Scarlet Plume, Second Edition (23 page)

There was a face in the door. It was Two Two. Two Two looked; was gone.

Bullhead grabbed Judith by the braids, gave her a neck-cracking shake; then, glancing at the door where Two Two had just looked in, he let her drop back on her fur bed. Balked, swearing vengeance at the interruption, Bullhead stalked out heavily.

Judith panted for breath. “Ohh. Ohh.” At last she managed to sit up.

Another face appeared in the leather door. It was Scarlet Plume. He sprang in, puffing, hair in his eyes.

“Good Lord, what now?” Judith cried, clutching the bed robe around her shoulders.

Scarlet Plume swept her from head to foot with a single piercing look. “Two Two came to tell me. I ran very fast. I was afraid you would be killed.”

“You scared me half to death, coming in like that.”

“He did not touch you?”

“No.”

Scarlet Plume let down a shoulder.

“That lunatic,” Judith cried, “coming in here like a crazy boar.”

“Bullhead has been drinking the white man’s push water. He kept it hidden all this time. It was a jug he stole from the Good Book Tepee. Tonight before the victory dance he drank it all, alone. The spirit water from the Good Book Tepee is not good for him. An evil spirit has entered his stomach and he wishes to kill. He has become as one apart from himself.”

“Terrible.”

“He is not a good Yankton.”

“He is not a good anything, if you ask me. That beast. Why!”

“I will speak to Whitebone about this.”

“Terrible.”

Scarlet Plume moved; was gone.

The silken thread from the twig fire steadied again and found the opening out through the smoke hole.

Judith sat gasping until she got her breath back. Finally she lay down. Her heart beat in her throat like the gallop of an irregularly running colt. Her stomach, still full of buffalo hump, lay in her like she might have had a log for dinner.

“It’s almost more than I can bear,” she murmured. “One day I shall surely go insane. Oh, God.”

Singing and drumming and dancing continued outside.

She had lain alone for perhaps another hour, when again there was an outcry among the braves. This time the singing and drumming stopped. Instantly. Utter quiet followed.

Judith rose on her elbow. The fur robe slipped off her pear breasts. She leaned her head toward the door, listening, all ears. Something had happened out there that had shocked all the Yanktons into silence. There had been a grave offense of some kind. Judith was sure it was Bullhead. Mad drunk, he had attacked some other poor female, no doubt. Squirts Milk or perhaps even Tinkling.

Or Mavis. She was the other white woman in camp. Of course.

Judith scrambled to her feet, slipped into her moccasins and tunic, rushed out. She called aloud. “Mavis!”

The big fire in the center of the camp burned brightly. So did the dance fires below along the running springs. No one was around. The dancers, everyone, had run to their lodges.

“Mavis?”

Judith saw movement downstream. It was just beyond where Mavis had erected her husband Traveling Hail’s tepee. Lifting her tunic, Judith ran for it, across the camp circle and past a red outcropping of rocks, and then around in front of Mavis’ tepee. There, some dozen yards beyond, on the ground, lay the figure of a woman. It was Mavis.

Scarlet Plume and Two Two stood over Mavis. Off to one side, sitting on a rock, Smoky Day and Tinkling were weeping softly to themselves. There was just enough light from the center camp-fire to make out their faces.

Judith kneeled beside Mavis. “Mavis?”

Mavis was partly covered by a sleeping robe. Her face was gaunt, and so white she looked dead. A trail of fresh blood glistened in the grass and it led toward a patch of wolfberries. There were signs of a violent struggle in the wolfberries. A war club, its handle bloody, lay to one side.

Judith threw back the sleeping robe. Blood was pushing out of Mavis’ vagina in soft, even pulsings.

Judith whirled on Scarlet Plume. “What happened here?”

“The bad Yankton has done this thing.”

“Bullhead?”

“He will be banished. The warrior council meets even now.”

Judith stared at the bloody handle of the war club lying to one side. “Did he outrage her with . . . that?”

Mavis stirred under Judith’s hand. Her eyelids fluttered like a pair of gray butterflies about to open wings. Her voice was a husky whisper. “He took me into the bushes. I kept fighting him off. Out of a crazy kind of loyalty to Traveling Hail.” Breath lifted her small chest irregularly. “So he finally gave me a whack over the head with his war club, then did it with the handle.”

