by Gayle Rogers
“Why was I in the burial grounds?”
“You were following the path of a child. You were not seeking escape from me, but from growing up.”
“To grow up, must I become a whore?”
“I was not making you a whore. I was taking you as my woman. Not all women are whores.”
“I was to wait for you after you had been making love to Nitanna.
That would make me a whore. Nakoa, I was so wild to have you. I loved you so much!”
“Is that why you went to the burial grounds rather than to my couch?”
“I told you I would be your only wife. I told you, you had to choose between us.”
“No. I had told you that my marriage this moon was not one of my choosing. I told you that Nitanna meant nothing to me beside my feeling for you. You fled from the woman you keep buried that has more blood than you. Because you tried to deny her life she rose and almost destroyed you. Maria, you have not accepted anything. How could you ever become a whore when you cannot even accept yourself?” His black eyes were searching hers earnestly. “This other woman you will not know, Maria, would go to her love even after ten wives. She would follow her feelings past every rule that had been sacred to her heart.” Now desire for her was plain upon his face.
She stopped walking and looked up at him. “You expect to sleep with me tonight,” she said tonelessly. “You think I have healed enough for this.”
“Yes.” His voice was just as flat as her own.
“You will bring me pain!”
“No. I will be gentle.”
She trembled violently. “I do not want this. I cannot bear to be raped again!”
“I will not rape you. We love each other. We are man and wife.”
They had reached the lodge. She bowed her head. “I will not,” she said softly. “I can’t.”
She walked away from him, back toward the river. The moon was rising in gentle majesty, and she wept bitterly before its poignant beauty. This was the most beautiful of all nights when she was to become a bride to Nakoa. The moon should be shining for them in holy grace. Such a short time ago she had exulted with unbearable happiness at the thought of becoming his bride. Anatsa had loved Apikunni so deeply and now she was dead, lying dead beneath the tender moon, and Maria was alive and yet she could not accept the man that loved her.
It was dark when she returned. He had started the fire; it gleamed through the lodge skins even in the moonlight. She wished that he had left the lodge dark. She did not want him to see her, and she did not want to see him when he possessed her. She opened the doorflap and went to him neither in chastity nor lust. She entered the tipi without innocence or desire, to receive the man she had wanted more than anything in the world before all feeling had been taken away from her.
Chapter Twenty Six
She stood uncertainly by the lodge door. “I don’t like the fire,” she said.
“Does all warmth bother you?”
“I do not like its light. If you are going to have me, I do not want to see it.”
“Then close your eyes. I do not seek darkness.”
Fury suddenly choked her. “Do you want me to take off my clothes?”
“Do you want me to start undressing you too?”
“That is not what I meant!”
He removed his shirt and leggings and lay upon the couch. He stretched contentedly and closed his eyes.
“What are you going to do?” Maria asked, still unable to make herself leave the door.
He opened his eyes in annoyance. “I am trying to go to sleep.”
“You said I was to sleep with you!”
“In time,” he murmured. “In time you will.”
“You said now! Tonight!”
He opened his eyes again. “I have changed my mind,” he said. He turned away from her and fell asleep almost immediately.
Maria went to the fire and looked into the greedy flames. When they died, she went to her couch. He slept with his face as happy as a child’s. She lay down and tried to sleep, but his peaceful breathing almost drove her insane. How could he have said such a thing and then go to sleep? He had fallen asleep right away just to make her feel rejected. Never, never would she give him gratification. The fire had sunk to coals and she couldn’t see him clearly. She sprang out of bed and replenished it. At the noise she made, he stirred and a smile settled upon his lips.
“Beast!” she snarled.
She went back to her couch and turned coldly away from him. The wind had come up, and she echoed its wailing. She wanted to go home. She wanted her own kind. She wanted to follow the lullaby of her mother, to put her head upon the soft leaves of her mother’s grave. There was no disgrace in this. Forget Atsitsi and her silly sugar titty. Forget Nakoa and Mequesapa’s song of acceptance. What had it brought to Siyeh?
Here, upon her couch, within the sound of her husband’s breathing, death would be sweet. Yet in the burial grounds when death had been so close, she could not accept it and had wanted only Nakoa. One can see the same thing as another, but from where each stood, the same thing was not the same at all.
Tears slid down her cheeks. Why couldn’t he know her loneliness? Why didn’t he hold her and give her comfort?
She stretched out flat upon her back and felt her breasts pushing against the buffalo robe. “Beautiful body—all waste!” Atsitsi had said. Maria felt her body cautiously, running her hand from breast to thigh. She remembered how beautiful he had made her feel at the river, how unashamed of her nakedness. Her face grew hot; she threw off the suffocating robe. Nitanna stood before her in the lodge, her lips curled in disdain. Her mouth was cruel and thin, but he had taken her. Maria saw him holding her, caressing her, kissing her lips as he had kissed her own.
“Whore!” Maria said to the tall and beautiful Indian girl.
