Nakoa's Woman (9 page)

Outside of the council lodge, Maria hesitated before she opened the doorflap. She saluted the sound of dancing and laughter within. “To our sweethearts,” she said soberly.

When they entered the lodge, all of the drums stopped as if a magical wand had suddenly willed silence.

The men had been dancing, two rows of them facing each other. They stood still and looked at Maria and the trembling Anatsa. The women seated upon the sidelines looked at them too, and no one said anything. Maria saw Nakoa right away, and an amazed Apikunni. After the first long silence, Nakoa did not favor her with another glance, but signaled for the drummers to commence again, and the dancing was resumed.

“What ceremony is this?” Maria asked Anatsa.

“This is the dance for warriors who have never fled from a battle.”

“Well, one just fled now!” Maria said.

Anatsa smiled, and Apikunni saw her smile and wondered which one of the Mutsik was her lover.

The women were slow to turn back to the dance of their husbands and sweethearts, seeming to find Anatsa and Maria more interesting.

The dance finally ended, and two more followed, the dance for men who had never been surrounded in battle, and the dance for men who gave most freely of their possessions. Nakoa was in both. “That is a good dance for him!” Maria said of the last, thinking of Siksikai, the horse race, and the way Nakoa had held her once and ignored her now.

Anatsa caught Apikunni’s eyes upon her, and blushing, tried to move behind Maria. “Where are you going?” Maria asked angrily. “We haven’t asked anyone to dance yet.”

“Maria,” Anatsa scolded. “These dances are sacred to the Indian. Do you see the stripes a man wears upon his leggings? Each one stands for an enemy killed in battle.”

“Or that he is a skunk,” Maria said.

“The cut pickets upon their shirts stand for the coups of stealing an enemy’s horse. Stealing a great warrior’s horse is as great a coup as stealing his scalp.”

“And a lot more valuable than stealing his wife.”

“Yes.”

“Of course.” He didn’t even look at her. For forty days he had held her captive, and had branded her as a whore for the rest of her life, and now was even too godly to give her an angry glance! His complete indifference was the one thing she had never expected. When the drums finally stopped she was choking with rage. If I were chief of this village I would make him sleep with Atsitsi! Every night—and twice a day! she thought.

The men had gone back to their side of the room. “Now what are they doing?” Maria growled.

“They are preparing for the Kissing Dance. Oh, Maria, what can Apikunni think of my being here?”

“That you have a lover—I hope!”

“Maria, that is a lie!”

“So are all of them!” she said wrathfully, nodding at the men. At last, very softly now, the drums began again. Some of the women stood, and moved forward from the others still seated to watch the dance. They moved slowly and beautifully to the beat of the music. A solemn hush fell over the room. The women danced toward the line of men, and the men who responded to them with feeling rose to meet them. Anatsa’s face became suddenly radiant. Apikunni remained seated!

Now the line of men approached the dancing women who began to sing sweetly, moving their hands and arms gracefully toward them. When the women had danced close enough to their men to touch them, the first woman touched her lover lightly upon the shoulders. He immediately drew her to him, and they kissed, and then the two of them danced between the lines of men and women. When they had gone from one end of the line to the other, they parted, each returning to his own line. The next woman chose her lover, with the singing and dancing resuming after they had kissed.

“Nakoa has remained seated,” Anatsa whispered.

“He’s probably tired from being so mean,” Maria replied. She saw the dance as a moving and a beautiful ceremony in spite of herself. “Now which one will I choose?” Maria asked Anatsa flippantly.

Anatsa clutched at her arm. “Maria, you are pledged to Nakoa. A woman can have only one man. Adultery is severely punished!”

Behind her, Maria felt someone enter, and turning, saw Siksikai. He smiled at her, and hoping that Nakoa would see her, she smiled eagerly back. Anatsa began to stir uneasily. “I think we should leave,” she said softly.

“No,” Maria replied. “We have Apikunni stealing all kinds of looks over here. Now we can work on stone-mountain Nakoa next to him!” She glanced at him wrathfully as she spoke. From the men’s line Siksikai caught her attention.

Rage made her sick. If Nakoa had lost his race this afternoon, Maria would have been forced to bed with Siksikai. She darted for the woman’s line. Let Nakoa pretend not to see her now!

