Where the Broken Heart Still Beats

by Carolyn Meyer

  His long hair was parted in the middle and tied into two bunches, and he had painted a streak of yellow through his part. The scalp lock, combed from the crown of his head, was tied with eagle feathers. One side of his face was painted blue; the other side was decorated with yellow and white stripes. She was well pleased with him.

  They nodded to each other, smiling, and she felt sure that he was pleased with her, too. She followed him to his tipi. Now she was his wife. She would carry his shield when the camp was moved and make certain it was in its place outside the entrance to their tipi. She was proud of the scalps on Peta Nocona's shield, a sign that he was a great warrior.

  But, like Crooked Leg, she had not realized how much work it was to be a wife, even though she had seen the women in her own family who seemed never to stop from the moment they awakened in the morning until they fell asleep at night. And there were two wives to please her father! Two of them—plus their own daughters—to prepare all the food and make all the clothes starting with the animal's skin, two of them to make the tipi covers and prepare for moving the camp and setting everything up in a new place, two of them to wait on him and tend to his wishes!

  Each of Speckled Eagle's wives had her own tipi where she and her children slept. At night she tied a long leather thong to her wrist. The thong ran from her bed to her husband's, so that he could summon her whenever he wished during the night by yanking on it.

  But Naduah was Peta Nocona's only wife, sharing his tipi with him and their children until their sons were old enough to move to their own separate tipis. There were times when she would have given a great deal for another wife to help her with her work, never imagining that someday her work would be taken away from her. Or that one day she would be making loaves of bread for this white family.

  The first time Naduah saw the white women making bread, she had been astonished. It still seemed strange to watch the ball of dough swell up; when she punched it down, it would always rise again. What was this living thing that grew in the bowl? There was something in the dough that she did not understand, although they tried to explain it to her. It must be a spirit of some kind, she decided, like the spirits that dwelled in wild animals and in trees and rivers and hills. The People would be interested in this. She would take some to them, when she went back.

  Making bread was the one thing she really liked to do. She enjoyed the taste of it, too. But it was the smell of it baking that summoned the memories of when she was very young, like Sarah, before she came to the People. Her mother had taught her to make this bread. In fact, had she not been making bread on that morning when—? When what? Her mind always went blank. She could not remember what it was that happened that morning—only the bread and its familiar, delicious smell.

  As Loo-see stitched on her quilt and talked about her sister's wedding, Naduah patted the dough into loaves. She kept an eye on Topsannah, dressed in strange white people's clothes, playing white people's games with white children. How could her daughter learn the things she needed to know in order to be a wife of the People when both of them were prisoners here, so far from home?

  The idea of escaping was never far from Naduah's mind. Her first attempt had been foolish; she had not planned carefully enough, and, of course, they had caught up with her and brought her back. After that there was always someone watching her—usually Loo-see during the day and the others taking turns at night—to make sure she did not try again. But time had passed, and they were no longer so careful. The days and nights were mild now, and she had the buffalo robe for protection if she needed it.

  She knew well enough how dangerous such a journey would be. The main problem was food. Another was water. She would take what she could, but if the search for the People was long, there would be nothing more to eat when that food was gone. The cold weather was past, but this was still long before the plum bushes and grapevines and persimmon trees would bear fruit or the roots and bulbs and plants of the prairie would begin to grow. The People called this "The Season When Babies Cry for Food," because it was the time when their supply of buffalo jerky and pemmican was nearly exhausted, and all of them were hungry.

  Even if she were well supplied, which way should she go? Some of the People could read the stars. Although she sometimes stared at the night skies above the cabin, they told her nothing. She would, she decided, ride in the direction of the setting sun where she would eventually find her way back to the People. Or they would find her.

  And if she died out there on the vast, empty plains, it was better than dying here.

  Chapter Nine

  From Lucy Parker's journal, March 21, 1861

  No sooner do I begin to feel more confident about Cynthia Ann, that she is truly finding contentment here among her family, than something terrible happens.

