Shaman Part 63

He ran.

He threw all the strength in his legs into a sudden spring, away from the distracted long knives. He dove into the gra.s.s, running away from the river; opposite the way Three Horses had gone. With his arms behind him, he ran with his head and shoulders thrust forward. The gra.s.ses and tall plants slapped his face. His feet pounded the earth. His legs pumped furiously. His breath roared in his chest. His heart thundered.

"Hey, the other Injun's gettin' away!"

"G.o.dd.a.m.n it, _get_ him!" Raoul's voice, shrill with wild rage.

White Bear's moccasined feet seemed to be flying over the ground. He felt the Bear spirit giving him strength. A curtain of prairie gra.s.s fell away ahead of him and swished shut behind him. Even the gra.s.s was helping. It was almost high enough to hide him as he ran in a crouch, as his bound wrists forced him to do.

He was already deep into the prairie when he heard the calm voice of Eli Greenglove cutting through the cool, clear air.

"Hold your fire, everybody. He's mine. Got a bead on him."

A moment later lightning struck the side of White Bear's head, sudden and stunning. He heard the rifle's roar just an instant after the bullet hit him. It struck so hard, it left him no strength to scream. His right ear felt as if it had been torn away from his skull. A blaze of agony blinded him. He staggered.

But he was alive.

_Play dead!_

It was the same voice in his mind that had told him to run. Now he was sure it was the Bear spirit.

He shut his eyes, threw himself at once to the ground. The earth came up and hit him in the face as hard as a fist in the jaw. Stunned for a moment, he sucked air into his chest and let it out slowly. He lay perfectly still. His ear felt as if someone had laid a burning torch on it.

"Got the sonofab.i.t.c.h," came Eli Greenglove's flat voice from only a short distance away.

But he was still alive. And no one was shooting at him. His body went limp with relief.

He could not believe that he was still alive and conscious.

_Maybe I am dead. Maybe my spirit will stand up in a moment and start walking west._

Greenglove was supposed to be the best shot in Smith County. Could he really mistakenly think he hit White Bear square in the head? His eyes were better than that.

White Bear heard distant shots.

_Earthmaker, let Three Horses live!_

If Three Horses had not run when he did, White Bear would not be alive now. But White Bear remembered with anguish that he had seen Little Crow die.

_Oh, my brother!_ Even though half dead with pain and terror himself, he mourned the brave who had died before his eyes.

Blood pounded in White Bear's head. Night was growing steadily deeper.

By not moving and by taking only the tiniest breaths he might appear to be dead. He lay with his mutilated right ear uppermost. He felt streams of blood running like lines of ants over his scalp and his cheek. They tickled his neck. To lie perfectly still was agony.

White Bear heard Raoul's voice say, "Make sure of him, Eli."

"d.a.m.n h.e.l.lfire nation!" Eli came back. "Don't I know when I've put a man under?"

"It's dark and you've had a lot of whiskey. Make sure of him."

"Pure waste of time," said Greenglove.

White Bear heard footsteps rustling through the gra.s.s toward him. The effort of keeping himself from moving threatened to tear his muscles from his bones. His heart beat harder as the steps came closer. Surely Greenglove could hear its thudding. But he froze himself and held his breath as the feet stopped beside him. In stillness was his only hope.

The pain throbbed in his ear.

_He'll see that he just hit my ear, and that will be the end._

Should he jump up and run for it? No, Greenglove would not miss a second time. Let the Bear spirit dim Greenglove's sharp eyes. Let him be deceived into thinking White Bear dead. There was no other way he could escape.

He waited for the shot that would smash into his brain.

"Right through the skull," Greenglove called out. "Ain't even enough left to scalp him."

Amazement flooded through White Bear. That couldn't be what Greenglove saw. Unless he was blind drunk. Or blinded by the Bear.

_Or he doesn't want to kill me._

Hadn't he tried to talk Raoul out of shooting the three of them?

White Bear remembered Greenglove swinging the rifle at him the day of his father's funeral. If Greenglove hadn't knocked him out, Raoul would have shot him.

He was too frightened to try to understand it. He was alive, that was all he could be sure of. Alive for a little while longer.

"He's in the happy hunting ground." Greenglove's voice faded a little as he walked away. "Want us to dig a hole for him?"

"We don't bury dead Indians," said Raoul. "Let them rot. Let the buzzards get fat on them." He raised his voice. "Every man mount up and chase the ones there in the woods across the creek. This may be our chance to finish Black Hawk."

"What happened to that other Injun that ran away?" Greenglove asked.

"We got him," a militiaman said. "He made it almost to the river. But he's got enough lead in him now to start his own mine."

Grief filled White Bear's motionless body. Little Crow and Three Horses, both killed. Three Horses' death had given him back his life. Three Horses, the first Sauk to greet him on his return to the tribe. His two comrades surely deserved to escape death as much as he did. Why had he alone been spared? He wanted to cry out, as sorrow for his fallen comrades tore into him, but he drew in his lower lip. He bit down on it hard, clenching his teeth in his flesh until he felt no pain anywhere else, in mind or body.

_Good-bye, Three Horses. Good-bye, Little Crow. I will burn tobacco to the spirits for you._

Boots clumped through the prairie gra.s.s all around him. Hoof-beats pounded past him. He feared he would be trampled, and it took back-breaking effort to hold still. But the horses avoided his body.

Gradually the thundering pa.s.sage of Raoul's men died away to the north.

For a long time White Bear heard nothing but the creek rippling over its bed of stones, the wind in the trees, crickets buzzing on the prairie.

Tiny creatures tickled his flesh as they hurried over his face and body.

To them he had already become part of the earth.

The burning in his ear settled down to a numb ache.

He heard the crack of rifle shots a long way off. Raoul's men, pursuing Black Hawk's scouts. Must more of his brothers die tonight?