The Coming

by David Osborne

  With a shock, he realized it was Widow Bird. He nodded, feeling unsettled and guilty. “I’m beginning to smell.”

  She stopped in front of him. “My heart smiles to see you.”

  “And mine as well.”

  “Your daughter is with child.”

  “Little Fire? When?”

  “Soon.”

  A grin broke across his face. “I will visit her when this council ends.”

  She smiled back at him. “She and Calf Shirt are safe and happy.”

  “I am relieved to hear that. It is strange, being so far away from her.”

  “Perhaps you will stay this time.” She handed him the qawas plant. “Take this. It makes you smell good.”

  He turned and watched her go, filled with desire.

  * * *

  “This same ground we have walked many times,” Lawyer said. They had been arguing all afternoon, 20 headmen crammed in a circle, others squeezed in behind them, among the rifles and bows that hung from the lodge poles. The air was warm, the talk even warmer. “I have convinced Governor Stevens to return to his original lines, so we keep most of our land. We lose only small parts of Red Wolf’s land, and Watch Both Sides with Same Breath’s, and Shooting Arrow’s. In return, we get two mills, two schools, a blacksmith, a Soyappo healer, and money to buy what we need. And you heard yourself what Governor Stevens said when Flint Necklace asked him: The agent will keep all unwanted Soyappos off our lands.”

  “Cayuse and Wallawallas are our brothers,” Flint Necklace said. “We must not abandon them. They cannot survive on a small reserve—they have many cattle and horses.”

  It was an effort, but Lawyer kept his voice even, patient. He explained again that if they did not sign the treaties, Soyappos might come onto their lands to live, to dig for the yellow stones they loved so much. Already they were flooding onto Yakama and Spokan lands, to get to Kettle Falls, where yellow stones had been found. Like locusts they would come, and only the Soyappo chiefs could stop them. The treaty would protect them.

  Flint Necklace scoffed. “Soyappos do not know how to fight as we do. Their wagon guns may be strong, but they are slow. If they come, we will crush them!”

  “My friend has never traveled downriver to see where Soyappos live,” Lawyer said. “Their forts, their farms, their giant sailing canoes filled with endless guns and powder and balls—these things he has never seen. He has never seen them hang people by their necks.”

  “Those who killed Whitman would never have hung if Timothy had not pursued them!” Flint Necklace growled.

  “We had no choice.”

  “Cayuse are our brothers! You had a choice!”

  Timothy raised his voice: “I pursued them to avert war. If they had not turned themselves in, Soyappos would have destroyed their nation.”

  “No! We would have defeated them!”

  Shooting Arrow held up his hand, and the lodge quieted. “That decision was mine,” he said. “To sacrifice five Cayuse murderers was a wiser choice than to lose hundreds of Nimíipuu and Cayuse in war. It is not right to blame Timothy.”

  Flint Necklace glared at him: “One day, we will have to fight them.”

  “Like you, I have fought Blackfeet and Big Bellies,” Lawyer said. “I have wounds to prove it, and scalps as well. But Blackfeet cannot fight forever; like us, they run out of balls and powder. Soyappos never run out. When they fight, they do not stop. Their people are as many as blades of grass on this prairie.”

  “If that is true, why could they spare no more than fifty bluecoats to protect them at this council?” Flint Necklace asked.

  Lawyer met his eyes but refused to raise his voice: “They came in peace. But when they come in war, they bring many, many bluecoats. They have already defeated many nations east of Shining Mountains.”

  “You believe everything Soyappos say?” Flint Necklace sneered. “Do you not understand that they speak with false tongues? Did Sent Ones protect us from Soyappo diseases? Did they ensure that people would never go hungry in cold moons? Who are you to tell us what is true? You are nothing but a tobacco cutter for our chiefs!”

  Lawyer seethed inside; Flint Necklace had never given him a moment’s respect. But he was careful not to show his anger. “How can we have a head chief who lives in Buffalo Country, who does not even arrive for important councils until they are ready to be concluded?” he asked, a half smile on his lips.

