Apache Protectors: Running Wolf Part 22

Ebbing Water dropped a skinning knife among them. "To cut your hair. Do not cut her throat or we will kill you all."

She left them and there was silence as they all stared at the knife.

"How will they do it?" asked Little Deer, her voice a mere whisper.

"Suffocate her in the skin with him."

Raven blinked at the harshness of her words and felt light-headed. She reached out a hand to steady herself.

Mouse grasped the knife and lifted it toward Raven. She took a hank of Raven's long thick hair.

"What are you doing?" she asked. Her vision was double now and she felt dizzier.

Mouse sliced Raven's hair so it fell even with her chin.

"What?" Raven tried to push Mouse's arm away but her movements were clumsy.

"It's working," said Little Deer.

The other women stared at her like a nest of owls.

"What?" Raven found her words slurred.

"Sleeping draft," said Mouse.

Raven blinked. Was this to ease her death? So she would be asleep when they blocked the air from her lungs?

"But...sh-she drank." Raven tried to point at Little Deer but her arm was too heavy.

"She only pretended," said Snake.

"Strip her out of that," said Mouse.

They quickly pulled Raven's dress over her head, and when they had finished she sagged. Wren held her upright but Raven's eyelids were so heavy.

Only when Mouse removed her own dress did it occur to Raven what was happening. She struggled to keep her eyes open.

"No," she whispered. They ignored her and easily managed to get Mouse's clothing on to her, dressing her as if she was a child's leather doll.

Raven watched in horror as Mouse let loose one side braid after another, raking her fingers through her long thick hair. Snake then took over. When she had finished with Mouse, she had two thin braids at each temple in the unique style Raven wore her hair. Little Deer removed the feather from Snow Raven's hair and tied it into Mouse's.

Snake sliced off the rest of Raven's hair and then did the others'. They painted their faces and arms black. Raven tried and failed to avoid Little Deer's quick strokes as she rubbed the charcoal paint onto Raven's face.

"Help me," said Mouse.

Raven saw that Mouse had already coated her hair, face and arms with the ghostly white paint.

But that was for her, thought Raven.

Wren used the black to create a bear's paw on Mouse's hands and feet. Then she added one more to her cheek. The effect was chilling. With the paint and her hair now in the style distinct to Snow Raven, it was impossible to see this was Mouse.

"Do I look like her?" asked Mouse.

"You do," whispered Little Deer.

"Good." She smiled at Raven. "Do not mourn me, my friend, for I go to see my husband and son. I made no bargain, so Iron Bear will have no servant in the Spirit World."

They all gasped at the mention of the dead.

"What?" Mouse tossed her head in defiance. "Do you think one ghost can haunt another? Soon I will be past his reach and theirs." She pointed toward the door.

Then she turned to Raven.

"You have shown me how to be a warrior. Now it is my turn."

Raven opened her mouth but no words would come. She stared at Mouse, her teeth now as white as the death mask that covered her face. The bear paw drawn on her face began to move, widen, until it was a great yawning hole and Raven fell into blackness.

Chapter Twenty-One.

Big Thunder returned after sunset to find that Running Wolf had escaped from his bonds and was just emerging from his lodge. Around one wrist dangled the remains of the braided leather rope Big Thunder had used to secure him. In his fist he held the handle to the war club his friend had used to knock him unconscious.

"I should have staked you to the ground," said Big Thunder.

"Out of my way." Running Wolf raised the club to strike but Big Thunder moved back.

"It's too late. She is gone."

Running Wolf broke into a sprint.

He reached the lodge of the chief to find the flap down and Laughing Moon sitting before the entrance. No one, not even a wife, would sleep in the lodge of the dead. At a glance he saw that Laughing Moon had not yet cut her hair or painted her face black. That meant she still had duties to perform.

"Where is she?" he asked.

Laughing Moon's gaze moved from him to the lodge. "There."

He opened the flap and looked inside. He saw Iron Bear first. He lay on his back in his war shirt, his body unnaturally still. Beside him lay his weapons and pipe. He was already half sewn into the buffalo robe that would protect his body from attack by predators of the air. None of the birds could puncture the hide of a buffalo, and the ground predators could not jump high enough to reach the scaffold.

Running Wolf's gaze flicked across the fire to the second body. She lay inside a second robe, sewn up to her neck, the flap down to reveal her face. Her face had been painted white and the symbol of the bear covered one cheek. Her eyes were closed, but her mouth was open and her tongue swollen and black.

They had strangled her.

Rage filled him. Who had done this?

But he already knew. Red Hawk would have volunteered. Running Wolf felt the need to put his own hands about the warrior's neck and squeeze until his tongue bulged.

Running Wolf looked at her long hair now covered in white paint, the small braids at each temple neat and secured with the cord she always used.

"No," he whispered, and began to crawl inside.

