Vision Quest Read online

  He could divorce his wife on the drum, of course. And this was a great disgrace for any squaw, let alone a chief’s daughter. The men in the man’s clan would sing the Throw-away Song while the husband danced by himself, holding a stick in his hand. Dancing up to the drum, the man hit it with his stick.

  Boom! “I throw away my wife.” With those words a warrior could drum his wife away, making a public quit-claim to all responsibility toward the squaw.

  But the entire tribe would soon learn why. And never would he be respected—a war chief who could not keep his wife from rutting with a white man’s dog! Besides—despite her treachery, Black Elk still loved Honey Eater. Better to pretend nothing had happened. Better to eliminate the other half of the problem.

  Better, decided Black Elk, to kill Touch the Sky.

  True, the mysterious stranger had the fighting spirit of a cougar and had developed into the best warrior Black Elk had ever trained. But he did not respect the Cheyenne way. He was a threat to the entire tribe, as this blackest of crimes proved.

  Once again Black Elk held out the red willow bark.

  “You have long thirsted for Touch the Sky’s blood,” Black Elk said to his cousin. “If you and Swift Canoe will make a vow of silence about this thing you have told me, I will give you my permission to kill him. And I will help you do it secretly, so the tribe will not know it was you.”

  The two friends readily agreed and swore their vow.

  Arrow Keeper had already announced to the Councilors that Touch the Sky had been sent in the direction of the sun’s birthplace on a vision quest at Medicine Lake.

  “Pawnee are said to be in the area,” said Black Elk. “I will announce to the others that, as War Chief, I have sent you two out on an important scouting mission. Ride hard toward the Black Hills and be waiting when this squaw-stealing dog arrives. Wash his white man’s stink from our tribe forever. For the sake of our people, kill him, Cheyenne warriors!”

  ~*~

  The Pawnee warrior named Red Plume halted the line of braves behind him by raising his streamered lance high over his head.

  One by one, all six braves nudged their ponies up beside their leader’s. From behind a huge pile of scree high up in the rimrock, they watched a lone rider below make his way slowly across the open tableland near the Powder River.

  “Cheyenne,” said a keen-eyed brave named Gun Powder, recognizing the distinctive red handprint on the pony’s left forequarter.

  Normally, at a distance, the distinctive cut of the hair was the quickest way to guess an Indian’s tribe. But this youth had cropped short his hair in mourning, a practice common among several Plains tribes.

  “We have been patient long enough,” said Red Plume. “Yellow Bear has crossed over. The best time for a surprise attack will be during their chief-renewal, when all have assembled with their gifts for the poor. We need only wait until darkness, as we did when our people stole their Sacred Arrows. These white-livered Shaiyena fear the darkness.”

  Red Plume was referring to the great battle, many winters ago, when the Pawnee had captured the Cheyenne’s Sacred Arrows. Though their enemy had eventually regained them, a hatred inspired by bloodlust had grown between the two tribes ever since.

  The Pawnee, who called themselves Chahiksi-chakihs, “men of men,” were naked save for clouts and elkskin moccasins. Bright red plumage adorned their greased topknots, which rose stiff and straight from otherwise shaved skulls. Their powerful bows, made from the wood of the Osage orange, were feared throughout Plains country.

  “Our shadows grow long in the sun,” said Gun Powder. “We have only to trail him until he makes his camp for the night.”

  In contrast to the Cheyenne and most other Plains Indians, the Pawnee liked to travel and attack after dark. Their priests taught that all energy derived from the stars and constellations. Therefore, the tribe possessed an extensive knowledge of the heavens and commonly employed star charts to move about freely at night. Other Plains Indians named the stars, but—fearing darkness—had not learned to navigate by them.

  “No,” said Red Plume. “We seize him now, in the open, before he possibly meets with others. And then we learn from him exactly when and where the chief-renewal will be. Until we know this thing, we cannot know the best time to bring in the main body for the attack.”

  Red Plume slid a stone-tipped arrow from his quiver and lined the notch up with the buffalo-sinew bowstring. The others followed suit.

