Free Sacajawea by Anna Lee Waldo Page A

with her hands tied behind her back.
    The midafternoon sun made the ivy-caused blisters on her legs and arms break and water. Once she thought she felt perspiration from the horse, but she was not sure. When the horse began to founder, Buzzard Beak used his quirt vigorously and the animal went a little faster. The horse made a sudden lurch and fell on its side, frightening Grass Child so that she cried out. Buzzard Beak leaped nimbly to the ground, pulling her with him. Holding the thong reins and Grass Child with one hand, he began to strike the horse. He kicked and pounded it over the head with the butt of the quirt. The horse tottered to its feet. Carrying Grass Child, Buzzard Beak leaped astride, and they galloped farther eastward.
    Water Woman, nursing Blue Feather, with Drummer held tight in her other arm, sang to Grass Child in the night when she could not sleep. The captives were permitted to huddle around the fire now for warmth. Each day Water Woman soothingly told of the great improvement in Grass Child’s condition. Willow Bud tried to describe the land they rode over, sometimes rocky and hilly, other times flat and grassy with small gurgling streams. Grass Child’s eyes were swollen shut.
    Only the day that her eyes opened did Grass Child feel she was improving. That day the grass looked greener than it had ever seemed and the trees taller and straighter, her friends’ smiles broader.
    “Tomorrow,” Water Woman encouraged, “you will be strong enough to ride alone. You can ride with us. No more sitting with Buzzard Beak.” That night she and Willow Bud pretended to gather wood, but stood on a small hill to see if they could see any sign of the rescuing Agaidükas.
    “We are as ants in the field,” Pine Woman sighed, smoothing her dirty tunic over her stomach.
    “But if they travel along the river, sooner or later they will stumble on us,” said Willow Bud. “We will watch for them while we remember landmarks each day, like putting beads on a string. Today there was the big cotton wood broken by lightning. Yesterday there was the spring water coming out of the dark earth. It took us half a morning to get through that muck. Before that, there was the tall stone with vines on one side and—”
    Fish Woman placed a blue-veined hand over Willow Bud’s and spoke as if to one of her own children. “Poor girl! Your head is swollen with knowledge of the trail we’ve followed, and still you want to push more into it. Don’t shove so much in that it pushes on the trail back to the People and lets some spill out, or don’t let these skunks beat it out of you.”
    Moon Woman sighed—and shut her eyes. They were closed so long that everyone was beginning to think she had fallen asleep when suddenly she began to speak. Her eyes were still closed, but her voice had changed: it was soft, almost caressing, with a smile in it. “I was about as many summers and as skinny as Grass Child when the Arikara warrior carried me away. I was young enough so that I never knew that women were carried off for slaves. I just never thought about it. I lived in his lodge with two other woman. They made me fetch water, push down weeds between the mounds of corn and beans, make the stew, and sew. My sewing was bad. I was not old enough to be able to make good trousers. At night they beat me. When he came home he scolded them and fed me thin hot soup to stop my wailing. Then he sent me out for firewood. I could scarcely find a stick around those lodges, and then he would beat me.” Her eyelids fluttered open. “I’ll tell you about them. They are called Arikaras. I was their captive once, as I have told you.”
    Willow Bud nodded, then everyone nodded, not knowing what to expect.
    “The Arikara village is downriver a short trail from the Westersoon. Once I heard the Wetersoon eat worms.
    Farther up are villages of the People of the Willows, our captors, the Minnetarees.”
    “And they probably eat dogs,” said Willow Bud,