Beauty for Ashes (10 page)

I got my cow.

Bell Rock grinnned down at Sam.

His head swimming a little, Sam looked around for the medicine hat. To his surprise she was on the cliff slope, half a dozen steps away. He edged over and took the reins. Evidently, once her personal enemy was down, she withdrew from the fight.

Carefully, Sam picked his way along the loose dirt of the slope toward the ravine.

The sides of the ravine were too steep to walk on, but the hunters were finished here. Half a dozen buffalo lay dead. Sam weaved his way up the middle of the gully, a drunk leading a horse. Soon the ravine sauntered up to level ground.

He half-stumbled out onto the plain, dizzy with whatever had happened. He collapsed onto the earth.
Oh, things happened.

H
E WOKE TO
a tongue slobbering on his face.

Coy. I forgot Coy. The whole time. Where was Coy?

He tried to jerk his head away, but something held it in a vice.

This realization was knocked to smithereens by a stabbing pain in his ear.

“O-o-o-w!”

“You t'ink to bleed to death,
ami
?” said a calm voice.

Another stab. “O-o-o-w!”

“Easy. Half done.”

Sam opened his eyes. Coy licked his mouth, but when he tried to move, the grip tightened.

Gideon bent close over his face. Against the sky, Beckwourth, Blue Horse, and Flat Dog. On their knees next to him, Bell Rock and Third Wing. If he believed the looks on their faces, he was in trouble. The beaver men didn't speak Crow and the Crows didn't speak English, but they didn't need to.

The medicine hat stomped her feet and flabbered her lips, like asking for attention.

“That mare done saved your ass,” said Beckwourth.

“She was your
paladin,
” said Gideon, with the French pronunciation.

“O-o-o-w!”

Third Wing was holding Sam's head hard.

“Remember Diah, when ze bear got him? Ze ear?”

Diah meant Jedediah Smith, the Bible-reading brigade leader, and that was one of the big days of Sam's life. The griz rushed out of the bushes, knocked Diah down, and got his head in its mouth. After everyone shot at the bear, they checked Diah's head. His scalp was cut to quilt pieces, and his ear was about to fall off. James Clyman sewed it back onto his head, more or less. That ear was nothing Diah would want anyone to see, ever again.

That was all before Sam got Coy, who now sat a step away and whimpered.

“Your ear is not so bad. I am your Clyman. I, how you say…”

“Stitch,” said Beckwourth.

Sam saw now that Bell Rock was carefully studying what Gideon's hands did. Next the medicine man would want to trade for needle and thread.

“O-o-o-w!”

“Be still,” snapped Gideon.

Sam wondered if he cared whether he messed up Gideon's sewing job or not.

“You about lost too much blood,” said Third Wing.

“We won't say ‘Hold on to your hair' to Sam,” drawled Beckwourth, “we'll say, ‘Hold on to your ear.'”

“Very funny. O-o-o-w!”

Gideon gave a big, exasperated sigh. Beckwourth knelt beside Third Wing and helped him clamp Sam's head. “Do it.”

Sam hollered “O-o-o-w!” about half a dozen more times, and it was over.

“Let us see you stand up,” said Gideon.

Sam rolled over, raised onto all fours, tented his bottom up, and slowly stood…until he buckled to one knee.

The knee got Coy's paw. The pup yelped and skittered away.

“I don't know if he is good in ze head.”

“Nothing important there,” said Beckwourth.

Sam gave a lopsided smile and stood up. He rocked like a sailor on a pitching deck, and then steadied. Coy rubbed against his leg.

“We get the buffalo?”

“We're finished butchering them out,” said Beckwourth.

Blue Horse spoke in Crow. “We're going to pack some meat back to camp now. We'll walk and lead the horses. Some of us will stay here tonight, until we come for the rest.”

“But you will ride back,” said Bell Rock, just like a doctor.

“Tied on,” said Third Wing, like a mother.

“I got a cow,” said Sam. He looked woozily from one face to another. “I got a cow.”

“Are you giving the cow to an old couple?” asked Bell Rock.

Sam nodded. “Whoever you choose.”

