A Hoot Owl Moon
By Wayne Bethard
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2011 by Wayne Bethard
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is a work of fiction. All portrayed characters and events are pure products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Cover design by Wayne Bethard
Chapter 1
Seventeen-year-old Samantha Evers had the world by the tail. She was admiring the cool morning, the rolling cedar covered hills, the mile upon mile of cactus and mesquite. Texas had on a pretty winter face. The sun shined and warmed the stage. Recent snows had melted. A soft breeze blew in through the stagecoach window. For a year she tended to her ailing father. It was a blessing when he passed. Lung cancer was such a cruel way to die. They buried him over six months ago. She didn’t think she would have made it without her Aunt Ernestine consoling her. She loved that woman.
Samantha’s mother had died five years earlier from what the doctors called a case of acute indigestion. Aunt Ernestine took her in like she was her own daughter. After her father died her aunt seemed to sense how sad Samantha was; Samantha and her father were very close. The winters were grueling in St Louis, the toe numbing cold, the cloudy days, and the gloom. That gloom had oozed over her heart. Sometimes she just didn’t feel like living anymore.
She thought that sometimes her loving aunt could read her mind, and her heart. She told Samantha if she studied hard and kept her grades up, she would see about sending her to her favorite cousin’s house in Austin for a month long visit. Samantha was ecstatic. She hadn’t seen her cousin Cindy in two years. They too had been close. She couldn’t wait to leave.
Her Uncle Artie had told her the weather in Texas was quite a bit warmer than in St. Louis. Warm would be wonderful compared to Missouri winters. The trip in itself was a real treat for her. However, she hadn’t expected it to take so long. Her back hurt from the hard stagecoach seats. A young soldier sat across from her. He wasn’t handsome in a pretty sense, but he was ruggedly attractive. He had blue eyes, black hair and a smile that made her insides queasy. Samantha had always led a sheltered life. Her mother had cautioned her to avoid strangers. And when young men began to show an interest, her aunt cautioned her not to disgrace her family, to save herself for that special man who would someday come into her life. In her own way she rebelled by being flirty, on occasion even a little daring, but she had never gone all the way.
The stage slowed. A front wheel banged into a washout, jolted back up and out, and the whole coach careened in a twist and creaking torque. The jostle startled Samantha awake. She arched a stiff back and had no more than taken a convenient hold on the seat when a scuffle came from above. The ratchet-clack of rifles echoed. The stage began to pitch in frantic speed. What tha…? Then came gunshots, whoops, and confusion, and more gunshots. A sudden swerving stop slammed her head against the coach’s back wall. Addled, she blinked to see the soldier across from her slouch forward with an arrow in his neck. Blood gushed down his chest. An Indian with a fat cheeked face and puffy eyes flung the door open and jerked her out by the hair. Down she went. Her knee hit a rock. Excruciating pain shot up her thigh. The scream she started ended with a brutal slap that made her ears ring. She gasped and withdrew her arms to hug herself.
The huge Indian dragging her from the coach stank of sweat and rancid fat. He threw her to the ground like a rag doll. Every ounce of energy she possessed she threw into a kick that found his stomach. She reached and scratched his face and cried out in a shrill voice that made her own ears ring. She kicked and clawed. Flesh curled beneath her fingernails. The Indian slapped her across the jaw. The blow slung spittle from her lips. Suspended in his deadly embrace, her mind fought to wall off the pain. A bolt of blue light shot through her head when the blow of another fist slammed into her jawbone. She held her hands against her eyes so hard the world became a blur. Another Indian let out a yodeled whoop and held up a dripping scalp. At his feet the young soldier lay face down, the white of his scull shiny and bloody, glistened in the sun. What came next was a consuming darkness too comforting to resist.
She awoke draped across a horse. A ragged cold wind bit at her naked feet as they bobbed. The ropes binding her hands stung like hot barbed wire. How long they rode she had no idea. Consciousness came and went. Two braves pulled her down and dragged her into a dome-shaped, hide-covered shelter. There they dropped her.
