Nakoa's Woman (17 page)

“Why didn’t you tell?”

“Snake woman dead. Blackfoot women stay away from Siksikai. Why tell?”

“And Nakoa promised me to him!”

“You promised sweet self to him!”

Maria covered her face and began to cry wildly again.

“Oh, stop all damned noise. No get knife anyway! I tell Nakoa and he kill Siksikai.”

“No!”

“What hell—no?”

“Siksikai might kill Nakoa! And—and—I don’t want known what happened.”

“Silly fool. Siksikai will try again.”

“Not after I marry Nakoa. He would never come to Nakoa’s lodge.”

“You will never marry Nakoa.”

Maria wept until she was exhausted. When she reached down for her dress and put it on she looked across at Atsitsi who had gone back to bed. “Atsitsi,” she said furiously, “why didn’t you tell me about Siksikai?”

“What to tell about Siksikai?” Atsitsi replied. “Sweet Maria already know man’s stick is death!”

Anatsa and Apikunni were married five days after Maria and Atsitsi had gone to the buffalo grounds. Anatsa had been reluctant to marry in the shadow of Kominakus’s death, but Apikunni was insistent.

It was July, the moon of flowers, or the moon of the ripened serviceberry, and it was a moon fraught with many changes. Heat of full summer came, and then black clouds skimming over the prairie, and there was light and darkness, one following upon the other.

The body of Sokskinnie could not be found. The print of her moccasin stopped where Korninakus had been killed. The river had been no barrier to her; she had crossed water. So every night, even in the heat, lodge fires burned until daylight, and the medicine drum beat to keep the dead away. If a shadow moved among the lighted lodges, it was not seen. The dogs scented a strangeness and whined to sleep within the tipis, but most of the doorflaps were laced closed against them.

Apikunni wanted Anatsa safe in his lodge.

“It is a bad omen to be joined when the medicine drum beats to keep death away,” Anatsa whispered.

“It is sign for me to give you my protection now,” Apikunni answered, and in the tradition of the Blackfoot they announced their impending marriage. They had ridden around the village in courtship, and had sung the Night Song together, and now the first processes of the marriage ceremony were begun. Apikunni, Mutsik, was permitted to take his chosen wife to his lodge. So he took many horses and picketed them near the lodge of Onesta, Anatsa’s only adult male kin, in the practice of the Blackfoot male purchasing his bride. All in the village knew Apikunni’s horses, and when they were seen tethered near Onesta’s tipi it was known that Apikunni and Anatsa were now to be married.

In these five days of the announcement, Anatsa cooked for Apikunni and carried his food to his lodge. When she had served him and he had eaten she carried his empty plate back to Onesta’s to be filled again, and her crippled leg dragged more than it ever had, as if it fought in last bitterness her desire to be whole. This was the only time that promised bride and groom were to see each other. There was no church aisle and there was no music but the call of the meadowlark, but there were the spectators, lined in a single row along her path, watching her pilgrimage silently and solemnly.

On the fifth night came the wedding feast given by Onesta for the bride and groom and the groom’s closest male friends. The supper was a rich, savory one: meat from the choicest part of the buffalo sent back from the hunting grounds, crusted and juicy from roasting. Onesta’s lodge in the circle of the high chiefs was bright with light and laughter, and the medicine drum beating near the entrance from the burial grounds was unheard and forgotten. Onesta, as head of the lodge, sat opposite the door with his wife, Apeecheken to his right, and Apikunni and Anatsa to his left. Anatsa wore a wedding dress of white antelope skin ornamented richly with elk tusks, a dress of great value and beauty which had been worn by Apeecheken upon her own wedding night.

Anatsa smiled shyly in the midst of the gaiety of those around her; the tinkling of the little bells upon the tipis was a song in her heart. Apikunni had been the desire of her existence, and now she sat by the fire as his wife. His hands would bring her and their sons food, and she would kiss them and wash the blood from them. She had not been born deprived if her crippled leg had led her to such a path. The moments of the marriage ceremony moved on, blessed in their holiness, this feasting during which she and the friends of her husband first took food together, when she and her husband were first recognized as united.

Apikunni was handsome in a fine shirt with stripes of white skin along his shoulders and the tops of his sleeves. He was gay and happy, for his wife was at his side and around him voices long loved and long familiar spoke.

