Watching Eagles Soar

by Margaret Coel

  Flying Cloud and the other warriors had ridden out of the village in the first light of dawn. Inside her lodge, Lizzie had cuddled Little Feather, listening to the hooves pound through the village and into the silence. Now it was the Moon of the Drying Grass and the prairie lands that stretched away from the village had turned the color of the antelope. Coolness gripped the air, a warning of the cold weather soon to come. Her child’s arms and legs had grown fat. He looked at her out of knowing eyes.

  She had carried her dread through the passing days. Once, while she was gathering berries near the creek, she had felt the eyes of the other women on her and understood the unspoken words. Who would care for her and the child? Who would bring them flesh and skins from the hunt if Flying Cloud did not return? Which warrior would Chief Medicine Man say must marry her, so that she and Little Feather could survive? But she was not alone. Other women also awaited the warriors. So many husbands Medicine Man would have to find.

  Now she saw the lodgepole-thin soldier jump to his feet and wave toward the lodges, as if he might sweep them away should the notion strike him. The others also got to their feet, and the trader leaned toward Medicine Man, raising one hand in a kind of warning. Abruptly the white men turned and climbed into their saddles. Another moment and they had galloped up the slope and disappeared over the ridge.

  A sense of relief flooded through Lizzie. Yet a strange uneasiness nagged at her. She did not want to leave the hiding place. For a long while, she watched the child sleeping in her arms. Her heart swelled with love. Sometimes she wondered whether it was this small human being who inspired such love or the man who had given him to her. He was so like his father: the honey-color of his skin, the bright, dark eyes, and the sureness in the hands clutched into tiny fists. But his hair! His hair was like hers, the bright color of wild berries. Now his hair shone in the sunshine that spattered the willows.

  Finally she laid the baby onto the bed of leaves and tied her dress into place. As she got up, lifting the child so as not to wake him, she saw her friend, Kooish, pushing through the tall bushes. There was wildness in her dark eyes; the grandmothers said she was nohoko—off in the head—since the terrible day at Sand Creek when the soldiers had killed her husband and shot her baby out of her arms. She had thrown herself in the path of the horses, but a brave had pulled her into the scrub brush and some part of her had survived.

  Drawing close, Kooish stretched out one hand and patted the child’s head. “So beautiful,” she said. Then, a glance at Lizzie. “I heard the men whispering together.”

  Lizzie said nothing. The only men still in the village, besides the elders, were those of the older generation—not yet wise enough to be elders, not strong enough still to be warriors. Kooish went on, “They are placing bets on who will be your new husband.”

  “They place their bets too soon,” Lizzie said, surprised at a strength in her voice she did not feel.

  Kooish shrugged. “Medicine Man calls for you.”

  Lizzie was trembling as she followed her friend through the willows. What news had the soldiers brought? Already the sadness was coming over her.

  As they walked through the village, she saw Yellow Plume, one of the older generation, staring at her from the shadows of his lodge. Round-bellied and thick-armed, he was renowned for the buffalo he had taken. She shuddered at the thought of such a man as her husband. Avoiding his eyes, she hurried past and, after handing the child to Kooish, stepped into her father’s lodge.

  Medicine Man sat on a buffalo robe across from the opening. On his right was Nee’ma, her mother. Lizzie lowered herself beside the older woman. Thin shafts of sunlight drifted through the opening above and spilled down the center lodgepole, forming a little pool of light on the hard-packed dirt floor. Her heart was like a trapped bird fluttering against her ribs.

  Medicine Man cleared his throat. “One day in the long past time,” he began, “the people went to trade with the Sioux in a village on the muddy river.”

  Lizzie reached for her mother’s hand, a lifeline to keep from drowning in deepening sadness. If Medicine Man was again telling the story of how she had come to the people, it was because he wanted to soften the blow.

  Her father continued. “There in the village was a small girl child with thin shoulders and hair the color of the sunrise and eyes as wide and sad as the sky. I said to the leading man of the Sioux, ‘I will give you five ponies and all of my buffalo robes. I will give you the glass beads and tin pans from the white man. You must give me this child.’”