The enclosure’s darkness extended beyond a flaming fire pit. Shadows danced on the walls. She let her eyes follow the darkness to the entrance. A fur headdress nearby held her spellbound. Dark brown hair with demonic horns protruded above two drooping eyehole openings.
Her torn dress hung from her shoulder as she lay there in a stupor, her mind drifting in a haze of confusion and pain. She pushed up to an elbow and attempted to sit, but dizziness and nausea overcame. She relaxed back and pulled her knees to her chest. The ropes binding her hands were so tight her fingers tingled. To the sound of approaching footsteps she squinted and forced her head up. Two moccasin covered feet appeared very near her face, small moccasins, too small for a man. She craned her neck trying in vain to bring the looming figure into focus. That was when a cold blade pushed between her wrists and the bindings on her hands relaxed. Warmth rushed into her fingertips. As quick as the figure had appeared, it was gone.
A minute, ten, an hour could have passed, she couldn’t tell. The muffled sound of footsteps came again, several this time, then mumbles, in gibberish she didn’t understand. She made every effort to listen, even tried to move her hand to push up but her wrist collapsed beneath her. She caught herself. A resultant horrible pain in her stomach yanked her knees up. She moaned. Then once again darkness, overwhelming darkness swept her away. A dream removed her from this horrible place. It took her back to her childhood when her mother and father were both living. She was sitting in her father’s lap while he read her a story. She giggled, he laughed. The smell of bacon frying in the kitchen made her mouth water. Home was so safe.
She awoke in a different shelter, in the midst of brown faces, moon faces, expressionless faces. They looked at her frequently, each in their own way contemptuous. They were short people, their skin dark in the firelight. Their faces glistened as if they had been oiled. She at first thought the smell was bacon frying in a skillet, but it was wood smoke and grease burning and meat sizzling and dripping into an open flame. To sit up she moaned and gasped in pain, fought to keep from crying out. No one acknowledged her cries, or her presence.
It was cold there beside the entryway. Oh so cold. Stars glittered like diamonds in a hole high above the fire. She pressed a palm to her side and tried to scoot closer to the glowing embers. A woman stepped forward and yelled, spat and kicked at her. A male voice barked from across the fire pit. Everyone’s head turned. Again the irate squaw cried out. The man spoke again, harsher this time, and waved his hand. The squaw flopped down beside him and fidgeted. Venomous loathing lurked in her stare.
Samantha scooted on her rear to a large pot. Her hand shook so water sloshed from the tortoise shell dipper. She slurped and gasped and held her aching stomach. Every eye in the place watched. A hand offered her something. She took it and stared. Meat, a piece of roasted meat. A soft voice said, “Eat slow.” Samantha froze to those words, and then squinted into the shadows across the teepee to see a Mexican woman with long black hair. She wore a buckskin dress with beads interwoven into a winsome breastplate. The low light obscured the woman’s face. An Indian man spoke in a foreign, guttural tongue. The Mexican nodded, then replied to him in a whisper. He spoke again and waved his hand. Another Indian woman passed him a bowl of meat. Everyone watched while he took a bite. Samantha lifted her meat to her lips. The taste made her nauseous. The Mexican woman forced a smile as if to urge her on, then she too took a bite from a portion she held.
Samantha drank another shell-full of water, then curled up, knees to chest. It seemed she had no more than closed her eyes than she heard movement. How long she had slept she had no idea. The room was empty. A pale light, a soft glow that cast a cool blueness, cut its way into the lodge through the hole high above. She pushed up and glanced down. Someone had covered her with a stinky buffalo hide.
“They come soon.” The female voice came from behind and above. Samantha turned to see that same small pair of moccasins. She let her eyes rise up the buckskin dress past the beaded breastplate to the woman’s face. Downward crinkles slanted the corners of her dark-brown eyes. Her voice came out wispy, nearly doleful. ‘Women who cry bring dishonor. Be brave. They come now.”
They did come; almost before the hide door stopped swinging.
