Bonds, Parris Afton (8 page)

Listlessly she watched as he and the others pulled
up clumps of clean grass, spreading the blades over the water. With admiration
she realized the grass acted as a strainer. Moving off a little way from the
others, Anne threw herself on the ground and began to suck up the muddy water
through the grass. She was delighting in the cool, refreshing taste when
Pa-ha-yu-quosh came up behind her and, with a moccasined foot, pushed her head
into the mud.

She came up sputtering. "Damn your ugly eyes!
You―you ..."

She was certain he would kill her then. But a slow
grin spread over the copperface. Instead he grabbed at her tied wrists and
pulled her back toward the horses. And began the repetition of another day―without
food or rest―and another night.

Toward dawn of the next morning Anne grew feverish
from the water she had drunk the day before. However, she was sure if she once
swooned from the horse, the Indians would kill her where she lay. With a
determination born of stark fear she managed to remain upright, her precarious
swaying like the rolling of the ship that had brought her to the desolate
frontier.

The days passed, blending into one another, so that
she was no longer certain how long ago she had been captured. At some point
seven more Indians with fresh scalps at their belts joined the band, but
otherwise, as the grassy plains gave way to a barren landscape, there were only
chaparral thickets and mesquite scrubs with an occasional prickly pear to mark
the passing days. However, Anne's captors at least allowed her the luxury of
rest during the hottest part of the day when it was impossible to travel across
the sun-bleached desert that reminded Anne of a giant sandbox.

At first she had disdained eating the smoked prairie
dog and rattlesnake Pa-ha-yu-quosh offered her, but driven by hunger she at
last ate the unconventional meats with almost as much relish as did her captors.
Only one food had she been unable to eat, vomiting at the first loathsome bite.
The others had laughed tauntingly at her inability to eat the roasted tarantula
when she had crawled away to the nearly dry creek bed where her stomach knotted
in dry heaves.

Even Anne's own parents would not have recognized
their haggard daughter. The scorching sun had blistered her face, swelling the
lids of her eyes and cracking her once beautiful lips so that they oozed with
infection. And her glorious red-gold hair was now matted with all sorts of
filth and looked almost as dark as the brown-black braids of her captors. Her
body was marred with bruises where she had been kicked when she did not move
quickly enough to suit the others. And on the tender skin of her neck was a
festering sore administered with a burning stick from the campfire by one of
the Indians when she overslept. Her skirt and blouse hung in tattered rags. She
felt near to death, yet her stubborn Scot's blood would not let her give up.

Anne was finally rewarded, the afternoon of the
tenth day out, when the band topped a little knoll to make camp. Usually at
this time, one of the Indians, whom she had named One Ear for the scarred area of
sunken flesh where his left ear should have been, would withdraw a mirror made
of a bright piece of steel and use it to throw the reflection of the sun in a
certain way. These signs were passed from one scout to another farther down the
line, and an answering reflected flash would come back. But this particular
afternoon Anne sensed something was different, for One Ear raised instead a red
blanket and waved it in a half circle, returning it the same way. This process
was repeated several times, followed by several keen yelps escaping from her
captors' lips.

That evening the Indians even seemed in a better
mood, leaving her alone as they talked and joked among themselves. They feasted
on an antelope Pa-ha-yu-quosh had killed with his bow and arrow of orangewood,
a superior weapon to the lances and bows and arrows made of bone and cane. Anne
devoured her portion, pulling the hair from the cooked flesh and picking the
bones clean.

However, instead of resting as they had been, they
resumed their journey immediately. Daylight of the next morning found them on a
rocky bluff overlooking a narrow valley dotted with several small ponds. After
the stark white barrenness of the desert, the greenness of the juniper and
cedar trees and the crystal blue of the ponds were so brilliant Anne's eyes
hurt. Only after she blinked did she realize she was looking at the first
Indian village she had ever seen. Perhaps three hundred tepees laced the
valley.

