Walks the Fire

by Stephanie Grace Whitson

  LisBeth sat outside the laundry room where Jesse worked. Her legs dangled over the edge of the bench, and her tiny feet pummeled the earth angrily as she stomped and muttered to herself. Her chubby hand defiantly swiped at the tears that she could not will away. “Not gonna cry… not gonna cry,” she muttered to herself.

  Sitting down beside LisBeth, Jesse said, “You’re back early. Was it too hot for the game?”

  LisBeth nodded and turned her head away. But Jesse had already seen the tracks the tears had left on her daughter’s dusty cheek.

  “Why, LisBeth,” Jesse said gently. “What happened? Did you fall? Did you hurt yourself?”

  LisBeth shook her head no. She hugged her knees and studied her toes, waiting for her mother to leave. But Jesse was not put off so easily. “LisBeth,” she said, “you must tell Mama what happened.”

  It all came out in an angry tumble, “I hate that Jimmy Callaway. I just hate him! He thinks he’s really somethin’. Thinks he’s better’n me.”

  Jesse waited for the little voice to regain its control. LisBeth continued, “Said he didn’t want me on his team. Said I got no pa.” LisBeth stared up into her mother’s eyes. “He called me a name.”

  Jesse’s arms encircled her child as she whispered, “Jimmy Callaway is just a little boy, LisBeth. He doesn’t know anything about us. You do have a papa. But your papa’s in heaven—that’s all.”

  LisBeth slipped out of Jesse’s firm grasp. “Tell me about him, Mama. Tell me about my papa,” she pleaded.

  Jesse had gone through the story dozens of times with her daughter. Every time she told it, she meant to tell it all, but something always held her back. She had gone over it in her mind dozens of time. This child deserves to know, she would think, she should know all about her father. But then she thought about the word half-breed and the general spite of those around her toward Indians. Her fears of how they would be treated rose, and somehow, caution would win out and they would go another day with LisBeth assuming that Homer was her father. Jesse meant to correct the memory. She meant to tell LisBeth that her father was Rides the Wind, a Lakota Indian. But somehow she never did.

  “Your papa was the kindest, gentlest, bravest man I ever met,” Jesse said. “He had dark hair and dark eyes, and he walked with a funny limp because he’d hurt his leg before I met him. He could ride a horse and hunt…”

  LisBeth’s voice chimed in, “And he loved you very, very, much.”

  “That’s right, honey,” Jesse said. “He loved me very, very much.”

  LisBeth added, “And you were very, very sad when he died.”

  “I was very, very sad for a long, long time,” Jesse agreed, “but then you were born, and you looked so much like your papa it was as if he had come back to stay with me. We moved away from the home that I had shared with Papa. And we came here to Fort Kearney. God has given us a new home. We have plenty to eat, and clean clothes to wear, and a nice room. And we must thank God for his blessings.”

  Jesse held her daughter’s shoulders and stared solemnly into the young eyes. “Now, you go back to Jimmy Callaway, and you tell him about your pa. Don’t be ashamed, LisBeth. And don’t run away. It’s when people don’t understand that they say mean things. Jimmy may not know Jesus like we do. I know it hurts when people talk that way, but if you ask Jesus to help you, he will help you be kind to Jimmy.”

  Jesse gave LisBeth a little push in the general direction of the children’s games and turned back to her work. A little voice sang back to her:

  He don’t know Jesus

  and he don’t know ’bout my pa,

  So Jimmy Callaway

  Don’t know nothin’ at all.

  LisBeth skipped away, delighted with her new rhyme. Jesse returned to work, attacking the stains on Corporal Donovan’s dress shirt with unusual energy. She smiled pleasantly to her coworkers and turned the incident into an amusing anecdote to share over the hot, soapy tubs of laundry.

  But underneath the smile and beneath the laughter lingered a wish for the courage to tell the story that had not been told.

  Twenty-two

  A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.—Proverbs 17:17

  It was on a particularly monotonous day the year that LisBeth was twelve that Jesse’s past rumbled into Fort Kearney on a battered freighter wagon. Jesse had stepped outside and was fanning herself with her apron. The overhang outside the laundry room door shaded her face. It had been nearly twenty-five years since she had seen him, but George Wood still stepped lightly as he climbed down from his wagon.

