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Overview
For generations, the Sandcrane men have served their tribe as the keepers of the Sacred Arrows. When the time comes for Seth Sandcrane to pass the responsibility on to his son Tom, he waits with pride for his son to assume his place among the elders of the tribe. But Tom wants nothing to do with Sacred Arrows, ancient traditions, and the mystical heritage of the Cheyenne. It is 1896; the nation is growing, and Tom wants a place in the white man’s world.
He takes a job in the Bureau of Indian Affairs as a go-between for the government and the Cheyenne. When bureaucratic treachery forces Tom to become an outlaw, he must flee the land of his birth. As America teeters on the brink of the Spanish-American War, Tom Sandcrane will learn to fight—not with sacred arrows, but with a Colt .38.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781480478862 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Open Road Media |
| Publication date: | 04/29/2014 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 402 |
| Sales rank: | 40,445 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The Arrow Keeper's Song
By Kerry Newcomb
OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA
Copyright © 1995 Kerry NewcombAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4804-7886-2
CHAPTER 1
Oklahoma Territory, 1896
"Maheo. All-Father.
To the four winds I cast my prayers.
Upon the four winds my voice drifts like smoke.
I hold my People as I hold the Arrows in my hand.
What am I? What am I?
Fire in the blood of nako-he, the Bear;
The crack of ice on frozen rivers,
The call of the wild geese.
I ride upon hotama haa-ese, the North wind.
Call me Spirit Catcher, Sweet Medicine,
By many names men have called me.
I am the Arrow Keeper's Song.
I walk here."
The hand of Maheo, The All-Father, Appeared In The center of a circle of old men whose stern features were etched in stark relief by the brightness of the apparition. The heartbeat of Maheo filled the air and caused the earth to tremble. The Maiyun, the spirits of those who have gone before, leaped soundlessly one moment, gyrated madly the next, as if to distract the elders from their somber ritual.
Tom Sandcrane, blind to the hand of God, saw only the leaping flames from a briskly burning fire. To his ears the heartbeat of the Creator was no more than the hypnotic tap-tap-tapping of the ceremonial drums. No spirits but the tribal elders' own shadows danced upon the buffalo-hide walls of the ceremonial lodge.
Tom stood with the other young men, apart from the ceremonial fire. His twenty-two years hardly qualified him for a place in the circle traditionally reserved for the elders of the Southern Cheyenne. Although Tom was held in high esteem throughout the reservation, here in the Sacred Lodge tradition and custom had to be obeyed, and he could join only if summoned by one of the elders.
Sandcrane shifted his stance and kicked a dirt clod with the scuffed toe of his right boot. He'd been gentling a horse for Allyn Benedict, the local Indian agent. Sandcrane's hard, wiry physique had taken a pounding, but the money had been good, and the experience had afforded him a chance to visit with Allyn's pretty daughter, Emmiline. That green-eyed beauty was worth a hard ride any day.
It was mid-December, the time of the big-hard-face-moon, the third Sunday of Advent, in the last days of 1896, and Tom Sandcrane wished he could have accepted Allyn Benedict's invitation to accompany the Indian agent and his family to church and, afterward, to the house for a late dinner. Emmiline had never looked prettier. But Tom Sandcrane had promised his father he'd attend this night's ceremony ... so here he was. He'd spent the last hour standing in the shadows and awaiting his father's humiliation. It was difficult to be sympathetic. The horny bastard had brought this on himself.
Tom removed his faded gray Stetson and brushed back his close-cropped black hair with the palm of his hand, then settled the sweat-stained, broad-brimmed hat back on his head. It was warm here in the lodge; he considered removing his wool-lined denim jacket and would have if there had been a place to set the coat aside. Tom sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets. His movements distracted Seth Sandcrane, who noticed his son standing outside the circle of light. Seth appeared curiously relieved to see that his son had made it to the council. The older man began to take heart. There was still hope that all wasn't lost.
