Ghost Dance (16 page)

The horses came around the side of the soddy and Totter's finger closed wild on the trigger of his weapon and the fire jumped out of the barrel high and wide of Chance and Totter was covering his head with his hands and rolling away and one of the hoofs of the running animals caught him in the face like a pumpkin and he spit blood and teeth through the hole in his face.

"What the hell!" yelled Grawson from somewhere in front of the soddy.

Chance's arm disappeared from the hole and he leaped across the soddy and jumped headfirst out of the window, hitting the dust, rolling and getting up and running.

Two shots were fired but Chance didn't know whether they were fired at him or the Indians.

He ran along the bottom of the hill between the soddy and the school on the other side.

Another shot was fired.

There was no mistaking that one. It kicked a rock from the side of the hill, a few feet to his right.

It had been a pistol shot.

The range was too far now for clean shooting with a small weapon.

If Grawson had fired, Chance wondered why he hadn't used his carbine.

Another shot splashed dust behind him.

There was a cut in the hill, that led up behind the school. The school was high. He headed for the school. He ran up the cut, up toward the school, and the hair stood up on the back of his head as he heard a pair of horses behind him.

He turned to fire.

A voice cried "Brother!" in Sioux.

"Brother!" cried Chance in the same tongue.

Joseph Running Horse, astride one of the horses, the other with an empty saddle, had his hand lifted in greeting. Chance took the reins of the second horse, put his boot in the stirrup and hoisted himself to the saddle.

There was a carbine in the saddle boot of his horse, and he knew why Grawson hadn't used the weapon.

"Come," said Running Horse, urging his horse up the cut.

Chance followed and he saw the white boarded school on the top of the hill. They rode past two mounts for swings on which there was no rope. Past a lonely teeter-totter in the silvery schoolyard.

Running Horse pulled up behind the school.

Chance saw a woman near the wagon box against the north side of the building.

She came to his horse. "You must hurry," said Lucia.

Chance looked at Running Horse.

Running Horse simply said, "We have their horses."

Chance dismounted and faced the girl, saw the strain of her fear, saw how her hair could be beautiful when the wind moved it in the moonlight.

"Thank you," said Chance.

She dropped her head. She had one of the blankets she had carried William Buckhorn in, wrapped about her shoulders like a shawl. The girl seemed confused. Then she lifted her head. "You were kind to William," she said. "I didn't want you to die because of me."

"I wanted to kill them," said Running Horse. "With the knife. It would have been easy. They were apart, not watching behind. She did not wish it."

Lucia looked at Running Horse as though she could not believe what she had heard. "Joseph," she said.

Running Horse was speaking to Chance, and he paid the woman no attention. "Shall we go back and kill them now?" he asked.

"No," said Chance, "but my heart is filled with gratitude to my brother."

"They will follow you," said Running Horse. "It will be better to kill them now."

"No," said Chance, "I don't want to hurt them. I just want to go away."

"Someday you must fight," said Running Horse.

"I just want to go away," said Chance.

"Your Brother will fight with you," said Running Horse.

"Thank you," said Chance, "but I just want to go away."

"All right," said Running Horse, "do what you want."

"Mr. Smith," said Lucia, "I sent William to Fort Yates, in a wagon. His parents are taking him."

"Good," said Chance, "I think he will be all right."

Lucia smiled. "You'd better be leaving now, I think," she said.

Chance grunted. Yes, he would have to be leaving now. There would be no place where he would be staying too long. There never would be.

He looked at the girl and her face, thin and delicate in the moonlight, seemed very lovely to him.

There would never be a place he could stay too long.

Chance felt bitter, and very sad.

"Someday," said Chance, "if it's all right with you, I would like to come by again."

She looked up at him, and to Chance's surprise he thought her eyes were moist. "That would be nice, Mr. Smith," the girl was saying.

"Chance," said Chance, "the name is Chance."

"So I understood from the gentlemen outside the soddy," said Lucia.

Chance smiled. "They were right," he said.

"You have a long ride," said Running Horse to Chance.