Signals were flashed below, and Anne's captors
goaded their ponies into a sweeping gallop, riding down steep, almost
perpendicular paths that made Anne close her eyes in fear. As they rode into
the village, yells, whoops, and other horrible sounds greeted her ears. The
camp must have contained well over a thousand Indians―all of them, it
seemed to Anne, turning out to stare at the spectacle of the white captive.

When they reached the inner circle of tepees,
Pa-ha-yu-quosh jumped off his horse and led Anne's pony toward one of the
tepees. All about her the braves and their squaws were yelling, hooting, and
making so much noise that she thought the very earth must shake. One fat squaw
pinched her, grabbed at her hair, tugged, then spit on her―greatly to the
amusement of the others. At last the tiresome old woman let Anne alone, and
Pa-ha-yu-quosh motioned for her to dismount and follow him inside the tepee.

At first it was so dark Anne could not see. There
was a guttural exchange between Pa-ha-yu-quosh and a woman before he pushed
aside the entrance's flap and left. Bewildered, Anne stood erect, stiff as a
deer frozen by a strange scent.

"Sit, Ma-be-quo-si-tu-ma."

There, that name again. The woman addressed her by
that name.

"You listen. I will talk,"

Anne sank to her knees on the earthen floor,
grateful for the rest-grateful for the sound of English, however labored it
was. "I am Louise Moonflower, Pa-ha-yu-quosh's uncle."

For the first time in a long while Anne smiled.
"Aunt," she was tempted to correct the woman, but the words, like her
smile, faded on her lips as her vision now focused in the darkness and she saw
the old woman's face before her.

Her nose had actually been burnt off to the bone―all
of the fleshy end gone. Both nostrils were wide open and denuded of flesh.
"I live with white faces at Bernard Trading Post," the grossly fat
woman continued. "Much time ago. When I was run off―when I came back
to my people―" Louise Moonflower's hand went to her face. "This
is done. No man wants me for wife. Now lonely hard life. But not for you,
Ma-be-quo-si-tu-ma. Pa-ha-yu-quosh wants you for his second wife."

Anne sat stunned. Then, "But why me? There are
others―"

"You are blessed by the god of the sun,
Ma-be-quosi-tu-ma, Woman of the Burning Hair of the Head."

Anne's hand flew to her tangled hair. Its bright
copper color―so that was what saved her from the same fate as Delila and Elise
.It was the first time she had allowed thought of the two people she loved to
enter her mind―and she cut off the thought just as quickly, before it had
a chance to tear at her heart.

"But I can't be Pa-ha-yu-quosh's second
wife," Anne said with a bravery she did not feel. "I am already married."

"Maybe husband dead. Warriors bring back many
scalps. No matter. Pa-ha-yu-quosh is son of Chief Iron Eyes―he will make
you good husband."

Anne sprang to her feet. It was like some horrible
nightmare. "No!" she whispered thickly, then with a scream, "No!
No!"

The flap fell back. A tall form darkened the tepee.
Anne whirled to face Pa-ha-yu-quosh. The ring in his nostril gleamed in the
darkness like the cycloptic eye of some mythical beast.

Anne watched the fly buzz through the hot,
motionless air and light on her sun-browned hand without really seeing the
insect. She saw instead her broken, jagged nails with the dirt encrusted beneath.
She felt the sweat that beaded on her temples, that stained the underarms of
her deerskin tunic, that rolled down the inside of her thighs; and she smelled
the muskiness that clung to her unwashed body.

To go without bathing for long periods of time―that
had been the most difficult adjustment of all to make in her new life with the
Kwahadi Comanches, for they never bathed except on special religious days. The
other aspects of life among the Comanches had been somewhat easier to endure.
As a squaw―and a slave―it was her duty to pound the corn, skin the
game, drag away the dung from the tepee, dress wounds, and carry water.

