Scarlet Plume, Second Edition

by Frederick Manfred

  She shuddered. “Thank God I am not mother again.”

  She undid her braids. With her fingers she combed them out. She looked for lice; found none. Her hands became greasy with tallow.

  She toed into the water. It was surprisingly warm for September. The sun was directly overhead. She went in over the ankles, then the knees. The pink bottom shelved downward slowly, deeper. She cupped up water in both hands and let it run down her arms and off her elbows. She cupped water to her face. She cupped water over her pudding belly. She loved it. She waded in deeper. Water welled up her thighs. Water touched the gold tufts of her pudendum.

  “Oh! It’s so good.”

  Water lapped around the paired loaves of her buttocks, then up around her hips.

  The bottom seemed to shelve off steeper and she decided to swim for it. She slid forward, her breasts going under and then her shoulders. She paddled along gently. She nosed into the shadow under the south wall of the turn. The darkened water seemed a bit forbidding to her. After a moment she turned and paddled back to sunny waters. She swam leisurely, slowly. She luxuriated limb for limb in the warm branch water.

  “O, it’s good, so good.”

  Her fingertips touched bottom and she stood up. She stretched to her full height. Her chest lifted, her belly shrank, her seat arched back. She looked around to make sure no one was watching. She saw only a fox squirrel playing in a gnarled oak high on the south wall. She stretched again.

  “Wouldn’t Angela have loved this. So beautiful here. So by one’s self.”

  A wave of gall-like nostalgia misted up in her. Never again would she sit with Angela and Vince around their once happy table. St. Paul was the dearest spot on earth to her and never would she see it again.

  She fell to her knees. Her lips shaped a prayer. She thought this strange. She and Vince had never been much on religion. “Oh, Christ Jesus,” she prayed, “thou who art able to save souls from hell-fire, come save my body from fiends. I am lost in a far place. Amen.”

  The fox squirrel chattered at her from the very tip of a twig in the gnarled oak.

  Embarrassed by the sudden need to pray, she moved into shallower water and began to scrub herself thoroughly with handfuls of pink grit. She cleansed herself between the thighs. Not only would she purify herself, but she would also rub off all touch and memory of what the Indian studs had done to her. She scoured her face. She filled her hair with pink sand and rinsed it out. Again and again. A frenzy of scrubbing and scouring and washing possessed her.

  Gradually the tallow and tannin came out of her hair. Slowly its original color returned. In the sun her hair became a sun-whitened gold again.

  She rinsed her hair until it made a squinching sound between her fingertips. She threw her long hair over her shoulders this way, then that way.

  She laved her limbs with the warm, clear water. She poured handfuls of water down her shining belly. She felt renewed. She felt clean again.

  She ran. She skipped across the pink beach. She pirouetted on her toes. Eyes half-closed, dreamy, she let the sun make love to her skin.

  She let her tongue play along the edge of her lips. The tip of her tongue touched four black stubs of hair on her upper lip. Goodness. She had completely forgotten about them. They had grown back. She recalled again how she had always been careful to keep them pulled so Vince wouldn’t see them. Well, she had no scissors with her and would have to let them grow.

  A pebble fell from high off the south wall, plunked into the dark, deep part of the stream.

  She glanced up, wondering what the playing fox squirrel was doing.

  She stiffened. Someone had been observing her all along. Whitebone. Old face of the same color as the weathered red rock, he sat in a crevice in the shadow of the gnarled oak. He sat immobile, so fixed that the fox squirrel played unconcernedly just above him in the green leaves of the oak.

  Judith dove for the deep water. She stood in water up to her neck. A delicate crimson came and went on her scrubbed cheeks.

  Whitebone stood up. He spoke in a low, grave voice, full of awe. “White woman with the white sunned hair, know this. I have seen a great thing today. You are sacred. I see that I have done a bad thing. It was wrong for me to wive a sacred white being. You are wakan. This I did not know. You belong in the company of the spirit of the Buffalo Woman, she who lives behind the braiding waters at Falling Water. From this time on, you shall live in a sacred tepee apart. No man shall touch you again. Wakantanka reveals his presence in all white creatures. Your presence shall make the Yanktons a great people. This is true. This is right. Bathe in peace, white woman with the white sunned hair, this is your sacred bathing place. I have said.”

