Desert Hearts
Page 32
“Just wait a minute, young lady,” said Elizabeth with mock sternness. “You have flour and dough all over you.”
“Da won’t care, Mama,” said Caitlin as she streaked out the door.
Your da wouldn’t care if you were covered in mud, thought Elizabeth as she pumped water over her hands. She dried them quickly on the bread towel and, untying her apron, went out to the porch.
Michael had lifted Cait up onto the seat beside him and was allowing her to “drive” the team the few remaining yards to the hitching post by the corral.
“I’ll tie them and you sit right there, Cait,” he said after dropping a kiss on top of her dark brown curls before he climbed down.
After he tied the team he came back and lifted her down and, reaching into the back of the wagon, he pulled out a brown paper package and handed it to her. “Now run and give this to your ma.”
Caitlin jumped up and down. “What did you bring me, Da? What did you bring me?”
“Now, what was I telling you to do?”
Caitlin stopped jumping. “Bring this to my ma.”
“Well, then…are ye going to help me out?”
“Yes, Da,” she said and turned and walked to the porch with a sense of great pride as though she had relieved him of one of his heaviest packages.
Elizabeth thanked her for being such a helpful girl and took the package. “Tea, Michael! Oh, thank you.” She ran down and flung her arms around his neck. “You don’t know how I have been wanting a good cup of tea.”
“Sure and I do, a ghra. And so have I, truth be told. We had a little extra this month, so I thought I’d treat us both.”
Caitlin was standing quietly by and he handed her a small package. “And this is for you, Cait.”
She ripped the paper open and squealed when she saw the stick of candy. “Molasses candy, Mama. Look!”
“You can only have a small piece now, Cait, or it will spoil your supper. Now go see how the kittens in the barn are doing. Maybe their eyes are open today.”
Elizabeth had seen the folded newspaper on top of the other packages in Michael’s arms.
“Is there news, Michael? Has the Peace Commission made a decision? Can they go home?”
Michael dropped everything on the table and picking up the newspaper, read from the front page, “Treaty signed 6/1/68. The Navajo Indians who have suffered for four years at the hands of former governor Carleton are to be returned to their homeland.”
“Oh, Michael, is it really over?”
“It is over, Elizabeth. And the same newspaper that four years ago was calling them ‘vermix carletonious’ is now happy to be seeing them go home. They are on their way by now, Elizabeth, for the newspaper is two weeks old.”
Elizabeth was laughing and then crying all at once and Michael drew her close, bending his own tear-streaked face over her hair, and murmuring into her ear, “There, there.”
She clung to him and he guided her out of the kitchen and onto the sofa in the adjoining room. There they sat, her head resting on his arm, their fingers intertwined.
“Oh, Michael, it has been a long four years. We’ve struggled to make a living, but at least we have had a home and shelter. I’ve been so happy most of the time, but all along I’ve felt the price of my happiness has been Serena and Antonio’s exile.”
“I know, Elizabeth. I’ve felt the same. And helpless to change things. It has seemed such a pitiful gesture each time we have sent them anything.”
“I am sure your letters to Washington helped.”
“Perhaps, but it is more likely they were buried under all the paperwork,” he said with an ironic smile. “I think ‘tis that they were meant to return home. Of course, from what the article says of the treaty, Dinetah is considerably smaller than it was. And they will have to be supplied with sheep and goats, for their own herds were so reduced.”
“Can we go back, Michael?” Elizabeth asked. “I would so love to see the canyon again. To find Antonio and Serena and see how they have survived.”
“We will do that someday, Elizabeth.”
Dinetah, June 1869
The sun was beating down on their heads as they approached the mouth of the canyon. Although they had tried to travel in the early morning and the late afternoon and rest during the heat of the day, they were all exhausted. Elizabeth looked back under the wagon’s canopy and smiled at the sight of their daughter curled up against Orion. The dog raised his head and thumped his tail when he saw Elizabeth’s eyes on him.
She touched Michael on his arm and he turned and looked back. “So the wee witch is asleep at last.”
“Michael!” said his wife with mock horror.
“Ye have to admit that she was driving ye mad today.”
Elizabeth sighed. “She did. But she has been so good the whole trip. And this is the last day.”
“Thanks be to God. This has been worse than any cavalry march,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.
They had passed the fort half an hour ago. “Do you miss it, Michael?”
“The army or Fort Defiance?”
“Both, I suppose.”
“I have fond memories of the old fort, Elizabeth. After all, ‘tis where I met a certain snobbish Boston lady,” he added. “But no, I am glad to be out of the army. It seems that raising horses is what I was meant to do.”
“What about raising sheep,” she inquired with a smile.