Only the making of the fire had been truly difficult
for her to learn, requiring much patience. And Pa-ha-yu-quosh's first wife,
Morning Sky, was quick to beat Anne if she did not succeed immediately.
"It is done this way, stupid one," the pock-marked wife would tell
her, rubbing the soto sticks together rapidly.

At first Anne had been clumsy with the small sticks
that were notched and coated with sand. But eventually she became proficient
enough even to distinguish the kind and amount of wood used, for the wrong type
of kindling, or too much, could cause the smoke to ascend in too great a cloud
and alert an enemy.

Sitting back from her kneeling position on the flat,
projecting rock, Anne squatted like the other women along the bank who scrubbed
their animal hides beneath the boiling sun. Her hand crept to the small of her
back, massaging the ache there. Only a little while longer, she thought. When
the last of the hair was scraped from the soaking deer hide―and the women
finished with their hides―then she could at last bathe in privacy.

She went back to scraping the limp hide on the rock,
only half listening to the high-pitched giggles and chatter of the women. After
three months among them, she could fairly well understand the Comanche language―enough
to know she was the subject of their discussion, as usual.

"It is said Pa-ha-yu-quosh greatly treasures
his new slave," came the voice of Eyes That Sing.

Anne smiled to herself at the young woman's jibe, intended
for Morning Sky. Without even looking at Pa-ha-yu-quosh's first wife, Anne
could sense the woman's wrathful eyes turned upon her.

"Perhaps it is because her lovely hair has
bewitched him," continued Eyes That Sing.

An older squaw who had only one good eye snickered,
and Morning Sky snapped, "Ma-be-quo-situ-ma dyes her hair with
vermilion!"

Anne sat back on her haunches. "If I had no
hair," she told Morning Sky with a thin smile, "Pa-ha-yuquosh would
still prefer me over you."

Just saying the words made Anne feel better, for
Morning Sky had taken every opportunity to vent her jealousy on Anne―spitefully
poking her with a hot stick from the fire, overturning her bowl of food,
jerking at the copper-colored braids. Anne knew that only the presence of Pa-ha-yu-quosh's
aunt, Louise Moonflower, saved her from being outright killed by Morning Sky.

But Louise Moonflower was not there among the women
working to protect Anne. Enraged by the truthfulness of the white woman's
words, Morning Sky bounded to her feet and ran the short distance separating
her from her husband's slave. Anne's eyes caught the flash of metal, and she
turned. The knife blade sliced downward along her upper left arm. She looked
down at the long, clean gash with incredulity.

With the first bubbling of brood her senses
returned. She sprang to her feet in time to catch Morning Sky's arcing wrist as
it plunged downward once more.  The two tumbled to roll in the bank's thick
turf. Glad for even the momentary diversion in their lives of constant toil,
the other women moved into a circle around the two rolling women, shouting
words of encouragement to both.

"I will make your face ugly, Ma-be-quo-si-tu-ma,"
Morning Sky hissed.

Anne knew that Morning Sky was larger boned, more
muscle-bound, knew that she had not the woman's skill with the knife. If she
were to win, she would have to move faster than Morning Sky. With the remaining
reserve of her strength, Anne wrapped her legs about those of the Indian woman and
twisted quickly to her left so that the two rolled down the embankment into the
cool, rushing stream. Anne wrestled free and came up gasping. Her auburn hair
hung in plastered strands over her face and shoulders. The water rushed about
her hips. For a moment she could not find her antagonist. She whirled, thinking
the woman had come up behind her.

Morning Sky jerked viciously at her hair then, and
Anne struggled to regain her balance on the river bottom's slippery stones, but
the rushing current made her flounder. Morning Sky held her immobile by
grasping Anne's long hair at the nape of the neck.

"First, pale woman, I will cut off your hair as
a gift for my husband."

Anne felt the sudden sharp prick of the knifepoint
in the scalp above her forehead. The gasp of searing pain rose in her throat―to
stop short as she found herself abruptly released. She pitched forward into the
swirling current. When she surfaced this time, Pa-ha-yu-quosh was thigh deep in
the river with the wildly fighting Morning Sky locked in his iron-tight grasp.
His usually stone-carved face was as dark and angry as a thunder cloud.

