With one boot Totter turned her over on her back.
She tried to rise, but Totter put his boot on her stomach and pressed her back, and she lay still, keeping her eyes closed, her head back with her glistening braids in the dust, trying to come to her senses, sick, knowing she could not move until the white man would be pleased to permit her to do so.
“From out here now,” Totter was saying to the other man, “most likely she’s from Sitting Bull’s camp on the Grand River.”
“Let’s go there,” said Grawson. “Maybe he went that way.”
“There’s trouble there,” said Totter. “Our best bet is to light out for Fort Yates, get some men, then go there.”
“Take too much time,” said the other man.
“You’d better take that time,” said Totter. “You’ll get shot up at Grand River.”
“Hell,” said Grawson.
“They got the Ghost Dance there now,” said Totter.
“I’m not going to lose him,” said Grawson.
“He probably ain’t even there,” said Totter.
“He was,” said Grawson. “We heard plenty about the white medicine man-and that’s him.”
“He probably ain’t there now,” Totter said.
“You scared, Corporal?” asked Grawson.
“I don’t aim to get myself killed being stupid,” said Totter.
“I’ll go alone,” said Grawson.
“Tomorrow is plenty of time,” said Totter, and he winked at Grawson. “Take my word for it, tomorrow is plenty of time.”
“How’s that?” asked Grawson.
“The Indian police got some business tomorrow in certain places,” said Totter.
Grawson was silent for a while. Then he said, “All right, I’m going to Fort Yates now, and tomorrow Grand River.”
“That’s smart,” said Totter.
Sick, frightened, in pain, Winona heard only blurred snatches of this conversation, not following the English as well as she might have, if it had mattered to her to listen. It seemed only noise to her. She was clearly aware only of her misery, her fear, the ground beneath her back, Totter standing over her.
She heard the hoofs of the horse and Totter yelled and stepped over her, running after the horse.
“What the hell!” Totter was yelling.
The horse stopped.
“Wait up!” yelled Totter. “Let me ride behind you!”
The man on the horse, heavy in a fur-collared civilian’s mackinaw coat, wearing a fur cap, his gloved hands cruel on the nose rope, made a noise, almost like a bear might laugh.
“Report to me at Fort Yates, Corporal,” said Grawson, and then the pony snorted in pain and the hoofbeats took their way into the distance, and several yards away Totter stood cursing, shaking his fist after the retreating Grawson.
Winona rolled to her stomach, and climbed to her hands and knees, shaking her head, then struggled unsteadily to her feet.
The horse was gone, the travois poles lay nearby in the dust with the cut quilted ropes of the harness still tied to them. She was alone. Totter’s back was to her.
Winona, stumbling, began to run across the prairie, toward the Grand River camp.
She had not gone more than a dozen steps when she heard Totter’s yell behind her, ordering her to stop.
Then she heard him laugh.
And heard the sound of running boots and the breaking of brush behind her.
Blindly, no place to hide, nowhere to go, Winona ran, stumbling, fighting for breath, scrambling between cactus and sage, her feet slipping in the dust, a wild thing, hunted.
She could hear the breathing of Totter behind her, the heavy fall of his boots, the long stride.
More swiftly she ran than ever she had but the sounds of Totter’s relentless pursuit, the thunder of his boots, the rasping of his breath, grew even nearer.
She cried out as she sensed him lunge for her and leaped to one side and Totter sprawled in the dust and her heart leaped and she cried out in terror as she fell, her right ankle locked in the manacle of his heavy grip and together they rolled in the dust, she biting and striking at him, screaming, and then with his fist he struck her on the side of the head and night and its stars exploded in her head and her arms and legs could not move, and then, taking his time, he hit her again, hard, this time in the stomach, and she threw up and lay still, wanting only to be able to breathe, and was only dimly aware of him rolling her onto her stomach, taking off his yellow neckerchief and tying her hands behind her back.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said.
He rolled her over again, on her back, and looked her over. She was breathing heavily, covered with dust. She struggled a bit, twisting, trying to pull her wrists apart, but could not. She could see that Totter was pleased with her. He liked the look of her. And she was his now.
She put her head back, looking at the great, wide blue sky.
Totter lifted her by the shoulders into a half-sitting position.
“I won’t hurt you, Nancy,” he said.
Winona did not understand.
Her eyes fastened on his unshaven mouth, his thick, hard lips, the vicious bruise and cut on his cheek, on his eyes, wanting her.
He tried to press his mouth on hers and she turned her head savagely, drew back and like a striking snake spit in his face.
Totter laughed good-naturedly and pressed her back to the dust, then with his left thumb and forefinger opened her mouth, holding it open, and with his other hand scooped up a handful of prairie dust, pouring it into her mouth slowly, gagging and choking her.
“Now you ain’t got so much spit to spare,” said Totter.
Then it occurred to him that an Indian girl had spit on him and he slapped her twice, open handed then back handed, and then spit in her open face.
Tears burned in Winona’s eyes and she struggled for breath, trying to cough the dirt out of her mouth.
Totter wiped his face with her hair and then, grinning, forcing her mouth open again, he scooped up another handful of dirt.
Winona shook her head, no. Please, no.
“You be a good girl and be quiet?” asked Totter.
Defeated, Winona nodded.
“Nice Nancy,” said Totter. “That’s a good Nancy.”
Her hands tied behind her back, Winona suddenly shuddered and her shoulders left the ground but Totter pressed her back, and she twisted, but could not free herself from his grip, and her young brown body, now resisting by instinct, but unable to do so successfully, bound, shuddering, twisting in the dust, acknowledged its womanhood.
Clutched in the sweating palm of one of her brown hands, tied behind her, was a pair of yellow chevrons, which she had torn from Totter’s sleeve in their struggle.
Chapter Eleven
His face black with rage Drum, carrying his lance and carbine, rode his pony to within a few feet of Old Bear’s horse, suddenly reining in.
With his right hand he thrust his lance, feathered and tipped with the blade of a bowie knife, butt down in the soil beside his pony, like a flag.
Old Bear did not move.
The other two braves circled to cover Chance with their rifles, from both sides.
Chance licked his lips. It felt like running his tongue over dry rock. His eyes were narrow, sharp in their focus on Drum, watching mostly the young Indian’s hands.
But Drum’s carbine, though not in its buckskin sheath, was held on its side crossways over the pony’s back. His right hand rested over the stock, his left, holding the nose rope of his pony, lay over the side of the barrel. Drum himself apparently had no immediate intention of firing in Old Bear’s presence. But Chance wondered about the braves flanking him. Perhaps Drum would signal them, by a gesture, or a word he would speak like any other word. But perhaps the braves would fire only if Chance did. Perhaps none of them wished to fire in Old Bear’s presence. Certainly Old Bear himself did not act as though he supposed anyone were going to fire.