  She ran away again. It was much the same as the last time—only this time she took Grandfather's gelding from the shed and two other horses, not ours. She took her buffalo robe, of course, and she supplied herself with several loaves of bread—she has learned to make it, and very good it is, too—and some jars of Mama's preserves. And, oddly enough, she also took our can of starter, as though she planned to bake more bread on her journey. Where she thought she would find flour, I cannot say.

  This time the weather was favorable—we are having a dry spring, for once—and she left no tracks. But she rode into the Bigelows' farm ten miles west of here and made off with two of his horses! The dogs set up a clamor, and Mr. Bigelow pursued her and after a long chase managed to capture her when her horse stepped into a hole. He told us when he brought her back that she fought like a wildcat. That was five days ago. At this moment she appears so subdued, so calm, that I cannot believe she bit and scratched him, although he claims to have the marks to prove it.

  Mama and Martha are quite beside themselves over this, but Grandfather says that we must forgive her and pray for her. So there is much prayer going on in our household, for patience for ourselves as much as anything. Frankly she does appear to be completely heathen and is unmoved by our efforts. She has forgotten that her own father's father, Elder John Parker, actually founded a church in Illinois and brought it here to Texas, that had it not been for Elder John and his faith, she would not be here at all.

  At least it was not while I was watching her that she ran away. Papa fell asleep when it was his turn to guard her through the night!

  Two days ago a Mr. A. F. Corning arrived from Fort Worth with his camera. He had heard about Cynthia Ann—our cousin is very famous in these parts now, the Rescued Captive—and wanted to make a photograph of her. I tried to explain to her what was happening, but how does one go about explaining such a thing?

  At any rate, she sat on a bench (not on the buffalo robe!), and while Mr. Corning was preparing to make his portrait, Topsannah crawled up on Cynthia Ann's lap to nurse. Cynthia Ann obligingly opened her shirtwaist and the child began to suck. Mama has not been able to persuade Cynthia Ann that she should not nurse the child in public; in this matter she is truly like an animal and thinks nothing of baring her breast, no matter who is present. "She is hungry," Cynthia Ann said, and we were so pleased at her English that we could not be displeased by her behavior.

  Mama felt that this was not a fit subject for a photograph, but Mr. Corning seemed quite charmed by the maternal scene and captured it, despite my mother's protests. Mama announced that this so-called portrait will not be displayed in our home, but Grandfather has suggested that it be framed so that only Cynthia Ann's head and shoulders may be seen.

  On top of all this, there is even more excitement. Cynthia Ann has been invited to journey to Austin next month to a meeting of the legislature, where she will be recognized by the State of Texas as the most famous of the captive women. We plan to accompany her, and since I have never traveled so far from home, I am in a fever of anticipation.

  Mrs. Richard Bigelow—the one whose horses were stolen—and Mrs. Nathaniel Raymond and Mrs. John Henry Brown, all Birdville neighbor
s, have begun to come by each day to help get her ready. They are making her a handsome cloak of lightweight gray wool trimmed in black soutache and a blue and white silk dress with a pretty white collar. Mrs. Raymond has promised to lend Cynthia Ann a handsome silver brooch to complete the costume. It is quite a sociable atmosphere here at our cabin as the women gather to prepare Cynthia Ann for this great occasion.

  Does she grasp what is happening? I think not. Her mind is so unlike ours. And her sadness seems as deep today as it did when she first came to us two months ago. It seems very odd to me that at one moment Cynthia Ann is trying to run away and we are all occupied in trying to bring her back and keep her here, and the next she is to be honored by our government.

  Grandfather has come up with a fine idea. He has promised Cynthia Ann that if she does her best to learn the language and ways of the white man, she will be allowed to visit her Indian people again. He explained this to her slowly and carefully, and I could see in her eyes that she understood him. That very hour she came and sat beside me—drew up a stool, not her buffalo robe—and said quite plainly, "I learn to speak your way now."

