Firebrand's Woman

by Vanessa Royall

  “Perhaps,” suggested one brave, “if we were to bind our Red Sticks to our bodies. Those who are killed are always found to have dropped their instrument of invulnerability.”

  “But the Great Spirit has revealed that the Red Stick must be held in the hand!” another disagreed.

  “Then let us find a way to bind it to a hand, so that it will not fall during attack. A bullet can find the heart in but an instant.”

  “No, no,” demurred Brittle Serpent. “We must not speak of these things. They are not for us. Let us consult the one who bears the fiery hand.”

  “She has spoken on this many times before. The law is clear as a winter night upon this matter.”

  “The Red Stick is not at question. It is the fire stick. We must have fire sticks like the white man. Then we shall triumph.”

  “No! We must have a great war!”

  Once again Hawk had seized the moment. In an atmosphere of defeat and disillusion he had struck out boldly, and all eyes were upon him. “We are failing,” he said, looking around the circle and meeting he eyes of each warrior in turn. “We are failing, and it is because, since my mind grew to know and observe and remember, we have never really made war.”

  “What?” An angry cry.

  “Never made war?”

  “Hah! The pup should not bite until his teeth are hard! Never made war!”

  Gyva was shocked. This time, truly, brash Hawk had overstepped the boundaries of acceptability. The other women were moving about, serving the men, but she stopped to have the satisfaction of hearing him upbraided. This was not to be. Hawk had nine kill-cuts in his first battle, had added nine scalps to the war pole in front of the council hall. He was not about to relinquish a chance to be heard, whether they ridiculed him or not.

  “We have made raids,” he explained. “Raids alone do not constitute war, no matter how many, and notwithstanding the number of years over which they are executed. Have all the warriors gone at once, together, to make battle? No! We send twenty, thirty, maybe forty. We burn a small village. We terrorize a lone farmer who has not been able to reach the nearest fort. We shout and shriek in the hills, alarming deer, puzzling the black bear. In the past, yes, we have overcome forts. But the forts are bigger now, and more soldiers with exploding fire sticks stand in our way. Forty braves cannot match one of these new forts, such as we have seen on the shores of what was once our own Lake Chickamauga. Not even a hundred braves could win that site.”

  His tone was powerful, authoritative. He spoke to Four Bears as if he were himself the chieftain, young though he was. Gyva, listening, was dumbfounded She began to wonder if Hawk was not indeed correct.

  Four Bears interrupted. “These things I have long considered,” he said wearily. “But the women and children who are left behind must have protection. We cannot all foray at once against the white men. That is the folly Jacksa Chula awaits.”

  The name cast an even deeper pall within the council wigwam. Andrew Jackson, since the year 1803, when Four Bears had rescued Gyva, had acquired more and more power. His name was legend to the white westerners, anathema to the red men. He had, it was said, defeated a king whose empire spanned the globe, beaten trained warriors at a place called New Orleans. And he was, it was said, seeking to become the Father of His People, the Great White Chief. Should such a thing happen, all would be lost, and the Chickasaw would know that Ababinili had forgotten them utterly.

  “But we must take the risk,” protested Hawk. “Our warriors must go, all together, and drive the white hyenas from these sacred lands once and for all.”

  “It is too late for that.”

  This new voice was as quiet as Hawk’s was loud. All turned to face Torch.

  “It is too late for that of which you speak,” Torch said to the brassy Hawk.

  Four Bears, who seemed to have drifted deeply into thought at the mention of Jackson’s name, now roused himself. “The policy of our tribe is not yet decided by either of you,” he growled. “We have heard you both, and now we shall proceed.”

  “But we have never yet massed all the nations against the white man,” Hawk attempted.

  “Because,” interjected Torch, glorious now in the eyes of Gyva, “because we have fought too much among ourselves. The Fox wait for us to be devoured by Chula Harjo and his soldiers, and they will cheer on the day we succumb, even though they will be the next to slake his thirst for blood. Or the Choctaw will be. Or the—”

  “Silence!” Four Bears cried. “If the manhood ritual gains for some young brave this place I hold, then he may speak, because then his words will carry the weight of heaven. But until that time, you are allowed only to counsel. As all know, the counsel of a young man is too often bold”—he looked at Hawk—“or shaped in strange ways”—he looked at Torch. “So now listen as your elders continue these deliberations.”

