Nakoa's Woman (26 page)

Chapter Twenty Three

Nakoa had been summoned that night before a council of the high chiefs. He knew why he had been summoned, and he reached the council lodge early, when thunder was first rolling out across the prairie. His father was already seated in his customary place, and for a while they were in the lodge alone, but neither spoke to the other. In the pit a fire burned with great light, and Nakoa could see his father’s face, and for the first time his father seemed old.

Others entered quietly and were seated. Nakoa stood and looked down upon faces beloved to him since childhood, his father beloved to him, Onesta beloved to him, Itamipai, high chief of the Emitaks, beloved to him. Ninaistako who had taught him to hunt the redtailed deer entered, and as high chief of the Is’sue, sat near Natosin; Maka, Short Man, and high chief of the Raven Bearers, entered and was seated on the other side of Nakoa’s father.

No one spoke, and the medicine pipe lay untouched. Nakoa stood before them all and waited for the three high chiefs of the younger societies. They came together: Kinaksapop, Little Plume; Imitaikoan, Little Dog; and Sistsauna, Bird Rattle. Only one of these men that headed the societies that led to the powerful Mutsik was younger than Nakoa. The chiefs of the Little Birds, Pigeons, and Mosquitoes looked at Nakoa strangely, and their faces said they could not believe why Nakoa stood before them. To trade any woman for the leadership of the Mutsik—to trade a white woman above all for this—was a sickness, yet it did not show upon the calm and unruffled features of Natosin’s son.

Natosin began to speak.

“Tonight I am old, and my age rests upon me heavily. The winter of my life numbs my bones, and my flesh aches with their stillness. I could be a young and vigorous man again, and this same path would be walked, and this same end met. My heart is heavy with the words I will say, but before the Sun, I will say the words that are in my heart. I will speak the truth as it appears to my eyes.

“My son who stands before us now is high chief of the Mutsik. It is known by us all that he earned this chieftainship with his many coups, and with his acts and deeds of warmth toward his people. In this lodge, and many, many times, his voice has been raised strong in wisdom.”

“Yes,” said old Itamipai, chief of the old men’s society. “Your son has long shown the wisdom of his father, and the story of his coups covers most of the skins of this lodge. He has never been selfish with the fruit of his bravery, whether it was meat from the hunt, or what he has gained in coups.”

“This is true,” said Onesta, and the rest of the chiefs murmured in assent.

“Now it is,” Natosin went on, “that my son will marry a white woman tonight, without even five nights spent with his first wife, Nitanna. Is this not true, my son?” he asked Nakoa.

“It is true,” Nakoa answered. “The white woman will sleep in my lodge tonight. She will be taken as my second wife.”

“She will be your wife,” Natosin said softly, “even when there is no sweetness in love unreturned, and she herself does not want this marriage.”

“She will be my wife,” Nakoa said, his voice tightening.

“And so it will be,” Natosin said. “In this marriage, there is no wisdom, but so it will be.”

“And why is there no wisdom in this marriage?” Nakoa asked his father angrily.

“The anger in your voice says that you already know this, my son.”

“Tell me, my father. Tell me what I already know.”

“You are Indian. She is white. You have walked different paths.”

“This will not end our marriage. You feel anger in your heart, my father, because I do not walk in your way.”

“I feel sorrow, but no anger. I feel age, and coldness, but not the heat of anger. There is sadness because I have to speak to you of this before the council of high chiefs, because you would not let me speak to you of this thoughtfully and quietly, as father to son. Take this woman, then, but in taking her you will not take from others! Walk your own path, but it will not be one that will bring fighting and killing to your people!”

“I know what my father’s words will be, but speak them, my father, so the others will know, and will understand why I say here and now that I am no longer high chief of the Mutsik.”

The lines upon Natosin’s face deepened. “Or head chief of the Pikuni,” he added. “Or head chief of the Pikuni when I am gone, and my body is dust.”

