Walks the Fire

by Stephanie Grace Whitson

  “Yes, a New Prairie Flower to replace the old hag your wife finds so helpful.”

  Rides the Wind ignored the comment “It is my wife of whom I am thinking now, Howling Wolf. She is a good woman, but she is clumsy in the ways of our people. She needs help with so many things. I would like this girl to be her slave.”

  Howling Wolf eyed Rides the Wind suspiciously. “If Walks the Fire is clumsy in the ways of our people, how can another white woman help you? Better to take another wife from among our people.” He added another coarse jest.

  Rides the Wind hastened to close the haggling. “You have always liked this mare. She will bring you a foal after the snows. A foal from Wind. I will give you these other two in addition. Walks the Fire does not give me rest, asking for help. I am tired of her complaining.” He hated the deception but had grown tired of the game.

  Howling Wolf looked at the horses greedily. The addition of four ponies to his meager band would raise his status in the tribe considerably. And a foal out of Wind in the spring was especially tempting. He thought about the white girl and how she had fought him when he carried her to the camp. Perhaps she would be more trouble than she was worth. He could just as easily take another woman from among his own people, and perhaps that would be simpler, after all. Let Rides the Wind add another white woman to his tepee. People might not like that. Perhaps it would lower him in their eyes and make Howling Wolf appear wiser.

  Howling Wolf nodded and accepted Rides the Wind’s offer.

  Rides the Wind quickly handed over his ponies. “I will help you drive them back to your herd,” he offered. Howling Wolf accepted, and the men rode back to camp in silence, Howling Wolf rejoicing at his wise trade, and Rides the Wind troubled by what would happen next.

  When they re-entered the village, Rides the Wind trotted quickly to his own tepee. He entered and said only, “She is yours. Do what you want with her.” He left quickly, remounted Wind, and was about to canter away when Jesse laid her hand on the horse’s neck and asked, “Do you not wish to meet her?”

  Rides the Wind shook his head. “I have done as you wished. She is yours. I do not wish to see her.”

  Jesse wondered at his lack of curiosity, but she did not press the matter. Instead, she headed for Prairie Flower’s tepee, realizing too late that she had not even thanked her husband for his help.

  Hepzibah sat up expectantly when Jesse came back. “Well, my dear,” she said, “it seems that you are now my property.”

  “Yours?” Hepzibah questioned.

  “Yes, my husband has arranged for you to be my slave.” At the fear in Hepzibah’s eyes, Jesse quickly added, “So now I can do with you as I please. And it pleases me to take you back home. Let’s get started before your family follows you here and causes more trouble.”

  Hepzibah was on her feet, “Oh, thank you! Thank you! How can I ever thank you?! But…” she added, “don’t you want to come back too? We would make you feel very welcome, you know… and you could go on the journey with us. I’m sure Elder Smith would give his permission.”

  Jesse shook her head. “No. My only family is here. I have a husband and a son. I am quite content here, my dear. Now, quickly, come along! What is your name?”

  “Hepzibah. Hepzibah Miller.” Jesse said the name slowly.

  “What’s your name, ma’am?” Hepzibah questioned. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

  “In English I would be called Walks the Fire,” Jesse responded. She was surprised to hear herself use her Lakota name. She added, “Before I came here, I was known as Jesse King.”

  Hepzibah was full of questions, but Jesse quieted her by leading her outside into the blazing sun. They crossed the village. Everyone stared and grinned as Walks the Fire led her new slave to her own tepee. A few children ran up to touch Hepzibah’s long dress. Feeling cotton for the first time, they pronounced it thin and useless for prairie life. When they entered her tepee, Jesse introduced Old One and Two Mothers and ordered Hepzibah to stay with them until her return.

  “Can you ride a horse without a saddle, Hepzibah?” she asked.

  “I never tried.”

  “Then, I will show you how, but we must try to move quickly before Howling Wolf gets back. If he learns that we have tricked him out of his New Prairie Flower, he will be very angry, and we will be obliged to return you to him.” At the prospect of being once again under the power of Howling Wolf, Hepzibah’s willingness to ride bareback doubled. When Jesse returned with Red Star, Hepzibah clambered up behind Jesse and clutched at the pony’s sides with all her young strength.

