Golden Hawk 3, page 12
Buffalo Hump had heard all this before Hawk’s arrival, Hawk realized, and did not comment. Hawk thought he saw reflected in the old chief’s eyes a distaste for Two Hatchet’s exploits with the Bannocks, though courtesy would not allow him to disparage the exploits of a warrior in his band.
“I have heard of the four Bannocks,” Buffalo Hump admitted gravely. “I have heard too that they no longer collect scalps on this earth.”
“That is true.”
“Those who go against the golden haired warrior do not fare well.”
Hawk did not comment on this. It would not be seemly. The old chief had put it succinctly enough; there was no need for Hawk to embellish it. So he sat quietly, waiting for the arrival of Two Hatchet.
Buffalo Hump puffed for a while on his pipe, his obsidian eyes regarding Hawk intently. “Do not pay any attention to the woman of this old chief,” he told Hawk abruptly. “It is not in her to forgive past wrongs. She is not as wise as a man. She is, after all, a woman.” He puffed a while longer on his pipe, then removed the long stem from his wrinkled lips. “But this one holds her very dear. She warms his heart and keeps away the cold. Without her, he would be a tree without leaves, a desert without night.”
The chief was telling Hawk that even if Hank-of-Hair did not wish to let bygones be bygones, he—Buffalo Hump—was perfectly willing to do so. What this meant was that if Hawk were willing, the enmity that had lasted for too long already between Hawk and the People of this band might finally end. Having come this far, hoping against hope to hear such words, Hawk felt his heart swell within him.
“The heart of this white man is glad to hear what the wise chief of the Antelope Comanche says, that he is willing to forgive past wrongs. This white man is willing to do the same. There has been enough killing. This white man has been forced to kill many fine, brave Comanche warriors. It gave him only pain to do so.”
“Yet the white man comes now to kill one more Comanche.”
“No. This white man comes to give Two Hatchet what he journeyed so far to find, the scalp of this white man. He will stand before this Comanche warrior armed only with his knife. Two Hatchet may choose any weapon he wants. Two Hatchet will kill this white man or be killed by him and end this matter with honor.” Hawk glanced slyly at the old chief. “Besides, such a combat will give the band a fine spectacle, an excuse for still another celebration—no matter who wins.”
Buffalo Hump nodded gravely. “This old chief will see to it that the combat is fought fairly. When Two Hatchet comes to this lodge, this chief will tell him of the white warrior’s decision. Surely Two Hatchet will be pleased to meet you in fair combat.”
Hawk responded with a nod.
For a long while, Buffalo Hump puffed reflectively on his pipe. Then he took its stem from his mouth and spoke. “Does the white man know of his sister, Sky Woman?”
Hawk frowned. “Sky Woman is with the Shoshone. For two winters her brother has searched for her. He will find her yet.”
The old chief took his pipe out of his mouth and spoke slowly, gravely, “When this great warrior, her brother, does find Sky Woman, perhaps he will tell her what is the truth for this old man—his heart is heavy still at her loss. A man does many foolish things in anger. Of all the fool deeds this aged one has done, sending away Sky Woman was the most foolish. Now, whenever these old eyes look upon the blue sky or gazes upon the sun-ripened grasses shifting in the wind, he thinks of Sky Woman and is filled with great sadness.”
Impressed and deeply moved by Buffalo Hump's words, Hawk realized the old chief was asking both Hawk and Annabelle to accept his apology for having sold Annabelle—and for all that issued from that unfortunate act. Hawk let his head drop in polite acknowledgment of the old chief’s sentiments; custom among the Plains tribes did not look favorably upon any who dwelled upon the heartfelt apology of another.
Hawk had achieved one goal at least: the longstanding enmity between this band and himself was gone forever. With Buffalo Hump's support and his own recent exploits in defense of the band, he was no longer the great scourge of the Antelope Comanches. Young Comanche braves might yet break away to seek their glory in taking Hawk's scalp, but that could not be helped. For this band at least, there would no longer be the same encouragement there had been in the past for such exploits.
