Arrow Keeper Read online

  The Council Lodge was packed. Each clan had sent its Headmen, and they sat in a circle that took up half of the structure. In their midst reigned Chief Yellow Bear in a red blanket, his silver hair flowing over his shoulders. The other half of the lodge was filled with adult braves who were permitted to speak, but not to vote on Matthew’s fate.

  All eyes stared at Matthew as he was led to the center of the lodge and told to sit. Next to him, Wolf Who Hunts Smiling explained all that took place. Chief Yellow Bear stuffed a clay pipe with kinnikinnick. Before he smoked, the chief pointed the pipe to all the directions of the wind and to the sun, the moon, and the sky. When he had inhaled the mixture of tobacco and red willow bark, he passed the pipe on.

  Soon the sweet, fragrant smell of burning willow bark filled the lodge. When the councilors had finished smoking, an old man called Medicine Bottle chanted a prayer. Normally the official tribal medicine man Arrow Keeper would perform that duty. But he had departed seven sleeps earlier for a fasting ceremony at distant Medicine Lake.

  “Brothers!” Yellow Bear said when the prayer was finished. “We are called here today to decide the fate of this stranger. He rides into our country calling himself a Cheyenne, but speaks the language of the Long Knives. Let us first hear his story and decide if we can place his words near our hearts.”

  “He is a white man in his manner and bearing. No white man has ever talked one way to the Indian,” protested a young warrior named Black Elk. “They are all liars. Kill him now!”

  A murmur of approval from the other young warriors greeted the remarks. When Black Elk’s murderous black eyes met Matthew’s, the prisoner shuddered. One of the warrior’s ears had been partially torn off and sewn back onto his skull with buckskin thread. The wound made Black Elk appear as fierce as his words.

  “Black Elk speaks as if he has drunk the white man’s devil water,” Yellow Bear said. “Let the prisoner talk first!”

  Halting often so that Wolf Who Hunts Smiling could translate, Matthew did his best to explain his situation. But with all those hostile faces turned toward him, it was impossible to describe how he felt about Kristen—or how he felt as if a knife was twisting in his guts when white men treated him like an animal.

  “His words do not ring with truth!” Black Elk insisted upon hearing Matthew’s story. “The white men are foxes who do not want peace. They send their spies among us to learn our plans. I say we kill him now!”

  Again the younger warriors greeted his talk with shouts and raised fists. Yellow Bear folded his arms until they grew quiet. Turning to Medicine Bottle, he asked, “What is it you advise?”

  Old Medicine Bottle was silent a long time before he spoke. At last, he said, “Brothers! I counsel as Arrow Keeper himself would, and I counsel for mercy. This stranger who arrives among us has Shaiyena blood coursing through his veins. True, he has been contaminated by living among our enemies, but even among the whites are some good, honorable men. Did I not see with my own eyes how a young Bluecoat officer was killed by his eagle chief for refusing to fire on our women and children? It is useless to fight the white men. Their numbers are like the locusts.”

  “No!” Black Elk shouted. “We must drive the white men from the mountains of the bighorn sheep. We must save the valley of our river. We have no other hunting grounds left to us. I speak for my young cousin Wolf Who Hunts Smiling and many others present who saw our fathers and mothers slaughtered. We hate the whites even more than we hate the Pawnee and the Crows and the Ute. We must raise our battle-axes against them until death. This one stinks like the whites who sent him to spy!”

  When the lodge erupted in an uproar, Yellow Bear folded his arms and waited for silence. When it didn’t come, he shook his fist and shouted above the din.

  “Brothers! I have rinsed my mouth in cold, fresh water, and now I speak only true things. How many times have I cut short my hair for our dead? Have I not heard my brave wife Little Raven sing the Death Song because of a Bluecoat bullet?

  “Hear me well, brothers! Yellow Bear has eaten his fill of this ugly poison called killing. He will never shed Cheyenne blood with his own hand. But let the headmen speak with their stones, for I have spoken and can say no more.”

  Matthew watched, his mouth a straight, determined slit, as Medicine Bottle passed a fur pouch among the twenty voting headmen. The pouch contained forty small stones. Each councilor reached in and removed the stone of his choice—a white moonstone or a black agate—keeping it hidden in his hand.