  The conversations drifted back to Red Sticks and fire sticks and some strange weapon called cannon that could shake the earth, propelling balls of iron through the air.

  Gyva reached the far end of the seated circle of braves and offered her tray to Torch. The largest piece of honeyed bread was there for him. He looked at the bread, and then at her. She met his eyes, which were strong and unyielding, yet troubled. The battle must have affected him in some deep manner that he was now contemplating. Then he moved his hand over the wedge of bread and gestured with his fingers, stretching them out to indicate his understanding and appreciation of her favor. Gyva thought that she would tremble; she prayed the tray would not fall from her hand. He did not look at her again, but took the bread and raised it to his mouth and partook of it, concentrating now upon the words of the older men, none of which contained any wisdom not known to the tribe a hundred years before.

  When Torch took bread, Gyva saw that his strong arm, which was encircled by a bronze serpent, bore twenty-one kill-cuts. He had not displayed them boastfully, as had Hawk and the others. He did not have to boast. He knew his power. But did he also know how much Gyva wished to be encircled in his strong arms?

  When the warriors had ended their palaver and gone in search of rest, Gyva helped the women clear away the meal, and then she, too, sought her wigwam. She was lying upon her panther skins, grieving over the outcome of the battle, and recalling Torch’s troubled eyes. How she wished to ease his burden of concern, to soothe him in disappointment, comfort him in fatigue. Then a young voice called her name from outside the wigwam, rousing Gyva from her reverie of commingled lethargy and desire.

  “Gyva? Gyva?”

  She rose and pushed aside the tanned skins that covered the wigwam’s entrance. A little boy stood before her, grinning innocently. He held a small branch, barely more than a twig from a willow tree, in one hand, and in the other hand he clutched something Gyva could not see.

  “You are Gyva?”

  “I am. Is there something I can help you with, or…?”

  He didn’t reply, just kept grinning, pleased with a secret she could not begin to decipher. He handed her the willow twig and two small white pebbles—they were a little sticky from his chubby, soiled hands—and then raced away, back to the field behind the village where the children played.

  Gyva stood there looking at the gifts. She smiled, remembering how she had felt as a child about Four Bears and a few other adults, how she would bring them flowers, or traipse after them every day, lovingly and worshipfully. So without knowing why, and without knowing who he was, she herself had evinced such innocent passion in that little boy. She tossed the pebbles into the dust, but soon thought the better of it. Should the child return, he might be wounded at the sight of his proffered treasure discarded beside the wigwam. So she picked the pebbles up, took them inside, and deposited them in the leather pouch that hung from a post beside her sleeping place, in which she kept the bracelets and necklaces and beaded headbands with which she adorned herself.

  That evening the tribe gathered to partake of roasted boar, eating together to welcome home the warriors
, all of them seated around a great fire. In years past such feasts were joyous, triumphant occasions. This gathering was different, subdued and lugubrious. No bold speeches were made, and the silent gratitude that any of the warriors had returned at all far outweighed whatever impulse might have been present to speak of new forays in the future. The meal was interesting to Gyva in but one respect. When she finished eating and took the serving bowl to be scoured and washed, as was her responsibility, she saw on the earth where the bowl had rested a curious yet oddly familiar configuration:

  Clearly the markings were not random, and she peered down at them with curiosity. For some reason that she could not yet fathom, she had the impression that the symbol was meant for her eyes alone. But what did it mean?

  “Gyva! Do not tarry there. Much work must be done before sundown!”

  She put the puzzle out of her mind and went about her work. Each person must perform his tasks faithfully for the well-being of the tribe; it was as Teva had said, over and over and over again, a litany long since understood and now a part of Gyva’s soul: “The nation can remain strong and of one spirit only as long as every Chickasaw places the good of all before his own wishes and dreams.”

  It was dark in the wigwam as Gyva prepared for sleep. She slipped out of her daily attire—beaded buckskin, bright calico—and felt her body cool and alive in the night air. The only light came from a rind of pale moon hanging above the mountains to the west. She sat down upon her panther skins, cross-legged, and felt the pelts lush and sleek against her bare skin. Around her the older women were drifting into sleep, if sleep had not already embraced them. Gyva brushed her hair, brushed it with long, flowing strokes, until it was radiant and silky, almost shining in the night, in spite of its blackness. Then she unclasped the necklace she had worn today, pieces of silver hammered flat and cut into the figures of animals, and fumbled for her jewelry pouch, unlooped the drawstring, and reached carefully inside to deposit the necklace.

