The Navajo Medicine Woman & the Civil War Vet

by Vanessa Carvo

  Every time he tried in this room, he was pulled right back down because he was chained to the wall, and when the men were around they just dragged him everywhere. He had tried to stop fighting so much and just gave up. This didn’t work like he thought it would.

  They didn’t enjoy torturing someone who didn’t give any reaction at all. Instead of achieving his goal, which he truly didn’t know what that was, they became angrier and hurt him worse until they achieved what they wanted, which was him scream and crying out in pain.

  The screaming was getting closer and closer. He looked around the room and for a place to hide, but then remembered he couldn’t have hidden even if he did find a spot because of the fact that he was chained to the wall. No, instead of everything that he had been doing, he was going to try something new. He needed to remember his training, and finally fight back.

  “Frank? Frank...” He shook his head as if to shake away the voices from his head forever. “Yes,” he called back to her. For a moment he forgot where he was, and what he was doing. He looked around for a moment and she could tell that he had gone somewhere in his mind for a moment.

  “Do you have a lot of those,” she asked him.

  “A lot of what,” he asked, trying to hide the fact that to him he was physically back where he was held hostage a few years prior.

  “Do you have flashbacks a lot where you disappear from reality? I saw on your face that you had a lot of pain, and almost terror written all over it.”

  “I’m fine,” he replied gruffly.

  She felt that she had already stepped over her boundaries and began talking about something he’d rather not talk about. She opened her mouth up again to speak, but shut it quickly. Whatever was bothering him, she wasn’t going to force him to speak about it, but she wanted to instead treat him with her remedies.

  Once under treatment, he’d be more calm and able to talk to her about his ailments.

  “Well, at least promise me that you’ll drink the tea I brought for you tonight before you go to sleep,” she asked softly.

  He looked back at her. She had a genuine smile on her face. From an outsider, it would look like she was really trying to help. He knew better, though. She may be trying to poison him, or to erase his memory. Thinking these thoughts really made his mind begin to race.

  What if David was in on it too? Someone could have hired David to pretend to write these letters to some woman and then he fell right into it when he read the letters and responded. She was sent here then to wipe him out, to do what all of those Navajo Indian men couldn’t do; kill him.

  He shook his head again as they rode up his driveway. If he was wrong, his paranoid delusions were going to push away a good woman. All he had to do was be careful and not let her know that he knew, or thought he knew what she was about, and what she was there for. He wouldn’t eat or drink anything that she made… wait, what was he thinking?

  How long was he going to starve and dehydrate himself just to prove a point? Heck, if they wanted him to die, at least he’d die happy next to a beautiful woman. He thought that she was a very beautiful woman. She had a nice tan complexion, with dark mysterious eyes. She had two long braids that hung down both sides of her body.

  While braided, it hung down to her belly button but when she let it out, it went almost to her knees. The last thought he had before stopping in front of his house was that if this was a set up, then at least they’d sent a beautiful woman, not an ugly one.

  He chuckled to himself. What was the difference in what she looked like if she was here to kill him?

  “Here we are,” then he paused. He had a two bedroom, but he didn’t remember cleaning it out. The second bedroom held all of his war memorabilia, such as his uniform and metals. He didn’t think he’d be able to go in there if he tried because of the memories. He pulled the reins to stop the horse and jumped down. He tied the horse up to the post in front of the house and then reached up toward her in the buggy, to help her down.

  “I don’t have the best house in the world, so I hope you like it,” he said gruffly.

  “I don’t care about what a house looks like. At the reservation, half of the time I stay outside in a tepee, so anything indoors is luxurious for me,” she said, smiling warmly, hoping he’d loosen up and warm up to her finally.

  She could tell by the rough way he helped her down out of the buggy, quickly letting go of her hand, that was going to take a lot more time and patience. She wasn’t used to not being liked. When people began talking to her, they saw what a kind and loving person she was, and they quickly fell in love with her as a person in general.

  “Let me get your luggage inside, and then I’m going to sleep, I’m tired. I don’t think I had a chance to clean out the spare bedroom, so you can sleep on the couch for tonight, if that’s okay,” he said, looking up at her to gauge her expression.

  Maybe she’d wait until he was fast asleep and just come into his room and slice his throat. He gritted his teeth together. He wouldn’t allow that to happen, even if he never slept again, he thought to himself as he carried the luggage into the house and set it down.

  “Please, drink this tea first while we sit and chat. Ten minutes of your time is all I ask. Otherwise, I’ll never be able to sleep in a new house, please,” she begged him as she walked straight over to his stove.

  He had a teapot on top of it with water in it and she fired a burner up and began to heat up the water. She kept him talking, not wanting him to fall asleep and not be able to take the tea. She knew that without the tea, he was going to be paranoid and scared of her.

  “Listen, I know that this isn’t an easy subject, but I feel like it’s one that we need to have it. I know that you were in the war and I saw the look on your face. My mother warned me before I left Kansas that I should have told you that I was Navajo.

  “I don’t agree with what the Navajo did in the Civil war and I’m so sorry if something bad happened to you. I want you to know that I had nothing to do with it, and I want to do everything in my power to help you.”

