“Sur Sceaf,” Going Snake said, “roll us all up in a tule mat. I want to see how you do it.”
“No, it’s not bedtime yet, you rascally chipmunk. Besides, we have to help Redelfis get ready for tomorrow’s practice.
Dancing Feather said, “I can hardly wait. You were so funny. I haven’t seen Ahy ever laugh that hard.”
“At least I don’t have to practice to make mistakes.” As he took leave he felt hopeful that indeed, Taneshewa was softening towards him.
Chapter 8: The Thunder Horse
Taneshewa was still fuming over the feelings that were creeping out of the cracks of her heart, but she at least had some curiosity as to what a life as Sur Sceaf’s wife would be like. After leaving the rings, she beat a path along the Silent Stream for Thunder Horse’s tipi, slapping away branches that barred her path and swatting midges angrily. She had never known her heart to tug in an opposite direction from her mind, but now all was a war inside of her.
Thunder Horse was a mighty shaman, the brother of Sagwi and Redith. He had long been the light of the tribe in all matters pertaining to the heart. His wise counsel was much besought by people of many tribes, and he dedicated his life to offering solace, counsel, and his healing medicines, which he and Sagwi had developed over the years. Taneshewa held his counsel to be the highest, above her father’s, her mother’s or even Sagwi’s. Once again she was seeking out this font of wisdom as she had done so many times before; this time to bring down her level of rage and to get answers to the paradoxes that now inflamed her heart like a consuming forest fire.
She had just reached the lightning-scarred tree that marked the fork with the path to the right leading to Woondigo Pass and the path to the left turning to the Thunder Horse’s tipi on the side of the silent Unequa Stream when she heard the hoof beats coming up swiftly behind her. A quick backward glance revealed that it was Sur Sceaf and Going Snake. She stepped to the side and automatically offered the traditional wave as they passed. Going Snake waved and Sur Sceaf returned her greeting with the sign of the dove.
When the dust settled, she resumed walking, and watching as they drew farther and farther away. Sunlight was coming through the tall pines causing the blond highlights of Sur Sceaf’s brown hair to glisten. She couldn’t help but notice his broad shoulders and how he sat astride the white warhorse as though he was part of it. Why, she thought, did he have to be married? Why? This man is causing havoc to my heart. Maybe the answer lies with Thunder Horse?
The Thunder Horse’s camp lay in an open glade beside a shallow pond called the Duck Head’s Pond. His tipi was situated between the pond, not far from Sagwi’s or the Unequa Stream on the other side. The tipi rose out of the grasses like a tawny pyramid, which Taneshewa had once seen on the Hyrwardi teaching cards. Although it was customary for the people to decorate their tipis, Thunder Horse’s was magnificent with a large black sun out of which radiated four colorful serpents-- red, white, blue, and black—winding to the four cardinal points. It seemed to always be the case, that she found him sitting on a log before his tipi as if he knew she was due to arrive at any moment.
At her approach Thunder Horse glanced up and made the sign, “Be still.” Being as silent as she could, she tiptoed to his side and sat next to him on the log. Following his gaze, which was focused on the ground a few feet away, she saw a battle was being waged between a bald-headed hornet and a yellow jacket. The insects were locked in a frenzied combat that appeared to be to the death. The buzzing hornet and yellow jacket tumbled over and over in the dust in a ball of wicked fury. She could hear the cracking and crunching of the yellow jacket’s armor tearing and being ripped apart by the mandibles of the powerful hornet. It was a terrible sight to behold.
“Strong medicine,” the Thunder Horse uttered drawing out the words in his deep voice. “The gods are speaking to you, Ahyyyokah Taneshewa.” He looked into her eyes, raised a bent finger, and pointed directly at her.
“Me.” She opened her eyes wide and put her hands to her chest. “Whatever do you mean?”
“See—there! It is your heart wrestling with itself, and soon one part will finish off the other. How soon, I cannot tell, but of this I am sure, a part of you will die so that the greater part of you may live. You have heard that first love strikes the deepest, but true love will trump it and can even eventually go deeper, but only if the way can be found. For you see, a true lover’s heart is always half-broken as is yours. Yet to go deeper cannot be done without a great struggle.”