Someone grabbed him by the arm and tugged. He lifted his fist to strike and saw Weasel and Big Thunder. His friends. His friends who had let them do this and who had kept him from saving her.

"I will never forgive you," he said to them.

"I hope you have many years to hold your anger, for I would have you angry and alive," said Big Thunder.

"The captives are waiting," said Weasel.

"Captives?" He did not know what Weasel was talking about; he could not think past the black rage before his eyes and hollow emptiness in his chest.

"Iron Bear agreed to free them and a.s.signed you to lead them home."

He remembered now. The reason Raven had traded her life was to save them, her tribe. She had acted like a warrior and true leader. She had given everything to free them.

The least he could do was see them home.

"We will go with you," said Crazy Riding.

"No," he said. "I will go nowhere with you."

"But you will take them?" asked Weasel.

He nodded. "First, I tell my mother goodbye."

Running Wolf walked on legs of wood across the camp. He felt the silent stares of the people. He did not speak or look at them. They were dead to him. He had made his choice. He had wanted her and they had taken her because she had a warrior's heart.

At his mother's lodge he collected his weapons, bridle, saddle and food supplies. Ebbing Water appeared from the river. Running Wolf saw that tonight she had to carry her own water.

"I am going," he said.

"Yes. Be careful of the Crow. As soon as you sight them, let the women go and you ride swiftly home."

"I am not coming back."

"After your vision quest. After that you can return. You can rise as a great leader, just as you were destined."

"I am not coming back."

"But you are my only son. What will I do without you?"

"Marry again, Mother. It is that or become like Pretty Cloud. You are not too old to have more children. You have kept my father's memory alive too long. You filled my heart with your hate and it has cost me all."

"I am still here. I still love you."

"You did not love me enough to help me keep her."

"Because she tried to take you from me," cried his mother, and she fell to her knees. "Do not leave me."

"I go. You will not see me again." He swung the saddle frame over one shoulder and went to the herd to select from his mounts. He chose his horses, including Eclipse, his warhorse, and Song, the horse of the bravest warrior he had ever known.

He rested his forehead on the large flat cheek of her mare.

"She is gone, my friend." His voice cracked and he thought he would cry, but then he saw the people gathering, watching him in silence as he prepared his horses.

Big Thunder fixed a travois behind the last of the line. The two long poles were attached by harnesses to either side and crossed above the animal's withers. The two beams were roped together behind the horse, making a platform long enough to carry household goods, children or in this case the one captive who was so ill she could not walk or sit upon a horse.

Mouse, he knew, was dying. Yet somehow she survived, while his Raven was flying to the Spirit World.

Weasel began to saddle Eclipse.

"No," said Running Wolf. "I ride this one." He pointed to her horse.

Weasel hesitated and then moved the pad and saddle. Others joined in. Soon they had six horses, including the one dragging the travois and one packed with robes and a lodge. He was ready for a journey with four captives and an infant.

They came in a line, three walking, one limp body carried by two men. Each woman's face had been blackened to honor the chief, but in his mind they honored Snow Raven.

The ill woman was placed on the travois and tied down so she would not tumble from the platform as it bounced over uneven ground. He barely looked as the women were a.s.sisted into place upon the horses. The one with the infant removed the cradle board from her back and hung the strap over the pommel of the saddle. Her baby's face was also black, though he seemed to be sleeping. The walking horse would rock him as they journeyed from this place.

He looked to the scaffold on the hill, empty now, but soon she would rest beside their chief.

"They are ready," said Big Thunder.

"And I am ready."

"Until we meet again," said Big Thunder.

Running Wolf nodded and pressed his heels to his horse. The women followed, some leading their horses, some riding. He did not look back.

He walked her horse up the rise toward the scaffold and paused to take in the sight, memorizing this place, promising to come back for her bones. He saw a horse lying beneath the scaffold, the creature's neck slit and the wound already buzzing with flies. The chief's buffalo horse, he knew.

Song caught the scent of death and shook her head in a restless bobbing motion. She was anxious to be gone from this place, and so was he.

Raven woke to the gentle rocking motion. She opened her eyes and saw that everything was black. Was she dead?

She looked for the Sky Road but this was not the sky before her eyes. The air was stuffy and smelled of tanned leather and buffalo. She had a powerful thirst.

She could not be dead if she was thirsty. What was that sound, that murmuring sound like the humming of bees over blossoms?

Snow Raven moved her head and felt a sharp pain behind her eyes. She closed them again and rode the wave of dizziness that followed. Better to drift back to silence than to suffer the thirst and the pain. She felt her body dissolving away as she floated up in the air like a speck of dust in the sun.

She woke again to the stifling heat, her face dripping with sweat and the sweltering shroud still covering her. She struggled and this time managed to toss away the buffalo robe covering her face. She lifted her hand to wipe the sweat from her forehead and it came away black.