  Shooting Arrow held up his hand again to quell the protests from Flint Necklace’s supporters. “My friends, my heart is saddened to see us divide this way. If we continue down this path, there will be two Nimíipuu nations, with two chiefs. We cannot weaken ourselves in this way, not at this moment. We must remain strong if we are to keep these Soyappos off our lands.”

  “Shooting Arrow is right,” Eagle Heart said. “In truth, we did not choose Lawyer as our headman. Soyappos did that. Perhaps it is time to put our differences aside and choose a headman. If it is Flint Necklace, we will follow him. If it is Lawyer, we will follow him.” He gazed at the others, judging their eyes. “Are you willing to agree that we must do this?”

  A few heads nodded. Lawyer counted silently, and it was too close to be sure. But he could hardly back down—he had to put Flint Necklace in his place or they would never sign the treaty.

  “If every headman votes, I will accept their decision,” Flint Necklace said. “If you choose Lawyer, I will sign. But if you choose me, we will not sign, and we will encourage our friends to refuse as well. If war comes, we will fight like men.” His eyes made their way around the circle. “Flint Necklace has spoken.”

  “Let us vote,” Lawyer said. “Then we will smoke.”

  Slowly, one by one, the headmen made their choices. Timothy, Jacob, Luke, and Jason—all Christians—spoke for Lawyer. Shooting Arrow, Three Feathers, and Thunder Eyes chose Flint Necklace. Red Wolf chose Lawyer. Eagle from Light chose Flint Necklace. High Bear chose Lawyer.

  As more headmen spoke, Lawyer counted nine votes for each side, with two left to vote. The survival of his people depended on those two votes, he was certain.

  Eagle Heart let his eyes travel around the circle, then said, “Lawyer.”

  Now all eyes were on Watch Both Sides with Same Breath. Flint Necklace had saved most of his lands, but he was close to Timothy. “I believe Lawyer chooses a wise path,” he said.

  Flint Necklace stared at his feet, his weathered face dark against the white of his shirt. Finally he raised his eyes. “Our headmen have spoken. I will sign.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  July 1855

  Smoke sat his horse and watched the grand spectacle of 5,000 people moving toward home, with three times that many horses. He had packed up his tipi and was waiting for Widow Bird and her people to finish. He had offered to help, but the Cayuse were sullen, angry with Lawyer and the Nimíipuu, and no one wanted his help. He could have asked where their summer camp was and gone on alone, but he wanted to ride with Widow Bird. He remembered the comfort he had felt in her presence years ago, and his mind kept traveling back to the image of her bathing with the qawas plant. His desire had suddenly awakened.

  He waited until she appeared in the procession, then fell in beside her. Her parents rode in front, their packhorses behind. Young boys tended the horse herd, which followed in their dust. He and Widow Bird talked about the treaty for a time, but she dismissed it with a gesture: “I am tired of all that. Tell me about your life. Have you remarried?”

  “No.” But he had gradually moved beyond his mourning, he told her. He barely remembered the first few years; it was as if he had been sleepwalking.

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “And you?” he asked. “Have you remarried?”

  She smiled sadly, shook her head. “My parents are old now; my father has trouble walking, pain in his joints. I spend my time caring for them.”

  “You are lucky to have them. And they are lucky to have you.”

  The band’s summer camp was in the mou
ntains, near the source of the Little Stream. They reached it the next day, as the sun began its descent. Dogs ran out to greet them, then children, finally the few adults who had stayed behind with those too old or sick to travel easily. Smoke scanned them for his daughter’s face but could not find it. He turned to Widow Bird, who saw the anxiety in his eyes. “She is probably in seclusion, in our women’s lodge, waiting for her baby,” she said with a smile. “Or perhaps it has come already.”

  Smoke let out his breath. Of course. He might not even be able to see her. He spotted Calf Shirt, walking toward them with a smile.

  “Has the baby come?” Widow Bird asked.

  “Soon,” the young man said.

  The camp was in a meadow. Towering pine, tamarack, and fir trees bordered it on three sides, a bright, rocky stream on the fourth. It was a peaceful setting, a far cry from the angry debates of the past few days. It seemed unreal, suddenly, that the Cayuse would lose these lands.

