Scalpdancers (25 page)

She saw all these things, this far country, through the “lost eyes” of a man.

“All-Father,

I sing for warmth against

The cold.

I sing for the lost ways that

They may be known.

I sing for the vision at the

End of a long journey.

I sing for peace in the far

Land where the sun sleeps.”

Suddenly the vision faded and in its place emerged a single terrible figure wrapped in a white buffalo robe, his eyes ablaze beneath the horned headdress. And the figure pointed his rifle directly at her and flame spat from the barrel. Thunder cracked the silence. Singing Woman gasped and cried out a secret name, his name.

A half mile from the hidden cave, in the heart of the pine forest, Sparrow heard the crack of a rifle shot and dropped to the ground. She burrowed beneath the nearest shrubbery, where a cluster of leafy green fronds flourished in a patch of olive-amber sunlight. The rifle shot had sounded frighteningly close. The ponderosa pines successfully distorted the sound. She pressed her ear close to the pine-fragrant earth where tiny blue flowers flourished in the thin soil. She waited patiently, knowing a hunter must bide her time and listen to the cool ground. The forest would tell her when it was safe to move. Singing Woman had taught her well to hear what others would not.

So Sparrow waited, and soon she heard the drum of hooves, the frantic tread of an approaching animal. A white-tailed doe crashed through the underbrush a dozen yards away. Its once graceful leaps became ungainly as it fled humankind. The doe, once nimble and fleet of foot, could not escape its fate. Even as the doe sought the safety of the forest, the animal's lifeblood. matted its reddish coat and frothed at the puckered wound where a rifle ball had punctured the lung.

The whitetail staggered in its course, then ran a few frantic yards, leapt, and crashed against a tree trunk. The animal paused on trembling legs and took its bearing; the doe's large brown eyes ranged the woods. It found no release from the fear and the pain and the terrible weakness it felt struggling for breath. The doe spied the cluster of underbrush and took a hesitant step toward Sparrow's place of concealment.

“
Ahwahkis
,” Sparrow whispered, calling the dying animal by name. “If you approach me, it will mean my death.” The doe's gaze fixed on the patch of shadow that was the young woman—only a stone's toss from the trail. The doe shuddered but came no closer, its eyes fixed on Sparrow's. The doe pawed at the pine needles, then collapsed.

A momentary quiet settled over the forest where gray squirrels had chattered and kinglets had dashed among the branches of the conifers. A gust of wind stirred the brush and a warm breath of air fanned Sparrow's cheek as if she had been brushed by some invisible creature bounding past.

She waited, remained vigilant, one minute, then a dozen, and was rewarded by the tread of an approaching horse. Sparrow dug deeper into the vines and soil when she caught a glimpse of a white robe further up the slope. It was all she could do to keep from fleeing for her life when White Buffalo walked a big brown gelding through the ponderosas and dismounted alongside the doe. He landed soundlessly despite his bulk and knelt to inspect his kill. He went to work with his knife.

Sparrow stifled a gasp. She recognized the gelding; it had belonged to Broken Hand. The young brave would never have surrendered his mount while alive. The woman's heart sank as she wondered how many of her people had died. White Buffalo tore a morsel of liver from the tip of his knife and chewed contentedly, one elbow resting on the carcass. Then he tossed the liver aside and wiped his red lips on the sleeve of his buckskin shirt. He grabbed his rifle, cocked the weapon, and turned in Sparrow's direction.

The woman stiffened and closed her eyes, knowing that to make eye contact with the shaman was as good as standing and announcing herself. She cleared her mind too and imagined herself safe once more in Singing Woman's company. She pictured the medicine woman's kindly wrinkled visage, and her heart ceased to pound so wildly in her breast. She clung to the mental image of the aged one, sensing safety in that presence.

How long she remained staring into the blackness of her own shuttered eyes, Sparrow did not know. But when she at last chanced a look, White Buffalo and his kill were nowhere to be seen.

Sparrow cautiously got to her feet and started downslope at a brisk trot, anxious to distance herself from the evil shaman. She ran easily, her body a fluid shadow, quick as her namesake flitting overhead in the branches of the aspens and ponderosas. She reached a gully at the bottom of the slope and changed direction, keeping to the gully and working her way toward Singing Woman Ridge, rising to the north.

