“They came,” said Lucia, trembling. “They killed my friends. They burned the house.”
“How did you come here?” demanded Old Bear.
“I didn’t want to come here!” cried Lucia.
“How did you come here?” demanded Old Bear.
“On foot,” said Lucia. “My hands were tied behind my back. A rope was put on my throat.”
“Huh!” said Old Bear, satisfied.
Chance then understood that Lucia was being made to understand, and acknowledge the simple fact of her capture, and what this meant; that her life had been spared but that she was a prisoner; and that her life was in the hands of the Sioux, to whom she now belonged.
“On the rope of a warrior,” said Old Bear.
“Yes,” said Lucia.
“What warrior?” asked Old Bear.
Lucia dropped her head. “Drum,” she said, “the son of Kills-His-Horse.”
“You are the squaw of Drum,” said Old Bear.
“That cannot be,” said Chance simply.
A chorus of surprise greeted this announcement.
Old Bear looked at Chance, puzzled. “Why?” he asked.
“She is my woman,” said Chance.
Old Bear was evidently startled. “I did not know this,” he said.
He looked at Lucia.
“Yes,” said Lucia softly. “I am his woman.”
At that moment Chance stood ready to fight the entire Sioux nation.
Old Bear looked at Chance. “One blanket?” he asked.
Chance recalled the Carter soddy. “Yes,” he said, “one blanket.”
Lucia dropped her head.
Suddenly the thin woman with the stick screamed shrilly.
“She is the woman of Drum! I saw him bring her to the camp! Medicine Gun is white! He lies! They talk with the tongues of snakes to save each other!”
“My Brother, Medicine Gun,” said Running Horse, “does not lie.”
The thin woman recoiled, as if she had been stung with a whip. “Short Hair!” she hissed.
The voice of Running Horse did not rise, nor show emotion. He said, “I have danced the Sun Dance; I have smoked with Sitting Bull; I have fought at Grand River; I have fought at Wounded Knee.” Then he looked at her and said, “Go take your place with the women.”
The thin woman said nothing, but retreated sullenly to stand among the other women, and the children.
Old Bear looked at Chance. “It is not good,” he said. “Drum wants the yellow-haired woman.”
“He may not have her,” said Chance. “She is mine.”
“Drum,” said Old Bear, “is the son of Kills-His-Horse. By birth and blood he is Hunkpapa.”
“Not by birth,” said Chance, “but by the blood of Running Horse, my Brother I too am Hunkpapa.”
“In the way of the Hunkpapa,” said Old Bear, “the woman belongs to the warrior who takes her.”
“That is true,” said Chance, “but in the way of the Hunkpapa one warrior does not steal from another warrior.”
Old Bear looked at him. “Drum will fight,” he said.
“I too will fight,” said Chance.
Old Bear looked into the fire, thoughtfully. “It is not good,” he said.
“It must be, Father of the Hunkpapa,” said Chance. “I am sorry.”
Old Bear looked up at Lucia. “Squaw,” said he.
Lucia’s lower lip trembled. “Yes,” she said.
“Warriors will fight for you,” said Old Bear. “One will die.”
Lucia looked at Chance, frightened. “No,” she said.
“Be silent,” said Chance.
Lucia was silent. She knew that if she were his woman, she must obey him. He, though he were white, was in his way Hunkpapa, and she knew herself, by capture, to be a squaw of that people, and they would expect her to obey him, as she must Drum, or any other whose squaw she might be.
Old Bear looked at Lucia steadily, closely, watching her eyes. Then the old Indian pointed to Chance. “In the Hunkpapa this is Medicine Gun,” he said.
“I know,” said Lucia. Chance had told her of his Indian name when they had visited, for hours, in those precious days at the Carter soddy.
“If Medicine Gun is not killed,” asked Old Bear, “will you be a good squaw to him?”
Lucia dropped her head. Perhaps in spite of her peril she smiled a bit, somewhere in her heart, she, Lucia Turner, who had held in the East the radical opinions of the most advanced women, extending even to the right to vote, she who had been in her way a heretical, militant outpost of feminism on Standing Rock, who had waged her one-woman war to raise the status of her sister, red or white. “Yes,” she said, head down, “I will try to be a good squaw to him.”