Lucia stood, bewildered, in the doorway of the soddy.
One of the braves seized her by the arm.
“Guns!” he said. “Guns!”
“No,” said Lucia. “No guns. We have no guns.”
The brave thrust her aside and entered the soddy, followed by his companion.
“Get out of here!” cried Aunt Zita. “What do you think you’re doing?”
The two braves began to ransack the soddy, upturning chests, throwing over boxes, tearing the bedclothes, hunting for weapons or bullets. They picked up kitchen knives and one of them took a bolt of yellow cloth. Lucia saw, with a sinking heart, the walnut china cabinet crash to the dirt floor of the soddy, the glass panels breaking, the dishes inside shattering.
Aunt Zita pounded on the back of one of the braves.
With a cry of rage he turned and seized her by the arms and forced her toward the range.
His companion with a kitchen knife forced open one of the circular lids, revealing the burning kindling inside.
The Indian who held Aunt Zita then held her by the arm and with his hand in her hair forced her head toward the circular opening and she screamed the wailing, unutterably horrifying scream of a terrified old woman.
Lucia seized up a piece of wood from beside the range and stood between the Indian and Aunt Zita and the range.
“Stop!” she cried.
The other Indian easily took the piece of wood from her, and held her about the waist, struggling.
Lucia screamed as the red fist thrust the head of the old woman into the flames and the soddy and the sky itself was rent by the old woman’s agonized shriek.
Lucia broke away from the brave who held her and seized Aunt Zita’s shoulders and with a strength she never knew she possessed tore her literally from the range and the man who held her and led the screaming woman to the wall of the soddy, holding her hands that she might not with her fingernails tear the burned flesh from her face.
Lucia heard the two braves laugh, returning to their work.
One was taking a pillowcase and putting all the food in the soddy into it.
The other was delicately picking a piece of burning kindling from the range.
Lucia took a handful of butter from a stone bowl and rubbed it onto the face of the old woman. Her gray hair had not caught fire. The old woman’s shoulders shook and she shrieked, her entire body trembling, knotted up, its knees under its chin by the dirt wall of the soddy. Lucia seized up her coat and put it about her shoulders.
The brave who had the piece of burning kindling was now applying it to the plank roof of the soddy, to the beds, to the furniture.
Lucia, half dragging, half carrying Aunt Zita, got her out of the soddy.
They had scarcely left the soddy when she saw Drum and his four braves returning from the direction of the school. She could see smoke, and knew that the school was burning. It was gone, the white-planked school with its chipped paint, the swings without rope, the foolish teeter-totter, the walls, the roof, the benches, the slates, the books, what all that had stood for.
Lucia knelt beside Aunt Zita in the dust beside the burning soddy, weeping, holding the older woman by the shoulders, trying to console her.
She looked up to see Drum standing over her.
“Sitting Bull is dead,” said Drum to her.
He looked on the piteous old woman, his face expressionless. He loosened the hatchet he wore at his belt.
He took the old woman’s hair in his left hand and swung the hatchet back.
Aunt Zita, whimpering and moaning, understood nothing. Lucia, holding Aunt Zita, put her own head across that of the older woman.
She looked at Drum fiercely, half blinded with tears.
“No!” she said.
Drum said something in Sioux and one of the other braves pulled Lucia’s hands from about Aunt Zita’s neck. “Lucia!” cried the old woman, reaching out for her.
She opened her eyes, the lids seared by the flames, and saw Drum’s hatchet, and shook her head, “Please no, don’t hurt me, please.”
Drum’s face was expressionless as the bluish steel of the hatchet blade, red in the flames of the burning soddy, stood as still as a poised hawk at the back of its arc, before its descent, its fall, to the forehead of the old woman.
“She is a Holy Woman!” screamed Lucia.
Drum’s arm did not fall. He turned to look at Lucia.
“Holy Woman!” screamed Lucia. “Bad Medicine kill Holy Woman! Bad Medicine!”
A shadow crossed Drum’s eyes, and he lowered the hatchet. “Holy woman?” he asked.
Lucia shook her head vigorously. “Yes,” she said, “Holy Woman! Holy Woman!”
Drum shrugged. It did not matter to him one way or another whether he killed the old woman.
He released Aunt Zita and with the hatchet in his hand gestured across the prairie.
“Run, Holy Woman,” he said. “Run!”
Aunt Zita struggled to her feet and, terrified, her face opened and blistering even under the butter, fled across the prairie.
She did not look back.
Stumbling and screaming she ran from the small group by the burning soddy.
She did not look back.
Drum regarded Lucia, who was staring numbly after the fleeing figure of Aunt Zita.
Drum spoke rapidly in Sioux to his men. They brought Lucia’s horse, the horse which Lucia and Aunt Zita used with the buckboard.
The roof of the soddy, with an angry roar, fell between the dirt walls.