Bill Dugan_War Chiefs 04

by Quanah Parker

  She wanted to go home, and she kept seeing that awful image of Granny Parker pinned to the ground, Grandpa John dead, and Uncle Ben a bloody pincushion with glazed button eyes, and she knew she would never see home again.

  Black Feather kept one hand on Cynthia’s shoulder, squeezing it from time to time to reassure her, but it made no difference. Nothing would make a difference, nothing would ever be the same again, and she let the truth wash over her like a huge wave, not struggling against it, but letting it sweep her along. Her eyes darted every which way, following the sharp jabs of the old woman’s finger, and she tried to take in the words, but it was all just a buzz now, a distant hum, as if some hive of great bees were getting angry, beginning to swarm out and defend itself. It rose to a roar until she could barely hear the words of the white woman who was a Comanche, and when she could hear them they sounded as if they had come from a great distance, maybe under water, sounds without meaning.

  And bow, arrow, lance, and shield surrounded her on every side. Tipis stabbed the sky, the children swarmed like gnats and all of it was just a blur through the waterlogged slits her eyes had become. She stopped paying attention to the words altogether because she didn’t want to know anything, thought that knowing how things were here, what things meant would make it all the harder for her to go back.

  Then, a shadow spilled over her and she opened her eyes wide. She looked up into the face of a man who stood smiling, one hand hidden behind his back. He squatted down in front of her, reached out to tickle her under the chin. She pushed the hand away, but it kept coming back, hovering like a hummingbird just out of her reach.

  He looked familiar somehow, but she wasn’t sure why. Then imaging the scrubbed and gleaming face striped with red and yellow paint, she understood. This was the man who had stolen her away. And now he wanted to be friends, as if he had done no more than take her for a walk in the park. He was teasing her, playing with her, the way an uncle or grandfather might.

  And she hated him. She flew at him suddenly, her small fists pounding on his chest. The suddenness of the onslaught had taken him by surprise, and he fell over backward. In an attempt to keep his balance, he had brought out the hand that had been hidden, and she saw something in it, stared for a moment, suddenly powerless to move.

  The people all around were laughing, saying things that made the man smile broadly. Slowly, he brought the hand close to her, and she saw that he held a small doll, an animal, probably a buffalo. He held it out, shaking it once or twice until she understood that it was for her.

  She turned away, and he said something that made the others laugh. Then, looking at Black Feather, she asked, “What did he say?”

  Black Feather smiled. “He said you have the heart of a panther.”

  “What does.

  “Take the doll,” Black Feather said. “He wants you to have it.”

  “I don’t want it!”

  But, in spite of herself, she turned back. Once more the buffalo was dangled in front of her. “I want to see my brother,” she said.

  “I’ll take you,” the woman answered.

  Then, slowly, Cynthia Ann reached for the gift. She stopped with her fingertips just grazing the stiff hairs of the doll. Then, gently, he pressed it into her hand. Her fingers closed reluctantly. And then it was hers.

  And she knew that in that moment she had turned a corner. Life would never be the same.

  Chapter 11

  Summer 1845

  CYNTHIA WOKE UP EARLY, as she had been doing for as long as she could remember. Leaving the tipi, she walked to the top of a hill behind the village, enjoying the chill in the predawn air. It made her shiver, raised little bumps on the skin of her arms and legs. Even in the chill, the air was heavy with the smell of hollyhock and lupine, their blossoms just masses of charcoal against the darker mass of the hill. It was too early for the bees to be about, and passing through the tall flowers, she allowed them to swish against her. Once or twice, she bent to sniff deeply of one of the blossoms, letting the cool dew tickle the tip of her nose.

  When she reached the hilltop, she sat down, tucking her legs primly beneath her, even though there was no one about. She watched the village, heard a dog bark, and the distant nicker of a nervous horse. Where once such sounds would have raised the hair on the back of her neck, they were so much a part of her life now that she found them comforting, for reasons she could not explain.

  She was worried about Walks on Wind. The old woman seemed almost indestructible, but Cynthia, now called Naudah for so long she barely remembered her old name, couldn’t shake the feeling that she was beginning to slow down. Her hair had whitened in the last couple of winters, and the hands which had been so strong that morning so long ago when Naudah had first been taken to her, now trembled so much that beadwork was no longer possible for her. The simplest things seemed to give her trouble, things she had done almost as long as she lived, which, as near as Naudah could figure, had to be about sixty years, maybe even older.

  More and more, Walks on Wind looked to her to do things. Almost all of the skinning, except on those very warm days in the middle of the summer hunt, when every hand was necessary, now fell to Naudah to do. And even when Walks on Wind tried to help, she often spent hours on a single hide, trying to conceal her frustration and the inevitable tears it prompted. Walks on Wind was a proud woman, and she hated for anyone to see the weakness that was catching up to her.

  As often as not, even the cooking fell to Naudah. She didn’t mind. In fact, she even took some pleasure in it. It was one of the few things she felt comfortable doing. So much of what Walks on Wind had taught her had come with difficulty. She tried, partly because she knew it would make her life easier, and partly because she took pride in doing things well, but she suspected that deep inside her was a frightened ten-year-old unable to get out.

