The Sacrifice (11 page)

After retying her wrists, the priest fetched a buffalo robe and held it out to her. She hesitated, pointing at her grizzly robe and then at herself.

The priest's gaze was flinty.

She burned inside, but reached for the buffalo robe.

The priest handed the boy a small bowl and buffalo-horn spoon, and spoke to him as though instructing him. The boy held them out to the girl, but she refused to take them, so he carried them himself. The priest turned away and spoke with the sharp man, as if he considered the others dismissed. The two-voiced man whispered to the boy, and the boy silently took the girl's arm in his hand and led her out of the lodge.

He had a weak grip and his hand was probably sweating so much she would feel it through her sleeve in another moment, she thought. She could easily have broken away and run, but there was nowhere to run to. All around them moved curious people, offering what seemed to be encouragement or congratulations as they passed. Beyond the people and their earthen lodges lay nothing but the river and endless prairie.

The boy took her into another lodge that must have been his own. They were alone. He looked at her uncomfortably. He untied her hands, and asked in sign whether they hurt, but although they did hurt her, she only glared straight ahead.

The boy pointed to a platform against the wall piled with robes, and motioned for her to sit down. She thought he would try to touch her, and wondered what to do if he did. But he did not touch her. He filled her bowl with stew and set it and a piece of red corn bread in front of her, then stood back.

She was hungry, but she did not want to show it. She kicked the food away, sloshing stew over the boy's moccasins. He pursed his lips, but did nothing. The girl sneered at his weakness. He sat down across from her and nervously smiled his crooked smile. For some reason it enraged her.

Pointing to himself, the boy said something in Pawnee that must have been his name, then signed,
Question—you called?
She ignored him. He slid an arrow from a quiver that hung on the wall behind her, and knelt down and began drawing in the hard dirt floor. He talked freely as he carved out figures.

He is friendly because he does not want trouble with his new wife, she thought. But trouble is exactly what he will get. When I leave this village I will take his scalp with me.

A big-boned woman, sturdy and peaceable-looking, appeared in the doorway. She stopped short at the sight of the newcomer, and a shadow crossed her face. The young children who had been swept in with her clung to her legs. She shooed them to the far side of the lodge, where they entertained themselves with husk dolls.

More people followed—three young men and old Two-voices, and children, and several women carrying water in leather bags swinging from saplings across their shoulders.

The same shadow of discomfort darkened the face of everyone who entered, but just as quickly it was gone. The older women fell to preparing the midday meal, while the young women looked after the men and the grandmothers looked after the children. Pleasant chatter hummed through the lodge.

The sturdy woman handed her a disc of fried bread as casually as if they were mother and daughter. She took the steaming bread automatically. The woman gave the boy a disc of bread, too, and he bit into it with a show of pleasure, which made the woman smile. She nudged him in the ribs with her foot before walking away.

The boy said something after her that made everyone in the lodge laugh. He tore off another mouthful and chewed as if he had never tasted anything so delicious, surely for the stranger's benefit. She was disgusted. Still chewing, he motioned to her to put the bread in her mouth.

Instead she dropped her bread on the bed and ignored it. The boy frowned, but picked up his arrow again and began drawing where he had been interrupted, babbling in Pawnee.

She paid no attention. She thought only of escape. After a time, reasoning that she would need energy for the journey ahead, she reached reluctantly for the bread and what was left of the stew. It was a concoction of crunchy corn kernels, sweet, with leathery orange strips of something and dried buffalo stomach lining, and though it tasted strange, it seemed to light a flame under her hunger.

The boy was pleased she had decided to eat, and he fetched her two fresh helpings and a new disc of pan-fried bread. As she slurped up the stew she tore off chunks of red corn bread and fried bread and pretended to eat them, too. But whenever the boy looked down at his pictures she tucked the bits of bread between the robes of the bed.

