By the Wind's Will

by Nat Burns

  The Mico was helped down by his attendants. He wrapped his decorative headpiece around one arm to keep it from the dust and came forward slowly, laying his knobby hands on Foxy’s heaving shoulders. He scrutinized the cut, closely, wiping some of the blood away with his fingers, then turned to the silent, gathered tribe.

  “The Creator has seen fit to send us this brave warrior and has already marked her. She will be named and accepted by the people. She is now one of the Sawokli.” He gave Foxy a frightened glance and quickly hurried off to his waiting helpers.

  Later, when subdued feasting was sounding around them, Ogi-kan explained that the accidental slash to Foxy’s cheek was identical to those imparted on purpose to the Sawokli honun who had reached warrior status, whether from age or from their daring deeds in battle. In Foxy’s case, the spirits had marked her just like the other braves of the village. Her fitness for the tribe was now proven without a finished fight.

  Foxy had taken another draught of the honey and corn drink the Sawokli made for special occasions and just shrugged, puzzled at this strange outcome. It seemed that she was meant to stay with the natives for the time being. She had to admit to a sense of relief. One friendly face was more welcome than a brace of trees in the forest.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  FROM THAT DAY onward, she was treated with great respect and sometimes awe by the Sawokli. She entered into Indian life to the fullest, alongside the men, learning to hunt silently, skin a carcass in seconds and prepare the meat for the journey home. Sawn-Re even took her, as a two spirit, with him to the temple of the gods, council of the elders, where the gods of sun, sky, earth, water, moon, and dead were worshipped. The priest was a much decorated, toothless old man with short hair, and no scalp lock, as he did not fight. He greeted her deferentially, muttering his certainty that Foxy was sent by the gods to protect the Sawokli from the fearsome red warriors who were their enemies. Foxy just smiled, knowing it useless to dispute this claim. She observed and even participated in the ceremonial worship combined with council meeting and found it all fascinating. Almost everything was sacred to those people, even living or dead. This caused a great respect for nature and other persons. They were among the kindest people Foxy had ever met, unless riled, and the least confused as to their destiny in life. Everyone in the tribe knew and accepted their place. There was virtually no rivalry, just a gentle competition concerning physical feats.

  Foxy found herself happy and content with working as both man and woman in the tribe. The freedom was refreshing, and she knew she’d finally found her place in life. She also found herself with plenty of time to be alone with her thoughts. She’d sometimes go away from the village for days at a time, savoring the peacefulness of the forest and usually returning with spirit-given game, shot by bow and arrow. She remembered her life at Finley now and then and was relieved to discover that the pain and guilt she had concerning Maggie’s death was fading.

  She learned many new skills—how to tan hides to perfection, considered women’s work, and to trap with great skill, men’s work. Soon, she had a nice collection of pelts and was able to furnish her tiny home richly.

  Too soon, it seemed, summer gave way greedily to fall and preparations began for the green corn ceremonies. This was a renewal of all things, the village fires were quenched and cleared away except for one ceremonial one, old pottery was broken and there was much ritual, spirit-fueled fasting and eventually, feasting. The first evening, when all the fasting Indians were sleeping against their stilt-stacked dwellings, Foxy went to visit the Mico.

  The old chieftain greeted her happily, while munching on a haunch of rabbit, his final meal before his two day fast. After bidding her to sit, the Mico eyed the parcel in Foxy’s lap curiously. Finally, with mouth full, he pointed, even though it was considered rude to ask such personal questions. “What is it?”

  Foxy just grinned and acted as if it were unimportant. They made small talk for a while of hunting, other tribes and local gossip.

  Foxy finally rose to leave. “By the way, this is for you. Though not as young as you once were but much exalted in wisdom, you may find this helpful during the cold months of darkness that chase us even now.” She handed the thick bundle to the Mica and stood back.

  He lit up like a child at Christmas and shook his present out.

  Foxy had spent many evenings piecing together her best pelts, getting the hues and shapes to blend well. Many other evenings were spent laboriously stitching them together with thin hide strips and a bone needle. The result, which the Mico held up before him, was a beautiful thick fur coat made from many animals, Quickly, he stood and tried it on. The sleeves were long and loose, and the length was well below his knees.

