"Yes, ma’am, I’m Noa."
"Mathilda Hardwicke." She didn’t bother to extend her hand.
"Yes, ma’am, I know." He touched his hat in a vague greeting. The whites of his round eyes gleamed, and his jaw worked as if he were chewing the words up before he spit them out. "Now, ma’am, I know it isn’t my business. But Sakote’s a friend of mine and a brother, and I’m very..."
He clamped his lips together, as if he might actually start to weep. Towani, Sakote’s sister, rested a calming hand on his arm. He cleared his throat, then swept off his hat and whacked it against his thigh. "The fact is, we’re very worried about him."
Towani nodded in agreement, though Mattie suspected she only understood half of what Noa said.
"I just spoke with him,” Noa said. “You know he’s in the kum?”"
That didn’t surprise her. Sakote went to the sweat lodge when he was troubled to receive guidance from The Great Spirit.
"Well, he’s preparing to fight those brothers tomorrow, ma’am."
"What brothers?"
"The brothers of the boy Henry shot."
Mattie shook her head. Perhaps she wasn’t fully awake. "Henry? What boy?"
"Didn’t you know, ma’am? Henry Harrison shot the son of the headman from Nemsewi."
Mattie frowned. She remembered hearing that a Konkow boy had been shot recently by a white man, but she hadn’t realized… "How do they know it was Henry?"
"A little girl witnessed the killing. She said the boy was shot by a man with a golden gun."
She nodded. No wonder the headman had been disturbed by Domem’s story. “But why are the brothers angry with Sakote? Don’t they know he’s the one who killed Henry?"
Noa sighed. Towani poked at his arm to urge him on.
"The Konkows have a word for it," he told her. "Hudesi."
"Hudesi," Towani repeated.
"You see, Henry Harrison shot and killed that Konkow boy. But his brother, Doc Jim, the man who was supposed to be your husband?" Noa stared past her, momentarily lost in his thoughts. "He was a bad man, a hudesi, too. He…he forced a..." His mouth twisted as he choked on the words. "He raped a Konkow woman."
Mattie clapped her hand to her mouth. She didn’t know what to say. What kind of monsters had the Harrison brothers been?
“Then it was a blessing that he died before I...” She gasped, catching Noa’s gaze. If James Harrison had raped a Konkow woman, perhaps his death hadn’t been an accident. “How did Dr. Harrison die?”
Towani frowned and yanked on Noa’s sleeve, angry at being excluded from the conversation. She demanded an explanation. Noa said a few words to her in Konkow, enough to appease her curiosity.
Then Towani straightened and said haughtily, "I kill hudesi. I kill."
Mattie’s eyes widened at the bitter words.
She couldn’t decipher the heated argument that followed between Noa and Towani, but it didn’t matter. She solved the puzzle easily enough. Towani had been the one raped by Mattie’s husband-to-be.
The thought sickened her. Towani seemed so young, so innocent. How could anyone... Then she glanced at Towani, whose proud chin and stubborn pout at the moment reminded her of Hintsuli. Perhaps she wasn’t as young and innocent as she appeared. After all, she’d managed to get rid of Doc Jim on her own. If there was one thing the Konkows believed in, it was an eye for an eye.
She bit her lip. She wondered if Sakote knew. He must, she thought. That was why he’d warned Hintsuli away from Doc Jim’s house that first day and why he hadn’t trusted Mattie.
But wasn’t that the end of it now? Mattie was confused. "The Harrisons are dead. So the headman of Nemsewi and his sons, what more do they want?" she asked, halting the argument between Noa and Towani.
Noa ran a nervous hand over his stubbled cheek. "Like I said, the Harrison brothers are hudesi. At least, that’s what the Konkows call them. They’re so full of evil they aren’t even welcome in the spirit world. For the Konkows, it isn’t good enough just to kill a hudesi. You have to make sure its spirit doesn’t come back."
"And how do you do that?"
He chose his words carefully and watched her closely, to make sure she understood. "The Konkows believe you have to get rid of...of whatever might hold the hudesi here."
Some strong emotion seized her heart in a frigid fist. Her chest, suddenly empty, seemed to cave in on itself. All at once, the problem was so obvious. She understood perfectly. There was no need for Noa to say more. "Me."