“God in heaven.”

“Yes.”

Judith whirled ferociously on Two Two. “Son?”

“I am here, my mother.”

“Do you know where the cattails are kept?”

“I do, my mother.”

“Get them. And also bring a woman’s belt.”

“I will, my mother.”

Mavis rolled her head from side to side on the grass. “It’s no use. It’s too late, I fear.”

“Shh. Some cattail fluff will help stanch it.”

“It’s no use. Bullhead pushed it through me. Into my abdomen.”

“God God God.”

Two Two came flying back with the cattails and belt.

Quickly Judith exploded the cattails into handfuls of fluff, then packed them between Mavis’ thighs.

Mavis stirred. “It’s no use.”

“Shh.”

A long silence followed.

Presently Mavis fixed her eyes on Judith. “There’s something I want to ask you.”

“Go ahead.”

Mavis sucked for breath. “Do you think heaven will blame me for having slept with all those Indians? I meant to ask your sister Theodosia but she was gone before I had a chance.”

“Blame? Not if you resisted.”

“Are you sure?”

“Well, what about me? I’m just as guilty. If there is guilt.”

A pensive smile touched the corners of Mavis’ lips. “Well then,” she panted, “well then, for once I’ve had my fill of sleeping with men without offense to God.”

“What an awful thing to say.”

“But it’s true. It’s the way I really feel.”

“Mavis.”

“But I did worry about it. Because you see, even when that first Indian did it to me, and I saw there was no use in resisting, I told myself something that was wrong.”

“Never mind all that now.” A sob broke from Judith. “Please. And don’t talk.” Yet Judith couldn’t help but wonder what it was that Mavis had told herself.

Mavis’ eyes slowly closed. Her cheeks seemed to collapse inward. She hardly breathed.

Maddening thoughts worked in Judith’s mind. All this blood. This terrible slaughtering. This living from kill to kill. First Claude. Then his children, Ted and Johnnie. Then Angela. Then Theodosia. So that all that was left now was herself and Mavis, two torn bleeding lambs at the mercy of wild devouring wolves. And Mavis about to die.

Judith packed fresh cattail fluff between Mavis’ thighs.

Very weak, Mavis went on. “I said, ‘Well, if it has to be—welcome, pleasure.’ And that was wrong, I think. I guess I got started wrong with my white husband. Because I surely enjoyed doing it with him. When our church says that is wrong.”

“But you had no choice when the Indians attacked. Even Theodosia gave herself up to the brutes trying to save the children.”

“Yes. I know. That’s why I was hoping that maybe I hadn’t done such a wrong after all.”

Poor, poor Mavis. Oh, Lord. From sweet sixteen in St. Paul a few years ago to this. Judith recalled Mavis’ remark about herself when she got married. “I was only sixteen, and really too young to marry, you know, but nothing would do my lover John Harder but I must marry him. I suppose many another woman from her own experience knows how it is.” Amen.

Marriage to John Harder had led from one thing to another. After John was killed in the First Battle of Bull Run, Mavis found herself a much-sought-after widow. She had been pestered to death by men who now thought she would be that much the easier to seduce. . . .

There was the time when Mavis through some mistake found herself with two dates on the same night. Luckily she had made one for early in the evening and the other for later in the evening, the first with storekeeper Fat McGrath and the second with Lieutenant Davy Knight. Fat McGrath had to go to a meeting at nine, and Davy came off duty at Fort Snelling at eight-thirty and would be over on horseback an hour later.

Fat McGrath had made up his mind he was not going to leave until he had had a man’s way with her even if he did get late to his meeting.

Mavis was of a different mind. She had decided that if it was to be, then it would be with handsome Davy. So she fought off Fat McGrath with all she had. She said she had a headache. She scratched him. She said that “those” had come upon her. As a dancer she had strong legs and managed to catch him once in the groin with her knee.

Fat McGrath, purple with desire, persisted.

When Mavis saw by the clock that Davy would soon be along and so catch her two-timing him, she decided to give in and let Fat McGrath have his way. Quickly. And God forgive. Then she hurried Fat McGrath out of the house, pleading a real headache at last.

Tired, somewhat dispirited, Mavis changed her mind about how she would spend the rest of the evening with handsome Davy Knight. She would be cool to him instead. Once was bad enough. A widow’s reputation was easily ruined. Those damn men always talked. Doing it with two different men on the same night—unthinkable.

