Nakoa's Woman (13 page)

The sunlight and the rain,

I accept!

I accept!

Atsitsi was talking to Anatsa and Apeecheken. “Anatsa, you are good girl, but how could Apikunni sleep with you?” She had respect for Anatsa and watched the usage of her words.

Anatsa smiled. “If you have love for someone the eyes see differently,” she said.

The talk turned to Apeecheken’s baby. Apeecheken smiled. “I hold my food now. I do not believe that I will lose my baby.”

“When you have your baby, big Maria?” Atsitsi asked, spitting out the meat she didn’t want to swallow. “When you get big belly with big red Indian baby inside?”

Maria shuddered. “You even make having a baby horrible!”

“Having baby horrible!” Atsitsi said. “Big price for big passion!”

Maria suddenly saw Edith Holmes dying, and she bowed her head. Edith had been so pretty and proud of her little body.

Atsitsi’s shrewd little eyes read Maria’s face. “Ah! Big Maria see bloody kicking of birth and wonder if it so good to let Nakoa between…”

“Atsitsi!” Anatsa said, shaking in anger. “We—are women!”

“Fool white woman think she different! Big Maria think she get baby from cloud in sky!”

“Atsitsi, why should you care what she thinks!”

“Because she think me fool! That is why! She think me big fool like big Maria, and Atsitsi not fool! Atsitsi fat, and Atsitsi whore, but Atsitsi not fool!” The old woman’s face was lit with passion, her voice shaking.

Maria stood up to leave, her face pale. “Anatsa,” she said, “would you go the lake with me?”

“Little bird song go to wash nasty Atsitsi away!” Atsitsi jeered, helping herself to more stew.

“I hate that woman,” Maria said to Anatsa as they walked away. “I hate her!”

“You are too close to her in your heart to hate her,” Anatsa said. “Hate is heat, and not the coldness of indifference.”

Maria was thoughtful. She had hated Meg passionately too. Was she ever close to her heart? What did this mean, close to your heart? Was it the bitch in her that was close to these two women? She had thought of sleeping with Nakoa, and the thought of Edith Holmes dying had driven the desire from her. “Why do you keep Atsitsi in this village?” Maria stormed. “Why don’t you drive her away, and let her die a…” She stopped.

“Atsitsi is unclean,” Anatsa said quietly. “She bears the shadow of the rest of us, and this is a sad burden for her to carry.”

“I don’t understand! I never understand!”

“Atsitsi is dark, and she makes us look lighter, and cleaner, and more gentle. She is unwashed, and she makes us look clean. She is ugly, and she makes us look beautiful, even when there is no beauty at all! Mothers can tell their daughters to stay clean, or be like Atsitsi! Wives can tell their husbands that if they become unclean they will be Atsitsi, and the men will look upon Atsitsi scratching and Atsitsi belching and be thankful in their hearts for their wives! I am sorry for Atsitsi’s words to you, but I like Atsitsi, and I feel in my heart that Atsitsi bears my burden.”

“All things feed the earth,” Maria said softly. “And it is the earth that feeds us, so that when we stand on the ground, we can reach toward the sky.”

Anatsa looked at Maria strangely, in the manner that Natosin had studied her that morning when she had told him that she did not know where she walked. “Where did you hear these words?” she asked Maria.

“They came to me this morning, and they frightened me, and I walked through the village, a stranger to myself. I met Natosin, and he saw my tears and stopped and talked with me.”

“This is strange for Natosin. He does not talk with many people.”

“I told him why I wept; that strange words and thoughts unknown to me before had made me see that I was changed; that the old Maria was dying—destroyed by Indians!”

“What did he say?”

“He said that I should not weep, but feel blessed! And his words made me feel blessed. Anatsa, I love him,” Maria whispered. “And I love his son.”

Anatsa smiled, her face radiant. “We both love, and have never lived before!”

When they reached the lake it was deserted. Surprised that it was so late, Maria felt uneasy because they were alone. They had not met one Mutsik upon the trail.

“There is no one here,” Maria said. “Perhaps we should not go in the water.”

Anatsa smiled. “It is so peaceful and will be warmed with the day’s sun. I will bathe in it.”

