Sweet Savage Surrender (26 page)

"Come on, blue coat!  Do you fear to let me touch you?"  Blue Fox taunted. 

The Indian’s
overconfidence made him careless.  He moved closer to John making himself an obvious target.  In that moment
,
John bounded forward, pinning the brave to the ground with his weight, ho
lding his arm.
It was like wrestling with a lion.  The brave bucked a
nd thrashed, trying to get up
.  John Hanlen steeled himself to the brave's great strength.  Just when he was certain the Indian was going to pull free,
Lean Bear
stepped forward, declaring
John Hanlen the winner. Slowly both fighters struggled free of each other.

John extended his hand, helping Blue Fox up.
  "You gave me quite a fight."

"I fought like a woman, else I would have won,"  the brave said sullenly.  Nevertheless he was a good sport about the match.  "We will fight again you
and I,  yes
?  You must give me a chance to p
rove myself the best warrior."
That being decided
,
Lean Bear
le
d
John and Skyraven to the area where the aroma of cooking food
tantalized
the palate.  John's stomach rumbled with hunger and he realized that he was famished.

"You will stay with us, John Hanlen?" 
Lean Bear
offered an invitation which John readily accepted.  It would give him time to make the chief's acquaintance
,
for there was still the matter of the peace discu
ssions.

"To eat supper?
" he asked.  "Yes, thank you."

"For as long as you would like," 
Lean Bear
answered. 
“
Skyraven is like  one who shares the same blood to me.  My son's wife and she were raised in the same camp.  You are the man she has chosen.  I would
like time to get to know you."

The Indian woman were carrying wooden bowls to the men who had taken positions around the fire, whom John concluded were either their husbands o
r relatives.  Skyraven likewise
brought a steaming portion to him.  For just a moment their eyes touched then she smiled
.  "You will stay?" she asked.

"Yes, I will stay.  The colonel gave me two weeks." At that
moment,
looking
into her eyes he knew the time was going to move too fast.   It was going to be the two shortest weeks of his life.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The night was ebony black, dotted with stars.  The mist-ringed moon shone through the branches with a silvery haze.  A lover's night.  John sat across the fire from Skyraven, watching as the  flames danced up towards the sky, wishing he could pick her up in his arms and carry her into one of the cone-shaped tents and make love to her again.  God
,
how he wanted to.
Each time their eyes met, he knew that she felt the same. An impossible dream. The
Ind
ia
ns kept the strictest propriety with their unmarried women and were fiercely possessive of their wives. The stories of
Ind
ia
ns bartering their women was
pure
tomfoolery, one more story circulated to slander them and somehow make them less than fully human.

Sleeping arrangements were not what John might have wanted, though he appreciated the chief’s hospitality. John was to share a tepee with some of the unmarried braves.
Skyraven was
sharing
Desert Flower's tepee. She had told him that she was
would
be by her friend’s side morning and night as the time for the baby’s birth crept nearer.
 
She enjoyed the responsibility and the honor granted to her in fulfilling such a mission. With such close scrutiny, lovemaking tonight
was out of the question
,
but John was determined to find a way.  Tomorrow perhaps?
The memory of their tryst by the stream would give him treasured dreams at least  that would have
to last until then.
             
After dinner t
he braves talked among each other whi
le their women stayed together.  But
like Skyraven, however, here and there a woman sat beside or behind her man.  Desert Flower leaned against her husband, displayi
ng her respect and affection. 
Skyraven had spoken with admiration about Blue Fox.  He was a good husband and loved his wife very much, showing deference  to her condition and  more than a moderate amount of devotion.  Some of the things he did for her now would have been considered woman's work  at any other time
,
but even so he took over her tasks without complaint.  Carrying water and collecting fire wood was too hard for her now that her belly was big with child he had said. Blue Fox had given up his bed to Skyraven so that she would be nearby at all times, but he came to his wife's tepee every day to help in any way that he could.  A man couldn't b
e any more attentive than that.