  She poured the steaming hot water into a mug that she had already added the herbs into. Her mother had put the perfect amount of herbs into small bags, which allowed the hot water to seep into and release the medicine into the water. She put a saucer over the top of the mug, allowing the steam to stay contained and the medicine to become more potent.

  “If you, at any time, are truly uncomfortable with me and think that I’d want to do any sort of harm to you, or you just aren’t attracted to me, then please tell me and I’ll walk out that door as quickly as I came in,” she finished, bringing him the hot cup.

  He had been sitting in his favorite chair, watching her carefully. He wasn’t sure what herbs she was putting in the water and he couldn’t tell if he could trust her or not. He was scared; he knew that.

  As she walked towards him, she lifted the cup to her lips and took a sip herself. His shoulders relaxed slightly and then a voice came in his head. “She could be faking it. How do you know she really took a sip? That’s how they get your trust, remember.”

  He began to go into another flashback. He panicked. He didn’t want to feel the pain again. “Here, take this, please. It will help you relax and make the flashbacks stop,” she said. She sounded so caring. Nobody truly cared about anyone else without ulterior motives, he thought to himself. He wasn’t sure what made him do it, or why, but he took the mug from her hands and drank the entire cup down in two gulps.

  She stared at him, shocked. “Well, I was going to tell you that you had to drink that within ten minutes, but I guess I don’t need to waste my breath,” she laughed, and took the mug from him and returned it to the kitchen.

  “There are some sheets in that closet over there and we’ll clean that room out tomorrow. I know how woman need their space and privacy,” he chuckled. He obviously didn’t know her.

  “I don’t mind if I stay on the couch. You must have things stored in that room that would be an inconve
nience to move. There’s no reason I can’t sleep right here. It’s only a place I’ll spend a few hours every night,” she said to him. Her understanding touched his heart. He tried to quickly cover that up, not wanting to fall for her tricks, and be caught up, but the medicine in the tea was already taking effect, and he felt so calm all of the sudden.

  He let his mind drift and for once, the flashbacks didn’t take ahold of him. For the first time, he allowed himself to look at her and look at the real Rebecca, not the Navajo. Frank wanting to stop feeling comfortable and go back to feeling hostile and angry again, because his anger kept him safe.

  It kept people away from him and when nobody was near him it meant that he couldn’t get hurt. He laid his head back in the chair. All of these thoughts were exhausting him. So much for not sleeping the entire time she was here, he thought to himself, as he felt his eyes rolling in the back of his head.

  “Are you getting tired? Can I help you to bed? Or, you can sleep right there on the couch, I don’t mind, I’ll take the floor or the chair,” she told him. “No, I’m going to take the couch and I want you to take the bedroom. I have a full size bed in there, and you’ll be more comfortable,” he offered.

  She put her hand over her heart full of shock that he was offering her the bed, when before he insisted that she sleep on the couch. “No way, I’ll take the couch and that’s final,” she told him, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

  Just because the medicine was making him feel good and he was offering up his bed in the moment didn’t mean that he’d feel the same in the morning when he woke up and wondered what she was doing laying in his bed.

  She refused to take advantage. He stood up and that was the first time she had seen his arm was injured. This entire time of him bringing her back here, tying the horses up and bringing the luggage inside, she hadn’t noticed that he had been injured.

  Now, as he stood up and grabbed her luggage, she noticed that he held his right arm close to his body, and it looked as if it was shorter than the other one. Then she remembered the letters; he did say that he was an injured war vet.

  She had just never asked how he was injured, and she hadn’t cared. “May I ask what happened to your arm,” she asked softly.

  He looked down, almost as if he had forgotten that he was injured, and a faraway look crossed his face. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked anything. I actually just now noticed. It wasn’t important to me to ask in our letters when you told me that you were injured because I would never let physical injury come in the way of me meeting someone.

  “You carry yourself so well that I didn’t notice at all until now, when I was watching you stand up.” She continued to speak softly hoping that her soft tone would keep him calm and he would realize that she meant him no harm.

  “No, it’s okay. You meant no harm by asking of my injury. I was actually injured by my own soldiers in the war.”

  A look of confusion came across her face.

  He set her luggage down in his bedroom beside the bed and lay out on the couch, kicking his feet up. “They weren’t trying to hurt me. In fact, they were trying to save my life. Wait, no I’m sorry, that’s wrong. They did save my life.” She sat on the edge of the chair he was sitting in at first. She wanted to sit on the edge to show him that she was willing to go and lie down and leave him alone whenever he was ready. He suddenly wanted to open up and talk though.

  “I was kidnapped and held hostage for a long time. I don’t really know how long it was, because I lost track of time after the first week. Just when I gave up hope and prepared myself for death, the door of the cave they held me in was busted down and in came my soldiers.

  American soldiers rushing in with guns drawn never looked so good, let me tell you,” he smiled, remembering. This was the first time that he had thought back on his ordeal and not had a flashback that took him away from reality. It was also the first time he thought back and smiled, having a good thought.

  He seemed to forget that the entire ordeal may have been brutal and horrible, but it ended victoriously for him. He had been saved. If only he didn’t do what he did before walking out of there…? “I am so glad that you were saved, and you’re here now,” she said looking at him in a completely new light.