Rejection. She should be accustomed to it. But it hurt, truly hurt, worse than any of the rejections she’d gotten from any of her family.
"I’m awful sorry, ma’am."
"Sorry, ma’am," Towani aped.
Somehow, Mattie managed to straighten her shoulders. Somehow, she held back a reservoir of tears. Her voice sounded far calmer than she felt. "No. It’s not your fault. I’m...I’m so sorry about your wife, Mr. Noa. I had no idea. I truly never even met James Harrison."
"Oh, no, ma’am, I don’t blame you for that," Noa was quick to say. "To my way of thinking, you shouldn’t be made to suffer for—"
"And please don’t worry on my account." She had to spit it all out quickly, before her emotions got the better of her. "I suppose I always knew this day would come—"
"But, ma’am—"
"And I’m fully prepared to leave."
"Ma’am—"
"I never truly belonged here anyway." The edges of her rueful smile quavered. She hoped they didn’t notice. "Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll begin packing. I’ll go back to Paradise Bar in the morning."
Towani looked to Noa to explain what Mattie said. He didn’t bother.
"Ma’am, I don’t think you quite understand," he said, staring at her as if she were dim-witted, rubbing his hand thoughtfully back and forth across his chin, not sure how to go about talking to her.
Mattie wished they’d leave, now, before the fragile vessel of her composure shattered into a hundred pathetic pieces. "Or I could just leave now," she rattled on. "I don’t have that much to pack anyway, and if I’m gone before—"
"Ma’am," he said, this time reaching out to take her fingers.
She glanced down at his hand, so warm and comforting around hers, and his sympathy was almost her undoing. A sob blocked the rest of her words.
Was it so much to ask, she wondered, just to belong somewhere? Even Noa and Towani had conquered the differences between their worlds. The love they bore one another shone in their eyes. Why couldn’t she and Sakote have what the two of them shared?
Towani’s scowl deepened as she tried to decipher the meaning of Noa’s intimate gesture, and for a moment she reminded Mattie painfully of Sakote.
"He won’t let you leave, you know," Noa said.
Mattie’s head hurt, and her throat ached from holding back tears. She tried to pull away. He wouldn’t let her go.
With both she and Towani glaring pointedly at his fingers, he wisely chose to release her. But he clearly intended to speak his mind, even if he had to dispense with good manners to do it.
"He won’t let you go, Miss Mattie. It’ll be a fight to the death. It’s a matter of honor. He’s going to fight those boys, come hell or high water."
"Hell or high water," Towani added for emphasis.
"I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Noa." She pressed two fingers to her throbbing temple. "I told you, I’ll return to Paradise Bar of my own free will. There’s no need for any fighting."
"Well, ma’am, pardon me, but he sure as hell isn’t going to give up his wife."
Mattie jerked, startled for a moment by his words. Then her lips moved into a brittle, bitter smile. "I’m afraid you don’t understand. I’m...not his wife."
"Wife," Towani repeated, latching onto one English word she knew well.
"Now just a minute, ma’am."
Mattie was almost out of self-control. She lowered her gaze, thoroughly embarrassed. "I’m..a fallen woman already, Mr.
Noa," she muttered. "Must you kick me when I’m down?"
He nervously licked his lips, then spoke in a whisper. "I don’t mean to be sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong, but I just talked to Sakote, and I think there’s something you don’t..." He ran his palm nervously over his cheek. "Sakote and you...have you...I mean, are you...you know..."
Mattie’s jaw went slack, and she blushed to the roots of her hair, but she couldn’t steel herself to make even a cutting reply. She supposed that her red face was answer enough, and that utter humiliation was no less than a fallen woman deserved.
"Because the Konkows," he continued, "they do things different, you see. If you’re living under the same roof, why, that’s as good as being married. To Sakote’s way of thinking, you’re his kulem, his wife."
"Kulem," Towani chimed in.
That was what Sakote called her. She’d never asked him what it meant. The Konkows went by so many nicknames that it never occurred to her to question him about the one he’d chosen for her.
