Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It was the final, dying days of autumn. The meadow had abandoned its once vibrant green to a bleak death draped in pale shades of golden yellow and dreary brown. The wind whistled mournfully through the tall grass; as it bent the yellowed stalks back and forth, it seemed to whisper an ancient dirge rising from beneath the earth. As the sun sank slowly toward the west on the horizon, it cast its final, feeble rays like a thin blanket over this unfamiliar, endless land. Yet these rays had long lost their former generous warmth; they carried only the cold, chilling harbinger of the approaching harsh, freezing winter.

Eighteen-year-old Laura Ingalls felt her steps heavier than ever in this foreign land whose trails she had not yet fully learned. The old, worn straw basket slung over her shoulder beat against her side with the rhythm of her pace. It had not been long since they left behind the dense, familiar, embrace of the Big Woods—those massive trees that protected one from the outside world—to come here. In hopes of a fresh start, with sweet dreams of a new life, her family had abandoned the Big Woods and settled in these vast, infinite prairies.

Laura remembered those days as if they were yesterday. No sooner had they arrived—just as the local Native tribe had departed far away for the grand hunting season—than her father, Charles, began building their home with his own hands on this virgin soil. Back then, there was no one around; there was only the wind, the sky, and the silence. Not a human shadow, nor a single sign of danger… Empty, boundless lands.

However, her father’s cheerful calculations had failed. The construction of the house, the tilling of the prairie's tough soil, the preparation of winter provisions, and the process of settling here had exhausted the family’s last penny, condemning them to the town’s merchants and a heavy burden of debt. Her father, Charles, had been forced to leave home weeks ago simply to pay off these accumulated debts and avoid abandoning his family to hunger and helplessness in the middle of winter. Now miles away, in the smoky, noisy, and ruthless work camps of the railway line, he was wearing himself out under heavy axes and sledgehammers. Her father’s warm smile, his large calloused hands, and the reassuring melody rising from his fiddle in the evenings were now merely echoes in Laura’s mind.

Her father’s departure had not been the only disaster at home. Shortly after Charles left, her mother, Caroline, suffered an unfortunate accident. While trying to move a heavy log near the barn, she injured her leg severely; the wound quickly became infected, confining the woman to bed. Waiting by the bedside of her mother, who writhed in fever for days, and hearing her pain-filled groans had heartbroken Laura.

Now, the entire weight of the household, of their whole life, rested on young 18-year-old Laura’s shoulders. Caring for her little sister Carrie, soothing her fears, keeping up the house, cooking, tending to the animals, and most importantly, healing the infected, spreading wound on her mother’s leg fell entirely upon her.

Laura gripped the strap of the basket on her shoulder more tightly. At the bottom of the basket lay the medicinal herbs she had carefully gathered all day to apply to her mother's wound: slippery elm bark, goldenseal root, and yarrow… The small ointment jars at home were almost empty, and these boundless prairies were still an unsolvable riddle to Laura. She was trying to learn by trial and error which herb grew where, which root was poisonous, and which was healing.

Even more unsettling were the whispers that had reached her ears in recent days from the edges of town and the gossip of merchants: the Natives, who had been away hunting for months, had returned.

When Laura and her family first moved here, things were quiet because the tribe was away hunting. For this reason, Laura had never come face-to-face with a single Native in her life. The only things she knew about them were the spine-chilling horror stories told by the townspeople in the dark evening hours under the light of kerosene lamps, the legends spread by word of mouth, and the strict warning her father had repeated time and again before coming here: *"No matter what happens, stay away from them."*

Now she was all alone in this foreign land, without a father behind her to protect her, and it was said that the original owners of the land had returned right under their noses. Every bush seemed like a threat, every gust of wind like a footstep to her ears.
Laura quickened her pace along the unfamiliar forest trail. The shadows of the trees lengthened as the sun set, and this boundary where the prairie met the forest grew increasingly darker, more ominous. Just as she reached the bend in the path, she came to a sudden halt.

Silence… The atmosphere of the forest had abruptly changed.