“Or when my father is gone, and his body is dust.”

“All for this woman?”

“All, for Maria, my woman.”

Natosin bowed his head, and then he looked up at his son, and then the high chiefs. “My son’s woman is white,” he said quietly. “The white man enters Snake land and crosses the prairie in growing number. More and more of the white wagons will come and then the buffalo will go, and the prairie will be fire between the red man and the white man.

“My son’s woman came from wagons burned by the Snakes. There were many whites in those wagons, killed and already grieved for by their blood bands back in the land of the rising sun. In their mourning they might hear of my son’s white woman, for news of her capture has already traveled on the winds, and they will come here to seek her. There will be many, for many will hear, and all will think that this white woman is of their band. The Dahcotah who came to our Sun Dance saw the white woman, and the white man’s drink makes the Indian talk, and the white man’s warriors will learn of her, and then fire will come to Pikuni land. White warriors will come for my son’s woman.

“And I will meet them alone. I will not spend another man’s blood for a woman living in my lodge!” Nakoa’s voice was as quiet as his father’s.

“The woman by being here will make the Blackfoot land become fire!”

“I cannot see what lies ahead, my father. But if I am not chief, no man will have to follow my path. When I see the white men come, then I will speak to them, and if my wife has accepted her marriage to me, so will they.”

Father and son looked at each other.

“Then so it will be,” Natosin said quietly. “Is there any one among us who would speak?”

“I speak,” Onesta said. “When Nakoa no longer leads the Mutsik, he walks his own path.”

“Nakoa will marry the white woman, and I will be silent,” said Itamipai.

Ninaistako spoke, “Nakoa walks alone. He chooses his own path.” When the third high chief had spoken, a long terrified scream came to them all from the direction of the burial grounds.

“Weekw?”
someone asked.

It came again and again, chilling, and something in the quality of the voice struck Nakoa, and he felt a violent coldness, and a strangling. “Maria!” he said. “Maria!” he shouted, and ran from the lodge.

The chiefs looked after him in long silence. There was not another scream, but they all listened intently as if there would be. Soon thunder rolled out strongly from the mountain.

“The voice of Esteneapesta is loud tonight,” Natosin said tonelessly, and looked into the fire. Quietly, all of the chiefs assented to the marriage of Nakoa to the white woman and the relinquishment of his leadership of the Mutsik. There was a long silence, and at last Natosin spoke. “Then, so it will be,” he said, and continued to look into the fire. Without another word spoken the high chiefs left him alone.

The fire flickered and burned. It seemed as if a wind had come up. Natosin looked at the west wall of the tipi that lay toward the burial grounds. Painted upon it were all of the coups of his son. Now the little stick figures moved to the dancing fire, moving and suffering and bleeding again, fighting and killing again, all for this night when their courage and agony would be traded for a white woman.

When she could, Maria turned to see her assailant. “Siksikai!” she gasped. “You have done these killings!”

“No,” he replied. “Someone walks these grounds wearing the moccasins of Sokskinnie to make our graveyard more feared. I did not kill Kominakus and Siyeh.

“Then why are you here?” Maria asked.

“To make you keep your promise of the Kissing Dance. Nitanna told me where to stake the horse and that you would come to it.”

“She meant you to kill me. She knows what you are,” Maria said. “What am I?” he asked, gripping her chin and turning her frightened face to his.

“A monster!” she cried. “You rape and you kill!”

“Yes!” he said. “Yes. But as long as you satisfy me—you will live. I want you to scream—cry. I want your pain.” His face was wild. His eyes were as hollow and as black as the eyesockets of a skull.

This was the escape Nitanna had arranged; this was the way in which Maria was to be kept out of her marriage! Maria shuddered, for already Siksikai’s hands had gone to her breasts, hurting. If she were raped, how long could she live? It would not be the rape but the knife. Would she still be alive by morning? Could her trail be followed or ever found? Her mind raced on and on frantically, and she struggled against the pressure of his hands.