  Calf Shirt and Smoke helped Widow Bird and her parents unpack. “Come stay in our lodge,” Calf Shirt said. “We have plenty of room.”

  Smoke thought of the dreams he was having about Widow Bird and knew he would be unable to sleep in the same tipi. “Thank you,” he said. “But I don’t want to crowd you. I have my own lodge.”

  “I will go see Little Fire Traveling in Mountains, tell her you are here,” Widow Bird said. While she was gone, Calf Shirt helped him erect his tipi and Smoke told him about the council and the treaties.

  Calf Shirt stopped, a lodge pole in his hands. “My people must live in Umatilla River Valley with Wallawallas?”

  Smoke nodded: “Yes.”

  Calf Shirt threw the pole down. “When?”

  “When Soyappos’ Great Chief signs this new treaty. Maybe one, two, three snows.”

  Calf Shirt glared at him. “And your people let this happen? You did not try to stop it?”

  “Many headmen wanted to refuse. But more wanted to avoid war.”

  “What war?”

  “Soyappos said this was only way they could keep their people off our lands.”

  “By giving them away?”

  Smoke shrugged. “Come live with us. We have good land, far from Soyappos.”

  Calf Shirt spat. But before he could speak again Widow Bird appeared, a wide smile on her face and an infant in her arms. “Say hello to your daughter,” she told Calf Shirt.

  He looked up, startled, and the anger evaporated from his dark face. She handed him the child, wrapped in rabbit fur. He looked down at the infant in wonder. Smoke smiled at the sight. He remembered when Little Fire had been born—the incredible joy, as if he were walking on air. How had it all gone, so fast? His little girl was a mother.

  Three days later Smoke and Widow Bird sponsored a feast in honor of the newborn and her mother. He and Calf Shirt brought in two deer and an elk for the feast. On the appointed day Little Fire came out of seclusion and embraced her father. He held her, self-conscious with all her people’s eyes on them, but he knew they would not begrudge this rare show of affection. He had not seen her in more than two snows, since his first visit to her village.

  Knowing that Calf Shirt’s people seldom ventured across the mountains to hunt, Smoke gave Little Fire his three finest buffalo robes. Widow Bird gave a cloth dress and sweet ginger leaves, to perfume herself, and her parents gave her a Soyappo axe. Others gave her Soyappo pots, for cooking, a mirror, a saddle, water baskets, and skin bags painted with traditional designs of red, black, blue, green and yellow. Smoke spoke of his great happiness at seeing his daughter again, and at having a grandchild. Little Fire had named the baby Echoes on Mountain, after her Cayuse grandmother. Smoke promised to spend time teaching his granddaughter how to contribute to her people, to be a good person, as was his responsibility.

  Widow Bird said she had lost one son but gained another in Calf Shirt, and that he could not have chosen a better wife than Little Fire. When she smiled at Smoke, he wanted to take her into his arms. It felt like they were a couple, celebrating the birth of their first grandchild. She was different from Darting Swallow, less outspoken, softer of voice. But he was falling in love with her.

  That night, after the feasting, he sat with her by the fire. She was boiling herbs in water, to make a salve that would relieve her father’s pain. Smoke had cut a thick elderberry branch that morning, and now he began to hollow it out with a small Soyappo knife. The branch was almost as long as his arm and as thick as his thumb.

  “You are making a flute?” Widow Bird asked.

  He nodded. Men used elderberry flutes to serenade the women they wanted to marry.

  She smiled at him, and he felt light-headed. “Is that to attract an elk or a woman?”

  “Which would you prefer?”

  Her eyes grew serious as she realized what he was asking. “Perhaps you should stick to elk.”

  His heart fell. He continued to carve, but he was barely aware of what he was doing.

  The stream was not very wide or deep, but in a few places boulders formed a natural dam and the water pooled. Here people came to escape the midday heat. Smoke walked downstream, a good hike out of camp, to the largest pool. He stripped and lowered himself into the cold water, plunged his head under a small waterfall, and let the rushing waters cool and cleanse him. His daughter had plaited his hair into two braids, which hung on his breast.