  A smile came into her father’s eyes. He always smiled at this part. Clearing his throat, he began again. “The leading man said, ‘She is not worth the least part of what you offer. But I accept your fool’s bargain.’ And so I lifted you onto my pony and rode to our village, straight to the lodge of my wife. I said to her, ‘Here is a child to replace the one who has gone to the spirit world.’ That is how you became our daughter.”

  Closing her eyes, Lizzie steeled herself against what he would now tell her about her husband. She struggled to make sense of his words. Something about the soldiers coming for a little girl who was now a woman.

  Lizzie’s eyes snapped opened. A coldness gripped her as Medicine Man explained how a white woman had come to the prairie lands to find a white girl stolen by the Sioux when they had attacked a wagon train on the muddy river.

  Lizzie tightened her hold on Nee’ma’s hand. A white girl in a wagon train? It meant nothing to her. And yet, a shadow darted at the edge of her mind, the faintest memory of guns firing and men shouting, and she was running, a slow motion across the dusty earth.

  “Daughter.” Medicine Man’s voice called her out of the memory. “The woman says the girl is her own family, that their parents were the same. She has come to take her sister home.”

  Lizzie stared at her father. “What does this have to do with me?”

  “The soldiers believe the little girl has grown into a woman among the Hi’nono eino. I said to them, ‘The women of our village are Arapaho.’ But the white trader told them that once he had seen a little girl with hair like the sun in our village, even though she had run away to hide. I fear he will convince the soldiers he speaks the truth. I fear they will return with the white woman.”

  “I am not the one they seek,” Lizzie said, struggling against the panic rising inside her. “Please don’t let them take me.”

  Medicine Man rose and stepped toward her. “You must listen to me, daughter,” he said, touching her shoulder. “Your husband, Flying Cloud, and the others have been away for many days and nights. We have no word of them. We don’t know . . .” He stopped speaking a moment, his hand gentle on her. “We don’t know if they will return. This white woman comes to take you to another life. A good life.”

  “No,” Lizzie said, shrinking away from his touch. “What do I know of any other kind of life?” She looked from her father to her mother, searching their faces—the narrow, dark eyes, the etchings of the sun on their cheeks, the whitening hair that once was black—for some sign of herself. There was none.

  Medicine Man spoke again. “You must decide the best road to follow.”

  Lizzie got to her feet. She said, “I wait for Flying Cloud.”

  * * *

  The early dawn scattered feathers of pink light across the sky as Lizzie carried Little Feather’s cradle to the creek. A pair of hawks circled overhead, calling to each other. The child clasped his hands and made happy gurgling sounds. Sheltered in the willows, she removed the shirt she had sewn for him out of the softest deerskin and laid him naked on the bed of leaves. Then she pulled off her moccasins and loosened her dress, letting it fall at her feet. The morning coolness licked at her skin.

  She lifted her son and waded into the creek. It was as icy as the streams that tumbled out of the blue-white mountains in the far distance. The baby squealed as she sank down, swishing him gently back and forth.
His hands flapped at the water, like small brown leaves caught in an eddy. Balancing him on her lap, she ran both hands over his body to wash him clean. His hair shimmered in the light of the sun creeping over the horizon.

  Holding the baby close, she waded out of the creek, her bare feet gripping the slick rocks. The darkness of his skin against hers caught her by surprise, as if she had never noticed it before. She wrapped him in his shirt and laid him on the willow bed. Quickly she pulled on her own dress, wanting to hide the hated whiteness. Yet it remained with her. On her arms. On her hands. What did it matter? she told herself. Medicine Man would never let the soldiers take her. But Medicine Man was growing older, and the warriors were gone. If the soldiers returned, how could her father protect her?

  She squatted by the baby and, pushing aside the leaves, began scooping out clumps of dry, brown earth, which she scrubbed on her arms and hands and smeared over the bareness of her neck and face. Scooping up more earth, she rubbed it onto her hair, pulling the strands forward to watch them darken into the color of the hawks. When she was satisfied she no longer looked like the whites, she swung Little Feather’s cradle onto her back and started toward the village.