"I know," said Chance.

Lucia started briefly. It was true, what Running Horse said. This man was running. This man who had spoken gently with her, whom she had told about herself, whom she found somehow strong and aware of her, and of whom she had found herself aware, as she had never been before–of a man. She had feared the stirrings that coursed through her at his nearness, how she might shiver at his touch, feel faint and she had not wanted to come with Running Horse but she had known that she would, and she did. She would say goodbye, and he would be gone, and she would remember him, more so than the young men in Saint Louis, perhaps more so than any other.

He was an outlaw, Lucia reminded herself, a criminal, a man who must run, an animal that must prowl at night and hide in the day, away from honest men.

But he had been kind to her and he was strong, and he had stayed to help William, to work with an injured boy while men came with weapons to shoot and kill him.

"Yes," said Lucia, "it would be nice if you would come by again."

His hand reached out and held hers, so swiftly, so suddenly, it frightened her.

"I will," he said. "I will."

She had seemed so beautiful to him in that instant that he had wanted to cry out.

He must leave her.

Never could there be such a woman for him. Only the others. The painted, empty others, the strangers whose last names he would never know, selling themselves to him or any other, not caring.

Maybe it was only his loneliness, but that he did not believe.

The others had not changed the loneliness.

With this woman, unlike the others, he was no longer alone.

What a fool she would think him.

He cared for her.

"Please," she was saying, and Chance said, "I'm sorry," and withdrew his hand.

Lucia stepped back and shivered inside the blanket.

"It's cold," he said.

"Yes," she said, "it is."

Touch me again, she thought, please touch me again.

"Good-bye," said Lucia Turner.

"Good-bye," said Chance.

His hands reached out, not really much of a gesture, and somehow her hands had seemed gently to meet his, and then his hands were on her shoulders and they had stepped toward one another and their lips touched and Lucia cried out and clutched Edward Chance to her and then she felt him taking her into his arms, felt his iron, tightening arms choking her body, and could not breathe so hard did his arms hold her.

"I'm sorry," he said, and when by an act of will he thrust her from him, she could see the heat still in his eyes, hear the heaviness, the deepness of his breathing, and she could feel the mark of his kiss on her mouth.

"I'm not the kind of girl you seem to think I am," she was saying, and hating herself for it.

"Please forgive me," he said.

Lucia pulled the blanket about her shoulders. "Good-bye, Mr. Chance," she said.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Truly."

"I quite understand," she said, and turned to leave.

Joseph Running Horse said something that sounded like, "Huh!"

Lucia stopped.

"Take her with you," said Running Horse to Chance.

Lucia, not facing them, could not believe her ears.

"Take her with you," Joseph Running Horse was saying.

Lucia suddenly felt like running, but instead she turned abruptly about, reddening, to face them.

"What are you talking about, Joseph?" asked Lucia.

Running Horse looked at her. "Do not talk now," he said. Then he faced Chance. "You can let her go at the end of the reservation."

"I–I don't understand," stammered Lucia.

Running Horse looked at her. "You could gather wood and cook for him and keep him warm in the blanket."

"Joseph!" said Lucia.

"It's not done," said Chance.

Lucia blushed furiously, a change of complexion that was evident even in the moonlight.

"You mind your manners, Joseph Running Horse," said Lucia.

"Tie her to your horse," said Running Horse to Chance.

"I won't stay here and listen to this," said Lucia. And then she said, "Oh!" as she suddenly felt a rawhide coil of a braided lariat dropped about her shoulders and drawn tight, pinning her arms to her sides. The other end Joseph Running Horse had already looped about the saddle horn of Chance's horse.

"Joseph!" said Lucia, as primly as she could manage.

"You are only a white woman," said Joseph Running Horse. "We are Hunkpapa."

"I thought you liked me," said Lucia accusingly.

"I do," said Running Horse. "You will like my brother, and it will be good for you."

"No!" said Lucia, growing frightened.

Chance, more bewildered than anything, had stood by this conversation.

