Sioux Slave Read online

  One Eye nodded and gave orders. “Yes, this is how it should be.” He, Mato’s stout friend, the Akicita called Gopher, and several others half carried, half dragged the big man through the camp, leaving a trail of blood behind.

  Kimi stared after them, listening to her mother wailing with grief behind her, nodding to the sympathetic murmurs of the women. Much as she hated to touch the pale body of this captive, if someone did not do something quickly, he would die. She would not allow him to escape her revenge so easily when he had just destroyed her future. She could not even look forward to Mato’s child.

  Torture. She had no stomach for it, and the Sioux seldom resorted to it, but for the tall wasicu she could make an exception. Besides, when she thought about the loss of a good warrior and the plight she and her mother now faced her anger grew, fueled by the guilt she felt over Mato. This soldier would pay.

  While others took the body from his pinto horse, Kimi followed the warriors back to her tipi. Her mother trailed along behind, weeping and pulling her hair in grief. She had cut off the tip of her little finger. When Otter had been killed, Wagnuka had sacrificed two fingers to show her grief.

  Kimi wasn’t sure what emotions she felt; anger, yes, guilt that she hadn’t really loved her new husband, fury at the white soldiers for invading the Lakota lands.

  She was numb as she watched the warriors rip his shirt open, spread-eagle the big, unconscious man on his back, and stake his hands and feet down to pegs driven in the ground so he lay helpless. He didn’t look as if he would survive, even though he was a magnificent specimen of a male. His breath came in shallow gasps, his naked, brawny chest moving as he breathed. Unlike Indian men, this wasicu had much hair on his chest, as blond as his head.

  It was not fair, Kimi thought as she stood looking down at him. He was alive and her man was dead. Why couldn’t it have been the other way around? The Hinzi’s manhood was visibly prominent in his tight blue pants. She tried not to stare at it as she went into her tipi, came out with some old scraps of trader’s cloth, some ointment and a water jug.

  As much as she hated to touch his bloody white skin, she could not let this soldier die. Later she would take more time with his wound. Now she only hastily bound it so he wouldn’t bleed any more.

  Her mother and some of the other women stood by, wailing and making trilling songs of grief. Old Wagnuka had slashes on her arms and legs and had hacked away her long gray hair.

  “Daughter, I will help the women begin to prepare Mato’s body while the men cut willows and cottonwoods for the burial platform. You get some of his weapons and favorite things.”

  Kimi could only nod numbly as she went back into her tipi. Inside, she broke down for a long moment and wept, wondering as she did so if it were for Mato or for her own plight as a widow.

  Trembling, she picked up the new blanket that had been her marriage blanket. Mato should have taken her virginity on it tonight. Instead, it would be his burial wrap. She selected some of his personal possessions to send with him to the Forever Place where he would look on the face of the Great Mystery tonight.

  Now in mourning, she tore her clothes and hacked recklessly at her long ebony braids with a small knife. Keening in a traditional sorrow song, she gathered up the things and her knife and went outside into the growing twilight.

  The chanting and the drumbeats drifted through the camp in the chill spring dusk. Tonight her man would sleep alone and cold on his burial platform instead of in the warm, naked flesh of his bride.

  The women stood outside, silently waiting. Kimi paused and looked down at the spread-eagled soldier, shivering in his near-nakedness on the ground. She nudged him with a contemptuous small foot, knowing this big man was powerless as a trussed stallion, awaiting her pleasure.

  There was one more thing she must do. She laid down her bundle and made small cuts on her arms, felt the sting of the knife, smelled the coppery scent of her own blood running red and warm down her arms.

  This is for Mato, she wept. Soon, Hinzi soldier, your blood shall run, too. She held her arm out and let it drip red drops on the brawny, naked chest. His blue eyes flickered open and he looked up at her. For a long moment he looked deep into her eyes and it sent an unaccustomed rush of feeling through her.

  The man licked his dry lips and tried to speak. “W–water,” he gasped, and then he said it in Lakota, which surprised Kimi, “Mni . . .”

