by Gayle Rogers
“You hate the white man,” Maria said sorrowfully.
“I would never walk in his way. But I do not hate what I cannot accept.”
“Nakoa,” she said, “Your father has been so kind to me. I know that in his heart he likes me. He has already called me daughter, and yet he does not want us to marry.”
“I know this. All of the high chiefs oppose our marrying. I do not know myself if it will be a good marriage.”
“Nakoa!” Maria breathed, stung by his words.
“When our touch is close I am not an Indian, and you are not a white woman. I ache to enter you until I feel pain from it. I look at you now in this firelight and I remember how you looked naked this afternoon. Upon my couch I have awakened in the middle of the night and ached to have you beside me. Twice I have almost entered you. I know that I have to do this. This is all I know!”
Maria kissed the side of his face tenderly.
“But how can such a love bring such pain of the flesh? How can a marriage be good with such an aching in its denial?”
“I don’t know. But in my love for you I will bear all pain as I bear ecstasy,” Maria said.
He gently brushed the hair away from her face and looked at her with tortured eyes. “Culentet, our way will be hard. I know this. I want you and I will have you, but if my feeling for you be love, you might prefer my hate!”
She kissed his hands. “Do you intend to bring me pain?” she asked.
“A man brings a woman pain when he enters her for the first time. And when the loved woman gives birth she may die from what love conceived. Maria, Maria, culentet, you are my sacred Nitsokan, the pathway to my Father, and the power of my feeling for you makes me shake in fear. I would shield you from every pain and I would feel every pain in my rage to have you.” He stopped speaking, overcome with emotion.
Her eyes filled with tears. “I never dreamed that I would love like this,” she replied softly. “It makes you so vulnerable.”
“I know,” he smiled. “My love for you has made me a stranger to myself.”
They leaned back against Maria’s couch, watching the fire. “The white man lives in houses of wood,” he said.
“Yes. And of stone or brick.”
“Can he see the sky as we do—through the smoke hole?”
“He has windows. He sees outside through glass windows.”
“It is not the same. I would not like it.”
“I know. You would not like a house.”
“I would not feel the wind.”
“In winter you might be thankful for this.”
“Our tipis are warm in the coldest winter. Not even in the winter would I be separated from the earth. I love Mother, the earth.”
“I know you do. And when the white man builds his cities he crowds out all of the wild flowers and the trees. There are carriages and wagons and so many people, and the earth that was, is lost.”
“That is very sad that the white man has to live like this.”
“Most don’t live in cities. That is where the trading is done.”
“Why does the white man move from his land of the rising sun across the prairie?”
“He seeks new land because he needs new soil for the food he plants.”
“He hurts the earth?”
“The earth becomes tired from his planting. And he gets restless staying in the same place.”
“Before he moves on he should nurse the earth back to the way it was.”
“This is not important to him. He does not consider the earth sacred.”
“Mother, the earth, is a part of the Great Spirit. The white man is stupid.”
Maria smiled at him tenderly. “The white man rules the world.”
“He does not. No man can rule the world if he can not rule himself, and if he does not respect Mother, the earth, he does not rule himself.”
“Nakoa, he has gold and guns. He has greater numbers than the Indian. He will take this prairie some day.”
Nakoa looked sadly into the fire. “We have heard that they are without end. I have said that we do not claim this land. We follow the game of our hunting grounds. If your white man would not let the Indian remain upon the land that he does not claim, then the white man has no brothers, and he will be destroyed by this.”
“Maybe you will be left your land. Our God has said that the meek shall inherit the earth. The people that covet nothing.”
“Maria, do not say ‘your God.’ We have heard of the white long robes that come to us and tell us that there is a sun!”
“They want to teach—”
“All men are united with the Great Spirit. We know this. Let your long robes work with the whites. We have heard of your gold and guns. The white man worships the yellow metal and scars the earth to take it and then uses his guns to kill others who want what he wants. Your long robes should ask them why they have traded the fire of their soul for the fire in the ground.”
“Indians fight.”
“Not for the whole world.”
She said nothing, watching the fire. Nakoa’s closeness made her too happy for speech. He kissed her hair and with a little exclamation she turned to him, and he took her in his arms and kissed her deeply. He held her in his arms until Atsitsi returned. Before she finally dozed with her head against his breast, she heard him speak to himself. “I would never live in a house,” he said.
Chapter Fifteen
In the five days that it took the meat to be cured, Maria learned what the buffalo meant to the Indian aside from meat for food and skins worked for clothing and shelter. The bull’s neck was shrunk and used for a shield, so toughened that no arrow could pierce it. The green hides became kettles, cradles, whips, mittens, quivers, bow cases, and knife sheaths, and when the hide was braided, it became a strong and durable rope. Buffalo hair was used to stuff cushions and saddles; horns were transformed into spoons and ladles, hoofs into glue, sinews from the back and belly into thread, ribs into scrapers or runners for sleds; shoulder blades were fitted upon wooden handles and used for axes, hoes, or fleshers; and the buffalo tail was fitted to the end of a stick and used for a flybrush.
