The Spirit of Thunder Read online

  Storm Arriving looked beyond the flyers, toward the sea and the star-filled sky.

  “There,” he said, and pointed so One Who Flies could see.

  The moonlight bedecked the dark salt waters with glittering shards of silver. In the distance, the glints of light merged into a shimmer that flowed the length of the Big Salty, flowed all the way to the horizon and blended there with the milky glow of the star-road that climbed up the night sky to Séáno.

  “There. Can you see now? Can you see the road?”

  One Who Flies studied the vista. “This is where the road to heaven begins,” he said. “That’s why you bring them here.”

  “It makes their journey much easier.”

  “A spirit can get lost in the world,” Big Nose said. “Spirits get lost every day.” He turned and looked at One Who Flies with a dead-eyed gaze. “A lost spirit can ruin your day.”

  One Who Flies looked at Big Nose with puzzlement, but a quick smile told him that he was being teased. He shook his head.

  “I still can’t tell whether you people are joking or not.”

  Big Nose laughed and leaned forward. “A man may not tell you when he is joking, but he will always tell you when he is serious. You will learn that we joke a lot, so if you are not sure, guess a man to be joking. You’ll be right most of the time.” He straightened up and looked off into the dim night. “Shall we go?”

  “Yes,” Storm Arriving said. “Nóheto!”

  The other two started off but Storm Arriving held back. More flyers had gathered, here and at the other burial sites he could see. He was well pleased with this. Tonight the dead would rest.

  A few days later they were riding past the sentries. The People had moved north, leaving the Red Paint River for the arms of the Antelope Pit River. Aside from the new location, everything else was just as the three men had left it. All the bands were encamped in their customary places, the Council Lodge and the lodges of the sacred artifacts stood tall and impressive in the center of camp, and the flocks of whistlers cropped the blue-green grass out to the west.

  The men rode down the sun road into the center of camp. Big Nose clasped his friends’ hands and turned toward his home with the Hair Rope band. Storm Arriving and One Who Flies continued onward to the camp of the Tree People band.

  Storm Arriving’s mother and sister were waiting outside the lodge when they rode up. Picking Bones Woman greeted them with a nod.

  “Was it done well?” she asked.

  “Yes, Mother.” He dismounted and embraced her. “It was done very well.”

  “It will be a long time before we see another man like him.”

  “Yes,” Storm Arriving said. “A very long time.”

  “Your sister did as you asked,” she told him.

  Storm Arriving looked at Mouse Road. She smiled timidly and glanced off to the side. He followed her gaze.

  A lone lodge stood close by. It was Laughs like a Woman’s lodge, still new and bright. Mouse Road had taken it down when the People moved and had set it up in this place. It was not so close to his own family lodge as to be a part of Storm Arriving’s family group, but also not far enough away to be all by itself. She had put it in a place of transition, a place of possibilities.

  In front of it, tethered to a stake, stood a whistler, a hen which, along with the drake One Who Flies rode and the drake they had sacrificed at the burial, comprised the whole of the flock that had belonged to Laughs like a Woman.

  “Thank you, Mouse Road. That, too, was done well.”

  Mouse Road blushed at his praise but said nothing.

  His sister was a young woman in her seventeenth summer. Already, she had most of the beauty of her deceased sister, and showed signs of a quick mind like her mother’s. But while just a few moons past she was a loquacious child who would offer an opinion on anything, now—since her sister’s murder—she was quiet and taciturn. The experience had changed her, aged her; she was no longer a child. Storm Arriving knew that her spirit had been bruised. He prayed it had not been broken.

  What she needs, he thought to himself, is to be drawn out. He resolved to discover a way to do so.

  He turned to One Who Flies and gestured toward the lodge his sister had raised. “This lodge belongs to Laughs like a Woman,” he said in the Trader’s Tongue. “But he is gone and no longer needs it. Now it belongs to you, and his two whistlers, as well.”