  Judith listened to it all with gradually widening high blue eyes.

  With a groan Whitebone got to his feet and stomped back to his camp.

  By the next night Judith found herself living the life of a white goddess. She was given a white doeskin tunic, white leggings, and white moccasins, all exquisitely worked and decorated with porcupine quills. The Yankton women set up a new buffalo-hide tepee in the center of the camp circle where she was to live alone. The new tepee was nearly white and translucent. She was given a sacred white buffalo fur for a bed, a white wolf fur for a sleeping robe, and a pair of white weasel mittens for cold mornings. As a special favor, the new medicine man, Center Of The Body, instructed her to wear her hair loose and flowing. The people were to see and to take heart from her sacred sunned hair. She was also instructed to avoid walking or sitting in the sun unless fully clothed so that the skin on her hands and neck might regain its former pristine whiteness. Whitebone himself took his sacred white emblem, the weathered jawbone of a dinosaur, and adorned the top of her lodge with it. Two guards stood outside her door.

  Judith liked the privacy. No longer would she have to fend off urgent savage studs. But she saw too that she was now more trapped, more prisoner, than ever. There was no escaping the Yanktons.

  There was one small piece of justice done. Whitebone took the poor humpnecked Tinkling to wife so that the papoose Born By The Way should have a mother. Tinkling was wildly happy over the turn of events. Once her own housework was done, Tinkling hurried over to work in Judith’s tepee. She fawned over Judith, held her more in awe even than Whitebone. At least once each day she held up both hands and bowed her head in the Indian gesture of thankfulness.

  The Yankton children, naked, rose-brown, hovered around Judith’s lodge. They were as persistent as bumblebees around a white rose. They tried to peer at her from under the skirts of her tepee. They poked their black hands in at the door. When the guards chased them away, they stood to one side whispering together and made up lively stories about her. When she strolled down to her sacred bathing place they scampered behind her like a pack of curious puppies.

  “Give them a long tongue,” Judith thought, “and they’d lick my hand.”

  Once one of the bolder boys came up to her and said, “I see the white woman looks sad. I want to shake hands with her.”

  Judith let him shake her hand.

  Yet it could not go on. She was no goddess.

  Her new role was false. She was only too human and soon would once again do something offensive to the savage mind. And the next time something was bound to happen. A certain turning, and there it would be. Death.

  “Yes. There’s no doubt of it now. I’m going to die out here.”

  One evening after dark, as she lay alone in her white fur bed, Judith heard many footsteps passing by her tepee. The footsteps were those of men. They all led to the big council lodge nearby.

  The night was windless. The least sound came to her magnified. She could hear the braves shift their feet in the sand inside the council lodge. The small stick fire in the center of the lodge burned with a sound as though a continuous breath were being expelled from an open mouth. Light coughs sounded almost as if inside her tepee. A sacred council pipe was being smoked and passed from hand to hand.

  At las
t Whitebone spoke in the quiet. “My son, come straight for the pipe. We wait.”

  Scarlet Plume spoke. “My father, at last the time has come for me to speak of the new vision that was given me.”

  “Come straight for the pipe. The single hole in the stem does not lie.”

  “My father, a white ghost came to me in the night. It woke me in my sleep and it spoke to me.”

  “What did the white ghost say? We wait.”

  “The white ghost said to form a new society. The white ghost warned that many of the Yanktons would not like the new society, that perhaps no one would join it, that perhaps I would be the only member in it. The white ghost warned that even my father would be unhappy with it.”

  “Come straight for the pipe. What did the white ghost say would be the name of this new society?”

  “The white ghost said it should be called Return The White Prisoners Society.”

  Silence.

  A single pair of moccasins squinched in the sand.