This was no ordinary silence. It was as if the forest had taken a deep breath and held it in. The wild birdsong that had been chirping among the branches just moments ago ceased, the rustling of squirrels playing in the bushes vanished, and even the wind stopped stirring the leaves. The deafening silence that wrapped around the forest so suddenly made the fine hairs on the back of Laura’s neck stand on end. Her instincts whispered that she was in danger, that something was wrong.

She slowed her steps. Trying to steady her breathing, she scanned the dense bushes on both sides of the path. She pressed the basket against her chest. Then, right by her feet, she saw the mark. A few drops of fresh, dark red blood dripped onto the dry, yellowed leaves and damp black soil.

Laura’s heart skipped a beat, but her initial thought was the most logical, most familiar refuge her mind could cling to: A wounded deer. Perhaps it was a injured animal missed by a hunter or fleeing the strike of a wolf.

She ought to turn back and go home. Night was falling, her mother was waiting for her in bed, and Carrie was alone at home. But the uncontainable curiosity within her and the urge to help a wounded creature took control of her steps. She began to follow the blood trail.

As she moved forward, the blood drops grew more frequent, turning from droplets into splatters on the leaves. The trail veered off the clear path, extending into the denser, less sunlit inner reaches of the forest covered in thorny bushes. Disregarding the blackberry thorns tearing at the hem of her old cotton dress and scratching her skin, Laura pushed through the bushes with her hands.

The dark red marks led her toward the trunk of a massive, ancient oak tree rising in the dimmest corner of the forest. The oak tree, its immense branches covering the sky, cast a dark shadow over the ground as if wanting to hide the secret beneath it from the world.

When Laura reached the spot where the darkness intensified between the massive roots of the tree, and bent down to look, her breath caught in her throat.

This was not a deer. This was a human being. A young man lying on his side, taking deep but ragged breaths…

Leaning his back against the rough bark of the oak, he held his abdomen with one hand. His long, pitch-black hair was matted with mud, dried leaves, and blood. On his face, starting from his cheekbones and running down to his chin, were dried, cracked, bright red and black war paint. The blood seeping through the leather vest and shirt on his stomach had covered almost his entire torso, staining the earth red.

Laura froze in her tracks. Time seemed to stand still. Her feet were nailed to the ground, unable to move. Her ribcage was pounding so rapidly that she thought the sound echoed through the forest.

The Natives had returned. And right in front of her, he lay bleeding.

All the terrifying tales whispered to her since childhood, the hatred and fear of the townspeople, and her father’s warning flooded her mind like a single hurricane: *"They are savage," "They are dangerous," "Never go near them."*

Just as she was about to step backward and turn on her heel to flee back the way she came without taking a breath, a tiny accident occurred within that deafening silence.

*Snap.*

A rotten, dry twig beneath her foot broke under Laura's full weight. This sound detonated in the quiet forest almost like a gunshot.

The young man under the tree jolted with a deep shudder at the sound. Slowly, with great agony, he raised his head and opened his eyes.
Little Puma’s sharp, pain-filled, black, and deeply intense eyes locked directly onto Laura’s wide, terrified eyes. At that moment, both the prairie wind and the forest’s silence vanished. Laura did not see the "bloodthirsty monster" depicted in the townspeople’s stories; she saw a heavily wounded, deeply suffering young human being hanging on the fine line between life and death, waiting for help.

Time seemed to have stopped beneath the massive shadow of the oak tree. The wind, giving one last scream among the yellowed grass, went silent; the ominous, deafening quiet of the forest fell like a heavy curtain between the two of them.

The gaze of the young man, who had opened his eyes at the snapping sound beneath her foot, was pinned upon Laura. Yet there was no clarity in this look. Little Puma’s vision was behind a dense haze, on the verge of losing consciousness; everything was blurry, shapeless, and made of shadows. His head spun from blood loss and rising fever, seeing the world through swirling redness and darkness.

He could not understand who the figure standing before him was, whether it was a woman or a man. Only in those few seconds he managed to focus his eyes with difficulty did he catch a few clues: Pale, almost snow-white skin... The silhouette of a dress made of light-colored, coarse fabric visible in the evening twilight... And above all, that foreign presence that did not belong here.

A white. One of the pale-faces who tried to strip his family of their land, condemned his people to hunger, and brought blood and tears.

