Streams to the River, River to the Sea

Chapter One

We were gathering blackcaps on the stream above the place where the three big rivers meet. Summer was almost gone but there were still a few sweet berries hidden deep in the bushes, where bears and deer could not find them.

It was close to dusk. We had come to the stream at early dawn and both of us were weary, almost too weary to talk.

My cousin, Running Deer, said, Have you heard the squirrels chattering over there on the far bank in that big tree? Not the cottonwood tree, the other tree?

Yes, ever since the sun left us, I said.

Do you hear them now?

I dropped a handful of blackcaps in the basket and listened. Not a sound, I said.

They must hear something.

My cousin was nervous. She was always nervous. When a storm was coming, also when it came, also at nightfall if she was not safe by the fire, she was nervous.

Squirrels hear a lot of things, I said to calm her. They have better ears than we do. And they hear more things than we do. Things not worth hearing.

Don’t you think it’s time to go? she asked me.

A few more handfuls will fill the basket, I said. Nothing looks more shiftless than a basket that’s only half full.

I got down on my knees. I picked faster now. My cousin did not help me. The squirrels had started to chatter again and she was listening.

Suddenly the squirrels were silent.

It was very quiet in the meadow now. I heard nothing save the fuzzy drone of mosquitoes and down the stream the bark of a dog. From the opposite direction and near at hand I heard a different sound—the high, drawn-out cry of a wolf.

Running Deer said, Wolves. Many of them.

Only one, I said. But one can sound like many.

The path back to our camp was through a patch of chokecherries, a fine place for a hungry bear. Bears have a strong smell. But we smelled only roasting meat on the night wind.

We were on an island in the stream. The country around was flat and the stream divided into two forks. The island lay in the middle, covered with cottonwood and quaking aspen. It was easy to go through the trees without being seen. That is why the horsemen did not see us.

They had come from the north, down the right fork of the stream, and now were near the island’s edge. They rode silently, two men on spotted horses.

Who are they? my cousin whispered.

I knew who they were. Minnetarees, I said.

The Minnetarees traveled far on their spotted horses. They went out on long hunts, to plunder their neighbors, to kill men, and to capture women and children. They were our hated enemies.

A pair of magpies skittered across the stream and set up a clatter. The men stopped to look at the sky, at the smoke rising above the trees. One of the men was very tall and his hair was cut short to his head—a sign that he was in mourning for someone dead.

I dropped the basket of blackcaps. Follow me, I said. We’ll go to the other fork and back to camp.

Running Deer started to say something. I held my hand over her mouth.

I had seen that there were more than two horsemen. Minnetarees never raided in twos—always in bands, stealthily, and at suppertime. They had raided us before, once when I was three and another time when I was seven. On these raids they had killed many of our men and carried off eight of our young women and twice that many of our children.

Hurry, I said. Come quietly and say nothing.

We waded out to the middle of the stream. Our camp was at the far end of the island. High in the trees I could see the glow of our fires. All the dogs in the camp were barking, which meant that my people were warned.

Run, I said to my cousin. Run in the shallows under the trees where the footing is good.

I heard a sharp sound like a tree breaking in the wind, then another sound and another—three altogether. It was the sound firesticks make, the weapons that spit smoke and fire, things the Minnetarees had bought from the white traders.

I overtook Running Deer. Stay where you are, I told her. Stay and be silent.

I ran fast in the shallow water. But at a bend in the stream the water grew deep and tugged hard at my legs. I could hardly move.

There were more crackling sounds from the firesticks. Then it was very quiet. But the quiet did not last. The summer grass blazed up and the trees began to burn. A woman screamed.

The burning trees cast a light far up the stream. Night had come on fast, but I could see that our men had left the island and were fleeing north. Close behind them rode a band of Minnetarees on their spotted horses.

I waded out to a sandbar and lay flat in the cold sand. Though there was still a smoldering light in the sky, it was dark where I lay. Some Minnetarees moved out of the camp, driving a herd of neighing horses before them. They shouted Minnetaree words—Aaagh! Ai, ai, ai!—boasting of their victory.

Cautiously I got to my feet and started toward the island. I came close to our camp. Grass was on fire. Trees were on fire. Our dead lay everywhere. I saw my mother, dead, and when I screamed, a Minnetaree, the tall one, came out of the cottonwoods. He was dragging Running Deer behind his horse. He threw a noose around my neck and choked me until the night grew black.

Chapter Two

We rode all night toward the star that shines in the north, the one that never moves. Spread flat on my stomach, I was fastened to the back of a horse. My hands were tied together around the horse’s neck by a stout leather rope.

I rode at the very end of the train, the end of the long line of horses and captured women. My captor, the tall one, rode in front of me. He never spoke. Several times when he seemed asleep I thought of leading my horse out of the line, hiding in the woods, and somehow untying the rope that bound me. But what if I failed? What if I was forced to wander for days until I died of thirst, until I was a skeleton tied to a skeleton horse? And what of Running Deer? What would happen to her if I escaped or died?

It was bad to think of escaping and I put it out of my thoughts. Surely my father and my two brothers would be home from the buffalo hunt in a few days. They’d find our camp burned down, the dead people lying in the burned grass, and set off to rescue us.

Near dawn the train halted beside the stream we had been following all night. My captor unbound the ropes and told me to drink because I would not see water again that day.