After she had eaten her fill, the boy took her outside and led her across a hill into a big flat, talking all the while. Eight or ten other boys were playing at throwing dull-headed lances through rolling hoops while they ran alongside. They glanced at her uneasily, but swarmed around the boy and laughed and pressed their lances into his hands. Next to his friends he seemed even taller. He did not want to play the hoop game, but the boys cajoled until he took up a lance.

He threw about fifteen times, never coming near the little hoops the other boys gleefully rolled for him. Finally he launched a shot so wild it sailed into the crowd. Amid howls of laughter a chubby boy staggered forward, holding the knobby end of the spear against his belly, and fell on his back.

She was appalled at such horrendous shooting, but the tall boy showed no embarrassment. He marched over, pushed a foot down on the “dead” boy's chest, and, pulling the lance, made a very stern, proud face. Amid cheers he tugged a beaded armband off the “dead” boy and swaggered away, thrusting his chest and his lower lip out, admiring his booty. The “dead” boy scrambled after him, but he skipped out of reach.

Just as his victim was beginning to grow truly angry, the tall boy laughingly tossed the armband at him, and they kept walking. She wondered at the tall one's undignified behavior.

A third boy caught up to them, and the tall boy signed to her,
We are going to guard the horses.
They followed a path through the grass and splashed across a shallow part of the river to a plain where the horses were grazing. The boys lay on the riverbank. She stood peering out at the herd to see if Bull had been turned out with them. She felt a tug on her skirt.

The tall boy was pointing down the flat to an isolated gold blur with its legs and head buried in the grass.
He had to be staked away from the other horses,
the boy signed with mischief playing around his mouth.
I hear he bites, like his owner.

Blood rushed to her face and she quickly sat on the ground, trying to maintain a cold expression.

The boys talked and laughed the rest of the day away. Sometimes she saw them looking at her while they talked in low voices, and she knew they were speaking of her.

She worried as she watched the sun set. What would happen when they lay down that night and her new husband tried to touch her? She imagined untying her buffalo-hair belt, slipping it around his gawky neck, and strangling him. The thought crept to her lips in a smile. The boy mistook her smile as meant for him, and smiled back at her. She punctured him with a scornful glance.

But that evening, after the fire died down and the people in the lodge drifted off to their beds against the walls of the great dome, the boy did not lie down with her. He retied her hands for the night, then went to his own bed along the wall.

Her pride stung. If she was not this boy's bride, what was she? His sister? Remembering the carvings on the floor, she rolled over in bed and peered down at them by the moonlight from the smoke hole. For each new picture the boy had scraped away the previous one to clear the floor. The only remaining drawing was of a wolf and a star, connected by a clean curve. It was well drawn; she could see that the animal was not a coyote or a dog, but a wolf. Wolf star. Perhaps it was the boy's name.

It meant nothing to her. The aroma of fried bread sifted through the robes as her face pressed against them. I could leave now, she thought. No one is watching. Despite her exhaustion, energy swelled in her. She peered around the lodge; no one stirred. The boy's knife hung in its sheath on the wall over his bed, beside the entrance tunnel.

Yes, she could do it now. She would strangle her keeper, take his scalp, and escape. Noiselessly she rose and slid an arrow from the quiver hanging beside her bed. Kneeling, she clenched the shaft between her knees, hooked the thongs that bound her wrists under the arrowhead, and slowly sawed them through. She slid a hand under the bed robes and clawed out every morsel of bread, stuffing it down the front of her dress. No sound or movement came from the others. The corn bread scratched at her belly as she picked her way across the big room, to the boy.

She stood over him. Her fingers trembled as they loosened the knot in the hair rope cinched around her waist, and slowly slipped it off to wrap around his throat. Suddenly an avalanche of corn bread tumbled from her dress onto the boy's chest and face. Foolish dress! She was not used to the things. Amazingly, the boy went on sleeping.

But then her eyes caught a quivering about his eyelids. The left side of his mouth was also trembling.

