Then the Indians charge into the fort, pouring through the open gate. A few of them roughly seize her cousin Rachel, who clutches her baby, James, in her arms. Silas is suddenly galvanized into action and rushes to help the shrieking, struggling Rachel. Moments later Silas lies dead and Rachel and the baby are being dragged away.
"Come! Hurry, Cynthia Ann! John! Oh, hurry—hurry!" Her mother is screaming, sobbing, trying to drag the girl and her two brothers and the baby away from the howling Indians, toward the small rear gate. She sees her grandparents and Rachel's mother running that way, too.
But several Indians, their horses snorting and stomping, Surround the five of them, and thrusting their bloody tomahawks in her mother's face, force her to let go of the girl. She is dragged away from her wailing mother and thrown on a horse behind a snarling, almost naked warrior. The man yells something, and she sees her brother John being seized and put on another horse. The captors wheel and dash out of the stockade. The dust is so thick she can scarcely see, but she does recognize her father's body and then her uncle Benjamin's as the horses gallop over them.
Blood is everywhere.
At first she is too terrified to cry out, to scream, to do anything. She looks back as her captor rides away from the fort and sees two warriors scalping the bodies of her father and her grandfather. Other Indians are running through the cabins, stealing and plundering, grabbing whatever weapons and ammunition they can find. Some of them are setting fire to the fields and outbuildings. In a frenzy of killing and destruction they slaughter some of the animals but leave others. What has happened to her mother and the others? There is no sign of them.
Then she sees the Indians rip open the feather mattresses from the beds with their spears. The last thing she sees is the feathers swirling through the air, thick as snow. She thinks about that afterward: it has been a long time since she last saw snow.
THE INDIANS AND THEIR CAPTIVES ride half the night. For a while she is too dazed to do anything. Her tongue is swollen with thirst, but she dozes a little, slumped against her captor's back. When they stop and make camp on the open prairie, someone ties her hands together behind her back, lashes her feet with leather thongs, and flings her onto the rough ground near the fire.
The Indians dance around them, yelling and shaking something in her face, something made from white hair. After a moment she realizes that it is her grandfather's scalp, and she turns her head away. One of the Indians strikes her with his wooden bow and forces her to look. They kick her and beat her. Once she catches a glimpse of her brother John, his eyes huge with fear and pain, and she hears the cries of Rachel's baby. After a while, the baby's cries grow weaker and then stop altogether. Is he dead, she wonders?
Throughout the long night the torment continues. Then for a time it is relatively quiet while the Indians rest, and she falls into an exhausted sleep.
At first light she is jerked awake again and thrust on a horse behind a warrior, but she is not certain if he is the same savage or a different one. She begs for food or at least something to drink, but he refuses and slaps her when she cries.
This is how it goes on day after day, night after night: a long, hard ride with nothing to eat and only enough to drink to allow her to survive, followed by a long night of abuse as the Comanches continue to celebrate their victory at Parker's Fort.
All that keeps her alive through those days is her concern for her brother John, six years old, his face and body swollen with purplish bruises. Mama always told her she must look out for him. Her own body looks much the same, and she knows that her face must also be distorted from the blows she has received. They are still alive—but who will ever come to save them?
And what has happened to Rachel and the baby, James? And to Aunt Elizabeth? They disappeared, and she does not know if they are dead or alive, or if they have simply been taken away. She looks around frantically for her brother to reassure herself that he is still here, that she is not entirely alone.
And then he is gone, too. The group has split and taken him away.
The terror does not end. She is a slave, she understands that. When she weeps in misery and loneliness for her mama and papa and the rest, they beat her. She learns to hide her tears, to present a stoic face.
After a time she is sent to live with some people in the tribe, Speckled Eagle and his wives, Calls Louder and Walking At Night. She has to serve them, do whatever they demand. Speckled Eagle doesn't beat her, but the women do, slapping her and hitting her with a stick whenever she does something wrong, or she is too slow, or they feel like it. She has to work hard, carrying water, gathering wood, doing much harder work than the sons and daughters of Speckled Eagle and his wives. She learns not to complain, that it only makes things worse.
