The Holy Warrior (12 page)

Already it was late in the season, so the men drove themselves to get the structure in place. When it was finished, Con and Frenchie departed with five of the canoes. “Keep your hair on, Leetle Chicken!” Frenchie laughed as they pulled out and headed north. “We’ll ’ave more furs than you, I bet, when we come back!”

The winter was mild that year, and game was plentiful. The only time Chris had set for their rendezvous was “winter,” so Knox settled in the fort to wait. He and his Indian workers hunted and fished all day. Reading the Bible during the long nights, Knox wondered how he’d missed so much when he had read the book before.

On the night of December 25, he remembered it was Chris’s
birthday; and Knox kept an eye out for his brother, hoping to see him, but to no avail. Another two months went by before the white warrior materialized out of the woods, surrounding the fort with a party of mounted Sioux—more than forty of them. Knox looked up from his fishing just in time to see them walk their horses toward him. Sliding off his horse, Chris helped a woman with a baby down from her mount, then turned to his brother with a smile. “If we’d wanted your scalp, you’d never known what happened, Knox. Better stop picking daisies and pay attention if you want to live long enough to see your grandchildren.”

Knox was embarrassed to have been taken off guard, but he was so glad to see Chris that he only grinned. “I was a mite careless, for a fact.” Then he turned and said to White Dove, “What’s that you’ve got?” He reached out, took the baby, and held the bundle in his hands. “Wow—how about that!” He looked down at the child, and had to smile at the blue eyes that gazed at him solemnly from a fat, dusky face. He laughed. “Well, I’ll be dipped, Chris, if you ain’t got yourself one fine boy! What’s his name?”

“Dove named him Sky Blue Eyes—but I just call him Sky.” He touched the baby’s fat cheeks with a finger, adding, “Never thought I’d be one of those daddies that get silly over a baby, but...” His eyes twinkled.

Dove said something in Sioux, and Christmas chuckled. “She wants to know if you’ve got a wife. These Indian women get right down to basics fast.”

“Tell her if she’s got any sisters pretty as she is, I’m available,” Knox replied with a grin at Dove.

Chris interpreted, and the tense look on Dove’s face left. A smile curved her lips, and she reached for the baby as Chris announced, “Time for you to meet my people.” One by one he named the solemn men who had dismounted and stood in a semicircle around them. “It’ll take you a while to get to know them all, Knox. Guess you think like I did once—that all Indians look alike.”

“I reckon they think we all look alike, Chris.” He contemplated the silent stares of the Indians. “Well, we got nothing fancy to offer y’all, but we’ve got plenty of meat, so let’s get the cooks cookin’.”

Knox spoke to the Mandans, who had been watching the armed Sioux nervously, and soon they were scurrying around building cooking fires. The Sioux women began cutting elk, deer, and buffalo steaks and roasting them over the fires. They laughed and chattered loudly, excited over the pewter spoons and ladles—things they had never seen before.

When the men sat down to eat, Knox seated himself beside Chris in the midst of a circle of Sioux warriors who were relaxing and laughing as they ate. Knox told Chris about his trip home, making it plain that their parents were ready to welcome Dove and the baby.

Chris listened without comment as he ate, until Knox had finished speaking. “I figured they’d take it like that, Knox, though I don’t imagine everybody would.” Subtly shifting the subject, he asked, “How about Brother Greene and his family?”

“Why, fine as silk—except for Miz Greene. She’s expecting again, and Dan told me she’s not doing well.” Then Knox’s face lit up, and he slapped his leg and laughed. “That little girl—Missy, is it?—is a caution! She loved the moccasins you sent, and wears that pearl you gave her around her neck.” He looked over at the pearl that adorned Dove’s finger and said, “I see where the other one went.”

“I had it made into a ring for her,” Chris smiled. “Made it too small, so Dove can’t get it off—but she claims she would never have taken it off anyway.” He smiled briefly at the thought of Missy, then grew sober. “But I’ll never go back, Knox. No way at all—so don’t build the folks’ hopes up.”

