Kiowa White Moon

by Jeanie P Johnson

  Emmet had a stoic look upon his face, and I knew he was trying to wrestle with ways of saving us all, but I didn’t know what he could do to accomplish that. Nigel looked more excited than frightened. His eyes roved over the Indians mounted on their horses about us, taking in their dress and mannerisms, as though he was having an adventure. Perhaps his very interest in the Indians would be what would save him, I thought.

  Buttercup and Hope followed, as expected. The Indians would probably eat both of our cows, I thought morbidly. If they wanted the milk though, perhaps they would spare Buttercup’s life. The chickens in the cage, made little fuss, because it was dark, and they were probably all asleep with their heads under their wings. The pigs were the lucky ones, I thought. They could scrounge for food at the farm, and Bertha probably wouldn’t even think to try to capture them and kill them for food.

  She may try eating the other chickens, and she could use their eggs, but eventually, as the weather got colder, the chickens would stop laying eggs, and she would be forced to eat all of them in the end, unless she found a way to get back to Dodge. If she walked out to the Santa Fe trail, there may be someone using it who could take her to Dodge. Since Kit Carson had attacked the Indians, the stage was using the trail again, but I didn’t know how long it would continue running before the weather prevented it. I tried to shake all these thoughts aside as we continued on.

  Slowly, the dawn began to spread a soft glow across the countryside. I watched, listlessly, as the harvest sun pushed up into the sky, red and streaming, before it started to turn yellow and burn its rays against us, and the grass lands we traveled over. We were going to have what was called an Indian Summer, and I laughed to myself, because for these people around me, every summer was an Indian summer, so what did they call a long warm fall, I wondered.

  We continued to travel, and the Indians stopped once to rummage through our food stuff, to pick something they could eat along the way. They found the flour sack of biscuits that had been left over from our supper the night we left, and divided them up among themselves, even handing some of them to us to eat as well. They tasted dry and crusty, but Darie had made them, and she was a good cook. They had tasted much better when we ate them two days earlier.

  Muraco glanced over his shoulder at me, like he was trying to decide what he was really going to do with me, but he didn’t say anything. The others seemed in high spirit, as they chatted happily with each other. I could not understand everything they said, but enough of it got through to me to realize that two of them were arguing over who would get Darie as their woman, and saying something about Muraco finally deciding to marry someone called Lomasi, since he claimed he did not plan to take me as his own.

  Now I knew why he didn’t care if I was a prisoner or not. He was pledged to another. He wasn’t punishing me for not going with him in the first place. He was indifferent. I was just another white person to him, and since we had what his tribe needed, he had no problem with taking me as a prisoner, along with our goods, and handing my sister off to his braves. I wondered what their plans were for Emmet and Nigel, as I sat shivering on the back of Lightening, being led by someone I had trusted for two brief weeks.

  The Kiowa and Comanche village was spread out along the banks of a river. At first, it was so concealed, that I didn’t even realize we had approached it, until we pushed through the trees that grew along the bank.

  The picturesque Indian camp was larger than I had expected. There were the typical teepees along with rough looking lean-tos, dotted over the landscape. Smoke from the camp fires drifted up and joined hazy clouds above us. Many of the people turned and looked expectantly, when we broke through into the village proper. When they saw the wagon, and the fact that there were white people among the hunting party, they all rushed forward, asking questions, and pointing to us and our wagon.

  Then a tall important-looking Indian approached and stood before Muraco. Muraco jumped down from his pony, and greeted the man with a hug.

  “What have you brought?” I heard the Indian ask in Kiowa.

  “We could not find any game, but we did find this group of white people traveling with a wagon load of food. Since we had no luck finding our own food, we decided to take that which we were deprived of by the white soldiers, when they burnt our village.”

  “Who are these people?” the one, who seemed to be in command, asked. “The whites do not travel when the weather turns.”

  “They live on a farm north of here. The woman on the pony behind me, saved my life when I had been wounded by the soldiers, so I have spared her life and her family’s life. If I sent them back with no food, they would starve over the winter.”

  “They may starve anyway,” was the other’s reply. “The food you took will help add to our meager supply, but now there are even more mouths to feed, since you have brought prisoners.”

  “We must continue to try hunting over the winter,” Muraco insisted.

  “This will make the white soldiers angry, for taking more white people from their farm,” the older man grumbled.

  “Nothing will make the soldiers happy except for our demise! They will come kill us in the spring, anyway!” Muraco’s eyes looked angry and hard as steel. Perhaps that was why he didn’t care what happened to me or my family, I thought.

  “It has been done,” the other said, as though he was resigning himself to the situation. “Divide the food between our own friends and family, since we had nothing to bring with us when we came to join the Comanche.”

  The one driving the wagon, pulled Emmet and Nigel down from the bench. The Indian leading Clinton’s horse, untied Darie’s hands from the saddle horn and pulled her down as well. “I wish to have the woman,” he stated.

  “No!” I found myself crying in Kiowa. “She is my sister! You cannot have her!”

  The older man looked up at me, a little surprised. “You speak our language,” he said what was already evident.