  Removing his trail worn hat, he beat the dust out of it against the wagon seat. Carefully replacing its crease, George put the hat back on, pulled the brim down to shade his eyes and glanced around the compound. Jesse stood motionless, the tips of her apron poised in midair. Recognition, followed by surprise and then dumb amazement appeared on George’s face. He strode briskly across the few feet that separated them.

  “Jesse? Jesse King? Is it you? Is it really you?” Then, without waiting for a reply, “I don’t believe it! After all these years!”

  Jesse extended her hand. “George… George Wood.”

  Where Jesse stood speechless, George sputtered to fill the silence with words. “Jesse… how? We looked for you! When you didn’t join up with us that night, we went back. We found—we found Homer—the horses—but you were gone. Vinnie nearly worried herself to death. There wasn’t a trace of your trail after that rainstorm. How did you… Where did you…?”

  Just then LisBeth ran up and grabbed Jesse’s hand. As Jesse introduced her daughter, George looked down at the dark-haired little girl. Her wavy hair flowed halfway down her back. Her skin was tanned by the hot Nebraska sun. In seconds, he had estimated her age and filled in the details of what had become of Jesse King after they had given up the search. He was miserable. “Oh, Jess—I’m sorry. We should never have given up. We should have looked until…”

  Jesse interrupted him. “The Lord always provides for his own, George.” Her gray eyes looked steadily into his as she tried to send an unspoken message. For the first time, she was guilty of a deliberate deception. “After LisBeth’s papa died, the Lord provided for us. We’ve been well cared for by kind people, and I have no complaints. You needn’t feel guilty, George. God worked all things out for my good.”

  Understanding shone in George’s eyes. He changed the subject. “I sure wish Vinnie could be here to see this. She wanted to come with me, but I told her there’s too much Injun trouble. Made her stay on the place. We’ve got a homestead in the Willamette Valley, Jesse. She’ll never believe it when I tell her I saw Jesse King.”

  “Can you come for supper?” Jesse asked. “Our little room is just over there. It won’t be fancy, but I sure would like to hear news of everyone.”

  “Did you know my papa?” LisBeth interrupted.

  Jesse looked down at her daughter and spoke before George had a chance to answer, “No, LisBeth, Mr. Wood never had a chance to get to know Papa, but he’s coming to supper tonight, and we can talk more then.” Jesse looked at George hopefully, and he nodded his assent.

  LisBeth ran off happily, with the anticipation of a dinner guest. This was something new. They had never had a friend for dinner. They had never had a friend, really. LisBeth liked the idea.

  After she was out of earshot George said, “I’ll just see to my team, Jesse. When you’re done here, let me know. I’ll be over at the sutler’s for a while. And Jesse,” he added, “your secret’s safe with me.”

  “Thank you, George. We eat about six o’clock.”

  Supper had to be simple, but Jesse did her best. She put a cloth on the scarred tabletop. LisBeth had gathered a few wildflowers, and they served as a centerpiece. George dominated the suppertime conversation. Urged on by countless questions, he was in his element, laughing and joking as if the trip west had been a hilarious adventure. Lavinia was in good health; the children—and grandchildren, now—were growin
g strong. They had come through a bout of fever, and little Esther had nearly died. “But the Lord pulled her through,” George said. “The Lord always seems to pull us through.”

  “Yes,” Jesse agreed, “sometimes in ways that we don’t expect, but he always pulls us through.”

  George was headed back east to try to convince Lavinia’s sister and brother-in-law to join them in Oregon. He sang the praises of the new territory, and Jesse was reminded of Dr. Whitman’s persuasive speeches.

  “Did you hear about Dr. Whitman?” George asked. When Jesse said no, he told the sad tale. Dr. Whitman and his lovely wife and their coworkers had all been killed by the Indians they had gone to serve. George ended the story, “What a waste… such young lives ended that way.”

  “Lives poured out for God are never wasted, George,” Jesse reminded him. “Now we see through a glass, darkly.”