"His wife?" She swayed, and Noa caught her forearm. "He’s my husband?" Dear God—how was it possible to feel so wonderful and so terrible all at once? Sakote thought they were married! For one wonderful moment, her spirit soared with the news. Despite their differences, despite the disapproval of the elders, Sakote loved her, enough to pledge himself to her alone, enough to call her kulem before his tribe. It made the breath flutter in her breast.
And yet it changed nothing. The Konkows still wanted her gone. Nothing Sakote said would alter that. Wife or not, she couldn’t bear to drive a wedge between him and his people. Nor would she allow him to risk his life for her.
"How do I...unmarry him?"
Deep sorrow dimmed Noa’s big cocoa-colored eyes, and Mattie perceived instantly what a good friend he was to Sakote. "Why, that would break his heart, ma’am."
Mattie’s lip quivered, and tears stung high in her nose. She didn’t want to do this, cry in front of this stranger, but the dam of her emotions trembled dangerously now behind a flood of grief. "Then what do I do?"
"You’ll do nothing." Sakote’s familiar voice drifted into the hubo as he filled the entrance.
Mattie gasped. How much had he heard?
Noa scowled. "Shit, Sakote! Don’t you knock?"
Sakote scowled back. "I come to my own hubo, and here I find my kulem, my brother, and my sister, talking in whispers, and you ask me if I knock?"
"Now, it’s not like that at all," Noa argued, clearly startled by Sakote’s silent arrival. "We were only—"
"Take my sister," Sakote said. "Go to her hubo. I have much to discuss with my kulem."
Mattie’s heart caught. Kulem. He called her his kulem.
Noa tipped his hat to her. "You know where to find me, ma’am."
Sakote growled low in his throat, and the visitors left in haste.
"My brother and sister," he said when they were gone, "they trouble your sleep."
"No. They wished to meet me," she lied. "To meet the woman you call...kulem."
"And they couldn’t wait for morning?"
It had been a bad lie. She tried one closer to the truth. "I wanted to know where you were, what you were doing."
"And my brother told you?"
"He said you were in the kum, preparing for a challenge tomorrow."
Sakote nodded.
She reached out toward him, resting her palm against the flat of his thigh. Lord, he was still warm from the sweathouse, and he smelled of sweet pine smoke. She would never forget his scent. "I don’t want you to fight, Sakote."
"I know, kulem."
"Please withdraw the challenge."
“You know I cannot."
Of course, she knew. "No," she said stubbornly, wiping at the tears that foolishly slipped from the corners of her eyes. "I won’t let you take up arms against your brothers."
"It’s not for you to say."
"I won’t let you risk your life simply because I’m...I’m an unwelcome guest."
He grabbed her by the shoulders. "And I won’t be told who will or will not be my kulem," he countered ferociously. "You’re mine, Mati. You’re flesh of my flesh and blood of my blood. The Great Spirit has told me so. I won’t let them take you from me."
Mattie’s throat swelled into a suffocating knot of anguish, and hot tears welled in her eyes. Until now she hadn’t realized how much she loved, truly loved Sakote.
His words were rash. He spoke them in the heat of strong emotion, like the vows Hintsuli took to never take another bath. But surely he, too, saw the hopelessness of their plight.
It would be easier for him, she thought. He had his tribe, his family. He belonged to this world of nature and animal spirits and Wonomi, his Creator, as if he were a part of the wilderness itself. In the excitement of the Kaminehaitsen, he would forget all about Mattie Hardwicke. Eventually Sakote would find a woman, a nice Konkow woman, to take to wife. She’d bear his children, lots of them, with silky black hair and sparkling black eyes, children to whom he might one day tell the tale of the white woman he’d taught to hunt yellow-jackets.
A sob lodged in her throat, and she tried not to think of the way his arms felt around her, pretended not to memorize the scent of his body. How could she leave him—this man who tripped her heart with the sparkle of his smile, who stole her soul with the wink of an eye? He made her feel so carefree, so beautiful, so precious.
She would never love again. It was as simple as that. She had given Sakote everything—her heart, her virtue, her soul. She had nothing left to give another man. She’d return to the only home she could afford, a lean-to in a mining camp, and live among her own people. Her own people. She could hardly call what was left of the ragtag bunch at Paradise Bar her own people. Yet, she supposed if she fit anywhere, it was with a group of misfits. There, she’d live out her days, shriveling into a crusty old maid with a bitter tongue and a sketchbook filled with memories of better days.