They bathed quickly, Maria watching the rapidly darkening shores. As they were dressing a wood thrush called out from the trees near them. “That was the voice of a man!” Maria whispered, frightened.

“No,” replied Anatsa.

Maria shivered, sensing danger.

Anatsa looked around them. “I would know of a presence that would destroy me,” she said confidently. “I would feel the coldness of the burial grounds, and the light of the day would change.”

“It is changing,” Maria said tersely.

“The sun is setting.” Anatsa laughed. “And it is beautiful.” The orange sky was perfectly reflected in the tranquil waters. “It is such a peaceful time,” Anatsa said, “when the sun is gone and its light and warmth remains.”

“I hate it,” Maria said. “The sky bleeds with the blood it has drawn from earth.”

“Was it at this time that your wagons were destroyed?”

“Yes. And ever since, I have hated every sunset!”

“I am sorry for your grief,” Anatsa said.

Suddenly a scream came from the burial grounds across the lake. It was a horrible cry, too unnatural to be the cry of a human and yet too human to be the call of a wolf. “What was that?” Maria whispered.

Anatsa’s face became terrified. “It was the death cry!” she said. “Before night ends someone is going to die. Go back to the village quickly, Maria. Do not wait for me.”

“Anatsa, we will go back together,” Maria answered, and the two girls went back to the village as fast as Anatsa could walk. The darkly shaded trail seemed endless. In the deepening gloom hawks and owls called hoarsely and flapped away from them; a huge bird swooped down and momentarily touched Anatsa’s face with its shadow. “Tonight death rests in the trees where our dead lie upon the burial platforms,” Anatsa said.

Maria felt such relief when they reached the village that it was a while before she noticed the change there. There was no noise. No children shouted in play, no dogs fought and barked over meat scraps; there was not even the sound of low conversation. Men, women, and children stood in silent groups, and most of them looked off in the direction of the burial grounds. Upon every face was fright, unashamed fright, even upon the faces of the Mutsik warriors.

“Who utters the death cry?” asked Maria.

“It is one of our dead calling to us. Before the ending of this night, or the ending of another day, one of us will be over there—with her!”

“Oh,” Maria sighed, relieved. “Anatsa, the dead do not cry out!”

“That was the cry of Sokskinnie; there is not a person of this village who does not know the cry of Sokskinnie—and she is dead and buried, over there!”

“If she is dead, she can do you no harm.”

“There are forces that do not die. Her voice has already reached us from across the river!”

“What will be done?” Maria asked.

“The dead do not like light, and so outside fires will burn until sunrise. The medicine drum will beat. Though the dead cannot cross water, all of our doorflaps will be laced tightly closed.”

Apikunni strode rapidly toward them. “I will take you to Onesta’s,” he said to Anatsa. He looked at Maria. “First we will take you to Atsitsi’s. Stay in her lodge tonight. The Mutsik will keep the outside fires going.”

Near Atsitsi’s tipi, numerous fires had been lighted. Maria left Apikunni and Anatsa, and when she entered Atsitsi’s lodge the old woman almost knocked her down. “What is the matter with you?” Maria growled. Atsitsi put down her piece of wood.

“Close door and close mouth.” Atsitsi had a fire going inside of the lodge, and now added more wood to it.

“It is hot!” Maria complained.

“You like dark, go to burial grounds!”

“Well Sokskinnie couldn’t be worse than you!”

Atsitsi flung a piece of wood at Maria, narrowly missing her head. “You—not bring Sokskinnie to this lodge! No talk of dead. No talk of her!”

“Who was she?”

“No talk of dead when sun gone! Shut mouth or leave lodge quick!”

“You really are mad.”

Atsitsi looked at Maria, her little eyes gleaming like coals. “Sweet Maria no believe dead walk?”

“Sokskinnie isn’t going anywhere!”

Atsitsi grinned, and she looked as evil as any witch in a childhood story. “Open doorflap and say so Sokskinnie hear! Talk more of her with smart tongue!”

From outside they could hear the beating of the medicine drum. “See?” panted Atsitsi. “Whole village crazy! Only Maria smart, cause so fat on self. Why not fat Maria go to burial grounds and see if Sokskinnie make cry?”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Why not go to door and tell Sokskinnie that she dead and make no cry with her voice? Tell Sokskinnie to leave Indian alone and walk with smart Maria instead!”