  She saw the commotion as she came out of the willows: women pulling down the lodge coverings and packing the travois, children scampering about, men leading ponies from the corral. The village was about to move! She hurried through the cottonwoods toward Medicine Man’s lodge, dodging past groups of women, past lodgepoles that stood naked against the sky, skeletons of former homes. The baby’s cry was sharp in her ears, an echo of the terror that welled within her.

  She found Nee’ma folding the lodge skins into a compact bundle. “We can’t leave now,” she cried, grabbing her mother’s arms.

  Nee’ma turned, surprise filling her eyes. She reached out and laid the palm of her hand against the gritty earth on Lizzie’s cheek. Then, her voice serious, she said, “Medicine Man says we must go south to the Republican River country.”

  “But Flying Cloud will come here.” Lizzie heard the sobs in her voice. Behind her, the baby’s cry lengthened into a wail.

  Her mother gathered her close, holding both her and the baby. “Do you really believe the warriors won’t find our village? Foolish child. It’s the soldiers who won’t find our village.”

  For a moment, Lizzie let herself go limp in her mother’s strength. Finally she pulled away and started for her own lodge. It was the only lodge still covered. Inside she worked quickly, filling a parfleche with her extra dress, Little Feather’s shirts, and the new moccasins she had beaded for Flying Cloud’s return. In another parfleche she packed the cooking pan her husband had gotten from the traders and the spoons and bowls he had carved out of buffalo bones. Setting the parfleches outside, she began rolling the heavy skin coverings across the lodgepoles. Even before she saw the soldiers massed on top of the ridge, she knew by the sudden quiet that fell over the village that they had returned.

  Lizzie stopped herself from bolting for her hiding place, afraid the soldiers would notice her darting among the cottonwoods and the bare lodgepoles. Holding herself still, aware of the sighs of the sleeping baby on her back, she asked the earth she had smeared over her skin to hide her as the soldiers rode into the village. In the lead was the lodgepole-thin soldier, the trader, and another rider. They halted close to where Medicine Man stood waiting, arms folded. As they dismounted, Lizzie saw the third rider was a woman. A gust of wind caught at her skirt, billowing it about her legs.

  The woman was beautiful, with hair the color of the sun at dusk and hands and face as white as the winter snow. Lizzie’s breath stopped in her throat. The woman was like the image she sometimes caught of herself in the creek when it was early morning and the water was more pale than the sky and perfectly clear.

  She wasn’t aware of Nee’ma at her side until her mother spoke. “Don’t be afraid. You have hidden yourself well.”

  The white woman was glancing about, her gaze taking in the Arapaho women who stood quietly around the lodgepoles, children clutching their legs. And then the woman’s eyes fell on Lizzie. Lizzie gasped. The blueness in the eyes, the shape of the nose and chin, strong and defiant. She had seen them before. The faintest image flickered at the edge of her memory. A white girl, older and stronger, who had somehow been part of her.

  Suddenly, the white woman seemed to fold into herself. She turned away and was about to mount when Lizzie started toward her, pulled by some force she did not understand. Medicine Man glanced around. “Are you certain, daughter?” he asked as she approached.

  The white woman was already moving toward her, fear and joy mingling in her face. Abruptly Lizzie swung around and started for the willows, aware of the snap of footsteps on dry earth behind her. When she reached the hiding place, she turned. The white woman was slashing through the willow branches, as if they were some terrible obstacle to overcome. The breeze plucked at a strand of her red-gold hair.

  “Lizzie,” she called. Tears filled her eyes and spilled into brown smudges on her white cheeks. Behind her was the trader.

  Lizzie stepped back, horrified at what she had done. What had drawn her to this woman from the outside world who was babbling on, sobbing and speaking strange words that called to Lizzie from some past time.

  And then the trader began speaking to her in Arapaho, saying her sister had never stopped looking for her, had never stopped believing she would find her. Suddenly, the woman turned to the trader. “Leave us alone,” she said. Lizzie felt a prick of surprise that she had understood the strange words.

