He could feel his breath hitting something just in front of his face. He tentatively reached up and felt the wool blanket he had placed over the trench he’d dug in the snow the previous evening. It was less than four inches from his face, although it had been two feet above when he’d put it in place. It also didn’t move, as if it were weighed down by snow.
Bouyer remained still, trying to get his panicked breath Hiller control. He closed his eyes. He knew Crazy Horse was somewhere not far away. He’d always bad a sense for his half-brother’s presence. But it wasn’t his brother who he needed to go to now.
Southeast. In his mind’s eye, Bouyer could see the vast stretch of plains in that direction. Across the Colorado Territory, Kansas, into the Indian Territory just north of Texas. A river winding through a snow-covered plain. A river that ran with blood. And the officer he had seen in the dream. Bouyer knew he was down there somewhere.
Had the dream been something that would happen or something that could happen? That was the question Bouyer always had when he had a vision. As he got his breathing under control, Bouyer thought about what he had “seen” and decided it was something that could happen but shouldn’t. After all, his fate as foretold was to die nobly, not tied to the stake. Perhaps the vision was a warning letting him know that if he did not stay true to his fate, things would turn out worse.
Also, there was the Army officer. He was important.
Bouyer shoved his arms upward, the blanket and snow slowly giving way. He stood up. It had snowed during the night. And the ground was now covered with almost three feet of white powder.
Bouyer gathered his gear, wrapped it in the blanket and pushed his way through the snow to the tree where his horse was tethered. He tied off the roll behind his saddle and swung up onto the horse. The skull, still retaining a slight blue glow, was wrapped in a leather satchel underneath the bed roll.
He knew he needed to go to the southeast. But there was someplace he needed to stop by on the way. He nudged his horse’s head and began to move.
Crazy Horse knew something was wrong as soon as he entered the village. He had been gone for a month, chasing Crow warriors who had stolen some ponies. During that time the village had moved, something he’d been apprised of when he met a hunting party two days ago. The movement was normal, as ponies ate grass and a village could not stay in one place for long before the available grazing was gone.
Although others in his party carried scalps, Crazy Horse, despite killing two Crow in battle, did not. His mother had told him never to partake of the custom, and. it was one of the few things she’d said that he took to heart.
No one would meet his eyes. That was what told him there was bad news. He knew Black Robe, his wife, had the white man’s wasting sickness. She’d been coughing for more than five moons now and was not expected to last much longer. As he slid off his horse in front of his lodge, he was prepared for the bad news of his wife’s death.
He threw back the flap to the lodge and paused, seeing his wife seated by the fire. Wrapped in several robes in a vain attempt to get warm. She, too, would not meet his eyes, and he felt a pain rip through his heart as he wildly looked about, not seeing his young baby girl anywhere.
“Where is she?” he demanded.
“At the last camp,” Black Robe whispered, before breaking out in a spate of coughing. “The quick draining death disease.”
Crazy Horse sunk to his knees. His only child, dead of another of the white man’s fevers. He had not seen this. Why? Why was she taken?
Black Robe finished coughing, wiping the thin stain of blood from her lips. “I am sorry.”
Crazy Horse ignored her. She was not the woman he had wanted for a wife. His face bore the scar where a bullet had punched through his left jaw when he had been with Black Buffalo Woman, the one he had always desired. But Black Buffalo Woman belonged to another man, and Black Robe had born him the one thing he had cherish above all else — his daughter.
Crazy Horse howled, the yell echoing across the village. He was cursed, of that he had no doubt. The woman he loved was with another man. The child he loved was dead. The wife he didn’t love. But lived with, was dying, and could not even look him a decent meal or bear another child.
Crazy Horse staggered to his feet. He left the lodge. Many were gathered about, wondering what he would do. He was known as a strange man. one who had visions, who often rode off alone. Who took no scalps, yet was brave in battle. Who bad pursued another man’s wife beyond the bounds of Lakota law. Who had been shot in the face because of it yet had not wreaked revenge on the man who shot him.
Crazy Horse ignored them all and jumped on his horse. He knew the previous location of the village. Almost seventy miles away. He didn’t bother to get water or food. He rode out of the village, pushing his horse mercilessly through the new snow.
Bouyer felt the urge pulling him to the southeast, but he resisted it He sat cross-legged in the glade near the small stream, whispering the Lakota prayers Bridger had taught him. He heard a horse coming upstream, breathing hard. But he didn’t turn his head.
The rider stopped between him and the scaffold. Bouyer watched Crazy Horse run forward, even as his horse collapsed in the snow. The Lakota warrior climbed up the tree that held the end of the scaffold until he could look down at the small wrapped bundle tied to it. Gingerly, Crazy Horse laid down next to his daughter, holding her to his chest. Bouyer didn’t move the entire time.
And as the sun arced across the sky and day turned into night, neither man changed positions.
When dawn came, Bouyer stiffly got to his feet and gathered wood. He built a large fire and waited by it. It was late afternoon before Crazy Horse rose from the scaffold and climbed down. The warrior seemed drained to Bouyer, empty of any energy, even of the anger Bouyer bad always felt coming from his ‘’brother.’’ Crazy Horse walked up to the fire and stared into it.
“I am sorry,” Bouyer finally said.
“Why are you here?”
“I felt your pain.” Bouyer paused. “And your anger.”
“Why are you here?”
“I can always feel your anger. Sometimes strong, like the full moon, sometimes weak, like a distant star in the sky. But it is always there. This is the first time I’ve felt your pain.”
“My daughter is dead. My wife is dying. All because of your people.”
“And my people will make your people pay in turn,” Bouyer said. “Where does it end?” He didn’t wait for an answer as he angrily turned toward Crazy Horse. “Your anger is selfish. All you care about is how you feel. Why is it always about you? It is your daughter who is dead. You should mourn her, not be angry. But your anger makes you feel better, so you give in to it.” Bouyer reached across and slammed Crazy Horse in the chest, surprising the warrior, who staggered back a few steps. “Until you let go of the hardness in there, you will not be a great leader, nor will you fulfill your destiny. I have seen what happens to me if I do not fulfill the destiny foretold. It is terrible. I would imagine your fate would be as terrible if you do not do what is foretold.”
Crazy Horse stared at Bouyer for several seconds and then surprisingly sat down, with his back to the fire, facing the burial scaffold. “I have nothing left but my people, and I am told they are doomed, too.” He glanced over his shoulder at Bouyer. “You are going somewhere?”