They were young; three were barely more than teens. The fourth was slightly older, perhaps in his mid-twenties. The younger braves approached warily, weapons ready, as if moving toward a strange animal. The older Sioux rode a half-length ahead of the others. He carried a London fusil, but he held the gun casually, the barrel resting across the neck of an enormous buckskin stallion. A brand etched the animal’s haunch, “U.S.” One of Leavenworth’s. In another setting, Glass might have found humor in the colonel’s misfortune.
The older Sioux reined his horse five feet in front of Glass, studying him from head to foot. Then the Sioux looked beyond him to the pyre. He struggled to understand the relationship between this mangled, filthy white man and the dead Arikara squaw. From a distance they had watched him struggle to place her body on the scaffolding. It made no sense.
The Indian swung his leg across the big stallion and slipped easily to the ground. He walked up to Glass, his dark eyes penetrating. Glass felt his stomach roil, though he met the gaze unflinchingly.
The Indian accomplished effortlessly what Glass was compelled to pretend—an air of complete confidence. His name was Yellow Horse. He was tall, over six feet, with square shoulders and perfect posture that accentuated a powerful neck and chest. In his tightly braided hair he wore three eagle feathers, notched to signify enemies killed in battle. Two decorative bands ran down the doeskin tunic on his chest. Glass noticed the intricacy of the work, hundreds of interwoven porcupine quills dyed brilliantly in vermillion and indigo.
As the two men stood face-to-face, the Indian reached out, slowly extending his hand to Glass’s necklace, examining the enormous bear claw as he turned it in his fingers. He let the claw drop, his eyes moving to trace the scars around Glass’s skull and throat. The Indian nudged Glass’s shoulder to turn him, examining the wounds beneath his tattered shirt. He said something to the other three as he looked at Glass’s back. Glass heard the other braves dismount and approach, then talk excitedly as they pushed and probed at his back. What’s happening?
The source of the Indians’ fascination was the deep, parallel wounds extending the length of Glass’s back. The Indians had seen many wounds, but never this. The deep gashes were animated. They were crawling with maggots.
One of the Indians managed to pinch a twisting white worm between his fingers. He held it for Glass to see. Glass cried out in horror, tearing at the remnants of his shirt, reaching ineffectively toward the wounds he could not touch, and then falling to his hands and knees, retching at the sickening thought of this hideous invasion.
They put Glass on a horse behind one of the young braves and rode away from the Arikara village. The old woman’s dog started to follow behind the horses. One of the Indians stopped, dismounted, and coaxed the dog close. With the dull side of a tomahawk, he bashed the dog’s skull, grabbed the animal by the hind legs, and rode to catch the others.
* * *
The Sioux camp lay just south of the Grand. The arrival of the four braves with a white man sparked immediate excitement, and scores of Indians trailed behind them like a parade as they rode through the teepees.
Yellow Horse led the procession to a low teepee set away from the camp. Wild designs covered the teepee: lightning bolts spewing from black clouds, buffalo arranged geometrically around a sun, vaguely human figures dancing around a fire. Yellow Horse called out a greeting, and after a few moments, an ancient, gnarled Indian emerged from a flap on the teepee. He squinted in the bright sun, although even without squinting, his eyes were barely visible beneath deep wrinkles. Black paint covered the upper half of his face, and he had tied a dead, withered raven behind his right ear. He was naked from the chest up despite the chill of the October day, and below the waist he wore only a loincloth. The skin hanging loosely from his sunken chest was painted in alternating stripes of black and red.
Yellow Horse dismounted, and signaled Glass to do the same. Glass stepped down stiffly, his wounds aching anew from the unaccustomed bouncing of the ride. Yellow Horse told the medicine man about the strange white man they found in the remains of the Arikara village, how they had watched as he set loose the spirit of the old squaw. He told the medicine man that the white man had shown no fear as they approached him, though he had no weapons but a sharpened stick. He told about the bear-claw necklace and the wounds on the man’s throat and back.
The medicine man said nothing during Yellow Horse’s long explanation, though his eyes peered intently through the furrowed mask of his face. The assembled Indians huddled close to listen, a murmur rising at the description of the maggots in the wounded back.
When Yellow Horse finished, the medicine man stepped up to Glass.
The top of the shrunken man’s head barely rose to Glass’s chin, which put the old Sioux at a perfect angle to examine the bear claw. He poked at the tip with his thumb, as if to verify its authenticity. His palsied hands trembled slightly as they reached to touch the pinkish scars extending from Glass’s right shoulder to his throat.
Finally he turned Glass around to examine his back. He reached up to the collar of the threadbare shirt and ripped. The cloth offered little resistance. The Indians pushed close to see for themselves what Yellow Horse had described. They broke instantly into excited chatter in the strange language. Glass again felt his stomach turn at the thought of the spectacle that sparked such fervor.
The medicine man said something and the Indians fell instantly silent.
He turned and disappeared behind the flap on his teepee. When he emerged a few minutes later, his arms were full of assorted gourds and beaded bags. He returned to Glass and motioned him to lie facedown on the ground. Next to Glass, he spread out a beautiful white pelt. On the pelt he laid out an array of medicines. Glass had no idea what the vessels contained. I don’t care. Only one thing mattered. Get them off me.
The medicine man said something to one of the young braves, who ran off, returning in a few minutes with a black pot full of water. Meanwhile, the medicine man sniffed at the largest of the gourds, adding ingredients from the assortment of bags. He broke into a low chant as he worked, the only sound to rise above the respectful silence of the villagers.
The principal ingredient of the big gourd was buffalo urine, taken from the bladder of a large bull in a hunt the past summer. To the urine he added alder root and gunpowder. The resulting astringent was as potent as turpentine.
The medicine man handed Glass a short stick, six inches in length. It took a moment before Glass understood its purpose. He took a deep breath and placed the stick between his teeth.