Under A Prairie Moon (20 page)

“Yeah. I don’t know how much time we’ve got. Maybe it’s crazy to even think about, but I want you to be my woman. My wife.”

“Oh yes,” she said, “I want that too. More than anything.”

“Are you sure?”

“More sure than I’ve ever been of anything in my life.”

“Ah Kathy,” he said, his voice gruff.

“I love you, Dalton.
Ohin
…”

“
Ohinyan
.”

“
Ohinyan
.” She smiled up at him. “Forever.”

His gaze met hers, the expression in his eyes far more eloquent than words. And Kathy knew, in her heart, that no matter what ceremony they might later have, she would never be more fully his woman than she was at that moment.

* * * * *

The feast was like nothing Kathy had ever imagined. It seemed everyone in the village had turned out to welcome Dalton home. She could tell the Indians had dressed in their finest clothes. The scent of roasting meat filled the air, and everytime she turned around, someone was offering her something to eat.

Several fires held the night at bay. There was drumming and singing. Several men and women came forward to offer them gifts: a red wool blanket, a buffalo robe, a bow and a quiver of arrows for Dalton, a sewing kit for Kathy, a cook pot.

After everyone had eaten, there was dancing. Kathy watched it all with a growing sense of excitement. She was seeing things that no one had seen for over a hundred years, actually participating in a way of life that was forever gone. She wasn’t sure exactly what she had expected. Her knowledge of Indians and the Indian way of life had been sketchy at best, limited to a few books she had read and Hollywood movies. It had always bothered her, the way Hollywood portrayed its Indians, especially the fact that the Indians were never played by Indians. She had always thought it ludicrous to cast Rock Hudson and Victor Mature as Indian heroes. She seemed to recall Chuck Connors of
Rifleman
fame had also played a Native American. The only white man cast in the role that she had ever found believable was Jeff Chandler as Cochise. Of course, the movie
Broken Arrow
had always been one of her favorites. But this…

She looked around the camp, at the tipis outlined against the night sky, at the dark land that fell away as far as the eye could see, at the stars scattered overhead. So many stars.

She watched the people, noting that the elderly were treated with love and respect. She recalled Dalton saying that his whole family had had a hand in raising him, and she thought how wonderful that must have been, to be surrounded by your whole family. She heard two dogs fighting over a bone, the sound of a young girl’s laughter, the sleepy cry of a child.

She listened to the drumming and the singing and the sound of laughter, and then she looked at Dalton, so handsome, sitting beside her, and knew she could be content here for the rest of her life. Her gaze lingered on his profile, so sharp and clean, so handsome. The light of the fire cast rosy highlights on the dark bronze of his skin. He seemed to be all Indian now, as if here, in the land where he had been born, he had somehow shed the white half of himself.

An old man approached them. He nodded politely to Kathy, then spoke to Dalton.

Dalton stood up. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, okay?”

“Okay.” She watched him follow the old man away from the circle, then turned her attention to the dancing. It was for unmarried men and women, and she smiled as she watched the shy looks that passed back and forth between one couple in particular as they danced back and forth. It was easy to see they were in love.

Dalton returned a few minutes later, taking his place beside her.

“What was that all about?” she asked.

“I’ll tell you later,” he said, and then, seeing the look of concern in her eyes, he smiled reassuringly. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

There was a dance for the women only, and one for the men.

Kathy saw Okute walk into the dance circle.

Kathy bumped Dalton’s shoulder with her own. “Why don’t you dance?”

“Me? I haven’t danced in years.”

“Oh.”

She was about to say he should go do it if he wanted when Okute walked up. He smiled down at Dalton, then jerked his head toward the dance circle. “Come,
tahunsa
, join us.”

Dalton looked at Kathy, then rose to his feet and followed his cousin into the dance circle.

