Nakoa's Woman

by Gayle Rogers

  As they left the river, Maria glanced back at her torn and ragged chemise. Its white lace was soiled with the mud of the riverbank, and for a moment she felt as if she was walking away from herself, the girl who had been a virgin to life. In his gentleness, the Indian had penetrated her as deeply as if he had succeeded in raping her.

  When they returned to the others not a one gave any sign of noticing them. Her captor gestured for her to lie down, and when she did, he lay down beside her. Her face became crimson with humiliation at having to lie beside him upon the ground. He fell almost immediately into an easy sleep, and when the others slept too, Maria studied them all.

  They wore shirts, breechcloths, and leggings, and across their shirts and leggings ran strange black bands. Their clothing was tanned more darkly than any skins she had seen on Indians, and because of their dark clothing, the dyed hair that fringed their shirts and leggings showed up brilliantly. Every one of them carried a knife sheathed in his belt, but Maria noticed some difference in the dress of her captor and the others. He alone wore an ornate pattern of quill bands that ran the breadth of his shoulders and down the length of his sleeves and leggings, and he wore his hair in one queue rather than two braids as the others did. He was clearly the leader of the band and Maria took him to be a chief, but of what tribe she did not know.

  The sun moved its slow course across the bright sky. Maria lay upon her back and watched it, and watched the slow moving of the shadows upon the ground. In time she became drowsy and slept deeply. When she awakened, it was with a start of horror. She had dreamed of drifting down into the depths of an endless sea, and she became crazy in its darkening shadow and wanted to embrace it, forever become a part of it, and never see the sunlight again. She shuddered, gasping for air, savoring its sweetness in large gulps. She lived. She yet lived, and swift and terrible tears came for Ana and her father who did not.

  The Indian beside her still slept. Again Maria studied his handsome face with its tender lips, so incongruous to the complete man. He had no facial hair; she remembered that Indians kept it pulled with tweezers. In his sleep, the Indian’s hand moved, and she studied his fingers. They were long and slender. His nails were clean, pink, smooth, and tapered without any bluntness. As she was watching his hand, it moved and brushed against her. Swiftly, she sat up, and he sat up too, his dark eyes meeting her own.

  “Kisipenae—lantamen hec?” he asked her.

  “I don’t understand,” Maria said. “How could I know your language?”

  He held both of his hands before her. “Kewaapami,” he said, and repeated the word again. This was his word for hands, and he waited for her to repeat the word after him. Suddenly the indignity that she had suffered from him that morning came back in overpowering force. A few hours before he had tried to rape her, and now she was supposed to sit meekly by his side and learn his language!

  “Nhikas,” he said, indicating his fingernails. “Nhikas,” he repeated, still patient with her.

  “Shtinkas,” she said stupidly.

  “Nhikas!” he said, frowning.

  “Pinkas!” she answered promptly.

  He pointed to his fingers. “Ohkitchis,” he said.

  “Rinkas!” she said. He frowned. “Rinkas!” she repeated belligerently.

  “Ohkitchis!” he said furiously.

  “Shtinkas!”

  “Nhikas!”

  “Shtinkas!” They glared at each other, and the language lesson came to an abrupt end as he got up and left her.

  Maria smiled to herself and stretched out upon the ground. It did not take her long to go back to sleep. When she awakened it was late afternoon, and she was very hungry. She thought gleefully of all of the ways that she could vex the Indian; let him see what an idiot he had found for a wife! A strong wind was building in the pines; the night would be cold. Shivering, she looked around for him. To her amazement, she saw that the Indians were eating. Well, savages would eat before a woman did. She had always heard that a wife to them was not as valuable as a horse. Getting colder in her thin dress, she watched them consume their meal, and she thought that they would never stop. They ate on and on and on; her captor seemed to be relishing his food. He saw her watching him, and bringing his food, sat down by her, and continued eating.