“And what am I?” she asked herself, for she felt a growing desire for Nakoa she could not restrain. He had said that she would have to free the woman of the waters. Then rise from the muck and mire, and feel cool rain upon your eager lips! Let the rain wash the hair back from the pale face and slide unchecked from naked breasts! Reflecting waters cannot return the heat of the sun, and her heart was hammering against her flesh.
“Nakoa!” she called softly, but he gave no sign of hearing her. In the firelight he was handsome. His face, his naked breast, his long hands were handsome. Never was a man more a man than this Indian who would die bound by nothing. She had sought the escape of deep waters, but with his strong hands he had blocked her way to them.
At the river she had lain naked with him and had asked for his lovemaking, but he had stopped and left her craven.
Outside of his lodge she had made his face wet and agonized with desire, but he had resisted and left her empty.
Beside his marriage tipi he had walked by her and had gone to Nitanna’s bed.
“Nakoa!” she said again, and saw that he was awake. In a rapture of rage she threw the robe to the floor. The burning fire made the lodge a violent red, the walls, the floor, the ceiling. She moved to the fire and standing near it took off her dress. Firelight danced upon her breasts, her hips and thighs. He lay as still as sculptured stone.
Maria moved seductively, her hair partially hiding her breasts. He sat up.
“No,” he said. “It will not be this way.”
She laughed, her long black hair catching the red of the flames. “Nitanna was nothing!” she said scornfully. “Look at me—and see a woman!”
“I do not want you like this!”
“Like what?” she asked and went swiftly to him. Before he could answer, she covered his mouth with her own and caressed him with her hands. Is the male stronger? Does the male have all the strength? Let the male crumble and fall before a woman, and she will have all the power in the skies!
He was no longer protesting. He trembled beneath her touch, and then his body became as seeking as her own. “I will be gentle,” he whispered, kissing her face, her eyelashes and her th
roat. The air shimmered all around them; the fire burned against the torrents raining from the skies. “Culentet, culentet, my beautiful“—but she stopped his words. “I will be gentle,” he promised again, but already she was defeating him, driving him wild with the unchecked force of his passion. His awful strength led him blindly on; the months of painful abstinence rose within him and riding the crest of blinding desire, he came brutally into her. In holding her and loving her so deeply he uttered low cries of protest, but he could not stop. He possessed all of her; she was so swept up in his caress that at first she did not know the pain of his penetration. When she felt the throbbing and the agony from Siksikai’s knife again, she looked up into her husband’s face in triumph. She had proved that all men were like Siksikai that in their love they mutilated. She lay pinioned beneath him in pain, and if blood came again she would be in complete victory.
When he had finished and saw what he had done, he looked at her still and suffering face in disbelief. He moaned and pressed his head against her breasts. He said nothing. He was a stranger to himself, and now they were neither friends nor lovers. But no bleeding came. He held her tenderly in his arms and once when she thought him asleep she saw tears touching his eyelashes. By cold dawn no word had passed between them, and still she did not bleed. Where was the proof of her suffering?
In the morning he prepared their food and fed her. With his face still tormented, he treated her with herbs and warm water, and she lay too inert for modesty. Her pain was strong, and it was the only thing she had to cling to.
But she healed rapidly, and the pain was of short duration.
“Nakoa,” she said one morning. “Let me go.”
“Go where?”
“Back to my people.”
“Your people are dead.”
“Let me go back to my old life.”
“That is impossible.”
“Let me try!”
“I cannot.”
“You want me here to rape again!” she said furiously.
“You were not raped.”
“You hurt me!”
“You used me to hurt yourself.”
“Aren’t you sorry that you caused me pain?”
“Yes. But the price has been paid.” He looked at her tenderly. “Maria, even in your seeking of revenge for my marrying Nitanna, do you not feel the force that brings us together?”
“What do you mean that I sought revenge?”
“You seduced me into taking you the way I did.”
She laughed scornfully. “I seduced you?”
He became angry. “Maria, do not make me a fool! Twice you have begged for my penetration in rage. Outside this lodge, before my marriage to Nitanna you almost dragged me down in the dirt to lie with you. And what did you do before the fire? You awakened me so I could see you take off your clothes. How did you move when you were naked—where did your hands caress me when I was kissing you?”
Maria turned away from him. “I did not mean to do those things,” she said.
“You speak softly now. The woman who begged for me last night did not speak softly, and she did not speak with only her tongue.” He began to stroke her hair, and she warmed to his gentleness. He kissed her lips and began to hold her so that she knew he meant to make love to her. There was no way of refusing him. She was his wife and was no longer virgin to him. Yet she would not be ready for him. With her rage gone, so was all passion and when he could postpone his entry no longer she remained passive within his embrace. Now he made love to her tenderly, with all lust stemmed, all savagery masked; the victorious male could lie hidden and subdued. When he could postpone shuddering climax no longer she still remained apart from his lovemaking.
He tried to awaken passion within her again. Many times he desired her, but she never knew his pleasure. Upon her bed, in the forest in the shadow of the trees, she could not refuse him, but neither did she accept him. He could not restrain himself to tenderness all of the time. She felt the growing wildness in him, the depth of his seeking. “Meet me, Maria,” he cried.