She knew by their continuous glances they were arguing about her. Six women, two older, four younger, one wore a fur headdress interwoven with leaves. Two were in their mid-to-late twenties, one pretty, the other pudgy, sisters probably by their facial likeness. There was another ten or twelve years old, another about the same but taller, the last was much younger. The one who spat and kicked at Samantha earlier was actually the prettiest of the bunch. Samantha wished she understood their words.
They led her outside to an opening between the lodges and forced her to kneel in an area cleared of snow and grass. An old woman with a funny hat began shaking a gourd rattler. The others approached, shaking feather-adorned gourds. The sounds grew into a hiss, like a thousand rattlesnakes all riled at once. A pair of drums started bumping nearby, in sync for a while, out for a while. The whole village began meandering toward her.
She remembered what the Mexican woman said. If being stoic and brave would save her life, she would play the part. Cold stare for cold stare she eyed the approaching women. The people formed a long double line with Samantha at one end. The prettiest squaw yelled and darted, war club in hand, and swung urging Samantha to rise and run. She braced herself and tried to duck but the blow struck her arm below the left shoulder blade. She gritted her teeth hard enough to crack enamel but she did not cry out. A blow from behind thrust her into a staggering sideways trot. Stars flashed. She caught herself with a hand in the dirt.
A spume of blood and spittle dripped from her bottom lip. Thinking to crawl would make her look weak; she forced herself up and planted her feet, one, and the other. Another blow found her neck. She fell face down with a plop and bit her lip so hard on the way flesh gave between her teeth. Pain came in a flurry; jabs with sticks, stings from whips, blows from more clubs. Some attackers laughed, some called out on whoops, some chanted, some beat her in stone-faced silence. Those gourd rattlers continued to hiss; the drums pounded in tandem, louder and louder still. On and on the beating went.
She was beyond anguish now, almost beyond consciousness. Still, she did not, would not cry out. She would die first. On she went into the consciousness of a dream. Having reached her physical limit, she sucked in a deep breath to face the inevitable, lifted her eyes to the sky and hugged herself.
A preacher once said at revival that just before you die you see a bright light, and then memories flash across your mind in rapid order. She had seen bright lights with many of the blows, now the flashing images came, some good, some bad, and faces, her aunt, her mother, and things that had happened long ago. The slant of the preacher’s sermon was that these images and bright light did not portray the end of life; they depicted the beginning of life in heaven. With a manfully erect back she slung one foot forward and stopped waiting on heaven to open up. A man in a headdress blocked her way. Her knee almost gave way and she hunkered her shoulders to brace her fall with an extended hand.
A sharp command came above the noise. A remark she didn’t understand. The rattlers and drums stopped. She took a shaky but insecure step to remain standing and opened her eyes. Both were swollen so she had to tilt her head back to see, but by God, she had not cried out.
The chief mumbled a command and someone grabbed her arm. She jerked and tried to pull away. Sensing no aggression in the next grips, she relaxed and collapsed. By their large hands, and firm hold, she figured them to be men or young boys. Whoever they were, they supported her by the armpits and dragged her to a dark place and placed her on a bed of furs. There they left her, alone.
No one tended her wounds. No one came to check on her. No one. She lay there unable to think, incapable of moving, almost unable to breathe. Too weak to control her bladder, she felt the heat of her own release. She was too exhausted to care. She was grateful for the quiet, the calm, and the darkness. How long she had been out she couldn’t fathom. She only knew death itself could have brought no more anguish. What can a beating like this possibly prove?
Chapter 2
Samantha struggled to open her eyes to movement nearby, but her face was too swollen. She lay in a cold, damp spot of her own making. To that thought she sighed and pushed up to an elbow. With a thumb and finger she pried her right eye open. She was alone. Once again, pain and darkness overcame.
She next awoke to a different scene. Some swelling had gone down but not much. Her view of the world was through two tiny slits. The Indian who halted her beating sat now across a fire pit from her. He picked up a small bowl and sipped and shook bits of boiled meat into his mouth. His gaze settled on her, but she interpreted nothing in his expression. Others were present but her vision was too blurry to make out facial details. To weak to care she snuggled into the warm buffalo robe someone had placed over her. Again, darkness crept in, warm darkness, wonderful, comfortable darkness.
