Running Wolf

“No.”

Her shoulders sank. Then she gathered up her courage from a well that he feared had no bottom.

“I will be trouble.” It was a promise, an echo of Yellow Blanket’s words. But he would not be threatened by a captive.

Weasel returned, leading two horses, his and Running Wolf’s warhorse, Eclipse. On his face was that sly grin he wore when he was up to no good. He led Running Wolf’s horse behind him and extended the reins between him and his captive.

“Who is riding?” he asked, and his grin widened.

Running Wolf did not rise to the bait but accepted the reins. “I thank you for watering Eclipse.”

“Do you think she is as good at wrestling as she is at flying from a galloping horse? Because I am a very good wrestler.” Weasel lifted his eyebrows suggestively.

Running Wolf felt the sharp squeezing grip of ownership across his middle. This was bad. He managed a half smile and again made a sloppy comeback.

“You might end up on your back like Red Hawk.” Running Wolf cringed at his words. First, they had insulted a fellow warrior. Second, they had reminded Weasel of Red Hawk’s embarrassment.

“I would not mind being on my back beneath that one.” Weasel grinned.

Running Wolf reached out to cuff him and Weasel dodged the blow easily.

Running Wolf leaned down and yanked a hank of grass from the prairie and offered it to his captive.

“Rub down my horse,” he ordered.

She held the grass in her joined hands for a moment. Then she lifted her bound hands and let the grass fall from her fingers like rain.

“You may take my freedom. But you will not take my spirit.”

Weasel’s twinkling eyes widened as he stifled a laugh and looked to Running Wolf for his response. They faced off for a long moment. She lifted her chin and angled her jaw as if offering that long vulnerable column to him. He could kill her; her eyes told him that she knew this. Was that what she wanted?

“You know, that one is crazier than I am,” said Weasel.

“Would you die rather than obey?” Running Wolf asked her.

“Yes.”

“Do you wish to die?” Now he found himself holding his breath.

“I do not. But neither do I wish to be your captive.”

“Things are getting more interesting,” said Weasel.

Running Wolf scowled and Weasel laughed and returned to the warriors, likely to tell what he had witnessed. Having a captive who would not obey was bad. Dangerous, even. He should punish her right now, but he found the prospect distasteful and thought on Yellow Blanket’s words again. If he did not punish her, she would not work. If she did not work, the others in the tribe would see she suffered. But they would see she suffered in any case. The best thing for her was for him to follow the advice of Yellow Blanket.

But he did not. Instead, he pushed her to the ground and bound her feet. Then he left her in the tall grass, leading his horse away so he could join the others.

As he chewed on hunks of dried buffalo and drank his fill, he watched the waving grass around his captive. When the grasses fell still he went to check on her and found that she seemed to be asleep. He returned to the group to find Weasel asking to see the trophy that Red Hawk had captured. Red Hawk’s face colored. Running Wolf sensed an impending fight. Weasel loved to wrestle nearly as much as he loved to steal from the Crow. It seemed he had directed his energy from the captive to Red Hawk.

Yellow Blanket told Weasel to watch the horses, diffusing the impending quarrel. Red Hawk showed the strands of long tubular beads that came from the French traders. The multiple strands were separated with circular shells that had come from the clay river people far to the south. The necklace was beautiful, but why Red Hawk had wanted it was beyond him. It was a woman’s adornment and of no use to a warrior. Perhaps it was for Buffalo Calf, his wife. He didn’t know and didn’t ask.

Instead, the men counted the horses and argued over which was the best. Running Wolf was the only one to like the mare that his captive rode. She was sound and strong and seemed to have good confirmation. Of course, no warrior would ride a mare into battle. But for hunting and traveling, the dapple gray would be useful, especially in the snow, when she would all but disappear. Of course, it was up to the chief to divide the horses among those who won them and those that needed them. He wondered who would get the big blue roan ridden by the son of the chief of the Crow. Yellow Blanket, he decided.

The men now set about haltering the horses and tying them in strings for the longer trip home. They broke into teams and he paired with Big Thunder, his best friend. Big Thunder had an overlarge mouth and intent eyes. Big Thunder wore a series of four bear teeth about his neck in a necklace nearly identical to the one Running Wolf wore, for they had come from the same hunt and the same bear.

Big Thunder threw a rope over a large buckskin and Running Wolf quickly fashioned a halter from another rope woven of buffalo sinew.

“Do you remember how we trapped that bear?”

Running Wolf nodded, focusing on tying the halter to the string of ponies already assembled. “It was hungry.”

“There is more than one kind of hunger, my friend.”

Running Wolf’s finger’s stilled and he glanced up at his friend.