Tom Sandcrane, cut from his father's image, stood a couple inches under six feet. Like his Cheyenne forebears, Tom's was the blood of warriors, the finest light cavalry in the world, which had once roamed the plains and followed the great herds of buffalo and answered to no one. Boarding school had done nothing to dull the young man's natural skills. There wasn't a horse he couldn't ride—no brag, just the plain fact. Tom was sharp as a whipcrack, leather tough, with his father's dark-brown eyes.
Once lean and wiry like his son, Seth Sandcrane now carried an extra twenty pounds and was beginning to show a paunch. His features were creased, not smooth like Tom's, and a white crescent-shaped scar marked his right cheek just be-low his eye. Still, the forty-five-year-old man could sit a horse as well as any young buck. Seth was dressed in the traditional garb of fringed buckskin shirt and leggings, and his long, streaked, silver hair was braided and decorated with an eagle feather with three notches for each time he had counted coup in battle. Usually a good-natured, easygoing soul, Seth Sandcrane wore a grave expression this wintry night. By force of will alone, he shielded his feelings as the elders began to speak. He would not give them the satisfaction of seeing his pain. Seth lowered his eyes to the buckskin Medicine Bundle on the ground before him. The bundle was tied with rawhide and decorated with the sign of the hawk, the buffalo, and horse. Whorled designs of finely stitched beadwork ran along one side from the tied top to fringed bottom. No one needed to view the contents to know what the bundle contained. These were the Mahuts, the Sacred Arrows brought long ago to the Cheyenne by Sweet Medicine, the prophet, as a gift from the All-Father. The Arrows were the most powerful and sacred objects the tribe possessed. They nurtured and guarded the People and were as crucial to the survival of the Southern Cheyenne as the very air they breathed or food they ate. Seth Sandcrane had been the Arrow Keeper for almost a decade, but that honor was about to come to an end.
The majority of the tribe had learned of Seth's indiscretion through rumor and hearsay, but Tom had heard the story firsthand from his father's own lips. Seth had become enamored of Kanee-estse, Red Cherries, who was the wife of Jordan Weasel Bear, one of the elders of the tribe. Jordan, after learning of his wife's infidelity, went into a fit of drunken rage and savagely beat his wife, then fled on horseback into the black night. A couple of days later the rancher's body was found alongside the carcass of his gelding. It seemed the animal had stepped in a prairie-dog mound and broken a leg, crushing Jordan as it fell. The tragedy had tarnished Seth's reputation and jeopardized his position as Keeper of the Sacred Arrows, a man who must be above reproach.
Tom shifted his stance and surveyed the circle of elders. He recognized Luthor White Bear, a crease-faced man with steely gray hair in braids that hung to his shoulders. Approximately the same age as Seth, he had made no effort to conceal the fact that he coveted the role of Arrow Keeper.
To begin the council, Luthor removed the Medicine Pipe from a buckskin bundle in his possession, brushed the red clay bowl with dried sage and brittle stalks of sweetgrass, and then lit the contents of the bowl, a mixture of tobacco and cherry bark.
Luthor's features were marked by a single white band painted across his eyes like a narrow mask. The elder, seated at the southeast point of the circle, represented the originator of life and light.
"I am morning, I bring new life to the People. The sun is my servant," intoned Luthor White Bear. He smoked the pipe and then passed it to Henry Running Shadow, seated at the southwest point. The latter's traditional buckskin shirt and leggings were baggy and seemed almost comical upon his frail torso. He looked as if he were trying to shrink out of his clothes. His elderly features were concealed behind a mask of red paint.