A beam of sunlight cutting its way in through a crack in the hide-covered door woke her. She was alone again, and cold, but her dress at her hips had dried. As long as she didn’t move, and breathed shallow, the pain in her ribs and lower back was almost bearable. Her mind became swamped with the events of the previous day. She tried to block the thoughts and images by concentrating on breathing slow and shallow. That young soldier on the stage was lucky in a way. He didn’t have to put up with the pain and anguish of living under these circumstances. It didn’t raise her spirits to think that she at least was alive, if you could call this being alive. Her hips tingled with numbness. Her bladder ached, ribs throbbed- probably broken. Her right shoulder became immobile, didn’t hurt so much, but wouldn’t move. Her only comfort came by lying perfectly still.
Encased in crusty cocoon of pain and stiffness, sheathed in a cloak of disdained pride, she whimpered, held herself rigid, and closed her eyes. She hurt so her only salvation had been to pass out or go to sleep. She seldom remembered falling to sleep, but it seemed she was always waking up.
The next day she opened her eyes. Stars glittered high above a fire pit through a hole at the peak of a monstrous teepee. Wind fluttered the lodge’s sides. All notions of a previous life seemed distant and surreal. While lingering darkness hovered in anticipation of a new day, her mind sought comfort in the past. She remembered sitting beside the young soldier on a stagecoach coming out here, how politely he had treated her, how nervous he seemed in her presence. She had met more handsome men, but none had stirred such yearnings in her heart. He was the kind of man she had saved herself for.
Her hand went to stomach and beyond. Her sigh blended into a soft sniffle. She winced, turned over and closed her eyes. The memory of watching that Indian holding the soldier’s scalp high prompted a tear to run hot down her face and into the hair near her ear where it tickled and turned cool.
The soft daylight that came with her next awakening, brought comfort once again in itself. Transgression from gloom to familiarity made her feel better. It didn’t hurt to open and close her eyes quite so much anymore, but a deep breath shot pain across her ribs and through her insides. The swelling in her cheeks and brows had gone down some. Her breath pulsed before her face. The cold, at first, had been a dreadful curse, now it brought relief, a numbing barrier helping to wall off the pain in her aching bones and hammered muscles.
Each member of the tribe had branded her with a blow. Each of the squaws had blended those blows into a single bruise covering every inch of her body. Each and every stroke had taken something from her.
A snippet from the past echoed inside her head. “You bring submission by breaking the spirit,” was how a slave trader once said it to her father. “Breaking a slave is like taming a horse. You must get his attention and make him give up first. Then and only then can you train him to do what you want.”
The little ceremony of the club these savages administered had intended to break and tame her, just like a horse or a slave. She would do anything they wanted now, but they had not mastered her not yet. Like her mind had hazed to life, her eyes filled with tears and hazed her vision. She bit her fist and cried herself to sleep yet again.
A dark figure came to her in another dream, knife in hand, advancing toward her, grinning and chanting and reaching for her throat. A commotion nearby sprang her eyes open. Had her nightmare been reality? Her heart slammed into her throat. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Struggling to define impossible images in the pitch-black darkness all around, she gritted her teeth and braced herself. She wondered. Would it hurt when life drained from her body? Would pain intensify into exhilaration and euphoria, or would she simply get weak or nauseous and go to sleep?
She jerked in surprise when a hand touched her chin and lifted her head. She squinted her eyes shut and sucked in air between gritted teeth, a stance to accept the inevitable. Something touched her lips instead. A tortoise shell cup! She hesitated, sipped, coughed, and gulped again and again. Water, cold, wonderful water. Her arms and legs tingled into warmth. Tears welled warm in her eyes. She tried to say thanks, but the words would not form.
“Take,” a soft voice whispered. Something smaller touched her lips, a thick, spoon-shaped bone. She worked her tongue and trembled. It was bitter, like the inside hull of a pecan.
