Full Circle

by Rosanne Bittner

  It was late afternoon when John Phillips came to the church to tell Evelyn that a spotted horse with an Indian blanket on its back was tied in front of her cabin, along with a spare horse and packhorse. Evelyn pushed a strand of hair behind her ear and rose from a small girl’s bedside. Because Little Fox was so much better, she had come to the church after lunch to help the reverend and Janine with their patients.

  “That means Black Hawk is back,” she told the reverend. “It’s been a whole week.” She started past him when he grasped hold of her arm.

  “Miss Gibbons, be careful.”

  Evelyn studied the man’s haggard-looking face. He had worked as hard as she and Janine helping the sick, and he still mourned the loss of Anita. “Reverend, surely you know by now that I have nothing to fear from Black Hawk. He would not have left Little Fox in my care if he did not have a great respect for me.”

  Phillips sighed. “I still don’t fully trust him. If he takes the boy away today, you should stay away from him after that.” He let go of her. “After he leaves, just stay home and get some sleep. I think the worst is over, and there haven’t been any newly reported cases for three days now. This has been hard on you, after suffering that arrow wound.”

  “I’ll be fine.” Evelyn turned to leave, then hesitated. “Reverend, I think Little Fox should rest a few more days before his father takes him back to their camp. It’s a long ride. If you see Black Hawk’s horse around the cabin overnight, don’t be alarmed. I will ask him to camp outside and wait at least until tomorrow. I am not at all afraid to have him around.”

  She left, too tired to stay and argue the issue. She was more concerned with how she was going to face Black Hawk after what Little Fox had told her. Would the boy tell Black Hawk he had told her he loved her? She supposed she should behave as though things were just as they always had been and let Black Hawk be the one to say something first, but ever since hearing him tell about Wounded Knee, her heart had gone out to him, and the deep feelings she had for him had only grown more intense. He had shown a vulnerable side, a compassion and deep emotions she knew outsiders never saw in him.

  She reached her cabin, recognizing Black Hawk’s Appaloosa. She touched the horse’s rump, which was warm and damp. That meant Black Hawk had not been here long. Before going inside, she took a moment to study the animal, a handsome gelding with a hawk painted on its right rump. She walked around it to see a sun painted on the other rump. The rawhide reins were decorated with beads, and a brightly colored blanket rested on its back under a very small doeskin saddle—actually more of a seat than a saddle—that appeared to be lightly stuffed, she supposed with grass. A beautifully beaded and painted deerskin parfleche, for personal supplies, was tied against the rawhide straps that held the saddle in place.

  The horse looked powerful, its form beautiful and yet graceful, much like its owner. It seemed eerie to think how much this animal resembled the horse in her dreams. She patted its neck and went inside the cabin, where she heard voices from the bedroom. She put a hand to her chest, breathing deeply to try to still her pounding heart, feeling like a silly young girl in love, reminding herself she was twenty years old, educated, reasonably wise, and that she must be careful not to let pity and unrealistic dreams rule her heart. Perhaps her dreams didn’t mean any of the things she thought they meant, and perhaps Little Fox had misinterpreted some of the things his father had told him about his feelings for her.

  She knew she still looked haggard. Her bun was in an untidy disarray, her dress had a couple of stains on the skirt from where she had spilled soup on it while feeding a sick child. She needed a bath, and she had not put any creams or color on her face for days. She told herself it didn’t matter. She should not care how she looked to an Indian man. She straightened her shoulders and marched into the bedroom to see Black Hawk sitting beside the bed. “Well, at last you—”

  All of her confidence left her when Black Hawk looked up at her. He was a little thinner, and there were deep circles under his own eyes. Both of his arms showed long, scabbed lines from what had obviously been deep cuts.

  “My father is very weak,” Little Fox told her. “He fasted for five days and shed blood in prayer for me. Now I am almost well.”

  Evelyn held Black Hawk’s gaze the whole time the boy spoke. “Yes. He has much power.” She felt light-headed at the sight of him, wanting to scream at him for cutting himself that way. “Please go out there and lie down on my cot, Black Hawk. I will fix you some hot broth and some bread.”