“Guess they know that already—but Mother, she’s set her foot down like she does sometimes when she gets a notion in her head. Told Father she’s comin’ to the mountains to see her grandchild if she has to paddle up the Missouri by
herself. I think Father was hopin’ you’d make the trip just to spare her.”

Chris looked down at his hands for a long time. He had, Knox realized, taken on the ways of the Indians at times like this.
He doesn’t want me to see what he’s thinkin’.
They sat like that for a time, each absorbed in his own thoughts. Knox shifted uneasily; there was something more he had to say to his brother, but he was not sure how Chris would respond. Chris looked up and noted his brother’s discomfort. “What’s gnawing on you, Knox?”

“Now don’t get your hackles up, Chris. I been wonderin’ about—well, about what you’re going to do about God.” Knox raised his hands hurriedly as if to defend himself. “Reason I asked—I been having a pretty hard time myself the last few years. I’d seen hypocrites like Miz Simms that gave me lots of doubts. Pretty soon I gave up... figured it was no use... I guess I lived pretty bad the last few years.” His voice trailed off as he brushed his hair back from his forehead and stared off into the distance, struggling to find words.

“Then there’s people like Grandfather and our folks, and the Greenes—I could tell what they had was real. Well, while I was home this time, I talked to Mother about it, and she helped me see it. And this time when I prayed, God was real inside me, too. I found Him in a way I never had before—and I haven’t been the same since.”

“I’m glad for you, Knox.” He looked up sharply. Chris had a curious look on his face; his eyes were warm, but there was a familiar stubborn set to his lips. “Maybe religion works for some and not for others. It’s not for me, Knox, and that’s all there is to it.”

Knox said no more; he knew it would do no good. Still, it saddened him to hear Chris’s answer, knowing how much it would have pained his parents had they been there to hear it.

Later that night, there was a tribal meeting in the open space in front of the trading post, and for the first time Knox smoked an Indian pipe. At one point in the ceremony Four
Dog spoke up, and although Knox didn’t know what he was saying, the tone of the man’s voice made it clear that it was something serious. The stocky Indian’s face was grim and there was a light of anger in his black eyes.

Chris said, “He says it’s not good for you to trade with the Pawnees.”

“What should we do, Chris?”

“Better not trade with the Pawnees, I reckon.”

“Red Ghost—he bad medicine,” Running Wolf said in English. He had been following the talk as closely as he could, and now he shook his head and scowled. “He make vow, kill Bear Killer.”

“What for?” Knox asked.

“I killed his son on a raid,” Chris explained. “Now he’s got to kill me to save face—though the Pawnees don’t really need an excuse for fighting the Sioux. Red Ghost is pretty shrewd. He’s using this to get his braves all worked up. Sent word to Running Wolf that if he’d hand me over to the Pawnees, Red Ghost would make peace.”

Knox looked around at the hard faces of the Sioux, swallowed and inquired nervously, “Don’t it worry you any, Chris—that they might do it?”

“They’re my in-laws, Knox—and family means a lot to them. And the Sioux know Red Ghost wouldn’t stick to his word. He’d carve me up, then find another reason to fight the Sioux.”

Knox shook his head, worry clouding his eyes. “Wish you’d stay here with me, Chris. Hate to think of you getting scalped out there.”

Chris looked across to where White Dove sat with her back to the wall, nursing Sky. “No way to stay safe in this world, Knox. A Pawnee arrow in your liver out here, or getting cholera in Kentucky—it’s all the same in the end.”

Knox said no more, for he knew it was no use to argue with the dark streak of fatalism that ran through Chris.

The next day the trading took place, and although the
Sioux grumbled when they got no whiskey, most of them were pleased with the useful goods they received in exchange for the beaver pelts. They stayed the rest of the day and camped again that night; this time their meeting did not include Knox.

Chris came in later, and there was a sober look on his face. “What’s wrong?” Knox asked.

“Some of the young bucks want to raid the Pawnees’ camp. Four Dog doesn’t like it, but a war chief don’t last long unless he gets plunder pretty regular. I’ll have to go along, Knox.”

