In the Season of the Sun (27 page)

Too late. Jacob had him. He caught Wolf Lance by the leg and shield arm and held on for dear life as the stallion whirled and reared and bucked. Wolf Lance cracked his spear across Jacob's shoulder but could not dislodge his younger assailant.

Wolf Lance tossed the spear shaft aside and clubbed with his naked hand again and again, raining blows on Jacob who would not let go. The stallion, already panicked by the young man, broke into a gallop yet again. Jacob held Tewa's father in an iron grip. He brought all his weight to bear on the horseman, pulling himself up hand over fist, forcing Wolf Lance off balance until with a cry of rage the older warrior shifted his stance toward Jacob and both men tumbled from the stallion and went sprawling.

Both men hit, slid over the ice and snow, and came to a rest a few yards apart. Jacob emerged, sputtering, spat a mouthful of dirty snow, and willed the spinning world to stop.
Lock it into place
.

Wolf Lance was already on his feet and closing fast. The older brave was amazing. He kicked out as Jacob rose to his knees. The blow knocked Jacob onto his back. Wolf Lance loosed a cry of victory, drew his tomahawk, and leapt for the fallen man. Jacob coiled up, straightened sharply, and drove a hard right heel into his attacker's groin. Wolf Lance gasped and doubled over and retreated.

Jacob crawled to his feet, stumbled up alongside Wolf Lance, and hit him with a solid left to the jaw. Wolf Lance sank to his knees. Jacob backed away and almost lost his balance. He tried to catch his breath.

“Listen to me,” he gasped.

“I'll kill you,” Wolf Lance weakly muttered.

“Listen—Tewa and I are called together.”

“You … die.”

“Why?”

“Because it must be so. The All-Father wills it.”

“You will it!”

“Yes!” Wolf Lance growled and sprang upright. The whisper of his iron-bladed tomahawk carried on the stillness as it spun through the air. Jacob slipped and fell back against a lone sentinel pine that dominated the clearing. The hawk bit deep into the trunk, nicking Jacob's right ear. It was a superficial cut, but blood flowed down his neck.

Wolf Lance drew the heavy shaft of a war hammer from the beaded belt circling his solid waist and closed for the kill.

Jacob backstepped past the pine and headed toward the aspen grove. He ignored the war hammer and watched instead the man's eyes as Lone Walker had taught him. The eyes would reveal an enemy's intentions. It was a trick that never failed. But Wolf Lance, a seasoned warrior, kept his head deliberately low and he moved with the stealth of his namesake. And when he attacked he moved in close, quick and deadly.

The war hammer, crowned with a chunk of granite large enough to cave in a man's skull, only swiped empty air. Wolf Lance was fast, but Jacob was faster and reached the aspens. The underbrush held him up just a second and the hammer caught him a glancing blow that deadened his left shoulder and catapulted him against a wall of saplings. Jacob, hung up on the branches, saw an ugly red lump swell on his naked bicep. Only a heavy layer of muscle saved the bone.

Wolf Lance wasted no time but pressed his advantage. He plunged forward, the war hammer raised aloft, slashing down to crush Jacob's skull.

Jacob dropped forward and reached for his “Arkansas toothpick.” His right hand closed around the rawhide-wrapped grip and whipped the razor-sharp blade from its sheath.

No thought now, the only instinct to survive. Jacob feinted, jabbed, the double-edged knife blade flashing with sun fire. Wolf Lance swung his war club in a mighty arc. Jacob, for all his size, ducked beneath the blow. The mallet head struck one of the saplings and snapped the three-inch-thick trunk like a twig. Jacob struck. He slashed the brave's chest. Wolf Lance gasped at the bite of the blade and leapt back. He chanced to look at the bloody rent in his buckskin shirt. But he was too experienced a fighter to be distracted by the painful wound. Jacob pressed his attack and moved in, his right arm set in a savage thrust. The knife shot out.

But Wolf Lance wasn't finished yet. The war club seemed to come out of nowhere and batted the outstretched knife from Jacob's hand. The granite club swept up and caught Jacob flush in the jaw. Jacob's head snapped back and stars exploded inside his head. The world went dark for a moment, then he turned his back and stumbled through the trees, knowing if he fell, that would be the end. His arm curled about one sapling. He swung around the trunk, gaining momentum. His foot lashed out and he planted a kick in Wolf Lance's belly that knocked the wind out of the brave and left him staggering. But Wolf Lance held on to his weapons, his war club, and now Jacob's own knife. He lashed out at the empty air.

