Savage Beloved

“They must be made to pay,” Two Eagles hissed out between clenched teeth. “Do not ask me to forget this thing that must be done. I must avenge you, or our Eagle band of Wichita will lose honor as a people.”

“Worse has happened to others than what happened to me, yet they remain unavenged,” Short Robe said softly.

He patted his nephew’s arm. “At least my head was not removed and put on display in a jar as a trophy as is our friend Chief Night Horse’s head. It is being shown to any white who wants to see it,” he said, his voice breaking with emotion. “The . . . the . . . colonel boasted of his triumph over Chief Night Horse and showed me his . . . his . . . head.”

He closed his eyes as tears spilled from them, down over his leathery cheeks.

Then he gazed into Two Eagles’s eyes. “You see, nephew,” he said, wiping tears from his cheeks. “I was nothing to the colonel since I was no chief or shaman. The colonel said that he would not even waste a bullet on someone as useless as me.”

Again, hot rage flooded Two Eagles. He was not certain he could hear any more of what had been done to his uncle or others of their skin color.

He stroked Short Robe’s brow. “Uncle, have you had anything to eat since you were taken from your people?” he asked softly, trying to change the subject that pained him so. “You are terribly thin.”

“A few times I was given a handful of raw meal alive with weevils,” Short Robe said. “And I was fed stringy and half-rotted meat.”

Hearing this was the last straw for Two Eagles. Despite Short Robe’s words to the contrary, Two Eagles could not let this go. He and his chieftain father had practiced patience and restraint for too long now. He must show the white pony soldiers that they could not treat an old man like Short Robe as though he were less than human.

Ho, yes, Two Eagles must . . . would . . . make the pony soldiers pay, especially Colonel Creighton, who had given the orders to do these humiliating things to his beloved uncle!

“I will get you food,” he said as he rose. The shaman was still treating Short Robe’s worst wounds, while saying prayers beneath his breath.

Short Robe nodded, then again floated away into a restful sleep.

After Two Eagles got outside his uncle’s lodge, he had to stop and inhale deeply, over and over again, in order to get control of his fury.

He was already planning his vengeance.

This time he would not just stand aside and let such things happen to his people. He had nothing to lose by attacking the fort. He was probably already on the list of “savages” to be taken and punished, or killed, by the white pony soldiers. Now that the evil colonel knew Two Eagles was chief, surely he would try to capture him.

As shadows lengthened all around him and the air grew cooler, Two Eagles went to a maiden and requested she bring broth to his uncle; then he returned to his uncle’s tepee and sat down cross-legged beside Short Robe’s bed.

He was alarmed when he found his uncle asleep again, for Short Robe looked as though he had fallen into a deep unconscious state, possibly never to awaken.

It seemed that Short Robe had stayed alert only long enough to tell Two Eagles what he knew, and to ask his chieftain nephew not to seek revenge for what had been done to him.

To ward off the chill of the night, Crying Wolf lit a fire in the fire pit, then sat down on the opposite side of the fire from Two Eagles.

The shaman saw how the flickering of the fire sent light and shadows playing over the young chief’s face, and how his eyes held great sadness.

He did not like what he must say to his chief, but it had to be done. His chief had to be prepared for the worst.

When Crying Wolf spoke, he drew Two Eagles’s eyes quickly to him.

“My chief, your uncle’s heart is very weak,” Crying Wolf said softly.

He paused, when from somewhere afar, wolves howled at the rising moon.

He continued to speak after the wolves went suddenly silent.

“My chief, your uncle’s old body has suffered terribly at the hands of the pony soldiers,” he said solemnly. “Short Robe . . . is . . . dying.”

Those words renewed the rage that had earlier filled Two Eagles’s being. Recently he had lost not only his father, but also his only cousin, his mother, and sister.

And now his father’s brother?

Before his family had begun leaving him, one by one, he could not have imagined life without one, much less all of them.

Two Eagles knew he would have had his uncle with him for at least a few more moons had the white eyes not come and taken him away to torture him.