“Don’t fight me,” he gritted. “If you struggle, I will kill you—first.”

I will bear it, Maria thought. Dear God, let me bear it! Already he was inside of her, plunging like a wild animal, and the pain, repeated and repeated, was an explosion against everything tender and female that she had ever been.

“Cry—cry!” he panted, but Maria bit her lips in agony and remained still.

“You tricked me once when I started to do this—trick me now!”

He would never be through—he would never be through. Impaled beneath him she saw a flash of lightning rend the sky, and the searing light didn’t end there, but reached the earth and cut burning into her flesh. “Cry!” he repeated, pulling her hair back from her face until she thought that he would pull it out of her head. He bit into her breasts and when she screamed, he withdrew from her and watching her convulsed body, straightened her out and entered her again in maniacal fury. Now she moaned and could not stop, and did not know the rain that began to beat strongly against her face.

His lips covered hers, bruising them, and then over her lips she was startled to feel the pounding of his pulsing throat. With violence equal to his own, she was determined that he should die. Summoning strength she had never known before, she bit deep into his throat. He cried out and beat her face with a rain of blows. In mud, rain, and blood they struggled, and soon he forgot his pain and exulted in her struggling. With her arms held behind her back he forced her legs apart again and held his knife in his free hand and cut deep into the already outraged flesh. “Now enjoy Nakoa!” she heard and then she had had enough and spun away into unconsciousness.

The rain was steadily falling. It was a cold dreary rain that beat upon her mother’s grave.

The rain was gently falling; it was a tender sweet rain and beat against the lodge of her husband, upon this, their wedding night. A fire burned low in the firepit; even in its last embers she could see the gentle line of his lips.

But there had been a bloody god who had straddled her and raped her and then gone back to an orange sky. No, he was the lightning who had seared her and burned her so that she could not enjoy a man. She was not to enjoy a man. She was not to accept her husband upon this their wedding night, when a summer rain beat against the lodge skins so softly. “I am sorry,” she said with bruised lips, her hair wet and dark in the mud.

What had she done? She was sorry and in the flowing of her tears and in the scarring of her body she could not think of what awful thing she had done. She would remember later. She might come back to the pale form lying inert in the rain and remember.

Of course, she was Earth Woman. The sun had brought to her womb Star Boy but she wept for the way of her past. Lover and son were in the skies above her and she tried to open her eyes to see them; why had they suffered her to choose her own grave? Why did she have to remain and feed the crawling things of the earth?

Serenity returned, the spring wonder of the rain blessed her spirit. She was not consigned to the earth. She was of no distance, no time. Joy permeated everything like the most brilliant of sunshine. She departed, but was called back in doubt. Hovering over the still white face she wailed in denial, “Dear God, who am I?”

Nakoa found her lying upon the wet dark earth. Her flesh was naked and cold; he could feel no sign of life within her. Lightning lit the sky, and he saw the extent of her bleeding.

“Maria!” he called in terror. He covered her with his shirt, and wept over her inert form like a child. The wind howled over them both, the pines brushing the unholy sky, the rain slashing the unblessed earth. “Maria! Maria!” he called hopelessly. This was not what should have been. This was their marriage night. On this night she was to find his love and protection; he was to love her tenderly, to cherish her and make her forget all past grief. Gently he lifted her and placed her upon Kutenai. Holding her in his arms he rode slowly back to the village.

Her screams had been heard by the village, and the news of his riding to the burial grounds had raced among all of the tipis. Crowds lined his path. Impervious to the rain they watched him silently as he carried her home. Her face was beaten beyond recognition; blood came from her nose and mouth, coloring his naked chest so that it looked as if he, too, were bleeding. Those who could see her clearly bowed their heads in sorrow; their hearts were touched. Above the storming clouds the full moon shone serenely, but the prairie knew it not.