“Sagwi said, because I have questions about your scrying, you know, about me marrying a white lord, I should come see you. Remember it was the scrying you gave me at the End of Snows.”
“Questions. Questions?” His brows drew together in what she perceived as disbelief. “If I tell you I have seen the sun rising this morning and you are asleep in the tipi, I am not a dark elf devil that I should deceive you, the sun is rising. Even though you can’t see it, it’s the truth. I declare only what I see. Where would my reward be in this community if I were a liar? Sometimes I do not see clearly all things, but the vision I had of you and the white lord was as bright as the sun, as clear as the moon, and as terrible as this hornet devouring the yellow jacket.”
“Terrible, what do you mean terrible? You didn’t say anything about terrible then.”
“Oh Ahy, then you must know this. A terrible battle will rage in your heart. It will be worse than any battle you have ever heard of.” Thunder Horse grabbed a stick and began drawing in the dust next to the mutilated carcass of the yellow jacket. First, he drew a wavy line and then a straight line. “When some people see a snake, they want to straighten the narrow fellow out. A straight snake isn’t going anywhere. Life and love are very much like serpents.
“When you look at love with the eyes of an innocent child, and run down the path to the end, you only find it was an illusion of love created by your own child’s heart. When you discovered the illusion, it was just as the skin of the yellow jacket got ripped away, your heart bled. Part of you died.”
“That’s exactly how I feel!” Taneshewa admitted. “Even Sagwi didn’t understand that I felt like I was dying a slow death when I discovered Standing Bull’s betrayal. Like that poor yellow jacket, I was being ripped apart and dismantled. I still feel that way.”
“The yellow jacket is not altogether dead yet. The part of you that is holding on to that illusion of love so fiercely needs to die, but you won’t let it. You are holding on to a dead love just like that yellow jacket battling for its life. And you are holding on to vain traditional beliefs that shall no longer serve you in your soul’s quest. Your soul has chosen another journey than the one you’ve learned. Are you ready to get down in the dust and wrestle with your own soul until you devour every illusion you have allowed yourself to believe?”
“Oh Thunder Horse, I don’t understand why when I put things together they simply don’t fit. I don’t want to feel this way, but I can’t seem to stop.”
“Well, until you do, you will never find true love.” His face filled with what looked like compassion. His dark eyes studied her for a long moment in silence. “Oh, my dear Ahy, true love usually comes to us in disguise. We have to search it out. Our heart tells us of its approach long before we see it with our eyes.” Then he said in his deep most soothing voice, “Now, you have come here to ask me if the high-born white man, who is here this day, the one with king’s blood, is the one you will marry. I will not tell you this, for your heart has already told you the truth of the matter.”
“I know of no truth, only disgust.”
“Like the serpent, true love is a very crooked fellow. That’s why the way of true love is the path of pain, and no one can control its windings. It turns where it will. It seldom fits the pouch we make to put it in. Since knowing love is the goal of this life if one wishes to be a Thunder Being as are First Man and First Woman, it should be our main study, for they taught that finding true love is the only path to where they are
in the Summer Lands. Therefore, it requires surrendering to our hearts true desires, a willing embracing, a joyous free offering of our hearts in return. It can never be forced, half-hearted, dutiful, or unwilling, but true love is always worth it. It is worth the pain, the twisting, and the winding our hearts must do to move into its space. And this must come unrestrained and free flowing as that stream. When you find the space of true love, it is a willing and sweet surrender to the most marvelous power and joy in life. And that is because it is the crown of life.”
“Surrender!? Unthinkable. I couldn’t. I did that once and had my heart eaten out of me.”
“But the path to true love can be crooked and torturous. Taneshewa, that is why the faint-hearted and shallow never truly find it, because they want the path to be straight, black and white with no shades of grey and no tough decisions. They only want it to fit their pouch of understanding, but, my child, true love is so much greater than any bag we have fashioned for it. It cannot be contained. It’s sad, but such rigid people are not made for the journey of love.”