Lean Bear
dominated the attention
of the braves now.  He had promised John that he would talk with him at the same time tomorrow night in his tepee
about the subject of the white man’s peace
.  John had also been introduced to Skyraven's grandfather
,
who had made the same
promise of a pow wow.

  "You want to speak
to me of horses?" he had said.
Meeting him had made John understandably nervous
,
yet the medicine man had been more than amiable
,
as if he had resigned himself to the situation.  Still, every once in awhile John could feel his eyes touching upon him and
wondered what he was thinking.

John smiled
,
thinking to himself that this wasn't really much different than sitting in the parlor hoping that your chaperone would leave you alone with the woman you adored.  For just a moment he viewed
Buffalo
's Brother much like any other stern grandfather.  He made it obvious how much he loved his granddaughter and wanted what was best for her future.  John vowed that he would prove to him that their l
ove could buffer any problems.

Like a warm blanket
,
the cordiality and friendliness of the Indians enveloped John as the night progressed.  It was as S
kyraven whispered in his ear, h
e was earning their good will.  She said
further
that Blue Fox had talked with the other warriors and told them that if Skyraven trusted this
white
man
named John Hanlen, than so should they.  She had loaned him her horse, h
er robes and other belongings.

"Would Skyraven trust anyone who would harm her people?" 
Blue Fo
x had asked.

The braves murmured that she had been led by the spirits to save the white soldier.  In so doing
,
she had kept a war party of Utes away from her own village.  Such bravery
was not common among women. 
John found out quickly that
one of the Indians favorite pastimes was telling stories
and now
recounts of  Skyraven's bravery seemed to form
one of the tales, embellished each time it was told  so that her valor and daring
steadily increased.

"She fought three braves single-handedly and took the
white
man
away, out from beneath the very noses of those Utes," Blue Fox was saying
now. 

Other stories abounded.
John listened as several of the braves told their tales,
his eyes caressing Skyraven
.
She sat with a young child upon her knee, crooning in its ear, and he couldn’t help thinking about how it would be when she was the mother
of his children.

"Tell us a story," the wide-eyed boy was saying.  "Abou
t the search for the buffalo."

"You want to hear that one again?"  She
asked the boy, then
explained
to John, "it is an old black foo
t tale.  They, like the
Cheyenne
and A
rapahoe are "plains" people."

Enthusiastically he nodded. Skyraven moved closer to John as the other children, just as anxious to hear the story
,
gathered round, sitting at h
er feet as she began to speak.

"In the old days," she began," vast herds of buffalo, often as thick as a swarm of bees, roamed the grasslands.  The lives of our ancestors revolved around the movements of those herds just as our do now
,
for those generous animals provide the Indians
with life's necessities.  Which
are....?
"

"The meat," one boy said, his eyes bright, "to be dried
and
stored
against
the
long
winter
mont
hs when hunting is difficult."

"The skins for clothing, bedding, tepee covers, bags and riding
tackle,
” added
a little girl.

"Tools are made from the bones, ropes from the hair,
thread and bowstrings from the
sinews and cups and spoons from the
horns.  Not one hair is wasted,” said the boy.

John listened attentively.  If that was true
,
then it was no wonder the Indians were so incensed with
those three
hunters.  If only Chivington could hear this story
, perhaps he would understand.

"But there came a time when there were no buffalo.  Say after day hunters scoured the plains
,
but every evening they returned empty handed.  The people grew pale and thin and the children cried with hunger.  In despair
,
their chief decided to enlist the aid of Napi, the Old Man of the Dawn
,
who set the world in order an caused things to be the way that they are
now.”

As she told the story, Skyraven used  a different pitch of voice for the characters, much to the children's delight.  It was a charming story
,
yet sad
,
too, for John remembered her having told them that her tribe had moved because there had not been enough buffalo nearby to la
st them through
th
e winter.