  Jesse headed for the Blue Hills immediately, unaware of the lone rider that followed at a distance.

  As they rode along in the morning sun, Jesse answered Hepzibah’s questions as briefly as she could. She found the girl’s exuberance a bit wearying. She could not, after all, explain in a short ride all that had happened to transform her from a white settler into the wife of Rides the Wind. She found that she really did not care to defend herself or her adopted family’s ways to this young, foolish woman.

  It was not long before Jesse saw the dust of a large number of riders in the distance.

  “Your people are coming for you,” she said to Hepzibah, pointing at the horizon. Hepzibah raised one hand to shade her eyes. “Slide down and wait here. I will be watching to make certain that they find you. Goodbye.”

  Hepzibah did not slide down. Instead, she said, “but you must wait so that we can all thank you. Please wait.”

  Jesse shook her head. “To know that you are with your own again is thanks enough. And,” she added, “to know that perhaps now you will obey Elder Smith and not go searching for wildflowers when you should be working in camp.”

  Hepzibah blushed. Obediently, she slid down from Red Star. Jesse turned and cantered Red Star away, stopping behind the first hill. Dismounting, she crawled back up a few feet until she could peek over the rise and watch the reunion that took place only moments after she left Hepzibah’s side.

  A party of a dozen or more riders thundered toward Hepzibah. Her blue calico dress bobbed up and down as she waved and called to them. One heavy-set man jumped from his horse and swept her up in a great bear hug. The entire party looked in Jesse’s direction as Hepzibah gestured. Soon, she was hauled up behind the man who had hugged her, and they pounded away, lost from view.

  Jesse smiled to herself and turned to go. Rides the Wind was standing behind her, having dismounted from his own horse.

  “I did not thank you. What did you have to promise Howling Wolf to buy your poor wife a slave?”

  He shrugged, “Only three ponies…”

  Jesse cried out, “Three ponies! You are kind, Rides the Wind. It was a great price to pay to help a young girl, and you did not even meet her.”

  He looked down at her in amazement. “I did not give away three ponies to help a stupid white girl. I gave three ponies to help Walks the Fire. She is gone?”

  Jesse said softly, “She is gone.”

  He brought up the subject again. “Do you sometimes wish to return to your people?”

  Jesse didn’t hesitate to reply, “I lived among the whites for twenty-one of their years. As they count time, I have been among the Lakota for four more years. The day you took me as your wife, we promised, ‘Wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.’ This promise was forever. I wish to be with Rides the Wind, among his people for all the time that God gives.”

  Rides the Wind and Jesse walked back to the camp together. Howling Wolf patted his new ponies and watched them enter the village, wondering at the stupidity of a man who would pay so much for a slave and allow his wife to give her away. And if Howling Wolf thought that Rides the Wind entered his tepee to beat his wife for her ungrateful attitude, nothing was said to convince him otherwise.

  Fourteen

  … her husband… praiseth her. Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest
them all.—Proverbs 31:28-29

  No children came. Jesse waited hopefully for each moon’s passing. But still, no children came.

  Rides the Wind loved to tell stories and delighted in the myriad questions asked by his growing son. He shared legends that had been handed down through generations of Lakota, skillfully weaving God into them so that even Jesse and Old One listened, fascinated. A favorite became the story of a hunter who fell onto a cliff and escaped by tying himself to two grown eagles and flying off. Two Mothers’ eyes would grow wide as Rides the Wind built up to the dramatic moment when the hunter stepped off the cliff with only the power of the eagles to save him.

  “But it was not the power of the eagles that saved him,” Rides the Wind would remind his son. “It was God who gave the eagles strength.”

  He told stories to help Two Mothers overcome childish fears. “Now, my son, why do you fear the storm? It is only the warriors of thunder and lightning. When you are tempted to be afraid, remember that God tells the lightning where it may go. Pretend that the noise and the light are from two warriors called Thunder and Lightning. They ride beautiful, swift ponies and carry lightning in their hands. As they race the wind, their ponies’ hooves strike the clouds. That is thunder. When they throw their lightning sticks, it flashes brightly in the sky. When God says ‘Enough!’ the warriors ride down to the earth, bringing the rain to water their ponies.”