Time passes. Her wounds and bruises heal. She begins to understand what is being said to her. She learns to answer in their words. Her body grows taller and stronger. They begin to treat her better.
Then she becomes a woman and goes to stay in the tipi of the women who are in their period. She discovers that she likes being there with them.
It is soon after that time when the white traders come and try to speak to her. Their words sound strange. She can't think what to say to them. There are things she wants to ask, things she wants to say, but she is afraid—afraid of what they will do, afraid of what the People will do. Besides, something has begun to change inside her. She is no longer a terrified child. She is a woman. And no longer a slave, but one of the People. She has begun to find her place among the People. Gradually she stops thinking about the bad things that happened to her.
In the beginning she thought all the time about running away. She made plans—that someday her chance would come, and she would go back to her home and her family. That is what the traders want her to do; she understands that.
But her home is destroyed; her family dead. She pictures again her father lying in a pool of blood, her uncle Benjamin with a spear through his chest, her grandfather's white scalp that was part of their dance those first horrible nights. She sees once more the terror on her mother's face. Surely they killed her mother, too, and the other children. And who knows what has become of John? She remembers the snow of feathers, drifting through the warm spring air, and confusion rises in her heart.
Where would she go then, with neither home nor family? She has no idea. What would these white traders do with her, where would they take her? Could they give her a better life than the one she has? The People have taken away her old life as cruelly as they took away her family. But they have also given her a new life. Hard as it is, she is afraid of losing what she has now. She knows that she cannot survive away from the People, so she says nothing, only stares at the ground. The traders go away.
The seasons pass, one after another. She marries. She bears children. She lives among the People, sharing their life. It becomes her life. The white drift of feathers comes to her only in dreams, swirling around the faces of her mama and papa and the others, like snowflakes.
The river of Sinty-ann's memory flowed strongly all through the night. She leaned against a tree trunk, eyes open and staring, seeing again the scenes of long ago in vivid clarity.
Then she saw something else: the golden eyes of a cat, all black except for those eyes, watching her from the limb of a tree. A panther, hunting for food. She knew this animal: if it was hungry, it would kill a human. She knew that this panther was not from her memory but from right now. But she was not afraid. This panther would not harm her. This was her puha, her power.
Shakily she got to her feet and spoke to the panther in the language of the People. She told him that she knew he had brought her medicine, and she thanked him. Then she turned her back on him and began to make her way slowly through the wilderness; the big cat gliding silently from branch to branch through the trees above her.
Chapter Fifteen
From Lucy's journal, August 10, 1861
I shall never forget last night as long as I live.
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Cynthia Ann had been gone for three days. Mama and Ben believed that she had found a horse, perhaps a wild one, and was already far away. (It seems there is no horse she cannot ride, and astride, as men do, not sidesaddle.) Papa and Martha had another opinion, that she had been killed by some wild animal. Whichever way it was, Jedediah claimed we were well rid of her, and Grandfather was not yet back from Dallas to disagree and set things right.
But I knew in my heart that she was somewhere in the woods, in some hidden break or draw or thicket, able in her Indian way to endure the storm that stripped the pears from Mama's tree, and able to remain completely still and undetected while Papa and Ben and Jed might have passed within inches of her.
At last I could stand it no longer and determined to go in search of my cousin. I would take Prairie Flower with me, trusting that the sound of the little girl's voice would draw her mother out of hiding. But I dared not tell anyone my plan, especially Mama. Her time is nearly here for the birth of our new baby sister or brother, and she is nervous and rather delicate. Papa has not stayed out searching for Cynthia Ann as long as he might, saying that his place is with Mama. I cannot disagree—but whose place is with Cynthia Ann?