Buffalo Hump took up his pipe and drew on it deeply, the smoke billowing about him, an indication that as far as he was concerned, the business between them had been settled. When Two Hatchet reported to the chiefs lodge in answer to his summons, Buffalo Hump would see to the details concerning the combat.
Without further ceremony, Hawk got to his feet and left the tepee.
As he stepped clear of the lodge, Hank-of-Hair pulled up before him, her expression revealing pure malevolence. In a voice easily loud enough for her husband to hear from within his lodge, she announced that Two Hatchet was no longer in the village. He had fled, leaving his family and taking most of his earthly possessions with him on a single pack horse. She leaned back, her arms akimbo, her eyes gleaming in triumph.
The knowledge that Hawk would apparently not have his revenge on Two Hatchet filled her with pleasure. For his part, Hawk felt only a weary dismay.
Chapter Ten
TWO HATCHET’S TRAIL petered out deep in the Rockies, close to the border of Bannock country. Hawk was not surprised. The renegade Comanche was seeking the aid and comfort of his old allies. Out of supplies, weary, Hawk returned to Fort Hall.
Alerted by the fort’s guards, MacGregor met Hawk at the gate and drew him at once across the compound to his own Spartan apartment. There, he sat Hawk down before the fire and filled his glass with his best Scotch. Then he leaned back in his leather easy chair, waited for Hawk to drink his fill, and began his lament. “I tell ya, Hawk, it ain’t the same. No, it ain’t. Them beaver’re gone from these valleys, an’ even if they were still as thick as before, fashions have changed. That they have. Beaver hats are no longer what a bonnie gentleman wears today.”
All this meant little to Hawk. He had never trapped or traded with anyone in this high country. All he had thought of was finding his sister and keeping his scalp on while he continued his search. But he gathered from the unhappy Scotsman’s words that the Hudson’s Bay Company was going to have a difficult time keeping its doors open if the mountain men and the surrounding Indians could not find enough beaver. Even if the company could get all the plews it needed, they still could not get a decent price for them.
Hawk nodded politely and sipped the molten fire called Scotch, and tried not to notice how much it made his head spin. He had not eaten much these past few days and the whiskey was slamming down into an empty stomach.
“I need supplies,” Hawk told MacGregor. “I could kill some fresh meat for you in payment, if I could get some firing caps and powder.”
“Suits me fine,” said MacGregor eagerly. “We’re running low on everything but salt pork, and I’ve long since had my fill of that. Been a long winter. That it has.”
Hawk took another gulp of the whiskey. It was warming him clear to his boot heels. “The settlers are gone, I noticed.”
“Yes, and good riddance. What a mess of pilgrims! Enough to try any man’s patience, I’ll tell you. Kids and dogs and families—all singin’ of the Promised Land and not a one of them knowing what in hell’s in store for them.”
“Where’s Jim?”
“He’s leadin’ the wagons, poor devil. Like he told you, it’s Californy for him. He’s been there before, and I reckon he knows what he’s doin’. Only it seems to me Oregon’s a long ways from Californy.”
Hawk sipped his drink and thought over what MacGregor was telling him. Once more the wagon train would be attempting to make it through Grizzly Pass. The settlers would have to take that route if they were going to pick up their abandoned wagons—those that were still intact, that is.
Hawk did not ask about Alice Gentry. But he was thinking of her.
Less than a week later, Hawk found himself in charge of the fort’s commissary. It was close to dusk and he was returning from his third hunt, leading his two, heavily laden pack horses. The elk and deer he had been slaughtering this past week had suffered through a miserable winter and did not dress down to much more than skin and bones. And this most recent kill was no different. But MacGregor was grateful for every ounce of fresh meat he could scrape from these bones, and so were the local blanket Indians who were now flocking back to the fort. MacGregor was lonely without the mountain men—now off with their traps—and the hordes of settlers he pretended to hate; he welcomed back these poor tobacco-store Indians with open arms.