"And Napi listened sympa
thetically to the chief's pleas for help
and told him to go beyond the Sweet Grass Hills to the lodge of the shaman, Crow Arrow
,
who he suspected had stolen the buffalo.  Napi told the chief that he would take it upon himself to search out this Indian and he took with him the chief's son, Little Dog
,
who told his father that when he became a man and went into the mountains the spirits had granted powers. 
What were they, Lame Beaver?"

"Strength and courage.  And...and he could turn himself into a
swallow or a spider or a dog."

"That's right,"  Skyraven smiled.  Putting her hand behind the log they were sitting on
,
she touched John's hand, her fingers entwining with his.  "Napi turned himself into a horsefly and little Dog into a swallow
,
and together they flew over the hills in s
earch of the evil Crow Arrow."

Taking a deep breath
,
John relaxed, relishing the touch of Skyraven's hand. John enjoyed the story, yet it troubled him too. Strange
,
but as she told the story Chivington's face flashed before his eyes, taking the place of the dastardly shaman who was responsible for the
misery of the chief's people.

"Not wishing their approach to be seen
,
Napi became a pine tree and Little Dog a spider.  The crept close enough to hear the murmur of voices and to smell the smoke from the campfire but saw no sign of the buffalo. 
Only three people were present:
Crow Arrow, his wife and their little daughter.  Napi bent his head to catch the spider's tiny voice.  "I am certain that the buffalo are hid
den somewhere nearby," he said.
 
“
After much discussion
,
they  came upon a plan.  Napi would change himself into a stick of ash wood and Little Dog into a small brown puppy whose actions attracted the attention of Crow Arrow's little daughter.  The puppy became her best friend and she confided a secret.  She knew where there were many, many animals, much bigg
er, she said, that the puppy."

It was a charming tale which made use of Skyraven's talent for mimickry.  The child led the puppy, the stick in his mouth, to where the buffalo were hidden.  The dog tumbled down into the cavern where thousands of brown
beasts stood pawing the earth.

"Napi could hear them snorting and stamping their feet and ignored the child's pleas to climb back up the mountain.  Together
,
he and Little Dog carefully rounded up the buffalo, Napi in human form and the chief's son in the form of a huge dog.  Shouting and barking they drove the buffalo up the slope and out
through the hole in the rock."

Crow Arrow was vindictive, determined to wrack vengeance
, just like Chivington, John thought as he listened to Skyraven’s description
.  Thankfully, however, Napi and Little Dog changed themselves back into the stick and the puppy, leaped upon the largest buffalo's back and made it past the furious sha
man.  Just like Chivington, again
, Crow Arrow did not give up but changed himself into a grey bird, hovering over the buffalo in an attempt to herd them back to his hiding place.  To counteract the shaman, Napi changed himself into a beaver and lay d
own in the grass as if dead. 

"The bird, thinking this an easy meal, swooped down upon him.  Quick as lightning, Napi changed back into a man and seized Crow Arrow's legs in a powerful grasp. Ignoring his squawks and thrashing wings, he carried him back to the camp and tied him in the smoke-hole of the chief's tepee where by evening he was a sorry sight.  The smoke from the fire had turned his grey plumage jet black.  Nap
i
looked up at the dejected bundle of sooty feathers and said, "you see where your wickedness and greed have brought you?"  Crow Arrow begged to be set free, promising neve
r to steal the buffalo again."

If only the
white
men
would make such a promise, John thought sadly.  But then if it wasn't buffalo
they wanted on Indian land,
it was gold
, and if it wasn’t gold, it was access to the railroad.

"Napi cut the ropes that bound Crow Arrow
,” Skyraven continued. “Bu
t since that time the crow's fe
athers have always been black." The story completed,
Skyraven motioned for the children to follow her.  "Now, it is time for bed."  Once again
the scene struck John in its
similarity
to his people--young
ones listening to a bedtime story
,
then being hustled off to bed.  Standing up
,
he followed
Skyraven and her group
, hoping to have at least a
moment alone with her.  As if Napi
was granting his wish
,
he waited until all of the children had gone into their tepees then stood in the shadows of a cottonwoo
d, looking down into her face.