“Take all,” the woman said.
A warm hand ran down her face and cupped her cheek. A knee slid beneath her shoulders and lifted her upper body. Arms supported her aching head. She tried, but could not hold back. Tears came in gushes. She collapsed into that gentle embrace bawling all out, in pain-halting, shoulder-jolting gasps. The woman rocked. Samantha clutched the fingers caressing her face and squeezed. The hand squeezed back and pressed her head hard against soft, warm breasts. The caress reminded her of childhood and her own mother’s strong hugs.
“Sleep now,” the woman whispered.
Samantha wanted so to talk, but her throat would not cooperate.
She next awoke to bright blue daylight hurling its way in through the smoke hole high above; morning sunlight glared around the hide covered opening. The angel who approached in darkness had breathed life back into her. She still hurt, but a sense of warmth and strength in her muscles lifted her spirit. Never before had the simple joy of breathing felt so good. She scooted on her rear to a nearby pot and drank, greedily. She relaxed and rolled onto her back on the dirt floor a moment to listen. Far in the distance an owl cried out to be answered by another. A dog barked, a horse whinnied, people laughed, a mocking bird sang. She couldn’t help but think that things outside seemed so normal considering what she had been through lately. Every sound reflected peace and calm.
She experienced such freedom in movement now that she forced herself to an elbow, up to a knee, and with both hands pushed to stand. Wobbly and weak she took one insecure step, another. Her toe caught on a hairy sleeping hide. She jerked to keep from falling. Every part of her body screamed in pain. She closed her eyes tight and ran her tongue across a swollen cut on her bottom lip. The crusty scab tasted salty.
The muscles in her thighs tightened and quivered. Palms down, she extended both hands for balance, wobbled and took two quick steps. She could do this if she took it slow. Wooziness and a cool sweaty flush flooded over her like an invisible coat of static-waved hair. Her shaky amble took her outside where a blinding sun hit her head on. She jerked to its white-hot intensity, squinted hard, and shaded her brow with a half-closed hand. Indians mingled everywhere- along a crooked stream, some sat beneath trees, others tended horses. A baby strapped to a board on a passing squaw’s back waved its stubby hands to a jolting, croupy cough. An Indian galloped past on a horse. The sun’s brightness obliterated the man’s face. He reined his prancing stallion to a trot, turned and angled straight toward her.
She hugged herself and straightened her back. Every eye in camp was upon her, like prairie dogs watching a coyote in the distance. The Indian reined in none too soon. Little did he know she couldn’t have jumped aside if she’d wanted. The horse bobbed its nose before her face close enough that the odor of soured grass made her wrinkle her nose. Hot air pulsed from the animal’s nostrils to gently lift the hair on her forehead. The horse swung its head from side to side and when she raised a palm toward its face, it backed away in a side step with its neck in a smooth arch, the whites if its eyes salient against the black of its piebald face. The stallion wasn’t in the class with her Uncle Artie’s Union Morgan horses he raised. He was lankier of hip and narrower at the shoulders. She had never really cared for spotted horses. Her uncle had said they were second-rate animals, descendants of wild mustangs that came from no particularly good bloodlines. Ferals of the plains he called them. The stallion standing before her was a pretty horse just the same.
The Indian held a spear high and cried out, “Tui-weh-tsi Oh-anaki.”
Samantha’s heart pounded. He waved the spear, scanned the crowd, smiled, and cried out louder, “Tui-weh-tsi Oh-anaki.”
Everyone laughed. Samantha stared at the spear’s long tip fearing any moment he might run her through with it. Instead, before trotting off, straight-faced, he nodded and repeated, “Oh-an’aki”. His voice carried a proud, half-jovial tone. She wished she could understand what he had said. The horse trotted away swishing its tail and stepping out sideways. She jerked her head around to the words, “Stands Against The Sun.” A Mexican woman with long pigtails stood in the purple shade of a nearby tree. “He just said, ‘I name you Stands Against The Sun.’ Oh-an’aki means Stands Against The Sun. (She pronounced it “Oh Aah Nah Key,) putting stress on the last syllable. The woman then picked up a bowl and dumped mesquite hulls onto the ground and spoke again without looking Samantha’s way. “Bravery, long hair, horses, mean everything to the people. Be honored he name you so soon. Oh an aki good name.”