  “Have you ever seen the ponies, Father?”

  “Once, when I was hunting in the Black Hills, I thought I caught a glimpse of them. But before Wind and I could catch them, they rose again into the sky, taking the thunder and lightning with them to another place.”

  When Two Mothers was six, Jesse had long since begun to speak her new language fluently. She thought of herself as Walks the Fire and was often surprised at some reminder that she had lived most of her life as part of another culture. The reminders came less frequently as she adapted to the ways of the Lakota. Now she could start a fire quickly, whenever it was required. She rode Red Star without a thought of the old fears. She tanned hides and decorated clothing for her family. But she longed for the opportunity to begin a new cradle board, to fashion tiny moccasins, to have the village women give her advice as they did every expectant mother among them.

  Two Mothers raced his friends in footraces, threw rocks at every available target, and pretended to hunt with the bow and arrow fashioned by Rides the Wind. In winter he coasted down hills on a sled made from buffalo ribs, “skated” over the ice in his fur-lined moccasins, and stalked hapless rabbits across the snow-covered prairie.

  Rides the Wind told stories of bravery. “We returned victorious, but I was sad, for I had been forced to leave Wind on the battlefield where he had fallen under the enemy’s arrows. He could not rise again.”

  “But, Father, Wind is here with us now…”

  “Ah, yes, but I left him that day on the battlefield, for I thought he was dead. And so, when I rode into camp behind White Eagle, I went to my tepee with great heaviness in my heart. My best friend had been lost. I knew that praises would be sung about the campfire for the lost pony, but still, my heart was sad.

  “The feasting lasted for days, and then the other villages began to fold up their tepees and return to their own hunting grounds. At last, everyone was gone, and my village returned to quiet living. All was well. Evening was coming, and I had just finished working with my newest pony when I saw in the distance something that I could not believe. It seemed that a ghost-horse was coming to me across the prairie. For there, in the distance, was Wind. He was walking slowly and his head was drooping. The people all came from their tepees to watch. He came to me, and I saw that a terrible wound still ran along his side. I could not believe my eyes, and yet, I must believe it, for my faithful horse had come back to me.

  “Remember, my son, that when you have such a friend it is a rare gift from the Father. Ever since that day, Wind has been my best friend.” Rides the Wind paused and looked across the fire at Jesse. “Until, of course, I found a certain white woman on the prairie.”

  He stared at Jesse, who answered playfully, “My dear husband, what an honor it is to know that I rank above your horse.”

  Two Mothers looked from one face to the other. He had often heard the story of how Walks the Fire had come to live among the Lakota. Sometimes he was teased about his mother’s fair skin. But in the tepees of some of his friends, he had heard shouting and ugly words. He was grateful for the affection between his father and mother. It didn’t matter that she was white. She was a good mother and a good wife.

  As Two Mothers grew, Rides the Wind joyfully took on the task of teaching his son. He had held his infant son in front of him as they rode Wind and had fashioned a tiny bow and arrow for him from soft woods that grew along the creek. As the boy became older, Two Mothers learned to scramble up on his own pony. Then began the serious business of learning to ride. He fell so many times that Jesse despaired of his welfare, but Rides the Wind refused sympathy and insisted that he always try again. Jesse remembered her own experience of learning to ride, and Rides the Wind’s stony reaction to her tears. She decided not to interfere with the training of her Lakota son.

  One evening Two Mothers came in, his face and arms covered with scratches. He grudgingly admitted that he had fallen off his new pony and had rolled down a steep bank covered with thorny bushes. Jesse cooed sympathy, but Two Mothers would not have it. He was ashamed for having fallen, and Jesse thought she detected a little fear at the prospect of mounting his spirited pony again the next day.

  Rides the Wind examined his son’s wounds carefully, removed a few thorns, and then proceeded to paint each scrape with red paint. “Now Two Mothers appears as a brave warrior returning from defeating the enemy.” He squeezed the boy’s shoulders. “And tomorrow you will ride the pony again, and everyone will know that you are the bravest of the sons in our village.”

