Ashes of Heaven (The Plainsmen Series) Read online

  His heart warmed with that thought, Coal Bear smiled and decided he would venture out to help his woman bring in more wood. Emerging from the lodge, he gazed into the sky at the pewter-colored globe obscured behind the thickening, gray clouds. Perhaps there would be more snow before nightfall. As he took those first steps away from the door, a loud voice stopped him in his tracks.

  Coal Bear turned at the cry.

  A second voice shouted in alarm.

  Now some were pointing in the direction of the Little Sheep River, wagging their arms toward the low hills at the eastern fringe of the valley. Could they have sighted soldiers?

  Protectively, the priest stepped back to stand directly in front of the lodgedoor. Here again he would guard Esevone.

  Then, out on the flat prairie, he saw them. Two riders coming slowly toward the village. Straining his old eyes, Coal Bear tried to focus behind the pair, but there were no others. Only two. One rode a saddle with stirrups, the other without. Perhaps bareback.

  By now three young warriors had leaped atop their own ponies and were dashing toward the strangers. As Coal Bear watched, the two riders spotted the trio and suddenly kicked their big horses into motion. The animals burst into a gallop. As the horses raced toward the village, it became easier to see that the strangers did not ride on poorly fed, winter-gaunt Indian ponies. This pair rode on big American horses.

  Horses so fast that they managed to race past the young warriors. Big horses picking up speed as their riders pointed them right for the middle of the village crescent.

  They were coming straight for Coal Bear’s lodge!

  In the space of three pounding heartbeats the riders were nearly upon the Sacred Hat Keeper. Even before his horse stopped, one of the strangers leaped to the ground, landing no more than the length of two bows from Coal Bear himself. The priest stepped back, gazing up at the other rider who brought his big horse to a halt. The animal snorted and pawed at the icy crust of snow.

  “Coal Bear!” that rider called out in the tongue of his people. “My heart is full of song to see you!”

  Then the stranger pulled back the blanket from his face and Coal Bear now saw that the rider was a woman.

  “O-Old Wool Woman?”

  How was this? She was a prisoner of the Bear Coat—

  “It is me!” she cried with happiness, her wind-burnt cheeks wet with tears.

  Rocked with confusion, Coal Bear suddenly turned to stare at the other rider. His dark skin, something about his eyes—was he Lakota? If so, he was wearing the strangest clothing, white man’s clothing to be sure.

  “It really is you!” a female voice called out. The speaker lunged to a stop at Old Wool Woman’s knee.

  “Antelope Woman!” Old Wool Woman blubbered, reaching out her hand to the younger woman who held up her hands to the returned captive.

  Without warning the dark-skinned stranger stepped right up to Coal Bear, yanked off his horsehide mitten, and held out his empty right hand to him. Coal Bear stared down at it a moment as the village grew noisy around them. He looked back into the stranger’s face, then glanced quickly at Old Wool Woman’s face, finding her happy eyes crying, before gazing behind the stranger. Warriors, women, and other head men raced up on foot.

  In confusion, Coal Bear turned back to the dark-skinned man a moment before the stranger suddenly withdrew his hand. How quickly the man’s black-cherry eyes narrowed in fear as they darted across all those people rushing toward them. Just as Coal Bear turned to Old Wool Woman, about to ask who her companion might be, he saw her stab her head toward the lodgedoor. A signal for the stranger.

  In that instant the stranger ducked to the side, scooting behind Coal Bear to plunge into the lodge before the old man could twist around to stop him.

  “Old Wool Woman?”

  Coal Bear wheeled around again at the sound of Little Wolf’s voice. The Sweet Medicine Chief had reached Old Wool Woman’s knee, looking up at her astride the back of the tall American horse.

  She was crying hard now, sobbing so hard she was unable to utter a word. Yet at the same time she was laughing as she sank from the saddle and touched the ground. Arms stretched out for her, countless arms. Other happy, wet faces emerged from the crowd, all of those eyes as teary as hers, their cheeks rubbing together in welcome as the many cried together.

  “One who was lost has now returned!” Morning Star hollered above the tumult.