Anatsa heard his laughter, and looked down at her thin arms, her flat breasts, her crippled shrunken leg. What could her nudity hold for her husband? Her presence was a promise that couldn’t be kept, and in sacred marriage, she prayed inwardly and in silence. “Father, the Sun, here is a man strong with your light and warmth. Here is a man who will not be in shadow.” What could she ask? For Maria’s breasts, for such a face and body of beauty? If this would bring him pleasure, it would bring her more, and with her wedding wish she wanted to supplicate in his name only. Would she wish that their son be in his image? Again she would be supplicating in her name too.

So, inwardly and to her Father, the Sun, she asked only that Apikunni walk a path of his choosing, and in this moment his hand covered hers, and the power of prayer was silenced by the power of love.

“And now the dogs are scattered, having had their meal,” Onesta said softly, an age-old custom meaning that the feast was finished. The smoking of the pipe ended. It came to rest with Onesta, the host, and there remained. The guests rose and silently took their leave. Apeecheken looked into her little sister’s face, and tears came to her eyes. They shone in the firelight as Apikunni and his bride left to go to their own lodge.

Apeecheken sat long by the fire that night, even after her husband had gone to bed. The time of holy ceremony had remained in the tipi after the bride and groom had departed. It filled the cowskin walls with soft light, and in its presence, Apeecheken wept unashamedly while her husband slept upon his couch.

Apikunni and Anatsa walked away from the circle of high chiefs together. The medicine drum had stopped; only the tinkling of the bells on the lodges followed them sweetly. The night was warm and scented with the smell of prairie grass. Neither spoke. There had been no words of marriage ceremony, no prayer with the talking tongue to the Great Spirit. They had announced their courtship and then their marriage, and had shared food with the groom’s closest friends and with the closest male relative of the bride. This is all that was needed, and it was done. When they entered Apikunni’s lodge in the outer circle of tipis, they entered it as man and wife.

For just a moment, old doubts returned to Anatsa. She felt a rushing of tears and started to say, “Apikunni, you could have had so much!” but a magic came from the prairie, from the scents of the warm night, from perfumes of ancient lands and incenses, and she said, “Apikunni—I bring you so much!” and tears of joy in her giving came and touched his face.

Chapter Sixteen

The many drums of the Indian nation began to beat. One drum talked to another and that drum picked the message up and sent it on, and deeper and deeper into the prairie grass penetrated the sound of throbbing drums until the buffalo fled and the white wolves themselves slunk away to the mountains. This was the time that the sun was felt to be closest to the Indian, in the period of summer heat when the plains seemed to lie listless under its burning rays. Day and night the drums beat, summoning the Kainah, the Siksikauwa, the Sarcee, Gros Ventres, Kutenais, and Dahcotah to join the Pikuni in the great Sun Dance. The Pikuni lodges alone numbered over five hundred, its people over five thousand. Now dust began to rise beyond the horse herds as more and more visitors came, and before the dance, over sixty thousand Indians had arrived and camped with the Pikuni between the Marias River and the Red Deer Lake.

In the time of the longest days, when the grass was at its greatest height and the berries were ripest, when the running days of the buffalo were over and the meat for winter caught and cured, the Indian paused in his life and gave thanks to the Great Spirit. He gave thanks in his own voice, in the voice of the medicine man, and in the voice of Sacred Woman.

Sacred Woman had always been clean, had never given herself to any man outside of her marriage to her husband. Sacred Woman was a generous woman. In time of great need she had asked for help from her Father, the Sun, and had sworn to fast and mortify her flesh for Him at the time of the Sun Dance. In this year of Maria’s captivity, it was her friend Sikapischis who was to be the Sun Dance Woman.

In the winter months before, little Siyeh had sickened with the coldness of the winter snows, and as each day passed on into earlier darkness the medicine drum that beat at his side became weaker with the weakening of his heartbeat. Then it was that Sikapischis, already gaunt with the death of her husband, left the sick lodge and faced the waning sun. Looking up into the pale sky, she crossed her arms over her breast. “I speak,” she said trembling with emotion. “I speak to my Father, the Sun!” Others heard her voice and left their lodges, so that they could witness her vow to her Father, the Sun.

“I speak,” she said, “to my Father who is separated from me now by clouds that hide His warmth! But I know that it is clouds that hide His warmth, and that He cannot be hidden, for every spring He warms the prairie again and melts the deepest snows that have been built in our winter. If in every sun for as long as we have known, He can bring to us new grasses, and the buffalo to give us life; if for every spring as long as we have known, he can bring life again to the earth, then He will give life again to my son! My son will grow again with the grass of the prairie, for if my Father so loves the grass, how must He love my son! I give my vow now to my Father with the deepest love in my heart. In the summer I will be the Sun Dance Woman. I will give for my Father the buffalo tongue; I will forsake food and drink and make for my Father an empty vessel of my body for the love that I hold for Him. For Him I will make myself a bridge to His suns and in my love for Him I will deny myself its transport. I, Sikapischis, the Sun Dance Woman of the summer days, have spoken.”