  When he had made the rounds, Medicine Bottle handed the half-empty pouch to Chief Yellow Bear. Yellow Bear grabbed it by the bottom and emptied it on the buffalo robe at his feet.

  Twenty stones spilled out—a few white, but most of them black agates.

  For the first time Yellow Bear looked directly at the prisoner. Deep lines like cracked leather ran from the corner of the old chief’s eyes, which seemed saddened by some grief that could not be spoken.

  “My young men are thirsty for blood. Like their chief, my old men counsel mercy. But the headmen wisely understand. If we elders always turn stone ears to our young warriors, they will rebel and follow their own leaders. The headmen know that sometimes the old trees must bend so the new trees can grow straight. Now the tribe has spoken with one voice.”

  The sadness suddenly left Yellow Bear’s eyes, and they turned hard as flint as ancient duty took over. He announced something else, and when Wolf Who Hunts Smiling turned to Matthew to translate, the young Cheyenne’s face glowed with triumph.

  “Yellow Bear says the stones have spoken. You are a spy for the whites, and you must die!”

  Chapter Five

  The Pawnee scout named Fleet Foot stepped quietly ashore and lugged his log dugout up onto the bank. He stashed it under a nearby deadfall of tangled branches. As he moved cautiously away from the Powder, a flock of small sandpipers rose in a sudden flurry. Fleet Foot stopped dead still, fully aware that a sentry from Yellow Bear’s camp might easily notice the sign. But he relaxed again when the familiar Cheyenne wolf howl of alarm failed to sound.

  The scout wore his hair in the distinctive fashion of his tribe—shaved everywhere except for a stiff topknot. He was well armed, for he did not come on a mission of friendship. If he were spotted, he would have to fight for his life. Besides a bow strung with buffalo sinew and arrows in a stiff leather quiver he carried an old .33 caliber Hawken rifle, its badly cracked stock wrapped tight in buckskin to strengthen it. In addition, he had lashed a spiked tomahawk to his legging sash.

  For many sleeps, he had traveled north by himself, always staying ahead of the main Pawnee band. Living on dried venison and bitterroot, he avoided Cheyenne, Sioux, and Arapahoe hunters and messengers even as he gained valuable information on their camps.

  Confident he was still undetected by his enemies, Fleet Foot resumed his trek away from the river. His quilled moccasins were silent on the forest floor. The experienced scout moved slowly, knowing it was movement, not shape, that would catch an enemy’s eye. Flies and mosquitoes bit him mercilessly, and he wished he could build a smudge fire to smoke them off.

  On a well-traveled game trail, he crouched to read the prints. Fleet Foot knew how to identify any Indian tribe by its moccasins. These prints told him that only Cheyenne had passed by that way recently. He also read the tracks of muskrats, weasels, and wolves and hungry cougars down from the mountains to feast on fat mule deer or elk. A set of fresh pony prints—no doubt made earlier that morning by the departing Cheyenne hunters—led away from the camp, but did not return. So the hunters were still out for the day. Fleet Foot knew he must be cautious, to prevent his path from crossing theirs.

  He was upwind of the camp, and that worried him. Cheyenne dogs were trained to hate the distinctive smell of the Pawnee. To avoid detection, Fleet Foot had earlier saturated his moccasins, clothing, and skin in the smoke of cedar and sage.

  As he parted the leaves of a thicket and peered out at the camp circles in the grassy c
learing, a wicked smile touched his lips. He realized why it had been so easy to sneak up on the camp unchallenged. Everyone—except one bored old squaw who hunkered in front of her tipi, finishing a hide on pumice stone—was distracted by the entertaining spectacle in the middle of camp.

  A wagon wheel and axle, perhaps the remnants of a raid on soldiers or white settlers, had been rigged into the fork of a huge cottonwood. The wheel was free to spin a few feet above a smoldering bed of embers. Lashed to the wheel was a broad-shouldered Cheyenne youth dressed in the torn, bloodied clothing of a white man.

  As Fleet Foot watched, a brave spun the wheel until the prisoner’s bare feet were only inches above the glowing embers. His face crumpled in pain, the prisoner screamed and strained against the buffalo-hair ropes, uselessly trying to raise his feet.

