“When?” asked Heavy Furred Wolf. “When will we ride again!”
Tall Bull looked at the one who had asked the all-important question. “From the mood of this council, I see no reason to delay.”
“Tomorrow!” White Horse replied.
“Yes—let us ride tomorrow,” Tall Sioux echoed.
The growing commotion outside the lodge drew their attention once more.
As did most of the others in that circle, Tall Bull turned to the two young boys running up to the council lodge at full speed. He asked them, “What is this?”
“Our scouts!” huffed one of the two, out of breath. “They ride back on the run.”
“On the run?” Tall Bull asked.
“They bring word of the white man.”
“I think we will attack soon!” Wolf Friend cried in happiness.
Tall Bull grabbed one of the boys by his shoulders. “What is this news of the white man? Where?”
“Pile of Bones saw marching soldiers.”
“Soldiers?” White Horse asked, crowding close upon the boy now.
His young head bobbed as he caught his breath from his run. “Pile of Bones saw them. Many. He says there are ten-times-ten for each finger on one hand.”
White Horse looked around the circle of warriors. “Surely these are the same soldiers who have dogged our trail for more than a moon.”
Bull grinned, spreading his arms wide as he roared joyously, “It is good, my friends! These swallows follow the hawk too closely. Now the hawk will turn and destroy the sparrows in one bite!”
“Attack!” shouted White Horse.
Giddy with blood lust, Bull growled, “Swallow every last one of the sparrows and spit out their bones!”
17
GRITTA STARED AT the water crock, unsure that her prayers had really been answered. Not quite ready to believe the Negro had turned his back on the crock and left the tent without it.
Yet there it stood on the table, next to the tin bowl that he filled with warm water for her every morning. Beside the bowl lay the dingy scrap of coarse linen and a sliver of black soap she was expected to use in bathing herself. By itself the heat of this land was enough to make a person stink, not to mention the stench left on her skin by the grunting beast who had dressed and left only minutes ago. Almost immediately the Negro had come in with the steaming crock, poured some hot water in the tin bowl, set out the linen and soap, then hurried off without taking the crock.
Outside she could hear the big man’s voice booming in laughter, hear the clatter of fork and knife on his plate as he went about his breakfast. This same ritual he practiced every morning, seated at his table in the shade of the tent awning after he had completed his foul business with her. Such a creature of habit, this one.
She stared at the crock.
Somewhere inside, a small voice echoed, dimly calling out to her in a voice Gritta did not recognize. Not at first. Yet it was the voice of a woman calling to her, a voice somehow familiar. Tantalizing her with the promise of release from woe: a means to leave behind this mortal, earthly veil.
“Don’t wait. You can’t afford to tarry a minute longer.”
Whirling about, Gritta expected to find someone chiding her. But found no one there in the tent with her.
Loud noises swallowed up the small voice and invaded her small, private world. Horses whinnied and stamped out there, just beyond these tent walls. Something deep within her, something that clung on to the familiar routine of each day now reminded Gritta that the men would be breaking camp shortly.
“You must act now—if you are going to act at all,” scolded the tiny voice inside her head.
She glanced over her shoulder again, found no one there, and shuddered to think it was her disembodied soul speaking to her. Ordering. Demanding.
“The crock. Go to the crock.”
Glancing one last time at the gap in the tent flaps, Gritta willfully stepped over to them and straightened the canvas so that they overlapped, just as she did whenever she sponged herself of the mornings before leaving the tent and boarding the ambulance to ride out the day. She went back to the table where the bowl and crock sat, then stared down at her hands. They had gone soft, not feeling like her hands at all. Marveling at their smooth texture, she ran one over the other, then pushed up the loose sleeve on the left arm and gripped that wrist tightly in the vise of her right hand. The white skin slowly bulged as the blood trapped in the veins, gone bluish beneath her skin—so pale now after so, so long without the sun. They did not look as if they were her hands.
Perhaps it would not hurt her—since these were not her hands any longer.
“The crock. Take the crock.”
“Yes,” aloud she answered obediently, releasing her wrist and seizing the tall crock between her trembling hands.
“Break it!”
Bringing it over her head, she flung it down against the edge of the table, clenching her eyes at the explosion as shards and slivers rained across her, warm water splattered, steamy, drenching the front of her open dressing gown. The sudden flush of moist heat felt welcome, reassuring as she fell to her knees in the muddy puddle there beneath the tiny table and found what she was instructed to find.
“A big one. Do it right the first time!”
Savagely dragging the gleaming shard of crockery across her wrist once, she gazed down at the sundered flesh beading with the bright red blood.
“Again! Cut it—you must hurry! Cut it—again, again!”
Once more, twice, then three times more she raked the shard across her inner wrist. Shiny, gleaming, warm liquid made her swoon as she crouched there on her knees, drenched with crimson as the clamor suddenly ballooned around her.
Hands seized her, yanking Gritta’s left arm away from her body, other hands grappling with her right hand, prying the sharp sliver of crockery locked in her fingers. Gritta felt far more pain in those fingers the others bent backward than she felt in that welcome, reassuring warmth in the wrist.
“Damn you! Damn you, George!”
“I’m sorry. So sorry, Colonel Usher!”
“Get her feet!” Usher ordered as Gritta began kicking to free herself: lashing out, flailing about at those rescuing her.
There were more than two of them on her now. The fog of faces, smells, cursing voices all tumbled together as they pinned her legs, lifted her.
“Get the wrist, dammit!” Usher growled. “Stop that bleeding.”
“She’s fighting too much, Colonel! Goddamn—it’s just spraying all over me!”
“George—by God! Get something and wrap her wrist!”
“Yessir!”
As they threw her down on the mattress, yanking her arms out from her body and pinning her legs atop the rumpled blankets, Gritta began to sense the first rise of pain in the wrist. The warmth was seeping out of her— replaced by spidering slivers of a cold so icy, she knew she had done some damage.
In the struggle an arm crossed in front of her eyes, and she snapped for it, feeling the taut flesh give beneath her teeth.
“Eeeeiks! The bitch … she’s got a holt of me! Get her off! Get the goddamned bitch off me!”
Someone pulled her hair, yanking her head back brutally. Gritta felt some of her hair come loose as she struggled against them, at the same time sensing some of the flesh tear loose from the man’s arm still locked between her teeth. His blood felt warm and thick on her tongue as the pain grew across her scalp.
“Jesus damned Christ! Lookit this, Colonel! The bitch gone and took a hunk outta my arm.”