The woman shook her bowl and knelt with her back to Samantha. “Few white women make it though what you did,” she continued. “You stood tall. Blue Eagle like. You lucky you live.” The Mexican stood as if to study the ground at her feet. “Me Anna. Sorry I hit so hard.”
One wobbly step, another Samantha took toward the woman; she halted. A group of squaws headed her way. Anna hurried off. “I go. Running Star come.”
“Wait, I…”
The Mexican paused with her back to Samantha and opened and closed her hands, a quick clench that ended with extended fingers. “Talk later.” And she disappeared behind a lodge. Samantha toyed with the swollen cut on her bottom lip and turned. She didn’t remember seeing Anna’s face in that vicious crowd of attackers, but she’d never forget the determined snarl on the approaching squaw’s face. The cold stare the Indian woman leveled in passing sent a chill up Samantha’s spine. She glowered back with an equally frigid and fixed look, and headed for the stream. Her back and legs refused to bend. To kneel beside the water, she almost cried out. She finally managed a flat-footed squat. Out the corner of an eye she saw the squaw Anna had referred to as Running Star standing beside a lodge. There was hatred in that glower. Samantha ignored her and set about to relieve and clean herself up.
Mirrors, to her way of thinking, had never done her justice. The reflection in the water revealed a different person entirely. One eye had green edged blue bruises above and below it. Beneath her eyes were dark and puffy. Her matted hair had lost its sheen. Filthy best described it.
Dried blood and dirt stained her hands. Blue bruises like those on her face streaked her arms and legs. Her whole body tingled, dully. As she splashed her face, the water in her cupped palms turned dark brown. Her lips stung. She dipped and wiped and massaged until the water returned clear and grit no longer stung her face. She rinsed her forearms and wet her hair. Glancing this way and that, she shakily stood, to stumble on flat feet into the bushes. To rise onto her toes made her calves scream.
Nowhere could she find to hide from all eyes in camp. She had to go now. Squatted in disgrace, she sighed and stared at the ground between her feet. Brave, they called me brave. Humph! What did they know? Bravery isn’t the lack of fear; it’s the all consuming, self-preserving presence of it.
Her mind returned to something bordering on obscenities---anger that clears and clarifies, a guarded effort to find an appropriate sequence to rise from her humiliating squat. Concentration lessened the pain only slightly; it was still unbearable, still lashing at her insides, but less by an indefinable amount. She devoted herself to the effort at hand, seeking help to rise by reaching for something, a tree or limb to pull up with where there was none.
Momentarily pleased with the pause in the pain once she came to stand, she turned slightly to move clear of the brush; as if in response to the calling of her name she halted her guarded steps to find she was being watched, had been since she first squatted. No less than six feet away, partially hidden in tall grass, two Indian children she guessed to no more than four years old each sat elbow to elbow, their big brown eyes wide with interest, their shiny fat cheeks glistening in the sun. They were studying her every move. It was a taboo of sorts, her staring at them, them staring back wide-eyed and innocent.
Failing to watch where she placed her foot and surprised by their presence. Her toe caught on a tuft of grass. The pain of her jerking to remain upright made her hiss like a snake and fall forward in a sense of frozen time. She went down to a knee. The torment brought tears to her eyes. The little boy looked at the little girl, her at him, then in unison they fixed their gaze back on her again. Had she not been in such pain, the situation might have been amusing to her too. At no time did the children move anything more than their heads to follow her movements. They resembled two little owls rotating their heads on an axis about their necks.
Chapter 3
Samantha had once seen a snake with two heads and a white opossum with pink eyes. One hunting season a neighbor back home killed a pigmy deer and brought it to town in the back of a wagon. The animal’s stubby legs fascinated her. All this she had seen, but she wasn’t aware weird deformities of nature also occurred in the human world.