  Fleet Foot watched calmly. Unaffected by the scene before him, he picked lice out of the grease on his topknot and cracked them between his teeth. Studying the area surrounding the camp carefully, the Pawnee made an inner map of all the best positions from which his tribe could launch fire arrows at the lodges and tipis. He was especially careful to note the size and position of the corral, because the Cheyenne were renowned for having the best horses on the plains.

  Another scream below split the stillness. Fleet Foot regretted that the main body of Pawnee was still many sleeps to the south. Now would be a perfect time for the attack. But it would come soon enough.

  With nothing else at the moment to do, he settled in to witness the outcome of the prisoner’s punishment.

  Matthew felt the world spinning again, then the white-hot stabbing of horrible pain in his feet. Against his will he screamed.

  The ground and the sky were flip-flopped once more as the wheel was turned. With his face hanging near the incredible heat, he smelled the putrid stink of his hair burning. His face began to blister as he endured pain worse than any he had ever known.

  Then, mercifully, the pain eased a bit as the brave who controlled the wheel momentarily turned him away from the heat. Through eyes filled with involuntary tears, Matthew saw the entire tribe watching him. Oddly, as he gazed at the Indians he had no fear of dying. Rather, he felt sadness and anger at having failed in his plan— and at the prospect of dying as an outcast in both the white man’s world and the red man’s.

  Matthew was too weakened by the torture to notice that the pretty maiden with white columbine in her hair was watching him again. Her lower lip was caught between her strong white teeth in distress. But Yellow Bear did notice her concern, and the old chief’s heart was heavy with apprehension. For she was his daughter Honey Eater, and it was not her way to bother with the young bucks. She was aloof and reserved even around her most zealous admirer, Black Elk—a bold and proud suitor who did not take kindly to any slights. Her concern for a suspicious stranger, Yellow Bear thought, was an alarming omen. What it foretold he dared not wonder.

  Although Yellow Bear had never been fond of torture, he sadly realized it was sometimes necessary. Tribal law demanded it before a spy was killed and his scalp added to the pole near the medicine lodge.

  Sharp Lance, the brave turning the wagon wheel, suddenly grabbed a spoke and gave the wheel a quarter turn. Matthew’s blistered feet moved within inches of the glowing embers. He could not help screaming as the sweet stink of scorched flesh rose to his nostrils. Every muscle in his body corded tight as he strained to break his bonds.

  The girl named Honey Eater sought her father’s eyes and begged him to stop the torture. His seamed old face as impassive as stone, he finally parted his blanket with one hand and raised his fist high.

  “Enough!” he said in a commanding tone. He removed a bone-handle knife from the sheath at his waist. “Brothers, hear me well. The warm moons are a time for communing with the Great Spirit, for beseeching His pity and seeking visions. Let us have many hunts and dances before the coming of the cold moons, and leave this bloody, unhappy day behind us!”

  His slitted eyes turned to Black Elk, the fiercest of the young warriors. Black Elk had counted coup on more Bluecoats than the rest of the young warriors, and already his bonnet was full of the eagle feathers of bravery. Without a word Yellow Bear handed him the knife. Then the chief folded his arms and faced away from the prisoner. He had to support the tribe’s decision and stay through the execution; but his gesture expressed his disapproval of one Cheyenne drawing the blood of another.

  Matthew’s mind played cat and mouse with consciousness as excruciating pain washed over him in red, throbbing waves. He was still aware enough to notice when Yellow Bear unsheathed the knife, and the searing agony made him welcome the prospect of death.

  He saw the old chief turn his back. After a pause War Bonnet followed Yellow Bear’s example and turned his back too. A few others, including old Medicine Bottle, joined them. After that, Matthew’s body sagged against the ropes and he passed out.

  Black Elk gripped the bone handle of the knife, blood in his eyes as he recalled the Bluecoat saber that had nearly severed his ear. But instead of plunging the knife into the prisoner, he sought his young cousin Wolf Who Hunts Smiling out of the crowd and called him forward.

  “Avenge your father,” Black Elk said, handing the knife to the younger Cheyenne.

