As the young girl’s longest night ground slowly on, her discomfort would build and break like a fever and she would have to steel herself against sudden rushes of panic. She might have died of shock had she given in, but each time Christine found a way to beat back these swells of hysteria. If there was a saving grace, it was that she thought little of what had happened to her family and friends. Now and again she would hear her father’s death grunt, the one he made when the Pawnee hatchet sliced through his back. But each time she heard the grunt she managed to stop there, shutting the rest of it out of her mind. She’d always been known as a tough little girl, and toughness was what saved her.
Around midnight she dropped off to sleep only to wake minutes later in a claustrophobic frenzy. Like the slipknot on a rope, the more she struggled, the tighter she wedged herself.
Her pitiful screams rang up and down the draw.
At last she could scream no more and settled down to a long, cleansing cry. When that, too, was spent, she was calm, weak with the exhaustion an animal feels after hours in the trap.
Forsaking escape from the hole, she concentrated on a series of tiny activities to make herself more comfortable. She moved her feet back and forth, counting off each toe only when she could wiggle it separate from the rest. Her hands were relatively free and she pressed her fingertips together until she had run through every combination she could think of. She counted her teeth. She recited the Lord’s prayer, spelling each word. She composed a long song about being in the hole. Then she sang it.
When first light came she began to cry again, knowing she could not possibly make it through the coming day. She’d had enough. And when she heard horses in the draw the prospect of dying at someone’s hand seemed much better than dying in the hole.
“Help,” she cried. “Help me.”
She heard the hoofbeats come to an abrupt halt. People were coming up the slope, scuffling over the rocks. The scuffling stopped and an Indian face loomed in front of the hole. She couldn’t bear to look at him, but it was impossible to turn her head away. She closed her eyes to the puzzled Comanche.
“Please . . . get me out,” she murmured.
Before she knew it strong hands were pulling her into the sunshine. She couldn’t stand at first, and as she sat on the ground, stretching out her swollen legs an inch at a time, the Indians conferred amongst themselves.
They were split. The majority could see no value in taking her. They said she was skinny and small and weak. And if they took this little bundle of misery they might be blamed for what the Pawnee had done to the white people in the earth house.
Their leader argued against this. It was unlikely that the people at the earth house, so far from any other whites, would be found right away. They would be well out of the country by then. The band had only two captives now, both Mexicans, and captives were always of value. If this one died on the long trip home, they would leave her by the trail and no one would be the wiser. If she survived, she would be useful as a worker or as something to bargain with if the need arose.
And the leader reminded the others that there was a tradition of captives becoming good Comanches, and there was always a need for more good Comanches.
The matter was settled quick enough. Those who were for killing her on the spot might have had the better argument, but the man who was for keeping her was a fast-rising young warrior with a future, and no one was eager to go against him.
She survived all the hardships, largely through the benevolence of the young warrior with a future whose name she eventually learned was Kicking Bird.
In time she came to understand that these people were her people and that they were vastly different from those who had murdered her family and friends. The Comanches became her world and she loved them as much as she hated the Pawnee. But while the hate of the killers remained, memories of her family sank steadily, like something trapped in quicksand. In the end, the memories had sunk completely from sight.
Until this day, the day she had unearthed her past.
As vivid as the recollection had been, Stands With A Fist was not thinking of it as she got up from her spot in front of the cottonwood and waded into the river. When she squatted in the water and splashed some on her face, she was not thinking of her mother and father. They were long gone, and the remembrance of them was nothing she could use.
As her eyes scanned the opposite bank, she was thinking only of the Pawnee, wondering if they would be raiding into Comanche territory this summer.
Secretly, she hoped they would. She wanted another opportunity for revenge.
There had been an opportunity several summers before, and she had made the most of that one. It came in the form of an arrogant warrior who had been taken alive for the purpose of ransom.
Stands With A Fist and a delegation of women had met the men bringing him in at the edge of camp. She herself had led the ferocious charge that the returning war party had been powerless to turn back. They’d pulled him from his horse and cut him to pieces on the spot. Stands With A Fist had been first to drive in her knife, and she’d stayed until only shreds remained. Striking back at last had been deeply satisfying, but not so satisfying that she didn’t dream regularly of another chance.
The visit with her past was a tonic, and she felt more Comanche than ever as she walked back on the little-used path. Her head was high and her heart was very strong.
The white soldier seemed a trifling thing now. She resolved that if she talked to him at all, it would only be as much as pleased Stands With A Fist.
CHAPTER XVII
The appearance of three strange young men on ponies was a surprise. Shy and respectful, they carried the appearance of messengers, but Lieutenant Dunbar was very much on his guard. He had not yet learned to tell tribal differences, and to his unpracticed eye they could have been anybody.
With the rifle tipped over his shoulder, he walked a hundred yards behind the supply house to meet them. When one of the young men made the sign of greeting used by the quiet one, Dunbar answered with his usual short bow.
The hand talk was short and simple. They asked him to come with them to the village, and the lieutenant agreed. They stood by as he bridled Cisco, talking in low tones about the little buckskin horse, but Lieutenant Dunbar paid them little mind.
He was anxious to find out what was up and was glad when they left the fort at a gallop.
It was the same woman, and though she was sitting away from them, toward the back of the lodge, the lieutenant’s eyes kept roving in her direction. The deerskin dress was drawn over her knees and he couldn’t tell if she had recovered from the bad leg wound.
Physically she looked fine, but he could read no clues in her expression. It was a shade sullen but mainly blank. His eyes kept going to her because he was sure now that she was the reason for his being summoned to the village. He wished they could get on with it, but his limited experience with the Indians had already taught him to be patient.
So he waited as the medicine man meticulously packed his pipe. The lieutenant glanced again at Stands With A Fist. For a split second her eyes linked with his and he was reminded of how pale they were compared to the deep brown eyes of the others. Then he remembered her saying “Don’t” that day on the prairie. The cherry-colored hair suddenly sprang at him with new meaning, and a tingling started at the base of his neck.