“You cannot frighten me! And I will open your door! It is so hot in here, I can’t stand it!” Maria unlaced the doorflap and looked outside. The fires burning around them had already begun to die, and the tipis cast almost human shadows upon one another. Except for the medicine drum, the village was still silent.

“Speak to Sokskinnie with smart tongue now,” Atsitsi said softly.

Maria laughed at the old woman’s frightened face. She looked out into the night and called merrily, “I say there, old girl, aren’t you going to sing us another song?”

A sudden wind came and shook the bells upon the ears of the tipi. In spite of the warm night, its touch was cold, and Maria shivered.

Atsitsi grinned. “Laugh again, fat Maria,” she said.

The bells were still, there was now no sign of a breeze anywhere. “What was that?” Maria asked.

“Sweet Maria know. Little west wind.”

“There hasn’t been any wind today.”

“Then you feel touch from burial grounds. Sokskinnie kill you. Maybe she kill others first, but she kill you.”

Maria lay down upon her couch. “The dead cannot hurt me,” she said.

“Go to burial grounds and see,” Atsitsi answered. She sat by the fire and fed its flames with more wood. “One day, big Maria, go to burial grounds and see!”

Chapter Twelve

Maria went with Anatsa to the river the next day to bring back wood. The ceremonial drum was stilled. No one had been harmed the night before. Anatsa was strangely withdrawn, and Maria felt reluctant to intrude upon her thoughts. A Mutsik patrol rode behind them, and a group of women walked ahead. Maria was deeply thankful that they were not alone upon the prairie.

“It is not finished,” Anatsa said suddenly.

“Anatsa, why are you so certain that this call was made by Sokskinnie?”

“Sokskinnie had a peculiar sound to her voice. This is what gave her her name.

“Her name?”

“An Indian is often renamed for a quality he has when he is older. Sokskinnie was renamed when she became a woman with a carrying tone to her voice. Sokskinnie—Loud Voice. We all know the sound of her voice.”

“I mocked your belief in this last night,” Maria said seriously. “Atsitsi goaded me into it. I opened the doorflap and asked Sokskinnie to sing us another song.”

Anatsa looked deeply troubled.

“Anatsa! I frightened myself last night, but today, in the daylight, I can find no ghosts!”

“In the daylight you find no stars, but at night you see them.”

“The dead do not walk, or call, or …”

“I do not know the barriers that are gone with the body. Look ahead of us, Maria. Do you see the women upon the trail?”

“No. They have followed the bend to the river and are out of our sight.”

“But they are still ahead of us. And they can come back to us if they want to, and if we have the sight and the sound to hear and see them.”

“Anatsa, it is not the same!”

“Do we all see and hear in the same way? What is at the end of the Wolf Trail? How long does the sleep of the body last?”

“No dead person made that cry yesterday!”

“I have heard of hot sands where there is no water and the sky is a furnace with the burning sun. I have heard that in these sands men see water and trees when they are not there. Are they water and trees that lie elsewhere? Was the call we heard one from a different place or time?”

“Anatsa, you will go crazy talking like that. Even if this cry was an echo of Sokskinnie’s real voice, how can a faded echo do anyone harm?”

“It is the cry of death before the death, mixed up in time.”

“Now you are talking like I dream!”

Anatsa smiled.

They had reached the river, and Maria looked across it at the shadowed burial grounds. “Now it comes back to me that I dreamed of that place last night. I dreamed of black trees and long knives hanging from them.”

Anatsa looked startled. “You saw the skinning knives which we bury with the dead?”

“Then I saw a yellow river—much wider than this one, and across it I remember a black trunk. I crossed the river on a dead tree trunk.”

“You crossed the river in your dreams? Why?”

“I heard a song. It came from the graveyard—your burial grounds—with the knives moving from the trees—long, long knives—”

Anatsa began hastily to gather scrubwood. “It is a hateful place, always in shadow and with the skinning knives always moving in the wind. I do not look there.”

Helping Anatsa gather the wood, Maria noticed that the other women were leaving. The river rushed noisily beside them and from the trees of the burial grounds came the call of a gambel sparrow, three little notes, usually repeated once. Maria reached for some more wood and then noticed that the bird had not called again.