  Wolf Who Hunts Smiling stared hard at the unconscious spy, nervous despite his eagerness. The execution would be his first scalp. He knew how it was done, of course, from watching the warriors. The process was simple. He had to put his foot on the enemy’s neck or face. Then, after making an outline around the skull, he simply had to snap the scalp loose in a powerful, thrusting jerk.

  As hundreds of eyes watched him expectantly, Wolf Who Hunts Smiling slashed the hair ropes and Matthew slumped onto the ground. His eyes gleaming with keen triumph, the young Cheyenne placed one foot on the spy’s neck and knelt to take his trophy.

  Chapter Six

  Arrow Keeper of the Northern Cheyenne felt stiff and exhausted when he finally left sacred Medicine Lake to return to Yellow Bear’s tribe. But he was also profoundly moved by the vision he had received.

  Arrow Keeper, whose medicine bundle was the owl, was older even than Chief Yellow Bear. His long hair had slowly turned to gray streaked with white. His ancient but distinguished face was as weathered and wrinkled as an old apple core.

  He carried no weapons, relying only on magic and the benevolent will of the Great Spirit to protect him. For his special journey to the sacred lake, he wore a magic panther skin, which gave him such strong medicine that not a single bullet could touch him. He also carried a magic bloodstone that made it difficult for his enemies to find his tracks.

  He had left the lake when his uncle the moon began creeping down from its zenith in the sky. For three days, he had stood in water up to his neck, staring into the sun. On the third day the vision came.

  But the cool water and his advanced age had exacted their tribute. Before he could mount and ride out, the old man found it necessary to rub boiled sassafras on his stiff limbs. When he was able to ride, he let his piebald pony set its own pace along a game trail, and he carefully avoided the Bluecoat wagon track nearby. After a two-day ride, Arrow Keeper had almost completed the journey from the isolated mountain lake to Yellow Bear’s summer camp. But even as he drew near his home, he had been forced to swing wide around Bear Creek to avoid the new Soldier Town with its formidable walls of squared-off cottonwood logs.

  Bluecoats were not the only intruders there in the midst of the best Cheyenne hunting grounds. Arrow Keeper had also been forced to backtrack to avoid a huge party of white hiders. To the old Cheyenne’s horror, they had slaughtered hundreds of buffalo and skinned them with their strange curved knives, staking the hides out to flatten them. Arrow Keeper shook his silvered head sadly. Besides the hides and tongues, which the hiders cut out and packed in brine, the white men had no use for the other parts of the once mighty beasts; so the carcasses were left to rot in the sun. Wasted were the fat and delicious bone marrow that cou
ld be used for cooking, the sinews that would make strong thread. Spoons and cups could have been made from the horns, ropes and belts woven from the hair. Instead, the gifts of the Great Spirit were squandered.

  Despite the fact that he thought the white men were intruders, and that nothing good could come of their arrival in the land, the old medicine man also believed that the same Great Spirit who made the Cheyenne must have made the white men. Unlike most in Yellow Bear’s tribe, Arrow Keeper found many things to admire about the whites. Like the Indians, they could be brave, dangerous warriors—especially when they were fighting to protect their families.

  And their own magic was powerful. Arrow Keeper had seen the smoke-belching iron horses east of the Great Waters, and he had heard rumors of the new talking wires that would soon carry words through the sky like lightning bolts. But he could never understand or trust a race that wasted good meat, ruined a horse’s flanks with sharp-roweled spurs, and gave strong water to the red man because they knew it would destroy him.

  However, the old Cheyenne could not think long about such things. For his mind kept returning to the tribe’s future and the powerful vision he had experienced in the water. It had been so real, so vivid, so profoundly moving that the hand of the Great Spirit must have guided it to him.

  The meaning of the vision was disturbingly clear: for the red man, there could never be peace with the white man. Arrow Keeper had foreseen in awful detail the suffering that was in store for his people. Soon, during cold moons yet to come, the Cheyenne would be forced to flee north to the Land of the Grandmother, which the whites called Canada. There, the wind would howl like mating wolves, and the temperature would fall so low the trees would split open with sounds like gunshots.