his pouch, grabbing a handful of blended herbs that were proficient in stopping bleeding. He looked into White Fawn’s eyes but they had already clouded over. He saved the herbs. Just then Leaping Frog sailed over his head. Severed Hand tried to jump and grab him, but it was too late as the young boy landed in the middle of the fire. His screams pierced the night as the flesh melted from his bones. His small charred body crawled a few feet, almost coming completely clear from the fire before collapsing.
Screaming Hawk took his small flint knife from his leg sheath and ran towards where the most intense screaming was coming from. His war cry stirred the air, it was the last sound he would ever make. Severed Hand found him the next day nailed through the throat to a tree with that same knife.
No matter where Severed Hand went that long night, it was always moments behind the plague that was tearing his people apart. He came across a little girl, he thought her name might have been Wading Brook. She had been torn in two, the ragged halves spread twenty feet apart. Deep Water, her mother, was lying in a pool of blood. Her head and spinal column had been detached from the rest of her body, her mouth still twitching.
When the dying had completed their destiny, a shadowy image appeared from beyond the fire.
“I see you demon!” Severed Hand shouted.
“As I see you, Medicine Man,” Eliza said as she appeared to walk through the fire.
Fear clutched Severed Hand’s heart as she approached.
“Why?” Severed Hand asked as he looked upon the blood soaked apparition before him.
“I was bored,” she said with a small laugh.
“What are you?” Severed Hand asked in horror. Anger was beginning to take hold.
“I am Death,” she replied proudly.
“You are not death. Death does not sow, it reaps.”
“Clever Shaman, but I will give you no further information. I know how powerful names can be to those who know how to use them.”
“Why not tell me who you are and then let me join those you have taken?”
“Very well, I had hoped to leave you alive so that you could tell others about me. I grow weary of always being in the shadows. It is time that people are afraid of me and not my legend. But I will grant your request. Perhaps it will be fun to take my time with you. Come, you and I will sit by the fire as I tell you my tale.”
“No one will fear a demon that destroys women, children and the old,” Severed Hand said defiantly.
“FOOL!” Eliza said, hitting Severed Hand with the back of her hand. He slid effortless across the ground. “Did you not understand the visions I sent to you?” Eliza was fairly shaking with rage.
The insult did as he had hoped. While he struggled to get up, he ripped free a deerskin pouch he had wrapped around his waist. “Your pride will be your end,” Severed Hand murmured before standing up completely.
“Now, come sit by the fire. I have a story to tell you before you die,” Eliza said, all of her earlier hostility seemingly dissipated.
Severed Hand rubbed his jaw. If he ever got to eat again, it would not be without some significant discomfort.
“My name is Eliza and this is my tale.” For several hours, Eliza related her story to Severed Hand about cruelties interlaced with atrocities piled high atop destruction.
“The world has no need for the likes of you,” the Medicine Man said gravely.
“It was this same world that produced me,” Eliza said. “I am merely returning the favor.”
“I could end your suffering,” Severed Hand offered sincerely.
Eliza laughed, “I enjoy the turmoil I cause, sorcerer. I fear our time together grows short,” she said as the eastern sky began to lighten.
“Do you fear seeing what devastation you have wrought?” Severed Hand asked as he glanced at the horizon Eliza was watching.
Eliza turned to him without saying anything. She gripped him around the neck and lifted him effortlessly off the ground. “Pity, I would have so enjoyed a few hours more of your time,” Eliza said as she slowly closed her grip.
Severed Hand threw the contents of his right hand up into the air. As it rained down, wherever it made contact with Eliza, tiny wisps of smoke arose. Severed Hand grabbed a hold of a lock of Eliza’s hair as her grip around his neck released. She reared back in pain.
“What have you done, witch doctor?” Eliza screamed.
“I know you for what you are, soulless one,” Severed Hand rasped, his throat on fire. “You will bother the Lakota no more. Every surviving member of my people will wear our skins infused with Hawthorn and Rowan.”
Eliza’s eyes gleamed at Severed Hand, “Our time now is done, but we have unfinished business,” she warned as she left.
Severed Hand fell to his knees, dragging in breaths that seemed to ignite the coals placed in his throat. “You are right demon, we do have unfinished business,” he said, looking at the strands of hair he had pried loose from her head.
For seven days and seven nights Severed Hand alternated between performing burial rituals, burying the dead of the tribe, and hunting for one particular type of gem stone. He only stopped long enough to gather more Hawthorn and Rowan and to take small drinks of water. The demon did not return. On the morning of the eighth day, Chief Running Bear and his braves returned triumphantly with five bison, confident in the fact that his people would make it through the winter, warm and fat.
The sight of the smoke from many funeral cairns at first stopped his advance and then made him speed up. His horse came to skidding stop at the hunched over body of Severed Hand who had just finished placing the last rock on the old Chief’s cairn.
“What has happened here?” Chief Running Bear asked alighting from his horse, wildly looking around for his wife and his children, in fact, anyone.
“They are dead,” Severed Hand said standing up, his hands nearly scraped clean of skin from his burial efforts.
“Who did this?” Running Bear asked, tears streaming down his face as he sought an enemy to lash out against.
“It is not a ‘who.’” Severed Hand said. “And your spears and bows would do nothing against it. Mourn, Running Bear, then come and sit with me. I have a way in which we can strike out against the demon that destroyed our people.”
Running Bear barely acknowledged the words of his Medicine Man, so lost was he in the depths of his loss, but still he nodded. Severed Hand rubbed a small amount of his mixture onto every warrior’s head and clothes as they fell where they were, cries of despair rising as one lone sad song across the now accursed ground.
For three days the remaining members of the tribe grieved for their lost ones. On the night of the third, Chief Running Bear entered into Severed Hand’s teepee. He was barely able to see the Medicine Man in the gloom, but he could see that he was beginning to shrivel away since he had not emerged to eat or drink in that whole time. The Chief sat across from Severed Hand who was only here in the physical sense, his spirit was walking the planes. The entire night the Chief merely sat and watched as the Shaman from time to time would shout out incoherent mutterings of warning and surprise.
“Hello, Running Bear,” Severed Hand said exhaustedly as the sun arose, light spilling through the top of the teepee’s smoke hole.
“Hello,” Running Bear returned the greeting, a determined look set on his face. “Can this demon be destroyed?” he asked.
“My spirit guides have shown me a way, but I will need the tribe’s help to achieve this. Even then I am not sure if we will be strong enough.”
“You will have all the help you ask for,” Running Bear said. “And if anger can be your source of energy, than you will have all you will need.”
Severed Hand gave the Chief a list of items he would need for that night’s spirit walk.
“Come old friend,” the Chief said to Severed Hand. “You have not drank or eaten in three days’ time. Let me get you something while we walk among the trees.”
“I would welcome some water, Running Bear, but I fear I will never walk in the light of day again. What I do the spirits have told me requires a high price.”
Running Bear nodded once, stood up and went to get his Shaman some water.
