by Karen Kay
That was the sign all had been awaiting.
White Eagle gave the signal.
Suddenly excitement exploded all around them.
Shouting out their war cries, White Eagle’s band rushed forward to grab horses, while White Eagle sprinted toward one of the enemy lodges, where he had been informed the white trader was being held.
White Eagle waited until the excitement and the cry of battle had coaxed the man of the house out from his lodge and then, rushing forward, he pulled out one of the tepee stakes and raised the flap.
Only frightened women and children remained inside, but White Eagle had no interest in them. There upon the floor sat the white trader.
His friend looked up. “Thought you’d never get here, son.”
White Eagle didn’t even spare the cordiality of a greeting. “Come, my friend, quickly, before the men return. I have your niece with me.”
“Here?”
“No, waiting.”
The man arose, and tipping his hat to the Indian woman, he said, “Much obliged, ma’am,” and hurried from the lodge.
White Eagle and the old man sneaked through the Assiniboin camp, the fury of action and excitement not affecting them, carried on as it was in another part of the camp.
Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a group of white traders and renegades, all mounted, and all bearing rifles of trade, burst in upon the scene, causing even more confusion, and offering little help.
White Eagle grimaced. Where had these people come from? And how had they evaded discovery by his scouts?
The Indian camp erupted into chaos, and it became unclear as to who was fighting whom.
The white men did not seem able to differentiate between an Assiniboin Indian and the Pikuni, who were the white men’s friends, and soon, anyone became a target for the white man’s weapons.
White Eagle escorted his friend to safety and then ran back toward the fighting.
“Retreat, warriors!” he shouted. “Take whatever you have gained and get home as safely as you can. We have the white trader; all is well. Retreat!”
The Pikuni, gallant fighters until the end, began their retreat, but one of the white men, unbeknownst to White Eagle, had singled him out.
It shouldn’t have been. The white men were avenging the Pikuni, their friends, for the wrong done to the tribe at Fort McKenzie.
Still, this white man, in his ignorance, could not tell the difference between one red man and the other. This white man raised his rifle, took aim…
Suddenly, White Eagle heard a woman scream, “To your left. Watch out to your left.” And all at once two things occurred at the same time: White Eagle wondered at how his wife had come to be here, while he cocked his eye to his left, seeing the white man’s rifle. He made a duck to the right just as the rifle fired, the charge missing its target, but grazing his arm, for all that.
Before he had time to recover, Shines Like Moonlight came running to him, crying and taking him under the arms, pulling him back into the cover of the trees.
“Come,” she entreated him. “I can’t carry you. You must move on your own. I have two ponies.”
Now, White Eagle had been through many battles and had seen many startling things, but when she said she had two ponies…well, this was so astounding that he could only look at her dumbfoundedly. “You do?” he asked, in a voice low and weak.
“Yes,” she answered, “now come.”
“But your uncle…” White Eagle tried to look around him. “He was with me. I must try to—”
“No, not now. The man who was with you is long gone. Please, White Eagle, come with me now before something else happens.”
White Eagle needed no further encouragement to understand the wisdom of her words, and, supporting his weight as best he could to help her as she struggled to maneuver his body, he let her lead him to the ponies she had secured.
“Hurry,” he managed to say once they were mounted. “We must ride quickly, before we are pursued.”
“Yes,” he heard her respond to him, only moments before they set both their animals into a gallop.
“How did you manage to get two ponies?”
“They were there. I just took them.”
White Eagle stared at her with something akin to amazement. They had stopped at the war lodge long enough to gain another supply of meat, for he had forgotten his own in the excitement of battle.
“Do you realize the great coup that you have accomplished?” He looked up to her, where she worked over his arm, washing the wound clean and applying a rawhide bandage to it.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” she responded.
“It is considered a great feat for a man to capture a pony in battle, but you managed to capture two. I fear I have underestimated your ability.”
She snorted. “It was nothing. They were there. I merely led them into a glen where they would stay until I could get to you. All the others from our party were taking horses. Everyone but you. Why did you have to creep over to a lodge? Was that my uncle with you?”
“I am the leader of the party, and yes, it was your uncle.” White Eagle hastily looked around him. “Do you know what happened to him?”
“No I don’t. When the shooting started, all I could think of was getting you to safety. I didn’t pay any attention to anyone else.”
White Eagle nodded and smiled at her. “We will have to find him again, but it should be easier than it was, since there will be fresh tracks now. I would imagine that he has joined forces with his fellow traders and trappers. Do not worry. We will find him.”
“I do not worry about him…only you.”
She finished tying the bandage into place.
He smiled at her. “Come, let me leave my mark here so that the others will know how many horses we captured and where we go.”
He picked up a flat bone from the ground and drew on it, in pictograph form, his signature, two horses to indicate how many ponies they had taken, a picture of a woman leading them, and then an arrow, which, he explained, would show in which direction they had gone.
“Why do you need to do that?”
