The Endearment

by LaVyrle Spencer

  “Anna,” she corrected. “Anna Lindstrom.” The name surprised even her.

  Toothy Grin shot a curious glance to one of his friends who had the face of an old buffalo on the body of a young deer.

  “Foxhair,” Toothy Grin repeated, nodding now.

  Buffalo Face grinned. He had magnificent teeth for such an ugly face. “Foxhair marry Whitehair, together make baby striped like skunk kitten.”

  They all laughed in great amusement at this.

  “What do you want?” she snapped. “If all you've come here to do is make fun of my hair, you can leave! If you want to see my husband, he's not here. You'll have to come back another time.” She was trembling in her britches, but she was damned if she was going to let them come sneaking here into her own yard and ridicule her!

  “Tonka Squaw!” one of them said, in a tone she could have sworn was approving, although why was beyond her guess.

  “What do you want?” she asked again, none too gently.

  “Tonka Squaw?” one Indian asked Buffalo Face. “How you know she squaw?” They seemed to be amused by her britches, all pointing and jabbering in their unrecognizable jargon while eyeing her clothing. She grew angrier by the moment at being talked past like she wasn't even there.

  “Talk English!” she spit. “If you're going to come around here, you can just by-damn talk English! I know you know how because Karl told me!”

  “Tonka Squaw!” one said again, with a broad grin.

  “Spit fire!” another said.

  Then they laughed again at her britches.

  “Well, if you weren't all so rude, I'd invite you inside to wait for Karl, but I'll be darned if I'll have you in when all you came to do is laugh at me!”

  She spun and headed for the cabin, and they all silently followed. In the doorway, she turned to challenge them. “Anybody who comes in here had just better forget about my britches and keep his smart comments to himself!”

  But in they came, right behind her. Silently, they squatted and sat cross-legged on the floor before the fireplace. She wondered what she was expected to do to entertain them.

  She decided the best course of action was action. She would pretend to be very busy preparing dinner, and maybe they would get tired of watching her and go away. She had struggled once before through the making of a kind of mince cake, baked in the spider instead of in an oven. She struggled to remember the ingredients Karl had taught her, and in her preoccupation thought she was probably ruining it entirely. But she didn't care. Anything to look busy and distract the Indians. But they muttered among themselves, now and then breaking into laughter, as if what she did were the funniest thing in the world.

  She began mixing the cake ingredients, found the mince made of pumpkin and vinegar and put the crock on the table while she reached for a clean spoon. Turning around, she found an Indian, with a nose like a beaver, reaching into her jar with his bare hand. Without thinking, she whacked him a good one across the knuckles with her wooden spoon.

  “Git!” she spit at him. “Where are your manners? You don't come into my house and reach your big dirty hands into my mincemeat and eat it behind my back! Sit down and keep out of my way and maybe, just maybe, I'll give you some cake when it's done! Meanwhile, keep your hands where they belong!”

  Beaver Nose's companions had a jolly good laugh at that one. While he held his smitten knuckles, the others held their sides and rocked in raucous laughter, repeating over and over, “Tonka Squaw, Tonka Squaw.”

  “Quiet! You're no better than him,” she warned the rest brandishing her spoon, “you all came in here uninvited!”

  She tended to her cake-mixing, discomfited by having five Indian men sitting and watching her. So far they seemed to respect her spunk. As long as it worked, she'd keep it up. She had no other defense against her fear anyway.

  She knew before the batter was done she'd made a mess of it again. But she went about putting it on the spider to fry into cakes as if it were an epicurean delicacy. The Indians watched her and mumbled as if intrigued by this involved cooking method. The little patties were flatter than Beaver Nose's nose, but she couldn't stop now. She fried away until all the batter was cooked. Such as they were, she ceremoniously put all the cakes on her largest wooden platter, and said, “Now, if you will be patient, I'll make some rose hip tea for you.”