Behind her, she dimly heard Anatsa gasp, “Maria!” Blindly she went to Siksikai and touched his shoulders. Standing on her toes she kissed him upon the mouth. Let him not see her—now!

Her breath was knocked from her lungs. She had been flung to the floor with killing force. Blotting out all light, Nakoa stood over her again, his knife drawn and facing Siksikai. The drums had stopped. The singing had stopped. There was no sound, as though all of the world was dead and they were bloodless shadows in a frozen twilight.

Anatsa came swiftly to her and helped her to her feet. “He will kill me!” Maria sobbed.

“No,” Anatsa said.

Maria hid her face against Anatsa. How could she not have remembered his awful wrath?

“If you ever touch this woman again before I am through with her, I will kill you!” she heard Nakoa say. “If you ever allow even her touch before she is yours, I will kill you!”

“Kill him now!” Apikunni shouted. Maria looked at him aghast.

“Kill the woman!” another said.

Maria moaned and with terrible effort faced Nakoa. He came to her and grasped her roughly by the arm.
“Akai-Sokahpse!”
he said low and savagely, and forced her toward the door. Terrified she looked at Anatsa, and then Siksikai, and Nakoa saw her pleading.

“There is no one to help you now,” he said and forced her outside of the lodge.

Chapter Nine

Hardly away from the lodge, Nakoa seized her and shook her by the shoulders. When she cried out, he slapped her across the face. She screamed in rage, and he slapped her again. She sprang at him like a wild animal, but was powerless against him.

“Fool! Fool!” he raged. “Are you so crazy to have a man inside of you that you have to come to my tribal society to straddle them all?”

“How dare you! You unspeakable despicable …”

“Speak my tongue!”

“Savage! Savage!”

He slapped her again. She bit her mouth and blood came to her lips.

“I know that word,” he said low and ominously. “You will never use that word for me again.” His hands had tightened upon her flesh. He shook her again. “Answer me!”

She hung her head, her long hair covering her face, blood running unchecked to her chin.

“I know the word for you that the white man gave Atsitsi. Harlot. Harlot. If you are a harlot, why did you fight me at the river? For what were you crying when I started to enter you? You have made me a fool, waiting to take you as my wife!”

“As your wife? You are marrying Nitanna!”

“As my second wife! I have waited—when now I will not wait! I have wanted you to keep.”

“Siksikai—I am to go to Siksikai—and then everyone else. Atsitsi said—”

“I can change that.”

“You told the high chiefs—”

“I am the high chief. I am next to my father. You are mine to do with as I will. If I decide to keep you, I can. If I decide to kill you, I can.” He forced her to walk with him, toward his darkened lodge.

“Where are we going?”

“To my lodge.”

“Why?”

“To lie upon my couch. I will sleep with you tonight. I will try you and see how many more nights you will stay with me.”

She began to sob. “You did not weep in there,” he said. “You did not weep when you invited Siksikai to your bed tonight and told the whole village that you are a harlot!”

Maria looked up at him in a rage. “You will not be called a savage by me; I will not be called a harlot by you. I cannot beat you, and I cannot kill you, but don’t you call me a harlot again!”

He pulled her inside his lodge, and built a fire. He looked at her as she crept close to it, trying to control her shivering. “Isn’t this the time for you to take off your dress?” he asked her quietly.

“I will not take it off,” she said. “You can do it for me—like you did my chemise!” She would not cry again, but she would not look at him either. He turned her face toward his.

“What did you want tonight, Maria?” he asked.

“To make you angry,” she blurted.

“Why?”

“For over forty days you have ignored me! You have not looked at me, spoken to me, and yet you have told your people that I am to be your mistress and the village whore when you marry this—Nitanna!”

“I have kept from you—to make you my second wife. I have kept you clean so I wouldn’t have to trade you!”

“Why couldn’t I have known this?”

“Because I didn’t know it myself until tonight!” he said. “Maria,” he added, studying her face, “do you want Siksikai?”

“No. Dear God, no! I will not be raped by any man!”

“You will accept me,” he said fiercely.

They looked at each other angrily. Suddenly tears came into Maria’s eyes. “Can’t you show me kindness—some tenderness?” Close to him, Maria felt the strength and buckskin smell of him again. “Are you going to take me without one kiss?” she asked him.