Taneshewa felt a deep pang of concern, “Are you saying I am not fit for love?”
They were momentarily interrupted by two boys running up the Silent Stream to catch a duck in their nets.
“Only you know the answer to that question,” Thunder Horse declared as he continued to draw images of altars and mazes and snakes in the dust with his stick. “Grandfather and Grandmother knew that nothing good is born without sacrifice. Our cherished images of the way things ought to be, often needs to be sacrificed on the altar of true love. The path of holiness is never the ideal path. In fact, that which seems to be the ideal path is almost always a diversion or a decoy from the way to find true love. When will you learn to listen to the spirit within you, Taneshewa?”
Taneshewa struggled to make sense of his words. A hummingbird whizzed past her head and hovered above a nearby coyote bush. Briefly, she considered, If only I had those swift wings, I’d fly away from all of this. She sighed, “But Thunder Horse, Green Eyes already has a wife. What would I be to him?”
Thunder Horse gave her an impatient look. “Ahy, your heart is so much like these two battling stingers. If the one that represents true love is not honored, if it is not allowed to devour the false love, then it doesn’t deserve to live. Does it? For what is sure is that one must die.”
“But he already has six wives. Maybe I’m a bit selfish, but if I am honest. I need to feel special and favored. I do not believe I could feel that way with another woman clinging to him. I don’t want it to be that way.”
“I will not tell you whom to marry. The gods have always allowed us the final choice. You must know what you can and cannot live with, but this I will tell you. You came to me at the End of Snows, downcast and broken. After my revelation, you left joyous and hopeful, but now that the revelation has unfolded before your eyes, you wish to reject it, and imprison it in your own pouch so it can’t move or grow in your heart. I have watched the Hyrwardi since my youth, and though the men have many wives, I have never met any Hyrwardi wife that wants for love or happiness anymore than our wives, and I confess there were times I observed them happier than the general lot of humanity. In fact, while I was visiting with my sister Redith and Flying Wolf, it was almost magical in the harmony and how the wives lived and worked with one another.”
Taneshewa frowned, “But I’ve seen it written in the Quailor book, ‘A man shall have only one wife.’
“Yes, because that is what the Quailor model of life is. You can’t expect a sparrow to dictate the life a fire-swan must live. The Quailor make their Holy Book say what they want it to say. To us, this book is nothing more than a paper god. An idol as they would say. And their ears are stuffed with that paper so that few even bother to listen for truth anymore. They want a god that they can tell what to say. The words were written by a man so that they can make God say what they want him to say. They don’t want to listen to a god that requires them to do their own thinking and feeling. Nor can they speak to all the tribes of humanity, for who is to say you can’t have more than one wife. The choice should be solely yours.”
“Then why don’t the Sharaka have more than one wife? My father has only one wife. Mendaka has only one wife. Even you, only had one wife and you have not remarried since her death. It is all I’ve ever known and that’s all I’ve ever seen.”
“But now the choice will be yours.”
Taneshewa risked a defiant look. “Then I choose for Sur Sceaf to have only me as his wife.”
Thunder Horse shook his head. “My dear child, Sur Sceaf has no power to make the choice you want him to. He’s been true to his culture, and he’s not going to abandon his previous wives. That would be a cruelty to those women and an offense to the Hyrwardi Gods. Can you not see, it would be morally impossible for him to behave in such a reprehensible manner. And worst of all, it would in turn eventually poison your relationship if he did such. He has to be true to his choice and you must be true to yours. When Grandfather sent down the Thunder Beings to our people, he also sent them to the Hyrwardi. So obviously, he does not judge as you judge. Who is to say our way is better than their way when they produce just as good fruit on their tree as we do on ours.
“Some of our men have taken more than one wife, but because so many people in our tribe have judged them harshly they have gone into exile. For instance my good friend, Turtle Duck has three wives, and Many Mules has ten wives. They live over in the settlement of Ur Ford among the Hyrwardi and Jywdic Tribes, where they have a good life by the sea and come and go unmolested for their choices.”
