Nakoa's Woman (27 page)

At Atsitsi’s, Kutenai halted, and the old woman came quickly outside and helped Nakoa take Maria from the horse. