Savage Spirit (26 page)

Her smile faded. Always there was that fear nagging away at her consciousness that she might be as barren as Cloud Eagle's first wives. It was a thought almost as unbearable as recalling how it had felt to be shackled to the wall at the Englishman's outpost.  

The low beats of the
esadadnes,
the hoop drums, throbbed mystically in the early morning light. Alicia lay on her bed of furs beside the fire, Gray snuggled next to her. She awaited word that Cloud Eagle had finished preparing Red Crow's body for burial.

According to the Apache way, the preparing of the dead fell to the nearest male relative. Red Crow had no father or brothers. His wives had come to Cloud Eagle at daybreak, asking him, Red Crow's most devoted friend, to prepare their husband for his long walk in the hereafter.

For his friend, and his wives, Cloud Eagle had agreed.

The wives and children had vacated their lodge, where Red Crow had been laid out. They had returned to the lodges of their parents.

If this were a normal preparation for the burial rites, and Red Crow's lodge still contained   everything he owned and wore, instead of having burned in the earlier ravages of the fire, his wives would have given away all of their husband's belongings and kept nothing for themselves.

This was the way of the Apacheso that no Apache could benefit from the death of a family member lest desiring that death for material riches might enter and weaken his spirit body.

As it was, nothing but the clothes that he had worn on the hunt, and his war knife that had been sheathed at his waist, remained of Red Crow's wealth.

The tepee in which Red Crow was being readied for burial would be burned after the ceremony.

Alicia stood up and slipped the buckskin dress over her head, then sat back down again beside the fire and began braiding her long hair.

She gazed listlessly into the fire. She was filled with much sadness, knowing that now she would never get the opportunity to see that her brother had a proper Christian burial.

Even if Cloud Eagle somehow found the Englishman, she doubted that Sandy Whiskers would tell anyone where her brother was killed, or what had happened to his body.

A shudder engulfed her and tears flowed freely from her eyes. Gray sensed her sadness. He lifted a paw and gently scratched at her arm.

Alicia wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand and placed an arm around Gray and hugged him. The wound on his back would heal with time.

"The pain in one's heart takes much longer to heal than those of the flesh," she whispered to Gray, the light of the fire leaping into her eyes, turning them golden.   "Thank God I have not been left totally alone on this earth," she said, sighing heavily. "I have Cloud Eagle's forgiveness and love."

His insides gnawingly empty with remorse, Cloud Eagle knelt over Red Crow's body, which lay in repose on a white doeskin blanket void of any design or beads. Red Crow should have been dressed in his most colorful war garments. But those had been destroyed in the fire the day his tepee had burned to the ground.

Cloud Eagle had brought his own special war garments and was gently, devotedly, placing them on Red Crow.

Cloud Eagle could not keep his eyes from wandering to Red Crow's face. It was as though he were asleep and would soon awaken with a big smile and a warm embrace for his best friend.

But one shift of Cloud Eagle's eyes, locking now on the scar and contusions that wound obscenely around Red Crow's neck, and the way his head lay crooked on his shoulders, made Cloud Eagle more than aware again of how Red Crow had died.

A rope had snapped his neck and had squeezed the life from his best friend.

"I vow to you, my friend, that the one responsible for this disgrace to your body will pay," Cloud Eagle said, lifting a pouch of paint into his hands.

He dipped his fingers into the paint that had been made from the earth and various flowering plants. He placed streaks of yellow beneath each of Red Crow's eyes, so that his friend would not lose sight of the sun on his journey to the hereafter.   Cloud Eagle set the pouch aside and wiped the excess paint from his hands on a cloth, then lowered his eyes and began a low chanting as the paint on Red Crow's face dried.

Cloud Eagle became lost in the moment of chanting songs that were sad. They came from the heart, his feelings flowing from deeply within and helping him exorcise those feelings that were like festering sores. Those feelings would be revived later, when he began his search for the Englishman.

Now he wished only to think of his friend, of their past times together. They had enjoyed the hunt. They had enjoyed games. They had even enjoyed sharing tales of their prowess with women when they had just discovered that their bodies spoke in ways unfamiliar to them, which soon led them to discover that women were of the utmost importance in their lives.