"I’m going to leave you," she told him, her voice cracking.
"No," he insisted, his eyes smoldering like black coals. "I will win the challenge."
His reckless declaration wrenched at Mattie’s heart. Sakote had told her about Konkow challenges. They were violent, bloody, fought with basalt knives. The thought of Sakote’s body, slashed by razor-sharp stone, chilled her. Never could she allow such savagery on her behalf.
"I don’t want you to win the challenge. I want to go back," she said, though the words came out harder than a stubborn tooth.
"No!" he fired at her. The word was fierce, his eyes fiercer. Iron fingers gripped her shoulders.
Part of her wanted to stay, the part that threatened to crumble into a thousand pieces if she had to think about life without Sakote. But she couldn’t. Already she caused strife between Sakote and his people. Already she brought danger to the Konkows. He would grow to hate her if she stayed.
No, she had to end it now. Quickly. For him. For his people. For her sanity.
"I have to go back. I want to go back," she said, nearly gagging on the lie. She lowered her eyes, unable to bear the pain in Sakote’s face.
Surprise loosened his grip. "You don’t wish to live here?" His voice sounded like dead wood, hollow, empty.
The brittle laugh she forced to her lips clanged in her own ears and echoed bitterly in her soul. "Here? Among savages?" She felt his hurt in the way his fingers tightened on her shoulders. Yet it was what she must do—hurt him. "I’ll admit, it’s been fascinating, these last weeks, seeing how your people live in these little huts and eat roots and berries. But surely you didn’t think I meant to live in your village?" she continued, her voice too bright, too cruel. God, she hated herself, hated what she was doing to him.
His eyes smoldered dark gray now, resolute and dangerous. "You will stay, kulem," he said, softly this time, but unyielding, uncompromising. "Akina." He extinguished the torch in the dirt and crawled between the layers of rabbit fur. "You will stay."
Mattie chewed on her
knuckles to stifle her weeping and climbed in beside him, but dared not torture herself by touching him. She waited until she heard his deep, even breathing, then stole silently from his side.
She took only one memento with her, and when Noa saw it, his eyes went as dark and sweet as molasses. He tossed a deerskin cloak over her and, bidding farewell to Towani, helped Mattie find her way in the night back to Paradise Bar.
CHAPTER 27
Fourteen days later, Zeke was still talking about it.
"You could’ve knocked me over with a feather when Miss Mattie sashayed into camp," he said, wincing as Tom, the closest thing Paradise Bar had to a doctor these days, poked at the puckered pink flesh of his healing gut wound. "She sure did go pale as a frog’s underbelly when she first laid eyes on us."
Tom rocked the hat back on his bandaged head. "Well, what do ye expect, with all the lass has been through? First that Harrison devil terrorizin’ the camp and then bein’ kidnapped by the Injuns. ‘Tis a wonder she can hold her hands steady enough ta tie her own bonnet."
Swede, almost as good as new except for the extra navel Harrison had carved him, scratched gingerly at his stitches. As a point of fact, Mattie didn’’t tie her own bonnet. Actually, she didn’t wear a bonnet at all. She’d taken to pulling her hair back into a long tail like the Injuns and wearing moccasins. And even though Granny had offered to make some bone buttons for her, she’d refused, preferring to keep the rawhide laces on her dress. But Swede was afraid dressing like a primitive wasn’t the only thing she’d picked up on her visit with the savages, which was why he’d called the meeting this morning.
Tom was partly right. Mattie had been to hell and back over the past several weeks. The miners had been worried sick about her. At first, they thought she’d died in the fire. Hell, they’d even given her a proper funeral, or what little they could manage in their state of affliction, and put up a cross right beside the ones for Dash and Bobby. It wasn’t till Amos went to visit his friend Noa in the valley that they learned the truth. Mattie was living with the Injuns. And right then and there, the boys decided to hit the warpath, to pay the Diggers a visit and get back what was rightfully theirs.
Vote Then Read: Volume III Page 124