He was trying not to laugh. The boy was awake; he had been all along. What a fool she had made of herself! She raced back across the big lodge and dove onto her pallet.

The boy did not rise. She burrowed into the covers and struggled to collect her dignity. She had been rash, she told herself, she was not ready to escape yet; she would need more food than one day's bread, and in any case, after the hard journey she must build up her strength. Her injuries were almost healed, but best to wait until she was completely fit. Food and rest were what she needed. Yes, she needed more time. She scraped around the dirt floor and her bed robes for the thong pieces, tied them back together, and then worked at retying her wrists. She lay back, wondering why the boy had feigned sleep, when he might have humiliated or even killed her. Gradually exhaustion swept over her like a blanket laid over a sleeping child.

Next morning not a crumb remained on the floor by the boy's bed. When the boy untied her hands for the day, he acted as though he did not notice that the thong was now several knotted pieces. At the morning meal he said nothing to her, simply carried on a banter with his family, delighting the grandmothers and the young children with his jokes. She was relieved that none of his jokes seemed to be about her. Not until they were alone, walking out to meet the sunrise, did he speak to her. She could barely make out his hands forming signs in the dimness to explain his Pawnee words.

You are thinking of escape,
he signed, still walking.
It would be impossible—unless one of us were to help you.
He stopped and gazed into the brightening horizon, where the Morning Star blazed low in a green sky. He turned to face her.
If you try it, they will hunt you down.

She flinched. With a smile, the boy began walking again.
You will like it here in our village,
he signed, as the red sun peered over the horizon and shimmered on the river.

16

That day the people began preparing for a buffalo hunt. Men took bundles of dogwood shoots to the arrow makers. Women cut elm and willow saplings at the river for their tents, and began to sew new moccasins.

Pretending not to, the girl watched the bustle. Nearly everyone seemed to be planning to go on the hunt, except the very old and the wives and children of some poor families who had too few horses to take them along. In Two-voices' family only the good-natured woman and the boy Wolfstar did not appear to be packing their things.

This was good. It seemed she had been not married, but adopted into the lodge of Two-voices, and Wolfstar was to be her keeper until she lost the will to run away. Her hands were usually untied during the day, although the boy was careful to tie them as soon as the daylight began to fade, before darkness made escape possible. Always Wolfstar was with her; and everywhere he went she was made to go also. If he was staying home from the hunt, the girl was certain that she was staying, too. That meant that when the hunting expedition left, probably before the next moon, only he and a few women and children would stand between her and freedom. She could wait.

Wolfstar led her about the village, pointing out things and people, talking about them in sign language as fast as his speech. She paid little attention, occupying her thoughts instead with escape and the details of her glorious return to her village. But Wolfstar was always with her, always talking, disrupting her thoughts.

He had been adopted so long ago that he could not remember ever not being Two-voices' son. The good-natured woman was his adoptive mother, Her-corn-says-so.

Wolfstar did not call her Her-corn-says-so, he explained. He called her
atira,
because she was his mother, but others called her whatever kin she was to them. She had a personal name that had a special meaning, something only she knew. The Pawnee kept their personal names to themselves.

Vaguely listening, the girl thought about her own personal name. It still had not presented itself. Perhaps it would spring from something yet to happen, something about Pawnee scalps or horses …

Reading her expression, Wolfstar asked her name again. But she did not answer.

*   *   *

Every dusk, Wolfstar bade her collect her wooden bowl and buffalo-horn spoon, and took her to the sharp man's lodge for the evening meal. The sharp man had a striking young wife, and a long name the girl did not understand, but mostly he was referred to simply as Dreamer.

Wolfstar did not eat much, but passed the time watching his hands twist the leather lace of his moccasin. He exchanged few words with Dreamer, and when he did his voice was like the edge of a stone blade. She wondered why Wolfstar disliked Dreamer.

The man praised and fawned over his young wife, Hummingbird-in-her-hair, but he seemed to cherish not so much her as the admiration and envy she could bring to his household.