Jacob spat blood and shoved himself out of the grove and into the clearing. An idea formed in the dim recesses of his mind. He retraced his steps, hurrying as best he could back to his rifle. Behind him, Wolf Lance had recovered enough to follow his quarry out into the clearing.

Jacob spotted the Hawken rifle in the snow and dropped to his knees by the weapon. His numbed fingers dug into the pouch on his belt for a percussion cap. Wolf Lance roared in defiance and charged. This was the moment. There would be no other. The two had fought themselves to near exhaustion. It must end now.

Wolf Lance raced across the glittering snow. Strength filled his limbs. The Above Ones were with him. The All-Father had brought him here and when Jacob Sun Gift lay dead then Wolf Lance could return to his people … return at last and dream new dreams.

Jacob fumbled with the percussion cap, dropped it, retrieved it from the icy crust, managed to work it onto the nipple.

Wolf Lance raced the distance and held the knife and war club ready to strike. He saw the younger man falter and one last cry of triumph welled from the heart of Wolf Lance. Then he sprang to the kill.

Jacob raised the big .50-caliber rifle and fired.

30

T
ewa waited on a knoll in the heart of the village, waited in the sun-drenched afternoon with the glare of evergreen-laden ridges reflected on the frozen surface of Medicine Lake. It had become a custom among the people of Ever Shadow that a maiden would wait upon the knoll for her lover to ride past with his gifts for the girl's family.

Tewa did not wait alone. Sparrow Woman was at her side and Little Plume, wife of Yellow Eagle. Only women who had been taken to wife were allowed on the knoll in the presence of one such as Tewa, a girl waiting for her husband-to-be.

Young girls gathered at the foot of the knoll. Good Bear Woman, who hoped to one day await her own lover, was among them and a dozen or so other young girls including Red Moon, a slight wisp of a girl whose dark eyes smoldered with jealousy as she watched Tewa from afar.

Tewa was unaware of anything but the trail winding off down the valley. Smoke curled from the tops of the Indian lodges and the air was permeated with the smell of wood smoke and the rich aroma of boiled meat and fry bread.

Where was Jacob? The sun already walked a westward path across the sky.…

“I have seen his horses,” one of the women, Sun Basket, remarked. She was an older woman, gray streaked her braids, and her leathery features were lit by a broad smile. “Many fine horses.”

Sparrow Woman beamed proudly and thought to herself, No finer than the one who brings them.

Tewa wore a dress of brushed buckskin and calf-high moccasins. She had wrapped herself in a scarlet woolen blanket. Beadwork adorned her braided hair. But her dress, though fringed, was free of decoration.

Several of the older women of the village had erected a tepee on the periphery of the valley, distinctly apart from the village itself. This would be the wedding lodge. It stood just on the edge of the forest. The hide walls had been decorated with suns and running buffalo and prancing ponies. The lodge awaited its occupants.

“Soon now,” Tewa whispered beneath her breath. First Jacob must come with his gifts, which Two Stars was already primed to accept. Then Standing Elk and some of the other tribal elders would conduct the
Two Called Together
ceremony. And afterwards … Tewa once again lifted her eyes to the lodge by the forest and envisioned herself curled beneath warm blankets, a fire close by, and alongside her, his head cradled upon her naked breast, Jacob Sun Gift. Man and woman together, made one. Even her father would have to understand and accept and put to rest the All-Father's terrible demands. Let there be children for him to hold, for him to teach his brave wise ways, for him to love and be healed and know peace.

Jacob had promised.…

“I see him,” Little Plume Woman called out, shading her eyes. Tewa followed her example, shaded her eyes and saw in the distance a single approaching figure. It was Jacob. She knew in her heart Jacob had returned. But where were the horses? The travois of fine robes?

She waited and watched, frowning. What had happened?

“He's afoot,” Sparrow Woman observed, her eyes sharp as a hawk's.

