by Karen Kay
With these words, the drumming increased, the singing swelled, until all at once, Night Thunder’s ears were full of the sound of it. Then, just as quickly as they had appeared, the shadows vanished. The camp, the drums, the singing, even the old, wise man—gone.
And in their place was nothing, not even the white dress, leggings, and moccasins which had so prettily adorned Rebecca.
Night Thunder didn’t move. He didn’t blink. Nor did he say a word. Silence descended, upon them, until Rebecca, her voice quiet, at last asked, “What did that man say?”
“You heard?” he asked. “You saw?”
She nodded.
Night Thunder didn’t pause, nor did he glance at her. “We have been honored.”
She shook his arm, then, as though to awaken him, and she asked, “Are you thinking I’m dull witted, now? I’m aware of that. I could tell from the way that he spoke. But what is the meaning of it all?”
Night Thunder didn’t answer her question right away. Instead he said, “Do you know that the ceremonies of the dead are binding on the living?”
“Are they?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Please, Night Thunder, I suspect I’m not going to like this, but I don’t understand your language and he was saying something that you understood, wasn’t he?”
“We must mend that.”
“What?”
“That you do not understand my language. We will soon be in the camp of my people and I would like you to be able to not only understand what is said to you, but to speak the language well.”
“Aye,” she said.
“Language,” he continued on, as though she hadn’t spoken, “is an important thing to an Indian. I do not know how it is in the white man’s world, but in mine, one’s status in the tribe depends upon a person’s ability to speak well. For if a person cannot speak in his own tongue with complete correctness, he will never be allowed to talk before a counsel or in public, lest children begin to mimic him. A man who does not speak well is considered an outcast.”
“Ah,” she said, “I see. Then you are correct and I should learn your language. But tell me please, what just happened?”
It was only then that he dared to look down at her. Yet still he paused, reluctant to say what needed to be said.
“Night Thunder?” she prompted.
He grunted, the sound at last giving him the courage to say, “From this day forward, so long as we are alive upon this earth,” he gulped, “we are married.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Married, did you say? As in man and wife?”
Rebecca was trying her best to recover. Her knees still shook and her body trembled, but she had to know. What did this mean? How would this impact on their lives?
She had been aware of what had taken place this night, even if she hadn’t understood the words. She’d witnessed the old woman clothing her in what could only be wedding garb. She’d heard the words from the old man. And though it had been fantastical, it didn’t take any great stretch of intelligence to reason it out. Still, she’d needed to ask, if only to reassure herself that she still remained among the living.
Night Thunder smiled slightly at her as he repeated, “Married as in man and wife? Do you know any other kind?”
The two of them hadn’t moved from the spot where they had been so recently united. They stood, under the radiant beams of the moon, staring at one another, she studying him as though transfixed, he patiently staring back at her.
Night Thunder’s long hair flowed forward, its strands caught in the breeze. A few locks of it swept over her hand, its fleeting touch as delicate as a whimsical caress. She wanted to reach out and touch it…him… Indeed, she opened her hand that she might feel the long fringe of his dark mane, her fingers extending out to grab it when suddenly she pulled back her hand. What had she been about to do? She gulped before she said to him, quickly, “I…I cannot believe any of this…none of it.”
He paused for a moment as though he, too, were caught up in the unspoken enchantment Then, he asked, “Did you not see it? Did you not witness the old man and the old woman?”
She swallowed, hard. “I…I…you know that I did. But it was too strange for me to believe, it was too fantastical to…”
“You know that it—”
“What is happening to me? Not only am I seeing ghosts, am I now to commune with the spirits, as well?”
“It is a great thing that has happened to us.”
“Is it?”
He nodded.
“I fear…I fear this could be as a curse, not something…good.”
Night Thunder frowned. “What means this word, this ‘curse?’”
“I…it is…taking something which should be cheerful and making it…bad…or making bad things happen to a person, or…it is—”
He reached out a hand to touch her face, his fingers gently stroking her cheek, while his other arm came around her waist to draw her forward. Immediately, the fragrance of pure wholesome male, together with the perfumes of sage, of grass, and of moon-swept prairie assailed her. She breathed out deeply, closing her eyes, letting the scents, the wind, the very fiber of this man’s soul sweep into her heart.
She realized all at once how hard it had been, how difficult it was going to be, to remain so constantly distant from this man. Was this, then, the way it was when a woman was in love? Was it wanting to be with the man she admired, to be held by him always?
When had this wilderness, this man, begun to bewitch her? When had she started to desire to stay here?
He spoke to her, then, interrupting her thoughts. “I know not this ‘curse’ that you speak of,” his voice was low, his tone as loving as an embrace. “But understand this,” he continued, “it is a rare thing when the dead bring themselves back to life, and few can experience the whole of it without ill effect. We have been honored, I think. I do not believe it is bad. I see nothing bad here, I feel nothing bad, and yet we have stood this night among the dead.”