Cloud Eagle looked slowly up at Red Crow, his eyes wavering. "My friend, never again shall we share anything of this earth, but my love for you is enduring, even in death," he whispered. "As you walk on the long road of the hereafter, I will be there with you, in spirit. We can laugh. We can sing. There will be no deep sadness that I am suffering now. Once you are laid to rest, and your spirit separates from your earthly body, then again you will know me and embrace me as I walk with you, forever in your shadow."

He paused, then added, "Free from the body, the spirit of the good is without pain. Free from the body, the spirit sees more clearly."

The throbbing beats of the hoop drums were growing more intense now, drawing Cloud Eagle's eyes to the closed entrance flap of the dwelling.   His mind was a naked nerve. He sensed the emotions of his people.
His
feelings were as clean and sharp as a thunderclap.

The others.

His favored warriors who had died with Red Crow.

They were perhaps ready now for their journey to the burial cave where they would all be buried together, as they had ridden and fought and hunted together as trusted warriors and friends while they were alive.

Knowing that he could not delay the ceremony by dwelling on thoughts that kept him closer to Red Crow, Cloud Eagle reached for a heavy red woolen blanket and wrapped it around Red Crow.

Cloud Eagle's eyebrows forked as he searched frantically around him for Red Crow's war knife. It was the only weapon that had been laid out with Red Crow's body. Now it was gone.

After searching in every nook and corner and beneath the sweet grass that had been spread on the ground, Cloud Eagle's jaw tightened. He knew for certain that the knife had been with Red Crow when he had seen him hanging from the tree. It was still in its sheath at his side, the bandits not having taken the time to take it from him, perhaps because they had been frightened away too quickly to gather up the weapons of the dead.

But the knife
had
been there.

And now it was gone.

"Someone has stolen from my dead friend," Cloud Eagle hissed through clenched teeth. "It has to be one of my warriors. No one else has been near the dead since they were released from   the death ropes, except for the Apache.''

A sick feeling swam around inside him to think that one of his very own men might be so despicable as to steal from Red Crow when Red Crow had already suffered so much at the hands of his enemy.

This man who stole from him was no less his enemy.

And he was Apache!

A gentle hand on Cloud Eagle's arm drew him quickly around. When he discovered Alicia there, he pulled her into his arms. "I know it is time," he said thickly. "I have taken longer with Red Crow because our friendship was so special. Also, I have taken time to look for his war knife. Someone has stolen it,
Ish-kay-nay
. It cannot be buried with him."

Alicia drew away and stared up at him. "Who would do such a thing?" she gasped.

"Now is not the time to ponder over the loss," Cloud Eagle said, glancing at Red Crow's body. "He will be buried without the knife. But once it is found, the thief will have the responsibility of placing it with Red Crow, even though Red Crow will be buried behind tons of rock."

"Buried behind rock?" Alicia asked, her voice drawn. "You don't bury your dead in the ground?"

"This is not an ordinary burial," Cloud Eagle said, gently clasping her shoulders. "The warriors will be buried together in a cave. The entrance will be blocked by boulders so that animals can not enter and defile the bodies of the dead.

"Come outside with me," Cloud Eagle said, taking Alicia by the hand. "Wait there until the procession is readied. Then walk with me at my side. Your presence will make these last moments   with Red Crow less painful."

Alicia went outside and watched as a young brave brought a horse to the entrance of the tepee. It was not Red Crow's best horse, for that horse had been taken on the day of his death by those who had killed him. But Red Crow had owned many horses and this was his next favorite.

Cloud Eagle went inside the tepee and picked Red Crow up and carried him to his horse and laid him across his saddle. He tied him there so that he would not fall as he was being taken to the cave a short distance from the stronghold.

Cloud Eagle then stood back as Red Crow's wives and children came and wept and chanted over the body.

Alicia turned with a start when four other horses, bearing bodies and weapons, came up behind her. She stepped aside, then was glad when Cloud Eagle took her hand and drew her to his side.

