Walks the Fire

by Stephanie Grace Whitson

  The psalms began to tumble from her mouth, giving voice to the hurt.

  Save me, O God; for the waters have come in unto my soul I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I have come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. I am weary with my crying: my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.

  Jesse read the same words again and again. And the living thing that had held her under a weight of darkness began to lift.

  Lord, I cry unto thee: make haste unto me; give ear unto my voice, when I cry unto thee. Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.

  And then one morning the grief quieted. It lay curled on the horizon as dawn broke. It prowled along the edges of her day. But it let Jesse breathe and move through the day without the constant battle. Old One saw her smile at Soaring Eagle. A soft light returned to the gray eyes. Howling Wolf noted the change, too. He decided to wait until spring to avenge his hatred.

  Only once after that did the grief nearly overpower her—at the water’s edge. She looked down and saw the absence of the face that should be reflected beside her own. She tamed the grief by slapping the water’s surface, destroying the image. It retreated. Life went on.

  By the Moon of Strong Cold Jesse had grown large with child. Prairie Flower brought her the softest, whitest skin Jesse had ever seen.

  “It is the skin of an unborn buffalo calf,” she explained, adding shyly, “I was saving it for my own child… but now…” Tears stung her eyes, and she brushed her hand over her scarred face.

  Jesse wondered why the kindness of a friend should bring the grief prowling back from the shadows. Managing a whispered thanks, she clutched the skin and fled across the camp to her own tepee where Rides the Wind was not; his coming child pushed the very breath from her body as she panted from her short run. The baby churned and kicked. A tiny foot pushed against Jesse’s ribs and she pressed against it. The foot kicked back, harder, and she whispered, “Your child insists on his own way, best beloved.”

  And then, one morning, Jesse raised her palms heavenward and found her own words tumbling out in place of the psalms she had been reciting.

  The grief retreated to the fringes of her day. It still surprised her at times, leaping out with fresh attacks when she was least prepared. But time had begun to heal the wound. When she woke to the absence of Rides the Wind, she filled the emptiness with his favorite passages of Scripture, reading them over and over until they became part of her.

  Soaring Eagle spent the winter months gentling a new pony. He had taken over the care of his father’s herd and tended the animals with genuine tenderness, proving that he had learned his father’s lessons well. Jesse watched as he faithfully gained the trust of a young horse, teaching it to run swift and straight as its rider slid sideways until only one knee was visible to the pretended enemy. The two would chase around a meadow again and again until great clouds of frosty steam rose from the pony’s gaping nostrils. Then Soaring Eagle would slow the pony to a walk and carefully cool him down before turning him out with the other horses.

  Jesse praised her son for his skill as a rider and was grateful to be able to watch his demonstration without losing her battle with grief. A pang of regret was there for the father who could not know of his son’s accomplishments, but it was manageable and the pain was duller. Jesse had grown to accept it as a permanent part of her existence. She kept it at arm’s length and worked every waking hour, helping other women in the village as much as possible, chattering away the hours of each day as she waited for the birth of her child.

  She was troubled, though, with more than the ever-present grief. It seemed that wherever she went, Howling Wolf was not far away. When she spoke of it to Prairie Flower, the woman shrugged and said, “Howling Wolf is a worthless man. He pleads with me to come back to him. The other women do not want him. He only seems to be watching you because we are together so much. But I do not want him. He will not give up. Only last week he offered a new buffalo robe as a peace offering.” Prairie Flower paused a moment and unconsciously touched the scar his knife had left across her face. Then she whispered, “As if a buffalo robe could heal this and take us back to the days when we cared for one another. I will never go back to that canniyasa!”

  Jesse kept her concerns to herself after that. Still, Howling Wolf seemed to be watching her, and the hatred in his eyes made her shiver.

  In the Moon When the Geese Lay Eggs, the signs of spring were everywhere and the people grew restless and ready to move from winter camp. Jesse grew concerned about the move, knowing that her time to deliver her child was growing near. Prairie Flower offered encouragement. “Old One is good hoksiacu. She has brought many babies into our band. You need not fear when your time comes.”