Old Mequesapa left his grandson’s sick lodge, and with his daughter, faced the directions of the four winds, north and south, east and west. And in the chilling and frozen land the winds bore Sikapischis’s words to her Father, for in the spring, with the melting of the snows, Siyeh was well again, and ran with the other boys upon the green prairie.

Sikapischis began her collecting of the buffalo tongues. Some were donated to her, some were purchased, but when she was finished she had over one hundred tongues to be consecrated. She already had gained possession of the Natoas, or Sun Dance Bundle, from the Sacred Woman of the year before. And as she had come to like Maria so much at the buffalo grounds, she asked Maria’s help in the consecrating of the tongues.

Maria accepted the great honor in spite of the strangeness of the ceremony to her own beliefs, and Sikapischis liked her even more. While they were working on the tongues, Sikapischis looked at her closely. “I have seen many times that a woman or a man has been born with a beautiful body and it takes from the spirit. It is as if there is so much to be given, and if all or so much is given to the flesh, then the spirit must be lacking. The weight of one takes from the other. Maria, I do not find this true of you.”

“I am glad,” Maria said happily. “But I have noticed too that ugliness from the spirit marks the flesh.” She was thinking of Atsitsi.

With other women who were known to be clean, Maria and Sikapischis skinned and sliced the tongues, boiled them, dried them and purified them with the burning of sweet grass. While she worked, Maria suddenly trembled. How could she consecrate these tongues with hands that had fondled Nakoa, begging him to take her? What if the sacred tongues could speak and tell what she really was! It was Nakoa’s will that had kept her virgin. She would have made herself unclean and been whore for the whole village in order to have his total caress at the river. Surely her fingers would slip and she would cut herself, revealing that she was unworthy of such sacred ceremony! Her hands remained steady but perspiration of guilt broke out on her forehead.

When the day’s work was done she lay still at night upon her couch and wondered why Nakoa had not sought her out. Since their return from the buffalo grounds she had not seen him, and each night she grew more restive and unhappy. What if the Kainah had already arrived? What if he were with the Kainah girl who had come to marry him?

Early in the morning she would leave Atsitsi and seek out the new arrivals. She searched every pretty face of every young stranger with torture to her soul. He could not marry someone else. She would die before she would share him with another woman. She wanted to strike at the hurt and growing pain of his absence. Her love had reduced her to the terror of losing him.

One night she dreamed of his making love to Nitanna and she screamed out in her sleep. She awakened and saw Atsitsi sitting up, her hair standing on end. “No throw by-God knife again!” she shouted, peering terrified in Maria’s direction. “Atsitsi old. Better you have screwing than Atsitsi knife in head!”

“Keep still,” Maria said, deep in despair.

“Siksikai no here?” she asked.

“No.”

“I be sure. No want knife later.” Atsitsi rekindled the fire. She looked at Maria closely. “You ever tell Nakoa about Siksikai?” she asked.

“No,” Maria said.

“You fool. Siksikai rape kill you.”

Maria saw Nakoa lying naked with the Nitanna of her dream and thought she would be sick. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, and went outside.

The village was almost dark with a faint glow coming from the inner lodges of the high chiefs. The sky was moonless and the stars bright. Sadly, Maria looked at them. They were so cold and alien. Is this where her father and mother and Ana had gone? Was Heaven in one of those distant stars? How many worlds were there and how many dreams did a person have to dream out?

The sound of muffled drums came from the inner circle. The Mutsik was entertaining the braves from all of the visiting tribes every night. She pictured Nakoa as head of the Mutsik honored by them all. Her heart ached for him. She closed her eyes and tried to reach his thoughts, to will him to come to her. The drum beat on and on, and she stood by the door praying for him to seek her out. Then the drum beat ceased, and the village was completely quiet. In the great loneliness of the night a dog howled out to the silent prairie and then was still. No shadow came from the inner tipis to her.

In the days that followed Maria walked aimlessly around the village. Nowhere did she meet Nakoa. She saw more and more strange women greeting one another excitedly as they unloaded their lodge poles, robes, bags, and the small children that had ridden the travois atop all of the household goods. The village was filled with strangers and happy confusion. Warriors who hadn’t seen each other for a year greeted each other with joy, and their families spent the evening feasting together. Still the Kainah had not arrived. There was more and more talk of the beautiful daughter of their chief being late for her own wedding.