  “One who we thought dead,” Coal Bear croaked with a shaky voice, feeling the tears sting his own eyes as he stepped forward to embrace Old Wool Woman, “has come back to us alive.”

  She stepped into the old priest’s arms, laying her leathery cheek against his chest where she sobbed and laughed, then laughed some more. Around the two of them women sang in tremolo and trilled their tongues, while children cried out and men sang their courage songs. Such happiness Coal Bear’s people hadn’t had in a long, long time.

  In the midst of that joyous reunion, the Sacred Hat Priest bent his head, putting his lips beside Old Wool Woman’s ear, and whispered, “Who is this stranger who takes refuge in our sacred lodge?”

  Chapter 8

  Big Hoop-and-Stick Moon

  1877

  Old Wool Woman could not believe it—how she could cry and laugh at the same time.

  Antelope Woman would not let go of her hand from the moment Old Wool Woman dropped to the ground. Patting that bony hand, stroking it, squeezing it while so many others pressed close, all of them chattering like a flock of noisy magpies.

  She could barely speak, hardly get a sound out, there was something thick clogging her throat. She could not remember ever feeling this way before, at least not since that warm night when her family heard a young man playing his flute outside their lodge and her father told her she should go out to listen because the flute-player was a brave, honorable young man. No, he was not wealthy, nor would he be able to bring many ponies to a young bride’s father, but her father said that the young one was a good man. Old Wool Woman hadn’t felt this way, hadn’t sensed such utter and exquisite joy since that night when she ventured outside her family lodge and let Black White Man play his love songs for her.

  Oh, how she wished he were here for her to return home to. How she wished her sons and daughter were here to welcome her among her people. But her sons were dead, and Fingers Woman was a captive at the Bear Coat’s fort.

  Then she realized, standing in the middle of the noisy, pulsing knot of well-wishers that they had become her family in these moons since she had lost her husband and sons. They had protectively wrapped themselves around her wounded heart the way they were crowding around her now, cooing as they stroked her face, touched her hair, stared into her eyes to be certain sure it really was her returned from the ve-ho-e’s army prison.

  Then Morning Star suddenly grabbed both her arms, spun her toward him in an embrace before he asked, “Who is this Hunkpapa you brought to our camp?”

  “He … he is not a Hunkpapa,” Old Wool Woman replied with a stammer.

  Little Wolf leaned forward to demand, “Who is he then, if not a Lakota? He is not Shahiyela!”

  “He is Big Leggings,” she explained in a loud, cracking voice above the noise of the crowd around them. “The one our people call ‘White.’” Behind Morning Star and Little Wolf she suddenly recognized how restless and agitated the young men of the warrior societies had become: Kit Fox Soldiers and Elkhorn Scrapers, the Crazy Dogs and Bowstrings too. All of them were goading one another into a lather. They actually believed an enemy had penetrated their camp.

  “The Lakota called Big Leggings?” Coal Bear cried, staring in disbelief at the entrance to his sacred lodge.

  “The same,” Old Wool Woman replied.

  Last Bull, the war chief shamed at the Red Fork fight, lunged forward, spitting out his words, “When Buffalo Bull Sitting Down visited Crazy Horse not long ago, he told our camp that this Big Leggings was a traitor!”

  That news made her skin turn cold.
“The Lakota … where is Crazy Horse? Is he here in this camp?”

  “No, he is less than a day away,” Morning Star reported.

  She grew even more frightened for the delicate prospect of peace, for the half-breed’s life. “Did he go with Buffalo Bull Sitting Down, still hoping to gather the Lakota to make more war on the soldiers?”

  Little Wolf shook his head. “Buffalo Bull Sitting Down is taking his people north to the Land of the Grandmother … alone.”

  “And Crazy Horse is ready to start with his village to the Little Powder to spend the rest of the winter,” Coal Bear finished explaining.

  “I don’t think there ever again will be a village big enough that we can crush the soldiers sent against us,” Morning Star declared sadly. “But the white man does not bother us here, and there are a few buffalo—”

  “How did you escape from the Bear Coat?” Last Bull interrupted suspiciously.