“It is back,” Anatsa said softly. “The sky is yellow but without light, as when the sun is suffocated with thickening clouds.”

“Anatsa, what are you saying?” Maria whispered.

“Something is choking the sun. Its light and the warmth are gone.”

The expression on her face frightened Maria. “Anatsa! Anatsa! What is it?” she asked.

“It was like this when I was with Apikunni, when we rode to the meadow. Now I know, and it is death. That is why Sokskinnie called!”

“God help us!” Maria whispered in English, looking frantically around them. Where was the Pikuni rider? Where was the Mutsik patrol? She dropped her wood.

“Do not move,” whispered Anatsa. “It does not know.”

“Know what?”

“Whether to kill us. Do not move!” The urgency and conviction of her voice held Maria still, though her heart hammered wildly in her throat. The forest seemed serene, but she believed with Anatsa that death stood near them.

“It is gone,” Anatsa said finally. “It has moved away. Now we will gather the wood and leave.”

They picked up the wood, and walked toward the open prairie. “Anatsa, why do you say ‘it’?” Maria asked.

Anatsa turned back to her, and Maria saw sight in her eyes beyond her own. “Because it is not man and it is not animal.”

“Why did it not kill us?”

“I do not know.”

They were upon the prairie now. Golden sunflowers and purple vetches nodded along the trail. Maria looked ahead of them in all of that lonely land and thought, “Dear God, where is that Pikuni rider?”

Around the first bend of the trail and still very near the river, they came upon him at last. He was lying upon his back and looking up into the summer sky, his head almost decapitated by the violence with which his throat had been cut.

Maria screamed. Death had swept silently from the hills again; the Snakes rode them down and Ana and her father and Anson would die horribly once more. Against a twilight sky Ana’s long yellow hair gleamed in its last life, and night would come and never end. Maria screamed and screamed, the same long cry that could never be shattered. She was in the pit, falling, falling—Anatsa shook her with violence.

“Maria! Maria! Stop it!” she said. Apikunni and some of the riders of the Knatsomita stood over her. They looked at the dead man at their feet. Maria turned away from them all.

“Did you see who did it?” Apikunni asked Anatsa.

“No. We found him like this. But what killed him was with us first—at the river!”

“How do you know this?” Apikunni asked.

“It was the same as when we rode for the otsqueeina!” Anatsa replied. “It was the same! There was the sun, but no light! Yellow color like thick clouds were suffocating the day! It watched us—and then killed Kominakus!”

Maria’s eyes were drawn to the body at her feet. So the thing still had a name, this inert form with its head askew and its eyes staring when sight was gone. Then she noticed what they had already seen. The corpse had not been scalped, and this was the strangeness that lay before them in final silence. No man—Blackfoot, Snake, Dahcotah, or Crow—would ever kill without scalping; only a woman would do this, and how could a woman slit a man’s throat with such violence?

“Maria and I were watched from the burial grounds,” Anatsa said.

“If we were watched from there,” Maria replied, “why wasn’t the sparrow disturbed? Why didn’t it fly away?”

“You heard a bird call out from the burial grounds?” Apikunni asked her quickly.

“Yes. Just before Anatsa felt we were being watched—a gambel sparrow called out three times.”

“Yes,” Anatsa repeated. “It was the sparrow. It was not a man.”

“Then why wasn’t the bird frightened at a strange presence?” Maria asked.

Anatsa looked at Maria. “Because the presence was not a new one. Sokskinnie is no stranger to the burial grounds.”

The men said nothing and followed Maria and Anatsa back to the village. Kominakus’s body was left where it was. A travois would be sent back for it later.

In the village it was the same as it had been the night before, but now crowds gathered to meet them. The promise from the burial grounds had been kept; Kominakus would lie there before another sun. A pall lay over the village like a great shroud; these people, fearless before ordinary death, were numb before the unknown. Fear reached even to the camp dogs, who followed their masters anxiously, whining low in their throats. Maria fully felt the terror around her now. Nothing but a crazed animal would kill like that, and when she thought of the blood all around the severed head, she became ill.

Apikunni and Anatsa left her at Atsitsi’s but the old woman was nowhere around. Maria lay upon her couch, still sick and completely drained of all energy. When she closed her eyes, she could see only Kominakus’s severed head; she opened them again and stared at the skins of the tipi. A black shadow approached noiselessly and stood motionless by the door.

