Cry of the Hawk

The wagon boss named Grigsby hollered for his men to account for themselves at the wagon yard, where there was no lack of work backing mules and horses into their traces and trees in preparation for this first day’s march from Fort Hays into Indian country. Off Moser went, with Jonah tying his horse near California Joe’s and Jack Corbin’s.

“I’ll be off yonder for a bit,” Hook told them.

“Hancock’s got us pulling out soon,” Milner replied. “We’re leading his column, Hook. So don’t you be late.”

Jonah grinned. “Never.”

He found her minutes later, where he knew he would.

She was sitting near the dugout where they had fared the winter together, squatting on a buffalo robe, her legs tucked at her side as she drove a bonehandled awl through the thin buckskin she had tanned herself that spring. The Pawnee woman did not immediately look up, though Hook was sure she had heard him draw near.

“Grass Singing,” he said as he settled before her. Still she would not look at him.

Jonah took her chin in his hand, raising her face to his. Only then did he understand why she had been reluctant to look at him.

“You’ve been crying,” he said in English.

She gently pulled her chin from his rough palm and blinked her eyes clear, then went back to poking animal sinew strung with large, moss green beads through the hole she had made with the awl.

“I don’t know how to tell you this,” he said, himself searching for words that would touch her as his hands moved silently before him in sign. A part of him withered when he realized she was not watching his hands, much less comprehending most of his white man’s tongue.

“Hell, some of this you’ll understand, I hope. The rest—well, the rest I hope you’ll figure out down the road some.”

He reached for her hand. She pulled it away as the first large drop of salty moisture spilled down a cheek, no longer held in check, pooled in those blackcherry eyes. Jonah took her hand in his a second time, and now she did not resist.

“I got to go, Grass Singing.”

“Take me,” she said, her eyes imploring him as they flooded.

“Can’t. This is war.”

“My people take women … families on war path.”

“My people don’t. You’ll stay behind. Go find what’s left of your family in Abilene.” And the cold of it hit him as surely as the rising of the warm spring sun caressed the side of his face. “Maybe you can understand I got to keep moving. If I don’t, I can’t ever hope to find my own family.”

She set her beading down, using her hands to sign. “Your family is no more.”

His mind struggled with the concepts she formed with her hands. “No more family,” he repeated, then comprehended. “It’s not true. Who says this?”

Grass Singing said it aloud. “Moser.”

“He lies, woman,” he said it aloud too, forgetting to sign. “My family is alive. Somewhere. I’ll find them. I’ll find every one of them.”

“You go on a fool’s journey,” she signed. “I have prayed to the Great Everywhere that it would not be your final journey.”

He snorted self-consciously. “Me? No—I’m not ready to die.”

Her eyes moistened more. “There is the smell of death all around you.”

“That’s just the blood you’re smelling—”

“I talk now of the death spirits. Their stench is heavy around you, Hook.” The last word she spoke aloud, as there was no sign for his name.

While the rising sun warmed his face, nonetheless a chill splashed down his spine as she said it. Afraid to admit that she might know something he did not. He chose to leave, and now.

Hook stood, reached for her hands, and pulled her up into a tight embrace.

“I will not die, Grass Singing.” He spoke into the top of her head where it rested below his bearded chin. “And come the time when I ride back through this country, I’ll look for you. You have helped me live—not just this bullet hole”—and he tapped his chest—“but the big hole put in my heart when my family was took from me.”

She pulled away from him to sign, “You grow old looking for a few pebbles lost at the bottom of a great pond.”

He caught himself before he struck her, his hand hung in midair near her cheek, looking down at her moist eyes.

“You got no right to tell me what to believe in … tell me what to give up on.”

He whirled from her, moving to his horse.

“Hook!”

She hurried after him, flung herself, and wrapped her arms about him before he could rise to the saddle. She sobbed openly, the wild keening of a squaw losing her man.

“Grass Singing—I want to come back,” he explained, crushing her against him. He kissed her gently, then held her at arm’s length as she stood there, arms at her side, sobbing. “But I can’t come back to you until I have this done and over with. Some way … you try to understand.”

Hook was in the saddle quickly, hammering the horse’s flanks with his boot heels, intent on hurrying as fast as he could from this place. Hoping she would in some way understand his quest.

Hoping too that she was wrong—praying now that he did not carry the stench of death on him.

24

April, 1867