“ ‘Tis the wooly brainless buggers that pay for the horses, me darlin’.”
“What’s a bugger, Da?” said a tired voice from the back. “Is it like a beetle?”
Michael laughed as Elizabeth exclaimed, “Caitlin!”
“ ‘Tis not a polite word, Cait. Someday when you are older I’ll explain it to ye.”
“Like gob-shite?”
Michael heroically suppressed his laughter and said as seriously as he could, “Yes, Cait, I’ll tell you about that one too.”
“Michael Burke!”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Whatever are you teaching our daughter?”
“I’ll watch me mouth better, I promise you, Elizabeth.”
“Till next time! Now, lie down, Cait. When you have finished your nap, we’ll be there.”
* * * *
Now, here they were, almost to the mouth of the small canyon.
“Do you think they will be there, Michael? Would they have gotten our letters?”
“The letters never came back to us, Elizabeth. And if they have not, well, then, we’ll spend some of our time looking for them.”
As they entered the canyon, Elizabeth kept her eye out for the shrine at the spring.
“There it is, Michael. And look, there are so many prayer sticks and offerings!”
Michael pulled the horses up. “Hold the reins, Elizabeth,” he asked and jumped down. He approached the little pool reverently and watched the feathers fluttering in the breeze. He saw the sun winking off a small metal disk. His medal was still there. He bowed his head and said a silent thank you. For the return of the people and for his own blessings. “Thanks be to you, blessed Mother of us all,” for surely Mary and Changing Woman were one and the same, Mother to bilagaana and Diné alike. “Thanks to you for bringing the people home and thanks to you for bringing me home at last.” For this was his home now, this land of red and yellow sandstone, redolent with green sage. This land which had given birth to many peoples over the years. This land where he had found his soul’s home. And his heart’s, he thought, turning back to Elizabeth.
She was pointing downstream, excitement in her voice. “There they are, Michael, there they are.”
He climbed back up and, arm around his wife, drove slowly toward the figures waiting for them. The stream flowed toward them from the heart of the canyon, purling joyfully over the rocks and sparkling in the sunlight, leading Michael and Elizabeth to the people of the red rock whose home it had been for centuries.
Author’s Note
Transforming historic
al fact into fiction is never easy. This time, my additional challenge was presenting another people’s history and culture accurately and with respect.
Each Navajo is given several names. The “war name,” thought of as the person’s real name, was never used directly and was known only to her family. Another name, a descriptive one, (like “Blue Mule”) was used when talking about others but never in direct address. In introducing oneself one would do so by relationship and clan name.
I wanted to be accurate and respectful, yet not confuse my readers, so I chose a compromise. The Diné were given names by the Mexicans. Barboncito, Manuelito, and Delgadito are all historical figures. Later on, Anglo names like John or Mary were given. These names would be used in direct address in the non-Navajo world. Since I was writing at the time of Spanish usage, I decided to give my main Navajo characters Spanish names that Anglos could use in addressing them. Serena and Antonio and the other Diné in my story only address each other relationally. I am thankful to Barre Toelken’s essay “The Demands of Harmony” for guidance. Any inaccuracies are my own.
I have read several versions of the Navajo Creation Myth. This book would never have been written, however, had I not read Paul Zolbrod’s Diné Bahane ten years ago. It is his version that I heavily depended upon in telling the story of Asdzaa nadleehe, or Changing Woman.
The kinaalda ceremony is detailed in Charlotte Frisbie’s book Kinaalda, I hope the “presence” of many bilagaana readers at the parts I describe will not offend.
Almost all of the incidents in the book, including the story of the horse race, are true and in historical sequence. I am greatly indebted to Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, The Long Walk, and The Book of the Navajo. I took some liberties; for instance, Michael is stationed at a fictional composite of Fort Defiance and Fort Wingate.
For a general sense of what army life was like for women, I am thankful to Army Letters from an Officer’s Wife by Frances Roe. It was her grandmother who said to her: “It is a dreadful thing not to become a woman when one ceases to be a girl.”
I want to thank Elaine Weintraub, a former student of mine, who showed me a newspaper clipping about the Choctaw contribution of $700 to the Irish during the Famine. This story is at the heart of this book, for I believe with Irish President Mary Robinson that the best commemoration of those who suffered and died in the past is to take their suffering “into the present with us, to help others who now suffer in a similar way,” wherever that may be.
This book is for my mother, Marjorie Powers Farrell, who, remembering Irish history, kept her heart open to all the dispossessed.
Copyright © 1996 by Marjorie Farrell
Originally published by Signet (ISBN 0451406788)
Electronically published in 2014 by Belgrave House/Regency
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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.