Davy came along some ten minutes later. Davy in his bright-blue uniform was his usual charming self. He brought along a bottle of choice French cognac. He toasted her. Mavis made sure she drank very little. She was pleased to see Davy drink a lot. She hoped he would soon be too drunk to want her. They built up a hot fire in the fireplace, and had a gay time chatting together.

Around midnight all that choice cognac suddenly seemed to hit Davy, and instead of making him too drunk to do anything, it changed him from a correct gentleman into a hot-eyed satyr. Davy picked her up from the chair where she was reclining and wrestled her down to the floor in front of the blazing fire, and without even removing his bright-blue uniform, proceeded to attack her. Rough and brutal.

She bit him. She scratched him.

But each defensive move seemed to play right into his hands. And the truth was she really loved Davy best. So, alas, yes, she let him have his way too. God forgive.

Just about then the clock had struck one. As she told Judith later, “Actually, you see, by the clock it was a new day and so I really didn’t do it after all with two men on the same day. Because that’s the one thing I didn’t want to do. . . .”

Judith stroked Mavis over the forehead.

Mavis was cold. In the light of the flare Judith saw that Mavis had gone. Mavis had passed away so gently Judith had missed it.

Judith drew back. She covered her face with her hands. The ends of her heavy braids lay on her knees.

Thoughts worked in Judith like night crawlers gone crazy. So near did she border on insanity, she felt like singing.

The door flap to the council lodge opened. Traveling Hail stepped out. His face had a distant, even high, look. Six stern armed warriors came out behind him. After them came Whitebone.

The six warriors went directly to Bullhead’s tepee. Two of them secured Bullhead’s ponies, another two began to take down his tepee, and the third two stepped inside the tepee. After a moment the last two led Bullhead out, each holding him by the arm. They led him to Whitebone. Angela’s silver-blond scalp flashed in Bullhead’s hair.

Whitebone was very sad. Fur toga wrapped around his shoulders, he spoke slowly and gravely. “Yanktons, this is what I say. We have forgiven this bad Dakota many things. We needed the brave men. But now he has gone too far. Yanktons, hear me. Seize his goods, and his horses, and take them out through the horns of the camp and set them well out in the wilderness. We cast them out. Yanktons, hear me. Seize the bad Dakota by the arms and lead him out through the horns of the camp also and set him free well out in the wilderness. We cast him out. I have said.”

It was done.

Traveling Hail came over and held out his hand to Judith to shake it the white-man way. But before she could accept his hand, he broke completely apart, and crying bitterly, fell to the ground. He put his arms around a red stone and wept on it.

Judith went back to Whitebone’s tepee as though she were sleepwalking.

5

It was the Moon of Scarlet Plums, early September.

The Yanktons removed to the Place Of The Pipestone. The Yanktons were short of horses and dogs. Thus it was decided to quarry some pipestone and make pipes with which to trade with the Teton Dakota. The Tetons across the Missouri River were known for their wonderful spotted ponies and their dogs bred to wild wolves.

The Yanktons made camp west of the quarry across from a trickling stream. The Place Of The Six Strange Boulders, where the spirit Two Maidens lurked, lay to the south. Water gushed over the Falls Of Winnewissa. The low places were thick with rose hips.

Certain of the men, Scarlet Plume among them, were chosen to do the quarrying. They took the sweat bath, and purified their rose-brown limbs with silver sage, and made the proper sacrifice of tobacco to the Two Maidens, then pried up the slabs of soft, fleshy pipestone.

The quarry was an old one. It was believed to have been the site of a battle between contending brother tribes of the Old Ones, as the color of the pipestone had the appearance of dried blood. It was thought that the petroglyphs under the Two Maidens had been made by the winning Old Ones to ensure good quarrying. The quarry was now known as a sanctuary where the bitterest of enemies could meet in peace.

Scarlet Plume made the best bowls. He was the expert. He also made the best pipestems, out of ash. An ash twig had a pith that could be easily removed. Sometimes Scarlet Plume started a wood-borer grub at one end of the ash twig and harried it through the pith by holding the twig near a hot coal.

Judith, still stunned, numbed, went for a walk over the prairie. She had her heart set on a cup of tea and was out looking for certain dried leaves.