Chapter 21 #2
Gray Heron was gasping for breath as well.
A few feet from Sloan, he quickly raised his knife, ready to make a flying attack once again.
Sloan took the offensive that time, slamming into Gray Heron with such a force that the man was thrown off his feet.
Sloan jumped down on him then, straddling him and setting the edge of his blade against Gray Heron’s throat.
“It’s done!” he cried in Sioux. “Sitting Bull says that you will live to fight another day. My wife is mine!”
It was all he dared say. The world was blurring on him. He was going to pass out soon. He had to be declared the winner.
Gray Heron didn’t move.
Sloan staggered to his feet, walking toward Sitting Bull. He sensed sudden motion behind him.
Instinct caused him to spin around and step aside at the same time.
Gray Heron, who had risen to throw himself against Sloan with the force and impetus of his own weight, went flying down to the ground instead.
Sloan heard a strange crackling sound as Gray Heron connected hard with the earth. He winced slightly, despite the fact that Gray Heron had intended to murder him by stabbing him in the back.
He didn’t really need to look at the man to know that he had hurled himself forward with such great strength that he had broken his neck when Sloan’s body hadn’t been there to break his fall.
Still, it had been his fight, and he walked to where Gray Heron lay, rolling the Indian over.
Gray Heron stared sightlessly into the night, a thin trickle of blood escaping from his lips.
Sloan walked over to Sitting Bull. “I didn’t need his death,” he told the aging chief.
Sitting Bull, still very weak from his sacrifices in the Sun Dance, nodded.
“You may go back to your wife, Cougar-in-the-Night. You may not leave our camp. There are White soldiers very near. Maybe they wish to talk. I believe they want a fight. If they want a fight, we will give them what they want. We have run before the Whites many times. Now we will wait.”
Sloan wanted to ask him how long they would wait. He wanted to know how long he would be a prisoner of his father’s people.
He opened his mouth to talk, but no words came. He could feel the stickiness of his own blood against his skin.
His strength seemed suddenly to leave him.
He fell to his knees and then to the ground.
Sabrina waited in agony, fingering the delicate locket that carried Sloan’s image.
Earth Woman had come, and Earth Woman had gone.
She hadn’t returned.
And time seemed to go on forever.
Sabrina paced the confines of the tipi. At times, she felt herself shaking again, amazed at what she had learned from the Indian woman—that Sloan apparently thought enough of his marriage to remain loyal to her.
But then she felt again the rising terror that something had happened to him, and she began to pace again, damning Sloan for serving in the cavalry, for being Sioux, for being White—for having been at the Miner’s Well the night they met.
But mostly, she damned herself, and the pride that had kept her from realizing from the very beginning that she had hated not him, but what had happened.
Because he had attracted and compelled her from the very beginning, from that night when she had first seen him.
She had known instinctively that she didn’t want to fall in love with him because love with him would be deep, passionate—and frightening.
It was very frightening to care too much and not know what a man felt in return.
Sloan was a half-breed in a battle-torn world.
Life might have been much easier with a different man, or if she didn’t love him.
But she did. And none of that mattered now; what mattered was Sloan.
Her petty arguments seemed so senseless now.
If only he would live, and if only he would come back to her.
She damned herself a thousand times for ever coming after him—he wouldn’t be in this situation if it weren’t for her.
She spent hours hating the Sioux and then hating the soldiers for hunting them so mercilessly.
Just when she thought that she would lose her mind completely, a brave stepped into the tipi. He was tall, young—a striking man. He stared at her a long moment, and she stared at him in return, terrified.
Then an Oglala she knew entered behind the tall man; it was Blade, Hawk’s cousin. She ran to him in panic.
“Blade…please, tell me what’s happened, tell me the truth. Oh, God, no, tell me that he’s alive…” Her voice trailed as two warriors entered behind Blade, carrying a man.
She let out a scream of anguish, falling to her knees beside the bloodied body of her husband as the warriors laid him down upon the skin bedding.
She leaned over him, desperate to find out if he breathed, if a pulse still beat within his veins.
She could find no breath at first, but Blade set a hand on her shoulder.
“He’s alive, Sabrina. He’s alive. His wounds look worse than they are.”
She looked up at Blade, trying very hard to control her anguish and fear.
“May I have water, please? For his wounds. And if there is medicine…?”
“A woman is bringing water and medicine.”
“Thank you. Blade—”
“You’re safe. Gray Heron is dead.”
“Dear God, if—”
“There is no one who will seek revenge against Sloan. Gray Heron brought about his own death. He was fairly beaten twice and would have stabbed your husband in the back. The fight was witnessed by many. You’re safe here. For now.”
She stared at him, worried about the fact that he had said, “for now.”
Earth Woman came in then, bearing water, a small pot, and bandages. She came to her knees by Sloan’s side and looked at Sabrina. “He needs two wives now,” Earth Woman told her.