“He is leading his horse,” Tewa explained. Not that she understood. Had his horse pulled up lame? And then suddenly she recognized the gray stallion he led, and the shock of recognition rooted her in place. Now she saw Yellow Eagle and Otter Tail riding about a quarter of a mile behind Jacob and they drove his horses along the valley floor and out into pasture. And were those robes draped across the back of the horse? No! No! A man, draped face down, his arms and legs dangling limp. She recognized the great black-feathered spear Jacob used as a staff, and her heart broke.

The wives began to drift from the mound sensing something was terribly amiss. Only Sparrow Woman remained and even she shrank back a step at the sight of her bruised and battered son.

Jacob entered the village and walked the horse straight toward the mound, the final steps of his young life's longest journey. Older women of the village recognized Wolf Lance, one of the tribe's bravest warriors, and the wailing began. But Jacob stayed his course and continued to the knoll and the woman he loved and had betrayed. And when he reached the place where Tewa waited, he dropped the reins and stood aside.

“This is the gift you bring to my family?” Tewa asked, her voice trembling but her head held high and shoulders ramrod straight.

“I had no choice,” Jacob began. “I did not mean to break my pledge to you.”

Tewa walked down from the knoll, unable to tear her gaze from her father's corpse. The slug from Jacob's rifle had gouged a fist-sized hole in the dead warrior's back where the slug exited. Wolf Lance's buckskin coat was stiff with dried blood.

“Jacob Sun Gift has broken no pledge,” Tewa replied. “You promised peace between you and my father. I did not know it would be the peace of death.”

She took the reins. Jacob reached for her. She drew away, took the great lance from him, and moved to her father's side. She spied her father's wolf cowl and pulled it from around the dead man's features. Tewa slipped the cowl over her own head. She wiped a hand across her father's cold cheek and smeared her face with his war paint.

Then she swung up on horseback and sat behind her father's lifeless form.

“The young men called me warrior woman and so I will be! As my father was first to ride to battle, so I will ride in his place!” Her voice rang out across the people of the village who had come to find out what had happened. Children were hushed quickly away as word spread.

“As my father lived alone, apart from his people, so I will keep my lodge there.” She gestured with the lance toward the wedding lodge.

Jacob started toward her. Tewa lowered the spear and the tip of its obsidian blade dug into his chest, halting him in his tracks.

“This is the wolf lance. It is my father's spirit. It will always be between us.”

Tewa rose up on the back of the gray stallion and held the wolf lance aloft. “I am Tewa, daughter of Wolf Lance. I am Warrior Woman!
Haaaiiii-yaaa
. All who come to my lodge do so as an enemy.”

Tewa wheeled the gray stallion and rode from the knoll and bore her father's body toward the wedding lodge.

PART VI

Ever Shadow

31

April 1840

I
n the land of Ever Shadow, dreams die to live again. And in the blood of the bear, winter ends long before the geese wing north and snow-draped boughs at last yield their burden.

In Ever Shadow, life lies brittle as a twig and changes with the moon. Bitterroots spring from the soil, uncoil, become firm with bud, with the promise of rebirth.

In Ever Shadow, mysteries reign, for what is life without mystery. Fear stalks the ridges only to explode in the heart and burrow in the mind. It robs reason from the staunchest soul.

Broken-backed ridges, yawning cracks in the earth where the daylight seldom reaches, salt-white peaks that rise in frozen prominence like thrones to the Gods, all are Ever Shadow. All the products of a volatile earth, carved but never humbled by wind and glacier into reaches where a man must walk, if he is to stand in the Season of the Sun.

Tom Milam burrowed as deeply as he could in the niche he'd found between two slabs of granite. Something touched his ankle and for one brief moment he thought,
Rattler!
He would have bolted from cover but for the Blackfoot war party twenty feet away.

The spring winds had a wintry bite here on the divide in the place the Indians called Ever Shadow, but it was the movement by his foot that chilled his blood. He grabbed for the knife in his belt expecting the worst, then a gray chipmunk worked its way out from under Tom's right leg and scampered out of the crevice, and Tom sighed in relief, grateful he hadn't chosen a rattler's den for concealment.

There were five Blackfeet, riding single file along the same deer trail Tom had been following half an hour ago. He had spotted the braves and taken cover as they cleared the woods fifty yards downslope. The wind rushed upslope like a locomotive, kicked grit in his face, and passed on.