"And he will like you," said Running Horse, "for you are a good woman."

Good woman, good rifle, good horse, thought Lucia. She squirmed in the rawhide loop. "Please explain to him, Mr. Smith," she said, she begged.

"Yes, yes," said Chance quickly. "No, Running Horse, it wouldn't be right. She has been very kind. Has helped us."

"It is for her own good," said Running Horse.

"It is simply not done," said Chance firmly.

"No," said Lucia, even more firmly.

"All right," said Running Horse. "I thought it was a good idea."

Chance thought to himself, yes, it is an excellent idea, but it is just not done.

"I go watch," said Running Horse. Before he left he turned to Chance and said, rather sadly, "Good-bye, my Brother," and Chance knew that the young Indian did not expect to see him again, and Chance thought it was probably true, too, and said to him, "Yes, my Brother, Good-bye."

"Farewell," said Joseph Running Horse in Sioux.

"Farewell," said Chance, in Sioux.

Running Horse disappeared, and Chance knew that he would not have to worry about Grawson or Totter for the time being. Running Horse would "watch" and he would have the start he needed, probably until morning.

"Please," said Lucia.

Chance removed the lariat from her body. "I'm sorry," he said, but he seemed to be smiling, and Lucia was not sure that he really meant it.

"I don't know what got into Joseph Running Horse," she said.

Chance thought to himself that Running Horse had been very practical in his Sioux fashion.

"He thinks differently," said Chance. "He's Sioux." And Chance thought to himself it was not so much that he thought differently, as that he was willing, for one reason or another, to act as he thought. He had seen Chance had wanted this woman, and had understood, somehow, or thought he had, that she had wanted him, and so he had proposed that Chance see that it came about. But Running Horse, naturally, did not understand white women, nor, Chance told himself, did he himself.

"The very idea," said Lucia, and Chance was pleased that she laughed.

She looked up at him. "It seems I am fortunate that you are a gentleman, Mr. Chance."

Chance smiled. "I suppose so–Miss–Turner."

Lucia looked in the direction Running Horse had disappeared. She shivered. "He seems to think a girl would enjoy being dragged across the prairie," she paused, and looked at Chance, her eyes mischievous, "–on an out-law's rope."

"Not so much that part of it," said Chance.

"Oh," said Lucia, and looked down.

They stood together quietly for a time, neither of them speaking.

"You are very beautiful," said Chance.

Lucia did not look up, but in that instant like a fire running through her body she understood fully and for the first time in her life how it is that a woman can give herself completely to a man–though she knew she could not and would not do so–understood how it is that a woman could be shameless, rawly and utterly female. Knowing this thing she stood trembling at his saddle, aching, wanting him to touch her, to claim her weakness by his strength. Bind me, she thought, I desire to be yours. I will follow your horse like a captive squaw. But I must be made to do so. Must I ask you to tie your rope on my throat, to be tethered and led away, a woman?

"Good-bye," said Chance.

I don't want him to go yet, she cried out to herself, he can't go yet. He must not go yet.

She is a good woman, Chance said to himself, a gentle and tender and beautiful woman and there is no place in her life for an outlaw, a man who runs from the law, and though he be tempted to be cruel and love her he must not yield to this cruelty; if he cares for her, he must care enough to go; if he wants to love her, he must love her enough to say "Goodbye," to leave her standing here alone, as he will always remember her.

"Good-bye," said Chance.

"Running Horse called you his Brother," said Lucia, quickly, desperately.

"It's true," said Chance, explaining nothing.

"I don't understand," said Lucia.

"You don't even speak Sioux," said Chance. He must leave. He must be hard with her.

"No," said Lucia, hurt, "I don't."

He turned from her and, slowly, recoiled the rawhide lariat and tied it to the saddle.

"I'm sorry I don't speak Sioux," she said.

Chance turned to face her. "I'm glad," he said.

"But I don't want to stay here," she said. "I'm going to leave."

Chance hoisted himself into the saddle.

He looked down at her, the blanket wrapped about her shoulders, her face lifted to his.