  Uncomfortable with the prospect of a theological discussion, George rose to leave. “Jesse,” he said, holding out his hands to take hers, “when Vinnie hears that you survived, you’ll probably hear the ‘Hallelujah!’ all the way from Oregon. You got plans?”

  “Only to raise my daughter.”

  “I’ll be back through here in a few weeks with the rest of the family. Why don’t we do one better than me just tellin’ Vinnie ’bout you? Why don’t you and LisBeth come west with us? You can make a home there. You’ll have friends. You was closer to Vinnie than her own sister, anyway. You won’t be just a friend. You’ll be family. What do you say?”

  When Jesse hesitated, George urged her, “Well, think about it! You don’t have to give me an answer now, but when I come back through, I’ll be looking for you, hoping you got your trunk packed and your bonnet tied on.”

  “I don’t know, George, I’ll let you know when you come back.” George left, LisBeth went to bed, and Jesse lay awake until long after midnight, thinking about the possibility of joining friends in the Oregon Territory.

  What shall I do, Lord? In the early morning hours, Jesse felt she had her answer. The prairie had claimed the life of the man she had loved, and there had been times when she had been bitter and had hated it. But faced with the prospect of leaving it behind her, Jesse was surprised to learn that she had come to love the land around her. It was cruel at times, when blizzards blew, or the hot sun blazed. Yet, there was something here, something in the panoramic views that held her heart. It was her adopted land, but it was her home, and she had no desire to leave it for the woods of the northwest.

  Jesse did not realize until later that George’s invitation to Oregon played a great part in the next major change in her life. Although she had determined never to leave the prairie, she had come to realize that as LisBeth grew, there would be a need for ties to others. There would be a need for a more settled life than what was possible here in the fort. The possibility of moving on had been planted, so that in the weeks ahead, Jesse became convinced that God had a new plan for her and her daughter.

  One morning not long after George’s departure for the east, Gilda rushed in to work with news of a skirmish between the Sioux and a scouting party. There had been casualties, mostly “the thievin’ Sioux,” but one young lieutenant had been seriously wounded.

  “Corporal Donovan’s just rode in with the prisoners. Says he’s goin’ back and clean out the rest of the troublemakers,” Gilda blurted out.

  Jesse glanced out the door of the laundry room just as the soldiers herded the group of prisoners past. At the rear of the little band of aged warriors straggled a middle-aged squaw dressed in a tattered doeskin dress. Stealing glances at the whites, she hid her face behind the corner of the blanket she huddled in.

  Jesse had been dipping sheets slowly into the steaming vat before her. When she caught sight of the squaw, she quickly dropped the sheets and grabbed her apron to wipe her eyes. The squaw had lowered her blanket, revealing a once-beautiful face marred by an ugly scar across the bridge of the nose.

  Jesse gasped in disbelief and was instantly out the door. “Prairie Flower!” she called out in Lakota. She pushed her way past one of the soldiers and touched the squaw’s shoulder.

  Wheeling about, the squaw stammered, “Walks the Fire! It is you?!”

  The soldier whom Jesse had pushed by interrupted them. “Mrs. King… you know this squaw?” He questioned her in disbelief, forcing his considerable bulk between the two women.

  Jesse realized that she must explain herself in a way that would protect LisBeth.

  “Why, yes, Corporal Donovan… I do. Years ago, when we were crossing the prairie, my husband and I met an unfortunate accident. We were overtaken by buffalo, our wagon destroyed. A hunting party proved uncommonly helpful. Prairie Flower was among their band. She showed me much kindness. Indeed, I have never forgotten her.”

  Donovan smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. “Prairie Flower,” he repeated the name. “Sure ain’t much of a flower now, is she?—just a dirty old scarred up squaw, taggin’ along after some beat-up Injuns. And a sorry group they are, at that.” Donovan shoved one of the warriors. He moved away, careful to hide the rage blazing in his dark eyes. The brave looked at the ground and muttered, “You white dog—I will feed you to the eagles.”

  Donovan turned to the Pawnee guide who had accompanied the soldiers on their mission.

  “What’s he say?”

  Jesse interrupted before the Pawnee could reply. “He says that he wishes to see the leader of the brave men who fought today.”