  Shocking Foxy, the old chief burst into tears and flung his arms about her neck. Attendants nearby gaped in amazement. Embarrassed, Foxy gently pushed the old man back. “Whatever is the matter?” she queried anxiously.

  The Mico swiped at his eyes and sniffled. “You are too good, Misuga. Surely, as we have believed, you are blessed by the six gods. Thank you for my wondrous gift. You are now more than a son and a daughter to me.”

  Foxy finally managed to extricate herself from his rather overwhelming situation but not before he got in a few more flowing speeches of gratitude. The next morning, she realized the full extent of the chieftain’s gratitude when a heavily pregnant Mi-llani appeared at her door with a youth in tow who was bearing her possessions.

  As soon as she opened the door, Mi-llani brushed past and began arranging her things about one side of the tiny room while Foxy watched her in bewilderment. Finally, she had to interrupt her. “Mi-llani, I must ask—what are you doing?

  She turned and flashed Foxy a dazzling smile. “My father has given me to you. I am to be your mate until the next green corn. Then if you wish, you may keep me or give me away.”

  Foxy frowned in confusion. “Your father?”

  She should have realized that the Mico was Mi-llani’s father. He was very fond of her and she was treated with reverence by the entire village but Foxy had never given it much thought. Now, she turned her attention back to the woman, who was busy straightening Foxy’s pallet. “Mi-llani, you can’t just move in here like this!”

  She swung around to Foxy, her face shocked. “Fox no like Mi-llani?” she asked in a piteous little girl voice. Immediately, her large black eyes filled with tears and she pouted as if hurt to the core of her being.

  Foxy quickly tried to reassure her. “It’s not that I don’t like you. I just, well, don’t need... Oh, never mind!” She really couldn’t think of a good reason Mi-llani couldn’t stay.

  She got no further with her father. As soon as she mentioned her rejection of the girl the old chief was hurt. Foxy tried to explain that she was happy as she was, but the Mico got it in his head that Mi-llani had done something wrong and threatened to have her beaten. Foxy finally gave up and began expanding her small home to make more room for the two of them and, of course, the upcoming child.

  She knew that they would get on well, for Mi-llani was a typical Indian female, hard-working, opinionated but mostly amiable. She would prepare their meals, tan their hides and keep their small home repaired and tidy. The sleeping arrangements momentarily confused Foxy but were made clear when she came in that first day to find that Mi-llani had arranged their furs into a large double-sized pallet.

  The first, mostly sleepless, night together, Mi-llani seemed to be waiting for Foxy to touch her. She didn’t. The second night Mi-llani reached for Foxy and Foxy pretended to be asleep. Angrily, Mi-llani saw it as rejection. Pushing at Foxy, she sat up, one hand over her swollen abdomen. “You do not like Mi-llani! Mi-llani too fat for Misuga!”

  Foxy was embarrassed. “I like you very much but...”

  How could she tell her that there had never been time before now? That she was a virgin still? Maggie was to have changed all that and Foxy had waited, not minding. Then it was too late. The pain of remembering Maggie caused
her to clasp Mi-llani to her breast now, afraid it would be too late with her, as well.

  Mi-llani held her tenderly, rocking and crooning, as if sensing her thoughts. Foxy’s lips sought hers and she lost herself in the softness and earthiness of her kiss. Her hands entwined themselves in the silken ebony of Mi-llani’s hair and she inhaled the clean musk of her.

  Mi-llani was responding with soft gasps of pleasure and Foxy was pleased. She nipped at her shoulder, playing with her, teasing her full breasts and nipples and gently smoothing the roundness of her baby bump. Foxy finally released all her pent-up sexuality and, laughing, they went wild, carefully wrestling like baby bear cubs. Until they quieted and found the soft hardness that was in them. When she entered the wet comfort of Mi-llani, it was with such gentleness and reverence that only ecstasy was left, for both of them.