Laura recoiled in terror when she saw the dark haze in the man’s eyes. With an instinctive self-defense reflex, she dropped the basket on her shoulder to the ground and reached her right hand for the sheath at her waist. She pulled out the small herb knife—with its wooden handle and slightly curved tip that she carried to cut medicinal roots and tough herbs—and raised it in the air. Her trembling hand held the knife between them like a shield. The cold steel of the blade gleamed faintly in the last crimson light of the setting sun.

Little Puma noticed that moving silhouette and the metallic gleam that appeared in her hand. His warrior instinct gave his dying body one final command. He engaged in a desperate struggle to lift his right hand, which seemed glued to the earth, and reach for his bow and quiver lying just a few steps ahead in the yellowed grass. His fingers clawed at the soil, his palm gripped the damp leaves, but his body betrayed him; those few steps of distance were now as vast as a chasm. His torn chest rose with a deep, wheezing breath; the wound on his abdomen shuddered with a fresh surge of blood from the movement.

His lips parted.
From his throat spilled words that sounded like the rustle of dry leaves—raspy, whispered, yet full of hatred and warning. In the Osage language, he groaned in the ancient words of his people:

"Ká-xe şká..."

His eyes were darkening, the words choking in his throat. Every breath entering his lungs was like hundreds of needles stabbing his chest. With the taste of blood pooling in his mouth, he cast one final, helpless glance toward his unreachable weapons and tried to complete his sentence:

"...ma-zhí-ñe!" *(stay away)*

Laura remained rooted to the spot. From that whispered sentence the young man uttered in a foreign language, she could not decipher the meaning of the warning at the end. She could not understand the rest. However... she recognized those first two words very clearly. The word the merchants in town, the border scouts, and her father had whispered a few times in gloomy conversations flashed through her mind like lightning:

"Ká-xe şká... Pale-face."

Even though she did not know the rest of the sentence, she felt the raw anger in the young man’s tone, the fierce pride that refused to surrender even while dying, the threat, and the hatred to her very bones. That harsh, raspy voice sent a shiver through Laura. Those terrifying stories in her mind came alive again: They were dangerous, they were unforgiving, they hated the pale-faces.

Fear ran cold through Laura’s veins. She tightened her grip on the knife in her trembling hand and instinctively took a step back.

*Turn around and run,* said the voice inside her. *Run home right now.*

Laura turned around. Her chest was heaving rapidly. Her heart was beating practically in her throat. This was not her concern. This stranger did not belong to her world. At home, she had a mother confined to bed waiting for her. She had her little sister Carrie, left alone, huddled in fear. There was no father, no one to protect the house. She could not risk herself and her family.

She took two quick steps backward. She made a move to step onto the path and run home. Just then, a sound rising from behind the hills, deep within the forest, cut through the air.

*Auuuuuuuuu...*

First, a single, long, spine-chilling howl... Then a second, a third joining it... It was the sound of a wolf pack spreading from the rocky hills into the dense woods of the forest.

Laura stopped abruptly in her tracks. Her body froze rigid.

The years she had spent on the prairie and in the forest had taught her the ruthless laws of nature. The wolves were howling because the night hunt was beginning. And most importantly... Wolves could smell fresh blood from miles away. The dense smell of blood seeping from the deep wound on the young man’s abdomen under the tree and soaking the soil was an open invitation to every predator in the forest. If she left him here like this, the pack would arrive shortly and... alive...

Laura closed her eyes. A deep sigh escaped her chest. Two great emotions engaged in a relentless battle in her mind: On one side were the fear and prejudices taught since childhood; on the other were the mercy, conscience, and humanity she had learned from her father and mother.

Silence fell over the forest once more.

Laura turned around slowly, reluctantly. She walked back toward the massive oak tree.

Little Puma was no longer moving. His head had fallen to the side, his eyes closed. From the faint, imperceptible rise and fall of his chest, it was clear he was still breathing, but he seemed to have lost consciousness.

Laura knelt down and studied the young man. The red and black war paint on his face had smeared, mixing with sweat and mud. His jawline was sharp, his features harsh, but looking closely, the person before her was actually a very young man, perhaps only a few years older than herself.

Laura extended her trembling hand. She carefully pressed her fingertips against the young man’s neck, on his pulse point. She felt the burning fever of his skin. His pulse was beating, but it was extremely weak and irregular.