  One Who Flies was surprised by this. He stammered his words as he spoke. “But...but there...Certainly, someone else...a family member...a close friend. Surely there is a widow who could use it more.”

  Storm Arriving smiled at his friend’s discomfort. “It is good that you should speak so,” he said, “for it shows that you appreciate the gift. Laughs like a Woman would be pleased. But no, there is no family, and there is no widow or lonely grandfather in the whole camp who has less than you, One Who Flies. What do you have? Nothing. Only the clothes you wear and a single mount you never ride.”

  “That walker makes me nervous. She’s so big—”

  “So now you have two whistlers, and a place to stay dry when it rains.” He touched his friend’s shoulder. “Laughs like a Woman thought well of you, One Who Flies. He liked you. He gave you his best knife. If he had been able, he would have given you these gifts himself.”

  One Who Flies sighed and Storm Arriving saw acceptance clear the trouble from his brow.

  “I will remember him until the end of my days.”

  “Good,” Storm Arriving said. “Then everything has been done well.”

  “Why Jacob,” Libbie said. “How nice.”

  President George Armstrong Custer, Sr. watched over his newspaper as his wife got up from the breakfast table and walked across the room to meet his Secretary of War.

  The room in which he and Libbie took breakfast was a long, narrow room on the south side of the third floor, not far from the family’s residences. The drapes had been pulled back to let in the early morning sunshine. Even in June, the White House was a chill, damp place. Custer was sure that if he went down into the basements he would find the Potomac seeping in at the bottom stair. Still, after a lifetime in tents on battlefields, in barracks on the frontiers, and even a few years in low-rate hotels as a representative in Congress, he had to admit that the White House, with all its faults, constituted the best accommodations he and his family had ever known.

  As Libbie walked toward her unexpected guest, the pale yellow cloth of her dress caught the slanting shafts of morning light, rebounding them through the room like a gossamer breeze. She met Jacob with outstretched hands.

  “It seems like a year since I saw you last. Will you join us for something to eat?”

  Custer turned the page of his newspaper and took a sip of his coffee, feigning disinterest.

  The coved ceiling carried Jacob’s whispered query across the room. “Is it an ‘Autie’ day, or a ‘Mr. President’ day?”

  “I heard that,” Custer said without looking up.

  Jacob cleared his throat. “Ah, a ‘Mr. President’ day, I see. Perhaps just some coffee then.”

  Libbie led Jacob back to the table with inquiries after family and friends long absent. In truth, it had not been all that long since she had seen their old friend—a month, perhaps, six weeks at the outside—but on that last occasion as at many others before it, business had always intervened and Libbie had had to forego even the smallest portion from the feast of friendly gossip that Jacob could always provide.

  Today, though, Custer was determined to let Libbie have her fill, and his earlier churlishness guaranteed at least some of it. Jacob, thinking Custer to be “in a mood,” would not speak to him unless spoken to. In the meantime he could natter away without feeling guilty about keeping his Commander-in-Chief waiting.

  Custer peeked surreptitiously around his paper to catch a glimpse of his wife. Elizabeth Custer leaned forward as she chatted amiably with their old family friend. Custer was glad to see the glint in her eye and the
hint of a smile on her lips. The last two months had been so hard on her—their son, first a captive, then a turncoat; the attack on the capitol, led by their son; the disgrace, the worry. For all this, rightly or not, she had blamed her husband, and Custer knew that arguing about their son’s own role in events would do nothing to help melt the wall of ice that currently separated them. Any thaw, if it came, could not be pressed. Libbie, when she cared to be, was a force of nature. Custer resigned himself to simply wait for a warmer season.

  Jacob Greene, on the other hand, was anything but a force of nature. Jacob was solid, as dependable as they came, and loyal beyond call. Physically he was everything Custer was not. He was dark where Custer was fair-haired, stout where Custer was thin. Only in his capacity as a leader had he shown the same qualities Custer prized, and as a friend, he had proven to be a most trustworthy advisor.