  “Muraco taught me, when I was tending to his wound. I saved his life, and this is how he repays me? Do your people have no honor?”

  The Indian, glanced at Muraco a little disapprovingly, then shrugged.

  “I am Dohasan, Main Chief of the Kiowa. Muraco is my nephew, and I am thankful you have saved his life. As Muraco mentioned, without this extra food, we all may starve over the winter. You have more than just your family needs. You have come and trespassed on our land, and built your farm on our grazing land. The land is Mother Earth, who shares with all that uses her bounty. Therefore, the food belongs to us as much as it belongs to you.”

  “But we were the ones who grew it, harvested it, and preserved it to last the winter! You didn’t!” I protested.

  “Which makes only part of it yours,” Dohasan smiled. “We have no shelter for you. All of our lodges were burned. Tala, has offered to shelter your sister. Since you have saved my nephew, we will not take you or your family prisoners. You will be our guests over the winter, and then you are free to return to your farm, when spring comes. Therefore, Tala, cannot take your sister as his woman, but he can shelter her in his teepee for her own well being. Apenimon also has a teepee, which can be used to shelter your two brothers.” He nodded to the Indian, who had been driving the wagon.

  “Then I will go with my sister, as well,” I insisted.

  Muraco stepped forward. “No. I will shelter you in my lean-to,” he offered. “You saved my life, and now I am responsible for your life. However, I will not take you as my woman, since you will be free to leave when spring comes.” He gave me one long look, and then untied my hands from the saddle and pulled me down from Lightening.

  Tala was pushing Darie forward, and she was looking over her shoulder at me. “What are they doing?” she asked.

  “You have to go with him. Only if he lays one hand on you, you let me know! They have promised that no harm will come to you.”

  “And you believe them?” she squealed. “Where did you learn to speak the Indian’s language anyway
?”

  “I helped the Indian with me, when he was wounded. I told Emmet about it. Muraco was the one who saved me from Clinton, who attempted to rape me the day he was shot. It wasn’t a hunting party that shot Clinton. I’ll tell you about it later, but you have to go with Tala now. I think his name means Wolf.”

  “He looks like a wolf,” Darie shuddered, glaring at the one prodding her on. “He is probably as dangerous as one too!”

  I turned to Emmet. “The Comanche has a teepee to shelter you under. His name is Apenimon. We have to share our food with them, because Kit Carson burned their village and their winter storage, remember?”

  Emmet looked angry. I remember how he was glad that Kit Carson had attacked the Indians. Now the tables were turned, I thought. We were at the Indian’s mercy instead. Perhaps Emmet would change his views when he too would have to suffer with the Indians over what Kit Carson, and his men had done.

  Muraco was pulling me to a rough looking lean-to, that had three walls, and a blanket covering the opening. It did not look very weather tight, and I wondered how he expected us to survive over the winter in it. Sport was at my heels, giving a low growl, every once in awhile. He was probably as frightened as the rest of us were.

  Muraco pushed me inside, and I landed on a buffalo robe, covering dry grass that had been piled on the floor of the lean-to. It reminded me of my loft bed. In one corner, was a fire ring, but there was no fire lit in it. The place seemed cold, dark, and uninviting. Sport remained outside, but I could hear him whining, the same way he did when he sat at the base of the ladder that led to my loft room in the barn.

  I looked around me with hopeless eyes.

  “You should chink all the holes,” I suggested, envisioning cold winds filtering through the gaps between the long branches that made up the walls of the shelter.

  Muraco raised his eyebrows at me.

  “It will make it cooler on hot days, and warmer at night,” I informed him.

  I knew how cold the nights could get, no matter how hot the day had been.

  “What is chink?” Muraco asked, with a half smile.

  “It is sand and clay mixed with straw or grass. You can put it in all the cracks to keep the weather out.”

  “We usually do not build houses like the whites, but since all our teepees had been burned, we had no other choice,” he said, almost as though he was ashamed to have been lowered to such a condition. “You cannot bring a house with you, when you wander over the land. We have to follow the buffalo, and the wild game in order to survive. That is why the whites putting us on small portions of land and expecting us to farm like the white people, does not work for us. When you stay in one place, it contaminates the earth, with both human and animal waste. Mother nature will clean the earth, once we leave one camp ground for another, and then when we return again, we can use it once more. The whites stay in one place and that is why they get the sickness that can kill them and us alike.”

  “We dig holes to bury our waste, and use the animal waste to fertilize our plants. My family never got sick from living in one house for the last four years,” I boasted.

  “Then tomorrow, you can show me this chink method you talk of,” he told me.

  Just as he spoke, the blanket flap was pulled aside, and a young Indian woman stood glaring at Muraco and myself. Sport was barking at her heels, but she ignored him.

  “So this is the fire haired woman Inteus said you always speak of!”

  She came in and walked around me, taking me in with her dark angry eyes.

  “She is ugly! How can you let yourself be pulled by her? She is White! There is no place for whites in our village!” she almost screamed the words.

