Savage Tempest

She waited and waited for his return, but he did not come back. Finally, she eased down on the blankets spread out beside the fire and fell into a restful sleep. She was awakened sometime later by the sound of a voice angrily calling her name.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Joylynn grimaced as she recognized the voice. It belonged to High Hawk’s mother. Although it was obvious that the woman despised her son’s captive, for some reason she had come for Joylynn.

She took Joylynn roughly by the hand and pulled her outside. “I am Blanket Woman,” she announced as she took Joylynn behind a nearby tepee and gestured at a hole that had been dug there. “This is my personal cache pit. You will help me finish digging it.”

Joylynn had no idea what a cache pit was, and when she asked Blanket Woman, the elderly woman tightly explained that it was the storage pit where her family’s crops were piled after they were harvested.

It did not take long for Joylynn to understand why the older woman had asked for her help. It was grueling work, especially with the sun beating down on them as they worked.

Although Joylynn was angry at the older woman because of the way she’d been treated, she could not help being concerned about Blanket Woman’s health as she labored to get the cache pit ready for the coming harvest.

Under the copper color of Blanket Woman’s face, Joylynn saw a pronounced redness. Clearly the older woman was having trouble with the heat.

Sympathetic to all elderly people, Joylynn wanted to tell Blanket Woman to go and stand in the shade for a while. She could rest while Joylynn continued to prepare the storage pit.

But the loathing in Blanket Woman’s eyes made Joylynn think better of offering her anything. Probably, Blanket Woman would laugh at her for trying to be kind. She seemed the spiteful sort, someone that Joylynn could never like.

“Watch what you are doing,” Blanket Woman snapped as she paused. They were digging the earthen wall with hoes made of bone, stopping occasionally to carry away bowls full of earth. “If you do not do this in the right way, the wall will tumble back down and we will have to start all over again.”

Joylynn paused and gave Blanket Woman a wary stare, taking time to wipe the perspiration from her brow. She could feel the wetness of her hair as it clung to her neck. Her dress was soaked and clung to her body, causing Joylynn to be afraid that someone might notice the slight swell of her belly.

She kept pulling the dress away from herself, but she was afraid that Blanket Woman was astute enough to notice her pregnancy.

“Are we almost through?” Joylynn asked, feeling bone-tired and sleepy.

She used to be able to ride all day, even into the night, without stopping to eat or rest.

Now? Because of her pregnancy, she could hardly go a few hours without needing both!

“Ho, we are almost finished. It should not take long now,” Blanket Woman said, also wiping sweat from her brow. “Soon we will lay hides at the bottom, and the sides will be lined by grass to keep the contents dry.”

Joylynn noticed that the cache was shaped like a bottle with a narrow neck, and decreased in size toward the top.

“To load the cache, a hide will be laid out near the pit so that one end will hang over the mouth. I will sit there while I place the harvest inside,” Blanket Woman said, resuming digging and nodding to Joylynn to do the same. “Large baskets of corn will be placed there as well as many strings of braided corn. Also there will be a number of strings of dried squash. The braided corn will be laid on the floor and along the sides of the cache, the shelled corn will be placed inside that, and squash will be inserted in the middle.”

She paused, wiped sweat from her brow, then resumed digging and talking as though she felt the need to talk to forget the drudgery of the moment. “After the cache is full, a circular cover made of thick skin from the flank of a bull buffalo will be placed over the top,” she said. “Next I will lay down a layer of dry grass, and over this I will place puncheons, which are strong planks designed to make sure that if a horse steps on the cache, he will not go through it. Over the puncheon I will place packed earth, and above this, ashes and refuse to disguise the location of the cache.”

“Why would you want to disguise where it has been dug?” Joylynn asked, again pausing to wipe perspiration from her brow.

“So that strangers who might come in the night to steal from the Pawnee cannot find it,” Blanket Woman said, looking quickly over her shoulder and smiling when High Hawk came walking toward them.

He stepped up next to Joylynn and gazed at her. He saw her flushed cheeks and perspiration-soaked hair, but said nothing about it. It was good to have her there to help his mother. Blanket Woman seemed older of late, and not as able to do things as she did only a moon ago.

“And so there you are, sweat-free, doing nothing, while your mother and I are scorching hot from digging this damnable cache pit,” Joylynn blurted out as she placed her left fist on her hip and glared at High Hawk. “I see now why you brought me to your home. I am to be your slave.”

“No, I did not bring you here to be a slave,” High Hawk said, impressed by her fiery spirit. He was amazed that she would stand up to him, her captor, when she had no idea what he might do to her for her defiant attitude. He gestured toward his mother, who had again paused to wipe sweat from her brow. “You are just doing what all Pawnee women do, and they are not slaves;

or would you call my own mother a slave?”

“Well, yes, I would,” Joylynn snapped back. “And must I remind you that I, Joylynn, am not Pawnee!”

He gave her a half smile, then walked away and entered the huge council house at the edge of the village, while Joylynn turned and gave Blanket Woman an angry stare. Then she went back to helping the elderly woman, because she knew she had no other choice. And the faster she worked and got this pit finished, the sooner she could rest.

After the last of the dirt was carried away and the cache pit was finally finished, Blanket Woman stepped up to Joylynn and took the bone hoe from her. “Go to the river and bathe with the rest of the women,” she said tightly. “I shall join you there soon.”

Joylynn’s heart skipped a beat as she gazed at the river, where the other women were already gathered. Then she glanced at Blanket Woman, who was walking away from her with the digging tool.