“Do you have to go?”

“No choice,” Chris shrugged. “I’m hoping we’ll be able to hit the camp by surprise and get away with a few horses. Be all right to leave the women here? We’ll pick them up on the way back to the village.”

“Sure.”

In less than an hour the war party was assembled. Just outside the fort, Chris stood beside Dove, saying, “Take care of Sky. I’ll be back with a pony for him.”

She lifted her face for his kiss, holding the baby up to him to be kissed as well. “Be careful. Don’t try to count coup on Red Ghost.”

Counting coup was an old Sioux custom by which many warriors lost their lives. It involved getting close enough to your enemy to touch him without killing him.

“Don’t worry,” he smiled down at her. “That’s one mean Pawnee. If I catch a glimpse of that Indian’s feathers, I’ll show him how fast a white man can run.” He kissed her again, then whispered in her ear, “Please... don’t worry.”

“I will wait for you.” He turned and sprang onto the horse Sixkiller was holding for him. The warriors rode out, painted for war, while Knox stood beside Dove, watching them.
Hate to meet up with that bunch,
he thought.

The Pawnee camp was thirty miles away; Four Dog planned it so they would not get there until after dusk the next day. Cautiously, the war chief sent flankers out to be sure they
were not seen, and when the group arrived at twilight they dismounted—leaving two braves behind to hold the horses.

After a long, careful stalk in darkness, they were caught off guard when they discovered that the camp had been moved recently.

“Not here!” Four Dog grunted in disgust. “We must wait till morning to find a sign.”

“I don’t like it,” Running Wolf said quickly. “This is their ground. They may be setting a trap.”

There was a long argument; the younger braves were impatient to follow the Pawnees. At last Four Dog made his decision. “Not good to follow them now. Later we will find them.”

He led them back to the horses, and the warriors made a slow trip back to the post. The horses were tired, and they had to stop from time to time to rest them. It was after dawn the following day when they came out of the thick wood that blanketed the post on the south. The sun glimmered in the east, and Chris dozed off as he rode.

“Bear Killer—look!”

He jerked awake to see where Four Dog was pointing. An ominous column of smoke was rising into the sky. “That’s the post!”

Frantically they dug their heels into the sides of their horses, spurring them to a run and sweeping along the edge of the woods. As soon as they wheeled their horses around the outcropping of sandstone that hid the post, they knew the worst.

The gates of the fence hung crazily on their hinges. Inside, the building was a blackened skeleton gutted by fire. The still figures on the ground enveloped Chris with fear as he fell off his horse and ran across the yard. The first body was just inside the wall. It had been scalped and riddled with a knife, but Chris knew who it was. Chris had known Curley well—the Mandan had been with him on his journey with Con and Frenchie. He gave the body a quick glance, and the
horror mounted inside him as he noted the other bodies—all Mandans. Trying not to panic, he pressed in, calling for Dove.

An Indian woman lay across the threshold of the gutted building. Running to turn the body over, he was only slightly relieved. It was Little Fox, the wife of Four Dog.

He heard a faint cry, and his eyes flew in the direction of the sound. There was a figure slumped against the log wall. “Knox!” he cried, and picked his way across the corpse-littered ground as fast as he could to reach his brother.

Knox was tied to the wall with rawhide thongs. He’d been scalped and his eyes were filled with blood. There were four arrows protruding from his stomach, but he was alive.

Whipping out his knife, Christmas cut the thongs and lowered him gently to the ground. He wiped the blood from Knox’s eyes, which fluttered open. “Glad... you made it... Chris,” Knox whispered.

“Oh, Knox!” Chris’s head whirled as if the earth had spun upside down. He could not think and he was trembling terribly.

“Red Ghost... came at... night.”

“Where’s Dove and Sky?”

“Took them. Said if you... want them... come... take them.”

The blood seeped into Knox’s eyes again, and as Chris wiped it away, he heard the cries of grief and outrage that rose as men found the bodies of their wives. He looked up to see Running Wolf and Four Dog staring down at Knox. Their faces were contorted with hatred.