  She set the platter on the table, keeping a corner of an eye on the Indians, lest they reach out for one of her sad confections before she bid them do so. Hungrily, they eyed the cakes, but not one of them made a move toward them, remembering the fury of her spoon on Beaver Nose's knuckle.

  She mashed and steeped the rose hips, all the time remembering that Karl said rose hips prevented scurvy, wondering why in the world she was keeping the disease from befalling this group that had won her wrath. When the tea was steeped, she had a problem of where to find enough containers to serve all five Indians at the same time, but she would by-gum do this thing right!

  She went to the doorway, stopped and turned an admonishing finger at the sitting men. “Don't you dare touch those cakes till I get back!” Then she ran to the springhouse to get the dipper and a couple of small, empty crocks.

  She came back to the sound of their guttural mumblings, and made a big show of putting rose hip tea into the dipper, the two crocks and her three mugs. She was darned if she'd drink out of that dipper herself. She handed it to Buffalo Face, since he was the one who had poked fun at her britches. Let him drink out of the dipper! She was a lady and would drink from the mug, britches or not!

  This, then, was the sight that greeted Karl and James when they returned from the creek, dripping, but bearing a stunning catch of widemouth bass. Anna reigned supreme, the only one of the group sitting on a chair. At her feet were five oily-haired, buckskinned Indians, drinking rose hip tea, of all things, and eating the most miserable-looking mince cakes Karl had ever seen in his life—eating them and nodding in appreciation as if they were angel's food!

  Anna turned startled eyes to him as he entered. He could almost see her shoulders sag in relief at his appearance. He wondered how long the Indians had been there.

  “Whitehair! Hah!” one of the Indians greeted.

  “Hello, Two Horns,” Karl replied, “I see you have met my wife.” It was Karl's best friend, Two Horns, that Anna had insulted by making him drink his tea from the dipper. But he didn't seem to mind.

  “Tonka Squaw!” Two Horns said again.

  “Tonka Squaw!” they all chimed in, if you could call all that guttering “chiming.”

  “Yes, she is,” Karl agreed, smirking and cocking an eyebrow, raising Anna's temperature a notch.

  “Tonka Squaw dress like Whitehair. How you know she squaw?”

  Karl laughed. “I know by what is inside.”

  So, thought Anna, Tonka Squaw means a woman who wears britches! Just wait until I get you alone, Karl Lindstrom!

  But they were all laughing at Karl's remark. The ominous look on Anna's face told him he'd been a little precipitous in making jokes about her britches before his friends.

  “I have fish. You will all stay for supper,” Karl said.

  Oh, great! thought Anna. I've been entertaining his rude Indian friends all afternoon. So what does he do but make sure I have to put up with them through supper, too!

  “Anna can throw a few more potatoes into the fire,” Karl added.

  That's just what Anna did. She was downright huffy by this time. She stomped out to get more potatoes from the root cellar. She knew the Indians loved potatoes and the white wheat bread so different from that which the Indians themselves made of corn. She returned to thrust the potatoes into the coals, not even bothering to wrap them in plantain leaves. She wasn't going to get all soaking wet gathering up plantain for the benefit of a bunch of outspoken Indians!

  Karl had begun cleaning the fish on the tabletop. The Indians expressed their disapproval of this, adding heat to Anna's already fiery anger. “Why Tonka Squaw not clean fi
sh? Whitehair sit and smoke pipe with his friends.”

  “Anna is not very good at cleaning things,” Karl explained, embarrassing her further. “She has never learned how to clean fish anyway. These are the first fish we have had since she has been here.”

  “Bad start to marriage,” was the general consensus among the group.

  Anna gathered that no self-respecting Indian would be caught dead cleaning fish when he had a wife to do it for him. She began to resent Karl a little less for not expecting her to perform that loathsome duty. She went to the springhouse for water, came back and conceded to wash each fillet after it was scraped free by his knife.

  The Indians had taken James into their circle, already having dubbed him One-Who-Has-Eye-Of-Cat because he had green eyes, something new to them. When they brought out their pipes, they included James in their offer to smoke.