  She had very few items in the pouch, the simple treasures of a young maiden. Thus she knew the instant her fingers touched it that something new had been added to her collection. Had the little boy been bold enough to give her something else? To put it inside her pouch? How would he have known?

  Amused, she wrapped her fingers around the object and pulled it out. It seemed to be a bracelet, but she could not see clearly. So, stepping carefully over the sleeping forms of the other women, Gyva, still naked, went to the entryway and drew aside the skins. In her hand, moonlit and sparkling, she held the war bracelet of a Chickasaw brave. A bronze serpent.

  She shivered as with fever, and every nerve in her body was alive. She felt simultaneously very weak and very strong, as if she might run like the wind all night, take the wind to her glorious body like a lover, or sink down now and forever in her sleeping place, life and the world forever forgotten, her young dream answered so soon.

  The bronze serpent revealed who her lover was: Torch-of-the-Sun, exactly as the seeress had hinted.

  The white pebbles and willow sprig revealed the place at which she was to meet him: where the tall grass ran down to a shore of bright stones, and the tender willows bent, weeping, over the flowing river.

  The strange hieroglyphic pattern beneath the bowl indicated the time at which she must go to him. Even now she looked up and saw the scythe of moon floating between the peaks of the Twin Mountains, west of the village.

  Trembling with excitement and joy, she almost stumbled over one of the women, who stirred and grunted in her sleep. Sleep! Whatever possessed those who believed the night to be for sleep? How could they think such a thing? Did they not know that Ababinili had created the night for love, that man and woman be young and wild and free for one another? The brave must wait with yearning at a secret place, having devised a summons complicated enough to display his cleverness, and sufficiently original to reveal the intelligence of her whom he desires. The brave must wait, and the maiden must fly to him on the wings of the night.

  Gyva reached for her buckskins, which hung from a peg on the pole, and then felt faintly sad. These were common garments, worn through days of work, somehow not fitting to wear in answer to this summons which—she was sure—would change her life from this hour forward. But the garment in which she was attired on festive days, or days of tribal prayer, was stored along with similar clothing for the other members of the tribe in a special structure near Teva’s wigwam on the far side of the village. What should she do? Go now to the river bank in drab buckskin? Or risk traversing the sleeping village to dress herself in ceremonial cloth, with its fringes and woven designs and silver belt?

  The answer was not difficult. She threw a blanket over her shoulders, stepped outside the wigwam, and peered into the night, letting her eyes adjust to the moon’s pale luster. All over the village it was very quiet, fires banked for the night, the spirit of sleep riding in the heavens, upon a mount of silence. Silently, too, would she hasten to Torch.

  Haste made her careless. She did not pause at the corner of Four Bears’ wigwam to check whether anyone was about, but rather raced from its shadow into the moonlit center of the village. By the time she reached the shadows across the way, close to the witch-woman’s dwelling and the hut in which the ceremonial garments were stored, it was too late. Following her, soundlessly but at a full run, was a fierce brave. He caught up to her, took her arm between elbow and shoulder, and turned her around.

  “Beloved-of-Earth has become Lover-of-Night?” asked Hawk, his tone combining curiosity and insinuation. His grip on her arm was so hard that she felt each of his strong fingers through the quilted blanket that she held together over her breasts. Hawk studied her from head to toe. “And barefoot, too?” he wondered with a grin. “Beware the cold dew of the night does not invade your young body.” Then he became serious. “I stand sentinel this night. Why are you about, unclothed, at this hour? It is not fitting. I bid you speak.”

  Gyva, who could not give the true reason, began to conceive a series of possible answers, one as inadequate and unbelievable as the next.

  “Or do you go to meet a lover?” Hawk persisted. She could see his lazy grin in the moonlight. He leaned forward and spoke with arrogant familiarity. “Ah, no, you would not do such a thing. You come to me, isn’t that right?”

  She dropped her eyes in furious embarrassment. The warrior considered the gesture to be one of humility and acceptance. “When I am chief,” he said, “perhaps I shall take you to wife. Perhaps not.” He grinned.

  Never, she thought. Anger freed her tongue. “I am out in the night,” she said, surprised at how steady her voice sounded, “I am out because I have had a great dream, and must now go and ask the seeress what portent it has.”

  Hawk was interested. “A dream? What form of dream, Gyva?” He released his grip on her arm and dropped his hand. She pulled the blanket more tightly about her nakedness.

