Plenty Proud

by Jeanie P Johnson

  “None of your business! Go away! I don’t need you or anyone else trying to protect me, especially not an Indian! I will find my own way back to Missouri! If I trouble Plenty Proud so much, it is best I do not remain here. He shouldn’t have brought me here in the first place. I will just try and flag down a trapper traveling down the river.”

  “I heard the last trapper you were with did not treat you kindly. Why would you trust another one?”

  Mackenzie knew he was right. She was confused and angry. Plenty Proud had promised to protect her, and then he leaves her with his supposed wife to be, who hates her, and a friend to watch over her who doesn’t even know her. What hurt the most was that he made love to her, and then left her without even giving an explanation why he needed to suddenly dash off without speaking to her first about it. He could have at least reassured her that what they had shared together actually meant something to him. However, she had told him she could not become his wife, so maybe she couldn’t blame him for running off. Maybe he did it because he was angry at her for not loving him the way he claimed to love her.

  She glanced up at Eagle Eye trying to hold back her tears of frustration. Plenty Proud had been wrong about her bringing luck to his tribe. She was only bringing confusion, not only by ruining the relationship between him and Little Bird, but by turning down Plenty Proud’s offer to make her his wife. She shouldn’t be put in this position, she grumbled to herself. She felt tired and her muscles were sore from skinning buffalos, she was in a strange Indian village, and falling in love with a Sioux brave against her better judgment. She felt totally at a loss as she suddenly turned and dashed off in the direction of the river where she and Plenty Proud had bathed together earlier that day.

  When she threw herself down on the grass and began to sob, she realized that Eagle Eye had followed her. He sat down beside her, but said nothing. Abruptly, she turned and faced him.

  “I cannot stay here, Eagle Eye,” she sniffed, trying to compose herself. Plenty Proud said you offered to come with him when he took me down the river. He is off to have a vision quest to discover if he should take me. He doesn’t even know if he wants to take me without the blessing of some Indian God. If he can’t make that decision on his own, it means he is not certain about taking me. Why can’t you take me? Would you have to go have a vision quest to decide?”

  Eagle Eye shrugged. “Plenty Proud is troubled in his heart about you. I know he wants you for his own, only you wish to go home. He cannot go with you, and you cannot stay with him. He has to make peace in his own heart before taking you to a place where he may never see you again. That is why he goes on his vision quest to discover what plans the Great Spirit has for him concerning you. He said he had a vision that you needed help, back when you were caught in the snow-slide. And then he finds later, that you still need his help. He just doesn’t know what kind of help he wishes to give you, because he wants you to stay here with him.”

  “He knows I can’t stay. I am not an Indian. My father has a house in Missouri. I could make a life for myself there. My father and brother may still be alive, and have gone back home. I won’t be happy until I discover what happened to them.”

  “Plenty Proud won’t like it if I take you before he returns from vision quest.”

  “This is not up to Plenty Proud. I am the one who will decide if I stay or go, not him! Little Bird hates me. By right, Plenty Proud should ask her to become his wife. He is crazy to want a white girl for his wife. This way he cannot try and stop me. By the time he is through with his vision quest, I will be in Missouri and there will be nothing he can do about it!’

  “He trusts me as a friend. He will be angry with me when I return.”

  “He told you to watch over me. If I insist on leaving on my own, it would be your duty to come with me, to watch over me,” she smiled. “You would not want to lose face, would you?” She was sure she had won the argument.

  Eagle Eye shrugged. “Then I will have to take you,” he murmured. “We leave in the night. If Plenty Proud hears of it before he goes for his vision quest, he may come and try to kill me.”

  “He wouldn’t do that to his best friend,” Mackenzie insisted.