“Be careful with that one or she may end up wearing your claws about her neck.”

Chapter Three (#u788af762-822e-5658-9c79-628a81d66882)

For a time, Snow Raven wiggled in the grass like a snake. Then she stopped, saving her energy. The bonds were tight and well tied. Chewing on the rawhide at her wrist had only made her teeth sore. The sunlight warmed her face. Insects buzzed about her and grasshoppers leaped from one grass stalk to another.

She pictured the village as she had last seen it, from the withers of the warrior’s horse. Her brother sprawled bleeding on the ground. She squeezed her eyes shut against the terrible image. Was he alive? Had they killed him because of her?

He had asked her to run. She had disobeyed. Had she traded her grandmother’s life for her brother’s? Snow Raven began to weep. She wept for the lodges toppled like trees before the whirlwinds and for the family she had lost and the brother she had endangered. Shame devoured her. She could live with her capture if she knew he was alive. But to be responsible for the death of her brother was a stone in her heart. She did not think she could bear it.

Her tears washed her cheeks and dried in the sunlight. Snow Raven curled into a ball, encircling her pain as she waited. After a time she realized she was alone, and so she relieved herself in the grass. Then she stood to see where the men had gone. She could hear them, of course, but it was not until she stood that she saw they had taken the forty horses and roped them into five strings of eight. Song, her mount, was there with the others, second in the line behind the black-and-white stallion belonging to the one who had taken her. Running Wolf, that was what the older warrior had called him. He had a wolf on his shield, as well. Wolves had strong medicine.

She found him easily. He stood with the others, but seemed unlike them. Was it his carriage or his size? This was her first real opportunity to look upon him. He stood twenty paces away with the others, and she noted first that he was broad across the shoulders and narrow at the hip. He moved with an easy grace and confidence of one gifted in movement. It explained how he had plucked her from the ground while on horseback and done so as easily as she might pluck a flower from a field.

She did not make any sound, but he turned to her and they stared across the distance. Her skin prickled. Perhaps he had been checking her location at regular intervals. He pointed to her horse as if telling her that he had taken that, as well. She nodded. Not knowing if she should thank him or hurl insults at him.

None of the Sioux cut their forelocks, and that was one of many reasons the warriors of her tribe called them women. But this hairstyle of the Sioux was not feminine in the least. In fact, she found the look of all the warriors elegant and masculine.

Running Wolf wore his long black hair in twin ropes wrapped in the pelts of beaver and tied with long strips of red cloth. His war shirt was decorated in elaborate bands of quillwork in red, green and white. The shirt was not stained with colored clay like the other men wore, but remained a natural tan color with long fringe at the arms and the side seam. Grandmother said the fringe took the rainwater away from the seams, but it was also for show. Over this shirt he wore a breastplate made of a series of long cylindrical white trade beads punctuated with red glass beads and round brass beads. The breastplate could deflect an arrow, if it was not shot at close range.

About his strong neck was a cord of tanned leather threaded through five bear claws. Each claw was separated by a red bead. She could not see his leggings or moccasins but had seen both while hanging over his saddle like a dead buck. Beneath his war shirt, she knew he wore his medicine bundle. All warriors did. Inside were the sacred objects that helped protect him. Each warrior was different, so each bundle was different and private. Her own brother would not even tell her what lay inside his, but he was never without it.

The warrior started toward her, his stride long and sure. He had the confidence of leadership. Were he not the war chief, she was certain that he would have held some other position of authority. It was clear that all respected him, even the older warrior, Yellow Blanket, who had advised him to let her go.

Running Wolf continued forward with such intent aim that she thought he might better be called Stalking Wolf.

He stared at her with fixed attention so that for a moment it seemed as if the rest of the prairie did not exist. She met his gaze, noticing the fine strong angle of his jaw and the broad chin. His elegant nose bisected his symmetrical features showing flaring nostrils that reminded her of a horse at full gallop. His brows peaked in the center as if she was some puzzle he must solve. She liked the shape of his eyes and the way that they were bright and dark all at once.

He drew closer and she noticed something else—the buzz of energy that seemed to shimmer between them, like the waves of heat off rocky places in the summer. The tension began in her belly and pulled outward until she had to clench her fists against the need to lift her arms in welcome. He would not let her go free, and for one ridiculous moment she was glad.

This made no sense. He had captured her. She should spit at him or hurl insults or weep and tear her hair. Instead, she stood and stared like a lovesick calf. He had captured her. Was that what made him different than other men, or was there some other reason for the tingling sensation of her skin?

Would he really keep her or would he turn her over to someone else? In her tribe, her father let the warriors keep what they captured and distribute possessions as they saw fit.