We were still in the low mountains and it was very cold. The stream ran under a crust of ice. I had to break a hole in it before I could drink and wash my face.

Dawn came as I left the stream. By its light I had my first real look at the Minnetaree. Older than my father, he was a tall, thin man with a small head, round like a melon, which sat squat between his shoulders.

He picked up the rope to tie me and said, touching his chest, Tall Rock, which I took to be his name. He then spoke a few words, and when he saw that I did not understand them, he made a sign with both his hands, drawing a shape. He rolled his eyes.

He started to pick me up to put me on the horse. As he bent forward I saw hanging from his belt, down the back of his leg, a woman’s scalp. The hair was long and black and braided. Through the braids were woven tiny pieces of white fur, ermine fur. It was my mother’s hair that hung from his belt.

A scream caught in my throat. Wild words formed on my lips. I said nothing. Quietly I walked to the place where I had made a hole in the ice and washed my hands again and picked up a rock.

The Minnetaree was standing by the horse, mumbling at the delay. When he gathered me up, I brought the rock down on his head. It was a solid blow and he reeled and fell to his knees. I ran for another rock, a bigger one, but as I reached the stream he shoved me from behind so hard that I went crashing through the ice.

After a few moments, while I froze, he dragged me out by my hair, through the sand, through the grass. He tossed me on the horse and bound me again, tighter this time. Then he gave me a good hard slap on both of my cheeks.

We traveled all that day in heavy rain, not stopping until dusk. While I was being untied, Running Deer came to watch, followed by an ugly young Minnetaree with roached hair who stood off at a distance. She was surprised to see me tied up.

I have a good horse to ride, she told me. One of our horses. Do you think we can steal away tonight when they’re not looking?

We don’t know the trail, I said. And the rain has washed out all the hoofprints the horses have left. We’d be lost before morning.

That is why, when no one was looking, I broke off twigs all day and dropped them along the trail.

We can’t find twigs in the dark.

But tomorrow in the daylight they can be found.

Tomorrow we will see.

I asked her how many of our people were in the train.

Five or six, I think. Women and boys.

Tall Rock came and stood in front of us and made motions pointing to the way we had come, then drew a finger swiftly across his throat. Running Deer and I did not talk any more.

The next day, while thunder rolled and lightning streaked the sky, one of our women, Little Fox’s Daughter, walked away from the train. She had not gone far when the Minnetarees overtook her. I heard a scream and that was all.

My cousin and I never talked again about trying to escape, though she kept breaking off twigs as we rode, dropping them on the trail for our men to see. I kept count of the direction, which was no longer toward the star that does not move but toward the rising sun.

A new moon came and slowly went. We reached running water, the river Missouri, but my father and my two brothers never came to rescue us.

On the morning of the day we first saw the river, the Minnetarees smeared fresh paint on their faces and stripes up and down their chests. And when we reached the river they let out the cries of crazed devils. Aiyee, aiyee, aiyee! they shouted, spurring their weary horses.

As we rode into their village an old man tottered out to greet us. He had thin, white hair and moved with the help of a stick carved in the crooked shape of an antelope horn. This was the sachem of the Minnetarees, the Father of the People of the Willows, the great chieftain Black Moccasin.

He had a nod for all of his new captives. He went from one to the other of us, squinting his flinty eyes, examining us from head to toe, as if we were mares he was about to buy or had bought and was not quite sure of the bargain.

His gaze lingered on me. I held my breath, knowing that my fate among the People of the Willows was being decided. His gaze shifted away to Running Deer, then came back to me. He had not decided what to do, but Tall Rock, who had waited impatiently, reached out to drag me off. Quick as a snake strikes, the chieftain tripped him with his carved stick and sent Tall Rock sprawling in the dust.

Chapter Three

The villages that Black Moccasin ruled stretched along the eastern bank of the river for a long way, the distance that twenty well-shot arrows can fly. They were the most wonderful villages I had ever seen or ever heard about.

We, the Agaidüka Shoshone, lived in deerskin huts and moved about in the seasons, from the lowlands to the high mountains. The Minnetarees seldom moved from their villages.

They dwelt in great houses—ten big families could live in just one of them—made of timber and mud. The houses were tight against the deepest snow and the wildest winds. Covered holes in the roof let smoke from the fires drift out. There was also a door, not a flap, a big one that opened and closed. On the outside, each of the houses had a trench dug deep around it to keep out the water when it rained.

Chief Black Moccasin’s home was the biggest of all the lodges in the village of Metaharta, though he had only four wives. Three of the wives were kind to me from the very first moment I came into the house. But as soon as Black Moccasin’s back was turned, the other wife, Sky Lark, a young Sioux woman, said in sign language, pointing at the earth, We are enemies and I will see you dead down there.

Chief Black Moccasin knew what she said and gave her a beating with his carved stick. After that she smiled at me if she had a chance and I smiled back, but still I didn’t trust her. In truth, I did not trust any of the Minnetarees except Black Moccasin.

That first night I slept little. I had a sleeping place of my own, a corner curtained off with bearskins from the rest of the lodge, but I kept thinking of the burned village I had left and of all my friends, those dead and those living. Especially I thought of Running Deer and the stricken look she had given me when Black Moccasin had shown no interest in her and she was led away by the ugly warrior whose hair was cut short on the sides and stuck up in the middle, the one who had captured her. I