  Riding out of the blazing sun behind them to disguise their movement, the Pawnee descended from the high country with blood in their eyes.

  ~*~

  His mind numb with sadness, Touch the Sky had ridden due east all day long, letting his pony set her own pace.

  It would still be several more sleeps’ ride before he would spot the rolling, dark-forested humps of the Black Hills on the horizon. Medicine Lake was nestled high among the hills. He had visited the sacred center of the Cheyenne world once before, when Arrow Keeper taught him the rudiments of Cheyenne customs and religion.

  All that seemed as distant to him now as a long-forgotten dream. So much had happened since then: He had become a warrior, slain enemies, earned his first coup feather, withstood vicious torture—and sworn his eternal love to Honey Eater, who had returned his vow.

  But everything he had done, like Honey Eaters love, was nothing but smoke behind him. He was hated as much by the tribe now as on the first day of his capture. For them, the white man’s stink could never be washed from his skin, though it was red skin like theirs.

  The spotted gray shied when a rabbit darted across their path, bringing Touch the Sky back to the present.

  With a start of guilt, he glanced all around the sprawling vastness surrounding him. For a long time he had been riding with no attention to where he was going. The plains stretched out endlessly before him, the green and ochre colors bleeding together now as the sun neared her resting place. The river snaked its winding way on his left. Mountain peaks cut jagged spires against the sky behind him, the shimmering sun backlighting them and forcing him to squint.

  The gray acted nervous and skittish, even after the rabbit was long gone. Again Touch the Sky glanced behind him, blinded in the fierce light. Scattered clumps of cottonwood trees could easily hide pursuers.

  A premonition of danger moved up his spine like the ticklish touch of a feather.

  He placed a hand on the gray’s thick white mane and spoke gently to her. It was almost time to make camp for the night. He veered closer to the river, planning to find a good patch of graze in which to tether his pony.

  Suddenly, a sharp tug just below his ribs was followed immediately by a white-hot pain in his left side that made him cry out.

  Touch the Sky looked down and recognized a Pawnee arrowhead protruding from his body, the honed tip shiny with his blood!

  Then his hackles rose when, with a thundering of hooves, his unseen enemies raised a triumphant war cry and charged him.

  Chapter Four

  Touch the Sky knew the Pawnee were excellent horsemen. He was as good as dead if he attempted to outrun them across the wide-open prairie and sage flats.

  Instead, he veered hard to the north, toward the Bighorn Mountains and the Yellowstone with its protective thickets.

  His side felt like it was on fire. But hearing the bloodthirsty whoops and yips behind him made him forget the pain. The gray surged forward, laying her ears back flat as Touch the Sky prodded her flanks with his heels.

  She was well rested from the slow pace earlier. Now, as the stolen Crow pony opened up the distance between Touch the Sky and his pursuers, he realized what a magnificent animal she was.

  By the time the sun dropped below the horizon, the Pawnee were no longer in sight behind him.

  Touch the Sky slowed his mount from a gallop to a run to a canter. Despite the fall of darkness and the fiery pain lancing through his wounded side, he knew he was dead if he stopped. The Pawnee were in their element after dar
k. He knew they could read the star-shot heavens as easily as a Cheyenne read sign along a game trail.

  He ate some dried plums from his legging sash. But increasingly, he became aware of an overpowering thirst. Distracted with worry when he had ridden out of camp, he had foolishly neglected to fill a bladder-bag with water. Nor, after this hard run, could the gray go much longer without drinking.

  He knew this new course was unlikely to cross any water before he reached the Yellowstone. But he couldn’t afford to waste time searching for it.

  He slowed the gray to a long trot and held that pace. Constantly, he turned one ear to listen behind him. At one point, when the gray faltered slightly topping a rise, he halted her for a brief rest.

  Wincing at the pain which flared up in his side, he slid to the ground and dropped down on all fours. Placing one ear to the ground, he listened long and carefully. He heard or felt nothing, and relaxed slightly until the next burst of pain jolted him back to the reality of his danger.