“I can’t! I can’t!” she sobbed, and at his withdrawal, turned away from him. “I can’t help it,” she said. “Siksikai drained me of my womanhood. There is nothing left but a shell. How can you ask me to respond to another bloody knife?”
“My love is not an instrument of destruction,” he said simply, and put on his clothes. “If you cannot meet me, I will leave you alone until you can.” He then abstained from her. Again they slept separately. They rode together, and even bathed together, for he would not give her privacy at the lake. He watched her nakedness with obvious pleasure, but in no way did he suggest that they resume lovemaking. The weather suddenly turned stifling hot, and on one burning day they sought sanctuary in a mountain meadow. While the horses grazed in the open they slept together where shade from thick trees and high ferns cooled them from the hot afternoon. They slept together long and peacefully and both awakened at the same time. Maria looked up above them at the moving of the ferns. Light filtered softly through them giving her an illusion of resting in deep water.
“I wanted to die,” she said to Nakoa. “But you wouldn’t let me. I was sinking into a beautiful shadow like this.”
“I will not let you die,” he said firmly, as if she were still fighting to live.
“And you will not let me go?”
“I am not able to do this.”
She sighed and lay still.
He studied her face. “You have grown even more beautiful,” he said.
She looked quickly away.
“Why do you not like your beauty?” he asked.
“I do not know of my beauty,” Maria said shortly. “It is of no importance anyway.”
“If you do not know of it, it is very important.”
“I know. That which is not accepted is haunting.”
“Yes.”
“The two women again. Tell me about them—they seem to interest you so!”
“I want the girl and the woman to be one. Your beauty awakens a man’s desire and acquaints you with the power of your breast. You do not want this, for breasts belong to a woman. Maria, see yourself as a woman! The part of yourself you starve will be fed. What you reject in love will rise in hate! Maria, how can you be such a fool about yourself?”
“I am not a whore! I am not a slut! Do you think I am dirty Meg?”
“Who is this woman?”
“A slut my father had when my mother was dying!” Maria sat up, her chin quivering in spite of herself. “I saw it!” she cried. “Every filthy part of it—when he first climbed on her—and I was horrified, I ran away to our orchard—where I was sick.”
Nakoa sat up and gently touched her lips. “This Meg might have been a strong woman, Maria. She might have given your father strength to bear your mother’s dying.”
“By sinning like that?”
“What is sinning?”
“Doing the work of the devil!”
“Your devil helped them both at that time. Your mother would have died harder knowing your father’s grief. Did she like to bring your father pain?”
“Never!”
“Did he like to bring her pain?”
“Not before my mother became ill.”
“Then this Meg worked with the devil and helped them both.”
“You don’t even know the devil.”
“Is this another god only the white man knows? Do you think we do not know evil and hurt to others? Must every man talk with the white man’s tongue? Because he has such a big mouth must the whole world use it?” His eyes were snapping with fury.
“There is beauty and sacredness in holy marriage! My father defiled my mother and their marriage by making love to Meg!”
“Does any man have the power to do all of that?”
“Nakoa, by taking Nitanna you defiled me! I wanted you in sacred marriage because I loved you with all of my heart.” Her voice trembled with emotion. “I had a dream of our marriage. We were married i
n the white man’s church, the place where he seeks closeness with the Great Spirit. I wore white because I was pure of any man before you, and we walked down a long aisle together—a long row of white flowers that stretched from the prairie into the church—it was so beautiful—so close to my God—” She put her hands over her face and wept. “I thought my love was met—but look at the way it was! You walked by me to crawl upon another woman! How could my God have any part—how could He ever know sacred marriage between us!” Weeping harder she rocked back and forth in utter desolation.
He said nothing. When she looked at him finally and turned away, he turned her tear-streaked face back to his. “The Indian knows the Great Spirit, too, Maria,” he said quietly. “The Indian feels love, too. In your moments of deepest love, were you not met by me?”
“At the river! At the river!”
“So close to the woman you would keep upon her back so she can see only the sky!”
“You crawled from Nitanna—to me!”
“We see in love the joy of giving. Is that not true of you?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“In love, barriers are gone, doubts are gone, two become one in a union to conceive of themselves. Does this not happen?”
“Yes. It could have happened to us!”
“But only in the white man’s way! Maria, I am not a white man! I am Indian. A man must walk his own path. It is the woman who accepts change, as she accepts the change in her body from mating! Cannot life speak to you in its wisdom? Is all the love from the Great Spirit blessed only in a white man’s church? If you really love me, Maria, you would not demand you would accept!”
“I am tired of struggling,” Maria said brokenly. I want to live in my way, and you will have yours and the only thing for us to do is to part!”
“Or for you to grow into a woman. The female is eternal and bears the fire of creation too. If you do not accept her in love and in pain, you will be destroyed!”
“Nakoa, I cannot do it!”
“You have already. By the river you were a woman.”
“When we rode around the horse herds you said I was a reflection of your burning, like the moon is to the sun.”