"God..." whispered Laura.

She tried to drag him. She tried to get under the young man's shoulder, tried to grab his arms and pull. But Little Puma was too tall, muscular, and heavy for Laura to carry. Despite straining with all her strength, she could not move the young man even an inch. Seeing her weak arms helpless against this body, she pulled back, out of breath. It was impossible for her to carry him to the house or the barn alone.

The wolf howls rose again, this time closer, near the edge of the prairie. Time was running out.

Laura looked around in despair for a moment. Her mind oscillated between decisions. She could not leave him here to die, but she could not carry him either. She had to go home and bring the wagon or help. But by the time she returned, the wolves might reach here.

Her eyes drifted to the small herb knife in her hand.

She bit her lip. Leaning down slowly, she settled beside Little Puma. She took his right hand and placed the wooden handle of her herb knife between his still-warm fingers. She curled the man's fingers around the knife and closed his hand tightly.

In a low, whispered voice, as if he could hear her, she began to speak:

"I don't know if you can understand me..." she said, unable to prevent the tremor in her voice. Her eyes were on the young man’s closed eyelids. "The wolves are coming. They smelled the blood."

She gently pressed down on his hand holding the handle of the knife.

"If you wake up before I come back... and if the wolves come..." she said, gesturing to the knife. "Protect yourself. Don't you dare give up."

Laura bolted to her feet. Her heart was pounding like a hammer. Forgetting even to pick up the herb basket on the ground, she began to run down the forest trail toward the farm without looking back even once. Her footsteps crushed the yellowed grass, the wind blowing her hair across her face.

In the deep darkness beneath the oak tree, a faint spark flashed in Little Puma’s mind.

That soft, foreign voice echoing in his ear and that cold metal feeling pressed into his hand awakened the last remnants of his consciousness. His fingers instinctively tightened slightly around the wooden handle left in his palm.

He did not have the strength to open his eyelids. A single thought passed through his hazy mind:

*A white...*

*She left her weapon, her steel, in my hand. Why?*

His mind shook with this question. For a moment, the deep despair inside him wanted to cling to the possibility that the girl might have gone to get help. But the voice distilled from his past, bitter experiences answered immediately:

*No.*

*None of them help.*

*None of them return... The pale-faces have no mercy.*

Still, he could feel that steel in his hand. At least if the wolves came, he would not die immediately. Feeling the handle of the knife one last time, Little Puma tumbled back into that pitch-black, bottomless pit consuming his mind. He lost consciousness completely.

Laura was running as if her lungs would burst. As the setting redness of the evening departed from the earth, the stiff, tall grass of the prairie slapped against her legs, snagging on the hem of her old dress. But she did not stop. Those pain-filled black eyes beneath the tree, the painted face, and the feeling of the cold herb knife she had squeezed between his fingers were etched into her mind. The wolf howls rising from behind her still rang in her ears. With every step, the same questions squeezed her heart: What if he's dead? What if the wolves arrived before I could get there? What if I'm too late?

When the silhouette of the farm appeared in the twilight, Laura was nearly out of breath. She crossed the wooden fences, her eyes quickly scanning the area as she burst into the yard.

Ten-year-old Carrie was in front of the coop, scattering the last bits of feed to the chickens from an old bucket in her hand. As the evening chill set in, she had wrapped her thin shawl around her shoulders. Seeing Laura burst into the yard panting, her hair disheveled, and an expression of terror in her eyes, she lowered the bucket to the ground.

Without pausing, Laura headed straight for the old wooden wagon standing beside the barn behind the farm. Grabbing the handles of the wagon, she began making quick, trembling motions to harness the donkey.

Carrie approached her sister in bewilderment.

"Laura? What are you doing? Where are you going?"

Laura kept pulling the straps without even looking up. Her voice was raspy and frantic:

"I need you to help me, Carrie. Hurry, get in the wagon."

Carrie stopped in her tracks. Frowning, she tried to understand the unusual panic on her sister's face.

"Why? What happened? Mother is sleeping inside, even dinner..."