  On her solitary walks, she would try to remember how things were before her life had been turned inside out, to imagine what they would be like if that one horrible day hadn’t happened. She didn’t blame the Comanche anymore. She had seen too much to do that. Their lives were hard, suspended between the earth and a heavy stone that might at any moment fall, crushing them like so many bugs. But she felt cheated.

  Lying back in the tall grass, feeling the beads of dew seep into the collar of her dress and send shivers down her spine, she closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, the sky above was full of fireflies, hard, white points that seemed to shimmer. Once, a blade of brilliant yellow lanced across the black skin of the night, so fast she thought she might have imagined it. But it was there even when she closed her eyes, and lingered for several seconds, slowly fading. Only when it was gone, did she open again, as if to see whether it would come back.

  Looking down on the village, the place she now thought of as home because it filled the vacuum in her heart left by the loss of her real home, she saw a dark figure moving away from the tipis. For a split second, her blood went cold. The thought crossed her mind that it could be an Osage or an Apache. But the figure was walking too easily, unconcerned whether or not it was observed, and a warrior scouting for a war party would never have been so casual.

  She relaxed then, watching the figure as it left the camp circle behind and reached the bottom of the hill on which she sat. It was a man, but she could not tell who. He came up the hill then, his steps tentative, as if he weren’t sure he wanted to make the climb. Probably someone restless, maybe River Walker, who had a fight with his wife that evening, one that made everyone laugh, which only succeeded in making River Walker still angrier. Maybe he had been unable to sleep and come out for some quiet thought. Or maybe his wife had thrown him out. Naudah smiled at the thought.

  As he drew nearer, she started to worry that he might see her and, worse yet, that someone else might see the two of them and jump to the wrong conclusion. Only when he reached the crest did she recognize him. Peta Nocona. This time, she closed her eyes again and refused to open them. He was a ch
ief now, no longer just the subchief who had wrapped an arm around her and carried her away.

  She knew that he worried about many things, and that he seemed hardly ever to sleep. But why was he up here? she wondered.

  She didn’t want to say anything, partly to keep him from knowing she was there and partly because he intimidated her. Not that he was ever rude or abusive. But there was something about him, some majestic chill that seemed to insulate him from the rest of the people. She wondered whether it was like that for all chiefs, whether kings and queens were as isolated on their thrones.

  “You couldn’t sleep?” he asked. Just when she thought he hadn’t noticed her.

  At first, she debated whether to answer. Perhaps she could pretend she was sleeping, and he would not speak again, leaving her to her dreams. But she couldn’t do that.

  “No,” she said, her voice cracking, almost catching in her throat.

  “I couldn’t sleep either.” He wasn’t looking in her direction, and the words were soft, almost inaudible, not like the terrible thunderbolts he delivered when around the council fire.

  “You have been with us a long time, now, Naudah,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Ten winters.”

  “Yes.”

  “I have thought about it a great deal in the last few days.”

  Emboldened by his candor, she was moved to ask, “Why?”

  “Because I have often wondered whether it was the right thing to do.”

  “It doesn’t matter now.”

  “Doesn’t it?”

  “No.”

  “I think it does.”

  “You did what you do. It is what Comanche have always done, is it not?”

  “Yes. Even when we were not Comanche but Shoshone. So long ago that no one remembers exactly when we stopped being Shoshone and became Comanche. But because a thing is always done, does that make it right? This is what I have been asking myself.”

  “It doesn’t make it right, no. But it doesn’t make it wrong.”

  “You lost family that day, people who were close to you, people who loved you and whom you loved. That was painful. I know that.”

  “People say that Peta Nocona had a family once, too. That he lost them, just as I lost my family.”

  “They were taken from me, yes. But they are dead. You don’t know whether your family is alive or dead.”

  “My father and his brother are dead. My grandfather is dead. My grandmother is probably dead.”

  “The old woman with white hair?”

  “Yes.”

  “She was a very brave old woman. She tried to save you from me.”

  “Was it you who …?” But she stopped herself. She didn’t really want to know the answer.

  “No. It wasn’t. But that doesn’t make the loss any less painful. It doesn’t mean …”He trailed off, his voice confused, as if he weren’t sure what it didn’t mean, any more than he knew what it meant.

  “As I said, it no longer matters. I couldn’t go back now, not even if I wanted to.”

  “Since that day, we have never taken a white captive into the Noconi village. Do you know why?”

  “I wondered about that.”

  “Because I realized that it wasn’t fair. War is one thing, but that was something else. If I were dead, I would want to know that my family was well cared for. But I could not stand to be alive and not know where my son was, whether he had enough to eat, whether he was cold in winter or thirsty in summer. I would hate not knowing.”