She leapt brambles and ignored game trails. She had no desire to rig her snares where White Buffalo was likely to hunt. She had to pause twice, for the gully did not look familiar. She had taken a different route home, one that almost caused her to backtrack rather than to press on, for the dry watercourse was littered with sharp stones that punished her moccasined feet. She considered climbing out, but cover was scarce here along the valley floor. It offered little but an occasional clump of aspens and plenty of buffalo grass drying in the sun. An occasional prickly pear cactus reared its spike paddles to wound the unwary. Sparrow was so concerned with the trail, her eyes fixed on the ground, that she failed to use her other senses until too late.

She blundered into a cold camp.

Squat, crudely constructed shelters clung to a barren hillside. Children waited in the shadows of the shelters, their poor thin bodies showing the effects of hunger.

One of the few braves visible took up bow and arrow and placed himself between Sparrow and the women gathered about the lifeless ashes of a camp fire. There could not have been more than twenty people, counting men, women, and children, in this narrow canyon. And Sparrow, to her horror, knew them all.

The brave facing her was Wolf Lance. He notched an arrow and waited for her to come closer.

“Where is Lost Eyes?” a voice behind her said. Sparrow turned and faced her brother, Black Fox. “Where is he who betrayed us? I will kill him.” From the hillside Black Fox had spied her approaching along the gully and hurried to intercept her.

“Lost Eyes is no more. He has received his vision. He is Lone Walker, now,” Sparrow said.

“Then I will kill Lone Walker,” Black Fox said. His hand shot out and slapped her full in the face and knocked her down. The gravel and loose shale gouged her back and shoulders, the blood flowed where she bit the inside of her mouth.

“Black Fox, no!” Wolf Lance called out and ran toward them.

Sparrow sprang to her feet, pulled a knife, and crouched menacingly, her eyes ablaze.

“White Buffalo is near. He hunts the ridge. I would be careful. He might come and kill you. But if you raise a hand to me again, I will cut it off.”

Black Fox retreated a step, taken aback by his sister's ferocity. The delay gave Wolf Lance time to approach. He immediately inquired and she told of Lost Eyes' vision quest and his new name.

Sparrow looked around at the people in the encampment. How listlessly they moved, coming forward to see for themselves this new arrival. Fear showed in their dusty expressions.

“White Buffalo and the Shoshoni were upon us before we knew it,” Wolf Lance recounted, bitterness in his voice. “Before us and behind us, everywhere. The power of White Buffalo was with them. They slaughtered our elders and our braves, captured many of our children and women. We are all that remain.”

Sparrow walked toward the crude shelters, paused. The faces of the survivors were familiar to her. But too many were missing.

“Yellow Stalk is near birthing time,” Black Fox said, stumbling forward, his anger gone now. It had been a momentary flash, like lit gunpowder, a burst of flame, then nothing. He shaded his eyes and studied the ridge behind them; imagining White Buffalo so close filled him with dread. “I should have died with the others,” he said. “But instead I fled. I took Yellow Stalk and I ran from battle. Now we are here in this dead place. And I do not know where to go.”

Sparrow's cheek still burned from his slap, but she sheathed her knife and faced him. His head hung low, defeat evident in every muscle and in his bleak expression.

Sparrow had no choice. She lifted her gaze to Singing Woman Ridge and said, “I know a place.”

It was a time of labor, a time of building dreams. The west wind sang in the hills; rain showers washed the verdant land. There were nights the thunder bellowed and lightning flashed. Undaunted, Emile Emerson remained. He had come to bring the Word of God to the north country and, by heaven, he intended to stay. No task was too great, no travail impossible to endure, said Emile Emerson. The failure of his mission in Macao seemed to have been eliminated from his memory.

“Here we remain.”

He spoke these words in early August, standing on the steps of his empty church. It was a long, low-beamed house made of logs and mud chinking with a red cedar-shingle roof. A rock chimney rose atop one end of the structure four feet above the roofline. To his left the sound of women singing emanated from his cabin, a three-room structure built much on the order of Reap McCorkle's house though smaller. If its exterior might seem rough-hewn by civilized standards, to Emerson's beaming eyes this was home. Sweat and untiring effort had made it possible. The dream had been wrought by more than his hand alone: Morgan Penmerry and Temp Rawlins had labored alongside him, had been burned brown by the sun and hardened by long hours of felling trees and trimming logs and setting timber into place. The shipmates were a pair of irascible rogues, but, by God, they had worked. Emerson couldn't help but feel grateful. He'd begun to see Morgan Penmerry in a new light, as much as he hated to admit it.