  He nodded, tears in his eyes. “My son will live. It is not just because of my prayers. It is because of you.”

  She shook her head. “No. It is because I prayed, too. God chose to let him live. Please, come and lie down.”

  He took a deep breath and grasped the back of the chair, rising slowly, and from the sight of him, Evelyn was surprised he was able to ride a horse back to the cabin. He took a couple of hesitant steps away from the chair.

  “My God, Black Hawk, you can hardly walk! You should not have done this to yourself!” She moved beside him, putting an arm around his waist. He rested an arm around her shoulders and let her help him into the main room, where he lowered himself to a sitting position on her cot.

  “I will be fine in a day or so,” he told her.

  Evelyn knelt to inspect his arms. “And what if these cuts get infected? It probably won’t do much good now that they’re scabbed over, but I will try to clean them with carbolic acid. It will sting, but it’s certainly better than losing your arms, or dying.” She could not help the sudden tears that came into her eyes. “It is not necessary to mutilate yourself in order for prayers to be answered Black Hawk. You must stop doing these things. I understand your beliefs, but I believe our Gods are the same, and my God would never ask you to shed blood and starve yourself to get a prayer answered. He loves you too much. Ask, and ye shall receive. That is what my God teaches. He asks only that you believe in Him and trust Him, nothing more. These rituals of shedding blood in prayer … perhaps someone generations back, some holy person, misunderstood something that was shown him in a dream. Perhaps your God does not want you to do these things to yourself.”

  He watched her for several silent seconds before answering. “I will think on these things. I only know that when I brought my son here, he was near death; and after five days of fasting and shedding of blood I have come back to see he is well.”

  She sighed in frustration, rising to walk over to a coal-burning cook stove the agency had procured for her. “Please think about what I have told you.” She quickly wiped at tears and told herself she must not care so much. “I have some hot beef stew here from lunchtime. It’s still warm. I’ll reheat it. You can eat some of the meat and potatoes if you think your stomach can take the solids. Otherwise, just drink the broth. A couple of pieces of bread should help.” She reached over with wooden tongs and took a couple of chunks of coal from a bucket, then opened a fire door at the front of the stove and threw them in on top of a few coals still glowing. “I baked some bread late last night, so it is nice and fresh.”

  She turned to see him watching her carefully. His dark eyes moved over her, and she was not sure if he was thinking she was beautiful, or that she looked terrible. It was more likely the latter, and maybe that was good. “I’ll clean up your arms while the stew is heating.” She walked to a cupboard and took out a brown bottle, then cut some gauze from a large roll that was in the same cupboard. She walked over to where he still sat and knelt in front of him again. “I know I look a mess. I spilled soup on my dress today while I was feeding a sick child.” She doused the gauze with carbolic acid and took hold of his right wrist, thinking how thick and strong it was. She gently washed the cuts on that arm, noticing his hand move into a fist because of the sting.

  “Why do you care that your dress is soiled?” he asked her. “In my eyes you are always beautiful.”

  Evelyn felt a tingle move through every part of h
er body. “Well, your eyes are not seeing too well today,” she tried to joke. “Let me have your other arm.” She took hold of his left arm and began washing that one, then froze when with his right hand he touched her hair.

  “It is so much lovelier when it is worn long,” he told her.

  She began to tremble, and she quickly rose and moved away from him. “It is more practical this way when I have so much work to do and the weather is still so warm,” she answered. Why had he done that? Why had he touched her that way, so lovingly? It was wrong, wasn’t it? Reverend Phillips had told her to be careful. Perhaps he had been more correct than she realized. It seemed only right to allow both Black Hawk and Little Fox one more day’s rest, but now… to let Black Hawk sleep anywhere near her cabin all night…

  She walked over to put back the carbolic acid, then walked to the stove to stir the stew. “This will be ready soon. You and Little Fox can stay here and rest today and tonight, then leave in the morning. You need some food and a few hours sleep to get your strength back. If you want to sleep inside, I will go and sleep at the church.”