His black eyes searched hers. “I kissed you outside the village, and you met my feeling of tenderness with hatred. No, I will not kiss you. And I will not use you as a harlot. I cannot make you my first wife, Maria, but I will make you my second wife. I cannot give you up.”

“If you will not kiss me, then I will kiss you,” she breathed, kissing his lips. Immediately she was held in his embrace and the wildness and the wonder came to them with the same potency that it had the first time, outside the village. When he finally restrained her, they were both shaken.

“Maria,” he said, “what you did tonight was a blind and dangerous thing. Stay away from Siksikai.”

“I could tell him the dance had no meaning to me.”

“Tell him nothing! I will have it announced that you are to be my second wife. That is all he needs to be told!” He was becoming angry again.

“Nakoa, would you have traded me?”

“Yes.” He made no attempt to avoid her eyes.

“From the very first, did you want me just for a mistress? Is that all?”

He smiled. “Wasn’t that enough?”

“Because you saved my life? No. If you had done what you intended, it would have been better for me to have been killed.”

“Not for me!” His eyes went to her lips and breasts and back to her own gaze. “You are a beautiful woman. I knew you would bring me pleasure, and I was there to capture you.”

“Did you not think at all of what I would feel?”

He took her in his arms again. “I will say what we both know. At the river—when I held you naked—when never was I so mad to enter a woman—”

“There have been several?”

He ignored her question. “I did not. I did not do what I wanted to do, so I knew your feelings. I have known them ever since.”

“Then after that morning you didn’t ever intend to trade me?”

“I will not give you up, and so I will not make you my mistress now. I do not want to give you up when I marry Nitanna.” At the mention of Nitanna, Maria kissed Nakoa again, but he resisted her embrace. “I will take you back to Atsitsi’s” he said gently. “I should not have kept you here so long.”

At the outer tipis the fires had died and the village was in total darkness. At Atsitsi’s lodge, Maria turned to Nakoa and huddled against him. “I do not want to leave you,” she whispered. “Can’t we stay here and talk?”

He touched the thinness of her dress over her shoulders. “You are cold. Maria, you will have to start wearing the dress of an Indian woman.”

“All right.” She sat apart from Atsitsi’s lodge, and he sat near her, putting his arm around her shoulders and shielding her with his warmth. “That is why a man is born,” he said, smiling.

“Why?” Maria asked.

“To keep coldness from a woman.”

“A woman?”

“His woman,” he said tenderly. “Maria,” he continued, “you have come to a new life. Hear my words, Culentet, with your heart.”

“Culentet? What does that mean?”

“My little white bird. It is an expression of…” He stopped.

“Of love?” Maria asked.

He kissed her hands and then studied her face gravely.

“Maria, hear my words. When the flame burns, it does not always give warmth. Darkness comes at the end of every day, or we would not know the beauty of the sunrise or of the sunset.”

“What are you saying?”

“I am saying that you are in Indian land and your path will be strange and hard. This is the beginning, and pain seldom starts in the beginning. You will have to accept.”

“I can accept you! I want you!”

“Maria, you will have to accept much more! Culentet, that is why we live! To accept the joys and burdens of the body. In our flesh we live to accept the will of the Great Spirit. We accept, and we move with the will of the Great Spirit, for we cannot move against it. Whether you walk in the Indian’s way or the white man’s way, you will have to accept. Strange paths are harder to follow and there is an undying loneliness in the soul of every man and every woman. That is why we are seeking—seeking—but in our endless seeking we still must accept!”

“Nakoa…” She tried to touch him tenderly again, but he held her hands stilled.

“Accept not through me, Maria. Your old life is gone, and I cannot replace it. I can warm you now, but you will be naked in the wind until you accept a new life.”

“I eat your food, I have learned your tongue. I will wear the dress of an Indian woman. I will be your wife.”

“Culentet! There is more than just accepting me or my people, for when you do this your old life will be gone and there will be nothing left but yourself. You will be alone! What is it that you bring to me? Are you bringing the innocence that wept in terror at rape, or the harlot who went to Siksikai and asked to be his mistress so I would make her mine this evening?”

Maria hung her head sorrowfully and made no reply.

