“Are you telling her about the willow shelter?” Dancing Butterfly asked Brave Wolf, a buckskin parfleche bag hanging from her shoulder. “Have you instructed her as to what will be done there to prepare her for your wedding?”
“Ka, no, I have not told her anything except that she is to go to the willow shelter,” Brave Wolf said, giving Mary Beth a soft smile. “It is time to go there now, my sunshine. When you emerge from the shelter, you will be ready for the ceremony that will make us man and wife.”
Somewhat apprehensive, Mary Beth gave him a nervous smile, then left the lodge with Dancing Butterfly. She noticed that hardly anyone was up yet. Everything in the village was quiet, except for an occasional whinny from a horse in the corral, or the distant bark of a coyote.
The sound of the coyote brought back the moment when she had seen Colonel Downing and learned that a coyote had attacked him while he had been tied to a tree. She now knew to fear them and keep her distance.
Then she noticed another sound, which made her stop abruptly. “Did you hear it, Dancing Butterfly?” she asked, looking slowly around her.
“Hear what?” Dancing Butterfly asked, stopping beside her.
“A cat,” Mary Beth said, still looking, and now listening again. “I heard a cat’s meow.”
“A cat?” Dancing Butterfly said, visibly stiffening. “Do you mean . . . you . . . heard a panther’s cry or a bobcat’s?” She looked guardedly all around her. “Do you think one is near?”
“No, not them,” Mary Beth said, her eyes widening and brightening when she saw a cat running toward her, a cat she had seen before. It was Colonel Downing’s calico cat! She had seen it at Fort Henry. It had rubbed against her legs, purring. She had even lifted it into her arms and stroked it.
The last time she had seen it was when it had run past her into his cabin.
“Poor kitty,” Mary Beth murmured as she bent to her knees and gathered it in her arms. It gazed up at her. “Look at your fur. It’s all matted and sticking together. Where have you been? What trouble have you been in? And why aren’t you at the fort?”
Of course she knew she would never have any answers to those questions. All she knew was that she was going to keep the cat if it wanted to stay with her. She adored cats.
She had been lonely without the one she had left behind in Kentucky.
It truly saddened her that she would never see it again.
“Do you want to be mine?” Mary Beth asked, hugging the cat to her chest as she continued stroking it. She was glad when it began purring, which proved that it was content to be with her.
“Where did that cat come from?” Dancing Butterfly asked as she knelt down beside Mary Beth. “Why is it so small? Is it a baby bobcat?”
“All cats like this are small,” Mary Beth murmured. “They are raised to live in houses, not out in the wild. As you can see, this cat has had some hard times since it left the fort.”
“You have seen this cat before?” Dancing Butterfly asked, still gazing at the creature. “What is that noise it is making?”
“Yes, I have seen it before, and the noise is called purring,” Mary Beth said, now standing and walking with Dancing Flower toward a small curved dwelling made of willow limbs. “The purring means that for the moment, while I am holding it, it is contented.”
She gave Dancing Butterfly a soft smile. “I want to keep her,” she said. “I hope Brave Wolf won’t mind.”
“He is a lover of all animals, so, yes, he will allow you to keep it,” Dancing Butterfly said, stopping just outside the small hut. She gazed at the doorway, then looked at the cat. “I think it is alright that the cat accompanies you during your purification.”
“Purification?” Mary Beth asked, taken aback. “What . . . sort . . . ?”
Dancing Butterfly giggled. “Do not be afraid,” she murmured. “The ceremony is quick and harmless.”
“Do all Crow women have such purification ceremonies before they become married?” Mary Beth asked.
“They usually go through much more than purification,” Dancing Butterfly said, ducking down and entering the small structure.
“What else?” Mary Beth asked, leaning low and following her.
She sat down as Dancing Butterfly sank gracefully to the floor. The cat now rested on Mary Beth’s lap, curled up and asleep, though it still purred.
It was as though the cat had sought her out just from their one meeting. She knew that cats were smart. They were known to travel for miles and miles to get back home if somehow lost. Was it possible this cat had traveled many miles to find her?