  When Whitebone spoke next, his voice was a snarl of just barely controlled fury. “Come straight for the pipe!”

  “The white ghost said that the Woman With The Sunned Hair must be returned to the white people.” Scarlet Plume’s voice resounded strong inside the leather lodge. “If Sunned Hair is not soon returned, all the Yanktons will be destroyed. That is all I have to say.”

  “But Sunned Hair is wakan. She is white and sacred. She is now a Yankton goddess.”

  “The white ghost has spoken. I wish to form this society.”

  Whitebone snorted with ridicule. “This society of yours, it is a crazy fool society.”

  There was another silence. Even from where Judith lay she could feel blackness gathering on the warrior faces.

  “Come straight for the pipe.” There was a sound of flaming hate in Whitebone’s voice. “Speak truly. What did the white ghost say?”

  Scarlet Plume continued to talk strong. He believed in a certain thing and it was in complete control of him. “The white ghost says that if we do not return the white woman to her people, the Thunderbirds will strike us. Even the new Contrary, my brother Traveling Hail, will not be able to help us.”

  “My son, we have spoken of a certain thing before. It is that you turned over in your mother’s belly before you were born. It was a great thing. It was a sign. It was told us that you were favored by the gods and would do a great thing for the Yanktons someday. Is this now the great thing you would do?”

  “My father, I am helpless. I know only what the white ghost has told me.”

  “A white ghost? Why was it not a red ghost? Are not the Yanktons red? White. White. You know that one does not climb a hill for water nor listen to a white man for straight talking.”

  “My father, the white ghost says that if we do not soon return the white woman, some other bullhead warrior will rise in crazy anger and kill her.”

  “My son, does not the law of the Dakota say: Justice for our red people and death to all the whites? Let my son say if that is not true.”

  “My father, why should this young innocent woman be killed by a bullhead? Has she not always been kind to us, smiled upon us? Has she not washed your feet as a good wife should? Did she not give her breast to suck to our child Born By The Way? Even when she had no milk to give? Do not all our children love her as a tender sister? Why must a crazed Yankton be permitted to kill her?”

  “My son, she is now a sacred person. No one shall touch her. We all worship her, even the new bullhead, Plenty Lice.”

  “My father, I smoke the pipe and cry to you—let her go free.”

  “Who will help her return to her people?”

  “The white ghost says that certain members of the Return The White Prisoners Society must accompany her until she has safely arrived in the Fort Of The Snelling.”

  Whitebone snorted. “Who are these certain members?”

  “Your son waits for others to join the society.”

  “Ha. Are there any here present who wish to join this crazy fool society?”

  Silence.

  Judith was suddenly filled with a wild exultation. If Scarlet Plume had his way, she was going home! The mention of Fort Snelling thrilled her so profoundly she shuddered from head to foot. Going home. St. Paul. In her extremity, in the midst of desolation, one man, a savage, had suddenly arisen to plead for her freedom.

  She had always admired Scarlet Plume, had even had a love dream about him. How right she had been about him. Once in the long, long ago he had thrown a dead white swan at her feet to warn her that she must fly to save her neck. And he still wished to save her. Yes. Yes. He was more than just a simple red man. He was a great man.

  Whitebone spoke tauntingly. “We see then that there is only one crazy fool in your society.”

  “I wait for others to join this new society.”

  “My son, why is your mind set on this girl? Can she work moccasins better than others? Can she carry a heavier pack? Can she dress a buffalo skin better?”

  “My father, you took her to wife. I did not. Why did you take her to wife? Why this one?”

  There was a pause, a long one. When Whitebone finally spoke, it was in a startlingly soft voice. “When I looked upon the Woman With The Sunned Hair for the first time, I knew she was buried in my heart forever and my wife she had to be. It was done to appease the manes of my wife that was.”

  Scarlet Plume spoke courteously. “This I ask again. Why this white woman? You have now declared her to be wakan. How can this be when she is buried in your heart and she has slept with you skin to skin? I wish to know. It is a strange thing.”