“Do you think that I do not know the touch of a woman’s lips? Do you think that I don’t know when a woman wants me? Maria, you wanted this before we even reached this village!”

“I know it. I know it,” she said sadly.

He tenderly touched her face. “And now the sadness is back at feeling this—for an Indian. Yet when your dead are truly accepted in your heart, and your past is really buried upon the white man’s trail, then you will come to me as neither virgin nor harlot, and you will accept me as a man.”

“It has been so hard for me,” Maria said. She saw Edward Frame dying and shuddered convulsively.

“It is too cold for you here,” Nakoa said. “It is time for you to go to your couch and dream long dreams.” He kissed her once more. “Perhaps in our dreams we will meet,” he said, and left her at Atsitsi’s door.

Atsitsi still slept by the cold firepit, and Maria left her there. She stretched out upon her couch looking up at the stars through the smoke hole of the tipi. His lips were still warm upon hers. He had said he loved her.

From a nearby lodge came the sudden wailing of a medicine man. “Listen Sun to what I say! Hear the wailing of this mother! Take pity upon the sickness of this child!”

Speak the voice and cry the heart. This is still the most tender of nights and beyond all of the suns is someone who does care.

“Maria,” Anatsa said, “I do not like Siksikai. He is shadow and darkness to me, the coldness of the deep earth where the white men are said to bury their dead.”

Maria and Anatsa had gone to the lake to bathe, for there they had privacy. They had walked the extra distance because Atsitsi did not follow them there. They had bathed, and after dressing, were lying in the morning sun.

“If you had chosen any man—any man—but Siksikai!” Anatsa went on.

“I am sorry for what I did. I was someone else, someone that comes into me and does these terrible things, as when I scratched Nakoa’s face. It is as if some part of me is not hurt enough and wants to suffer more!”

Anatsa sat up, and shivered. “I am cold, yet the sun is still warm upon us. Maria, there are voices in the wind, and in the sound of the little bells moving on the ears of all the tipis at night. I hear this, and I know.”

“Anatsa, Anatsa!”

“Those that have moved here before us, for all of the years passed and long lost on the Indian time stick, still talk of the circle of their lives. The roundness of living is repeated and repeated.” The frail girl shivered, and her beautiful eyes were luminous with the strange expression that Maria had seen in them the first day they had met. “My body is weak,” she whispered, “and so there is a different strength within me that you—and many others—do not have. I know things, in waking dreams, in pictures and in sounds that you cannot know.”

“Anatsa, do not be so upset at my foolishness!”

“The coldness that has touched me does not come from across the lake,” Anatsa said, still lost within herself. She grasped Maria’s hands, and looked searchingly into Maria’s eyes. “Siksikai is your death, Maria,” she said quietly.

“Anatsa, he will not bother me. He is afraid of Nakoa.”

“You have committed your body to him. You have asked for his possession.”

“I did not mean it! You know this!”

“Your actions have started the circle and every circle has to meet its beginning.”

“You talk strangely too, like Nakoa.”

“Nakoa is a wise man, like his father. Natosin is far wiser even than Isokinuhkin, our medicine man, because Isokinuhkin thinks only of the body and the beating of the heart. My body is nothing, but I know that I go far beyond its frailty.”

Maria squeezed Anatsa’s hand. “Love your body, Anatsa, for no matter what you believe about death and life, now you are your body.”

“No! No! All of me is not—crippled!” The girl shook in anger.

“I am sorry,” Maria whispered. “Everything I do and everything I say in this village is wrong.”

“Nakoa has told me,” Anatsa went on, slowly, “that I am the song of a bird. Do you know what such words from Nakoa mean?”

“You are the song of a bird? Why he thinks you are sweet and…”

“How lasting is the song of a bird? The bird comes from the earth and goes back to the earth, but its song trembles sweetly in the air and becomes nothing, and is no longer even part of the bird.”

“Anatsa, you cannot think like this!”

From the trees above them came the call of the gambel sparrow, echoing in three notes twice repeated, and six plaintive little sounds came down from the tall pines and then were gone. Anatsa looked up. “Six notes,” she said softly. “Six notes falling slowly with sweet sound. Now they are gone, Maria, and did we really hear them at all?”