“You ask what else the Crow women do before their wedding day?” Dancing Butterfly said, holding the bag on her lap, but not yet opening it. “They stay in a special hut such as this. They abstain from meat for four days, their sustenance only being wild roots during that time. On the fourth day, they bathe, get new clothes, which they smoke over a fire of evergreen leaves, then return to their loved one for the marriage ceremony.”
“Why wasn’t all that required of me?” Mary Beth asked, still stroking the cat.
“Because you are not full-blood Crow, and because too many things got in the way of such preparations,” Dancing Butterfly said, removing two tiny vials from her bag. “Your ritual this morning will be simple enough. Not much is required of you before you become my chief’s wife.”
“What is in those vials?” Mary Beth asked, eyeing them speculatively.
“Incense,” Dancing Butterfly murmured. “You will be purified with incense before returning to Brave Wolf.”
A familiar voice now spoke from outside the small hut. It was Brave Wolf’s mother.
Mary Beth glanced toward the entranceway just as the elderly woman bent down and gazed inside. She saw that Pure Heart was holding a ceramic platter, on which were small twigs that were aflame.
“I have brought fire,” Pure Heart said. “I shall leave it and go awaken Night Horse. Now that the soldiers are gone, it will be safe for him to attend the wedding.”
“I wish there were to be two weddings today,” Dancing Butterfly said, her voice proving her disappointment that she had not been asked by Night Horse to marry him.
“My child, when Night Horse gets over his guilt about all that has happened, and when he sees that his people have forgiven him, then he can make a true life among us again, with a wife and children he can call his own,” Pure Heart said solemnly. “But this transition has begun. He has accepted a lodge that a friend of his youth built for him. He sleeps there now. Perhaps one day you will sleep beside him as his wife.”
“He seemed so withdrawn last night after all the soldiers were gone,” Dancing Butterfly said, nodding a thank you when she took the small platter of fire from Pure Heart. “I worry about his frame of mind. I know that when I hid away with him during the time the soldiers were here, there was much shame in his eyes. I am not sure he can ever forget that shame and start a new, good life that might include me.”
“In time, my child, in time,” Pure Heart said. She groaned as she stood up again. “Do not take long. I am anxious for my firstborn son to finally have a wife who will then bear me grandchildren.” With that, she left the hut.
Mary Beth felt a blush rush to her cheeks at the mention of grandchildren. Then she concentrated on the matter at hand as she watched the procedure that would purify her.
Dancing Butterfly sprinkled incense from one of the vials into the flames, and then incense from the other. When smoke came up from both vials, intermingling, Dancing Butterfly held the container closer to Mary Beth, and with a hand waved the smoke so that it fully enveloped her.
Understanding that this was a serious ritual, Mary Beth tried not to sneeze when the smoke curled up into her nose. She lifted her chin, closed her eyes, then opened them again when she realized the smoke was no longer there.
She gazed questioningly at Dancing Butterfly.
“It is done,” Dancing Butterfly said, smiling broadly at Mary Beth. “You ha
ve been smudged.”
Mary Beth did not question the word “smudged,” just accepted that it meant something special to the Crow. In time she would know everything about all of their rituals and customs.
But today?
She would just accept each as it was introduced to her, for each would surely take her closer to the moment when she would be the wife of a wonderful Crow chief!
A sudden mournful cry split the air, ending the moment of wonder.
“Pure Heart,” Dancing Butterfly gasped. She hurried out of the small dwelling.
With the exhausted cat still asleep in her arms, Mary Beth left the hut and gazed ahead where she could see Dancing Butterfly running toward the tepee that had been erected only last night as Night Horse’s private lodge.
Mary Beth saw Pure Heart standing outside the tepee, her eyes filled with tears, her arms stretched heavenward, wailing “Why, why?”
“Lord, no,” Mary Beth murmured, paling. “Something has happened to Night Horse. He . . . is . . . surely dead.”
