Demon's Pass (11 page)

“Now, put the teepee up,” Moon Cow Woman said.

Elizabeth unpacked the bundle, and, remembering what she had seen, began erecting the teepee. She put up the tripod, then the poles, and finally put the teepee cover in place. When it was all pegged down around the sides and held closed with the lodge pins, she looked at Moon Cow Woman, who smiled proudly.

“I did it!” she said.

“It is wrong,” Moon Cow Woman said.

“Wrong? What's wrong with it?” Elizabeth asked.

“Where does sun come up?”

“In the east, of course. What does that have to do with it?”

“The sun comes up there, over that mountain,” Moon Cow Woman said, pointing to the east. “The teepee must always open to the direction of the morning sun.”

Elizabeth glanced over toward the other teepees and hogans in the village, and only then did she notice that Moon Cow Woman was correct. Every door in the village was facing east.

“Very well,” Elizabeth said. “I shall change it.”

Patiently, Elizabeth pulled up all the ground pegs, then she took the lifting poles and hoisted the cover around until the door opening was facing east. After that she repositioned the smoke flaps. Finally she looked toward Moon Cow Woman with a hopeful glance.

“It is good,” Moon Cow Woman said. “You will live here until you are married.” Moon Cow Woman turned and started to walk back to her own hogan.

“Thank you for helping me,” Elizabeth said. As she turned back toward the teepee which was now hers, she caught the smell of roasting meat, and suddenly realized that she was hungry.

“Moon Cow Woman, wait!” she called.

The old native woman stopped and looked back toward her.

“Moon Cow Woman . . . I have nothing to eat.”

“Until you are married, it is for Elk Heart to feed you,” Moon Cow Woman said.

“Elk Heart?”

“It was Elk Heart who killed those who were feeding you,” Moon Cow Woman explained. “It is now for him to feed you.”

“Oh, great,” Elizabeth said sarcastically. “If I have to depend on him, I'll probably starve to death.”

Moon Cow Woman turned without another word and started back toward her hogan. Elizabeth watched her for a few moments, then she looked down toward the stream. She squared her shoulders. Surely there were fish there.

Elizabeth walked down to the stream and stood on the bank, looking into the water. After a few moments she saw flashes of silver—trout darting around the rocks, and swimming swiftly through the icy water. Yes, she thought. The trout would make a fine meal. All she had to do now was catch one.

As Elizabeth stood on the bank of the stream looking down at the trout, trying to figure out how to catch a fish, Elk Heart approached the stream from the other side. He was mounted on his horse and he was riding backward. He swung down from his horse and, walking backward, splashed across the stream. He was carrying two rabbits.

“Elk Heart,” Elizabeth said. “I wasn't sure you would come back. You were so angry. I thought I would never say it, but you are a welcome sight, especially with the rabbits.”

“These are not for you,” Elk Heart said, handing the rabbits to her.

“What?”

“These are not for you!” he said again, more impatiently. Again, he handed the rabbits to her.

“Then why are you handing them to me?”

“Do not take them.”

“All right, I won't,” Elizabeth said, putting her hands behind her back.

“Do not take them!” Elk Heart said again, louder than before.

“Take them, Sun's Light,” a voice said, and Elizabeth saw a young boy of about fourteen.

“I don't understand,” Elizabeth said. “He says don't take them, but he keeps handing them to me.”

“He is a contraire,” the young boy explained. “He does everything backward.”

“Oh,” Elizabeth said, reaching for the rabbits. “Oh, yes, I remember now.” As soon as Elizabeth took the rabbits, Elk Heart smiled, and backed across the stream to his horse.

“Will you eat some of the rabbit?” Elizabeth called to him.

“Yes,” Elk Heart said.

“Yes? But that means no, doesn't it?”

“No,” Elk Heart said. He climbed onto his horse, slapped his legs against the animal's side and the horse started away with Elk Heart hanging on, still riding backward.

“Heavens will he be like that for the rest of his life?”

“No. First, he will go crazy in the head, then he will do something bad,” the boy said, matter-of-factly. Smiling, he pointed to the rabbit. “I would eat some of the rabbit if you will have me.”

Elizabeth smiled at the young Indian. “Of course I will have you,” she said. “What is your name?”

“Running Rabbit,” the young Indian said.

“Well, Running Rabbit, let us hope that neither of these rabbits is your relative,” she teased.

“All animals are the relatives of all Cheyenne,” Running Rabbit said seriously. He looked around. “You do not have a fire?”

“No,” Elizabeth said. “And I'm not sure I can even get one started.”

“You gather wood,” Running Rabbit said. “I will bring fire.”

Elizabeth decided to take help when and where she could find it, so she gathered the wood and made a pile in front of the teepee. Running Rabbit returned a few moments later with a burning brand, and he used it to start a fire.

A short time later the rabbits were spitted, and turning slowly over the fire. The aroma of their cooking soon mingled with those of the other fires in the camp.

That night Elizabeth spent the first night in her own teepee. The night was chilly and she shivered with the cold until Running Rabbit came into the teepee and, without waking her, covered her with a blanket.

 

In her dreams, it wasn't Running Rabbit who covered her. It was her mother, and it wasn't a blanket, it was a beautiful patchwork quilt.

 

When Elizabeth awoke the next morning, she pulled the quilt lovingly around her, before realizing that it was just a simple woven blanket. She allowed herself a few moments of sorrow as she thought about her mother, and the tragedy that befell the family.

Then, she put such thoughts out of her mind. She could not change the past. Her only hope for survival was to adapt to the present, which she intended to do. She looked at the blanket in wonderment, thinking that someone must have brought it to her during the night.

As she was contemplating the blanket, she heard someone calling from outside the teepee.

“Ho, Sun's Light! Come outside.”