  “Oh no, you don't!” Anna objected. “You're not teaching him any of your bad habits at his age. He's still a growing boy.”

  They saw the way James withdrew the hand he'd been reaching toward the pipe, and once more nodded in approval, saying “Tonka Squaw.” But when it was time for the frying of the fish, they became amused at the big white Swede whose woman did not even know a simple thing like that. Nevertheless, they ate their fill, relishing in particular those potatoes. The only potatoes they usually ate were wild ones, not nearly as delicious as these the white man cultivated.

  When the meal was over, Anna was left to clean up while the men sat around with their pipes again. She wondered if the Indians would ever leave, for she was getting sick and tired of being called Tonka Squaw at every move she made, and having her britches closely scrutinized and being criticized because she didn't perform all the duties these big bullies let their women perform.

  But they left at last, long after dark, and she wondered how they would find their way home in the blackness. Karl bid them goodbye at the door, and they all raised their palms to him. They did the same to James, but never gave Anna so much as a glance, which nettled her to a snit again, after it was she who'd invited them in in the first place!

  Karl came back inside and could tell she was in a lather, so left her alone. He and James talked about the Indians, Karl saying he'd known all along they'd come around to have a look at his new squaw sooner or later.

  She flounced into bed and faced the wall, really puckered now because Karl had called her a squaw! She'd had enough of it from those redskins!

  When the fire was banked and the cabin dark, Karl laid down beside her. Instead of taking her hint and leaving her alone, he leaned over her shoulder to whisper into her ear, “Is my Tonka Squaw upset with her husband?”

  In a forced whisper she sizzled, “Don't you dare call me a squaw one more time! I've had about all of it I can stand for one day! You and your big bully Indian friends!”

  “Ya. We are some big bullies, calling you Tonka Squaw. Maybe you do not deserve it, after all.”

  Now he had her wondering. She turned her face a little his way, asking over her cold shoulder, “Deserve it?”

  “Ya. Do you think you do?”

  “Well, how should I know? What does it mean?”

  “It means Big Woman, and it is the highest compliment an Indian can pay. You must have done something to make them think you were really tough.”

  “Tough?” At last her pent-up emotions of the afternoon and evening began evaporating. “Karl, I was so scared when I saw them standing in the door of the springhouse that I threw beans all over forty acres!”

  “So that's why those beans are covering the springhouse step.”

  “I was scared,” she repeated, seeking his sympathy now.

  “I told you they were my friends.”

  “But I never saw them before, Karl. I didn't know who they were. The one with the toothy grin made fun of my hair, then Two Horns poked fun at my britches. All I could think to do was put them in their places for being so rude to me . . . and in my own home, too!”

  “I thought as much. You just are not used to their ways. The Indian respects authority. When you put them in their places, you fix yourself in yours, and they look up to you.”

  “They do?” she asked, surprised.

  “So they call you Tonka Squaw, Big Woman, because you make them behave, when Indian men are used to having their own way with their women.”

  “They are?”

  “They are.”

  Anna couldn't help laughing. “Oh, Karl, do you know what I did? I smacked old Beaver Nose so hard with my wooden spoon that before the end of the night he had black and blue marks on his knuckles.”

  “You did such a thing, Anna?” he asked, amazed at this wife of his.

  “Well, he stuck his dirty hand right in my mincemeat pot!”

  “So you smacked him with your wooden spoon?”

  “I did. Oh, Karl, I did,” she giggled now. “That was an awful thing to do, wasn't it?” Her giggling grew louder at the thought of her own temerity.

  “It seems you are the kind of squaw those Indians would like to have, but make sure they don't! One who keeps her men in line!”

  “Oh you!” Anna spouted. “You just forget about calling me Tonka Squaw, right this minute. I like Anna just fine, no matter what kind of squaw I am!”

  “Tonka,” Karl reiterated.

  “Well, you might have thought I was enjoying it all, but let me tell you I was plenty scared. Besides, I was put out with them for teasing me about my britches and my hair.”