  “I did not escape,” she explained. “The soldier chief asked me to come speak to my people.”

  “About what?” Little Wolf demanded.

  “To tell you what choices each of you has for your families and your children.” Then Old Wool Woman raised her voice so all could hear. “Big Leggings and I left some pack animals over there in the brush by the river. Go bring them to us here.”

  Little Wolf ordered a few young men to hurry off to the nearby riverbank. In a matter of minutes they were back, herding a double-handful of army mules, each one laden with packs.

  “What are these?” Morning Star asked.

  “The animals carry presents,” she explained. “Unload them here in front of the sacred lodge.”

  It did not take long to strip those packs from the mules, to spread out the canvas covers and expose the bags of sugar and coffee, bacon and dried fruit, along with beans and dark plugs of army tobacco. Everything taken off those ten mules was quickly stacked in several impressive piles.

  Old Wool Woman stepped to Coal Bear’s side and announced, “All that you see before you here is sent to you and the chiefs, sent not only to our military leaders, but also to every woman and child too … by the Bear Coat.”

  “Gifts from the soldiers?” Coal Bear asked.

  “Yes, because the Bear Coat shows you how much he wants to make peace with us.”

  Coal Bear hushed the eager, excited crowd, then began calling out names of warriors from the societies, ordering the young men to divide the gifts equally between all the lodges. Everything, that is, except the tobacco.

  “If there is anything left over from the sugar and coffee and army meat, we will use it tonight for our council meal,” Coal Bear explained. “And for the tobacco—the society headmen and chiefs will use this when we smoke to consider the important matters Old Wool Woman has brought before us.”

  As the warriors came forward, the space around Old Wool Woman and the chiefs became a beehive of activity.

  Last Bull stepped forward haughtily. “You could have brought these presents here on your own, Old Wool Woman. Why did you bring that traitor with you?”

  Behind him several warriors pressed close, as if they might invade the sanctuary that was the Sacred Hat Lodge if given permission by their leaders.

  “Big Leggings is here to help.” Old Wool Woman sought to soothe the angry temper of the crowd inching her closer and closer to the entrance to Coal Bear’s lodge. “He speaks Lakota. Most of us speak some Lakota too. He brings the words from the Bear Coat. The same words the Bear Coat told me to bring to you himself.”

  “If you know the Bear Coat’s words,” Little Wolf asked, “then why did the half-breed traitor come with you?”

  She drew herself up to her full height with dignity as she sought the words for her answer, “Big Leggings came to protect me on my journey. He came to see that I made it back to my people safely. And he came to convince our leaders that we can make a good peace with the Bear Coat.”

  “There is no good peace with the ve-ho-e!” Last Bull growled.

  “These are matters for us to discuss in council,” Little Wolf declared, silencing most of the angry muttering. Then he held his arms high, demanding complete quiet. “Coal Bear will prepare the Sacred Hat Lodge so that the head men can meet to discuss what news Big Leggings brings from the soldier camp.”

  “Turn the half-breed over to us!” a voice cried out among the young warriors.

  “Yes!” a second voice shouted above all the murmuring. “We will exact our revenge for the good lives the soldiers took at the Red Fork fight!”

  “Give him to us, Coal Bear!” a new voice called out. “We will spill his blood the way the white man spilled the blood of Big Crow!”

  “No!” Little Wolf shouted, shoving back two of the young hot-bloods eager to reach the doorway. “This visitor sits in the Sacred Lodge. No one will bring him harm. There he can eat and sleep as a guest. White he is our guest, we will listen to his words. And we will consider what the Bear Coat offers us for peace.”

  “The word of a ve-ho-e is worth as much as the dung of a coyote!”

  “You are wrong!” Morning Star shouted back at the voice from the crowd. “What the Bear Coat has said he would do, he has always done. He told us that if we did not come in to surrender at his soldier camp, he would come looking for us and attack our village. The Bear Coat was true to his word. He attacked our camp. And the Bear Coat also told us he would treat his captives kindly. That he would feed them and keep them warm. Now look at Old Wool Woman. And you will see for yourselves that the Bear Coat speaks the truth.”