“Pack the meat on a travois. Lead the pack horse to their lodge. Drop the travois on the ground.”

“We'll pack the cow back for you,” said Third Wing.

Sam nodded that he understood all. Coy looked at everyone brightly, like he understood too.

“You earned a new name,” said Bell Rock.

“What name?” blurted Sam. He would have shown better manners, except that his head wasn't right.

Bell Rock smiled and shrugged. “You'll find out.”

“Next time,” said Beckwourth, “don't near get killed for a name.”

Sam squatted—going down felt risky—and petted Coy. “What about the mare?” said Sam. “Can she get a name too?”

Bell Rock gave Sam a look, like “Medicine men don't name horses.” Blue Horse had a similar look.
All right, I know, Crows don't name horses.

“So I'll name her. Hey, white people do.” He ruffled Coy's head fur and thought. “What's a good name?”

“Bull-killer,” said Beckwourth.

Sam shook his head and found out it hurt to shake it.

“Paladin,”
said Gideon. “How you say in English? Paladin? Is ugly that way.”

“What's it mean?” asked Sam.

“Knight, a champion for his leader.”

Sam nodded his head slowly, so the ear wouldn't hurt. Paladin sounded pretty good.

“Protector,” said Third Wing.

“Guardian,” said Beckwourth.

“Savior,” said Third Wing.

“Save your what?” asked Beckwourth. Third Wing had gotten a little Christianity during his trading post years, and Beckwourth always mocked it.

“Our Lord and Savior,” replied Third Wing with dignity.

“More like ‘Save Your Ass,'” said Beckwourth.

Sam gave them all a wide, nutty grin. “Save Your is not bad.”

Bell Rock butted in. “I name her.”

The others looked at each other. “All right,” said Sam.

“She is special horse, champion for Sam. Her name is Paladin.”

The others checked each other with their eyes. “That's good,” said Sam.

“But Save Your Ass would have been more fun,” said Beckwourth.

 

S
O IN A
March twilight, while the people were at their cook fires, Bell Rock sent Sam and the village crier around the circle of lodges. “This young man has a new name,” called the crier. “His name is Joins with Buffalo, which in his language is ‘Samalo.' The crier boomed out the words “Joins with Buffalo” like a flourish of trumpets.

Sam walked behind the crier slowly, ceremoniously. Coy traipsed behind. He looked hangdog, but he went everywhere Sam went.

“This young man has a new name,” boomed the crier over and over. “He killed a buffalo cow and gave it to the elderly, who have great need. He is given the name Samalo, which in his language means, Joins with Buffalo.”

Meadowlark and Blue Medicine Horse came out of their family's tipi and stood at something like attention while Sam and the crier passed. Their parents, Little Bull, and Flat Dog all came out and stood next to Blue Horse and Meadowlark.

Sam kept his eyes front. He felt like a fool, and at the same time giddy with pride.

 

I
T CAME TO
him some time that very night, some time in the wee hours. It was not a cracked dream, nor was it a broth of lost blood and a thunked head.
I can ask Meadowlark to marry me now
. He was sure of it—a man who had won a name could.

He pulled Coy close to his chest and belly. They liked to sleep cuddled up.

And when Sam woke the next morning, in an empty tipi and under a gray sky, he was still sure he could.

His neighbors said the other beaver men had let him sleep while they went to bring the meat back. They were worried about his injuries.

I will do it today.

He ate. He rested. He shook his head to see if anything felt loose. He fed the mare some cottonwood bark by hand, rubbed her muzzle, and called her repeatedly by her new name. “Paladin, want some bark? Paladin, you're a good woman. You saved my ass.” He also laid his plans.

That night he caught a break. Since Red Roan and the meat party weren't back, Sam was the only man courting Meadowlark.

After a gray day the sunset wiped the sky clear. The night was so crystalline it felt brittle. When Meadowlark came out, Sam opened his blanket and wrapped her into it with him snugly. She smiled at him like he was special. Coy rubbed against both their legs and lay down. Sam looked up into the dark sky and pretended to count a thousand of the million-million stars. On moonless nights in the high mountains many, many more stars glittered against the darkness, four or five times as many as you ever saw in Pennsylvania.