Skins took the place of cloth, for the Blackfoot women did not weave, and the dressing of skins was one of the main occupations of a woman; her worth was estimated by her output. The skins were given either a rawhide or a soft tan finish. The stiff rawhide skins were used for the soles of moccasins, parfleche bags, tobacco pouches, and bags to carry skin-dressing tools and sewing implements. The softened skins were made into clothing, the ceremonial buffalo robe, and the upper part of the moccasin. The skin for moccasins was tanned and decorated and then sewn to the rawhide sole. Buffalo hair was left on skin used for winter moccasins, as it gave much additional warmth.
The rawhide process took more strength than skill. Shortly after the hide was removed from the buffalo, it was stretched out upon the ground, hair side down, and held in place by wooden stakes. Muscle tissue, fat, and coagulated blood were removed with a fleshing tool, and the hide was then cured and bleached in the sun for several days, being saturated with water to keep it from becoming too stiff. It then was scraped down to an even thickness. When this rawhide process was completed, the hair side was turned up and worked in the same manner.
The skins that required a soft tan finish were laid upon the ground and carefully rubbed with an oily compound of buffalo brains and fat mixed with liver. The rubbing was done in the sunlight, the fat worked in with a smooth stone, and when the hide was quite dry it was saturated with warm water and rolled tightly into a bundle. The skins then shrank and were stretched out again and rubbed vigorously with a rough-edged stone until they presented a clean-grained appearance. Then to further dry and soften them they were sawed back and forth through the loop of a thong. The Blackfoot darkened their soft tan skins by smoking them, then stored them away to be tailored into clothing later.
Maria worked hard but she enjoyed the days at the buffalo camp. Nakoa would meet her a
t the river in the afternoons when she was finished, and in sight of the other women they would talk long and earnestly; when they were alone she kissed him and was kissed in return, but it was he who held them from more intimacy. “I guess a woman just can’t rape you!” Maria laughed, and he smiled.
“Many women could,” he said. “But not you.”
“Well, thank you.” Maria pouted.
He looked at her dark face and laughed. “Maria! You are not just one other woman in the water. You are all along the prairie, behind each blade of grass! The first Maria in hiding says, ‘I am a virgin and am clean and sweet!’ The second says, ‘I will protect this girl-woman and keep her a girl!’ Another Maria shakes the grass in rage and says, ‘You are a man, and why aren’t you trying to rape me!’”
Maria smiled. “Well, Atsitsi says that I am sex crazy. And she says that she knows everything!”
It was a wonderful beautiful world. So deep was Maria’s love for Nakoa that she told Sikapischis of it with wonder upon her face. “Oh, what feeling has come to me that I have never known before!” she said. “There has never been a love anywhere like ours.”
Sikapischis smiled. “I am sure that there has not.”
“I have such strength from him! And yet before him I have no defense. He has parted my soul. I can almost see what is the center of my being.”
“But how much will you finally long for the old ways of your people? The ways that are different from the ways of the Indian?”
“The ways of a woman and a man mating are the same all over the world.”
“And the way of the child is always the same. To accept a man you must lose the child, and all of the child’s memories.”
“I have,” Maria said soberly. “The child died along the Oregon Trail, back in the land of the Snakes.”
“Marriage brings its own children.”
“Oh, how I want to bear Nakoa’s children! How I want to carry his son!”
“There are other children of marriage that cannot be born, or even carried. Sometimes the children of closeness make closeness impossible again!”
“Oh, I know the way you have of talking! I know that I must be part stranger to myself, and that Nakoa must be part stranger to himself, and neither of us knows how the unknown part of himself will accept the other! But we follow now the part of us that does speak. All I know is that Nakoa is mine. Everything else has been taken from me but Nakoa is mine—and will always be. My God made him, and made me, and has brought us together!”
“And your God can destroy you and destroy him and take you apart!”
Maria’s eyes shone. “Not my God,” she whispered. “Nakoa is in my heart and cannot be taken from me.”
“Your two worlds can meet,” Sikapischis said. “This can be, for it is like this even in our dreams. One time becomes a part of another time, and this is a truth to follow.”
“Dreams are too silly to follow!”
“But not within the dream. I wonder how long our dreams are. I wonder how long our life is. I wonder how long our time really is.”
“How many dreams do we dream? Well, I do not want this one to ever end for me!”
“It will end in its beginning. My husband heard this from Natosin once, and told it to me. Everything ends in its beginning, and simple things show this.”
Maria looked at Sikapischis sadly, remembering that her own husband was dead, and the springtime of love was gone for her. She felt a guilt in her own joy.
“You are wondering how the ending that has come between my husband and me is its own beginning. I have thought of this many times. When I was a bride I accepted my husband. As a wife I have accepted his death. It is the same: I have accepted. He is gone. The bowl might be empty, but I have been nourished. If the meat is gone, we have been nourished by its blood! I accepted my grief, and ended my grieving.”
“How can this be?”
“When you accept, something does not fight to stay. Grief is hard to swallow, but when you accept you are nourished and you cannot wail for food that has filled your stomach!”
“Then we are not to mourn for the dead? We are to forget them as if they never were?”
