Shaman Part 125

Elysee grunted. "Where was G.o.d when this happened?"

If Auguste were conscious, Nancy thought, he would be asking Earthmaker for help. In the camps of the British Band Nancy had never seen Auguste give up on a sick or wounded person. He had applied his remedies, gone into his trance, danced and chanted to summon the aid of his spirit helpers, wrestled with the hurt till either the man's soul left his body or the healing was well begun. At first his practices had seemed foolish and savage to her. But Auguste had done his work with such devotion that she came, watching him, to love him all the more. And, out of love, to respect what he did.

_But he's not the only one who practices that calling._

Maybe that was what he needed now. One of his own people to call on the spirits for him.

If only Auguste were awake, he could tell her what to do.

Redbird had helped Auguste with his work.

She remembered the last time she had seen Redbird, small, emaciated, holding the broken body of Floating Lily in her arms. Redbird was probably more in need of help than able to give it.

And yet, Nancy had seen that she had a marvelous knowledge of healing.

Besides, she had told Nancy that she wanted to be a shaman herself, like White Bear and Owl Carver.

It would be better to go to Redbird than sit here and watch Auguste die.

"I'm going to his people," Nancy said. "To find someone I think can help him."

"No Sauk will be willing to come here," said Frank. "Not after what these people did to them."

"This one will," said Nancy.

A heavy, cold rain drummed on the leather top of Nancy's buggy. Driven by a sergeant, the little carriage splashed into the Sauk camp that huddled beside the wooden walls of Fort Armstrong. A dozen peaked army tents, their grayish-white canvas sagging under the rain in a muddy field, were all Nancy could see. There were no people in sight. "I don't know how you're going to find anybody here, ma'am," said the sergeant.

Nancy judged him to be a few years older than she was. His name was Benson. He had tomato-red cheeks and a blond mustache so thick that it completely hid his mouth.

Dark faces started to appear at the tent flaps. She wanted to weep as she saw the misery of the women and children who slowly came out, some of them holding blankets over their heads, to stand in the mud and stare at her.

_Shouldn't I be glad to see the Sauk brought so low?_

Didn't she owe it to her father, Nancy asked herself, to rejoice in the fate of the people who had murdered him? And what about the horrid things they'd done to her? So proud they'd been, the yellow-and-red-streaked faces, the feathers in their hair, the day Wolf Paw led them to burn and kill at Victor. Now they huddled, what was left of them, in the rain in a muddy field in tattered army tents.

But she felt no pleasure seeing the Sauk in final defeat. Through Auguste, they had become her people.

She felt suddenly uncomfortable sitting in the shelter of the buggy's top, staring down at the sodden figures in the rain. If they could stand in the rain, she decided, she could too. She jumped down.

"Ma'am!" the sergeant called, sounding alarmed. But he made no move to follow.

In an instant her bonnet, her shawl, her dress, were all sopping. But she didn't care, because the people she was looking at were soaked too.

She looked for familiar faces. The people standing before her seemed made of mud. From head to foot they were a dull brown color.

"It is Yellow Hair!" She understood the Sauk words and looked around to see who had spoken, but all she saw were black eyes wide with sudden fear. Of course they all remembered her as the pale eyes woman who had been kidnapped and nearly killed, and who had escaped. They must think she had come to accuse and punish.

Yes, now that they knew her, they were backing away, ducking into their tents.

"No--wait--" Nancy cried. She wanted to tell them not to be afraid, but didn't know how. Redbird was the only one she could talk to. And _fear_ was not a word Redbird had taught her.

A man was standing in front of her. His eyes were empty, his face thin and dirty. He seemed familiar. He held out his hands. He seemed to be saying, "Here I am. Take me."

All at once Nancy recognized Wolf Paw.

His hair had grown out, hanging down in short black strands all around his head. But at last she recognized that n.o.ble face that--much though she'd hated him at first--had always reminded her of the engravings she'd seen of Roman statues.

She understood what he was trying to tell her. If she'd come to find the murderer of her father, the man who had kidnapped her, here he was. He was at her mercy.

He seemed to have lost everything else, she thought, but not his courage.

"Is that Injun threatening you, ma'am?" called the sergeant from the shelter of the buggy.

"Not at all," she said, and smiled at Wolf Paw. She felt heartsick to see how the splendid warrior had declined into a shabby spectre.

She tried to tell Wolf Paw, in the mixture of Sauk, English and gesture that she had used with Redbird, that she had not come here to avenge herself on him, that all she wanted was to find Redbird.

But then Redbird was standing before her.

Like Wolf Paw, she had changed so much that for a moment Nancy wasn't sure this _was_ Redbird. She was as thin as a fence rail, and those colorful things Nancy remembered her wearing, the feathers and beads, the dyed quills, the painted figures on her dress, all were gone. She clutched a coa.r.s.e brown blanket around her shoulders. Her head was bare.

Water dripped from the fringe of hair across her forehead and poured from her braids. She wore, not the doeskin clothing Nancy remembered, but a torn gray cotton dress that was too big for her and dirty around the bottom edge. Looking down, Nancy saw that Redbird's feet were bare, her toes sinking into the mud.

Nancy felt warm tears mingling with the cold rain on her face as she saw Redbird smiling at her.

"Redbird, I am glad to see my sister," Nancy said in their special language. "Where is your wickiup?"

Redbird spoke to Wolf Paw in Sauk words too low and rapid for Nancy to follow. He grunted a.s.sent and trudged through the mud toward a distant tent. Watching him, Nancy felt pity at his rounded shoulders and old man's shuffle.

Redbird beckoned Nancy to follow her to the tent she'd come from.

"Where you going, ma'am?" the sergeant called.

"I'll be all right," Nancy called over her shoulder, raising her voice over the drumming of the rain. "This is the woman I came to find."

She could see the young soldier shaking his head. Why would a young white woman go into the filthy, disease-ridden tents of these Indians?

_May the Lord open his eyes and heart._

At first the inside of the tent seemed black as a moonless night to Nancy, and the smell of damp, unwashed bodies made her stomach churn.

She took Redbird's hand and held it for rea.s.surance. Not too tightly; the bones felt delicate.

Redbird explained that they had no dry wood for a fire. The long knives had promised to bring them some, but they hadn't yet. The air was as chill in the tent as it was outside, and Nancy heard women and children coughing.

They sat in silence for a time, Sauk fashion. Nancy's eyes adjusted to the dim light filtering through the canvas till she could see Redbird's face. She saw Eagle Feather looking at her out of the shadows with huge blue eyes, a little skeleton whose covering of skin looked like stretched brown leather. Hurting inside, she greeted him with a pat on the arm. If only she could do for him what she had done for Woodrow. Now she could see four other women and two little girls huddled together near the rear.

Nancy broke the silence. "Redbird, White Bear needs you."

Wincing in pain, Redbird narrowed her slanting eyes. She asked what had happened to White Bear.

Redbird, Nancy learned, had heard no news of Auguste since the day he left Black Hawk's camp to take Woodrow and Nancy back to the whites.