“Because if my warriors do not know that I have escaped, they will delay leaving this place and heading back to camp. If I leave this bone drawing here, they will know that I have survived and will know where I am going. They can then return home safely and escape the enemy country.” He gave her an odd look, then smiled. “They will also know that it was you who captured these horses. They will sing many praises to you.”
She gave him a quick, unladylike snort. “That was nothing. But tell me, can one really tell all that just from those signs?”
“Aa, yes. Now, let us leave this old bone propped up against the entryway so that those who come here will know what has happened.”
“And where do we go?”
“Why, to find your uncle, of course.”
And with those words, they left behind them the war lodge.
In the end, it proved a pointless search. A sudden rainstorm had come upon them and had washed away any trace of the white trader’s trail.
Deciding it best to return to Fort McKenzie and to see if the old man had gone there, she and White Eagle, along with Strikes Two, set out for the fort.
It only took them four days of hard and fast riding to arrive at Fort McKenzie, and they were surprised to discover that her uncle had been there, but had left, heading, they were told, to Fort Union, there to meet up with White Eagle and his niece.
Their party, then, set out for the other fort at once. Strikes Two rode with them, demanding that he accompany the brave white woman.
Nor did they dawdle along the way. If the white trader meant to meet them at Fort Union, they would reach the fort at all possible speed.
Only a day’s ride from Fort Union, they came to a quiet Indian encampment, nestled amongst a lush, green oasis set out in the middle of the desolate prairie. White Eagle stopped, saying that they would remain here for the
rest of the day, to refresh their horses and gather some supplies before they came to the fort.
It was late afternoon, and Katrina, who had been left with Strikes Two for company, decided to venture down a wooded trail that looked as though it led to a stream. White Eagle, meanwhile, reclined inside the tepee of their host, a Mr. Good Bear, a medicine man of the Pikuni.
She traveled down the path a good distance before she heard voices. She stopped to look and to listen.
There, in a clearing, set against a backdrop of cottonwood trees and a peaceful running stream, she peered out upon the most picturesque scene of Indian life she had ever witnessed.
An outside fire, popping and throwing showers of red embers high in the air, sat between two tepees, lit up from the firelight.
Set as they were in a forest of green leaves and the dark bark of the trees, the lodges, with their scattering of cottonwood poles and smoke-colored tops, appeared brighter than she had ever seen them.
Old women sat around the fire, cooking, their efforts filling the air with a combination of smells, the aroma of food and smoke, sweet grass and sage. Some of the younger girls sat off to the side, giggling and laughing, mending clothing and moccasins. And into their midst came a group of children, laughing and playing games and chattering at once. All were dressed in brightly colored clothes, and all seemed in perfect harmony with one another.
Off to the side a mother softly cooed to her baby, singing a Blackfoot lullaby, while an older child sat at her side, quietly playing with a doll.
Katrina stared at that doll and, unbeknownst to her, the child gazed back at her.
Odd. What Katrina saw there made her feel strange.
It must be the doll, she thought. It was a simple figurine, really, that the child held, a homemade creation, dressed in a buckskin dress, complete with beaded and quilled ornamentation. On its head was hair that looked to be real human hair, and on its feet were beaded moccasins. It had the larger trade beads for eyes and red paint for a mouth, and as Katrina gazed on, something about it triggered a memory within her.
She’d had a doll like that. Once. She was certain of it.
Odd.
She stepped forward, into the clearing, and all at once, with her presence alone, she broke the peaceful scene.
All the women and children stopped what they were doing to stare at her, and Katrina began to feel as if she had sprouted horns and a tail. Perhaps it was because she had changed back into her fashionable dress, an unfamiliar article of clothing to these people, or perhaps it was because of her yellow hair or the paleness of her skin.
Whatever the case, Katrina was saddened to see the quiet scene interrupted, and all because of her.
Strikes Two, who had followed her and now stood proudly at her side, announced, “Oki, naapiaakii oniiniiwat.”
Suddenly there were whispers, and all stared at her even harder.
What had he said? She glanced down toward Strikes Two and asked him to repeat it in signs, Katrina coming to understand that he had just informed these women that the white woman, standing next to him, had been selected to be a warrior.
“Me?” she asked, incredulously.
Strikes Two nodded. “Was it not you,” he spoke, half in Blackfoot, half in sign, “who captured two ponies at the Assiniboin fight?”
Katrina shrugged. “The ponies were loose and were only standing there.”
Strikes Two seemed not to have heard her, and he continued, “Was it not you who saved your husband, running into the enemy camp and pulling him out of danger?”
Katrina felt herself blush. “I did only what anyone would do.”
“Saa, no,” said Strikes Two. “It is a great feat for a warrior if he does only one of the things that you did. But you have two coups to add to your belt.
For many years our men will sing praises about this fight. In truth, the men are already calling the battle not the Assiniboin encounter, but ‘the fight in which the woman saved her husband,’ in your honor.”
Tears came to her eyes, and she shook her head to keep her feelings at bay, until at last, she felt she could say, “Are they really?” conveying the meaning of her words with the gestures of sign.
Strikes Two nodded in the affirmative.