As Anne staggered to the bank, Pa-ha-yu-quosh
silenced the screeching Morning Sky with a sweep of his rocklike fist. The
Indian woman spun and fell to a heap on the bank, half in, half out of the
water. Pa-ha-yu-quosh advanced then on Anne, and she shrank back, stumbling,
sprawling on the grass. The sunlight glistened evilly off the ring in his nose
as he knelt and scooped her up in his arms. Caught up against the
paint-streaked chest, Anne could smell the bear grease that matted the
warrior's long, lanky braids, feel the musky heat the emanated from the coppery
skin.

Her own flesh recoiled at his touch which she had to
endure as he carried her back through the camp of tepees to his own. As the son
of Chief Iron Eyes, he had the right to live in the privileged inner circle of
tepees. When Pa-ha-yu-quosh stooped, pushing aside the beaver pelt at the
tepee's entrance, Anne wished she could faint as genteel ladies were supposed
to, wished she would will herself into unconsciousness rather than bear the
forthcoming violation of her body.

Pa-ha-yu-quosh dropped her unceremoniously on the
soft but flea-ridden buffalo furs. As he raised his breechcloth, she kept her
eyes fastened on his, hoping he was possessed of enough intelligence to divine the
loathing she felt for him.

As his slave she was made to get his horse, bring
him food, light his pipe, and even bathe his feet and paint his skin on special
occasions. These tasks she bore stoically, never giving him cause for
complaint, for she knew that rather than beat her himself he would turn her
over to the women of the village for punishment―and what they would do to
her would be unimaginable, unspeakable. The Comanche woman, Anne had learned,
could be a hundred times more vicious than her male counterpart, delighting in
the horrors of torture.

Pa-ha-yu-quosh grinned at the hatred and fear in the
pale woman's eyes. It would do her good to know that he could master her in
every way, could ride her into submission as he did a wild horse.

Let his father chide him for wanting the white woman
as his wife, passing up the beautiful, bronzed Kwahadi maidens. His father―and
the other warriors―their eyes had not seen the golden tones of the
woman's soft skin, had not felt the sun-red hair, as soft as a rabbit's pelt,
slip through the fingers like falling water. And no man would. Ma-be-quo-si-tu-ma
was his. Let his father and the other warriors collect their eagle feathers to
parade in their war bonnets their feats of daring. Merely having Ma-be-quo-si-turna
to parade as his own was enough.

"You would be wise, Ma-be-quo-si-tu-ma,"
he said thickly, "to become my wife. Your life would not be as hard
here."

"I am already married."

"And if he is dead―if his scalp is one of
those that hang on my lance outside the tepee door? What then?"

Anne shuddered, Several times a day she passed those
scalps-blond ones ,brown ones, even gray. But always she kept her eyes averted
...fearing that if she ever let herself finger one of the scalps she would go
over the razor-thin edge of sanity. And the horror of Pa-ha-yu-quosh's
brutality stabbed at her again. and she raised her eyes to meet his with fresh
hatred. "The answer would still be the same!"

He fell upon her then, savagely shoving her thighs
apart. Anne moaned in spite of her determination silently to endure his raping.
Pa-ha-yu-quosh thrust harder, enjoying the woman's suffering. The look of
hatred he read in her eyes each time she saw him was avenged each time he took
her. And yet, this small woman ...so like a fawn ...she never begged, never
pleaded that he stop hurting her, as Morning Sky often did, but remained
obstinately mute. Strangely, it made him want to hurt the white woman more―to
elicit some response from the lips that cursed with such distaste at his
approach.