  Her stomach began to growl. Saliva gathered expectantly in her mouth, and she had to swallow again and again to keep herself from

  “Oh, I am the belle of the ball!” Maria said to herself bitterly. She looked beyond the shelter of the trees. How many more nights would they ride? Where, oh God, could he be taking her?

  Her captor suddenly touched her arm, and she started away from him violently. He moved like a cat, without any noise at all. He had placed another robe upon the ground, and upon it he had placed an assortment of food. “La lematahpi,” he said, indicating that she should sit down.

  There was the mixture of meat and berries, but there was something else that looked crisp and delicious, some kind of meat that had been cooked and smoked by itself. Almost joyous with relief, she reached eagerly for the food. He restrained her hands, and she stared up at him, dumbfounded. “You told me to eat!” she said. Was he going to torture her again? The idea of starving herself to death had vanished entirely. Stubbornly, she reached for the food again, but he slapped her hand smartly with the back of his knife. Murderously, she flew at his face, aching to claw its smooth surface, but he slapped her own, sending her spinning away from the food. Like a whipped animal she crept back, and sitting by it, began to weep. How could an Indian be smart enough to be such a tyrant? Between sobs, she saw him waiting patiently. He had not touched the food, so it was meant for her. Wiping her face, she quieted and looked at him.

  He held his hands before her face. “Nhikas,” he said quietly. The language lesson! Nhikas, the word for fingernails. Maria swallowed hard, and after studying the food carefully couldn’t fight any more.

  “Nhikas,” she said sullenly.

  “Kewaapami,” he said clearly, again showing her that the word meant hands.

  “Kewaapami” Maria repeated.

  “Nkitenenc,” he said for fingers.

  She repeated the word and learned the rest of the words he wanted her to. The lesson went on and on, and for the words she learned, she was tested and retested. Satisfied with her progress, he at last indicated that she could eat, and while she did so, he never took his eyes from her face.

  She ate everything that he had given her. When she finished, he signaled that water was nearby by cupping his hand, putting it to his mouth, and pointing to a meadow a short distance from them.

  She got up and left him, and he made no move to follow her. At the spring she drank thirstily. All of the Indians remained at their camp, giving her privacy, and in spite of the miserable morning, she bathed herself. When she returned to the Indians, her captor was riding away with two of them. Two were left to guard her and one of them indicated a crude bed that had been made for her. She lay upon it, falling to sleep almost immediately. When she awakened finally, it was later, much later. It was now raining hard and water was dripping down upon her face from the thick branches overhead. But it was not the rain that had awakened her, and remembering what it was, she gathered the robe around her, and got up with wild hope racing in her heart. She had heard the firing of a rifle.

  Chapter Four

  These Indians didn’t have guns; even the Snakes hadn’t had guns. The firing of a rifle could only mean that a white man, or several white men were near! “Dear God, let it be! Let it be!” Maria prayed wildly. White men were close enough for her to hear the firing of their rifles! Clutching the robe to her, she raced to the bay.

  “Hai-yah!” one of the Indians shouted, but she ran on anyway. He came after her, caught her, and when she screamed he gagged her with his palm. She struggled against him desperately, hampered by the clumsiness of her robe, as it slipped away from her shoulders.

  “Ah-meeteh!” a voice said low and savagely. Maria looked up i
nto the enraged eyes of her captor who still sat upon his horse. His knife was drawn and upon it beads of water collected and fell off like colorless drops of blood. Rain was streaming upon Maria’s hair and naked breasts, and she drew the robe hastily around her. His face was wild. She looked up at him, dumb with fear and blinking through the driving rain.

  Her assailant started to speak, but his leader leaped upon him, driving him helplessly down upon his back. Immediately, the other Indian who had stayed with Maria intervened, talking rapidly to Maria’s captor and holding back his knife hand. In time, that awful hand stilled its struggle, the rage and savagery left the awful face, and Maria’s captor released the Indian he had held helpless beneath him. Not one word did he say. Instead, his black eyes swung to Maria and she was overwhelmed with fresh terror of him. How could she have fought him in anything? How had she defied a beast so hungry for the letting of blood, so quick with a knife, so eager to kill even one of his own kind?