  He knew he would have to deal with the arrow before the wound swelled closed around it. But he also knew that removing the arrow would increase the bleeding. And on the open plains, there was plenty of time to bleed to death.

  He could tell, by the location of the Grandmother Star to the north, that the night was well advanced. Mounting again was even more painful than dismounting. Speaking gently to the gray, he stroked her neck. Then he nudged her flanks.

  Reluctantly, expecting a long, cool drink of water as reward for her hard work, the tough little pony snorted in protest before she obeyed.

  ~*~

  “He is bleeding, but not heavily. The blood has not yet stiffened. He cannot be far from here.”

  Gun Powder knelt atop a long rise where the Cheyenne had obviously stopped, judging from the prints, both hoof and moccasin. The blood was clearly visible in the unclouded light of a full moon.

  Red Plume stared at a brave named Iron Knife, anger tightening his face.

  “You squirrel-brained fool! How could you have missed the pony and hit the Cheyenne? For this you will forfeit a coup feather. He is no good to us if he bleeds to death!”

  Iron Knife said nothing. He stared straight ahead and showed nothing in his face. He was ashamed of his failure with his bow. But he had no respect for Red Plume or his clan, not one of whom dared face his knife. There was much talk of taking his coup feathers away. Yet no one in the tribe had ever gotten close enough to pluck them out of his bonnet.

  “It is a fast pony,” said Gun Powder. “A strong pony. But without water it will weaken. We can catch him this night if we ride hard.”

  Red Plume nodded. Idly, as he considered the best course of action, he picked a louse from the grease in his topknot and cracked it between strong white teeth.

  “Then we ride hard!” he said. “Before the morning star is born, he will lie under our lances!”

  ~*~

  Twice during the long night Touch the Sky heard the distant sounds of his enemy behind him. Reluctantly, his wounded side throbbing at the increased jolting, he pushed the thirsty and tired gray to a long gallop.

  Thus he opened the distance between himself and his pursuers. But by now his thirst was so powerful it overshadowed the pain of his wound. He sucked on pebbles to keep moisture in his mouth.

  Finally, as his sister the sun began to color the eastern horizon pink, he was unable to bear his thirst any longer.

  There was nothing he could do yet for his pony. But Touch the Sky veered right from his course when he spotted a rocky spine rising out of the plains. It had rained recently. He recalled a trick that old Knobby, a former mountain man who was now the hostler back in Bighorn Falls, had told him about.

  Slowed considerably by his stiffening wound, he dismounted, hobbled his pony, and picked his way up toward the boulders at the very top of the spine. As he had hoped, the hollows of the larger rocks still held precious drops of rainwater. Gratefully, he moved from boulder to boulder, lowering his lips to the night-cooled water and lapping it up like an animal.

  It was only a few swallows, all tolled. But the water blunted the harshest edge of his thirst. Before he climbed back down to his pony, he scanned the plains to the south.

  His mouth tightened into a grim slit when he saw riders profiled against the new day’s horizon. They were the size of insects at this distance. But a slight lead on a thirsty and nearly exhausted pony meant nothing on the plains.

  His wound throbbed with insistent pain as he climbed back down to his mount. Now that the sun was rising, he decided to veer northeast—riding into the new sun would make him a more difficult target next time the Pawnee attacked.

  Speaking softly to his pony, explaining that there was no other choice, he mounted and reluctantly pushed northward.

  ~*~

  “The Cheyenne buck stopped here to drink.”

  Gun Powder’s voice was raised so it would carry down to the others. They sat their ponies at the base of the rocky spine, watching the keen-eyed warrior read the boulders for sign.

  “He has ridden into the sun,” said the Pawnee brave called Iron Knife. He squatted on the ground, examining the prints leading away from the spine.

  “Our enemy has tough battle bark on him. He has decided we must earn the right to dangle his scalp from our coup stick,” said their leader, Red Plume.

  The warrior’s tone showed approval of their quarry’s survival spirit. The Cheyenne had raised their battle-axes forever against the Pawnee. This one knew full well what fate awaited him if—when—Red Plume’s Pawnee braves seized him.

