The Changing Wind Read Online Free Page A

across the shallow riffle, carrying a small buffalo robe.
    “No one can come yet,” she announced as she spread thewarm cover over Bull Roarer. “Dove Woman says keep him warm. Someone will come soon.”
    “How bad is it for the others?” Small Elk asked.
    “Bad. Some are dead. Several lodges burning.”
    “I saw mine burning,” Bull Roarer said. “Is my mother alive?”
    “Yes. She is looking for your sister. Elk, your lodge still stands. Mine is gone, but my mother is safe.”
    “But I saw my mother’s lodge fall on her,” Bull Roarer said.
    “Yes,” Crow explained. “She hid under it, hoping the Head Splitters would leave before the fire reached her.”
    “How did your mother and mine escape?” Small Elk asked.
    “They were both in your lodge. The Head Splitters spared it because of its medicine, Dove Woman said.”
    The lodge of Dove Woman and White Buffalo was painted with designs and symbols that marked it as the dwelling of a holy man. To confront an unknown medicine could easily be hazardous, just as walking into a dark cave could be, without knowing what dangers lay inside. The attackers had simply chosen to avoid the risk.
    “Who all was killed?” Bull Roarer asked.
    “I did not ask about everyone,” Crow said. “Sits-in-the-Rain is dead. I saw Otter’s mother mourning, but I do not know for whom. Cattail’s lodge is burned, but I saw her. Her family is safe.”
    “Is my mother coming over here?” asked Bull Roarer.
    “Yes, she said she will, after she finds what happened to Redwing. Dove Woman will come, but she is helping some who are wounded first.”
    Before long, Dove Woman and Bluebird came across the stream. Dove Woman, who often helped her husband with his healing ceremonies, understood his work quite well.
    “Aiee!”
she exclaimed. “This is a bad injury, Bull Roarer, but we will fix it. White Buffalo will soon return. He will want to bind the leg here, before we carry you across the river.”
    Dove Woman had brought some strips of hide from an old robe and now began to cut splints from the willows along the shore. She was still occupied with this when the men returned, attracted by the plume of greasy blacksmoke from the burning village. Songs of mourning rose again.
    “Elk, go and bring your father,” Dove Woman instructed. “Tell him I have bandages and splints.”
    Small Elk darted away and soon found his father near their lodge. White Buffalo, concerned for his family, had already learned that their daughter was alive, though her lodge had been destroyed. The family of their older son was unscathed.
    “Is your mother safe?” he asked.
    “Yes. She wants you to come and help Bull Roarer.”
    “Where?”
    “Across the river. He fell from the cliff.”
    They crossed, and White Buffalo knelt to examine the injury.
    “Bull Roarer, I am going to move your leg,” he warned. “Here, bite the stick.”
    With one quick motion, he twisted the injured leg into a more normal position. The grating of the bone was quite audible as it snapped into place, and the boy’s scream was muffled by the stick in his teeth.
    “There,” the medicine man said. “It will feel better now.”
    He began to bind the strips of buffalo hide around the leg, incorporating the willow splints as he did so. Finally he rose.
    “Now, I will carry you,” he announced.
    He picked up the boy, whose pain in motion was not nearly so great with the splints in place. As they stepped out of the water, Bull Roarer’s mother met them.
    “Is he all right?” she asked anxiously.
    “A bad break, but it will heal,” White Buffalo assured her. “Where will you stay, Pretty Robe?”
    “My mother’s lodge. Here, this way.”
    Those whose lodges were destroyed were salvaging what they could and moving in with relatives for the present. It appeared that there were only four fatalities, though several more people were wounded or had suffered burns from fighting the fires.
    Three children were missing. One