She couldn’t think, not when he touched her as he was, not when he spoke to her as though each word were a tender expression of love. She opened her mouth to say something, but no sound came forth.
He continued, “It is willed, I think, that we are to be together.”
She moaned, at last finding her tongue as she asked, “Willed?”
“Aa, yes,” he voiced. “It is a good thing. I think we are meant to be together, you and me. Perhaps there is reason for this, perhaps not. But I know in my heart that only good will come from it. I promise you this. Know you, Rebecca, we are now as one.”
“Aye,” she agreed, caught up in the rhythm, in the very captivation of this land, of him. “Aye,” she said again.
She lifted her shoulders and frowned. Spellbound. That’s how this man’s nearness affected her. Spellbound and enticed; unable to function or think clearly when he was so close to her. “Please, at this moment it seems right, it seems good, but please, I need time to think.”
“What is not right about it?” he asked. “That we are married? Do not the others think it of us already? Do we not seem to have the proper kind of feeling for one another?”
She opened her mouth to speak but couldn’t. With the man holding her so intimately, she couldn’t function correctly; she couldn’t think.
“Do not worry,” he comforted. “I think that you will be happy with my people. You will find that Blue Raven Woman is a good woman, I believe. You could come to like her, and it is she who could help you become acquainted with the customs of the people.”
“No,” Rebecca said, at last finding her voice.
He persisted, “Perhaps after I marry her, I can give her as a wife to another—a man of her choice—if you still object to having her in our household, but I think you might need her help.”
Rebecca groaned. “If you marry her,” she said, “you will not have me around to do any objecting.” She tried to step out of his embrace, but Night Thunder held her sec
urely.
He shook his head. Still she pushed at him, this time successfully maneuvering away from him.
She didn’t manage to put more than a few inches between them, however, and she stared off into the windswept landscape of the night, trying to pull her thoughts together. The man was much too charming by far, and she was having considerable difficulty in ignoring him.
Taking another deep breath, she voiced, “What happened here tonight was nothing more than fantasy. It was bizarre and unbelievable. The dead have no right to join the two of us in marriage. Only we two can make that commitment, and I…”
She heard him take a step toward her.
“Besides,” she went on quickly, glancing at him and negotiating one step backward, “there is more. It is not only your duty to Blue Raven Woman that keeps us apart, I am afeard.”
He grunted by way of answer.
She swallowed. “We could never marry because I am not, could not, become…Indian. I know it, and I think you know it, too. I could never tolerate the hardships that your women must endure. Nor could I marry into a group of people who treat their women so shabbily.”
“How would you know how Indians treat their women? Has a person said something bad to you about this?”
Of course someone had said something bad. Practically her entire education in Indian culture had been based upon the cruelty of the Indians and their relegating their women to the role of slave.
But it was difficult to put her idea of it into words. Especially when she knew Night Thunder to be kind and considerate.
He took another step toward her and she had no choice but to stare up at him. She caught her breath. With the moonlight playing over his features, he appeared not as a savage, as she had been led to believe all Indians were, but as the man she knew him to be; a man who was wholesome, honorable, and desirable…
She breathed out with difficulty. Were the moon, the wind, the very forces of nature conspiring against her?
He asked again, when she didn’t reply at once, “How do Indians treat a woman that you think is bad?”
She took a deep breath as if that might give her courage and began, “They…they handle her as though she were a…a slave, I think.”
“Slave?”
“Aye,” she peeped up at him again. A mistake. The man emanated masculine beauty and she found it increasingly hard to breathe. Still, she could not relent. She continued, “Do your men not feel that they own a woman when they marry her?”
He shrugged. “Among all people are those who treat others bad and with contempt. There are husbands who do bad things to their wives, as there are wives who nag at their husbands until their men cower from them. But such people are few. In my tribe, in yours, I think.”
“You…did not answer my question.”
Again he shrugged, but all he said was, “Does any man ever really own a woman?”
“I…you don’t understand,” she insisted. “Your women are made to cook and clean and sew and tan hides all day long. They are made to bear and tend to the children, carry water, look after their men. Hard labor.”
He gave her a strange look. “Do you say that women in your world do not cook or look after their children? Do not they do all these things?”
“Some do not.”
“Humph.”
“Besides,” she said, “I could never adapt to your way of life and I am not unhappy with my life as it is.”
“Are you not?”
She opened her mouth to confirm her statement, but could not quite bring herself to say the words. She forced her lips closed. She couldn’t lie to him. She might try to fool herself, but never him.
She stilled, then, wondering was it true? Though she hadn’t been aware of being unhappy in her life, was it a fact that she had been, perhaps, dissatisfied?
She sensed a tingling sensation under her skin, knowing that color surely swept across her face. Momentarily, she felt glad that the moonlight might perhaps hide her reaction from this man’s astute vision.