  As a result, Custer had kept Jacob close by through their years in the military. When Custer had moved on into public service, Jacob had accepted the invitation to come along.

  Jacob caught Custer looking at him and his side of the conversation began to flag.

  “Well,” Libbie said. “I suppose there is some business that has brought you here. Something already delayed too long by idle chit-chat?”

  “Yes,” Jacob said. “I mean no. I mean it wasn’t idle chit-chat.” His eyes shifted nervously from Libbie’s smile to Custer’s imperiously lifted eyebrow. “But there is some business. Now that you mention it.”

  Custer released his friend with a chuckle. “Jacob, relax. Libbie, don’t we have a free evening some time next week?”

  Libbie thought for a moment, then nodded. “Thursday next.”

  “Why don’t we have Jacob and Nettie over for dinner that night? Just a quiet evening with old friends.”

  His wife’s eyes lit up with genuine excitement. “Oh, what a wonderful idea,” she said, but quickly tempered her enthusiasm. “That is, if you two have no other commitments for that evening.”

  Jacob beamed. “There is no place we’d rather be.”

  Libbie’s smile was contagious and Custer found her gazing at him with a tenderness that he’d not seen since he’d first told her the news about their son.

  He smiled himself, and thought: We win the war with little battles.

  “But now,” she said, “I think I have kept you two from your business long enough. If you will excuse me?”

  The men rose as she got up from the table.

  “Thank you, dear,” she said to Custer and, still smiling, left the room.

  Custer folded up his newspaper and laid it on the table. He drained his coffee cup and waved off the servant who came to refill it.

  “Well, Jacob?” he said at last. “What brings you?”

  Jacob’s face became serious.

  “You are going to hear something today. About a new bill in the Senate.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. It came to my attention because it will affect our policy regarding the Unorganized Territories.”

  “Really?” Custer sat forward. The Unorganized Territories—those lands currently controlled by the Cheyenne Alliance—had cost him plenty, both politically and in the budget, and he had nothing at all to show for it. “In what way will our policy be affected?”

  Jacob drew invisible lines on the tablecloth with his finger. “It calls for a major railroad extension that crosses the entire state of Yankton and bridges the Missouri River; all for the purpose of opening up the Frontier and encouraging active settlement of the region.”

  Custer sat back. This all sounded familiar. He searched his memory, trying to recall the conversation. “This...by chance, is this bill from Bob Matherly?”

  Jacob gaped. “You know about it?”

  Custer laughed. “Know about it? Hellfire, I told him what to write.”

  “What? You—” Jacob sputtered, unable to complete his thought. Custer stepped into the gap.

  “Now what did you want me to do about the bill?”

  “Do? I wanted you to oppose it. To veto it if you had to.”

  “Veto?” Custer said, perturbed. “Why would I do that?”

  Jacob calmed himself. “Mr. President, we have had more than enough trouble with that region this year. You in particular have been pilloried for your actions—”

  “I read the papers.”

  “Um, yes, Mr. President. What I mean to say is that, well, we just thought—”

  “We?”

  “Yes, Mr. President. Samuel and I. A few others in the cabinet. We’re concerned.”

  “How so?”

  “Sir, the Democrats are making a lot of hay on this whole issue. Between that and the railroad strikes out west in Chicago.... Well sir, we just thought that this whole bill was nothing but a political powder-keg.”

  “You’re worried about a second term.”

  “If you just let this die away—”

  “But Jacob, don’t you see? This is the perfect tool. I don’t want to run away from this with my tail between my legs. What kind of political future will that provide me? This bill, it takes our two greatest problems, the Frontier and the railroad workers, and puts them in the spotlight.”

  “But, sir—”

  Custer held up a hand. “It puts them in the spotlight, and takes it off of me. I say we support this bill, support it to the hilt. It will take public attention off our failure and allow us to focus it on the future.”

  Jacob shook his head. “It’s risky, sir. What if the project fails?”