  Later, with Mi-llani snuggled in her arms, Foxy was content. Pulling her head back, she laid a soft kiss upon her wife’s forehead. Mi-llani stirred and smiled in her sleep. Happy and maybe, just maybe, in love, Foxy sought her own slumber.

  BY LATE FALL, Mi-llani was so big with child that she could hardly move. Every night Foxy must lay her cheek and palm against it to feel the new life moving within. They were like children with a new toy. When the child was born in mid-November, Foxy accepted Mi-llani’s Indian birthing in the forest, though she literally worried herself sick.

  Having fallen into an exhausted slumber, she awoke to find Mi-llani kneeling in front of her offering the child for her inspection. With a loud whoop of joy, Foxy took her son and raced about the village showing him off. The priest blessed the babe and the Mico, tears in his eyes, counted fingers and toes and declared himself honored.

  They named the child Giles, after Foxy’s father, although Mi-llani and her father wanted a proper Sawokli name. Foxy insisted, however, and their son was called Giles by all. From a beautiful dark-skinned infant, he grew into a handsome sturdy toddler.

  Mi-llani was a wonderful, concerned mother. He wasn’t strapped to the cradleboard like most Indian children and only a soft fur wrap would do for her son. She was much ridiculed and the other mothers insisted that she was ruining him. She didn’t relent though, he was hers and she would do as she thought best.

  If Mi-llani was a good mother, then Foxy was an even better parent. Giles was the pride of her life and she was determined to make him the best at everything. As soon as possible, she took the young boy out into the forest, teaching and showing. Giles was a bright child, as receptive as a sponge, soaking up every tidbit offered and each day amazing Foxy in some small way. He became an excellent hunter and when he brought back his first game it was cause for a feast. Giles had the very best of everything, for Foxy and Sawn-Re taught him how to be proud and use specific survival skills, Mi-llani taught him tenderness and love and his grandfather taught him leadership and discipline.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  April 1770

  MANY YEARS LATER, one spring after ten green corns, Foxy, Sawn-Re and a group of braves were returning from a three-day hunting trip. The way home had been hard and long for they each had a poled deer between them and bags of meat slung over their shoulders. As they approached the village through the dense forest, Sawn-Re’s sensitive nose discerned the strong acrid smell of smoke. He threw up his hand, a signal to pause. Easing his half of the pole to the ground, he crept silently forward into the open area around the village. The others waited an eternity, senses alert for danger. Suddenly, the quiet of the thick forest was shattered by Sawn-Re’s anguished cry.

  Foxy threw down her burden and flew in the direction of the cry. A pitiful, hideous sight met her eyes as she stepped from the trees. The village was destroyed, abandoned. Sawn-Re stood numb, as if unseeing. Foxy and the other hunters shot forward, each racing to their homes. Foxy’s dwelling was like the others, forcibly knocked over, and inside her beautiful wife Mi-llani lay, her wrists slashed by her own knife. Foxy laid her palm against her wife’s bare abdomen and felt only the coldness of death. All around her rose the wretched, anguished cries of the warriors as they mourned their dead. A cry erupted from her then, a primeval scream of rage and sorrow. This could not, would not, be happening to her again!

  She stood, her eyes on fire, the scar on her cheek a livid white and loped clumsily, fists clenched, from her destroyed home.

  She passed the dead. Liddy, the oldest woman in the village, a knife buried in her chest. And the Mico, stabbed and scalped, the blood having soaked in and ruined his soft, fur coat. Tears clouding her vision, Foxy moved on. All were dead or gone, probably captured into slavery. Smashed, dead babies still in their cradleboards, were lying next to their murdered mothers or live ones left abandoned because their mothers had been enslaved.

  The worst was when she came across the body of her son. Her heart seemed to burst with pain and with unbidden pride. Giles had not died a coward, next to him lay the body of a dead rogue Indian, a blade buried in his throat. Foxy was sure, now, who had murdered her people. Gently, she removed the bow and quiver from her son’s shoulder, straightened his tiny scalp lock and removed the barbed, unfamiliar arrow from his back. She then lifted the boy, her chest swelling with pride that her ten-year-old son had dropped a fully-grown rogue. She carried him to the central clearing.