The procession toward the cave began. The sun was hidden behind a veil of clouds. An eagle swept and soared overhead, as though following the dead to their burial spot. A wolf howled in the distance, followed by the cry of a coyote, causing Alicia to wonder about Gray. He had followed her from Cloud Eagle's tepee when a young brave had come for her, but she had not seen the coyote since.

Her attention was drawn from her worries when Cloud Eagle began chanting Red Crow's deeds as a warrior as he clutched Red Crow's horse's reins and led him far up a canyon.

Alicia turned and gazed around her as other chants rose from the warriors who led their fallen brothers' horses in the dull gray of morning.   Alicia then looked away from them and stared straight ahead. Everything seemed so unreal today.

The useless deaths.

The preparations for the burials.

The mourners' chants reaching clean into her heart, as though an extension of her own sadness which she kept locked inside.

Perhaps, she thought, if she lifted her voice to the heavens in a cry of desperation, she might even feel less burdened, less saddened.

Yet in her society, mourning was done in a quiet, private way. As one's heart broke, tears were the only way that anguish could be expressed. She had stood over more than one casket in the parlor of the deceased, knowing the empty, remorseful feelings that came with losing a loved one.

"My sweet Charlie," she whispered to herself, a sob lodging in her throat. "I shall miss you forever."

The canyon was a deep cleft among tall walls of reddish-gray rock. The wind sang and whistled through the passage that narrowed as the funeral procession traveled farther into it. A hawk swept low, its wings shadowing Red Crow's body, then swept up again and landed on a nest that clung precariously to the sides of the canyon.

The sun came from behind the clouds, a single ray shining on a cave that was suddenly revealed at the side of the rock-strewn path; boulders were stacked on each side of the entrance.

Cloud Eagle led Red Crow's horse to the cave entrance. Alicia stepped aside as he untied the ropes that held Red Crow in place on the horse, as other warriors did the same for their fallen comrades.   The dead were placed inside the cave, along with their weapons.

Wide-eyed, Alicia watched as the warriors' horses were led into the cave. She gasped when there was enough light in the cave for her to see Cloud Eagle and four other warriors stand beside the horses, their rifles raised.

She clasped her hands over her ears when the gunshots rang out, mortified to see the lovely horses being shot and laid beside their dead warriors.

His head hung, his rifle smoking, Cloud Eagle came from the cave and went to Alicia's side as others began placing the boulders over the entrance of the cave.

Alicia leaned closer to Cloud Eagle. "Why did you shoot the animals?" she whispered.

"The horses remain with their fallen masters for the warriors to ride to the land of their ancestors," Cloud Eagle said, his expression solemn as he watched to see that the entrance was completely covered. "I already miss him."

He paused and sucked in a quavering breath, then said, "Red Crow will lie in the cave. The pines will sing low around him as he waits to begin his journey to the land of the hereafter."

He paused again and nodded. "There lie my valiant warriors within this cave, at peace with themselves and all enemies they may have acquired during their lifetime," he said. "It is time for them to begin anew where there is no more suffering. It is something that perhaps one can envy, is it not?"

His tone of voice, his attitude, sent shivers up and down Alicia's spine. "Please don't talk like that," she said softly. "Although I believe in   heaven and what God offers me there, I am in no hurry to die. I don't envy the dead. There is much to live for, Cloud Eagle. There is so much for us to share. Please think about our future. Our future together. It will be so wonderful, Cloud Eagle."

Cloud Eagle gave her a slow, sweet smile, then walked away from her when those who had helped bury the dead moved together.

Alicia watched, puzzled again by the custom they were practicing. Each man who had had contact with the dead brushed himself all over with wisps of green grass, in a sense disinfecting his clothes and body. He then lay those tufts of grass on the ground before the cave in the form of a cross, like the tombstones white people used to mark the deceased's grave.

She was glad when the ceremony was over and everyone turned back in the direction of the stronghold. Alicia and Cloud Eagle were joined by Red Crow's wives and children. They returned to the stronghold together.