The drumming began, the beat slow and regular. At first, Dalton seemed hesitant, but his self-confidence seemed to return as the drumming grew faster, faster. He moved with sensuous grace, the movements well-defined and strong. She felt her heart pound in her breast as she watched him. He was all Indian now, a warrior, one with the land, one with his people, and she wondered if he would have become a great leader if his mother hadn’t left the Lakota.

She couldn’t take her eyes off him. The drums beat faster, the steps of the dance grew more intricate. She took a deep breath and inhaled the scents of fire and sage and dust and sweat. But mostly she was aware of Dalton…who was now wholly the Lakota warrior known as Crowkiller. His skin, sheened with perspiration, glistened like burnished bronze.

He was breathing hard when the dancing ended and he came back to sit beside her. He looked at her, and she knew he was wondering what she thought, if she would think the ways of his people were foolish, if she thought less of him now.

“You were magnificent,” Kathy whispered.

His eyes glowed at her praise. “You think so?”

Kathy nodded. “Oh yes.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the young couple she had watched earlier sneak off together in the dark, and she imagined them standing in the moonlight, holding hands and sneaking kisses, and suddenly she wanted to be standing in the moonlight with Dalton, wanted to feel his arms around her, his mouth on hers.

Impulsively, she placed her hand on his knee.

Dalton turned at Kathy’s touch. He had been about to ask her what she wanted, but there was no need to ask. The look smoldering in the depths of her eyes said it all.

Taking her by the hand, he lifted her to her feet and they walked away from the dancing into the moon-dappled shadows, until the fire and the drumming were far behind them.

There was no need for words. When they reached a secluded spot near the river, he drew her into his arms and kissed her, and the touch of his lips on hers was like putting a spark to dry grass.

As if it were the first time, as if it might be the last time, they clung to each other, driven by the need to express their love for one another in the most primal, elemental way.

He whispered to her, unconsciously speaking in the language of his youth, telling her how much he loved her, how beautiful she was, how desperately he needed her. And though she could not understand the words with her mind, she understood them with her heart.

He worshipped her with his hands and his lips, silently thanking the Great Spirit for sending her to him, for giving him this woman, this moment, for letting him return to his father’s people.

They undressed each other with a tenderness that bordered on reverence, their hands trembling with the force of their need, bodies aching to be one. Kathy sank down to the ground, drawing him with her. The grass was cool beneath her heated flesh, but she spared it hardly a thought as he settled between her thighs. She felt the brush of his hair against her breasts, the whisper of a summer breeze against her cheek.

Moaning his name, she lifted her hips to welcome him, sighed with pleasure as his heat filled her, and knew she would always remember this moment, with the moon bright overhead and the sound of a Lakota drum beating in the background, and Dalton in her arms, loving her, kissing her, giving her his heart, his soul, his very life.

Later, lying in his arms blissfully content, she looked at him and grinned. “Was it good for you?”

“What?”

“Nothing.” Laughter bubbled up inside her.

Dalton frowned at her. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Nothing. It’s a line from a movie or a joke or something. Who was that man you talked to? What did he want?”

“His name is Star Chaser. He’s the shaman. Medicine man.” His hand slid up her belly to cup her breast. “He’s arranged a sweat for the day after tomorrow.”

“Oh.” She knew how much he wanted this, but, even though she knew she had nothing to fear, she couldn’t help being a little apprehensive at the thought of spending four days in the village without him. There were, after all, only a handful of women who spoke English, and even though she had been accepted and made welcome, she was still a stranger.

“The dance is breaking up,” Dalton remarked.

“It is? We’d better get dressed.”

He held her down when she started to get up. “Don’t go.”

“But what if someone comes by?”

“Nobody’s gonna be coming down here at this time of night.”

“Really? We’re here.”

Dalton chuckled. “True enough.” Rolling onto his side, he kissed the curve of her neck. One hand moved slowly up and down the inside of her thigh. “Do you really want to go back?”

“Hmmm, did you say something?”

“Nothing important,” Dalton replied with a grin.

With a sigh, she surrendered to his kisses, oblivious to everything but the touch of his hands. They made love and slept and made love again.