  “So it was because of your son that … “

  Nocona shook his head, the movement just a blur of shadow in the starlight. “No. It was because of you. Because of you and your family. We still make war with the whites because we have to defend our lands and because they make war on us, even though the old chiefs once signed a paper saying that there would be no war. The Osage signed, too, and the Kiowa. The Kiowa are our friends, so we don’t make war on each other, but the Osage are our enemies still, and still they make war and we make war. It is like that with the whites. The paper means nothing. Not to anyone. It is just paper.”

  “What, then?”

  Nocona tapped his chest. “What I felt in here … that means something. And I feel that you have been done a great evil. For this I am sorry. I would undo it if I knew how. But … “

  He sighed heavily, and Naudah felt bad for him, knowing that he meant what he said and knowing, too, that what he said was true, that it could not be undone. Even if she wanted it to be.

  “I no longer blame you, as I once did.”

  “It would be all right if you still did. I would understand.”

  “But I don’t. Walks on Wind has been good to me. She didn’t have to be. In the beginning, Black Feather told me stories of what happened to some … captives. I was lucky.”

  “Lucky?”

  “It could have been worse. Much worse.”

  “Yes,” he said. “It could have been worse.”

  “I wonder about my brother.”

  “So do I. But I have never heard word of him. Every time I meet someone from another band, I ask. Black Snake has too, and Black Feather. I don’t know what happened to your brother. You may not believe that, but it’s true.”

  “I have no reason not to believe it.”

  “You think he is dead, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  Nocona grunted. “I think so, too. I am sorry.”

  “You are sorry about so much tonight. Maybe you should look at the stars and smell the hollyhock, and try to forget about things you can’t change.”

  “Knowing that I can’t change these things doesn’t mean that I don’t want to.”

  “I know that. But knowing you want to change them is enough. I don’t expect the impossible.”

  “You are very wise, for … “

  “For a woman?”

  “No, I was going to say for one so young. I was not half so wise when I was your age.”

  “One does not become a chief without being wise.”

  Nocona laughed then, an arctic laugh. “And one who is wise knows not to become a chief.”

  He looked up at the stars then, letting his gaze take in their vast sweep. “So many,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Goodnight.”

  And without another word, he started down the hill. Naudah had the urge to race after him, thinking that she had been too direct, too critical, but he would see through any attempt to change her words, and she thought it better to let them be.

  When his shadow disappeared among the tipis, she got to her feet and started down the hill. The sun would be up soon, and there would be a lot to do. Just as there always was.

  Chapter 12

  NOCONA DIDN’T NOTICE THE SHADOW until he almost reached his tipi. As he was about to duck inside, he caught the movement of darkness and turned, his hand reaching instinctively for the knife on his hip.

  “You don’t need that knife, brother,” a familiar voice said.

  “Black Snake. You startled me. I thought … “

  Black Snake laughed softly. “If I were an Osage, brother, we would all be in trouble. As it is, it is just you who are in trouble.”

  “Trouble, how?” Nocona whispered.

  “Let’s walk awhile. Get away from the village, where we can speak freely.”

  “It’s late, and I’m tired.”

  “You are always tired. Because you don’t sleep as much as you should. That is a problem for any man, but especially for a chief.” Taking Nocona by the arm, he tugged firmly. “Come on. It’s important.”

  The chief gave in to his friend, and followed him through the silent tipis sitting like huge beehives in the darkness, until they were at the riverbank. Impatient to know what was on Black Snake’s mind, Nocona reached down to tug at a swatch of dry grass, uprooted it, and slapped it rhythmically against his knee.

  “Now, what is this trouble that you know about and I don’t?” he asked.
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  Black Snake sat on the ground, crossed his legs, and patted the sand beside him. “Sit,” he said.

  When Nocona followed suit, Black Snake leaned back, folding his arms beneath his head and stretched his legs out toward the water. Nocona remained sitting.

  Taking a pebble, Black Snake tossed it out over the river, where it landed with a distant splash. “It’s been a long time since White Heron and Little Calf,” he said. A bold move, since it was custom not to speak of the dead by name.

  Nocona realized that, whatever it was, Black Snake was willing to run the risk. “Yes. No one knows that better than I do,” he said.

  “Listen, a long time ago, we had this same talk, only we were on opposite sides. But you were right. She was the right woman for me, and I … it’s been a long time since she and the boy … but …” He stopped for a moment, swallowed hard and rubbed his forehead.

  “There, you know the pain. How can you tell me something like this?”

  “It is time for you to have a family again. You have been alone for too long.”

  Nocona snorted. “No. Once was enough. I am content to be alone.”

  “I know that no one can replace those you have lost,” Black Snake said, reverting to a more formal obliqueness. “But I also know that it is not good for a man to be alone, especially a man who thinks so much, who has so much to worry about, as you do. It is important to be able to share those burdens with someone.”

  Nocona shook his head in the dark. He was too impatient and interrupted, “I don’t … “

  “Let me finish … whether you agree or not is not important. It is so, and you will come to realize it too late if I leave you to make the decision on your own.”

  “You are impertinent.”

  “That is what friends are for. Someone has to risk offending you by telling you what everyone knows. You should marry again.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “You need to and, whether you know it or not, you want to. I am only saying what everyone says.”