  Whitebone jumped to his feet. His heels ground into the sand. “The whites, ha. The white man does not deserve this sacred woman, no. The white man does things for gold, for goddung, ha. He tries to sell the earth to his brother, yes. Who can tear our mother into small pieces and sell her?” Whitebone raged in a slow, clear, incisive voice. “The white man knows how to make things but he does not know how to share them. The white man is one of the lower creatures. He is an animal. Look at him carefully. His face is covered with hair. His chest is covered with hair. His legs are covered with hair. Only animals are that way. What can one think of a creature that has short hair on his head and long hair on his face?”

  Scarlet Plume continued in a quiet, insistent voice. “This I ask. Must we believe then that Sunned Hair is a daughter of a hairy dog?”

  Whitebone snarled, “Ha! We see now that Sunned Hair is also buried in the heart of my son. Does the only member of the crazy fool society wish to lie with her in the grass when he returns her to the Fort Of The Snelling?”

  Scarlet Plume bounded to his feet. His heels hit the sand with a thump like that of an angry buck rabbit. “Wagh!”

  Judith quivered. The two were sure to come to blows over her. She almost cried aloud in torment at the idea.

  Then another thought shot through her. “Scarlet Plume loves me.”

  A tired voice interposed. It was the new medicine man, Center Of The Body, once known as Bullhead. “Brothers, Dakotas, let the feast-makers serve the meat. Later we shall have a further smoke on the matter of the Woman With The Sunned Hair. I have said.”

  While the council ate meat, Scarlet Plume stepped outside and walked down to the pink stream.

  Judith got to her knees and peeked out of her tepee door. She saw Scarlet Plume in the vague starlight. His head was high, long black hair flowing to his shoulders. Presently he began to pace back and forth. The sound of his footsteps on the strand was firm and crisp in the night. He moved tall and muscularly powerful. The single scarlet feather upthrust at the back of his head quivered at his every step.

  “Yes, those two are bound to kill each other,” she whispered. “And after that? A hell on earth. The whole band will fall to killing each other in a wild blood bath.” It was chilly. She drew her sleeping robe around her body. “I know this much. If I don’t get out of here right away, escape right now, I’m dead in an
y case.”

  And there was something else. If Scarlet Plume were to touch her, she was dead in another way. She would never be able to resist him. She would have to go savage, eat raw liver.

  She made up her mind to go. She had to go.

  Quickly a plan formed in her mind. She would head south, toward a settlement called Sioux Falls. To go north, to backtrack to Skywater, would be exactly what the Yanktons would expect her to do. Rollo, the mail carrier, made the trip from Sioux Falls to New Ulm once a month. She would catch a ride with him to New Ulm. From there she could take a steamer to St. Paul. It was the long way home. But it had to be done. Someone had to get back to civilization to tell what had happened at Skywater.

  She put on her leather clothes. She also picked out a parfleche and hurriedly packed some pemmican, an extra pair of moccasins, and some Indian toilet goods.

  She waited until Scarlet Plume returned to the council lodge, then slipped stealthily outdoors. She skipped across the stream and treaded her way up through a crevice to the plateau above.

  She carefully steered a course between the guards on the far hills. She ran, stooped.

  She hoped they would find her gone just soon enough to keep from killing each other, but not soon enough to catch up with her.

  PART THREE

  Lost Timber

  A warm hand touched her.

  Judith didn’t want to wake up. She liked sleeping. She was in the middle of a lovely dream and wanted to keep on with it. Four loaves of bread freshly baked stood in a row on the kitchen table. Ma had just dropped a dab of butter on their hot, bulging brown crusts and the butter was running down the sides. Mmm, they looked good. And there on a sideboard stood a basket of the fattest cucumbers she had ever seen, waiting to be sliced and pickled.

  “Ma, can I have some?”

  “No.”

  A warm hand touched her.

  She resented the warm hand. She didn’t want to wake up. Lying flat on her back, she snuggled her shoulders deeper into the matting under her. It was so fine to be back with Ma and Pa.