance reined to a halt and waited, knowing he must have already been spotted a hundred yards back. He waited. And waited. And the sun crept upward in the sky. The wind died, leaving the cold to settle on the land. Sunlight warred with winter's chill. Against the clouds whose imperceptible drift made them seem stationary, over the man alone and the lonely land, swept the silent shadow of a golden eagle.

The Blackfoot lifted his eyes to that noble minion of heaven, the lord of the backbone of the world, aloof, predatory, circling silent, watchful, and waiting to swoop down on some unsuspecting prey.

“Enough,” said the man on horseback. He raised the rifle over his head and shouted.
“Ho-hey!”
The cry echoed down the valley. “Jacob Sun Gift!” The hills repeated the name. “Come and fight me!”

Was Lone Walker holding back his son? Surely not even the spirit singer would stand in the way of the All-Father.

“Jacob Sun Gift. It is a good day to fight.” Wolf Lance waited. He shifted uncomfortably astride his horse. The stillness had taken on an eerie quality. He glanced around, made nervous by the lack of response. “Is the son of Lone Walker a coward?”

Only an echo and then the awful silence once again.

“Come and fight!” Wolf Lance roared. Anger welled in him like an ember in his heart suddenly burst into flame. “Bring your gun and horse. Face me here!”

Wolf Lance drove his heels into his mount and wheeled the startled beast around and galloped across the clearing at an angle that brought him to the side of the lodge where he could see the back of the structure and the makeshift stockade abutting the granite cliff to the rear of the lodge.

Empty. The stockade had held half a dozen horses. It was empty. Wolf Lance leapt down from his horse and charged the log dwelling he had built with his own two hands. He hit the door, shoulder first. It slammed back and he staggered into the room, tripped on a clay bowl, and tumbled to the floor. He rolled through the cold ashes of a dead fire and swung his rifle around to cover the shadows that seemed to leap out toward him like so many tormenting demons.

The cabin was empty. And had been so for hours. Wolf Lance kicked aside a willow backrest, ravaged the pelt bedding with his rifle barrel. He noticed something else, then. All the dried meat was gone from its string against the far wall.

“Tewa!” the warrior shouted as he spun on his heels and headed for the door. He burst into sunlight, brought up sharply as he noticed for the first time the various sets of tracks in the snow. They had meant nothing to him before. But now—he studied a trail that wound down the valley. “Tewa!” he called again and listened as the name carried back and grew fainter with each repetition. “My daughter,” he said, his own voice diminished. “They have turned you against your father.”

He looked back at the lodge. The trail food had been taken. And all the snowshoes were gone from their pegs on the outside walls. Everything to keep him from immediately following. And they could keep fresh horses under them and cover twice the distance as a man astride one poor, tired mountain pony.

“I see your hand in this, Lone Walker, my old friend.” Wolf Lance muttered bitterly. He watched as his horse headed toward familiar pasture. Well then, let the animal graze, grow fat on the last of autumn's grasses poking through the snow. Wolf Lance stared off toward the mouth of the valley and the way he must go. He did not need to track them. “So be it,” he said. He had ridden the trail in his mind often enough. Now his heart grew hard as stone, his very being one grim resolve.

“I will come home.”

27

S
he was Sparrow Woman. She was Lone Walker's woman. And she had grown to live with waiting. A week or a season, the pain was the same. The longing too. And yet stoic acceptance had become as second nature to her over the years. Her husband was a man of dreams, of quests, a spirit singer whose life must ever be divided between home and the journey. Lone Walker's life was mirrored in his name.

It was the time of the Hard-Faced Moon, and snow blanketed the village of the Medicine Lake People. Sparrow Woman wrapped herself in an otter-skin coat. She had sewn it with the pelts turned inward to protect her from the cold. The air was bitter and still, and the ashen clouds hung heavy on the land, muting natural sounds of village life. There were no children at play among the tepees. No proud young men galloped their horses across the surrounding meadow to impress the unmarried daughters of the tribe. There were some people afoot: several moved out to bring the horses closer into the village while a few women headed down to the lake.

Sparrow Woman had already made one trip to shore to bring fresh water to her lodge. But she had chosen to repeat the brief trek to the water's edge, this time to bring living water to the lodge of blind Two Stars. Calling Dove, the old one's cut-nose wife, had been ill of late. Though recovering, the woman was still too weak to bring the customary living water to her own lodge. Sparrow Woman had willingly accepted the chore. She enjoyed her visits with Two Stars. He reminded Sparrow Woman of her own proud father, who had gone to the All-Father many years past.

Sparrow Woman walked from her tepee and followed the path she had earlier left in the snow. Soft wet flakes settled in her footprints, gradually obscuring the passage, but she knew the way by heart. The dogs were quiet, chased into hiding by the gloomy overcast sky and the ever-present cold.

The wife of Lone Walker moved quickly, she was anxious to be out of the weather herself. She was not even tempted to visit any of her friends along the way. The task at hand was of sole importance. She lowered her head and plunged through the gray gloom, and gradually the press of lodges thinned and the level ground inclined. Sparrow Woman chose her steps wisely now. A clay water jug dangled from a rawhide rope clutched in her left hand. The jug belonged to Two Stars and woe to the woman so careless to break it.

The ground underfoot had eroded and the slope was broken and irregular, but Sparrow Woman took her time and descended the last few yards to the ice-rimmed lake. She knelt by the edge of the lake, set the jug aside, and drew a war hammer from her belt. The weapon was Lone Walker's and consisted of a sturdy oak shaft approximately two feet in length, the hilt wrapped in rawhide and crowned with a water-smoothed oval chunk of granite half again as large as a man's fist.

The woman didn't bother to try to locate the hole she had made earlier. It was quicker, simpler to crush the ice-glazed surface close at hand. A single swipe of the war hammer and Sparrow Woman had a miniature pool in which to lower the clay jug. By the time she had filled the container, a couple of other women, alerted by the sound, approached through the settling snow.