  Fearfully, she went to her bed, and hid her head under her robe, listening to the rain beating against the skins and her own heart beating in terror. She felt his presence, felt him lie beside her in their bed and take a part of the robe that covered her nakedness to cover himself. She was facing away from him, cringing and desperately trying to keep from shaking. He did not touch her. He was quiet and seemed to sleep, and at last she relaxed, and stretched out her cramped legs. He suddenly turned her upon her back, and taking the robe from both of their heads, studied her face. She made no struggle for she knew what he sought. He wanted to know if she had seduced the man he had almost killed, and Maria knew with certainty that if she had, her captor would know it, and if he saw this upon her face, he would probably kill her. She was his and in his awful way he would have her and she would be possessed in his darkness or would die. Maria met his eyes without flinching. She had sought only escape. Without a word to her then, he turned away, and finally they both slept, their bodies bringing warmth to each other.

  In sleep they met, and while Maria remained in drugged sleep the man awakened and saw in her body a desire for total consummation that made him nothing beside it. He had lain with naked women before, but never had he felt a desire like the one that overpowered him now. He wanted to kiss and caress every part of her, and yet he knew that he wanted her too strongly to have her when she was not ready for him. Deprivation had long been part of his training to be a man, and now this was no different. While she slept he kept his lips from her, and he kept himself from going inside of her, but gently he caressed every part of her anyway, and the lightness of his touch and the continuance of her sleep was the sweetest agony he had ever known.

  And while she slept, Maria again sought the waters, but now they were golden green, and much closer to the sun she had always known. She drifted happily in them, but not crazily. She could go to their depths, but ascend at will, and in union with blackness she was free and was nothing and everything. Lightly the waters caressed her breasts, her throat, her lips. Her long black hair floated out lazily behind her. She circled and dove and came joyously up behind it, her lovely black hair floating so happily in the warm waters. The winds were all still. Shadows of cool caverns were far below, where she might go some day, if she so wished. But here the lips of the waters were sweeter than wine, than flowers in the spring; and here she would linger and let the wondrous lips find all of her, and in a miracle, find and meet them. She could draw the waters inside of her too. She would lie upon her back and accept them as a woman lies upon her back and accepts a man; and in accepting she would be nothing, for she would accept so much that she herself would be gone.

  The man who had held her so gently felt her response, the swelling of her breasts, the quickening of an excited heart, and he kissed her mouth long and hungrily, only to see her eyes open in startled and wounded fear. The heat that had flashed over him at the touch of her lips beneath his own left him weak and shaken, and the terror upon her face made him sick. In real pain, he left her in the warmth of the robe and sought her dress. It was dry enough for her to wear, and taking it to her, he left it there for her to put on. He watched her as she struggled to dress under the robe and smiled in spite of himself. When she was dressed, she lay down and pretended to sleep. He knew that she did not sleep, for he detected tears upon her cheeks. He fought a trembling within himself again, so desperately did he want to go to her and kiss them away.

  And so I live, Maria thought bitterly. My heart beats, and my stomach accepts food, my lungs seek air, and all of this allows me to live so that animal can rape me today, tomorrow, and forever, or as long as I shall live.

  Remembering the sound of the rifle she thought that if a white man had been in this area, he was gone now, and so was all opportunity of her escape. She knew now that the remainder of her life rested upon the discretion of this one man, this Indian, godless, and to her even nameless, whom she would be reluctant ever to defy again.

  For twelve more nights they rode toward the great North Star, and for twelve more days they slept hidden in the protective shelter of the woods. They crossed a chain of mountains and then took to the prairie once more.

  After the third night the Indian allowed her to ride the bay alone, and never again did he tie her hands. He gave her strict privacy when she bathed in the streams and rivers, but she was forced to go on with her language lessons or she would not receive food.