  Donovan looked surprised, but when his Pawnee scout remained silent, Jesse explained, “We were among the Lakota long enough for me to learn a little of their language and their customs. They value bravery above all else. You must have impressed them as very worthy opponents for this one to request to see your leader. It is a sign of great respect.” Jesse prayed that Donovan would believe her and that God would forgive her lies.

  Donovan turned to his Pawnee scout. “Is she telling the truth?”

  The scout looked long at Jesse and then at Prairie Flower. He stared into the eyes of his enemy. Finally, he answered, “She speaks truth. The people value bravery.”

  Donovan looked at Jesse again. He stared at her moccasined feet and scribbled in the dirt with his quirt as he drawled, “Well, now, just suppose you tell these here fellers to behave and not cause any trouble, and they just might get to meet the captain yet today.”

  Jesse turned to the warriors and for the first time she recognized Talks a Lot, Prairie Flower’s father. She addressed him slowly. It had been years since she had spoken Lakota. The words came with difficulty. “This white dog says you must be patient. He is an arrogant good-for-nothing, but I will try to find a way to get the leader to come to you soon. The captain is a fair man.”

  Even as she said the words, Jesse wondered how she would fulfill the promise. How could a camp laundress hope to get around the corporal to command any influence with the captain?

  Talks a Lot remained expressionless, but Jesse noted the flicker of thanks in his eyes.

  Donovan nodded in agreement with her speech and smiled confidently. Prairie Flower ducked her head to avoid smiling at his foolishness.

  “Good,” Donovan said, smacking the palm of his hand with his quirt. “Now, let’s go.” His unit shoved the Indians across the compound.

  “Corporal,” Jesse asked, “could not the woman stay with me?”

  “Mrs. King,” Donovan sneered, “these here are official pris’ners of the U.S. Government. I can’t be handin’ ’em over to just anyone who feels sorry for ’em.” He paused a moment and looked Jesse over, “’sides, I don’t know just how friendly you was with them Injuns a-fore. How’d I know you wouldn’t help ’em escape?”

  Jesse’s cheeks flushed at the veiled insult, but she controlled her temper. “Surely as a gentleman you wouldn’t expect a lone woman to remain locked up with the men.”

  Donovan’s lips curled up. “Ma’am, these is Injuns we’re talkin’ about. I don’t think it’ll be a
problem to keep ’em all together. It’s not like they was white folks with real morals and all.” Donovan enjoyed the return of the angry flush to Jesse’s cheeks. His curiosity was piqued. It had been a boring spring, and he had relished fighting Indians. Now this woman’s relationship with the Sioux added a new dimension to the whole affair. Things were looking up.

  Donovan stared down again at Jesse’s moccasins. Involuntarily, she tucked her toes back under her skirts.

  “Good-day, ma’am,” he said to Jesse, touching the riding whip to the bill of his cap and turning his rotund back on her. Jesse saw Prairie Flower cover her scarred face from the curious eyes of the fort residents who had gathered to stare at the Indians. Talks a Lot walked proudly along, his long gray hair flowing over his shoulders, his head held high.

  Jesse returned to her work, hushing LisBeth’s questions with unusual sternness as she wondered how she could help her friends. She wondered and prayed for the rest of the day as she worked in the laundry. No answer came. She continued to wonder and worry through supper with LisBeth, who noticed that her mother was unusually quiet.

  As the sun went down, Jesse settled into her rocker by the fireplace, reached for her quilting, and prayed desperately for wisdom to reason out how she might help Talks a Lot and Prairie Flower. And Lord, she added, give me time to ask about Soaring Eagle—Lord, I must know.

  “Mama, how did that Indian get the scar on her face?” LisBeth’s voice interrupted Jesse’s musings.

  “I’ll tell you another time.”

  “Mama, do you know the one with the long gray hair?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you learn to talk like them?”

  No answer.

  LisBeth had never been shut out from her mother’s thoughts so completely. Bewildered, and a little angry, she noisily made preparations for going to bed. She huffed and puffed and rattled about the small room, finally settled onto her cot, and surprised herself by falling immediately asleep.