  “If his love for you is strong, and he believes I am taking you from him, he will consider me a friend no longer”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Mackenzie lay beneath the buffalo robes where she and Plenty Proud had made love. She could smell his familiar odor on the robe, and she breathed it in deeply. It only made her sad, knowing she would never see him again. She glanced over and could see Little Bird beneath her own buffalo robes and as she looked closer, she realized that Little Bird’s shoulders were shaking, and Mackenzie could tell she was crying silently. She felt like crying herself, only she was so angry at Plenty Proud, she decided it wasn’t worth her tears. He had promised to honor her for as long as she was with him, and she had surrendered to him completely. He could have at least told her he was leaving and the reason for his need of a vision quest as soon as possible. Instead, he tells his friend, Eagle Eye, and then expects her to understand.

  As she watched Little Bird’s shoulders shaking, she took pity on her, and crawled over to her, putting her arm around the girl. “Do not cry, Little Bird. Your troubles will be over soon.”

  Little Bird shrugged Mackenzie’s arm away. “No, they won’t,” she whimpered. “I spoke to Plenty Proud. He was getting ready to prepare for a vision quest. I asked him, and he told me he wished for you to skin the sacred buffalo, not me. He told me he wanted you to become his wife and was going to beg Wakan-Tanka to find a way to make it happen.”

  “He can’t have me as his wife,” Mackenzie whispered. “I am a white girl. I told him I would not become his wife.”

  “Then that is why he must pray so you will change your mind.”

  “It won’t do him any good. Eagle Eye has agreed to take me back to my home. By the time Plenty Proud comes back, I will be gone. Then he will see that he must ask you to become his wife. When you see him, tell him not to be angry with me or Eagle Eye. I insisted he take me. I am sorry for making everything so complicated by me coming here. I love Plenty Proud, but I see you also love him.”

  “He can take more than one wife,” Little Bird informed her.

  “Oh, I didn’t know that, but it doesn’t matter. If he took me as his wife, I would never allow him to have another, which is one more reason I will not become his wife. Only I will be gone, so he won’t have to take more than you for a wife, unless he finds another to love besides you. If I stay any longer, I may change my mind and agree to become Plenty Proud’s wife. Therefore, it is better that I leave. Then you can be happy, and Plenty Proud will forget me. He barely knows me anyway.”

  Little Bird sat up and looked at Mackenzie with unbelieving eyes. “It must be that Wakan-Tanka has heard my prayers,” she breathed. “If you do not love Plenty Proud enough to stay and become his wife, then you must not love him completely.”

  “I do this because I do love him,” Mackenzie admitted. “He knows I can’t stay, and if I do, it would be harder on both of us. I want him to be happy. He will forget me soon enough and then he will come to you for comfort.”

  “How can I thank you?” Little Bird asked in wonder.

  “Just tell Plenty Proud that I love him, but believe it would be better if he takes you to be his wife. I would make a horrible Indian wife anyway. When I was skinning the buffalo, I realized this life was too hard for me. Eventually, Plenty Proud would regret ever wanting me as his wife. I would only shame him and make him lose face. It is better if I leave.”

  “I will tell him, but I don’t think he will believe me.”

  “When Eagle Eye returns, he will have to believe you because I will tell him to tell Plenty Proud the same thing.”

  “Plenty Proud told his mother you were a good person. I think I believe him now.”

  “Don’t cry anymore. Eagle Eye will be here soon to take me in his canoe down the river.
When Plenty Proud returns from his vision quest, he will know it is you that Wakan-Tanka wishes him to take as his wife.”

  Little Bird grabbed Mackenzie’s hand. “You did a good job skinning the buffalo. You should be proud.”

  “Thank you,” Mackenzie mumbled and then she placed her dress over her head, grabbed her sack of belongings, and went out to meet Eagle Eye at the river.

  “I see you have not changed your mind,” Eagle Eye said as Mackenzie approached him.

  “I have to admit it is hard. Only if I stay until Plenty Proud comes back from his vision quest, it will be just as hard, except he would be taking me back. It is better this way. Now he can take Little Bird to be his wife and forget he ever met me.”

  She looked out worriedly over the river as the moon glistened on its surface. Plenty Proud could take Little Bird as his wife, and even more wives if he pleased, but she probably would never end up finding a husband. Even if she never told a man she had laid with an Indian, on their wedding night, he would discover she was no longer a virgin. It would make it all the worse if he discovered it was an Indian she gave her love to. She forced a smile and handed Eagle Eye her sack of belongings.

