Witch Hunt (25 page)

Whether it was true or not, it was what Rose chose to believe.

The war party reported their actions to the tribal elders, the women performed the Hair-Kill Dance, and the Indians began to divide up the spoils. The horses and cattle were given to the parents of the Cheyenne women who had been murdered, the goods that had been seized were divided among the families of the men who had been killed in that day’s battle, and, lastly, the prisoners were claimed.

Owl Woman, who had lost her children the previous summer to the spotted disease the white man had introduced to the tribe, came late to collect her new wards.

She tried unsuccessfully to pry them loose from the arms of the black-haired, blue-eyed white woman who seemed to be their mother. “Don’t be afraid, little ones,” she said. “I’ll be your new mother.”

They refused to budge.

Thunder Eagle, who was overseeing the assignment of prisoners, pulled them roughly from the woman’s arms and pushed them toward Owl Woman, then stood in their way so they couldn’t return.

Owl Woman pulled a cake of pemmican from her dress and held it out to the children. “Are you hungry? I have good food in my lodge. Come on, and we’ll eat together.”

Lured by the food, the hungry children followed Owl Woman to her tipi.

Crazy Mule claimed the woman Thunder Eagle had rejected. “I will call her Sky Eyes,” Crazy Mule announced as he wiped away the tears that filled them and lifted her chin so all could admire their beauty.

“It’s a good name,” Thunder Eagle said.

“What will you call yours?” Crazy Mule asked.

He thought about it. The Ugly Woman with Hair the Color of Fire was appropriate, but he didn’t want a wife with such an epithet. Also, it said nothing of the power she had. “Red Fire Woman,” Thunder Eagle announced after a few minutes of consideration.

“It, too, is a good name. We’ve done well today.”

Thunder Eagle sighed. No white woman, even one with great medicine, could ever replace Morning Star in his heart and in his sleeping robes. But still it was something. “Yes, we’ve done well today,” he said, then led Red Fire Woman to her new lodge.

Inside Thunder Eagle’s tipi, a small fire burned; he hoped it made Red Fire Woman feel welcome. He gestured for her to sit down on the sleeping robes that had belonged to Morning Star, then offered her a hunk of buffalo roast scrounged from the wife of Sleeping Rabbit. She ate with zest, and Thunder Eagle was pleased. Afterward, he pulled her to her feet, handed her one of Morning Star’s beautifully quilled white deerskin dresses, and urged her to put it on. She responded by shaking her head and saying something in the language he couldn’t understand. Becoming impatient, he ripped her clothes away from her body. Seemingly startled, she didn’t fight too hard, which was good. But she did try to cover her nakedness from his sight, which wouldn’t do at all. He pinned her arms at her sides so that he could examine her more carefully. Her breasts and nipples were large, which would benefit their children; he himself had no interest in them as objects of pleasure, for that would be unmanly. He was amused to see that her short hair was as red as her long hair, and he had a strong urge to touch it but couldn’t do so and hold her arms pinned at the same time. He didn’t dare let her strike out at him with her hands of fire. Instead he let her go, stepped quickly backward, and pointed to the dress that lay at her feet. She sighed, bent over to retrieve it, and tried to put it on. It was then that he understood what she had been trying to tell him. It was far too small for her large size. She wasn’t fat, but she was tall and big-boned. He shrugged and decided she could make a dress to fit herself in the morning. For now, he would forgo the preliminaries and just take her.

He bent down and pulled her feet out from underneath her, which caused her to flop down hard onto the sleeping robes. He quickly climbed on top of her, bearing the painful assault of hot hands until he could release himself from his breechcloth. Then he struggled to restrain her, all the while thinking of Morning Star in order to make him eager to enter the woman who lay beneath him. When he was ready, he parted her legs with his strong thighs and pushed himself into her opening. He was surprised to feel her body’s resistance, and to hear her cries of protest turn into those of pain. He stopped and pulled back. It dawned on him that she had never lain with a man before. She was one who had never married. Well, with her looks, it was no wonder.

He pondered on how best to proceed. He felt no tenderness for Red Fire Woman and, thus, no real desire to give her pleasure. But if he wanted her to be a wife, he couldn’t allow her to dread union with him. He took the long rawhide thong from his breechcloth and tied her wrists together, securing them to the lodge pole above her head. Then, able to relax more and take his time, he gave her pleasure until she was ready to receive him. He moved into her gently and pierced the blood skin, then focused on his own needs.

In the mindless moment when he filled her body with his seed, he called out Morning Star’s name, and the loss of his beloved wife washed over him like freshly spilled blood. He felt the tears he had not yet shed for Morning Star make their need known. He reached up and cut Red Fire Woman’s hands free, then rolled off her and turned his back while he vented his grief.