"Thunder lives in me," continued Henry Running Shadow in a gravelly voice. "I journey from the south, bringing rain and warm weather. In me the grass grows and the earth becomes green again." He was fifty-seven years old, and his hands had a slight tremble from the onset of palsy that would one day kill him. He smoked the pipe and handed it to the Cheyenne seated at the northwest. At fifty years of age, Abe Spotted Horse had lived long enough to grow restless for the old days. Chasing buffalo and raiding the white man's villages and towns had provided plenty of opportunity for a warrior to count coup and prove his bravery. Peace had left him brooding and restless. His color was yellow, the color of the sunset.
"I am the place where the sun sleeps. I am that which is without blemish, the ripeness and beauty of the world." He smoked, and again a cloud of prayer smoke billowed up above the heads of those gathered in the lodge. Abe Spotted Horse stretched out his hand, and the pipe was taken by the last of the painted elders.
The face of Coby Starving Elk was smeared with a band of black paint. He too was in his midforties. A stocky man with a belly that overhung his beaded belt, Coby was unflaggingly honest and could be counted on to hold a wise council.
"I will smoke this pipe," said Coby. "For I am the killing storm, the blanketing snow and the crippling cold. I am your death. I am always seated at your fire. But as you honor me, I will stay my hand." He puffed on the pipe three times and paused, allowing his words to ride the prayer smoke to heaven. He pointedly refrained from offering the pipe to Seth, who remained sitting on his haunches close to the fire. When Coby had returned the Medicine Pipe to Luthor White Bear, Seth leaned forward and untied the bundle of brushed deer hide and mallard skin and unwrapped its contents.
The Sacred Arrows were about six inches longer than a normal hunting arrow. Each shaft was ringed with varying bands of color corresponding to the painted elders: a white arrow, a black, a yellow, and a red. The Mahuts were tipped with glassy black obsidian arrowheads. Each shaft was trimmed with eagle feathers, although the arrows would never know the touch of a bowstring. Their power was mystical in nature.
Tom had seen the relics before, in his father's house, the first time as a lad of thirteen when he had furtively peeked inside the Medicine Bundle. He had been frightened, then, of invoking the wrath of a host of evil spirits. Now the Arrows meant no more to him than the tradition they represented. He had accompanied Allyn Benedict to the nation's capital and had seen the cities of the East, the power of commerce and invention that had fueled the white man's conquest of the frontier. Tom had glimpsed the future, that unstoppable juggernaut, progress, which the Southern Cheyenne could either climb aboard or be ground beneath. What were a bunch of wooden sticks compared to the raw power of industry? The sooner his people left the old ways behind, the better.
Seth Sandcrane looked down at the Arrows, his features remaining impassive. He'd been a fool to become involved with Red Cherries and should have kept his pants zipped. But Red Cherries was the kind of woman who could make a boy feel like a man, and an old man like a boy again. Seth sighed and, looking up, met Luthor White Bear's icy stare. There was no love lost between the two elders. Luthor had coveted Seth's role from the moment the bundle had been placed in Sandcrane's hands. Luthor made no attempt to hide the disdain he felt for his rival.
Coby Starving Elk cleared his throat and, with a wave of his hand, gestured for the drummers to cease. The three braves immediately complied, and a silence, broken only by the crackling fire, filled the lodge.
"Long ago, in the time of those who have gone before, Maheo, the All-Father, sent the Sacred Arrows to us. Sweet Medicine was the first Keeper. And after his death came men like White Thunder and Rides Horse. Once there came a time when the Pawnee stole the arrows and many Cheyenne rode the warpath to recover that which was taken. Great was the suffering. Five of those brave young warriors were killed before the Arrows were returned." Coby looked from Luthor to Henry Running Shadow and Abe Spotted Horse and then settled his gaze on his old friend Seth Sandcrane. Regret was plainly evident in Coby's expression. But sympathy could not undo what had been done. Yet the two men had agreed on one way the Arrows might remain beneath Sandcrane's roof. Coby was willing to give his old friend one last chance, in a matter of speaking. "Our five grandfathers were killed recovering the Sacred Arrows," he continued, "and so it was decided that the Arrow Keeper should come from one of our families. You have been the Arrow Keeper, Seth Sandcrane, as was your father, before Maheo called him by name. You have renewed the Mahuts with your prayers and sacrifice and guarded them well."