Weary and sated, they slept in each other’s arms, oblivious to the passage of time as the sun chased the moon and stars from the sky.

The dome-shaped sweat lodge was made of willow poles covered with robes which were arranged in such a way that the lodge was airtight. Dalton, stripped naked, sat near the back.

Near the center of the lodge was a small pit, called
iniowaspe
, which would hold the heated stones. The floor of the lodge was covered with a layer of sage. The dirt which had been removed from the pit was piled into a small mound called
hanbelachia
, or the vision hill. Between the vision hill and the pit the earth was cleared to form a small path known as the smoothed trail. The
iniowaspe
, the
hanbelachia
and the smoothed trail were a symbolic representation of the vision quest. Small bundles of tobacco were attached to sticks and placed to the west of the hill as an offering. The sacred pipe, which was to be used, was placed on the hill, with the stem facing east. The lodge door also faced the east.

Star Chaser spoke to Okute, who would pass the heated stones into the lodge. A moment later, he passed four stones into the lodge. Star Chaser placed the stones in the pit, picked up the pipe and held it aloft.

“All my relatives, living and deceased.” He took a puff, then passed the pipe to Dalton, who took a puff and then passed the pipe back to the medicine man. They did this four times.

When that was done, Star Chaser passed the pipe out to Okute for refilling. Then, lifting a spoon made from the horn of a mountain sheep, Star Chaser dipped it into a paunch of water and flicked water over the hot stones. Great clouds of steam rose in the air, filling the lodge.

The heat seemed suffocating. Dalton gasped for breath as Star Chaser began to sing a sacred song.

Four times they smoked the pipe.

Four times, Star Chaser sprinkled cold water upon the hot rocks.

Four times the medicine man sang the sacred song.

Dalton sat back, his eyes closed, emptying his mind of all thought, all memory. Sweat poured from his body. Steam filled the lodge, and with it the scent of sage.

Mindless, weightless, he was drifting again, a spirit without a body, heart and mind and soul seeking for unity, for a sense of oneness with the Great Mystery of life. Only those who were pure in body and spirit could expect to find communion with Wakan Tanka.

Lost in time and space, he prayed for courage, for guidance and forgiveness.

Once, he thought he heard the scree of an eagle.

Once, he thought he heard Kathy’s voice, weeping softly.

Once, in the clouds of steam that filled the lodge, he thought he saw his father’s face.

When he could endure the suffocating heat no longer, Dalton ducked out of the lodge and plunged into the stream. The water felt like winter ice against his heated flesh, but when he stepped out of the water, he felt renewed, reborn.

* * * * *

Dalton planned to leave the village late that night. He had told Kathy he wanted to reach the place he had chosen before dawn the next day. Now, lying in bed, she watched him as he dressed in clout and moccasins. She loved to look at him, to watch the sensuous play of muscles in his arms and back.

He had been quiet when he returned from the sweat lodge. He had eaten little at dinner, gone early to bed. They had not made love. She seemed to recall reading somewhere that warriors thought intercourse before battle weakened them; perhaps it also applied to men yearning for a vision.

When he was ready to leave, he knelt beside her. “I’ll only be gone a few days,” he said. It would take him a day to travel to the hill and back. He would spend no more than two days waiting for his vision. A shaman on a holy quest might spend as many as ten days in vision seeking, but for a personal quest, two days was considered sufficient.

“Should I wish you good luck?”

“You could pray for me while I’m gone.”

“I will.”

He smiled down at her. No one had ever prayed for him, at least not that he knew of.

“I’ll miss you,” she whispered. “Be careful.”

“I’ll miss you too. Okute and his wives will look after you. If you need anything, let them know, okay? Don’t be afraid to ask for their help.”

Blinking back her tears, she nodded.

“I have to do this,” Dalton said.

“I know. I’ll be fine.”