For just a moment, he felt the tentative touch of his new wife’s hands on his arm, and for the first time, they didn’t burn him.

In the weeks that followed, Rose quickly adjusted to her new life. She decided to call the man to whom she now belonged, Magic Man. She had heard others of his tribe call him by his proper name, but the words meant nothing to her, and so she made up her own name for him. She assumed, because of the respect with which the other Cheyenne treated her, that she was now his wife.

She thought it ironic that despite her best efforts to remain single, she was now married.

Magic Man was young and handsome, and he had awakened Rose’s sexuality. As a result, she felt a strong bond with him. But she did not believe she belonged with his people. She had heard that it had worked for a distant relative of hers. Priscilla Hawthorne, of the Salem Hawthornes, had married an Iroquois shaman and lived with him until her death. But family tradition said that Priscilla’s mind had escaped from reality during her year of imprisonment, and the shaman was the only person with whom she could ever again truly communicate. Rose, on the other hand, still had aspirations beyond domestic chores and the bearing of children. She couldn’t pursue those dreams if she remained with the Cheyenne.

From Magic Man’s behavior, she understood that his wife was one of the murdered women. Also, from the partially constructed cradleboard she found among his wife’s belongings, Rose inferred that she had been pregnant. Although Rose did not feel that the Cheyenne attack on the wagon train was a forgivable offense, she understood the grief and anger that had motivated it.

Rose was treated well, and from what she could tell, Laura and Brady were thriving in their new home. Caroline, however, had been taken as a slave and was withering. Her beauty had already begun to fade, and there was a deeply haunted look in her eyes. Rose was afraid that she was being passed around among her owner’s friends for sexual purposes, but she wouldn’t shame Caroline by asking her about it. Caroline’s magic had always been slight, and Rose knew that she had no significant powers to draw upon to aid her survival. All Rose could think to do was sneak extra food to her whenever possible and hope it would help to keep up her strength until they were rescued or could escape.

One day in mid-September, the smell of smoke in the air brought the tribe to a near panic. The women ran around the camp shrieking, the young children started to cry, and the men formed a very serious-looking delegation that visited Magic Man’s lodge.

Magic Man admitted them into his home, and together the seven men passed around the ceremonial red stone pipe that they always seemed to use at solemn occasions. Rose watched and listened to them talk from where she sat on her sleeping robes. Finally, after the pipe had been smoked by each of the men, they all filed outside, and Magic Man gestured for Rose to follow him. She obeyed, and together they went out into the bright afternoon sun. Taking two of his horses, they rode toward a high bluff.

It was the first time Rose had been on a horse since before the attack on the wagon train, and she was surprised that he allowed her a mount of her own. Magic Man seemed to treat her with more deference than most of the other men treated their wives.

When they reached the top of the bluff, they dismounted, and Rose could see what had caused all of the excitement. A massive wall of prairie fire was moving in their direction.

Magic Man pointed to the fire, and Rose nodded. He closed his eyes and started to sing and perform an odd dance. His actions made Rose feel strange, as if she couldn’t catch her breath. She thought she might faint, so sat down, and soon she was swaying to the rhythm of his feet as they struck the ground. Before long, Rose noticed a change in the air around them. The wind, which was blowing the fire toward them, had turned on itself and formed a small whirlwind. Abruptly, Magic Man ceased his dance and pointed the index fingers of both his hands at the fire. In that moment, the wind turned around completely and began to blow in the opposite direction. The wall of fire moved away from the Cheyenne village and back toward the river, where, presumably, it would extinguish itself.

Rose was stunned. She knew that Magic Man had power, but until now hadn’t seen its manifestation. She looked up to see him staring down at her with a haughty expression. He had brought her along so that she could witness his particular medicine in action.

“So, you think that’s something? Let me show you what I can do.” She rubbed her hands together for a moment then held them over a dry clump of prairie grass in front of her. With the use of a specially devised pattern of breaths — long and short, then panted, and long again — she invoked into herself the element of fire. Through her powers of concentration she channeled the fire out through her hands, and within minutes, wisps of smoke rose from the grass.

She looked up expecting to see Magic Man’s expression of respect and awe, but was shocked to see a face darkened with anger. He jumped forward to stamp the fire out, yanked her to her feet by her hair, and slapped her across the face. He shouted something and pushed her toward the horses, where he whipped hers into motion before she could mount. He pointed to the ground beside his own horse and conveyed the order for her to walk back to camp beside him.

With a sinking feeling, Rose realized that she had insulted his need to impress his wife by turning it into a competition. A chill passed through her as she wondered what he would do to save face.