  So naturally we are pleased about this, although Mama does not entirely trust her, and Ben insists it is "another Indian trick." I must admit that they—and Jedediah and, of course, Martha—may be right. Only Grandfather and I truly believe in her, it seems.

  Part II

  Sinty-Ann

  Chapter Ten

  The neighbor women tried to explain it to her, but she had no idea where they were going, or why. Could it be they were taking her back to her People? She dared not hope too much.

  After they had caught her the last time she had tried to ran away, White Hair told her that she could go back to the People—she believed she had understood this—if she would do certain things: she must learn the speech of white people, and she must learn their ways.

  She had thought this over and believed she could do what he wanted, if it meant that she could go home. "For a visit," White Hair said. But once she was with the People again, there would be no question of leaving to come back here. He would see that, and he would not force her. And if he did not understand—no matter. The People would not let her go.

  And so she agreed to his request. Instead of shutting out the white people's words, she listened carefully when they spoke. Especially Loo-see. This was her language in the other time, the time before the People. If she tried, she knew she would be able to remember it.

  Slowly she began to recognize more of their words, and she could make some sense of the strings of sounds that flew at her in a rush. Tentatively she struggled to speak their words, beginning by calling them by their names: Uncle, Anna, Isaac, Ben, Martha, Lucy, Sarah, James. She even began to use their name for her: Sinty-ann. Only to herself was she still Naduah. But she would not call her daughter Tecks Ann. Instead, she called her Prairie Flower, the meaning of Topsannah.

  When the neighbor women came and dressed her in the new clothes they had made her, she tried to tell them that she needed buckskin to make the right kind of clothes to wear on her journey back to the People. But she didn't have all the words to explain, and they paid no attention to her.

  If one of their men would shoot a deer or an antelope and bring her the skin, she would know what to do. She would soak the buckskin in water and ashes and scrape the hair and flesh from it, and she would work it until it was soft and supple, a beautiful color like the yellow fat they made from cow's milk. She knew exactly how to cut the skin with a knife and to stitch the pieces together. She had no buffalo sinew for stitching, but maybe their thread would do, or she could cut narrow strips of buckskin. And she would decorate her dress with fringes and beads so that when she returned to her husband and the rest of the tribe they would see that she was still one of them, unchanged by white ways. When she thought about seeing them again, her heart felt as light as a bird.

  But she realized when they set out in their wagons pulled by plodding horses that they were not traveling north and west toward the plains but were moving south along a broad, hard-packed trail. Her heart sank. They were not going home.

  Several families were making the trip—the Brown family and the Raymond family as well as a number of Parkers—reminding her of the times the People moved their camp. But this was so different!

  When the People moved, as they did very often, it was to be nearer the buffalo or the white settlements they planned to raid or to find a sheltered place for the winter. The chief and a council of elders of the tribe decided when and where to move. Scouts chose the site, looking for a place with plenty of water and forage for the horses.

  It was up to the women to make the preparations. They owned nothing that could not be easily moved; the less you had to carry with you, the better. Everything was packed in tanned hides, the sleeping skins rolled up, the tipi covers taken down from the lodgepoles, the poles pulled up and fastened to the saddles of horses and mules to drag the loads. Young children were tied to saddles on gentle mares or carried in cradleboards on their mothers' backs, the old and feeble rested on drags behind a reliable animal, and everyone else rode a favorite horse.

  They traveled steadily, a long line of horses and people strung out across the prairie, until they had reached the site of the next camp. The women scrambled for position, choosing places in a rough circle around the chiefs lodge. As Peta Nocona's wife, Naduah always had a choice spot.

  Making a new place to live was as quick and simple as leaving the old one. The women helped each other put up the tipis, standing on one another's shoulders to fasten together the tops of the lodgepoles and to tie on the skins. A fire pit was dug, a fire built, cooking begun.