During the night I awoke to the sound of Prairie Flower's quiet sobs—she missed her mother dreadfully, partly, I suppose, because she is still nursing. Or was, until Mama gave her milk from our cow, Lulu, in a small cup. She took to that quite readily, but I think she misses the closeness of her mother.
And so I got up to soothe her, walking her to and fro to keep her sobs from waking the others. The nights now are very hot, and we have taken our pallets out on the gallery to sleep where there is a breeze. I stepped carefully over the sprawling figure of my brother Ben, and tiptoed past Sarah and James. I could make out Mama's rounded shape curled next to my father's long, skinny form.
Without much thought to what I was doing, I carried Prairie Flower across the yard and led Boots, Mama's gentle old bay with its two white stockings, quietly out of the shed. When we reached the edge of the clearing I set the sleepy Prairie Flower on Boots's back and used a fence rail to mount, and finally we were on our way.
There was not much of a moon, and what there was hung so low in the sky that it offered scarcely any light. I gave Boots a free rein, since I did not have any plan as to where we would go, and let her pick her way through the thick, dark greenness however she wished.
I thought it would be difficult to get Prairie Flower awake and talking, but it was not. The child was born to be on a horse! She seemed delighted to wake up and find herself riding through the woods, and soon she was chattering merrily, as though this were the most ordinary thing in the world to do.
I had not had the presence of mind to fetch along any food or water, and soon Prairie Flower began to whimper. I myself grew weary as the night wore on, as well as hungry and thirsty. I began to realize how foolish I had been.
Never have I defied my parents and done that which they have strictly forbidden me to do. But what they did not know, they could not forbid, I told myself, knowing I would never have been given permission for this undertaking. I trusted Boots to find our way back, although I had no idea where we were, but I did not want to return without Cynthia Ann. And so we plodded on, forcing our way through the thick growth. Branches slapped at our faces. The darkness began to fade to a grayish light.
Presently Prairie Flower ceased whimpering and began to wail. We reached a small clearing and stopped to rest. I had begun to think we must turn back defeated when I made out a bedraggled figure stumbling toward us. Overjoyed, I prepared to call out, "Cynthia Ann! Here we are!" But the words stuck in my throat, for at that moment I saw, stalking silently behind her, a panther, black as Satan's heart. He seemed in no hurry to attack, taking his time.
Boots sensed the danger and stopped short, ears flattened back. For a moment we stared at each other, I at the panther, the panther at the horse, the child, and the foolish girl. Cynthia Ann kept on walking slowly toward us, unaware of the danger.
I am a fair shot. Papa saw to that, teaching all of us to handle a rifle as soon as we were big enough to hold one. Martha is excellent and before she met Jedediah liked to hunt squirrels and rabbits with Ben, who does quite well with his one good arm. They did not like to take me with them because I was "too young." But then Martha got to be "too old," I guess. She is much different now that she is about to become somebody's wife, and she no longer wants to go hunting with her brother. Martha could have dropped the panther easily. And so could I, but I had not thought to bring Papa's gun.
And then, from somewhere behind me, or off to the side, a rifle cracked, and the beautiful but deadly creature dropped in its tracks. I spun around and saw my brother Ben, sitting on his horse. He made no move to come to us, but I slid down from Boots and ran eagerly toward Cynthia Ann, pulling her little girl after me, happy to see her again and certain that she would be grateful that Ben had saved her life.
Instead, she turned her face away from me and covered it with her hands. Perhaps, I thought, she is distraught from her ordeal—tired, hungry, thirsty, tormented by insects. But she lowered her hands and stared at the dead animal. Then she turned to me with stark, haunted eyes. "Puha," she said. "He did not mean to, Lucy, but he has killed my puha."
I did not understand, still do not, and had no idea what to say and so I said nothing. She was weak and trembling, and after a time she accepted my offer to ride back on Boots. It astounds me, the grace with which she can mount a horse, even when she is exhausted! And then I handed up to her the tired and grumpy Prairie Flower, who curled up in her mother's arms and promptly fell asleep.