  Soaring Eagle left with a hunting party, joking that when he returned he would have meat for his new brother.

  When Soaring Eagle left, Howling Wolf decided to act. Jesse and Old One were asleep when he prowled into their tepee, knocking Old One unconscious with one blow. He leaped across the campfire and grabbed Jesse by the throat, menacing her with his knife. Jesse clutched at his hand and struggled to scream, but the rage Howling Wolf had nursed against her gave him such strength that she had no chance. He hissed at her. “You white demon—now I will have you! You turned Prairie Flower against me and taught her white ways. You schemed and stole the new woman I brought into camp. There is no Rides the Wind to protect you now. And Soaring Eagle is far away. Cry out to your God—he will do nothing. The spirits give me power… You have ruined me in the eyes of my people, and now you will pay for all you have done!”

  Jesse gasped for breath as he gagged her and tied her hands behind her back. He pulled her backward across the tepee, slitting the skins, forcing her through the hole. He began alternately dragging and pushing her toward the creek. Her feet grew icy cold as they trudged through the melting snow. She winced and stumbled. Howling Wolf jabbed her belly and forced her on. Fear for the unborn child kept her quiet. Panic kept her moving.

  When they reached the creek, Jesse saw Red Star tethered next to a strange pony. Howling Wolf shoved her up onto Red Star’s bare back and leaped onto his mount to lead her away. He went slowly at first, careful not to rouse the camp. Jesse gripped Red Star’s sides with her knees as tightly as she could.

  The next few hours they rode along the stream, back through the Gate of the Buffalo. Jesse clung to Red Star’s sides with agonized muscles, desperately praying to stay mounted. Her great belly threw her off balance as they lurched along, and she bounced hard against Red Star’s spine, unable to move with the familiar rhythm of the pony’s stride.

  Howling Wolf stopped only to water the ponies. Each time, he checked the ropes that held Jesse’s hands behind her. Each time, he shoved the gag back into her mouth with a filthy hand.

  Near dawn, they struck out across the open prairie. At last, Jesse saw their destination. Rising from the earth—indeed, made from the very earth, was a cabin. From its only window came the feeble glow of a lamp.

  Caution had kept Pierre Canard inside his soddy as he watched the approach of two unfamiliar horses. He crouched, peering over the windowsill, rifle in hand, and waited. The ponies moved slowly, and the trapper scratched at his graying beard and squinted his eyes to learn all he could by observing the visitors. As the sun rose and the riders approached, he whistled his amazement that one of the riders was a white woman, bound and gagged and obviously very pregnant. She had also received very rough treatment. Her tangled red hair hid most of her face, in spite of her efforts to shake it back over her shoulders.

  Howling Wolf dismounted and strode to the door of the cabin, pounding loudly to awaken the inhabitants. He ignored Jesse.

  Canard made the immediate assumption that here was a captive to be rescued and returned to her family at whatever cost. He opened the door and stepped lightly outside, conversing with Howling Wolf in sign language. Gagged, Jesse coul
d only watch the conversation. She raged inwardly, powerless to contradict Howling Wolfs lies.

  The trade was made quickly. Canard was eager to rescue the helpless captive and rid himself of the greedy savage before his friends showed up to protest the meager reward Canard had offered. Howling Wolf grudgingly accepted the two scrawny ponies Canard offered in trade and demanded Canard’s rifle as part of the bargain. Canard shook his head defiantly and retreated inside the soddy to rummage for a substitute. He came back out with a bottle of whiskey. Howling Wolf guzzled it before handing over the reins to Red Star and staggering over to bridle the two ponies that were part of the trade. In a few moments, he had departed with the two ponies and the whiskey, forgetting to take Red Star back with him. Canard laughed to himself about the savage’s stupidity even as he lifted Jesse down from Red Star and unbound and ungagged her.

