“She did not know I was still with the Hunkpapa,” said Chance.
“Are the Hunkpapa not your people?” challenged Drum.
“They are the only people I have,” said Chance.
“Then,” said Drum, triumphantly, “she is not your woman or she would know you would be always with your people. She would have come with us, singing and happy.”
“Drum is a warrior who is wise as well as brave,” said Chance, “but how could you expect her to come with you when you had killed her friends?”
“I will not give her up,” said Drum.
“I will pay you horses and bullets,” said Chance, “even though she is my own woman, I will pay you horses and bullets, because I do not want to fight you.”
Drum looked at Chance.
“Though she is my own woman,” said Chance, “I will buy her.”
“I will not sell her,” said Drum, “not for twenty horses or a thousand bullets.”
“I will give you forty horses,” said Chance, “a hundred boxes of bullets.” He did not consider at the moment where he might obtain such riches. Somehow he could; somehow he would.
“I will not sell her,” said Drum.
“Please,” said Lucia.
Drum regarded her contemptuously.
“Please-” said Lucia, begging him, “-sell me.”
“Do you want to be my squaw?” asked Drum.
“No!” cried Lucia, “no, no!”
Drum threw back his head and laughed, and then he slapped his leg with pleasure. “If you wanted to be my squaw,” he said, “then maybe I would sell you.”
Chance’s fists closed. Lucia subsided into crushed, helpless silence.
“Why will you not give up the woman?” asked Chance.
Drum looked at him. “I want her,” he said.
“Tomorrow morning,” said Old Bear, speaking to both men, “you will fight.”
About the campfire there was a murmur of assent to Old Bear’s words.
“No,” said Lucia to Chance. “I will be his woman.”
“I will not permit it,” said Chance.
“Please,” said Lucia.
“No,” said Chance. “I will not permit it.”
Drum looked at Lucia, puzzled.
Then the two men regarded one another.
“For a long time, Medicine Gun,” said Drum, “there has been bad blood between us. Tomorrow we will end the blood that is bad between us.”
Chance nodded.
Drum looked down at him. “I am not angry with you, Medicine Gun,” he said.
Chance looked up, surprised. He regarded the swift, lithe young brave. Somehow, now that the matter was settled, he, too, felt no anger. “And I,” said Chance, “am not angry with the son of Kills-His-Horse.”
“Good,” said Drum.
Chance nodded, looking down at the dirt.
“Give up the woman,” said Drum.
Chance looked up again more surprised than before. “I will not give her up,” he said.
“Then,” said Drum, “we will fight.”
“Yes,” said Chance, “we will fight.”
Tomorrow one of them would be dead.
“Take the coats of these men,” said Old Bear, gesturing to Grawson and Totter, “and give them to the women and children.”
Two braves tied the feet of Grawson and Totter. Then, they untied their arms and removed the warm greatcoats, afterwards rebinding their arms.
When Totter’s greatcoat was pulled off, Drum’s eye was taken of a sudden by the soldier’s sleeve. He went to Totter and held the bound arm. Then Drum’s sudden cry of joy rang through the camp, like sun off the blade of a lifted knife. Chance looked more closely. In the light of the fire he could see Drum’s hand on Totter’s arm, and the blue sleeve, where two chevrons had been torn off.
As the Indians bent forward to see more closely, and the women and children pressed in, Drum released Totter’s arm and from the recesses of his medicine bag withdrew one stained, wrinkled yellow chevron. This he held against Totters sleeve, his face evil with delight.
“Winona!” cried Drum. “Winona!”
Winona came forward, facing Totter, who knelt frozen with fear bound before her.
At the side of Winona stood Running Horse.
Totter numbly shook his head, back and forth, denying a charge that had not yet been made.
“It wasn’t me,” said Totter. “Not me.” Totter began to whimper. “You got the wrong feller,” he said. “It wasn’t me.”
Without speaking Running Horse withdrew from his own medicine bag a second wrinkled, yellow chevron. This he too held to Totter’s sleeve. It too, of course, matched.
Totter shook his head again. “No,” he said, his voice only a whisper, terrified. “No,” he said, “it wasn’t me.” His eyes screamed, looked to Winona, imploring.
The girl’s face bore no trace of emotion; then without speaking she turned and made her way back through the Indians, leaving him.
Totter looked from Drum to Running Horse, to Old Bear, puzzled, not understanding.
“Give him to the women,” said Old Bear.
Totter screamed like a girl, struggling and biting as he was staked out near the fire. Now he was sobbing, his body stripped and his legs and arms tied widely apart. Several of the women, led by the thin woman with mourning wounds, crowded about his helpless figure.
“Let us dance,” said Old Bear, unpacking his pipe, putting his tobacco pouch in his lap. He gestured to one of the children to bring him a twig from the fire which he could use in lighting the pipe.
The Indians began, with the exception of Old Bear and two or three rather old men, to get to their feet.
Two of Drum’s young men carried Grawson, bound hand and foot, from the fire to one of the blanket shelters against the lee wall of the camp. His fate would be decided later.
The tom-tom resumed its beat.
Chance, still sitting by Old Bear, watched the Indian men form a large circle about the fire. This dance, he knew, was a dance of men. It was not a dance in which the women might participate. But this time the women would not stand outside the circle, stamping the time with their feet. They were within the circle, crouching over the body of Totter, arguing, planning.
“Where is the Scalp Pole?” laughed Drum.
He seized Lucia by the arm and dragged her inside the circle of warriors.
Old Bear put his hand on Chance’s knee, keeping him from interfering. “No,” said the old man. He drew a slow puff on his pipe. “It is an old custom of the Sioux,” he said, “that the captive female will hold over her head the scalps of her people while the victorious warriors dance about her.”
“Edward!” cried Lucia from inside the circle.
Drum’s hand was in her hair and he had forced her to her knees over the grisly bundle of scalps, but she would not put her hands in them.
He bent her face closer and closer to the scalps as she, fighting the agony of her hair, tried to pull away.
Then for some reason Drum, though he did not permit her to rise, nor did he remove his hand from her hair, allowed her to lift her head and then he twisted it suddenly to face Chance.
The tom-tom stopped.
Drum, holding Lucia, watched Chance.
Lucia’s eyes were half crazed with pain, and Chance, by an effort of will, restrained himself from leaping to his feet and attacking Drum with his bare hands.
Chance looked at Lucia, trying to show no emotion.
“Edward!” she cried piteously. “What will I do? What will I do?”
For a moment the only sound in the camp was the crackle of the large fire.
Then Chance said, “Pick them up.”
Lucia looked at him with disbelief; then she shook with revulsion.
The Indians, not simply Drum, were watching. If she were his woman she would obey him.