  “Mni!” she sneered, struggling to think of white man’s words. She wanted to be sure he understood. “This is what you get instead of water.” She held her bloody arm up triumphantly and motioned to the drops on his pale skin, still wet and warm from her arm.

  “Iyokipi,” he whispered in Lakota. Please. How did he know some of her language?

  “No!” she shouted in the little English she knew so he wouldn’t mistake her meaning. “The dead don’t need water.”

  He muttered white man’s curse words under his breath. “I–I’m not dead.”

  “You will soon wish you were,” Kimi promised.

  She handed her bundles to the waiting women, watched her mother lead them away to take care of Mato’s body. She would see if she could keep this hated wasicu alive before she went off to join the mourning as twilight turned the sky pale purple and gray.

  When she looked down at him the soldier had closed his eyes, and she wondered if he were unconscious or couldn’t face the stark truth of her words. Kimi hesitated, his pain and plight pulling at her heart. Then she reminded herself that soldiers like this one were causing much trouble and misery for her people, and steeled her heart against softness. His half-naked body shivered in the chill darkness of the coming night.

  She squatted next to him, examined the wound in his thigh. His eyes opened as she took out her small knife. The sudden apprehension on his handsome face told her he expected she was going to stab him, but he didn’t beg. Whatever he was, this wasicu was proud. No, more than proud, he looked arrogant.

  As she ran her hands over him, hating to touch him, the Yellow Hair pulled against the ropes binding his arms to the stakes like a wild stallion fighting to escape. She finished cutting away the dirty, bloody shirt, watched the muscles of his bare chest and arms ripple as he strained and pulled. His handsome pale face contorted with the effort and the pain it must be causing him.

  He was an unusually big and powerful man, Kimi noted, but he would not be able to pull free. One Eye had driven the stakes deep in the ground. Even though it was chilly in the growing darkness, perspiration gleamed on his virile, muscular body. The furry hair on his chest was as light as the golden hair of his head.

  She had never seen fur on a man’s chest like this; Indian males were almost hairless on their bodies and many plucked the few hairs from their faces and eyebrows.

  As she touched him, he stopped struggling and shivered. Hinzi was not as cold as Mato was at this moment, she thought bitterly. But if she did not keep him warm, the weak flame of life that flickered in his great chest might go out and do her out of her pleasure. He would not escape so easily into a merciful death. Kimi went back to her tipi, got an old buffalo robe, brought it to throw across the soldier and tuck it in around him, except for the thigh she must treat.

  His eyes flickered open again and he smiled weakly at her, “Pilamaya . . .” Thanks. “W–water?” His lips formed the words, but he seemed almost too weak to speak.

  Kimi scowled back. He must not get the idea that she meant him well. Later she would take revenge on this trussed up, helpless stallion and maybe that would make her feel a little better. Did he know what was coming? Was he going to be alive by then?

  She looked at his wound again, decided it had stopped bleeding. She poured a little of the water into a horn spoon, dribbled it between his dry lips. He licked his mouth eagerly, looked up, obviously wanting more. She didn’t give him any more. Instead she placed the water skin where he could see it; only a few inches from him. So near and yet so far. There was no torture like thirst, Kimi t
hought, and then wondered why she knew that.

  He glanced at it, then at her, puzzlement furrowing his face. Then he seemed to realize what she was doing. An arrogance came back to his features and he spat a white man’s word at her, “Bitch!”

  She recognized that word. The warriors had learned it among the soldiers and traders. Still she started with surprise at his reckless arrogance. Helpless, wounded and staked out, and he dared challenge her like that. Kimi grabbed her knife and brought it up. She would kill him for his insult. Then she saw his expression in the growing darkness and realized he had been hoping to goad her into killing him quickly and mercifully. The white soldier must have guessed what was to be done with him.

  Kimi shook her head. No, he wouldn’t escape so easily. As she lowered the knife and stood up, she couldn’t help but admire his bravery. Looking at his handsome face and big, brawny body, she almost regretted the waste of such a virile male. Somewhere he surely had a woman who waited for him to return to pleasure her with that big manhood.