She hurried onward along with other members of the village, toward the tepee. Just as she arrived, she saw Brave Wolf take his mother into his arms to console her.
“He is gone!” Pure Heart cried. “His bedding is not warm, which means he did not sleep there. He must have left in the middle of the night!”
Mary Beth was relieved to hear that Night Horse wasn’t dead, for although she knew the worst about him, she had grown to like him the few times she’d been with him. He was a man who had surely been fun to be with as a youth, so long ago. His eyes had seemed to dance with mischief as he actually joked with Brave Wolf a time or two.
And now? She wondered why he had left?
Had his affection for his family and people all been pretense?
And what about Dancing Butterfly? This was the second time Night Horse had left her.
Soft sobs drew Mary Beth’s eyes quickly to Dancing Butterfly. She was standing with slumped shoulders and crying into her hands.
Mary Beth wasn’t sure what to do. Should she go and help her in her time of sorrow? Or should she stay out of it and let the woman grieve in her own way, alone?
Her heart did go out to the beautiful maiden, though. Dancing Butterfly loved Night Horse with a passion. She had truly wanted to marry him and had hoped now that he was home again, they would eventually become man and wife.
Now it seemed he had turned his back on everyone again, even the woman he loved.
“Why, Brave Wolf?” Pure Heart sobbed. “Why would your brother leave like that? It is so cruel to a mother who loves him so much. And have I not shown him in enough ways how much I care? Did I not show him that I even forgave him? I was so attentive to him, how could he not know that I love him even as much as the day when he was born into this world all tiny and defenseless?”
She looked desperately up at Brave Wolf. “Son, Night Horse is almost as defenseless now as the day he was born,” she said, her voice breaking. “Out there alone, with so many wanting him dead.”
“Night Horse took a horse and a gun,” a young brave said as he stepped up to be heard. “I saw him leave. He asked me not to alert anyone to his leaving. I was afraid not to do as he asked. The gun. He could have shot me as he killed so many of our kind on the battlefield.”
“He is gone . . . he is gone . . .” Pure Heart said, slowly shaking her head back and forth. “I shall never see my second-born again. He is gone because he wants to be gone.”
“That is not necessarily so,” Brave Wolf said. He placed his hands on his mother’s shoulders. “Mother, do you not see the true reason he left?”
“What true reason?” Pure Heart asked, searching his eyes.
“It is because of the cavalry being here,” Brave Wolf explained. “Ina, I am sure the soldiers’ presence made Night Horse feel vulnerable and threatened. He knows that if the cavalry ever learned he was alive, they would want him. They would want to make him pay for what they think was his role in their defeat.”
“But why? He fought on their side,” Pure Heart sobbed out.
“Because they might believe Night Horse purposely spoiled Custer’s plans. He might even now be afraid that I, and our people as a whole, would be seen as enemies because we hid him from those whites who might want him. He might have left, Mother, to keep us free of such suspicion in the future. So I do not think badly of him for having left. I see him as giving and . . . courageous.”
“It is good that you can see him in that respect,” Dancing Butterfly said bitterly as she stepped up beside Brave Wolf. She angrily wiped tears from her eyes with the backs of her hands. “I see him as . . .”
She stopped before saying anything else. She just sighed and tried hard not to make things worse today for Pure Heart and Brave Wolf.
Mary Beth gave Dancing Butterfly a look of understanding, then gazed at Brave Wolf, whose life had also been touched today by Night Horse’s sudden departure. She gently placed a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I know that you are torn in many directions. I am so sorry.”
She went to Pure Heart and touched her on the cheek. “Whenever you need me, to talk, or anything, I am here for you,” she murmured.
Mary Beth noticed that the sight of the cat in her arms distracted Pure Heart so much, she even stopped crying. Mary Beth saw it as a good distraction and smiled, for when Pure Heart reached over and ran her hand over the cat’s soft fur, she saw a softness enter the old woman’s eyes, and knew that this cat had come today for more than one reason.
It had came to help an elderly women cope with a loss that was breaking her heart.