  “They teased you about your hair, too, Anna?” Karl asked now.

  “Yours and mine both, I gather.” Too late she realized she had led herself toward a subject that would better have been avoided.

  “Well, what did they say?” Obviously, Karl was eager to hear the rest.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing, I said.”

  But in the dark, he leaned and teased at her earlobe. “When you say it is nothing, I know it is something. But maybe something you do not want your husband to know.” Anna stifled a giggle as he lightly nipped her jaw.

  “Something like that,” she admitted.

  “How would you like to gut the fish the next time I bring the catch home?” he teased. “You would just love it, I bet.”

  He could feel her cheeks round up in a smile against his teasing lips.

  “How would you like a rap in the knuckles with my spoon? After all, it is Tonka Squaw you are threatening.”

  “I am not very scared, as you can tell.” He was whispering against her cheek now. “That is not why I am shaking.”

  “Why are you shaking then, Whitehair?” she whispered back.

  His hand came seeking.

  “I am shaking with laughter at those foolish Indians who think I have such a Big Woman.” His hand found her breast. There was scarcely a spoonful of it.

  She grabbed his hand and took it to her mouth, saying, “I guess I'll just have to prove those Indians right.” Then she bit it.

  When he yelped out loud, James asked what was going on up there.

  “Tonka Squaw is just trying to prove she is more tonka than she really is.”

  “One of the reasons I first got mad at your big red friends was because they made themselves at home without asking,” she informed Karl merrily.

  He got her good and tight this time in a mighty hug that subdued her. The cornhusks were carrying on something awful as the two of them scrapped and rolled, laughing and teasing. They ended in a kiss, with Karl saying into her ear, “Ah, Anna, you are something.”

  “But not tonka?” she whispered, knowing that the bosom pressed against his chest was anything but ample.

  “It does not matter,” came his voice in the dark. And Anna smiled happily.

  In the morning when they got up they found two pheasants hanging on their door. How the Indians had shot them before sunup remained a mystery. But Karl explained the Indians had chosen this way of thanking Anna for her hospitality. I
t was, too, their tribute to her, their approval of “Tonka Woman,” their welcome and their utterly predictable sense of honor. The Indians never took anything without giving something in return.

  Chapter Ten

  Anna and Karl had been married for two weeks. They found they were compatible in countless ways, but disparate in others. Like all newlyweds, they revealed pieces of themselves to each other daily. Perhaps the similarity they found most enticing was their appreciation of fresh, healthy teasing, which went on daily.

  The chief shortcoming Karl found in Anna was the way she hated all domestic work. If she had her way, she'd be outside from sunup to sundown and let the housework go to the devil. When she had to stay behind to perform household tasks, she tended to sulk, and often gave him the honed edge of her Irish tongue just to let him know she didn't appreciate this aspect of wifehood.

  If there was one thing that bothered Anna about Karl, it was only that he was too perfect. Silly as it sometimes sounded, even to herself, it rankled her that beside him she must seem nearly ignorant. Anna had yet to find the thing Karl could not do or figure out how to do or couldn't teach either James or herself how to do. He had every virtue a man could possibly have: he was loving, patient, gentle . . . oh, the list went on and on in her mind until sometimes, beside him, she felt positively inadequate by comparison.

  But Karl never complained. When her temper flared, he soothed her with his own good humor. When she became irritable at her own incapacities, he patiently told her there was much to learn around a house and it would take time. He took precious hours out from the cabin work to teach the never-ending lessons Father Pierrot had admonished him to teach, even though Anna knew how badly Karl wanted to devote all his time to the raising of the new house.

  But above all, at bedtime Karl practiced more patience than any new wife had a right to ask of her husband, and Anna knew it. The flirting and innuendo could not go on endlessly. It came to a head one night after they'd had a particularly carefree session in the pond where Anna had been even more playful than usual. In bed, later, she was still feeling sportive and coquettish.