Still she wondered. Was it true? To tell God’s truth, she had never stepped off the day-to-day process of living long enough to examine her existence and what she felt about it, what she thought, at least until now.
Had she been disheartened? Grieved, even? For the last few years, she had made it a practice to endure, forced by necessity to shift from one capacity to another, barely able to stay ahead of her creditors. It had been one of the primary reasons she had been so willing to follow her young mistress, Katrina, into this wilderness. Katrina had paid Rebecca’s debts with nary a question.
But would one call such a life as she had created for herself living?
At some length, Rebecca realized she was changing. Changing, yes, but that didn’t mean she could become what Night Thunder wanted of her. She said, “In truth, most women in my society do all that you mention. It’s only that I—”
“A sits-beside-him wife does not do any of the hard work of the household. A sits-beside-him wife directs all the other wives. If it is this that you wish, I can give it to you.”
“I…” What could she say? The man could be so endearing at times. She said, “You are kind to me, Night Thunder, to say so, but there is more than that which keeps us apart.” She swept her arms around her. “Do you see this? All this land, the moon, the stars, even the wind: it’s yours. Yours to hunt in, yours to make war in, yours to envision and to hold your dreams. But it’s not for me. I have dreams that have no place in your society. Dreams which are so dear to me that it would be as though I would be having to give up a piece of myself if I were to part with them. Dreams I cannot fulfill here.”
He paused. “Do you speak of that dance? The one where you were to meet the man you would marry?”
“Aye,” she said, glancing away from him, “the dance. That and seeing with my own eyes the beautiful shores of my mother’s birthplace, Ireland.”
His voice was soft as he said, “Aa, yes. I understand. A person must hold onto his dreams. But know this, reluctant captive. I care for you. And despite what you say, I will continue to hope that you will find a way to be happy with me.”
She whimpered and deliberately stared down at the ground, away from him. “Please, Night Thunder,” she pleaded softly, “if you truly do care about me, you will not keep asking me to take you as husband.”
“Are you certain of that?”
“Aye.”
He smiled at her. Reaching a finger out to place under her chin, he brought her face toward his, and said, “I do not think so. It is because I care that I keep asking you to become my wife in truth. Do you know this?”
She sighed. Of course she did. She perceived, too, that if he could, he would make things different for her, for them. But he was as unable to alter the way he was, as was she herself. And if she were to be honest, she would admit that just as she had asked him to allow her to have her dreams, so too should she grant him his.
After all, how could she require him to relinquish his hopes, his aspirations, when she was objecting to him trying to make her over into something she was not? Didn’t he deserve the same sort of consideration?
But she could never accept the kind of life that he offered her. Not ever.
And he could not give up his honor. She must grant him that.
Truly, there was no hope for them.
Yet, she did have feelings for him…deep, nurturing feelings.
He said, “Perhaps there will be a way for us that we do not see. It is what the dead are trying to tell us, I believe.”
She moaned. How could she make him understand that these ghosts did not direct her life, that she did not believe in such things? That no earthbound spirits were more to her than her own hopes and desires?
He said, again, “We will find a way.”
“Night Thunder, I—”
“Sh-h-h,” he held a finger over her lips. “We must not think on it.”
“But my life, I—”
The finger came back t
o her lips.
Still, she felt urged to say something, and she voiced, “Please, Night Thunder, do not misunderstand me. Though I have great feelings for you, I do not believe that I can find my dreams in your camp. My destiny does not belong there.”
“What is this ‘destiny’?” he asked.
“The future.”
He considered this for a moment before he asked, “Are you certain of this?”
“I think that I…” She had meant to be emphatic, but somehow the words failed her. She tried again, “I think that I…I…” She couldn’t bring herself to say it. Why? “I don’t know,” she admitted at last. “I have never seen your camp, I know nothing of it. So I cannot say, for true, what I will find there, but I will tell you that I was not unhappy in my old world. And there are things there that I would still like to do, places I would like to see.”
“Aa,” he said, his look at her tolerant. “I understand. But you say that you have great feelings for me?”
She nodded.
“Then let us not throw away what is here between us, not yet. Let us think on this.”
She didn’t answer.
“In your heart you know that we should remain together, do you not?”
She couldn’t dispute him.
He smiled, then. “It is a good thing, not bad, that has happened between us here tonight, I think. But since our way of thinking is different, I would not have you do something that is not within the manner of your heart. And I would not knowingly hurt you.”
She groaned.
While he continued, “Still, our path, even though it be hard, is to be as one, if only because what we feel for one another is so strong.”
She shut her eyes. She knew she should say something about Blue Raven Woman, about his commitment to her, but she couldn’t. What he said was too close to the truth, and it was not in her to refute him. Instead she sobbed, the unwilling whimper ending in a hiccup.