"Don't ask questions, Carrie!" Laura said suddenly.
Her voice was sharper than ever, yet just as helpless. Then, trying to catch her breath, she turned to her little sister. The stark fear in her eyes was enough to freeze Carrie in place. "I'll explain on the way. Help me now."

For the first time, Carrie heard such terror in her sister's voice. In her eyes, Laura was always strong; she was the big sister who kept the house standing alone after their father left, took care of their mother, and feared nothing. But now, the girl standing before her was trembling like someone fleeing a disaster. Carrie, frightened by her sister's state, ran to the wagon without arguing.

The two sisters hurriedly brought the wagon onto the trail. As Laura snapped the reins firmly, the horse began moving at a trot into the evening twilight. As the lights of the farm slowly shrank behind them, they were enveloped by the yellowed prairies and the dark shadows of the approaching night.

While holding the reins tightly with one hand, Laura placed her other hand on Carrie's shoulder. Her voice turned into a low whisper amidst the rustling of the wind:

"Carrie... Listen to me. Anything you see today, anything you hear... not a single word..." She paused, looking into her sister's eyes. "You will not tell Mother."

Carrie froze in place. Her eyes widened.

"Laura, w-what does this mean? Are we keeping secrets from Mother?"

"Promise me, Carrie!" Laura said, squeezing the shoulder she held slightly. Her voice trembled. "You have to promise me. If Mother finds out, she'll get feverish, her leg will get worse. And if the people in town hear... If the city people hear, everything will be ruined. Promise me!"

Carrie hesitated. Her little heart churned with the fear of lying to her mother. But seeing the desperation mixed with mercy in Laura's eyes, she slowly nodded.

"I promise..." Carrie whispered.
"I promise."

The sun had slipped completely below the horizon, giving way to a cold night in shades of purple and navy blue. As they entered the forest, the massive shadows of the trees fell over the wagon like a nightmare. The birds were completely silent; only the cold howling of the wind moving the leaves remained.

Laura's chest was pounding like an anvil. *Time is running out,* she thought. *Please God, please don't let me be too late.*

She stopped the wagon near the trunk of the massive oak tree. She tied the reins tightly to a branch.

"Stay here," she told Carrie.

Laura leaped down from the wagon, grabbed the coarse old blanket from the back, and ran toward the roots of the oak tree. Her heartbeat echoed in her ears. Parting the bushes, she held her breath as she stepped inside.

Little Puma was still there. His back was slung against the tree, his head completely dropped to his chest. He was still not moving. In his right hand, he still tightly held the herb knife Laura had slipped between his fingers. The wolves had not yet reached here, but the scent of fresh blood continued to spread heavily in the forest air.

Laura knelt beside him immediately. Without jarring the young man whose head was slumped to the side, she checked his breathing. A weak, warm draft was coming from between his lips. He was alive.

"Carrie! Hurry, come here!" she called in a low voice.

Carrie got out of the wagon.
With hesitant steps, she approached her sister through the dark bushes. Holding the coarse blanket, she bent down to help Laura. But the moment she got close to the young man and saw his face in the pale light of the moon filtering through the tree branches...

Carrie clamped her hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. She stepped back in terror. Her feet caught in the bushes; she nearly fell.

"Laura!.." she said, her voice trembling. She pointed at the young man on the ground with her little finger. "He's... He's an Indian! A real Indian!"

Carrie's eyes were wide with horror. That red and black war paint on his face, the long black hair matted with mud, and the blood on his abdomen... All those scary stories the townspeople told suddenly came alive in her mind.

"Laura, step back!" Carrie whispered in panic. "They... they kill people! The townspeople said they are savages! They want to kill us! What are you doing?!"

Without taking her eyes off Little Puma's pale face and closed eyes, Laura replied in a calm but unwavering voice:

"He's in no condition to attack anyone right now, Carrie. Right now, he is just severely wounded."

"But he's an Indian!" Carrie said, stepping back once more. "They are our enemies! What if he wakes up? What if he wakes up and attacks us?"

"He can't even stand up!" Laura said, raising her voice slightly. She turned toward her sister. In her eyes, there was neither hatred nor blind prejudice; only a mercy that wanted to keep him alive could be read. "He has a massive wound on his abdomen. He is squirming in fever. He doesn't even have the strength to hold my knife. If he stays here for a few more hours, he will either die of blood loss or the wolves will eat him alive."