  “No. You will sleep right here. I will sleep outside, as I have done many times in my life. You should stay in your own dwelling.”

  “That’s fine, if that is what you prefer.” Evelyn was suddenly self-conscious of every move she made, feeling watched by his dark eyes, eyes that made it seem he could see right through her.

  “I want you to know,” he told her, “that if I had not been told you had recovered and would live, I would not have gone back to my camp when they let me out of the fort prison. I would have come here. All the time I was locked away, I worried about you. I prayed for you, but I was afraid my prayers would not be heard in that dark place.”

  “I am just sorry they put you there. They had no right.” Evelyn turned to face him. “And you should not have cut off Otter Woman’s hair.”

  He sat a little straighten “She had to be punished.”

  “I talked with her.”

  His eyes widened in surprise. “When?”

  “The day the circus was here. I attempted to make friends with her, to make her see that I was not her enemy. I think I managed to convince her. She was going to guide me to your camp, but…” She closed her eyes at the memories of agony and suffering over the past three weeks. “She died of the cholera before we could ever see each other again.”

  “My sister told me of Otter Woman’s death. I think it was her punishment from Wakantanka for interfering with a vision.”

  There it was again. The vision. Everything always came back to that. She was beginning to feel foolish for thinking her exact dream had to be fulfilled. Maybe she should just go home, before her heart ran away with her. She felt lost in that dream world whenever Black Hawk was near her.

  “Tell me, Evy,” he said, using her name as casually as a best friend, “you said Otter Woman was going to bring you to my camp. You were going to come and teach again? You were not afraid?”

  She took some wooden bowls from a cupboard. All her kitchenware was donated by the agency. In fact, nearly everything in the cabin other than her personal belongings had been donated by the agency or Mission Services, and sometimes she felt guilty for conducting herself so much against the way they wanted things done. She walked to the table and set out the bowls, then picked up a knife that lay beside a fresh loaf of bread in the center of the table. She cut two slices, then met Black Hawk’s gaze. “I was not afraid. You had saved my life. And once Otter Woman understood that to hurt me would mean interfering with a holy vision, I knew she would not try it again.” She pulled out a chair. “Come and sit down, Black Hawk. I will dish you up some stew.” She took his bowl to the stove and dipped some stew into it. “You must eat slowly.”

  “I have fasted before. I know what to do.” When Evelyn turned around, he was standing at the table. “This to me is a strange way of eating, but I have done it before, when I came to live with missionaries.” He sat down, and Evelyn could tell it was taking a great deal of effort for him to keep his balance. She set the stew in front of him, then walked to the bedroom to tell Little Fox she would bring him something to eat, but the boy had fallen back to sleep. She smiled, turning back to dish up her own stew. “Your son is sleeping.”

  Black Hawk nodded. He said little then as he ate. Evelyn stole glances at him, studying the way the muscles of his upper arms moved, noticing how clean and shiny his hair was. It looked soft, as though just washed. Had he bathed just for her? His hair was tied to one side with a colorfully beaded piece of rawhide. She thought his face exotic, with its high cheekbones, dark skin, full lips, wide-set eyes so dark they were almost black—eyes that could one minute be full of compassion and the next, full of hatred. He had a high forehead and a straight nose that seemed the perfect size for the rest of his face, a square jawline and—

  She quickly glanced down at her stew. He had caught her staring at him, which was the last thing she wanted. “I’m worried you went too long without food,” she said, needing an excuse or studying him. “I don’t want you to eat too much too quickly.”

  He pushed the bowl away, and she noticed it was only half empty.

  “I know when to stop.” He bit into the bread.

  “Would you like butter?”

  He shook his head while he chewed. This time when she met his eyes, their gaze locked for several silent seconds. Black Hawk swallowed his bread. “Tell me again about your mother, and the Indian called Wild Horse. They loved each other?”