When I turned around again, Ben was gone. Our small procession, Boots with her two riders and I, made its way back to the cabin. I was certain the worst for me was yet to come: facing Mama and Papa. But there was no chastisement; they were too busy to take much notice, for Mama's time had come.
As I write this, her labor pains have begun and Papa has ridden off to fetch Mrs. Bigelow to help. Martha is with her now, and she has told me, in that way my sister has now that she is about to be married, that I must stay with the children because I have, once again, behaved like one.
Chapter Sixteen
"You go," Sinty-ann said firmly. "I stay with your mama."
Martha glared at Sinty-ann. "I'm staying until Mrs. Bigelow gets here. That's who Mama wants to be with her. She doesn't want you, Sinty-ann. It's not your place." She sounded nervous and upset.
"Not your place," Sinty-ann replied calmly. "I have borne children; you have not. It is the place of mothers to help each other."
She could see that Martha didn't really want to be there with her mother. Anna Parker had been in labor since before sunrise; not long for a young, strong woman, but a long time for a woman Anna's age, the same as Sinty-ann's. Martha was frightened; she was not used to birthing. They had sent the wrong one away, Sinty-ann thought; young as she was, Lucy would not be nervous. If she was frightened, she would not show it. She would be calm and do whatever had to be done.
"It's all right," Anna said to Martha. "You go."
At last Martha left them alone, and Sinty-ann looked down at the woman in the bed. "You will have the baby here, in this cabin?" she asked.
"Certainly," Anna answered wearily. "Where would you have me go?" Her eyes were ringed with dark circles.
A Nerm woman did not have her baby in her tipi. Instead, she went to a hut that she had built of brush with a comfortable bed of moss. Two stakes were driven into the ground beside the bed to hold onto and a pit made for a small fire to heat water. There would have been a supply of sage to burn to purify the hut. There was just room enough inside for a couple of women to attend her. No men were allowed near, although if there were problems with the birth they sent for a medicine man. But Nerm women were strong, and usually all went well.
Sinty-ann pulled up a low stool and sat down beside the bed. There was nothing to be done for now; she could tell
that the baby was not ready to be born just yet. Sinty-ann had had nothing to eat for several days; she was hungry and thirsty, as well as tired. But she would stay with Anna now, for Anna needed her.
She stayed by Anna's side, wondering if she dared to sing the doleful, monotonous songs that the women of the People always sang in the birthing huts. She guessed not. As in most everything, these white people had a different way of doing things, even having babies.
Suddenly things changed. She could tell by the difference in the sounds Anna made. "It's coming," Anna whispered.
Sinty-ann nodded and quietly went about helping the baby to slide into the world.
In a little while she held up the baby for his mother to see. "He is a good boy," she said. She cleaned the baby and wrapped him snugly in the white cloths Anna pointed out to her. She tucked the baby in close to his exhausted mother. Then she went out to tell the others the news.
In the distance she could see Isaac coming with Mrs. Bigelow. She smiled to herself; Mrs. Bigelow would have little to do now. She looked around for Uncle, the baby's grandfather. He is the one who should be given the traditional announcement: "It is your close friend." That is how the news of a son was always given. A girl would have been announced more simply, "It is a girl," because boys were of course preferred. And then the women who had been singing the melancholy songs would change to a joyous tune. But there was no telling how these people did such things.
Instead of the grandfather, Lucy was the first one to receive the news. She had been hovering outside the cabin with Sarah and James and Prairie Flower. The little girls had their dolls, and James was—well, it was not clear what James was doing. Teasing them, probably. When her sons were the age of James, they had their own ponies; they were busy playing games that would teach them how to be warriors. They were not hanging around the house, watching girls play with their dolls, and teasing them.
Where the Broken Heart Still Beats Page 8