  There was no question that he would soon watch crows and vultures pick at his guts, pulled out of his body coil by coil before his own eyes. Pawnee scouting ability was respected even by the Bluecoats themselves. The red “men of men” were considered the U.S. Army’s most capable mercenaries—they formed the backbone of special Indian-hunting units which had razed more than one Cheyenne, Sioux, Arapahoe, and Shoshone village.

  Those who called this “treachery” had forgotten the ancient wrongs against the Pawnee. The Sioux and the Cheyenne had joined forces to drive them south from the Powder River country, hoarding the vast buffalo herds for themselves. Pawnee children died of starvation while, to the north, buffalo meat lay rotting.

  Soon, thought Red Plume, the just anger of the supernatural father, Tirawa, would demand another bloody retribution from the Cheyenne. Not just this lone warrior or the annual ritual of sacrificing a captured maiden—often a Cheyenne—to the Morning Star. This time the entire Cheyenne nation must atone with blood.

  “He is a warrior,” said Red Plume. “A sly one. However, nothing lies between us and the river but empty plains. A frog is slippery—in the water. But it is easily crushed on dry land.”

  He glanced up at the spine again and gestured impatiently to Gun Powder. “Hurry! Now we ride hard and crush our frog!”

  ~*~

  The sun was well up and casting short shadows. Dull pain throbbed like a tight tourniquet in Touch the Sky s wounded side. By now thirst had caked his mouth like parched alkali soil, a raw, dry grittiness that filled his throat and left his belly cramping.

  The gray too was weak with water starvation. Even at a slow trot she faltered often. Now he had to fight her more and more to keep her pointed northeast—some instinct made her want to try another direction.

  Finally, tired of fighting her, Touch the Sky gave her her head and let the gray set her own pace and direction. She veered sharply to the west, breaking from a trot into a lope which soon became a run.

  Abruptly, she drew up short in a slight, wide, dry depression that formed a winding path across the vast prairie.

  Puzzled, even through the increasing fog of his exhaustion, pain, and delirium, Touch the Sky stroked the pure white mane.

  “This is a dry streambed,” he told his pony. “The water is long gone. You smell a memory, just a memory.”

  But the gray nickered impatiently, turned her head, pawed the ground h
ard.

  His jaw set firmly against the pain, Touch the Sky dismounted and sank to his knees, staring hard at the depressions where the gray had dug up the dirt.

  It looked darker than dry earth should—and felt slightly damp to his touch.

  He gouged his fingers into the deepest print and probed even deeper.

  When his fingers came back out, there was mud under the nails!

  Unsheathing his knife, ignoring the pain in his side now, Touch the Sky dug frantically. A few minutes of digging exposed a thin layer of seepage.

  He dug deeper, and soon a little pool had formed.

  Giving thanks to Maiyun and the four directions, Touch the Sky dropped his face into the pool. Forcing himself to take measured swallows, he drank his fill. Then he widened the hole and rose to let the gray follow suit.

  His legs were still weak with hunger. Touch the Sky ate some pemmican and dried fruit from his legging sash while the gray drank and rested. Now, he told himself, they must ride hard toward the valley of the Yellowstone. His wound had swollen dangerously tight around the arrow. It had to be removed, and he had to sleep.

  The pony had grazed lush grass all spring. Now, refreshed by the water, she resumed her hard pace.

  Touch the Sky rode until his shadow was lengthening in the westering sun. Finally, topping a long rise, he spotted the first coarse-barked cottonwood trees with their leathery leaves. He had finally reached the winding valley of the Yellowstone.

  His enemies were still trailing him—the last time he had listened to the ground, he had felt them approaching at a rapid pace. Now he led the gray into the river and followed the current downstream until he was sure he had made it difficult for the Pawnee to pick up his trail again.

  He rode up out of the water and into a protective line of thickets. This was Crow country. So first he checked the ground all around him. He read the old and fresh tracks of weasel, mink, wolf, and cougar and knew it was safe—animals would not be so abundant in an area where humans were.