He nodded. “I know you will.” Leaning down, he kissed her. Her lips were warm and soft and he was sorely tempted to strip off his clout and crawl back under the covers. Instead, he kissed her once more, then stood up. “Goodbye, darlin’.”

“Bye.”

Taking up a small buckskin pouch of tobacco, he left the lodge.

For a moment, he stood outside, breathing in the cool night air. The buckskin whinnied softly as he secured the pouch to the saddle horn, then took up the reins and vaulted onto its back.

Leaning forward, Dalton scratched the stud’s neck. “Wanna run, boy?” he asked as he touched his heels to the stallion’s flanks. “Me too. Come on,” he said, “let’s go.”

The big buckskin needed no urging. He bucked once, then, neck stretched and ears laid back, he lined out in a dead run.

“Eeiiiiiiyaha!” A soft shout rose in Dalton’s throat as he leaned over the stallion’s neck and lost himself in the sheer joy of racing over the moonlit prairie. The buckskin was one of the fastest horses he had ever owned. He’d won the horse from a Texas cowboy in a poker game in Galveston five years ago.

That was a night he would never forget. There had been four men in the game besides himself—a flat-faced muleskinner who smelled worse than his team, a drummer who hailed from Kansas City, a greenhorn from Philadelphia and the Texas brush popper.

The Texan had been sure of his hand but short on funds. In desperation, he had wagered the buckskin against Dalton’s raise of a hundred dollars. Dalton didn’t think he would ever forget the look of excitement on the cowboy’s face when he turned over his cards, displaying a full-house, jacks over tens. But it hadn’t been good enough.

One by one, Dalton had turned over his own cards to reveal a royal flush.

For a moment, Dalton had thought the cowboy was going to start bawling.

It was almost dawn when he reached the summit known as Eagle Feather Ridge.

Dalton reined the stud to a halt when they reached the foot of the hill.

He sat there a moment, looking up, and then, feeling the urge to climb to the top of the hill on foot, he dismounted. Holding the reins in one hand, he began to walk. It wasn’t a particularly steep hill, but he was out of breath when he reached the top.

He had timed it perfectly. The lightening sky signaled the birth of a new day.

Dropping the stallion’s reins, he made a slow circle, his gaze sweeping the land below. It stretched away as far as the eye could see, miles and miles of rolling grassland broken by an occasional stand of timber or a cluster of rocks.

He stripped off his clout and moccasins, then, kneeling on the ground, he drew a circle in the dirt. Rising to his feet, he opened the pouch, chanting the words given to him by the shaman as he offered a pinch of tobacco to the four winds, to the sky above, to Mother Earth.

A soft summer wind stirred the dust, lifting the tobacco into the air, carrying it away.

It was a solemn thing, to seek a vision, to seek power. His friend, Black Horse, had sought a vision and dreamed of Thunder. Those who dreamed of Thunder must be Heyoka. Heyokas were expected to act strange, to always play the clown. They wore foolish clothes, lived in ragged lodges, slept without blankets in the winter and covered themselves with heavy robes in the summer. Those who refused to live the life of Heyoka risked angering the Thunder gods, thereby risking death by lightning.

Lifting his arms over his head, Dalton gazed up at the rising sun, the words he now uttered coming from his own heart, his own soul. His own need. Naked and alone, he prayed for strength, for help, for guidance. His throat thickened and the words came harder as he asked for forgiveness for the lives he had taken, for blood, both human and animal, that he had shed. He prayed for wisdom, and courage.

The sun climbed higher, grew hotter. Sweat beaded on his brow, trickled down his back, his chest. His legs grew weary, his arms heavy. He was plagued by thirst. And still he stood there, gazing at the sun, humbled by his own weakness, by a growing sense of nothingness. Hours passed. His voice grew hoarse, his pleas more desperate.