  Mackenzie saw that Eagle Eye had packed the canoe with articles they could use on their journey, and he stuffed her sack in the other end of the canoe. Then he took her hand and helped her into the canoe, telling her to sit in the center of the wooden seat, stretched across the canoe. Eagle Eye pushed the canoe from the bank and got in himself, and sat on the other wooden seat, and then started to paddle.

  “We will travel for a while. Then when we are far enough away, we can go ashore and camp for the rest of night,” he told her.

  Mackenzie nodded, as she watched the village disappearing around a bend in the river. She had only been there for such a short time, but she felt an unexplainable sadness in leaving it. So far, she hadn’t had a place to call home ever since she left Missouri. The cabin in the mountains did not feel like home, and Griz’s cabin felt even worse. She had felt welcomed and comforted while she was in Plenty Proud’s tepee with his family. Even though she knew Little Bird hated her, she could have become like a sister, given time, Mackenzie thought. She actually liked Little Bird and felt sorry that she had disrupted the girl’s life by having Plenty Proud help her. She tried not to think about Plenty Proud, but thoughts of him making love to her kept surfacing and disrupting her feeling that she was doing the right thing. Now she questioned her decision, only it was too late. She had already told Little Bird that she could have Plenty Proud back. She was torn between wanting to go home, even though she had no family there, and wanting to remain where she at least knew someone loved her.

  Eagle Eye studied Mackenzie’s face in the moonlight. She did not look happy. He knew that Plenty Proud would not be happy either when he discovered her gone. Her eyes kept darting back at the village, and he wondered if she was having second thoughts about leaving. He was torn as well, knowing he was going against his friend’s wishes by agreeing to take Mackenzie back to Missouri. Yet at the same time, he felt it was for the best. He could well understand why Plenty Proud was so eager to have the girl as his wife. She was beautiful, and thoughtful. She wanted Plenty Proud to be happy, even if she wasn’t the one there, making him happy.

  He too, felt a strong draw to the girl, and supposed that was the reason he had decided to betray his own friend to please her. Only she was right. She was a white woman and if any white soldiers discovered her in the village, they would force her to return to her people. He had heard of other white women, who married an Indian after they had been captured, and didn’t want to leave their husbands, only they were forced to leave once their white relatives found them. It would be even harder if that happened, especially if Plenty Proud and Firelight had children together. If Plenty Proud left his own people and went with her to the white man’s world, he would miss the Sioux way of life and feel useless in a white man’s society. This Firelight girl was wise to leave Plenty Proud before their love could grow any stronger, he decided.

  When Eagle Eye saw that Mackenzie was starting to nod off to sleep, he pulled the canoe to the bank, and dragged it up on land. He took buffalo robes out of the canoe and laid then in the grass under a tree, bringing Mackenzie to them. There, they crawled under the robes together. Though he wanted to comfort her in some way, Eagle Eye thought better of it, and did not touch her. He realized she was already falling asleep anyway.

  Leafy shadows fell over Mackenzie’s face, but as the wind moved the branches, the sun would wink in between the leaves, hitting her eyes. She sat up and looked around. Her eyes lit upon Eagle Eye, who was busy cooking some buffalo meat for breakfast in a white man’s skillet, which he probably got from the trading post. She had had the buffalo stew that Plenty Proud’s mother had cooked the night before, and it had been a pleasant meal.

  Plenty Proud’s mother had kept looking at her, though, and then darting her eyes to Little Bird. She knew what his mother had been thinking. She didn’t like the fact that Plenty Proud had chosen her to skin the sacred buffalo and that he was away on a vision quest concerning her. At least now, she would be happy, right along with Little Bird. Mackenzie just wondered what Plenty Proud would do when he came back and found her gone.

  Eagle Eye glanced up at her and smiled. “The wind is getting stronger,” he mentioned. “There may be a storm coming. It is best we hurry before the storm hits, and look for place along river to take shelter.”