“Who is it?” Maria called out, frightened.

“It is Natosin,” came the answer. “I have come to speak with you.”

Maria went outside.

“My son has sent for you,” the old man said simply. “You are to leave tomorrow for the buffalo camp.”

The thought of being with Nakoa so soon made Maria’s heart leap with joy. Near him death would be gone, and all fears would be nothing.

“You are glad for this?” Natosin asked.

Maria turned away, embarrassed.

“You are eager for my son,” he said.

Maria felt her face redden.

“Pleasure from mating should not bring shame,” Natosin said.

Maria looked aghast. “I had not thought -” she said, and stopped. Dear God, why hadn’t she realized? He had changed his mind, and in sending for her to sleep with her, didn’t intend to keep her now! Maria’s eyes filled with tears. “He said he would not trade me! He said I was to be his second wife! Natosin—Natosin—” She stopped, not knowing what to say.

“My son must walk in his own way. I cannot stop him from taking you or leaving you, my daughter.”

“How could he want me this way?”

“You want him in the same way.”

“I could not bear the shame of it!”

“You feel shame, because it can be harder to accept what we want than what we don’t want!”

“No! No!” Maria said. “I will not be traded to every man in this village!”

“I believe your words,” Natosin said.

“Oh,” Maria said in despair. “Dear God, have I not suffered enough?”

“Pain cannot be measured, and pain is the mother of joy. Let my son know you before Nitanna comes to be his wife.”

“To you—and to Nakoa—I am nothing! I am nothing!”

“I have called you daughter,” he said quietly, and left her alone.

Stricken, Maria looked numbly around her. Riders were going toward the burial grounds, their women and children following to wait silently for them from the other side of the river. She did not care that the widow of Kominakus had begun her wailing, and was probably slashing herself and mutilating her flesh in her suffering. When the wounds of the flesh finally healed, the heart would still be left bleeding; once despair came it revisited boldly, no longer a stranger. They would burn Kominakus’s lodge, and bury him in the trees too. Then maybe he could take his skinning knife and scare off Sokskinnie! No, being a man, he would take her instead. Rage flamed within Maria; hatred for Nakoa possessed her. Going back into the lodge, she flung herself upon her couch. The world was depraved and provided food only for maggots. The sun warmed stench, and all moonlight was a deception. Waters purified nothing and just carried their own pollution around and around in endless circles.

And, dear God, in her terror she thought she was going to Nakoa’s strength.

Every sunrise ended in bloody sunset, and she would never know a spring rain again.

Atsitsi came into the lodge. “It dark soon!” she screamed. “Why no by-damn fire?”

“Build one yourself!” Maria said angrily.

Atsitsi rapidly built a fire, and almost frantic, laced the doorflap closed. “Big Maria stay inside tonight,” she said. “Already talk to Sokskinnie!”

Maria moaned.

“Why you scream big head off when you find Kominakus? Why you want anyone to come and help big Maria? Why not sit on holy ass and hold Kominakus’s hand?”

Maria didn’t answer.

“’Cause full of four selves so damned scared! Scared now, too! Now big Maria think Sokskinnie death cry not so silly!”

“I’m not going to talk to you.”

“Who care? Who care what you do?” Atsitsi began to eat.

The medicine drum began to beat again. Nervously, Maria ate too, finally casting her half-filled bowl down in agitation. “Why is that drum beating? There was no cry today!”

“There was yours.”

“No one is supposed to die!”

“You mean you safe cause no new death cry? Ha! Where Sokskinnie, sweet Maria?”

“In the burial grounds!”

Atsitsi grinned evilly. “Mutsik and Knatsomita warriors search grounds—all over. Sokskinnie gone! Burial platform empty!”

“That doesn’t mean?”

“She leave tracks! Heel fringe and toe from her moccasins! She walk in grounds. Laugh at that, big Maria!”

“I am not laughing,” Maria said. “But if she walks in the grounds, she is not dead!”

“I take care of Sokskinnie when she die!” Atsitsi said in a rage. “I see her die! I with her when medicine drum stop beating! She die—and she alive—once more!”