As Hawk approached the fort, he thought the band of mounted Indians approaching him were coming from the fort to welcome him.
He was wrong.
As silent as thought they ringed him, forcing him to pull his own mount to a halt. One of the Indians nudged his horse closer. From his bearing and the color and manner of his dress, Hawk knew they were Shoshone, but from a mountain band he had never seen before this moment.
“You are Golden Hawk,” the Indian said in excellent English.
Hawk nodded.
“I bring greetings from your sister, the golden-haired-one.”
Hawk did not reply and did his best to remain calm. All these months he had searched for the band that held Annabelle, and now—without warning and without ceremony—here was that band seeking him out.
“You must come,” the Shoshone said.
“What are you called?” Hawk demanded. His question was ill-mannered, but this moment was too important for him to wait on ceremony.
The Shoshone did not appear to be offended. “I am Crow Wing. Golden Hawk’s sister is my woman. I have come to take you to her.”
There was something in Crow Wing’s voice that alerted Hawk to trouble. Cold fear caught at his throat. “What is wrong with my sister?”
“Since the late winter winds, the cold devils have taken her. They sit on her chest and do not let her breathe, and they build a fire within her. But she will not let our healers cure her. Over and over she calls out for you. Sometimes she sees you at the foot of her couch and tries to go with you. It takes many women and braves to hold her down. You must come. If you do not, we will not be able to help her.”
“How far is your village?”
“Two nights, three days.”
“I will come,” Hawk told him at once. Then he looked back at the two laden pack horses. “This meat must be delivered to the fort.”
Crow’s Wing turned and spoke in Shoshone to a brave beside him. The brave nudged his pony alongside Hawk’s, took from Hawk’s hand the lead holding the two pack horses, then turned his pony about and headed toward the fort.
Hawk had no doubt the Shoshone would deliver the meat to MacGregor, who would have to wait a long, long while for an explanation.
Hawk stooped and entered the tepee. The women tending his sister quickly stepped to one side. He looked down at Annabelle and for a terrible moment thought he had come too late. Her pale features had been rendered skeletal by the virulent pneumonia that held her in its thrall. A racking cough broke occasionally from her pale, bloodless lips. Her eyes, closed now in fitful sleep, were sunken; her long golden hair, pale and without luster, clung damply to her feverish forehead. She looked so frail it seemed that a harsh word would be enough to crush her into dust.
Beside her couch sat a tin cup, a gourd filled with water next to it. Hawk knelt by his sister, filled the cup with water, and held it close to her lips, so close its cold rim rested against one of them.
“Annabelle,” he called softly, urgently.
There was no response.
“It’s me! Jed,” he told her.
He thought she stirred, but could not be sure. Glancing up, he saw the tribe’s medicine man enter, his bag of herbs in one hand, a rattle in the other. Hawk caught the Indian’s eyes with his own, and with their force alone stopped the medicine man in his tracks. Slowly, silently, the medicine man withdrew.
Hawk looked back at Annabelle, leaned close, and kissed her on the forehead. Then, very softly, he called her name. This time she stirred and turned her head slightly in his direction. Again Hawk held the cold tin cup to her lips. She opened them. He let a small portion of the ice-cold water trickle over her lower lip and into her mouth. She swallowed and opened her eyes.
“I’m here, Annabelle,” Hawk said.
She turned her head all the way and saw him. Wonder, then joy filled her eyes. With a tiny, feeble cry she lifted her arms toward him. He hugged her eagerly, appalled by the feverish heat emanating from her frail body. She was virtually on fire. And her bones seemed as easy to crush as those of a sparrow.
Hawk pulled away to see what could be done for her.
“Stay,” Annabelle cried, close to panic.
He smiled at her and said, “I am not going anywhere, Annabelle. I’ll be right here. As long as you need me. That’s a promise.”
Closing her eyes, Annabelle sank back onto her couch and appeared to sleep.