  “I’ll put the buffalo robes back in the canoe,” Mackenzie offered, and began gathering them up.

  When she returned, she sat, leaning against the tree, watching Eagle Eye cook. He was focused on what he was doing and did not glance at her. Mackenzie took the time to study his features, and she found them attractive, even though she believed that Plenty Proud had a different kind of handsomeness, which had a stronger pull on her. Still, she liked the way his long hair fell around his shoulders. She noted his high, smooth forehead above his dark eyebrows, which shaded his intense eyes. He had a strong jaw, and full, expressive lips, that now twitched a smile at her, when he saw her looking at him.

  “Do you think me handsome?” he asked, unabashed.

  “For an Indian, I would say so,” she smiled, giving him a wink.

  “So you think white men are more handsome than Indian men?”

  “Some, I believe,” she teased. “You would make a good contender, though,” she added.

  “What do you like best about me?” he asked boldly wanting to discover her opinion of him.

  “You carry yourself proudly,” she said truthfully. “You are not quite as tall as Plenty Proud, yet you have many of his good traits, such as strong muscles, and a good build. I watched you shoot the buffalo. I think you have a soft heart. You let Plenty Proud have the prize of the white buffalo, didn’t you?”

  “He is a better hunter than I am.”

  “You are being modest. I think you have a deep love for your friend, and I admire that.”

  “And he has a deep love for you, yet you leave him.”

  “I suppose I love him too much. I do not want to see him become disappointed in me when I cannot live up to being like an Indian wife should be. He may want me as his wife, but I know there are certain expectations of Indian women, and I don’t think I could live up to them. I discovered that when I was skinning the buffalo. It is better this way.”

  “I agree. If you were discovered in our village, the white man would send someone to take you away from us. You are wise to part before you could have a child with Plenty Proud.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that. I was just thinking I wouldn’t make a very good Indian.”

  “Do you know what I like best about you?” he asked.

  “I didn’t know you liked me at all,” she admitted. “I thought you were watching over me for your friend, not because you liked me.”

  “My friend will hate me for what I am doing, yet you are right, I am doing this to save
Plenty Proud from greater pain. Yet, I do like you. You are brave, and strong. I saw how your hands worked, skinning the sacred buffalo. You had reverence for it, making sure you skinned it properly. When we kill an animal, we thank it for its sacrifice. Life is all about give and take. I think you understand that.”

  Eagle Eye held her eyes as he gave her a long, appraising look. He liked a lot more about Mackenzie than just that, but he was taking her back to her home, and even if he wasn’t, Plenty Proud already had her heart.

  “The meat is done,” he said abruptly. “We should eat and then, be on our way.”

  The perplexing connection through their gaze was broken, and the two began eating the meat he had cooked. As soon as they were finished, they returned to the canoe, and Eagle Eye helped Mackenzie in, holding her hand a little longer than necessary, before he released it and pushed the canoe into the water, jumping in the canoe as well.

  The river was already becoming choppy from the wind that whipped away at it, but the clouds held, so Eagle Eye continued down the river, scanning the shore for anything that looked like promising shelter for when the storm actually hit.

  “I think I see a cave in that outcrop of rocks,” Eagle Eye told Makenzie. “We can use it for shelter,” he suggested as he started to paddle faster, since the cave was still quite a ways in the distance.

  Only before he got close enough to take the canoe to shore near the cave, the sky opened up and dumped rain down on them in torrents. The wind was blowing harder, as Eagle Eye fought to get closer to his target. Just as he turned the canoe in the direction of the shore, a wave slammed against the side of it, tipping it, and causing both him and Mackenzie to be dumped into the cold water. He watched as the river snatched the canoe and propelled it further downriver.

  “Can you swim?” he called to Mackenzie, only he saw that she was already heading towards the shore and he followed.

  When they reached the bank, Mackenzie collapsed, as the rain beat down on her. It had taken every ounce of her strength to make it to shore without letting the current pull her further downriver.