Elizabeth stepped outside. The village was silent with sleep. It was still very early in the morning, so early that the sun was burning deep red, and the mist upon the valley had not yet burned away. There was dew sparkling on the grass in all the colors of the rainbow. There, standing before her teepee, holding the reins of a horse, stood Brave Eagle.

“I bring you this gift from Two Ponies,” Brave Eagle said. He handed the reins to Elizabeth.

“A horse?” Elizabeth said. “You mean I am to have my own horse?”

“It is your wedding gift.”

Elizabeth walked up to the animal and patted it affectionately. “Oh, it's beautiful,” she said. “‘I've never had a horse.”

“It is the swiftest of all Two Ponies' mounts,” Brave Eagle said. “He honors you with such a gift.”

“Tell Two Ponies I am greatly pleased by his wonderful gift,” Elizabeth said.

Brave Eagle said nothing. He just mounted his own horse and started riding back through the early morning quiet of the village.

Elizabeth stood, petting the animal for several moments, talking to him softly, looking down beyond the stream to the rolling prairie which stretched out, endlessly, before her.

Somewhere out there was Oregon, the destination of her parents.

Somewhere out there, too, was the world she had known before entering this world.

Somewhere out there was freedom.

Then, with absolutely no thought or prior planning, Elizabeth decided to leave. She climbed onto the back of the horse, and moving quietly, rode him across the stream away from the village.

As soon as she was far enough away from the village not to be heard, she slapped her legs against the side of her horse to start him running.

“Go, horse, go!” she urged.

The horse burst forward like a cannonball, reaching incredible speed almost immediately. Elizabeth bent low over the pony's neck, holding on tightly, laughing into the rush of wind with the pure thrill of the run and exaltation of the escape. For a moment, she felt as if she and the horse between her legs were one, sharing the same flexing muscles and pounding bloodstream. The horse's hooves kicked up little spurts of dust behind him as he galloped across the plains. Brave Eagle had said this was the swiftest of all Two Ponies' horses, and as she slapped her legs against its side, she believed him. She pushed the horse on, faster and faster, until she had the dizzying sensation that she was going to fly!

Suddenly, and seemingly from out of nowhere, Brave Eagle appeared in front of her. He rode out from behind a rise of ground, and Elizabeth's horse, startled by him, stopped and reared up. Elizabeth slid off the horse's back, falling painfully to the ground.

“What the devil!” she called. “What are you doing here?” She got up and began dusting herself off, thankful that she wasn't hurt. The horse she had been riding turned and ran back into the village without her.

“Where do you go?” Brave Eagle asked.

“Where do I go? I go away from here, that's where!” Elizabeth answered angrily.

“No. You must return to the village.”

“Oh, please, let me go, won't you? I won't cause anyone any harm. I just want to go back to my own people. Let me do that, and you'll never see me or hear of me again.”

“I cannot do that,” Brave Eagle said. “Today you must become the wife of Two Ponies.”

“I do not want to become the wife of Two Ponies. Can you understand that?”

“No,” Brave Eagle answered. “I cannot understand. You went before the council to ask to be the wife of Two Ponies. Why is it that you no longer want to marry him?”

“I never wanted to marry him,” Elizabeth insisted. “I only did that to get away from Elk Heart, Kicking Horse . . . and to get away from you,” she concluded. “I assure you, I have no desire to marry Two Ponies, nor anyone else. Now please, can't you see it would be better for everyone if you just let me go?”

Brave Eagle reached down and grasped Elizabeth by the upper arm, then lifted her onto his horse in front of him. He had incredible strength, and he picked her up as easily as if she had been a child.

“Come,” he said, as if tired of the discussion. “We will go back to the village and find your horse. Do not try to leave again. I will not speak of your foolishness to anyone—this time.”

“I hate you,” Elizabeth said. “I hate all of you, and I want to go back to my own people.” She began to cry, and all her pent-up emotions since her capture—fear, heartbreak, grief over the death of her mother, father, and brother, anger, humiliation, and frustration—all burst forth in bitter sobs of anguish.

“We will stay here until all your tears are gone,” Brave Eagle said easily.

Elizabeth could not help but wonder if she would ever leave this place . . . or ever see her own people again.

 

 

Arnold Fenton relieved himself.

“Damn, ain't you got no more manners than to piss where we live?” one of the others asked.

“We ain't livin' here, we're just campin' here,” Fenton replied as he aimed toward a grasshopper. He laughed as the grasshopper, caught in the sudden stream, darted away.

“Well, it's where we are livin' now, so don't be pissin' here anymore. Next time you have to shake the lily, go some'ers else to do it.”

The man lodging the complaint was lean as rawhide. He had a thin face, a hawklike nose, and gray eyes. His name was Shardeen, but nobody knew if that was his first name or his last.

“I reckon I'll piss about anywhere I want to,” Fenton said with a growl. He looked around at Shardeen, and the three other men who were with him. “And there ain't no little dried up toad of a man like you goin' to stop me,” he added.

“I've already stopped you,” Shardeen answered. “Don't do it again.”

Fenton laughed at the audacity of this small man with the big mouth. He started toward him.

“How the hell do you plan to stop me, little man?”

In a blink, Shardeen pulled his pistol. “If you do it again, I'll shoot your pecker off,” he said easily.

Fenton stopped in his tracks. Most men, especially someone the size of Shardeen, would quake in their boots around Fenton, but clearly Shardeen wasn't intimidated by him. In fact, Shardeen was, and had been, contemptuous of Fenton almost from the moment they had met. There was no mystery to it. Shardeen had the reputation of being someone who was particularly skilled with a pistol. That skill freed him from any fear of Fenton's size or strength. In Shardeen's hands the Colt revolver really was what men called it: an equalizer.