Thunder Horse held Ahy’s arm and pointed to the now engorged hornet. “One thing we know is we must avoid the path that the Evil Generation took. Their ways caused the collapse and fall of a great civilization. They were so heavenly-thinking that they were of no earthly good. They strove for the ideal rather than the holy. They wanted correct thinking above holy thinking. Straight and clean is the path to idealism, but crooked and messy is the path to holiness and freedom.”
Taneshewa watched. The hornet swiftly flew off into the sun over the Unequa Stream as confirmation of Thunder Horses explanation. “I admit, I don’t want to end up like Sagwi, old and regretting not marrying the man I truly loved. In truth, he has not said he loves me, but he’s made every gesture to that effect. I feel that he would say it if I gave any encouragement, but surely he must have said the same thing to all his other women. How can he mean it? If you have only one true love, how can you claim the others are also true.”
Thunder Horse took Ahy by the shoulders. She could feel his strong grip as he looked deep into her eyes. “Do you love any of your three nieces any less because you’ve told each one of them you love her?” He stood up and lifted Taneshewa by her hands.
“Of course not.”
“Neither does he love any of his wives less if the love abides in his heart for you. It cannot be otherwise.”
As Taneshewa stared into those kind eyes, she found herself feeling more confused than ever. On the one hand, Thunder Horse gave her a very clear picture of what could be, but on the other hand she found herself unable to accept the terms of so great a change. “You’ve given me much to think about, but I fear my heart shall be rolling in the dust in combat for some while yet, because my yellow jacket is not going to give up so easily.”
* * *
“Yoo Hoo! Yoo Hoo! Meny!” Taneshewa called outside Mendaho’s tipi. “Are you in there?”
“I’m here, Ahy, come in.”
As she entered, Meny looked up from the clutter of books on her floor. “I was just studying the books Shining Moon sent to me on the early history of the Hyrwardi. One is called ‘The Bok of the Longfathers’ and the other is ‘The Ystery of Herewardi Women.’ Come sit anywhere and I’ll make us some stick bread and maitake tea to drink, while you read them and ask me questions.”
Mendaho busied herself by putting some grindings of cascara seeds and roasted myrtle
seeds mixed with some shavings of sassafras root to which she added maitake mushrooms into the iron pot hanging over a slow fire, while Taneshewa eased down on a buffalo hide. Meny got some dough out of a large crock, plucked off the juniper berries used to leaven it and wrapped it around a couple of bread sticks.
Taneshewa handled the curious leather bound books showing wear and lots of use. She ran her fingers over the warm golden letters, which seemed almost to be on fire.
Meny resumed her seat, a familiar look of anticipation on her face. Above all she loved to lecture about the things she discovered in books and scrolls.
Taneshewa decided to indulge her. “So what does ‘The Bok of Longfathers’ have to say?” she asked.
Meny’s eyes brightened. “Oh, according to the skalds who put it to paper, it’s about the early days of the Hyrwardi or Herewardi as they say. It seems they started out as a wealthy educated class of people, living free in an enclave at a place called the Firginias. The earth changes had recently brought about the collapse of the Evil Generation.”
“The Firginias, isn’t that where the sun comes from? I thought that was the land of the Hick—ory—ans?”
“Very good. You were paying attention. Though, the Hickoryans have spread out in all directions to escape the oppression the Pitter Empire has imposed upon them just as we have.”“How did the Hyrwardi get all the way out here in the land where the sun sets?”
“There was a battle called Big Springs in which all the Hyrwardi men above age five were slain, including their king, Os. The remaining Hyrwardi had to flee to the West.”
Ahy was astounded. “But wouldn’t killing children bring down the wrath of the Thunder Beings?”
“The Pitters have their own god that protects them. His name is Angrar. Their god said that they must slaughter the Hyrwardi or else someday suffer being wiped out by them. Their god also taught them a new way to sacrifice King Os and the Hyrwardi, for their god, Angrar, wanted possession of the Big Springs, a place most holy to him.”
The Sire Sheaf (The King of Three Bloods Book 1) Page 17