  Evelyn knew her embarrassment must be evident. She looked back down at her stew. “Yes. I am not sure what might have happened if Wild Horse had not been killed. I only know that his death forced my mother to admit to my father that she had been very unhappy. They resolved a lot of their differences after that.”

  “And what were these differences?”

  Evelyn aimlessly stirred the stew in her bowl. “My father was very strict in his beliefs. There was little joy in our household. My mother wanted him to be more open, more compassionate. She wanted to be able to dance and to laugh.” She thought for a moment about Beverly Evans, and she prayed the woman had found the happiness she sought. “She also wanted my father to try to understand the Indian way. She felt that was the key to teaching them and winning their trust before trying to change them.”

  He smiled softly. “Much like you.”

  She could not help a smile of her own. “My father has told me all my life that I am just like my mother. ‘Too independent for your own good,’ he is always saying.”

  “You are a woman who follows her heart.”

  Evelyn’s smile faded at the words, so insightful. She found it amazing that this supposedly wild, untrustworthy Indian renegade could be so easy to talk to. “It’s strange that you would say that. My mother had always taught me to follow my heart, but to be careful.” She felt her cheeks growing hotter. “She said that sometimes the heart can lead a person into danger.” She wished she could look away from him, but it would do no good. He surely knew exactly what she was thinking, and she could see by his own eyes that he was thinking the same. To love each other could be dangerous for both of them.

  “Your mother is dead now,” he finally spoke up softly. “Perhaps her spirit lives on, in you. And perhaps, as you suggested yourself, Wild Horse lives in me. Would that not mean that the two spirits who could not be together in life should now finally be together, through us? Could that be the meaning of your dream, and my vision? Perhaps if we came together ourselves, the vision would be fulfilled. Then when our hands touch in the dream, neither of us would disappear.”

  Evelyn could hardly breathe. If we came together ourselves. What did he mean? Physically? She was afraid to ask. It was impossible to consider what she feared he was considering. She looked away, rising and picking up her bowl. “If you are finished, I would like to clean up. It will be dark soon, and I would like to take a bath. Will you please go on outside? There is a shed
between here and the school where you can put up your horse. You’ll find some oats in there for him to eat. There is also an extra stall that is clean. You can sleep there if you wish.”

  She set her bowl on a counter near her pan for washing dishes and waited for his reply, then gasped when his strong arms came around to brace themselves against the counter on either side of her, caging her there. She froze in place, not out of fear, but because she knew if she turned around she would fall into his arms. He bent near her, speaking close to her ear. “You feel as I do, Evy. You should not fight it.” He put one hand gently against her belly, and she felt faint at the touch. “Keep your door bolted tonight.”

  With that he left, as silently as he had walked up behind her. All she heard was the screen door closing. Evelyn turned and stared at it, fully understanding the meaning of his words. If he tried the door later in the night and found it unlocked, it would mean she was inviting him to come inside. All common sense told her she could not let that happen. She hurried over and closed the inner door, hesitating a moment with her hand on the bolt before sliding it into the ring that held it fast.

  The morning awoke gray and still. Evelyn quickly dressed and heated the cook stove to boil water for tea. She set a black fry pan on another burner, deciding Black Hawk would probably want to leave today. He should eat something heartier before the long ride back to his camp. Part of her hated the thought of his leaving, but another part of her was relieved he would be gone. That meant she did not have to wrestle with the nearly painful desires the man stirred deep inside her, or with her own conscience over what was right and wrong.

  You feel as I do, Evy. You should not fight it. Yes, she should fight it! It could lead nowhere, except to a terribly guilty conscience, losing every friend she had, and getting kicked off the reservation. Such a thing as freely acting on one’s desires came as easily to a man like Black Hawk as breathing, but although she often went against common practices in many other matters, giving herself to a man was something else. She had not slept well at all. She had lain awake wondering what it was like to be with a man that way, especially a man like Black Hawk. Part of her longed to be a full woman, but in spite of her liberal thinking, she could not abide the thought of sharing her body with anyone but a Christian man to whom she was legally married.