I am hungry, she thought.
Then she was angry. How could she have Old Bear come to the ration point? How could she ask him to stand beside the travois, an old man, scarcely able to see, a warrior, while she dragged the white man’s beef, meat from the spotted buffalo, to the travois?
Winona was in no hurry to reach home.
She was alone on the prairie. The other women, even those who had stayed overnight at the ration point, had by now hurried on ahead to tell their men that the white men and the bad Indians at the ration point would not give them their rations.
How could she tell Old Bear? What would she say to him?
He might take up his bow and call for his pony, and ride away, saying only, “I will hunt buffalo,” and she might never see him again.
Winona wondered if the men would come in war to claim their supplies. It would not be good. The Sioux no longer told their children that courage was enough, and medicine. In these days Wakan-Tonka seemed to decide the fortunes of war like a common merchant, adding the weight of guns and men and giving victory to the heaviest side.
It was strange that Wakan-Tonka should act so. Perhaps He was testing His children and, in the spring, as Kicking Bear and the others said, His Son would come to slay the white men and live among them, bringing back the old Indians and the antelope and the buffalo as His gifts.
But, Winona asked herself, how will the Hunkpapa live through the winter?
This time the pony stopped, shook its head, and snorted explosively, and nearly pulled the nose rope from Winona’s hand. She cried out angrily in Sioux, jerking back on the nose rope and then, startled, cried out as Corporal Jack Totter’s hand closed on her arm.
“She’s got a horse,” Totter told Grawson.
Already Grawson was cutting the quilted rope of the travois from the pony’s body.
“My horse!” cried Winona.
“You stole it,” said Grawson.
Winona struggled but could not pull away from his grip, and Totter now held her by both arms, facing him, looking into her face with pleasure.
“My horse,” said Winona.
Totter’s face was thrust close to hers and she saw the rough yellow stubble on the heavy jaw, the pale blue eyes, the swollen, cut bruise that was the right side of his face. He had been kicked by a horse or struck in the face by a gun butt. He was grinning at her, holding her tight.
“Where’s your man?” asked Totter.
Grawson slipped his knife back in his belt. The travois poles lay in the dust. His hand tore the nose rope from Winona’s hand.
“She’s alone,” said Grawson.
He leaped to the back of the pony and it reared, and he retained his seat on the animal’s back without a saddle, and jerked savagely back on the nose rope, and then rode the animal back to its haunches, and tore its head from one side to the other until it bled and stood still, trembling beneath him.
“What camp you from?” asked Totter.
Winona said nothing, her arms numb, her fingers numb. She shook her head.
“What camp?” repeated Totter.
“No comprendo,” said Winona, using the common Spanish phrase. There had been a time when many Indians had been familiar with Spanish, more so than English. She had heard the phrase from some of the old Indians. Old Bear had used it sometimes when he did not wish to speak with a white man.
“Girl,” said Grawson, from the pony’s back, “did a white man come this way?”
“No comprendo,” said Winona.
“When did you see a white man last?” asked Grawson.
Winona shook her head. “No comprendo,” she said.
Totter shook her savagely, and her head flew back and forth on her shoulders and her teeth struck together and the world seemed to jerk back and forth and the sky turned red and then black.
“No comprendo,” she said.
Totter’s arms let her go and she fell at his feet, her hands reaching out for the ground, stumbling like drunken feet, and she found the ground and then her hands would not hold her and she fell between Totter’s boots, lying on her side, her eyes closed, sick.
With one boot Totter turned her over on her back.
She tried to rise, but Totter put his boot on her stomach and pressed her back, and she lay still, keeping her eyes closed, her head back with her glistening braids in the dust, trying to come to her senses, sick, knowing she could not move until the white man would be pleased to permit her to do so.
“From out here now,” Totter was saying to the other man, “most likely she’s from Sitting Bull’s camp on the Grand River.”
“Let’s go there,” said Grawson. “Maybe he went that way.”
“There’s trouble there,” said Totter. “Our best bet is to light out for Fort Yates, get some men, then go there.”
“Take too much time,” said the other man.
“You’d better take that time,” said Totter. “You’ll get shot up at Grand River.”
“Hell,” said Grawson.
“They got the Ghost Dance there now,” said Totter.
“I’m not going to lose him,” said Grawson.
“He probably ain’t even there,” said Totter.
“He was,” said Grawson. “We heard plenty about the white medicine man-and that’s him.”
“He probably ain’t there now,” Totter said.
“You scared, Corporal?” asked Grawson.
“I don’t aim to get myself killed being stupid,” said Totter.
“I’ll go alone,” said Grawson.
“Tomorrow is plenty of time,” said Totter, and he winked at Grawson. “Take my word for it, tomorrow is plenty of time.”