  Two Mothers rose early the next morning, having slept little in fearful anticipation of the day. But he successfully controlled the willful pony’s dashes for freedom, and he did not fall off again. That evening, the campfire in their tepee illuminated the faces of one very tired Lakota boy and three very proud adults.

  “You were right to insist that he try again,” Jesse whispered when Rides the Wind stretched out beside her in the dark. Rides the Wind buried his face in Jesse’s long hair and inhaled deeply.

  “You gathered Sikpe-ta-wote today, my wife… its sweetness lingers in your hair. Let us talk no more of our son’s riding,” he whispered. “Let us talk no more.”

  By the time Two Mothers was seven, Jesse’s longing for a child had become a burden that she carried through every day. She counted the moons and when each one passed with no sign of pregnancy, she grew despondent. Old One concocted foul-tasting teas to help, and Prairie Flower advised Jesse to seek the help of the medicine man. Jesse could not bring herself to do the latter. She carried her longing to the Lord. “Father, I am nearly thirty years old—please, Father, a child for Rides the Wind.” When it seemed that His answer was no, she thought she could not bear it

  Rides the Wind sensed her unhappiness and misinterpreted it. He waited for her to speak of her sorrow, and when she said nothing, he believed she was longing to leave the village. The tension between them mounted until, one night, he reached out for her and she feigned sleep. He got up abruptly, strapped on his hunting gear, and strode out of the tepee. Jesse waited for him to come back, but it was three days before she saw Wind back in the herd. Even then, Rides the Wind did not join his family at the fire.

  On the evening of the third day, Jesse walked away from the village at twilight. In the west the horizon glowed a deep pink that faded upward into a pale blue. The blue darkened to a rich violet and there, in the sky, shone one bright star. It was a still night, and no moon was visible.

  Lord, Jesse prayed, you said, “Children are an heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward… As arrows are in t
he hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them.” Why, Lord? Why do you not give us children? I try not to ask for too much. I have tried to be content. But, Lord, is it too much to ask for a child? She heard a coyote howl, the sound of the ponies munching grass and stamping their feet, but no answer. She expected some verse of Scripture to come to mind to bring her comfort, but nothing came to mind except her own longing. The emptiness of the prairie and the vastness of the sky were reminders of her barrenness. She wept quietly, and sat in the dirt, holding her bowed head in her hands.

  Footsteps behind her in the dark startled her out of her misery. She automatically reached for her knife, but a familiar voice broke the stillness.

  “The stars say that it is not safe for women to be out alone.” He did not sit down beside her, but waited for her to get up.

  Jesse straightened her back, wiped away tears, and stayed seated. “I needed to be alone… away from… I needed to pray.”

  “Then I will leave you to your prayers.” Something was gone from the well-known voice. Gentle concern had always been there for her. Where was it, now, when she needed it so much?

  He had already turned to go. She knew he would not go far. He would wait out of sight, watching to see that she was safe. But she did not want him out of sight “No, I am finished. I…” her voice wavered. “There is no answer to my prayers.”

  “There is always an answer. But the answer is not always what we want to hear.”

  The truth of the simple reply cut deep. The answer to her plea for children was no. She couldn’t understand it. She didn’t want to accept it. But for years, now, the answer had been there. She knew it, but she couldn’t bear it. Tears welled fresh in her eyes. He couldn’t see them. The dark offered protection and enabled Rides the Wind to speak his fears.

  “I have had prayers too. I have prayed that you would learn to be happy among the Lakota. But you tell me of the white man’s count of years. You talk of all the time that you have been here. I have not wanted to hear the answer to my prayers. The answer is no, I have prayed to know how to make the smile return to your face.” The voice grew so quiet that she could barely hear the words, “Now I see that I cannot. You must tell me what you wish. Two Mothers is grown, now. You have done well among the people. You do not need to fear telling me that it is time for you to go. I am not like the others… I will not make you stay.” He cleared his throat and forced the words out calmly. “The line of your people crossing the prairie never stops. We are a small band. We have tried to stay away from them. Now, I will take you to them.”