Think of the devil and here he came, Emerson reflected, hearing the crunch of boots. He peered past the edge of the porch and spied Morgan on the trail.

Morgan was dressed in a coarse linsey-woolsey shirt, black pants, and deerskin boots he'd won off a trapper during a game of “three thimbles.” He appeared much the woodsman save for the cutlass sheathed at his waist. He wore a brace of pistols and carried a double-bladed ax upon his shoulder. Black allowed the trappers their weapons as long as there was no trouble. The country was too dangerous to travel unarmed.

“A fine morning, Dr. Emerson,” Morgan called out. He wiped a forearm across his brow, taking a furtive glance toward the cabin in hopes of catching a glimpse of Julia. “Thought I'd cut some wood for the smokehouse today. Spied some suitable timber back in the hills by the spring.” He relayed his intentions at a distance, hoping the woman in the cabin might overhear.

“It's the Sabbath.” Emerson hefted an enameled cup of tea. “A day of rest.”

“I'll do my resting when it rains,” Morgan said, drawing close to the porch. The steps rose three feet to the crudely planed decking. With rain in such abundance, they'd built the church with a decent crawl space beneath the floor. Solid timbers of Douglas fir anchored the cabin. The Pacific coast was no place for a dirt floor. Even the cabin sat a foot above ground. “Seems mighty quiet for a Sunday. You fixing to preach to an empty church?”

Emerson glanced wistfully at the church's interior, which housed ten long benches and a pulpit fashioned of driftwood and barrel staves. He chuckled softly and climbed down to sit on the steps.

“You must think me mad, eh, young man?”

Morgan shrugged. “No. Every man ought to do what he believes in. I've found it the only way to live. I meant—you must be disappointed.”

Emerson shook his head. “Hardly. The church is built. The cabin too. The rest will happen in its own good time. The people here must get to know me, to trust me. White man and red. When that occurs, great things happen. But before I can expect the Clayoquat to come to me, I must go to them. Before I can teach, I must be taught. Before I can speak, I must listen.” The reverend's features all but glowed as he spoke. For a moment it was as if he could see beyond the present to the future, to the possibilities waiting to be experienced. His heart felt buoyed by a sense of joy. He was a man with a purpose again. Emerson suddenly grew self-conscious. “Well, you see, I preached a sermon after all,” he admitted sheepishly.

“You alone?” he asked, glancing back at the river trail for the sight of Temp Rawlins struggling up the path. The two men had taken to sharing black tea and biscuits of a morning.

“He stayed at the Sea Spray,” Morgan said. “Captain Black took a ship and half his men downriver. Another schooner's been spotted prowling the coast. No doubt Black figures to increase the size of his fleet yet again. Reap's tapped a keg to celebrate the captain's departure.” Morgan hooked a thumb in his belt and stepped back. “I don't see a need to celebrate, 'cause Sergeant Chadwell's in charge of the garrison. There's even talk of storming the fort. Trouble is, no one wants to get himself shot. Temp has never been one to pass up a good time. I'm sure they'd be plumb happy for you to join them; you might even say a few words as a sort of blessing for all the pelts stacked up at McCorkle's. Maybe a few holy words would help them bring a better price from the British.”

“Perhaps later,” Emerson said, finding some merit in the idea. “I have other duties this day. And here they are.” The reverend stood and set aside his cup. Morgan looked around and saw Chief Comcomly standing at the edge of the clearing. He was dressed in a coat of woven grasses and wore an otter pelt cap upon his head. Again he came with a retinue of a half-dozen braves, who, Morgan had learned, were the old chiefs sons.

“I've been invited to witness their fertility ritual, as several young girls have passed into womanhood. It is the day of the ceremony.” Emerson gulped and straightened his shoulders and descended the steps. He raised his open palm in salute to the chief of the Clayoquat. “Reap tells me it is quite an honor,” the reverend added under his breath, keeping a smile upon his face.