By the heavy, fast breathing, Anne knew that
Pa-ha-yu-quosh was almost finished with her. That with a grunt he would rise
from her, clean himself with a swipe of his breechcloth―if he bothered to
do even that―and leave the tepee. And to think that she had once thought
the lovemaking of Otto to be unbearable. At least Otto had treated her as a
human being. To Pa-ha-yu-quosh she was nothing more than a receptacle for his
semen, a trophy of war for his valor.

When he had gone, Anne wiped away the blood that
trickled from her forehead and upper arm and the white, sticky, putrid
substance that clung to her inner thighs. Yet scrub as she might, she knew she
could never scrub away the pain and humiliation that were delineated in her
soul. Like a whipped animal, she burrowed in the soft fur to whimper in her
sleep.

Morning Sky treated her better after that day,
though Anne knew the day would come when, with neither Pa-ha-yu-quosh nor
Louise Moonflower around, an accident would happen, taking Anne's life. But for
the moment Morning Sky endured Anne's presence. Even helping, where she had not
before, the white slave take down the tepee lodge when the band moved onward―as
it continuously did from week to week, following the herds of buffalo that
roamed further and further away to escape the summer's unusual drought.

By this time Anne had learned to work as hard and
efficiently as any of the Indian women. Within five minutes she could
reassemble the poles and hides of the tepee. She could skin the jack rabbit as
deftly as Morning Sky. And with the scarcity of food due to the drought―the
Great Drought of '37, it would one day be called―she had almost overcome
her aversion to catching and frying body lice, could almost force her stomach to
tolerate the lice gravy which the Indians ate greedily with their fingers.

In addition to working as hard as any Indian squaw,
Anne was certain she looked as Indian as any of them―except for the
blazing hair that hung in braids over her shoulders. She wore the simple tunic
of deer hide that hung just to her knees, and the knee-high leather moccasins
were more comfortable than her kid boots or satin slippers ever had been. The
ivory skin of which she had once been so proud was now a dusky gold, accenting even
more the large, light gray eyes. Fortunately, with the exception of the
calluses on the palms of her hands, her skin still retained its smooth, satiny
texture―unequalled anywhere, an admirer had once told her tremulously,
holding her hand between his.

But for all her seeming acceptance of her captivity,
Anne dreamed constantly of escape, plotted―planned how she would slip
away when Pa-ha-yuquosh was away hunting with the other braves. At times, the
yearning for the face of another white person, the clipped speech of the white
man, was as painful as a knife thrust. And she would leave the company of the
Indian women, who had grown to accept her as their sister, and wander on the prairie
or down to the nearest watering place, seeking to be alone ...though she knew
she was never alone. There were always eyes watching her.

Old Moonflower seemed to sense when these tense,
anguished moods came upon Anne. "You must put those memories from you,
Ma-be-quo-si-tu-ma," she told the young woman more harshly than she
wanted. "They only make your life here miserable. Life with us will become
easier for you as you adapt to our ways."

Professor Bern had once told her something similar―about
adapting to the ways of the German people. Professor Bern―was he still
alive, and Lina? And Matilda? And Johanna? With that thought, Anne gritted her teeth
in rage, remembering the sight of the German girl's face as she closed the
fortress door on her, closing off her chance for safety that day. Had the
others ever realized the girl's treachery?

Anne knew she would go crazy if she let herself
continue in that vein of thinking when there were so many memories she
cherished. The memory of Delila holding her on her ample lap when she was a
child and telling her tales of herobeah that delighted Anne in spite of her
terror ...memories of the suitors at Barbados who had courted her with all the
respect due a Duchess of the Royal Court ...of fair Elise―Anne's breath
caught, as it always did, at this memory, and her mind would rush on to other
remembrances ... Colin's merry green eyes that did not hide his wanting of her
... even Otto, poor Otto, who desired her so feverishly and carried the guilt
of his desire with him as if it were a sin of adultery. And old Matilda, and
little Fritz, and―what had happened to the people of Adelsolms? Had they
escaped the raid―or had they been savagely massacred as had Delila and
Elise?