The story was
simple, so pitifully simple, as Walker related it to her. They were walking as rapidly as was practical toward the lodge of her parents.
It had been one of the not uncommon horse-stealing raids of the Head Splitters. Not more than ten of the enemy were involved. They had carefully crept upon an isolated portion of the herd, frightened the two youths who were guarding it, and quickly drove away some thirty animals at a wild gallop.
The problem had developed when the enemy and the stolen horses neared Cedar Creek. They had apparently blundered into the area where Bobcat and his friends were hunting antelope, and there was an encounter between the two groups of surprised young men.
The People were outnumbered more than two to one, and there was not much of a battle. Dark Cloud had seen one Head Splitter fall and another appear to be wounded. Of the young hunters of the People, he alone had escaped.
The search party had just returned, bringing the bodies
of the fallen warriors. Mourning was in full cry, and a council fire had already been prepared.
Running Eagle lifted the lodge-door skin and slipped inside, thanking Walker briefly for his concern. Her mother was crouched near the fire, wailing the somber cadences of the Mourning Song. The face of Sweet Grass was streaked with dirt, ashes, and tears in the ritual of mourning the crossing over of loved ones.
Eagle sat nearby, ready to give comfort. His crippled leg extended straight before him, and his face, also, was stained with tears. Running Eagle gave each of them a quick embrace and turned to the dark, robe-enveloped form beside the doorway. Her tears were flowing freely.
Even at this tense moment, the girl allowed herself to wonder. Would she be expected to carry on the grief ritual as a woman would?
The answer came swiftly. No. Bobcat had believed strongly in her right to aspire to warrior status. She would live up to his expectations. She could cry, as any warrior might, but she must avenge this death. She dropped to her knees and gently touched the furry robe that enclosed this world's remains of her brother. His spirit, she knew, had probably already crossed over.
“My brother,” she said softly, “I will bring vengeance!”
There was a call outside. The criers of the warrior societies were walking through the camp, announcing that the council fire was lighted. Running Eagle and her father rose and hastened toward the fire.
Heads Off, as band chief, convened the council and committed the ritual smoke to the four winds. He glanced around the circle of chiefs, and the council began.
“My brothers, you know why we are here. It falls to our brother Standing Bird to lead a war party. His are the fallen warriors.”
The Elk-dog Society's leader rose, and his speech was quick and to the point. “We will leave tonight and travel by moon's light. Who will go?”
A dozen young warriors sprang to their feet, Running
Eagle among them. Long Walker, also standing, started to protest but then remained silent. There was no way he could deny her the right to be a part of the war party. A member of her family had been killed.
“We will meet there,” Standing Bird pointed to the meadow, “when the moon rises.”
Running Eagle walked with her father back toward the lodge. She must find her horse, ready her weapons, and prepare to depart. Sweet Grass would have food ready for her to carry.
“The horses are over there,” her father pointed. “The herders brought them in after the raid.”
Eagle accompanied his daughter to the area where the young men held the milling animals.
“Running Eagle!” a young man called respectfully. “Your gray mare is there!”
The girl shook out her rope and moved among the animals. She crooned quietly as she moved alongside the gray and slipped the rope smoothly around the mare's slim throat. Quickly she looped the medicine-knot around the lower jaw and threw a leg over the mare's back to swing up.
Eagle limped beside the mare's shoulder. “You will be careful, my daughter?”
“Of course, Father!”
They reached the lodge, and Sweet Grass handed a small packet of dried food to the girl. Running Eagle paused only long enough to embrace her parents and pick up her weapons, then remounted.
The red-orange rim of the rising moon was beginning to show as the girl trotted into the meadow to meet the others. Only a day past full, it would provide enough light to travel swiftly. It should be easy to track a large number of horses across open ground, even by moonlight.
Running Eagle could follow the thoughts of Standing Bird, leader of the war party. The retreating Head Splitters would stop for the night to rest, graze, and water their captured horses. By traveling all night, the pursuers could probably overtake them not long after daylight.
Standing Bird took a long look at his warriors and called softly. “Dark Cloud?”
“Yes, my chief?”
“Take us to the place where you last saw the Head Splitters.”
Of course the People knew the way, thought Running Eagle. They had retrieved their dead from that area. The chief only wished to honor Dark Cloud, the sole survivor of the skirmish, and provide him some of the prestige he might have lost in defeat. Yes, Standing Bird was a wise leader.
The party traveled rapidly, but it carefully spared its horses by frequent changes of pace and occasional rest stops. It would do no good to overtake the enemy, only to be handicapped by exhausted horses.
During one of the stops Running Eagle sat watching the slow march of the Seven Hunters around the Realstar. How close they looked tonight. It was a night that could have been beautiful except for the tragic nature of their mission. A night bird called from a ravine to their left, and the soft, silent form of a great hunting owl blotted out a handful of stars for a moment as it passed.
Someone strolled up beside her and stood for a moment, hesitating. She glanced up to see the stern profile of Long Walker against the moonlit sky in the east.
“Running Eagle,” he began hesitantly.
“Yes, Walker?”
“I would be honored if you would fight by my side tomorrow.”
The girl paused for a moment before answering. She was puzzled and perhaps a trifle suspicious. Was this an acknowledgment of her warrior status? Or was he suggesting that she needed his protection?
She burned inwardly with the thought but said nothing. It was possible that the young man was merely trying to be friendly. She could meet him halfway.
“Who knows,” she observed casually, “where we may be when the battle starts?”
“May I ride with you?”
“You may ride wherever you wish.”