He had to do it right away. He sucked a great, cold breath in. “Meadowlark, will…?”

It wasn't right. He took both her hands in his. Still wasn't right. He turned Meadowlark away from Coy and got down on one knee. She giggled at this, but he said it was the way of his people, and she put on a straight face. It struck him that she knew what he was about to do.

“Will you marry me, Meadowlark?” The actual Crow words were “share a lodge with me,” but Sam knew what he wanted to say.

She pulled him up by the hands, raised him until she could look upwards into his eyes. “I want to share a lodge with you,” she said. More stars shone in her eyes than in the spangled sky.

He heard a dreaded “but…” in her voice. He waited.

“You will have to ask my brothers for me.”

Blue Medicine Horse and Flat Dog, maybe Little Bull too.
This will be a cinch.

He stood up. He lifted her chin and kissed her. The kiss was so long, Sam was surprised the sky was still moonless when it ended. Then he told himself, well, maybe one whole moon passed during the kiss.

“Every day now, will you teach me English?”

They kissed a lot more, rehearsing the good times to come.

Much later, when she saw Red Roan coming, Meadowlark slipped out of Sam's blanket and back into her tipi. Then she stuck her head back out the door and gave him the shiniest smile he'd ever seen.

Sam's blood fizzed with happiness.

“E
IGHT HORSES
,”
SAID
Blue Medicine Horse.

“Eight horses,” echoed Flat Dog. Whatever Flat Dog said always sounded like a joke, somehow.

“Eight horses?” Sam said slowly. As a gift for the bride's family, it was out of line. A chief's daughter wouldn't bring such a price.

Sam ran his eyes from brother to brother. As though to answer his skepticism, Flat Dog repeated, “Eight horses.” Blue Horse sounded uncertain, maybe embarrassed, but Flat Dog was definite. Sam eyed him and got nothing back.

The Crow custom was that a young man seeking a girl's hand made a gift to her brothers, or sometimes to her father. Sam was expecting such a request, but…

I want to take Meadowlark with me on the spring hunt.

“There's no way I can get eight horses until summer.”

The brothers nodded, as much as to say, “We know.”

So maybe your parents are putting me off,
he thought.
But why?

Maybe Gray Hawk and Needle are pushing her into Red Roan's arms.

Maybe she got carried away in the moment and has changed
…. He put a stop to that line of thought.

“I leave in a quarter moon.”

They nodded.

Everyone could see and feel the weather changing. Ice was off the river now. South-facing hillsides were clear of snow. Nights were less bitter. For the Crows this meant the coming of the sign that marked the change: thunder would soon be heard in the mountains. That would put an end to the season of storytelling, winter, and bring on the season of hunting and fighting. The village would join with other Crow villages for the spring buffalo hunt. Young men would gather into warrior clubs and plan what raids they would make against their enemies, Shoshone in the west, Blackfeet on the north, and in the east their most bitter foes, the Sioux, the ones they called Head Cutters.

For the beaver men, it meant the spring trapping season was at hand. Sam, Gideon, Beckwourth, and Third Wing would leave in a quarter moon for the Siskadee, to join their brethren.

Sam looked at the brothers, stupefied.

“Tell him.” This was Flat Dog.

“We want to go with you,” said Blue Horse.

“What?”

“We want to go with you,” repeated Flat Dog.

“Trapping,” said Blue Horse.

“With the white men,” said Flat Dog.

Sam felt more stupefied, or maybe stupid.

“On the way back to the village,” said Blue Horse, “we will get your eight horses and a lot more.”

“If you take us,” said Flat Dog, “you get your eight horses. If not…”

Cornered.

Sam grinned.

 

T
HAT NIGHT HIS
friends' attitude around the center fire of the lodge was clear enough.

“Why not?” said Gideon, in a Gallic, it-makes-no-difference to me tone.

“Six men are safer than four,” said Third Wing, ever the protective one.

“Think they'll still call us the white men?” asked Beckwourth.

They looked at each other. Beckwourth, a mulatto. Gideon, a French-Canadian Jew. Third Wing, a Pawnee. Sam, the only white.