In Kentucky as a young boy of eleven, Hawk had come down with pneumonia himself. He remembered the terrible, tearing cough, the sense that a stone lay on his chest, the incontinence that so embarrassed him, and how close he came to death as he slipped, for longer and longer periods, from consciousness into darkness. And he remembered too the little old lady from a hollow many miles away who had come in with her bag late one night to tend to him and her sharp, birdlike eyes as she regarded him. She had said not a word to him. But once her strong, bony hands rested for a moment on his forehead, he knew he would be well.
Now Hawk applied to his sister those same tactics that had saved him.
Using Crow Wing as his interpreter, Hawk directed the women tending Annabelle to wrap her in heavy blankets and then to increase the fire in the tepee. It was obvious they did not approve, but they obeyed quickly. Then Hawk told the women to see to it that he had plenty of water on hand for his sister, after which, as the temperature in the tepee climbed to an almost unbearable level, he took her hand and hung on—as the old woman had taken his hand so many years before.
Her frail person almost hidden completely by the pile of furs and blankets thrown over her, Annabelle began to stir fitfully. The heat in her hand was almost enough to sear his palm. She was on fire, it seemed. It was a wonder to Hawk that she had not yet ignited her couch. Her delirium increased. She cried out. Sometimes she screamed. But each time, she responded to Hawk’s calming voice, drank the water he pressed to her lips, then sank once more into a fitful sleep.
Hawk lost track of time. He remembered dimly the procession of exhausted women entering and leaving. He felt at times as if he too were delirious as the grim, impassive faces of the old women and men peered at him and his sister. Twice more the medicine man appeared in the entrance, but each time Crow Wing was on hand to restrain him gently and send him on his way.
Close to dawn Hawk became aware that the heat in Annabelle’s hand was no longer quite as intense. He peered more closely at his sister and for the first time saw tiny beads of perspiration covering her forehead and face. Leaning over, he placed his hand on her forehead. It came away wet with perspiration.
The fever had broken!
Speaking quickly to Crow Wing, he instructed the women to take the blankets and furs off Annabelle. They did so and found she was soaking wet. She stirred as they exchanged dry bedding for the wet and then opened her eyes to gaze on Hawk.
“It was not a dream,” she said to him softly. “You are here!”
“Yes,” he said. “Crow Wing brought me.”
“I feel very weak, but I am better, am I not?”
“Yes, much better. The fever has passed.”
“Now I will live,” she told Hawk wonderingly. “For a long while I paused between this world and that. But I am content to return.”
“Sleep, then. Get your strength back.”
She nodded and looked toward Crow Wing. He started eagerly for her, then waited for Hawk to move back. Kneeling by her side, he kissed her with great tenderness on her forehead. Her smile in response was beautiful. There was no doubt in Hawk’s mind that Annabelle loved this Shoshone warrior very much and that he loved her just as deeply in return.
It should not have surprised him, and it didn’t. What he felt instead was shock.
A week later Annabelle was well enough to leave her tepee and visit with Hawk. They found a log overlooking a ravine. Spring was almost upon them, and the sound of the swift, snow-fed waters rushing through the narrow gorge so far below them was soothing. A fresh, gentle breeze blew through Annabelle’s hair as her swift fingers braided the long, golden strands into two bulky braids.
Her attempt to explain matters was not going well. When Hawk asked her to come away with him—to go back to St. Louis and from there to the land of their Kentucky ancestors—she told him that would be impossible. When he pressed her, demanding to know why, she told him.
She was carrying Crow Wing’s child.
“It will be a boy,” she said, her eyes bright with expectation. “He moves about so. All the women say this.”
“Then it will be a boy. And we will bring it up, but not as a Shoshone, as a white boy in a white civilization.”
“Do you really mean that, Jed?”
He thought a moment, then shook his head. “No,” he said, “I guess not. Even as I spoke, I thought better of it. I am confused. I have looked so long and so hard to find you—and now that I have, you do not wish to return with me. After all, it was you who made me promise.”
“If I were not bearing Crow Wing’s child, I would go back.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