“Where did this animal come from?” Pure Heart asked, still stroking, sighing when the cat awakened and began softly purring. “And listen to it. It is making such a contented noise.”
“The cat is purring because it is contented,” Mary Beth said, then handed the cat to Pure Heart. “Here. Hold her. Feel her sweetness. I had a cat of my own that . . . that . . . I left in Kentucky.”
Pure Heart took the cat, then cuddled it in her thin arms. “Cat . . . this is a cat,” she murmured. She gazed curiously up at Mary Beth. “The only cats I know about are black and large and dangerous, and also bobcats. Is this cat related to either of them?”
“Well, I guess, in a way, but it is nothing like them,” Mary Beth said, reaching over to stroke the cat. “This cat is tame. It hasn’t a wicked bone in its body.”
Mary Beth loved the way the cat leaned its face into her hand, as though it knew it had found a loving home.
“I would like to have a cat for myself,” Pure Heart said. “It would fill my empty heart and my empty home with such love. The noise it makes, which you call purring, fills my heart with a bliss I cannot even explain.”
“That’s what cats are good for,” Mary Beth said, then forced herself to ask. “Do you want to keep the cat for yourself?”
She badly wanted the cat, but knew that Brave Wolf’s mother needed something to take away the pain of losing her second-born son all over again.
“Is it mine to keep?” Pure Heart asked, questioning Mary Beth with her eyes. “Where did it come from? How do you know it so well?”
“It belonged to . . .” Mary Beth stopped before saying the colonel’s name, for she was afraid that if she told Pure Heart whom the cat had belonged to, she might not want anything to do with it. She would not want to know that evil man’s hands had stroked its fur.
“I’m not certain who its owner was,” Mary Beth said, hating to lie even for a good cause. “The cat just happened to find me one day . . . when . . . I was at Fort Henry. But she got frightened away by the soldiers. I hadn’t seen her again until now.”
“Her?” Pure Heart said, gazing at the cat again. “Is this cat a she cat? She will have babies some day?”
Mary Beth only then realized that there was something different about the cat that she had not noticed before. With its fur so matted, its shape was better revealed. There was a puff
iness about its tummy. Mary Beth’s cat had given birth to kittens many times. This was exactly how her cat had looked when it was pregnant.
“This cat is heavy with kittens as we speak,” Mary Beth said, beaming at the thought of the cat having kittens so that she might have one for herself, perhaps even two.
“Kittens?” Pure Heart asked.
“Babies,” Mary Beth said, reaching over to stroke the cat again. “She is going to have babies. Mine had eight at a time. Who is to say how many this one will have?”
“Eight babies, I mean kittens,” Pure Heart said, her old eyes beaming.
Suddenly the morning that had been so filled with sorrow was now filled with hope and love.
“I shall care for her with all the love of a mother,” Pure Heart said, turning to go to her own lodge with the cat.
Mary Beth turned to Dancing Butterfly. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she murmured, then drew Dancing Butterfly into her embrace. “Please don’t be too sad. There will come a time when you will meet someone else. You are so beautiful, there will be many who will want to court you.”
“I have never wanted anyone but Night Horse, nor shall I ever,” Dancing Butterfly said, a sob catching in her throat. She eased from Mary Beth’s arms. “But I have done enough crying this morning. I am sorry. I shall not do anything else to ruin your special day. I shall do everything to make it a happy one.”
“You have already done a lot for me,” Mary Beth said. She smiled radiantly up at Brave Wolf. “I have been smudged. I am ready to become your bride.”
He went to her and drew her into his embrace. “Can you be happy even though we have no good news about your son?” he asked thickly.
“How can I not be happy on my wedding day when I am marrying the most wonderful man in the world?” she murmured, clinging to him.
She closed her eyes when David came into her mind’s eye.
Just as Dancing Butterfly had to move on with her life without someone she loved, so must Mary Beth. In time the hurt would surely lessen.
But today?
Ah, yes.
She had her wedding and all the wonderful memories that would come with it to sustain her on those days when her loss weighed heavily in her heart.
Savage Hero Page 21