  “I must not tell it to you.”

  He laughed quietly, indolently. “And why not?”

  “There are those permitted to read dreams and there are those to whom it is forbidden. Such is the law, as you must know.”

  “But chieftains are permitted, and I am to be—”

  “You are very certain of the future,” Gyva responded, with some heat. “How comes this wisdom to you?”

  Hawk was not offended by her manner, nor dissuaded in the indulgence of his own conceit. “Some are born to rule, and some are born to follow. Did you not feel it today in the council hall? Do you know why I took your hand and touched your flesh to my kill-cuts?”

  “That I would know the greatness of your prowess as a warrior?”

  She could not but put an edge in her voice, listening to Hawk boast and posture, when she had seen Torch, who had far more kill-cuts, bear himself with the quiet certainty of a true chieftain.

  “Yes, that is a part of it,” he admitted. “But you must already know my strength and courage. No, I touched your fingers to my wounds in order to strengthe
n your blood.”

  Gyva was outraged. “To strengthen my—”

  “Now, do not create a display here. Our tribe sleeps. But it is as I have said. You may become my wife, should I choose you, but there is the matter of your white mother…”

  “Then,” she said, “I am sorry. My blood is most acceptable to me…” She had to end this conversation quickly; Torch would be waiting at the river. “But I would not be able to accept wedding with one whose blood runs as pure as yours.”

  Her manner angered him. “When the time comes, you will do what you must.”

  “Now you speak the truth!” she retorted.

  “A chieftain decides what must be done in such things, and who his wife is to be.”

  “You are hardly chieftain yet!” she snapped, which set him back upon his heels. It was an incontrovertible truth, but one that his high opinion of himself seldom allowed him to consider.

  “You keep me from my rounds as sentinel,” he said loftily. “Now tell me where you go, and then be off.”

  “As I have said, to the dwelling of Teva, who is permitted the deciphering of dreams.”

  Hawk grunted. “Tell me this, then. Was it a good dream or a bad dream?”

  “It was a very good dream,” she said, but she could not resist adding, “and you had no place in it.”

  These words angered him truly. “When the lesson is taught you,” he said before moving off, “the pain of it will far surpass the pleasure you have taken in these haughty words.”

  Gyva was about to make a sharp retort—something about the snares of vanity, and what constituted true bravery—but something in Hawk’s tone, and the thought of where she must now go, gave her pause. As an enemy, Hawk would be as harmful as the plague.

  Chilled now, as much by Hawk’s manner as by the night, Gyva walked toward the witch-woman’s wigwam, moving slowly and glancing around to make certain Hawk had really left her alone. When she saw that he had, she skirted the small dwelling, which was quiet and dark, and entered the hut where special garments were kept. It was gloomy within, and Gyva realized that finding her own gown would be impossible. Cursing herself for not having thought of that, she threw the blanket to the floor and began to search for apparel that would fit. How many minutes had gone by since she’d left the wigwam? How long had she been detained by Hawk? Would Torch, waiting among the weeping willows, conclude that she’d been unable to puzzle out his message, dismiss her as a dunce, and turn to another woman? Sorting through the garments, she came upon one that was clearly visible, even in the darkness. But Gyva hesitated to touch it. Almost a sacred object, this gown was not of Indian design, nor even of Chickasaw origin. According to campfire tales, it had been stitched together in a far country that rested like a small green jewel in the midst of the purple sea. From this place, many hundred moons ago, had come a mighty white man to a land now known as Vir-Gin-I-A. This man, who sailed on ships so huge that even Teva could not describe them, had fallen in love with an Indian girl, greatly angering her father, who was a chief. The chief decreed that the pale sailor be put to death, but just as the execution was about to take place, the girl threw herself between her lover and the blade of the headsman’s axe, begging to die along with him. Seeing the true passion of his daughter, the chief relented, and for the wedding ceremony a fine gown was fashioned in the sailor’s island home and brought to Vir-Gin-I-A. Years later the Indian girl went with her husband to his homeland, and through some mischance the lovely dress remained behind, eventually traded by the Chesapeake tribe of the bride, Pocahontas, to the Chickasaw, who had then traveled freely from the mountains to the sea. Teva, as a young girl, had lived for years in the east, and it was she who had brought the holy gown back to the mountains, bringing as well knowledge of the English tongue, which she had taught the brightest and most curious of the young people, Gyva and Torch among them.