Free Sacajawea by Anna Lee Waldo

His lip curled into a sneer. Grass Child noticed scars on his chest and arms. She stared unabashedly for some time, thinking that he must be a great warrior among his people. He must respect bravery in others. The flintlock was not lowered, but it moved slowly to point at the forehead of Grass Child. She sucked in her breath fearfully. She wanted to step backward, but she did not dare. She stared him in the eye, and, with no thought other than “How fierce he thinks he is,” she moved her hand upward little by little and lowered it just as slowly, taking the flintlock barrel with her, pushing it to one side. He spoke to her in his strange tongue. He pushed her forward as if he wished her to go somewhere with him, then suddenly his foot was in her path. When she fell to the ground, he guffawed loudly and walked away.
    Grass Child fainted. When she came to, she was aware of blood in her mouth, and she was surprised by the saltiness of the taste. She did not want to sit up. She tried to push her mind deep into some inner sanctuary where nothing could hurt her. She thought this might be dying, this sinking into darkness slowly, slowly.
    A long time later, it seemed, Grass Child felt herself moving hesitantly outward toward consciousness of the shell that was her own body. This sensation was repeated again and again. Each time she was rebuffed by the wave of violent pain and slipped back thankfully into the comfort of that inner oblivion.
    It was midafternoon when she came out of it far enough to realize that she was lying naked on a clean blanket and that somebody was rubbing her with bear’s oil. It did not seem surprising that it was Buzzard Beak who was doing the rubbing. He had shown them what would happen if they tried to escape. Now he was sorry that he had hurt her. He felt her pulse. Several other strangers were standing around. Their faces and bodies had been washed, and they looked more friendly. Buzzard Beak nodded and laid her head gently on the blanket. She felt the softness. It was not a fur robe; she noticed the color—dark blue, like the sky on a cold starlit night. This was something different, something unfamiliar. She moved her hand against the blanket once more. Buzzard Beak began to feel her sides as if to locate broken ribs. Rolling her gently, he pointed to the swollen quirt mark on her back and the bump on her head under the blood-matted hair. He chuckled deep inside himself as he rubbed ample bear’s oil over them. She could hear his words, but she had no idea of their meaning. She continued to feel drowsy inside, with a fear wrapped lightly around the outside. The strangers all around her and the strange blue robe gave her no security. They wrapped her gently in the blanket and left her to sleep more.
    Finally, at midmorning of the fifth day, they again started eastward along the river. Grass Child felt somewhat better, but her head still ached with the motion of the horse. When they stopped for water, she let herself be pulled from the horse and pushed beside the small stream. She lay in the cool leaves, rubbing some of them on her hot, swollen face, remembering the medicinal quality of crushed buffaloberry leaves. These cool leaves served just as well, her distant mind told her. She managed a few sips of the cooling water, then was placed roughly upon the horse again. There was no time to talk with Willow Bud.
    A week passed, more slowly than Grass Child had believed time could pass. Her condition went from unbearable discomfort to outright agony. The leaves shehad reveled in at the spring were the low-growing three-leaved ivy. She itched and burned and longed to scratch arms and legs, and most of all, her swollen, parched face and lips. Buzzard Beak had tied her hands behind her back and placed her on the same horse with himself. There was no position she could assume in which his body behind her was not torment. Yet she had enough sense to know she could not have ridden a horse alone, sitting