  “Yes,” Little Wolf said gravely as the clamor died around him. “If the Bear Coat tells us he will come make war on us … we will have to sleep on our weapons, we will have to watch our back-trail, we will have to live in constant fear. Because the Bear Coat does what he says he will do.”

  * * *

  Esevone’s home is a place of refuge.

  Any enemy is safe in Her home.

  Johnny Bruguier kept murmuring the old woman’s words over and over again as the crowd outside grew louder, their voices angrier. Every now and then he imagined he could make out Old Wool Woman’s voice among all the others, but most of the time her voice was swallowed up, drowned out by louder, angrier, deeper voices.

  While he did not understand most of the sharp-tongued Shahiyela words, Johnny had no trouble comprehending their meaning.

  He became aware that he was finally growing warm. Dragging the horsehide mittens from his hands, Bruguier yanked at the buckle to his gun belt, dropping the rigging beside him on a pile of blankets. He slipped out of his coat, then laid the holster and belt on top of it, pistol butt positioned just so, ready. Staring at the doorflap, Johnny flexed the fingers of his gun hand. If those who spoke with sharp-edged voices outside shoved into this lodge, at least he could take a few of them before they took him.

  Something caused him to turn his head, to study the back of the lodge, across the fire pit from where he crouched. There lay the bed he knew belonged to the owner of the lodge. Positioned against the lodgeskins at the head of a skimpy pile of blankets and a pair of buffalo robes stood a tripod some four feet tall. From that tripod of stout, peeled saplings hung a bundle, its wide strap embroidered with porcupine quills.

  “The Buffalo Hat,” he whispered, rocking forward on his knees.

  He sensed a sudden anticipation rush through him like the fiery burn of adrenaline that heated his veins when danger raised its head. Curiosity made him yearn to move, yet fear of the unknown kept him riveted to the spot—unmoving, tense, and trembling. He remembered how a light came across Old Wool Woman’s face whenever she spoke to him of this lodge, of that bundle, of the powerful object kept within the bundle’s furry protection.

  Even though many of the voices continued bitter and angry just outside the lodge—no more than a matter of feet from him—Johnny Bruguier felt himself growing calm. He sank onto the blanket beside his coat once more, and settled, not taking his eyes off that bundle. While curiosity
urged him to look inside at this object these Shahiyela revered above all others, he was amazed to find that he was at peace with waiting.

  Surprisingly, Bruguier felt safe right here in the middle of the enemy camp. Genuinely secure and safe from harm. No matter that there were hundreds outside who would gladly kill him because he had come here uninvited, because he was a courier from Bear Coat Miles, because he was a half-breed scout who had helped tear six Shahiyela women and children away from their people and drag them north to the soldier post at the mouth of the Tongue.

  The doorflap was pulled aside and a head appeared.

  Bruguier jerked anxiously, his heart rising in his throat. Old Wool Woman entered. He swallowed hard, and found himself smiling. Glad to see her. She smiled in turn and nodded as she came through the door, crouched, both arms laden with what Johnny guessed to be some of the rations Miles sent with them on the mules. Right behind her came a younger woman, small packages filling her arms as well. Her gaze met Johnny’s for a long moment. He read no fear, no hatred in her eyes. She turned away and continued to the back of the lodge where she and Old Wool Woman laid their treasures on the Hat Keeper’s bedding.

  Old Wool Woman knelt by the fire, warming her cold hands, rubbing each joint and swollen knuckle the way he had watched her rub them over every one of their fires, morning and night. As she kneaded her sore flesh, she gazed up at him.

  “You are safe here, Big Leggings,” she spoke in halting Lakota so he would understand her.

  “I feel safe here,” he admitted. His eyes flicked over to the younger woman with the pretty face, accentuated by the highest cheekbones he had seen in a long time.

  “This is Antelope Woman,” the older one explained. “She has been a special friend to me for a long time.” Turning to the younger woman, she spoke in Shahiyela. Then she looked back at Johnny, and said, “I reminded Antelope woman who you are, that you are here to talk peace between the Bear Coat and our people.”