The Legend of Black Wolf - Sully's Journey Home

Chapter Thirty Four

   Looking off to where the wolf had appeared, he waited to see the white man follow.  Today, he felt sure he would see his family and tell them that he had eliminated a great danger from among them...

      The sound of the gunshot was so unexpected in the moment that Sully visibly flinched.  As he scanned the scenery around him quickly, he saw no movement, no gunman.  In spite of the hammering of his heart, he started walking in the general direction of the sound, unsure of what he might find.  He couldn’t think of where the tribe was settled, but he was fairly sure that there were no other people in the area for miles.  The Cheyenne guarded their winter hunting grounds well and made sure to stay away from new white settlements.  So, unless this was a lost hunter, Sully had to guess that it was another Indian.  But the only ones in camp that he knew to possess guns were the dog soldiers, and they were not ones to waste precious bullets for no reason.

      Leaving the signal fire, Sully’s chilled feet dared to rush through the snow.  The red and black coat flew open at his sides as he hurried forward.  As exhausted as he was, the rush of adrenaline was enough to make him feel like he could take on whatever trouble he was going to discover.  Rifle shots often rang out in his dreams and there was nothing more gut-churning than the sound of death on the air.  If he could, he would live somewhere that he could never hear that sound again.  It only brought sadness.

       Just over a snowy rise, he spotted a man who was turned away from him, waiting for something.  The buffalo hide across his shoulders indicated he was probably an Indian, but Sully couldn’t be sure just yet.  However, what he was sure of was that this was the shooter, for he held the rifle in his hand as he gazed on something lying in the snow a ways off.  The animal laying was not quite big enough to be a deer, and it was more gray than brown.  The only thing he had seen in the woods that morning had been Wolf.  When this occurred to him, he saw red.  He had never thought of a reason to worry about Wolf roaming free through the area, as all the tribe knew that Wolf meant no harm to them.  This must have been a stranger to the tribe.       

      Swiftly crossing the silent snow, Sully rushed the man as he turned around.  Reaching for the rifle before it could go off again, Sully barely had time to realize that the Indian was no stranger at all, but was the young warrior, Bright Spears.

       Bright Spears jabbed the barrel of the rifle at Sully’s chest, but Sully caught it and pulled, using the Indian’s momentum against him.  Loosing balance in the snow, the Indian lurched past Sully, who tripped him and felled him there in the cold snow.  Bright Spears slammed into the ground, losing his breath as the fluffy snow scattered from around his body like a puff of smoke.  Jumping on top of him, Sully started fighting him for control of the rifle.  The men grappled there in the quiet snowy grove of trees while the still unidentified animal lay at the other side of the small clearing.  Sully could hardly believe that this was the young warrior that had left the tribe just a few short months ago.  His hair was matted and he had teeth missing.  His wild eyes were not from hunger, but clearly from madness.  As Sully won in the battle for the gun, he could see that the young warrior’s hands were bony and thin from being so long away from his family’s fire.

       In one swift movement, Sully pulled the rifle away only to have Bright Spears grab for a knife on his belt.  He tried with all his might to shove it into Sully’s side, growling unintelligible words in Cheyenne as they fought.  As much as he detested killing, in the heat of the moment, he thought of nothing else but protecting himself and saving his own life.  He had gone to great lengths before to subdue Bright Spears and find a way for the tribe to clear up the situation civilly.  This time, there was just the snow covered woods and a gleaming knife, inching closer to Sully’s ribcage.  Hoping the medicine man could come and intervene this time was not an option.  Without knowing where he was, and with Wolf possibly shot dead, there was no way to stop the inevitable.  As the thought sickened Sully, he wavered, and Bright Spears, mad with blood lust, found even more strength and howled with crazy rage.

      Feeling that the Indian brave was about to roll him over, Sully found the extra strength inside of him to redouble his efforts and turn the knife away.  In a split second, the Indian’s arm buckled and the knife buried itself deep into his chest.  Sully’s weight bore down on the blade, and there was no escape for the madness within Bright Spears’ heart but to flow out across the Colorado snow in hot scarlet ribbons.  Sully held his weight across the brave’s chest as the Indian heaved and bucked against the pain, not daring to let up for even a second.  Sully was sweating although his extremities were freezing from exposure to the cold weather. 

       As Bright Spears’ heaving turned to wheezing and sputtering, Sully thought he caught the indian words ‘die a warrior’, but he couldn’t be sure.  He closed his eyes and tried to block out the death rattles of the man underneath him.  Shooting others in the war had been bad enough; but being in such close proximity made this death a hundred times worse.  With a shudder, everyrthing finally went still, and the smell of the old buffalo hide mixed with the smell of blood was enough to make Sully get up and stumble towards a tree, where he got sick and collapsed to his knees in exhaustion.

       Able to do little more than sit there in the snow and catch his breath, he ate some of the snow to get the taste of vomit out of his mouth.  When he trusted his legs enough to stand, he made his way over to the animal in the snow.  With every shaky step, he was more and more sure it was Wolf. 

      “Wolf.”  Sully choked out the name.  His voice was weak; it didn’t even sound like him.  The animal didn’t move.  Sully fell to his knees again as he saw blood tingeing the snow around the muzzle.  “Wolf?”  He whispered, tears stinging his eyes.  ‘Please, no.’  He found himself praying to the Spirits from the depths of his heart.

       As if in divine reply, the wolf’s tail gave a weak shake, and the tongue licked the bloody muzzle as if coming to from a great shock.  Sully’s heart lept and he ran frozen hands over Wolf’s side gently.  Whipping off his coat, he wrapped his friend in the only thing he had and tried to compose himself enough to pick the animal up.  But, when he had Wolf secure in his arms, he had no idea of which direction to turn or where to go.  Wolf whined pitifully in Sully’s arms, asking for relief from the pain of the bullet.  Sully grew frantic at the thought that he could roam the woods for the rest of the day and never find his way back to camp.  So he did the only thing he could think of, and that was to yell for help.