Long Walker heaved a long sigh. Ah well, it was better than nothing. He squatted beside her for a moment.
But now warriors were swinging to their horses. Standing Bird was signaling that it was time to depart.
Standing Bird noticed
immediately that the girl and Long Walker rode together after the stop. It was his place as a leader to note such things.
He was pleased. It had been a matter of some concern to him that two young people whom he had always liked had come to the bitterness that had been evident in the Challenge.
Now he wondered exactly what had occurred at the rest stop. Was it Walker's concern for the girl's safety that made him ride by her side? It was certain that if that was the purpose, Walker had concealed it from Running Eagle. The girl would angrily refuse his assistance.
It must be, then, that Long Walker had found some diplomatic way to achieve the right to ride with her. Standing Bird smiled, amused. Walker was an able young man whose thoughts were good. He would be a chief some day. Perhaps even a great leader. He had participated in two war parties and had shown bravery. More important, he had shown good judgment.
Yes, it was good that Long Walker rode beside the young
warrior woman. He could be depended upon to guide her on her first war party.
Standing Bird well remembered his own first war party. He had been led into battle by Heads Off, the girl's grandfather. It had been the first use of Elk-dogs by the People. Their victory over the Head Splitters that day was immortalized in song, story, and dance as the Great Battle.
Aiee
, how time had flown. The two sons of Heads Off were now grown and with families of their own. One had become a respected medicine man, the other, Eagle, would have undoubtedly been a great chief if it had not been for his crippled leg. Still, he was honored and respected for his knowledge. And never were there two finer children than Bobcat and Eagle Woman. No, Running Eagle.
How Eagle must have longed to ride on this war party, to assist his daughter and to avenge his son. Standing Bird's heart went out to his friend. He could understand the loss. When no more than a child, he had lost his own father in a Head Splitter raid.
He was uneasy about the girl. If something happened to her, the family of Eagle would be effectively finished. Ah well, such were the worries of a leader. Running Eagle could take care of herself. He smiled to himself in amusement at the thought.
Aiee
, some Head Splitter would be in for a surprise!
Just before dawn, with the party proceeding cautiously, the advance scouts returned to report that the night camp of the Head Splitters was ahead. Standing Bird knew the ritual well. They would approach the enemy, who could scarcely escape unless they abandoned the horses. In that case they would recover the stolen herd and perhaps count honors on a couple of the fleeing Head Splitters. That would even the score, and the escaping warriors would carry the message that the People had exacted vengeance.
Another possibility was that the enemy would wish to parley. Standing Bird had seen it before. In an extreme confrontation they might claim that they had not stolen these Elk-dogs, merely found them, and any killing must have
been done by others. Then, depending on the mood of the two parties, they might recover the horses without a fight.
Unless, of course, someone started the hostilities. It would be touchy and unpredictable, with much circling, conversing in the sign talk, and bragging on both sides before it could be determined just how it would go.
All this, of course, was why it was well to have Long Walker close by the side of the girl, to explain the progression of events.
The Head Splitters had started to move with the coming of Sun Boy. They must have suspected some pursuit.
The pursuers passed the night camp quickly and pushed ahead. The trail was fresh, and it became apparent that the encounter would take place in a large, open valley ahead.
They topped the last hill and saw the retreating horse herd. Almost at the same instant the enemy appeared to become aware of the war party. There was much pointing, and warriors rode around the horse herd, bunching them together.
So, thought Standing Bird, they will make a stand. Cautiously he led his war party forward. To his left was Long Walker, and beyond him, the girl. The rest of the warriors spread out in a solid front to each side as they advanced. The Head Splitters did likewise.
It now became apparent that the strength of the enemy had been underestimated. Perhaps Dark Cloud had not seen all of the raiders. Perhaps they had been joined by more. It did not matter now how it had happened. The important thing was that Standing Bird's party of fifteen now appeared outnumbered by three or four, counting horse herders. If there were to be a parley at all, the enemy raiders would be able to negotiate from a position of strength.
It was with some indecision and dread that Standing Bird now led his party forward.
The enemy leader appeared to be a large, heavyset man who sat calmly in the center of the line, watching the People approach. The rest of the party, Standing Bird noted, were younger men. A party much like his own, then. Two
or three experienced warriors, the rest just starting to earn honors.
Some of the raiders appeared fidgety, and one young man's horse, near the center of the line, kept prancing nervously. It collided with the horse of the man next to him. That horse, in turn, swung broadside to the advancing party.
The People were not quite close enough to begin the sign talk yet, but they were close enough to recognize the turned horse. There was no other like it. The color was a dark mouse-gray, and on the left hip was a scatter of white patches of irregular shape and size. Bobcat had been teased about leaving his horse tied beneath an owl's nest, but it had never bothered him. He had affectionately called the rawboned gelding Owl Dung.
Standing Bird turned to see if the girl recognized her brother's mount, but he was a moment too late. He was only in time to see Running Eagle jab heels into the flanks of her startled mare and charge, alone, straight at the enemy.
His other warriors sat dumbfounded, in the process of readying their weapons.
“Aiee!”
someone said softly.
Long Walker was the first to react. The girl's gray mare had covered only three jumps before Walker's big bay leaped forward under his urgent heel. As he charged he raised his head to give vent to the battle cry. The deep-throated, chilling sound of the People's war cry resounded across the prairie.
Perhaps it was this sound that pushed the others into action. An echo of the yell burst from a dozen throats as Standing Bird led his warriors in a thundering frontal charge, trying in vain to overtake the girl on the catlike gray mare.