  When he was tired of the water, he lay on a flat rock in his breechcloth, warming himself. Despite the pleasure of the warm sun, he could not shake the empty feeling that dogged him. He had finally found a woman he could love, after so many snows, and she had rejected him already.

  He sat up abruptly as a shadow crossed his face.

  “Were you sleeping?” Widow Bird asked. She carried a hemp and beargrass water bag in each hand.

  “Just warming up.”

  “I thought this was a place to cool down.”

  He blushed. “You wish to swim. I will leave.”

  “It can wait.” She descended, sat cross-legged. She wore a long, plain deerskin dress, which looked hot under the midday sun.

  “The water feels good. I will leave you.”

  She reached out and put a hand on his arm. “It is not necessary.” She rose to her knees, dipped one of the bags into the water, then lifted it and poured it over her head and down her back and front. Then she lay back on the rock and closed her eyes. Unsure what else to do, Smoke lay back as well.

  “Your daughter told me I would find you here,” she said.

  He glanced over at her, confused. “You were looking for me?”

  She nodded. “If you play a flute outside my lodge, people will talk.”

  “I have ears. I threw it away.”

  She was silent for another long stretch. Finally, when he was about to rise and depart, she spoke again. “How long do you intend to stay here?”

  “Perhaps until cool weather comes. I want Little Fire and Calf Shirt to come home with me. But he wants to fight for your lands.”

  She rolled on her side now, her head propped up on one elbow. He tried not to look at the swelling of her breasts beneath the wet dress. “And what does Daytime Smoke think about that?”

  He stared at her, trying to decipher her intentions. She looked amused, friendly. Perhaps it was because no one else could see them, so no rumors would start, he thought, and his heart lightened. “Calf Shirt should consider what life would be like for his wife and child if he dies.”

  “Yes, I wish my husband had done that.”

  She rolled onto her back again, and he did likewise. He stared at the sky for a moment, bewildered. Finally he decided to throw caution to the wind and ask the question that ate at him like a beaver gnawing at a tree. “Why have you never remarried?”

  She was silent. He looked over, saw that her eyes were closed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Such questions should not be asked.”

  She shook her head. “My husband was a powerful tewat. Some men fear this—that my husband mi
ght reach across from Land Above.”

  Smoke wondered if this were possible. He could hear two blue jays quarreling in the pines along the creek.

  “And men my age have grown scarce, since red-spots disease.”

  “But you are still beautiful. Surely, someone would have offered to take you in, as a second or third wife.”

  “I would rather be alone.”

  “Aah.” He nodded. “My mother felt that way.”

  Again she was silent for several minutes. Finally she sat up, and he did likewise. “Your daughter is one of us now,” she said. “Think of all she would give up if she left her husband’s people. Her friends, her family.”

  “She is Nimíipuu.”

  “Her mother was Cayuse. As a grown woman, this is all she knows. If she left here, she would have only you.”

  “She and Calf Shirt would be welcome among our people. Our lands are rich, our life is good. No Soyappos come. We could live in peace, travel to Buffalo Country when we chose.”

  “If you lived here, you could still travel to Buffalo Country.”

  “I cannot live here.”

  “Never?”

  He stared across the stream, at the forest that grew thick on the far side.

  “It is not an idle question,” she said.

  “I lost my family near here. I don’t feel safe.” He hesitated. “And soon, your people must move even closer to Soyappos.”

  “Yes.”

  He looked up, aware now of what she was really saying. “Would it be so bad to live with us? Many of your people have already done so.”

  She shook her head. “My parents need me.”

  “Bring your parents.”

  “They are old. It would be hard on them.”

  He gazed at the calm waters of the pool but said no more.

  Finally she stood. “I will swim now.”

  He rose and held her eyes for a long time, but she made no move to disrobe. He picked up his moccasins, put them on, and walked away.

  Little Fire gazed across the meadow, its grasses brown and trampled, the lodges all down, everyone preparing to move to their winter camp. It was a sad sight, for it meant her father would once again be leaving.