  “Then it fails. But remember that if it does, it will do so more than a year from now, and if it does...” He winked. “...it won’t be our fault.”

  Custer could see Jacob’s anxiety melt away. An impish smile touched his friend’s otherwise cherubic lips. “And by then,” he said, “the election will already be won.”

  Custer held up a finger of warning. “Assuming I even decide to run for another term. Believe me, I’ve not decided on that. But if I do, a success or two under my belt will help. If this succeeds, it’s our win. If it doesn’t, it’s their loss.”

  Jacob shook his head again, this time in mild disbelief. “All right, Mr. President. We’ll do it your way.”

  “Was there ever any doubt?”

  Storm Arriving stood outside the lodge. The sun was only a breath of pink along the prairie horizon, and the cloudless sky above was still brilliant with stars when he heard someone inside begin to stir. He shivered in the chill air. He draped his Trader-wool blanket over his head and pulled it close about his shoulders, and then stepped back, away from the lodge so as not to overhear any conversation from within or frighten anyone who came out.

  In the distance, he saw another suitor waiting outside another lodge. The other suitor was much younger than he—Storm Arriving could tell by the young man’s thin legs and by his anxious pacing. The doorflap of the other lodge opened and a man came out; the girl’s older brother, most likely.

  “Go home,” the brother said and shooed at the suitor as to drive off a dog. “Go home.”

  The young man did not move until the brother picked up a stone and threw it. It hit with a thump and the frustrated suitor ran off.

  Storm Arriving chuckled silently. The young suitor had a long and difficult courtship ahead of him. Such a brother would make sure only a worthy man wed his sister.

  More voices awoke within the nearby lodge. Storm Arriving pulled his blanket tighter to hide his face. From other family lodges the womenfolk began to emerge. Empty waterskins in hand, they walked down toward the river with whispers and silent glances sent in his direction.

  “Good morning, Storm Arriving,” one of them said, though he did not know her and she could not see his face. Her companions laughed and Storm Arriving smiled. His own courtship had lost its secrecy years ago.

  By the time the lodge’s doorflap opened, the dawn sky was orange and the sun was ready to lift its head above the rim of the world. A woman stepped out into the morning air
and stretched. Storm Arriving sighed. It was not the one for whom he waited, but her mother.

  “Ah,” Magpie Woman said, seeing him standing there. “It is a fine morning, Storm Arriving.” She patted him on the shoulder as she headed off to the river. “She will be out in a moment.”

  The first rays of day ran down the sun road and touched the front of the lodge. The doorflap opened and she stepped outside.

  Her moccasins were beaded with blue and white, and her leggings were stitched with red bits of Trader’s cloth. But between the moccasins and the leggings there was a patch of skin that made his heart leap. The curve of her bare ankle was the finest thing he had seen for a very long time.

  After the ankle and before her knee came the hem of her dress and, as the whole of her emerged from the lodge, he could only smile. She wore a wide, quilled belt about her waist that emphasized her form without endangering modesty. The fringes of her sleeves fell to her waist, and her left sleeve was untied along the top in the old tradition, leaving her bow arm almost bare.

  Thick braids hanging down past her belt, she stood in the orange light of the newborn sun. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and let the sun warm her skin for a few moments. Then she opened her eyes—they were large and dark and round—and she turned. She saw him, anonymous beneath his blanket, and smiled a happy smile, though she said nothing.

  She slung her empty waterskins over her shoulder and headed toward the river. She ignored him studiously, but her smile remained.

  He reached out and plucked at her sleeve as she passed by.

  “Speaks While Leaving,” he whispered.

  She stopped but did not turn, playing the courtship game to its utmost. “Who is it?”

  “I am Storm Arriving,” he said. “The man who will be your husband, if you will take me.”

  Now she did turn, and her smile was even broader. “Husband? To me? What makes you speak of marriage now, when you have said nothing of it so far. How many years have you courted me, Storm Arriving?”