The ceremonies for the erection of the sweat houses began. Skulls of buffalo were now placed on top of the sweat houses, their empty eyes facing east. They faced the constant coming of new herds, and their ghostly eyes beckoned the thundering of hoofs, for in their skulls was placed fresh meadow grass so that the buffalo would always eat upon the prairie and bring the Indian life.

This was the thankfulness of the Sun Dance. The sun brought life to the grass and to the buffalo; the buffalo brought life to the Indian so that he could know the warmth of the sun. The circle of one began and ended in the other. The giant circle of the tipis upon the prairie reflected the greater circle of the sun. Man toiled like the ant upon the earth, but in his toiling his great distances could become small, and his small world become an unending distance.

The day before the erection of the Sun Dance pole the Kainah had not yet arrived. The great village was throbbing with excitement. The societies of the Ikunuhkahtsi had begun their ceremonial marches, painted and dressed in their regalia, followed by their drummers beating the rhythm of their chanting. Through the tipis they wound their way, each society led by its high chief. The last of the societies to march was the Mutsik in its position of highest honor, and when it passed through the village it was to enforce the silence that was traditional the night before the raising of the Sun Dance pole. Because its warriors were the greatest in the village, they were privileged to ride their horses, and leading them upon his horse as dark as the approaching night was Nakoa.

All of the other painted faces were nothing to Maria. She didn’t see the scalp locks dangling from the war lances, the standards of eagle feathers ruffling in the wind; beneath his paint she saw only the face so beloved to her. He wore the shaved and polished buffalo horns that he had worn when he had met Shonka; besides his father, he alone among his people was honored enough to wear them. In passing, his eyes caught hers, and there came upon his face open recognition and love, and Maria thought she would burst with joy. Then he was gone, and when the last of his riders had passed, all chanting stopped, the last drumbeat was silenced. In the sacred silence Maria’s heart swallowed all of the rest of her, and if she had tried, she could have reached up and touched the stars.

The quiet night was a night of full summer in the Indian moon of the homecoming days. A heat spell clung to the prairie; that night all of the silent tipis had their sides raised for ventilation. But there was no wind from the mountains; none of the little bells upon the tipis moved. The horse herds beyond the village grazed in peace; the warhorses of the high chiefs and of the Mutsik stood picketed by their masters’ lodges and were tranquil.

The only sound allowed in the village was the music from Mequesapa’s deer skin flute that rose plaintively from the inner circle; drawn to it, Maria left Atsitsi’s lodge. Others were drawn by the sad little notes, and more and more silent shadows gathered to their source. Mequesapa was far from his daughter’s lodge. Accompanied as usual by his grandson, he had come to play for the high chiefs:

What alone can I call my own?

What alone belongs to me?

What is here I can never lose?

What is here for me to choose?

Maria sat upon the warm earth and listened for the singing of the next verse:

All things go to ashes and dust,

All things go the way they must;

What alone is there for me?

What is mine for eternity?

The music stopped, and then Mequesapa played another tune, and this time no voices followed the music. The last words left Maria shaken, but all things could not go to ashes and dust. Love did not die. She felt a stab of terror in her heart, and she was beginning to live a nightmare of loss again when a hand clasped hers, and she knew without turning that it was Nakoa. Relief flooded through her. When she looked into his face, she saw that his black eyes were liquid with feeling. Their gaze was drawn to each other’s lips, for they wanted to kiss, but instead they sat motionless and listened to the deer skin flute. Mequesapa’s last note drifted to the stars, a benediction, and then all who had shared the earth with them began to leave. Old Mequesapa was the last to walk by them, and he paused by Maria, sensing her presence. “I did not play your song,” he said softly.

“What you played was beautiful,” Maria answered.

“Acceptance is the Indian gift to you,” he said.

“I take it with deep thanks in my heart,” Maria replied.

The old man looked sadly down at her. His hollow eye socket made him appear fierce, but to Maria he seemed the most gentle of men. “I will play for you again,” he said. “Will you listen?”

“Yes. Yes!” Maria said.

The old man nodded and walked away with Siyeh.

“Did you know his words?” Nakoa asked Maria gently.

“I believe so.”

“Do you accept?”

“I accept you. I have said it many times.”

“There is more than accepting me, Maria.”

They were alone now, and he had made no move to caress her. Impulsively, she flung her arms around his neck and kissed the side of his face. “Why have you stayed away from me?” she asked. “It has been seven days and six nights since we were together.”