“I am grateful for his life,” Sabrina said.
Earth Woman smiled. “Then you are a special wife,” she said.
Sabrina turned around. Blade and the other warrior had left them. Earth Woman was already working on Sloan, cleaning his wounds. She followed Earth Woman’s lead, cleaning his body to ascertain exactly where he was wounded.
“There’s so much blood!” she whispered, a little desperately.
“So much blood that you can’t see that small rivers may sometimes flood,” Earth Woman told her. She smiled, bathing Sloan’s chest and showing Sabrina that most of the blood came from a relatively small wound beneath his ribs.
The worst of his wounds was a gaping gash in his arm. “It should be stitched,” she murmured.
She was surprised when Earth Woman left her suddenly.
Alone with Sloan then, she felt tears form in her eyes.
He was so still! She could scarcely see his chest rising and falling.
So still, so pale. Stretched out on his back.
She touched his face, thinking how deeply she loved his strong features.
She loved the darkness of his eyes, which were closed to her now.
And she wondered if he would ever open them again.
She started suddenly, sensing someone and swinging around.
Earth Woman had returned to the tipi.
Sabrina tried to wipe her tears from her face. Earth Woman sank back down beside her.
“There is no shame in grief, fear—or love,” Earth Woman told her. She smiled gently. “Don’t let any White man tell you differently. Human Beings, as we call ourselves, do cry.”
Sabrina nodded, silently thanking her. Earth Woman had gone for the necessary supplies to suture Sloan’s arm.
Sabrina had never been in a position to have to perform such a task before, but Earth Woman assured her that it was just like sewing—flesh.
Earth Woman told her that the sutures she had were from a horse’s tail, and that they would work well.
Shaking, Sabrina managed to thread the needle Earth Woman gave her.
She forced herself to quit trembling. Because she had to, she managed to suture the gash on Sloan’s arm.
Earth Woman put a salve on the wounds. She told Sabrina that it was made from river mud and ground roots, and that it had cured many warriors.
Later, a medicine man arrived. Sabrina had far more faith in Earth Woman’s help than in the strange ministrations of the medicine man, but the fact that he had come meant that the Sioux wanted Sloan to live, and so she was glad.
Finally, the medicine man left her, and Earth Woman rose, too.
“There is ceremonial dancing in our many camps. I will look among the warriors and see what I can see. There are many boys who will take a suicide oath tonight. They will vow that they will fight to the death when they join the battle against the Whites. Listen, and you will hear. Keep Cougar-in-the-Night well. Perhaps they will move camp again in the morning.”
“He won’t be able to travel,” Sabrina protested.
“Our wounded have always traveled,” Earth Woman told her. She paused, kneeling down by Sloan again, touching his cheek. “He is stronger—stronger than White, stronger than Sioux. Strong enough to be both. I believe that the Great Mystery will be with him and guard him in this life.”
Earth Woman rose again then and left her as well. Sloan was in her care, and the best she could do for him was to stay by his side through the long hours of darkness that remained, keeping him cool and watching for fever, and praying that morning would find him still alive.
In the Wolf Mountains, there are high ridges known as the Crow’s Nest. Some say it’s because the Crow Indians found cover there while planning to steal Sioux horses. Others say that the ridges resemble the way that crows build their nests.
In the very early morning, Lieutenant Charles Varnum of the Seventh Cavalry came to the Crow’s Nest with his Crow Indian scouts. They rested until daylight, then ascended a very high ridge and found themselves looking down into the vastness of the valley.
Varnum could see nothing himself, but the Crows pointed out a stand of trees and the river, and a clump that they claimed to be a group of ponies.
The Crows told him, however, that he shouldn’t look for horses; he should look for worms, and in so doing, Varnum saw the movement at last and sent for Custer.
While Custer decided his next move, it was discovered that a pack containing several boxes of hardtack had been lost. When soldiers went to retrieve it, they found an Indian breaking into a box. They chased him but he escaped.
In the far distance, two Indian riders also discovered the troops. Varnum and others chased the riders, but the Indians managed to elude the soldiers and escape.
Custer split his men into three battalions, taking command of one himself—Companies C, E, F, I, and L—approximately two hundred and twenty-five men. Major Reno commanded Companies A, G, and M. Captain Benteen commanded Companies D, H, and K.
The troops of Captain Thomas McDougall had not fallen in line quite as quickly as the others. They were somewhat in disgrace, so they were assigned the task of guarding the pack trains.
They were dismayed; it was not a noble job to have been given. And still…
Most of them lived.
The troops rode, crossing the divide. Benteen was sent with his companies to the left, across rugged terrain. Reno’s companies were sent across the creek.
Reno’s men were the first to attack. They rode into the Hunkpapa camp.
They didn’t realize that the Indian encampment extended perhaps another three miles from that first circle of tipis. They quickly began to discover their mistake…