  Jesse gasped for fresh air and rubbed her hands together, not knowing what to say. Canard broke the silence, “Please, madame, come inside. I will make you coffee, bring water for washing. Whatever you need, Pierre Canard will try to supply. I am only a trader, alone in this house, but you are welcome and I will help you. You need have no fear. When you have rested, we will go to the fort and I will help you find your family.”

  Jesse interrupted him. “My family is back in the Lakota village—my son, my mother-in-law, my friends.”

  Canard stared dumbly at her, his brain slow to process the amazing fact that this woman actually wanted to return to the very savages that had brought her here.

  “I have lived with the people for…”Jesse stopped. How many years had it been? She had lost count. “I have lived with the people for many years, now…”

  “But,” Canard interrupted, “he said that you were a slave, that he needed horses more than a worthless woman who would no longer work. He said…”

  “He is a liar. He is my enemy. My husband is dead, and he has been waiting to attack me. My son went out with a hunting party, and I was stupid. I thought that Howling Wolf had given up his schemes. I was wrong. Please! Help me return to my people.” Jesse grew desperate. “It’s all I have, all I know. I wouldn’t know how…” She was crying now, tears running down both cheeks.

  Canard took the reins to the pony that stood waiting patiently. “Please, madame, you go inside, sit by the fire. I will take the pony to the corral and bring you fresh water. We will talk. I will help you. Please, do not cry.”

  But Jesse could not stop the tears. She nodded at him and plodded inside the strange cabin and sat obediently by the glowing fire, but the angry tears continued.

  The trapper bustled about outside and hurried in with a full bucket of fresh water. Jesse washed her hands and her face and tried to tame the tangle of her hair while Canard stirred the fire and boiled water for coffee. He bustled about efficiently while Jesse sat wearily on the floor, her head nodding in spite of her efforts to stay awake.

  She did not know how much time had elapsed when the once familiar aroma of coffee filled the air and Canard touched her hand gently. “Madame, we haf’ breakfast now, and we talk. And Pierre Canard will help you all he can.”

  Jesse allowed herself to be led to the rough-hewn table where she was presented with a tin cup of steaming liquid. She stared in wonder at the fresh biscuits before her and looked up at Canard. Kind blue eyes twinkled as he said, “I am a man alone, but I am a good cook! You eat for the baby, eh?”

  The reminder of the baby’s welfare encouraged her to eat. She lifted a biscuit to her lips, and the aroma of sourdough made her mouth water. She ate greedily, washing down two biscuits with the steaming coffee. It revived her, and she tried to smooth the torn elkskin dress, tucking her cold feet back underneath the chair as far out of sight as possible. The warmth from the fireplace soothed the aches from the nightlong ride. Her weariness receded.

  Canard joined her at the table, consuming a half dozen biscuits and as many cups of coffee, trying to fill the silence with activity. At last, he pushed his chair back from the table and looked out the window. The sky was gray and threatening.

  “It looks like we may have a storm coming, madame. I go to tend the horses. The foolish man who brought you here did not know that the good horses I keep inside at night, to protect them from the likes of him. So I put the little pony inside too.”

  At mention of Red Star Jesse found her voice. “She’s mine. Her name is Red Star…” her voice trailed off. “She was a gift from my husband. She is a good pony…” Jesse looked up into the kind eyes and decided he would not laugh at her. “She is a good friend.”

  Canard smiled. “Well, then, this good friend must have shelter inside, also, from the storm. You see, it comes even now.” Indeed, snowflakes had begun to fall and the wind had begun to sound a low, threatening wail.

  Canard bustled outside and tended to his stock. His eyes searched the horizon, and he did not like what he saw. Tying one end of a rope to a corral post, he walked to the well in the yard, and then to the soddy, where he pulled the end of the rope through the door-latch hole and tied a knot to keep it in place. “It looks like this will be a bad storm, madame. Now, I can find my way to the horses and to the well, even if the worst comes… which, I hope it does not.”

