Magnificent Guns of Seneca 6 (27 page)
"What are you talking about?
We can't just leave her here!"
"The hell we can't.
She put a gun on you, tied you up, and stuck a knife in your face when you tried to help her.
What do you think she'll do when she wakes up?"
"There's too many werja in these hills.
Not to mention everything else slithering and snarling around in the darkness."
Jem sighed and said, "I suppose we could build a fire for her.
That would keep the animals away."
"And alert every two-bit rustler around.
Imagine what they'd do to some pretty young thing like that if she was incapacitated."
"Okay, padre.
What do you suggest?"
"We take her with us.
At least until she wakes up and can take care of herself."
"Let's lock her up in your wagon, then."
"Absolutely not.
It's dark and cramped and she'll get hurt on what I got in there when she comes to."
Jem squeezed his temples with his hand for a moment, then said, "Fine.
But we do this my way, and you don't argue with me about how it's done."
"Fine," the preacher said.
"Maybe."
Jem picked the woman up and laid her across her destrier's saddle on her stomach.
He tied her hands and feet together and strung them under her animal's belly to keep her anchored down.
He rolled her over on one hip to unbuckle her gun belt and slid it out from under her, taking a moment to admire the ivory-gripped pistol in the holster.
"Nice gun."
"Not when it's pointed at your head."
Jem slid his hand along the woman's side and up under her shoulders, then down the center of her back and backside.
"Hey!" Father Charles shouted.
"Just what in the hell do you think you're doing?"
"Checking her for any other weapons, you damn fool.
Calm down."
Jem reached down to feel around the inside of her boots, and then up her thighs, moving higher and higher until Father Charles said, "That's enough.
You checked her good enough.
Get your hands off her."
"Do you honestly think−"
"I honestly don't give a shit.
I'll be keeping her close to me, you can be sure of that, Sheriff."
Jem laughed and said, "Okay, old timer.
Let's just hope your sense of honor doesn't get us both killed."
Father Charles wrapped his hand around the woman's destrier's reins and said, "You just get up on your destrier and let's go.
I know how you young fellas are.
Follow your little captains into battle every time.
Not on my watch.
No sirree."
Jem climbed up onto his saddle and said, "I'm not trying to quarrel with you, padre.
Listen, how about we not go pointing fingers at each other?"
The preacher looked at him sideways, seeing Jem's earnest expression except for the slight spark of mischief in his eyes.
He shook his head and said, "You can seriously kiss my righteous ass."
Comee woke all of them up before dawn with various orders.
Some of the men were sent out to collect as many large branches as they could find, while others were detailed to begin digging a pit in the hard desert floor.
The three boys headed toward the thicket of barren and barbed trees but Toquame Keewassee called out to Haienwa'tha to wait.
"Where are you going?"
Haienwa'tha looked at the other two and said, "Comee told us to gather firewood."
"No, he told
them
to gather firewood.
You come with me," Keewassee said.
"They won't mind.
We have more important things to do than pick up sticks."
Thathanka-Ska watched his brother run back to the taller warrior and grimaced.
"Why are we doing it if it isn't important?"
"I think he's making a sweat lodge," Lakhpia-Sha said.
"The pit is for the stones and the fire.
At least that's what it looks like, because something is wrong."
When the younger boy asked him what it was, the apprentice said, "All sweat lodges are supposed to face the sun as it rises.
Where he's building it, the mountains will cast their shade on him."
"If he's doing it wrong, you should tell him," Thathanka-Ska said.
The older boy shrugged as he bent down to pick up a long stick, "What do I know?"
"What makes you say that?
Did Mahpiya teach you how to make a sweat lodge?"
"Yes."
"Did he say it had to face the sun and be out of the shadows?"
"Yes."
"Then you are disrespecting his teachings by not correcting someone who is doing it wrong."
"And what do you think Keewassee will say when I show him up in front of all his warriors?
'Thank you, meaningless worm.
Without you, I would have looked like a fool?'
No.
I think he'll skin my hide for the insult and wear it like a coat."
Thathanka-Ska looked back at the man, who was now standing so close to Haienwa'tha that he was able to lay his hand on the boy's shoulder.