A deep silence fell over the forest. The wind drifted between the two sisters.

Carrie looked at her sister with fear in her eyes. Her voice dropped, carrying the pure helplessness of an 10-year-old child:

"Why..." Carrie said. "Why are we helping him, Laura? Our father is working on the railroad, we are all alone. Why are we putting ourselves in such great danger?"

Laura took a deep, trembling breath. Her eyes drifted to the young man on the ground, to his painted, helpless face.

"Because we are good people, Carrie," Laura said. Her voice rang out clear and decisive for the first time tonight. "Because we cannot allow a human being to die right before our eyes. No matter what, no matter who he is... Our father taught us mercy and helping those in distress. Now stop being afraid and come beside me. Help me."

Carrie paused for a moment. Faced with her sister's unwavering determination, the childish fear inside her slowly retreated, giving way to endless trust in Laura. She slowly took a step forward. She knelt down beside Laura.

In the darkness of the night, in the middle of the forest, the two young girls took hold of the wounded stranger's arms and shoulders together to drag him onto the blanket, though he had nothing left to hold onto.

Night had fallen over the forest like a dark veil. The moonlight filtering through the tree branches cast a faint, silvery illumination on the trunk of the oak tree and the two shadows lying beneath it. The wolf howls echoed this time from further away, but still like an ominous threat. Time was working against them. The two girls failed to lift the young man.

Laura knelt down and carefully touched Little Puma's shoulder. The heat of his skin was high enough to burn her hand, even through the fabric. Shaking him gently, she leaned down toward his face.

"Hey, listen to me..." Laura said, trying to utter the English words as clearly and softly as possible. "Do you know our language? Can you hear me?"

No response came from the young man. His chest still rose and fell with an irregular wheeze, the eyeballs behind his closed eyelids moved rapidly back and forth, but his consciousness was completely buried in darkness.

Laura did not give up. Adding a desperate plea to her voice, she pressed on his shoulder again:

"Please, you have to wake up... We have to get out of here. We can't lift you, do you understand? You have to help us just a little bit so we can get up from here. Just to the wagon..."

Laura realized that the man did not understand English, nor was he in a state to hear even his own language right now. Pulling her hand from his shoulder, she pointed to the wagon standing a few steps back. Trying to explain through body language, she aimed her finger first at the youth, then at the wagon.

Little Puma felt as if he were emerging from the depths of his consciousness at that light pressure on his shoulder and the soft, foreign tone echoing in his ear. His eyelids slowly parted from between his eyelashes. His black, veiled eyes shifted directly to Laura's face. But there was neither a sign of understanding nor clarity in his gaze. From behind a dense fog brought on by high fever and blood loss, he looked at Laura with uncomprehending, hazy eyes. He was in no condition to grasp where he was, who the girl before him was, or what she wanted.

"Carrie, quickly, take his arm!" Laura said, rushing forward without losing time.

Laura grabbed the young man's right arm and slung it over her own shoulder. Carrie, suppressing all the fear inside her, crossed to the left side and tried to place his other arm on her own small shoulder.

"One... two... three!"

At Laura's command, the two girls strained with all their strength to lift this body, much taller and more muscular than themselves. Little Puma tried to put some weight on his trembling legs out of an instinctive survival drive, but his knees buckled immediately. He almost collapsed back onto the earth.

Laura cried out with one final effort: "Carrie, don't let go! Hold on!"

Straining as if their bones might crack, the two sisters dragged the wounded youth a few steps to the wagon. Amidst pushing, shoving, and deep groans, they managed to heave Little Puma's body onto the wooden floor of the wagon. Falling onto the wooden planks, the young man lost that last lingering shred of consciousness he had clung to and passed out completely.

Laura was out of breath. Her chest rose and fell like a bellows. She immediately went to the back of the wagon. She began hurriedly draping the old coarse sacks, bundles of straw, and worn blankets lying on the side over the young man. She covered him completely to hide his face, his war paint, and the blood-soaked shirt on his abdomen.

Leaning down toward the dark shape beneath the straw, she spoke in a low whisper:

"Forgive me for this... But I have to hide you. I can't let anyone see you."