  “She saved my life,” Muraco said softly. “Now I am responsible for her life. She will be leaving at the end of winter.”

  “Give her to someone else to care for! Inteus likes her. He said he would take her in your stead, and take on the burden of her safety.”

  “She did not save Inteus’ life,” Muraco snapped. “Besides, you have no say in this. I am not pledged to you!”

  “Inteus said you did not want to make her your woman, yet you bring her into your lodge,” she complained.

  “I bring her here to protect her from Inteus and others who would try and take her.”

  “You just want her for yourself!” the woman accused.

  I knew who she was. She had to be Lomasi, which I knew meant Pretty Flower, the braves had been speaking about. Even though she had an angry look on her face, I had to admit that her name fit her well.

  “What I want and what I do, has nothing to do with you,” Muraco continued. “You shouldn’t be here. It is not your place to scold me like you are my wife!”

  “Maybe it is this ugly white woman you want as your wife!”

  She glared at me as she spoke.

  “I have not chosen anyone to be my wife. Please leave before you anger me!”

  Lomasi shrugged.

  “You will regret your choice! We will see if she leaves after winter! If not, I will make sure she does,” she warned.

  Then she turned and left us, and I could tell that Muraco was very upset that she had come to his lean-to. He looked almost apologetic at me. “She thinks I should take her as my wife, but I have not chosen anyone,” he said, almost under his breath.

  “Why not? She is very lovely. She looks like a pretty flower. She would probably make a good wife for you,” I stated.

  “She wants to tell me what to do. It is not a woman’s place to make the choice, but the man’s place.”

  “What if the woman doesn’t want the man to choose her?” I asked with interest.

  “Then he would not choose her either, but sometimes a brave is permitted to marry a prisoner woman, whether she chooses him or not.” He gave me a sizzling look.

  “Lucky I am not a prisoner then,” I murmured.

  “I would not take you, even if you were,” he said indifferently. “Love must be a two way agreement. I will not take any woman I do not love, or who doesn’t love me.”

  “Apparently, you have some ethics,” I conceded.

  “No more talking!” he said suddenly.

  He came over to me, and tied my hands to one of the posts that supported the wall, and then left the lean-to. I sat there feeling dejected. I had been right refusing to go with him, when he had insisted I leave my farm. I was crazy to have felt any attraction to him. He was Kiowa and I was a white girl. We had nothing in common.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I had not realized that I had fallen asleep until I felt Muraco untying my hands. Suddenly, I felt exhausted. Everything that had happened in the last several days, hit me all at once. I had been so involved in making plans and then worrying that the plans would not work out, that I never paused to take any time for myself. Now all that energy that had been keeping me going seemed to drain away, and sap me of all my strength.

  Not only did I feel completely lost, but a feeling of depression started to fall over me, as I now had time to think about the loss of my father, and the fact that we had to leave the farm, and how we had to give up all our food to the Indians, that Darie and I had labored over, not only growing, but preserving. I thought about Darie, and how frightened she must be feeling right now, and there was nothing either Emmet nor I could do about it. I had always played the part of her mother, and I couldn’t even protect her.

  I sank down on the soft buffalo robe, in despair. Muraco was lighting a fire in the fire pit, and I realized I had been shivering, because the sun must have set, and the night chill was starting to seep into the lean-to. Muraco glanced over at me, and the light of the fire brought out the features of his face. The high cheekbones, large, dark eyes, full lips, straight, strong looking nose, lofty, flat forehead, along with his long black hair, which he wore falling lose around his face, accented everything that he was, and stood for.

  When he saw me looking at him, he went back to his task, as though he didn’t wish to ackno
wledge me for some reason, which made me feel even worse. I curled up into a ball, and continued to shiver as tears started to take over my emotions. Nothing, I had done had, worked out. I had made all the wrong decisions, and because of me, we had ended up as the “guests” of Indians. Dorie and Emmet would never forgive me for this, I thought in self-pity.

  I wasn’t sure if Nigel would be as upset as Darie and Emmet, though, because when I saw him leaving with the Comanche who was going to shelter him and Emmet, he seemed more excited than frightened. He had been looking around and pointing at things, asking the Indian beside him questions. I wondered if Apenimon could speak English.

  Muraco stood up and started removing his shirt. My eyes widened through my tears, even though I had seen him and touched him without his shirt on before. I just hadn’t thought about the fact that he would remove his clothes before lying down. I was still wearing my dress.

  I watched as the firelight glowed against his bronze skin, actuating the shape of his muscles, as they bulged, and rippled, with every movement he made, while removing his clothes. When he also removed his buckskin leggings, exposing his nudity to me, I took in my breath. I did not count on that! He seemed unconcerned about it, though.

  I closed my eyes, because I had not seen a grown man in such a state of undress, and I wasn’t sure if he was going to make me his woman, after all?

  Finally, Muraco came and sat down beside me, on the buffalo fur, making me too much aware of his closeness. “Why do you cry?” he asked, as though he couldn’t believe that I was unhappy. “I have promised you safety. I have said I would protect you, and you can return to your home again.”