  All day, they continued to sleep side by side, and with this contact, a change grew between them. He and the others bathed as much as she did; they dispelled for her the myth that all Indians were dirty. His hair was always neatly oiled, his nails clean. Lying beside him, she remembered the clean masculine smell of Anson and how she had thrilled at being kissed by him.

  The Indian grew more handsome to her each day. When he studied her in his intent way she felt her face color. She had been master of Anson with all of his strength, but here was a new strength that she knew she could not control. Yet, she wanted to look at him seductively; she was secretly glad that her breasts were full, her waist was tiny and her hips softly rounded. She suddenly was overwhelmingly glad that she was beautiful. Her mind returned to the morning that he had tried to rape her, but in her memory his assault became more gentle, and she felt a wrenching inside of herself.

  Yet, as attraction grew between them, he became reserved and distant with her. He could have forced her a hundred times already, but he didn’t even attempt to kiss her again.

  Upon the next to the last morning of their travel she walked to their bed when she had finished bathing. Long before she could clearly see his face, she felt his eyes upon her, and she felt a violent hammering of her heart. Hot color suffused her face and traveled down to her throat. When she got closer to him, the intensity of him made her feel the most seductive woman in the world. She lay down beside him. He is a savage; why doesn’t he act like one? her whole soul cried out in anguish. If he would seize her this time she could still pretend it was against her will and have the ecstasy of his caress and the superiority of her civilization too.

  They were alone; the others had gone. Their eyes met and held, but she couldn’t read the depths of his. She could feel her breasts straining against the tightness of her dress. She lay perfectly still and yet surrendered to him as the summer earth turns to the first rains. A squirrel fled noisily from one tree to another; birds were singing happily and excitedly. She half-closed her eyes and saw his lips near hers and then they kissed. One kiss, and now she did not struggle against him at all, but closed her lashes tightly and savored the hard lean pressure of him. She ached to embrace him, to touch him with her hands, but she could not abandon the role of a captive and so she remained passive though her heart leaped wildly with her body’s desire to hold him to herself until they had satisfied their longing with each other.

  He drew away from her gently, and when she opened her eyes he placed his hand over her fast-beating heart, then he took her hand and held it to his own breast so they both would know the e
ffect of their kiss upon each other. His eyes smiled and they were shining with new light. They lay together under the robe, and almost immediately, he fell into his tranquil and easy sleep. Anson Frederich, sweet, gentle, civilized, and well bred, was a dear memory, but his masculinity had faded as if he had been killed years before.

  Upon the thirteenth day they did not rest, but pushed on through the vast green land that stretched ahead of them. The prairie rippled under the wind like the flowing of green water. Bees hummed thickly in the air. In the wooded valleys, elk and deer suddenly bounded from the shadows and glinted for just a moment in the sunlight before disappearing again. Out upon the open plains once more, they rode through miles of wild flowers, purple lupines, yellow sunflowers, and white shooting stars. The earth exuded a warm fragrance and Maria was caught in it, every throbbing part of it, and when she looked back at the Indian, his eyes instantly met hers.

  At dusk they reached the Indian village. Maria’s joy fled with the light of the vanishing day and terror began to fill her heart. The mountains loomed behind her with a terrible foreboding. She was suddenly a gnat trapped into nothingness against them. She was a white woman, a captive of Indians whose savagery she did not even begin to know. Drums began to beat from a distance, or was it the pounding of her helpless heart?

  They had halted their horses upon a butte overlooking two rivers that gleamed with the light of the paling sky. Not far from the south bank of one of the rivers lay two circles of tipis, one circle inside the other. From them, Maria could hear the faint tinkling of bells and the sharp cry of a baby. To the southwest of the camp lay a large lake and it, too, reflected the twilight. Maria began to shiver. It was the time that the wagon train had died, the time of day before the awful night when all the wagons were burned away.