  It was shameful to even be thinking such thoughts, Kimi flushed as she turned away. She should be thinking about her own man, sorrowing for him–not imagining the scene of this white soldier coupling with some eager girl as she dug her nails in his shoulders, begging him to go still deeper.

  She felt the blood burning her face at her thoughts. She would geld him as part of her vengeance. This stallion of a man would pleasure no more women. But all this must come later when there would be time enough to take vengeance on this defiant wasicu. Staked out like he was, he wasn’t going anywhere.

  Making wailing sounds of sorrow, Kimi went to help with the ceremony honoring a dead warrior to whom she had been a wife in name only.

  Later in the darkness, Kimi stood looking up at the burial platform. The paint horse, Mato’s favorite, the one he had ridden that day, had been killed beneath the platform. The brave warrior would have a mount to carry him across the wide, starlit sky as he rode forever with those dead who had gone before him. She wondered if the big bear of a man had finally been reunited with the wife and children he had lost? She hoped so. The thought made her feel a little better somehow.

  “Waken Tanka nici un,” Kimi whispered in Lakota. Good bye and may the Great Spirit go with you. The last time she had said that, she was sending her husband off to war. Now she was saying good-bye for eternity.

  She sank to her knees beneath the burial scaffold, singing a mourning song to the dark sky. She had never felt so alone and bereft before. Yes, she had. Puzzled, Kimi searched her mind for the memory, but it eluded her somehow. It was a very small thing, no doubt; something from her childhood. But as far as she could remember, her past was one of happiness, of being pampered by two doting old people.

  From the camp, the sound of drums echoed and the big fire in the center of the encampment glowed red against the black sky. Kimi wrapped her arms around herself and took a deep breath of the scent of the smoke drifting on the cool spring night. Somewhere far away, a solitary lobo howled. He sounded as lonely and miserable as Kimi felt. She buried her face in her hands suddenly and gave way to great, racking sobs and cleansing tears, unsure whether she wept for herself, or for Mato.

  This would not do. She must be brave as any warrior’s woman would be under these circumstances. It was a good thing to die in battle against enemies of the people, better than slowly starving as some of the conquered tribes were doing.

  Touching her medicine object for reassurance and squaring her small shoulders resolutely, Kimi stood up and wiped the tears from her face. She was responsible for her old mother. In a few days she must think about the future. Perhaps there was a young warrior in another camp who had need of a wife.

  She considered Wahinkeya, Gopher, Mato’s other good friend. Stout Gopher already had a wife and a young son he doted on. He might want a second wife. He was a good enough hunter to feed two families. Somehow, being the second wife did not appeal to Kimi. Yet many great warriors who hunted well had several women. As much work as there was to do, it lessened the labor for the household. Often, the warrior married his first wife’s younger sister. Kimi had no younger sister: no other kin but old Wagnuka. Her mother had often told her how the Great Spirit had given her a child after they had lost several little ones and had given up hope of ever having a family.

  She smiled, remembering the often told story of how her mother had seen a bright kimimila, a butterfly fluttering above the prairie flowers and knew somehow that it was the sign the Great Spirit, Wakan Tanka, would soon bless her tipi with a girl child.

  And now it was Kimi’s responsibility to look after her old mother. Kimi stood up slowly. Tomorrow was time enough to think about becoming some brave’s wife.

  She started back toward the camp in the darkness. She wondered with sudden curiosity if the soldier had a wife, whether she was pretty, and what she would think if at this moment, she knew her young, handsome man was a captive in a Sioux village.

  What did it matter? He was to be killed tomorrow. Kimi trudged back to camp, absently humming her spirit song that had always comforted her when her mind was troubled. She didn’t want to think about the soldier. She was weary and sad; she didn’t even really hate him anymore. Men were born to be warriors. They fought each other continually. It was the way of things. Suddenly she hoped he had already lapsed into a merciful death. She didn’t want him to suffer torture, even if he were the very man who had killed Mato.