  The trader glanced between them, one hand on the revolver strapped to his belt, as if he feared leaving a white woman in the company of an Arapaho, even one with a baby cradled on her back. Finally he started toward the village. The white woman waited a moment, the breeze sighing in the space between them. “You are my younger sister,” she said. “The dirt on your face and hands can’t hide the truth. I would know you anywhere.”

  Lizzie was shaking her head.

  “You understand what I’m saying,” the woman persisted. “You speak English.”

  “I learned the white man’s language,” Lizzie said, surprised again at the ease with which the words tumbled off her tongue. “In the past time,” she added.

  The woman started to cry. She pressed one fist against her lips to stifle the sobs. Nodding toward the village, she said, “You don’t belong here. These horrible savages killed our mother and father. You were so young, you don’t remember. But I remember. We had stopped to make camp for the night. It was dusk and very quiet. Suddenly, there was a terrible shrieking and howling, and the warriors came galloping toward us. Father shouted for me to get you and hide under the quilts in the wagon. I pulled you down beside me. I tried to cover your ears so you wouldn’t hear Mother and Father screaming as the warriors hacked at them.”

  The white woman hid her face in her hands. Her shoulders were shaking, and Lizzie fought the temptation to reach out and comfort her. After a moment, the woman looked up. “The Indians poked at the quilts. I was sure they would find us, but they found the bags of sugar and flour Mother had hidden. I always believed they would have gone away if you hadn’t . . .” She drew in a long breath. “You were so frightened. You wiggled out of my arms and started screaming, and they grabbed you. They pulled you out of the wagon. You tried to run away, but they caught you, and I—I was so scared, I made myself small and quiet.”

  The woman was sobbing now. “Oh, Lizzie,” she managed, “I let them take you. I’m so sorry.”

  “They didn’t take me,” Lizzie said, her voice soft.

  Astonishment came into the woman’s face. “Of course they took you.”

  Lizzie said, “My father, Chief Medicine Man, found me with the Sioux. He brought me to the people.”

  “He’s not your father,” the woman shouted. Then she stole a glance over one shoulder, as if she feare
d the trader might return. “Your father was Thomas M. Cook of Chicago, Illinois. Your mother was Mary O’Leary Cook. She came from another country far away from here.” She waved toward the plains that stretched into the distances, toward the clouds streaming across the pale blue sky. “We are their children. I am Mary Eileen. You are Mary Elizabeth. We called you Lizzie.”

  “No!” Lizzie began backing away, nearly stumbling over a low-hanging branch.

  “Oh, Lizzie.” The woman came toward her. “You will never know. So many sightings of a young white girl in some Indian camp. Traders would see a child that resembled the lost Mary Elizabeth Cook, but by the time the soldiers rode to the village, the village would be gone. Disappeared in the vastness of the plains. And I would receive a telegram about how close they had come to finding you, how they had only missed you by a day or two. And so I decided to come here myself. I knew I would find you.”

  “You must go,” Lizzie said.

  “Please.” The woman stretched out her arms. “You and the child are my family. You can live in my home. You’ll have whatever you want. Your child will go to school and learn to read. You remember, don’t you, how Father would set us on his lap and read to us? So many books he read to us.”

  Lizzie moved backward toward the edge of the creek until the icy water lapped at her moccasins. Her stomach was churning; she felt as if she would be sick. “Go,” she said, startled by the harshness in her tone. A part of her did not want the woman to go.

  The woman held her gaze a long while before finally turning away. She started through the willows, then swung around. “Before I go,” she said, “may I see your baby?”

  Slowly, Lizzie took the cradle from her back. She had thought Little Feather was asleep, so quiet was his breathing, but he was awake, his eyes wide and fearful. She set the cradle on the bed of leaves and lowered herself beside the baby. “This is my son,” she said.

  The woman knelt on the other side. There was the sound of water rushing over boulders, of horses whinnying in the distance. With the tips of her fingers she traced the outline of Little Feather’s face—the nose, the square set of his jaw. “So like Father,” she said. Then, “My husband and I longed for a child.”