  But the wind moaned louder, and the snow came down mixed with pellets of ice that beat against the one window of the soddy. By noon, the grass was coated with ice and the shorter buffalo grass had disappeared under a blanket of white. Jesse sat at the table and watched the storm, praying it would stop so that she could be away. Weariness overtook her, and she curled up near the fire and slept, refusing Canard’s urgings to lie down on the rope bed in the corner.

  She awoke with a start at the desperate howl of the wind. It had grown eerily dark outside and she knew that she could not find her way back home today. The blizzard would destroy any trail that Howling Wolf had left. She realized with grim satisfaction that the blizzard might destroy the drunken Howling Wolf, as well. And she wondered about Soaring Eagle and the hunting party. Would they have returned to the village by now, or had they, too, been caught by the storm? How long would it be before Soaring Eagle would even know what had happened? How long would it be before he would try to find her?

  Her thoughts were interrupted by Canard’s repeated urgings that she rest on the rope bed. She refused, choosing instead to make a pallet on the floor in a remote corner of the soddy. Canard gave in to her stubbornness, and hung a tattered quilt across that corner to give her some privacy.

  “Thank you,” she managed. Then, she said softly, “I am sorry that I cannot explain to you, but it is all so muddled. I don’t know where to begin… and,” she sighed, “I am so very tired.”

  Canard interrupted her. “This storm will give you many days to think. And if you choose to tell me your story, then I will listen. But,” and the blue eyes glowed warmly, “you need say nothing if that is what you wish. I will listen if you wish to talk… if you wish to be silent, I will understand. And, madame,” he added awkwardly, “I am in a land of many godless men, but I am a God-fearing man. I will not harm you. Perhaps God has sent you here so that I can help… please, do not fear me.” He seemed to be groping for more words, but he said no more.

  Jesse only nodded as she tried to grasp the implications of his speech. She raged in anger that she had been torn away from the Lakota. She did not want a new future. She wanted to go home where Soaring Eagle and Prairie Flower and Old One waited. If a return to the whites was God’s will, then for once, she did not want God’s will. Rides the Wind, Soaring Eagle, Prairie Flower, Homer, horses, wagons, ponies, Old One, images and memories swirled and danced even as the snow swirled outside, destroying any hope of her following a trail back to the Lakota.

  Nineteen

  To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven… A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.—Ecclesiastes 3:1, 4

  They came to her in the night. For the first couple of hours, s
he slept fitfully, wondering in semi-consciousness why the sounds of a blizzard should cause her such alarm. The stomach cramps did not subside, and Jesse awoke in misery. Her breathing came in short gasps as she struggled to rise from her pallet. Groping about in the darkness she reached to light the lamp she had left on the floor. A gush of warm liquid revealed the cause of her discomfort.

  “Oh, my Lord,” she whispered aloud, “my Lord—not tonight—not here—please, Lord.”

  The answer to her prayer came in a new wave of contractions. Yes, my child—tonight. Jesse breathed deeply and readied herself for the next onslaught.

  Yes, Jesse—here. The answers were not audible, and yet her heart heard, and I will be with you, just as I was with you when you walked the fire, just as I was there in the valley of death, just so, I will be here.

  Jesse’s mind grew calmer. The contractions lessened and she thought clearly. She would need clean water, a knife, something to wrap the child in.

  The child, she thought in wonder. Tonight she would hold Rides the Wind’s child in her arms! A particularly strong contraction came and Jesse cried out—a low whimper that grew as the contraction intensified and ended in a shrill “oh.”

  She bit her lips to silence herself, but it was too late. Canard had heard. He was standing uncertainly just on the other side of the ragged quilt he had hung for her privacy.

  “Madame, what is it?” he asked anxiously. “You need help?” His voice was warm with concern.

  Jesse took a deep breath. “I am fine,” she gasped. “I am to have my baby tonight, it seems.”

  Canard stood on the other side of the partition, unwilling to move it without her permission.

  “Do you know how to do this thing?”

  Jesse waited through another contraction before answering. “This is not my first; years ago I had a son. He died—a baby—fell off the wagon. I have helped among the Lakota. I will be all right.” Another contraction cut short her reply. She moaned softly.