“They were because we have accepted them as part of ourselves, and the part we knew is not gone, or we would not know it to grieve for what we believe to be lost.”
“You speak only in words and they are still a long way from the emotion, the despair.”
“And the spider weaves a web, and against the sky he climbs upon a thread that we cannot see, but he still climbs. Words do not have to describe the emotion. The emotion still is and can change as the spider climbs upon his invisible web. I have climbed from the pit of my despair that my husband’s body rests back upon Snake land, and that now he does not come to my bed, or to the food that I prepare.”
The meat had been hunted and prepared for the winter ahead; the skins taken for new lodges against the winter’s cold. When the day’s work was done and the drying meat was covered upon its scaffolds, old Mequesapa played his deerskin flute, and the Indians moved to its sweet sound. Siyeh sat by his grandfather filled with pride, for when his grandfather played all the drums stopped, the dogs became still, and even the white wolves far away upon the prairie seemed to be silenced. In the long twilights after the early suppers old Mequesapa played on and on. The stars bloomed in the sky, a bloody sunset was replaced by a glimmering that went gently away; Mequesapa played a new tune, and the women of the village sang it.
What alone can I call my own?
What alone belongs to me?
What is here I can never lose?
What is here for me to choose?
Maria and Nakoa approached, holding hands. The night was filled with rich scents, warmed grass, and the petals of prairie flowers. In his blindness, the old man sensed Maria’s presence, and began to play her favorite song.
I accept,
The love and the pain,
The sunlight and the rain,
I accept.
Nakoa stared at her, and Maria looked up into his sober eyes. Her dream came vividly back, all of the sensuous sights and sounds of the moonlit prairie, and she saw Meg again, and Ana, and her father asking her if she would take Nakoa for her lawfully wedded husband. That time fused with the present; the flowers of each moment bloomed with a common scent, and with tears coming to her eyes she answered both her father’s words and Mequesapa’s song. “I do!” she whispered, “I do!”
What alone can I call my own?
What alone belongs to me?
What is here I can never lose?
What is here for me to choose?
Love alone was all one owned; love alone was never lost. Maria thought of the song as she watched the slow fading of the coals of the fire pit. Except for the sound of Atsitsi’s snoring, the camp was silent. The stars shone above the smoke hole and beneath their vast expanse she and Nakoa slept apart, but soon they would sleep together, and spend their time together, and the same stars would shine upon their children and their children’s children, and their great thirst for life and love would remain unquenched.
She closed her eyes finally, and drifted into a deep sleep. Now her dreams were gentle. She and Nakoa were at the river and the green ferns rustled softly above them. Shadowed waters slipped languidly by. His hands began to caress her body, with their touch she waited for the meeting of his lips, but he did not kiss her. She tried to draw his mouth to hers, her fingers gently moving across his face, and in her touch and seeking a strangeness came, and she awakened with a violent start.
A shadow kneeled by her bed; the caressing and feeling beneath her dress had been no dream. “Aween?” she whispered. A hand clamped her mouth shut, and a knife was held at her throat. She lay still, and then the hand across her mouth moved and she could speak. “Siksikai!” she gasped, and at this sound her head was twisted and her hair pulled cruelly.
“Do not speak,” he whispered.
Atsitsi had not stopped snoring. Dea
r God, if the old witch would wake up!
“Lie still,” Siksikai said and quietly removed her dress. She attempted to cover herself with the buffalo robe, and at this, the knife at her throat drew blood from the skin’s surface. “If you move or cry out, I will kill you!” he whispered against her ear. His mouth brutally covered hers, his hands hurt her breasts. Rigidly she fought her revulsion, her pain.
“You said you were virgin!” he hissed.
“I am,” she sobbed. “Please—please …”
His hands moved from her breasts and at his exploration, she almost screamed in agony. “You are,” he said and a new passion seized him that was almost a frenzy. “I will be the first,” he breathed, forcing apart her legs, and looking at her pale body in the semidarkness.
He was lying upon her now. He would rape her and then he would kill her. What could she do to stop him? Nausea gripped her stomach; pain at his hands upon her breasts again almost made her cry out. But she made herself seek his lips, made herself move as if she were wild to have him too. Her nails dug into his back; she brutally pulled his hair. “Don’t wait!” she gasped. “Don’t wait!” He drew back to study her face for an instant, and in that instant let her move slightly. Immediately her hand went to her knife belt and before he could stop her, she flung it at the snoring form of Atsitsi.
The old woman gasped and sat up and rubbed her head. “What the big hell?” she said. “Something hit me on head! Something hit me on head!” she repeated excitedly, and before she was fully awake, Siksikai slipped from the tipi. “Big Maria!” Atsitsi screamed in rage. “You kill old woman?”
Maria heard the couch move. Atsitsi was straining to see her as she fumbled for the fire horn. “I light by-God fire!” she snarled, and Maria began to weep.
“Why you cry—I get killed!” the old woman raged. She started a fire and looked across at Maria who was sitting upon her couch and rubbing her aching breasts. Atsitsi saw the cut at her throat and then looked down at the torn dress upon the floor. “All right,” she said finally. “Holy ass beg for this!”