The mere sight of Crazy Dog walking past made her cringe. She had forgotten how big the man was. His head towered a foot above the other braves. His shoulders looked as broad as a stallion’s hips; his arms were like two grown man’s legs stuck backwards on his bare shoulders. He did not acknowledge her presence when he passed. He just lumbered along in a toe-slapping gate as if trying to keep himself from falling forward. He reminded her of a neighbor’s Downs syndrome boy back home, only bigger, and more muscled.
There was silence all around, a total void, intense and magnificent as she layback down inside the dome-shaped hut on a bed of buffalo robes. From far off came a soft rend, a faint sizzle of a winter wind winding its way through frozen treetops. Two Indian women were in the hut with her. Neither spoke or smiled or even acknowledged her presence. The place smelled of sweat, and dirty armpits.
To pass time she had tried to pace her thoughts. Nothing worked. She came to awareness realizing that she existed now in a world of overpowering feelings---depressing, and uncontrollable primitive emotions. She bit her bottom lip on one side and sighed at length as she pressed a palm to her abdomen. She struggled to her feet and went out into the cold again. Even the chill bumps forming on her bare arms brought pain.
In the bushes near a stream, hopefully out of view, she looked in all directions before squatting again. Before standing, she let her chin fall to her chest and for a moment she sighed. What she wouldn’t give now for a civilized place to relieve herself. She had always deplored going into an outhouse, until now. She returned and positioned herself as far from the depressing deeper darkness and the other squaws present as possible, near to the door where she had easier view the camp.
When he passed by, Crazy Dog had a full-grown bobcat draped over his shoulder; the dead cat’s limp head and legs swayed to his walking motions. He held something Samantha couldn’t see tucked against his chest. Near a lodge, he dropped the dead bobcat and knelt smiling to a small boy. The child’s face lit up when Crazy Dog handed him a bobcat kitten. Several other children ran to examine the tiny animal. The boy struggled lamely to control the twisting little cat. It mewed, and with claws extended, tried to climb up his chest. Just then a scruffy dog ran up barking and growling. The kitten went into a frenzy scratching and lamenting in high-pitched cries exerting every effort to get away. Another, larger dog ran up and began barking too. Crazy Dog was trying to control the excited canines when the child screamed and bright red blood spewed everywhere. The kitten had bitten a hunk out of the boy’s arm.
The ugly Indian puckered his lips and in one swell swoop grabbed the kitten. Roaring like a grizzly he took the little animal’s head in one hand, its hips in the other, and tore the kitten into two; one piece, the head part, he flung to the ground. The little cat opened and closed its mouth as if trying to mew. The other quivering hips part, still attached to the head part by thin, stringy entrails, the big Indian tossed down, stomped it and kicked away. The silence all around had the effect of an open void as a crowd of shocked adults and children looked on. The big man knelt before the child. Nearly in tears he consoled and apologized, picked the child up and carried him like a newborn to another shelter.
Samantha learned later more about this Pukutsi as the tribe called him. When younger Crazy Dog was an obese child who stood apart from his like aged counterparts. He was slow in movement and thought. When riled, he became violent and ruthless and unable to control. Upon maturity, in some things he was more agile though his mind seemed to be much younger than this body. But on horseback, he was unequaled.
Samantha learned too he had not the mind for mercy toward his people’s enemies. His main compassion was for his fellow, male counterparts, the warriors he respected and grew up with, those who’d proven themselves to him in battle.
Aside from his fits of uncontrollable anger he did obey his elders, especially his older brother, Blue Eagle, who he adored. Crazy Dog was highly respected and admired, possibly even feared by his fellow warriors. It seemed he never got seriously wounded; for pain was not something Crazy Dog recognized. He had massive scars on his body from the sabers of white soldiers and the spears and knives of tribal enemies, and in his thigh a ragged scared over hole put there by a buffalo hunter’s musket.