  The man who everyone saw as a mean angry war vet was actually a very kind, warm-hearted man who only held fear. This fear was what others misinterpreted as anger. She would bring out the real Frank, if only he’d give her the chance. She looked up and saw that he was passed out sleeping soundly.

  He had probably never slept so well in years, she imagined.

  She took the sheet out of the closet he earlier pointed to and covered him up. She then walked into the room, left the door open, and lay down on the bed. She didn’t bother to change into nightclothes, or even pull the covers back. She wanted to make sure that he knew when he woke up and saw her that he’d know she wasn’t closing doors in his house and hiding anything from him. She lay down, closed her eyes and smiled as the familiar feeling of peace swept over her.

  As she drifted off to be with her mother and family back in Kansas in her dreams, Frank didn’t know it but he was having the last flashback he’d have. He dreamt every night that he was being held hostage, he knew he was dreaming and he knew that he had been saved but in her dreams nobody ever came.

  It seemed that just before he was about to be saved, when he heard the soldiers outside, the Navajo who had tortured him so badly came up to him and stuck a knife into his heart or a shotgun was put to the temple of his head.

  The boom he heard next wasn’t the door being busted down, it was instead it was the gun going off and killing him. This time was different though. The dream started out like all the others. He was on his knees, kneeling in front of the leader of the Navajo.

  His hands were bound behind his back and his ankles were bound together. He heard the man screaming at him, and he refused to look up. Maybe if he continued to give the man no resistance, and refused to yell out in pain, he’d stop.

  Frank knew this wasn’t how it was going to end. Somehow in his dream, he remembered everything that had happened to him, but he couldn’t force the men to come save him. He suddenly heard the cries from the soldiers and knew what was going to happen next. In reality, he would be saved, but in his brutal nightmares, he’d be executed next.

  He closed his eyes and waited for what was to happen next. To his amazement the crash came and it wasn’t a gun going off waking him up, ending his life. Instead, when he opened his eyes from the blast, he saw dust and dirt all around him. The men who were standing right over him were thrown back by the blast. He looked up amazed, to see American soldiers all around him. He was saved!

  Was he really saved? A pain shot through his arm and he looked down to see blood pouring down his arm. The soldiers didn’t mean for it to happen, but as they were shooting the men from off of Frank, they accidently shot him as well. A soldier rushed up and untied him. He unshackled his ankles.

  Another soldier grabbed him, helping him to his feet and gave him a rifle. “Are you okay? Have you been hurt,” he asked Frank.

  Frank only shook his head and took the rifle. The soldiers were yelling at the Navajos to stand down, put their rifles down or they would be shot. Of course, Frank had specific knowledge that they couldn’t understand English.

  “Do they understand English,” asked a soldier as he held his gun up to a Navajo’s forehead. The Navajo refused to put his weapon down. Frank swallowed and replied, “Yes, they can all understand and speak English, but this is a suicide mission. They will all die trying to kill us.

  “It’s time to kill or be killed men.” He took the shotgun and walked directly up to the leader. He was currently unarmed. Now it was time for revenge. The leader dropped to his knees and put his hands on the back of his head. He didn’t cry, beg or plead, only surrendered.

  Frank put the barrel of his gun into the leaders’ mouth and pulled up. He wanted that man to look hi
m in the eyes. He did. “Frank man, he’s unarmed. We don’t have to kill anyone else. We’ve unarmed everyone we could. There’s been enough bloodshed,” one of the soldiers told him, trying to place his hand on his shoulder.

  Suddenly Frank began to scream at the Navajo. He watched the look of confusion on the man’s face, and then it turned to realization. The man knew he was about to die. He took his hands off his head, and put them in front of him as if he was praying.

  Frank became angry. He did the same thing. He prayed too. Without knowing what he was doing, or how he did it with broken fingers, he pulled the trigger. He woke up. Finally, he had won in his dream. He always woke up feeling afraid and defeated. He was always helpless, but today, he had control.

  He had taken control back.

  In reality, Frank hadn’t killed the leader. He had only hit him in the face with the butt of the gun a few times, before his friends, and fellow soldiers pulled him off. As fate would have it, as they were walking back to the camp, a few soldiers led them, the four Navajo prisoners were in the middle and they insisted on carrying Frank back behind everyone on a stretcher.

  He didn’t want to be on the stretcher, but with one of his ankles broken, his fingers broken, and his arm shot, so he couldn’t hold a gun, or even keep up with the group. Therefore, he had no choice but to be carried.

  Halfway back to the campsite, there was a large explosion. They had somehow stepped on a landmine. Three of the Navajo’s were killed instantly. None of the soldiers were badly injured. The leader, the man who had hurt Frank so badly was injured badly was nowhere to be seen.

  Frank had been dropped when the explosion had blown everyone back. He struggled to stand up, and then limped around the remains, searching for the man who had tortured him. Finally, he found him, dead. At that moment, Frank should have been released from his mental pain.

  The man who had tortured him and hurt him so badly was now dead, releasing Frank from his torment. That is not how things went for Frank unfortunately.