  But these white people! It took days of preparation, packing their clothing in leather-covered wooden boxes that were loaded on the wagons, everything cumbersome and difficult. Sinty-ann rode stoically next to Uncle, Prairie Flower sitting on her lap.

  She understood that Uncle was a brother of her father in the time before the People, and that father was now dead. "Killed by those same Indians that kidnapped you and John," Uncle said. She would not think about that. The mother, the one she remembered bathing her, the one who baked bread, was also dead. Uncle told her she had a sister and brother somewhere to the east. Not John, but another one, named Silas. "John stayed with the Indians," Uncle said. "We hear he married another captive, a little Mexican gal." That was all he would say. She could scarcely remember John or when he had disappeared.

  When they first set out on the journey, everyone was in high spirits, talking and laughing. The sun shone, the breeze was fresh, and all around them little blue flowers bloomed on the rolling green fields.

  "Austin," she heard them say often, and she thought that must be the name of a person. Later she realized Austin was the name of the place they were going. But what was to happen there? Why were they making this trip? She had no idea.

  She heard talk, too, of "secession" and "legislature," but these words were meaningless to Sinty-ann.

  When darkness came they stopped. Two dark-skinned slaves who traveled with them—Negroes, Uncle called them—set up the camp, carried water from a stream, and built a big fire. Why did white men enjoy such large fires while the People made only small ones that could not be seen so easily? The dark men also stood guard while the others slept. At daybreak they continued on their way.

  After several days of travel, which tired everyone, they arrived in Austin. Sinty-ann had never before been in a settlement this large. Fort Worth, a half day's journey from Uncle's farm, was the biggest settlement she had ever seen; she had traveled there once with Uncle and Isaac to buy salt, sugar, and coffee. They called Fort Worth with its muddy central square a town. They called this Austin place a city, "the capital."

  They found accommodations for the entire group in a large cabin with many rooms, some above the others, with steps leading up. A boardinghouse, they called it. Sinty-ann was given a room to share with Lucy and the young children an
d Mrs. Raymond and her two daughters. Lucy and Mrs. Raymond and one daughter took the big wooden bed with its snowy white cover. The children slept in a smaller bed pulled from under the big one, tumbled together like fox kits in a den. Sinty-ann spread her buffalo robe on the floor for herself and Prairie Flower. Ben had stayed behind with the other slaves to protect the farm, and no one seemed to be guarding her. They must have known she would be too frightened of this place to flee.

  After they had had a day to rest themselves, the women dressed Sinty-ann in the blue and white dress with the white collar and Mrs. Raymond's silver brooch. She was still uncomfortable in these awkward clothes, but she knew that the women meant kindly and did not complain.

  Then all but Prairie Flower and the youngest children, who stayed behind with the Negroes, set out together in horse-drawn carriages, which Uncle had hired. The carriages trotted smartly up a road leading to an enormous white building and rolled past a wide expanse of grass. They came to a stop at the broad steps that lead to the entrance with a row of tall, white pillars as thick as trees set across the front. Sinty-ann stared.

  "It's the Texas State Capitol," one of the women said in a voice that trilled with excitement. "Isn't it grand?"

  They walked into a great hall filled with white men who sat in rows listening while other white men spoke. Quietly the visitors took seats near the back, except for Uncle—dressed, Sinty-ann noted, in his finest suit and a black silk necktie. He strode briskly to the front of the hall, where he was greeted as a friend, and spoke privately to one of the men seated at a long table. Some of the men turned around to stare, and a murmur swept through the huge room.

  Sinty-ann watched uneasily. Who were these men? When men gathered like this in the chiefs lodge, it was to discuss matters that concerned the tribe and to make important decisions. Now one of the white chiefs at the table at the front of the hall rose and began to speak. She heard her name, and her apprehension turned to fear.