  Sawn-Re was still where they had left him. As Foxy approached, he seemed not to notice until Foxy laid her son down and spoke. “All gone. Rogue Indians.”

  The tall brave clenched his jaw. The rogues were Indians with no tribe or village. Too lazy to hunt properly and many simply bloodthirsty, they raided innocent peaceful villages, plundering for food and slaves to sell to the white man. Foxy, kneeling and rocking back and forth over her son’s body, felt perilously close to madness, only her unholy anger kept her sane.

  For the next two days the tribe of hunters worked together, tearing down all the wooden dwellings and piling them in the clearing. They gathered the dead’s possessions and laid them upon the pile and then, working as one unit, they gently lifted the dead to the very top and set the whole afire. It took a week of burning to give it all back to the spirit world.

  Performing the proper burial ceremonies, almost as old as the people of earth, they rubbed the ashes of the fire into their skin and prayed for the souls of the dead to be received by the ancestors. Afterward, there was talk of revenge, of trailing the rogues and trying to regain who they could, but they all knew it was a futile enterprise. And the white man was too close. The damage was done.

  With nothing left of their home, the rest set out, the Indians to other villages where there were friends or relatives and Foxy heading south. She knew the loss had aged her, her face felt permanently lined with grief and she knew her cropped hair was not as dark as it had once been. Physically, she was in good condition, especially for being thirty-three years of age, but there was a deep emptiness in her that seemed to sap her strength.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  May 1771

  SLOWLY, IN NO hurry, Foxy had moved in a southernly direction, toward warmer weather. She hid often, for the land was much more heavily populated than it had been twelve years before when she’d left Finley. She was sure she looked much like a real Indian, though she’d never affected the challenging scalp lock and had kept her hair cropped short. But, since white men still feared and distrusted the red man, she thought it best to keep a low profile.

  She thought about joining another tribe of Myskoke, she knew there were others nearby, but she wasn’t sure how she would be accepted. The honor of being a two spirit would have carried her a long way, but she wondered often if being among them without her beloved wife and son would bring daily heartache or healing. So, in the end she did nothing.

  Finally, after wandering aimlessly for almost a year, after time alone in nature had healed her deep mental wounds, she came into a territory called Louisland or Louisiana. She wasn’t sure because of the strange accents that the people she overheard spoke with. She liked the land, the
soil was rich, black and seemed infinitely more fertile than the plains. The swamps here were not as frightening as those in Georgia had been to her in her youth and appeared to be more mysteriously beautiful. It was while passing through one of these moss-draped, enchanted swamps that she, carelessly, leaned against a dead cypress to rest her leg, inadvertently breaking off a limb which fell crashing to the ground.

  Instantly she was staring into the barrel of a large and deadly musket. It was held by a wiry, grizzled old man who proceeded to question her in the Natchez dialect. Seeing Foxy’s dumb look, he tried French. “Je vous parle! Qui etes-vous?” This still brought no response, so he muttered, “Damn ye rascal, who you lookin’ to scalp?”

  Foxy smiled and nodded, arms raised to show no threat. “Ah, that’s better! I regret that I have forgotten the French I learned when I was young.”

  The old man looked as though he’d swallowed something distasteful. “You speak English? Who the hell are you?” He peered at Foxy closely, obviously confused by the dichotomy before him.

  Foxy grinned nervously, wondering herself if she were now Misuga or white. “Fox Nelson, and you are?”

  “Name’s Franc. François Germain. I thought you was a bloody redskin dressed like you is and sneakin’ around here. I been followin’ you ‘round in circles for days now. What are you doin’ dressed like that?”

  Foxy frowned and shrugged wearily. “It’s a long story and I’m tired. Would you be willing to move somewhere more comfortable and talk?”

  Franc thought about it then nodded curtly and still eyeing Foxy warily, led the way to his camp in the swamp. There they sat on logs, eating dried fruit from Franc’s ample supplies, while Foxy told of her years with the Sawokli and the tragic end that was her reason for moving on. The old man listened closely, his expressive face mirroring Foxy’s story.