The two of them were smiling and nodding.
Telling each other secret things that only they knew.
Things that made Haienwa'tha laugh and the older man smile, even as the sight of it twisted in Thathanka-Ska's chest like a barbed spear.
"I don't think you're a meaningless worm," Thathanka-Ska whispered.
"And I would not allow anyone else to say that, either.
Least of all him."
Lakhpia-Sha finished loading his arms up with sticks and said, "Stop being so dramatic.
I just meant that it isn't my place to tell our new Chief what to do."
Thathanka-Ska saw a large stick on the ground that was perfect for kindling.
He made sure no one was looking as he stepped on it with one foot and kicked it with the other to break it in half.
Once the pit was dug and the long sticks assembled to form a canopy over them, the men soaked their blankets in the water of the nearby stream and carried them back to hang them on the structure.
A fire was lit outside of the lodge and several of the men threw large stones into the flames until they smoked and glowed red.
They shoveled the rocks out of the fire and threw them into the pit inside the lodge.
Toquame Keewassee watched all of this with solemn approval, and when there were enough rocks inside the lodge, he held up his hand to stop the work.
"Behold, brothers.
I go to communicate with our ancestors and seek their wisdom."
He stripped out of his clothes and stood naked as Comee lit a bundled stick of sage and blew on it until it started to smoke.
Keewassee held out his arms to let the smoke roll over him, then waved more and more of it toward him.
He pulled back the blankets and ducked inside the lodge.
All of the other men moved away from the lodge and sat on the ground, waiting for their leader to emerge once more.
Thathanka-Ska leaned close to Lakhpia-Sha and said, "Did they do that correctly?"
The older boy shook his head and said, "But maybe their way is just different than ours."
Thathanka-Ska looked up at the sun, now fully in the sky.
The makeshift sweat lodge was covered in shadows from the hills above.
The wet blankets were starting to steam.
***
For two hours the Pwatsak warrior sat within the lodge while his men waited outside.
Some of them played games with stones in the dirt and others tended to their gear by sharpening their blades or re-tying their satchels.
Thathanka-Ska was tired of sitting and he got up to inspect the camp.
All of the warriors were hard looking men with battle-scarred torsos.
He looked on in disgust at their rifles that were decorated with long wooden stocks decorated with locks of flowing hair.
Black hair,
Thathanka-Ska thought.
Beothuk hair.
There was a cart at the rear of the camp that he hadn't seen before, and the destrier it was attached to munched contentedly on a patch of tall grass.
He patted the animal on its nose as he passed toward the side of the cart and lifted the blanket covering the contents inside.
It was a cache of weapons.
Not like the guns the men carried, but advanced rifles with electronic gauges and scopes.
Boxes of grenades and rocket launchers.
Thathanka-Ska whistled softly before he put the blanket back over the cart and headed back to find his brother.
The men around the sweat lodge were in an uproar.
Dark smoke was billowing out of the sweat lodge and small flames danced across the surface of the blankets that spread in the wind and flared.
They could hear Toquame Keewassee coughing inside the lodge and several of the men tried to tear away the flaming blankets but could not get close enough.
Suddenly, there was a crash of sticks and Keewassee burst through the side of the lodge, sending the entire thing collapsing onto itself.
He rolled on the ground and burning bits of charred wood were stuck to his flesh that his men rushed forward to pluck off of him.
As he laid there coughing and trying to catch his breath, he whispered, "I have passed the final test."
He sat up and covered himself with a blanket and gratefully accepted water from one of his men.
He downed the cup quickly and wiped his mouth, his face covered in black soot, but his wide smile white and pointed beneath it.
"I saw your father," he said to Haienwa'tha.
"He came to me and told me that I was to lead his people into the new lands, but that first I must prove myself to you.
He reached into his medicine bag and cast fiery dust at the walls of the sweat lodge and he told me that I must escape unaided.
It was Thasuka-Witko who started the fire, and it was he who showed me the way out."
The men nodded and murmured to one another at Keewassee's words.
Lakhpia-Sha looked to Haienwa'tha, who was also staring at the man with wide eyes.
Haienwa'tha stood to his feet and said, "It is true.
You are the one."