His thoughts wandered, so that the past and the present and the years he had lived between one world and the next ran together, the sum total of his life blending together, until all his hopes, all his fears, all his dreams, stood beside him on the top of the world. Good and evil warred within him, fighting over his soul, drawing him in two directions. The faces of the men he had killed rose up before him, their eyes burning with hate and accusation. And there was Lydia, beckoning him with seductive smiles and pretty lies. He recalled the lessons he had been taught in childhood, to be reverent of the earth, to honor the old ones, to defend the weak and the helpless, to speak only the truth.

With a groan, he sank to his knees, the burden of his guilt too heavy to bear. He had turned his back on his people, on all he had been taught.

He stared at the sky, surprised to see that night had fallen. Ignoring the cramping of his empty belly, the thirst that plagued him, he curled up on the hard ground and closed his eyes, afraid that he had waited too long to seek the blessing of the spirits, afraid that there was no redemption, no hope of starting over, for one such as he.

He shivered as a cold wind blew across the top of the hill, clinging to the hope that all could not be lost. Surely, if he were beyond redemption, he would not have been given a second chance. Kathy…

Whispering her name, he fell asleep, and sleeping, began to dream of a dark-red light that pulsed with energy and called to him with soft words, promising him pleasure beyond his wildest dreams, and he followed the siren call of the red glow that was lust and desire and power and the embodiment of earthly pleasure, and as he followed, he felt himself grow heavy, bound with chains that slowly, carefully, led him away from the Life Path of the Lakota….and then, when he was in the depths of despair, a pale white light appeared to him, and she was hope and goodness and he reached out for her, but the chains held him captive, and he could not reach the warmth of that white light, could not escape the shackles of greed and lust that bound him. The red light pulsed and glowed and the chain around his neck became a rope and he felt himself falling, falling, plunging into a darkness beyond black, helpless to save himself…

He woke with a start, the sound of his own voice echoing in his ears…Kathy!

“Kathy.” He whispered her name, and the demons fled.

* * * * *

Kathy sat inside the lodge, a blanket draped over her shoulders. It had been a long day. Time and again she had gone outside to stare at the distant hills. Dalton was up there somewhere, praying for a vision. She knew little of visions except for those she had read about in the Bible. Pharaoh had dreamed, and Joseph had interpreted the dream for him. Moses had seen God in a burning bush. Saul had seen a vision on the road to Tarsus. To her recollection, none of them had gone seeking a vision.

Of course, if one had faith enough, anything was possible.

Okute had tried to explain it to her, telling her that the Lakota believed that a man, or woman, received power from Wakan Tanka, the Great Mystery, whose spirit was in all and through all. The eagle, the hawk, the buffalo, the deer, the swallow, the elk, all possessed a certain power. When a man sought a vision, his spirit guide would come to him and endow him with power.

She had thanked him for explaining it to her, though she didn’t fully understand it.

The lodge seemed huge, empty. The fire burned low, casting shadows on the lodge skins. Remembering her promise to pray for him, she closed her eyes.

Please keep him safe. Please grant his wish. Please bring him home to me…

Home…she was back at the ranch, sitting on the front porch. Cattle grazed in the distance. There were corrals filled with mares and foals. Three children played tag in the front yard. And Dalton was there, smiling at her.

The scene changed abruptly, and she was standing at the foot of the hanging tree, staring up at a body dangling from the end of a rope. She shook her head, not wanting to see its face, heard a scream echo inside her mind as the body slowly revolved and she saw Dalton’s face, swollen and discolored, heard the sound of a woman’s insane laughter…

She woke with a start, and the images faded.

Knowing she would not sleep again that night, she threw some wood on the fire. It hadn’t been a vision, just a bad dream, nothing more.

She told herself that over and over as the night turned to day, and then, utterly weary, she crawled into bed. Just before she fell asleep, she thought she heard the high-pitched cry of an eagle.

* * * * *

He woke with the dawn. Shivering from the cold, his belly empty, his throat dry, he rose to his feet and sang his dawn song to Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit, who was the center of all life. The words, filled with joy and wonder, spoke of how the earth and the sky were all part of the circle of life, and how man, through following the Life Path, learned to be a part of it.