"Until now," Luthor White Bear spoke up.
"I have done what I have done," said Seth Sandcrane. "I have brought the Mahuts and unwrapped them so that one and all can see they have been well cared for."
"But they are heavy with your shame," Luthor replied. "It is time for another Arrow Keeper to be chosen, or surely all our people will suffer for the actions of this one."
"Luthor's words are straight," Abe Spotted Horse interjected. He had often hunted with Seth, and the two had shared many campfires together. He took no pleasure in bringing Seth before the council, but the welfare of the Southern Cheyenne came first. The Sacred Arrows must be placed in proper hands.
"I have brought the Mahuts. I place them upon the earth before you. My hands can no longer reach them. Let another come forward and gather them," Seth proclaimed in a voice thick with emotion.
That was all Luthor White Bear needed to hear. He rose from his place and started forward with a look of triumph in his eyes. "As Pipe Bearer, I must care for the Mahuts until the next renewal ceremony."
"Wait, my brother," Coby called out, blocking Luthor's path. The Pipe Bearer was caught completely unawares. Coby turned to face Seth and winked before explaining his actions. "Ten winters ago Maheo revealed to us that the Sacred Arrows should be kept in the lodge of Seth Sandcrane. Who are we to go against the will of All-Father?"
"But they cannot remain beneath his roof," Luthor protested. "This one has dishonored the Sacred Arrows!"
"His son has not," Coby said.
Seth knew what was coming and had to struggle to refrain from flashing a look of triumph at the Pipe Bearer. Thank the Great Spirit Tom had made it to the council on time. Seth watched with relish as Coby ordered the young men ringing the elders to stand back and form a path through their midst.
Tom blinked and came alert. My God, what was happening? Everyone was standing aside, and suddenly there was nothing but empty space between him and the ceremonial fire. A hand nudged his shoulder, and he glanced back to find Willem Tangle Hair, a freckle-faced, sandy-haired twenty-four-year-old half-breed grinning and urging him on. Willem, member of the tribal police, had worked his way around the perimeter of the lodge to stand alongside his childhood friend. It was said of Tom and Willem that they were two arrows from the same quiver. They had played together as children. And in the rough-and-tumble days of their childhood, one was always sticking up for the other.
"Looks like they want you up front, Tom," said the blue-eyed breed.
"Damn," Tom muttered beneath his breath. What had his father gotten him into now?
"Tom Sandcrane," Coby Starving Elk called out. Beads of sweat had begun to glisten on the elder's thick features. Trails of moisture streaked the rolls of flesh beneath his chin. But his black, beady eyes glinted with crafty intelligence as he invited the son of Seth Sandcrane to join him in the center of the lodge.
All eyes were on Tom as he advanced toward the fire and gingerly approached the man who had called him by name. "I am here," Tom said. His movements were cautious, his right leg threatening to cramp. The leaping flames highlighted the uncertainty in his eyes.
Seth stood up as his son entered the circle. The Arrow Keepers last official act was to surrender that which he treasured most. Seth placed a hand on Tom's shoulder and gave the younger man a reassuring pat, then turned and walked away from the Sacred Arrows lying upon the bundle. He held himself ramrod straight, head unbowed, clinging to the last remnants of his dignity as he walked with measured steps from the circle. It soothed his battered pride to think he'd denied Luthor White Bear yet again the role of Arrow Keeper. He retraced Tom's path through the crowd of Cheyenne, walking past the leaders of the various warrior societies who were waiting for the matter to be resolved. He reached the entrance to the lodge, pulled back the flap, and disappeared into the darkness outside.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Arrow Keeper's Song by Kerry Newcomb. Copyright © 1995 Kerry Newcomb. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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