Katrina gazed up into the heavens. Suddenly she felt a tug on her dress and, glancing down, she saw the little Indian child she had glimpsed earlier, gazing up at her. The child was giggling and holding her hand over her mouth.
Katrina smiled down at the little girl.
And then the most incredible thing happened. The little girl held out her doll to Katrina, and saying, “Iksisstoohkot,” the child pushed the doll into Katrina’s hands.
“Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly accept this.” Katrina, without openly refusing the gift, tried to make the child understand.
It was no use. The little girl, still giggling, ran away, leaving Katrina to watch as the child fled through the woods.
Katrina looked to the child’s mother, who still sat off to the side, caring for her infant. As Katrina paced over toward the other woman, she debated what she should say.
Squatting down beside the woman, she proffered the doll, saying, “Your daughter will want this soon. I couldn’t possibly take it from her or from you.”
But the mother gestured back toward Katrina, indicating that Katrina was to take the doll. It was now hers.
Katrina almost cried, not only because she was touched by the generosity of these people, but because once, long ago, she’d had a doll almost identical to this one. And the memory stirred some feeling deep within her.
Perhaps she had more in common with these people than she had at first realized. Perhaps she had once lived amongst them and had loved them.
It could be so, she thought. Truly, it might be so.
Chapter Twenty-Two
They left Strikes Two, along with their ponies, with Good Bear and his family, promising to pick him and the animals up on their way back from the fort. Strikes Two hadn’t liked it, of course, but White Eagle had been firm.
“Bad things happen at these trading posts,” he’d said. “Besides, I will need you to tend to our ponies until we can return here to secure them. You know that I cannot take them with me to the fort. Always, when we have done this in the past, we lose these animals to the white man’s trade. And the ponies would alert any enemy to my movements with my wife. Such would be too dangerous. No, it is better that we leave them here.”
It had been an honor that White Eagle had requested of the lad. The boy, having no choice but to relent, had taken possession of their mounts and of Katrina’s doll, which she asked him to care for until she returned to claim it.
High upon a ridge the next day, they caught sight of the fort.
It looked different, here, under the embers of a setting sun. Just what it was that was so unusual, Katrina couldn’t quite say, only that it appeared…unsightly.
This time of year, there were fewer Indians encamped around it, for one thing. In truth, Katrina espied only one tepee, a far cry from the hundreds of lodges that had been pitched there during the early summer. In the distance a herd of horses munched on deliberately planted bunchgrass, while farther away, some cows, properly corralled, were being milked.
Looking at the fort now made the structure appear, not so much a beacon in a sea of wilderness as she had once supposed, but more like a white sore upon the beauty of the land, its walls and bastions appearing foreign and prickly, instead of welcoming.
She was amazed at her change of viewpoint.
The landscape had changed too. The prairie, during the beginning stages of fall, looked naked and withered, the trees along the riverbanks had taken on a yellow coat, while the river itself appeared shallow, with several more sandbars present than had been there a few months previous.
Flocks of ducks and geese congregated along the river, while numerous blackbirds and ravens circled the woods, their calls to one another filling the prairie.
; “I don’t want to go down there just yet.”
That had White Eagle glancing at her in a hurry, though all he said was, “Humph.” Presently, he turned his pony around, to trail back down the ridge the same way they had come up it. He said, “We will set up a temporary camp here, although we must be careful. We are in the territory of the Assiniboin, who might still be vengeful over our recent raid on them.”
“But these people here wouldn’t be of the same band of Indians.”
“Word travels fast on the moccasin trail. They will have already heard of the raid. We will not be able to build a fire, because that would alert our enemies to our presence. We will have to eat only the dried beef and pemmican for our meal unless we can find some berries.”
“That is fine with me.”
He nodded then and looked for a place to camp for the night.
He found it in a glen of trees. It was perfect she was to think, later that night; black night, star-filled sky, large, golden moon shooting silvery light upon them.
It seemed so long since they had been alone and she wanted to have this night to themselves. Soon, others might try to force her to leave him, soon, she would have to confront those things that haunted her: the marquess, her uncle. But not tonight. She would have this night with her husband.
He lay beside her.
She touched his face, his hair, running her hand over his cheekbones, downward toward his neck, her touch a light caress.
“It seems so long since I have been alone with you, my husband.”
He gave her a gentle smile. “I, too, have missed this.”
“We are no longer on the warpath.”
His smile grew broader. “So we are not.”
“I have been wanting to hold you.”
He didn’t move. “As have I you.”
“We could…”
“So we could.”
She gave him a gentle shove. “Can you not take a hint?”
He laughed. “I will, I think, enjoy teasing you all of my life, my wife.”
This having been said, he rolled over to position her beneath him. He took a lock of her hair and twirled it around his finger. “I have not told you for many nights how much I love you. And this is a great oversight on my part. For I not only love you, I admire you. None of what we have done has been easy for you, and yet you never cease to try to learn, and just when I think you might never grasp the ways of my people, you surprise me with more valor than even the best warrior.”