  The Teton Sioux seldom took captives or resorted to torture. Usually they killed them and mutilated the bodies. If the captives were very brave, they might free them or adopt them into the tribe, or even ransom them. Like the other tribes, they had learned soldiers might trade food and tobacco to ransom a white captive.

  To die the way she wanted this captive to die would be slow, agonizing and shameful. She had heard of warriors cutting off a prisoner’s manhood as a beginning. The lobo howled again, and somewhere in the distance another wolf answered. New grass and spring prairie flowers felt soft beneath her moccasins as she walked. From the pony herd, a colt nickered. All around her were signs of spring and new life.

  All Kimi had was death. She paused, looking back over her shoulder at the burial platform silhouetted starkly against the moon. Faintly the sound of drums echoed from the camp, accompanied by the chanting around glowing camp fires. The slight breeze mingled the scent of smoke with the fragrance of the prairie flowers.

  She swallowed the lump in her throat. Never had she felt so weary and depressed. Never had she felt so alone and vulnerable. Tonight was to have been her wedding night, and she should be asleep now in the arms of a man. But the soldier’s woman was sleeping alone, too. The thought should make her feel better, Kimi thought, but somehow it didn’t. She could only pity that unknown wasicu girl. Sometimes her own soft heart surprised her. It was not good that a woman of the Lakota give sympathy to the enemy who was so set on destroying the Sioux or driving them slowly from this land.

  Her own medicine song came to her mind again as it always had when she felt sad. Wagnuka had told her the spirit animal, kimimila, the butterfly, must have given it to her as a special gift. Kimi hummed it to herself now as she avoided the circle of the fire, headed for her tipi. The medicine song had always comforted her before, now she willed it to drive the sadness from her heart.

  The soldier lay staked down by her tipi, where he had been left for tomorrow’s pleasure. He lay very still and Kimi broke off her song, wondering suddenly if he had died? But he stirred slightly at the sound of her approach, and his blue eyes flickered open. He seemed to be struggling with the effort of forcing words through his cracked lips. No longer was he arrogant and defiant. “Please ...” he managed, “please . . . water ... pilamaya.”

  His voice had a soft drawl. Somehow it surprised her that it seemed familiar to her. Of course it meant he came from a certain part of the white man’s country. Hadn’t she heard the Sioux speak of some of those with the soft, drawling voices among occa
sional traders and mountain men who passed through their land?

  Kimi pursed her mouth, thinking. The warriors had said those with the drawling voices now dressed in gray and fought against their brothers in blue. Yet this one with the soft accent wore blue.

  The soldier didn’t look as if he could survive the night, Kimi thought, and her heart went out to his plight in spite of herself. She reminded herself he must not be allowed to die. Kimi knelt by him, reached for the water skin. She poured a little between his lips and she paused to watch him swallow greedily. She must be careful not to choke him with too much at a time.

  He licked his lips, looked up at her with pleading in the sky-colored eyes. “Please ...”

  She poured a little more between his lips, enjoying the fact that the big, powerful man was helpless and bound, having to beg her for whatever he needed. He was her captive, her slave to do with as she wanted at this moment. She could do with him whatever pleased her and no one would care.

  She tried to remember whether she knew the white word for what she needed to ask. Somehow, her mother had seemed to know a lot of wasicu words and had taught Kimi a few. “Enough?” she asked finally as she remembered it.

  “Enough.” he nodded weakly. He didn’t appear defiant now. He was too weak. “What–what is to be done with me?” He spoke in a mixture of white words and pidgin Lakota.

  Should she tell him?

  He must have seen the hesitation in her face because he demanded suddenly, “Tell me.”

  “You will not order me about,” Kimi snapped back in a mixture of Lakota and the few white words she struggled to remember. “You are a captive; a Sioux slave.”

  “Slave? God in heaven! Not me! Not now; not ever.” His arrogant drawl and the distaste on the aristocratic face showed his dismay. “Slaves are black.”

  The South. He was from some place called the South. Kimi tried to remember how she would know that, then dismissed the thought. “Here you are the slave, wasicu. I must know this. Did you kill the warrior called Mato?”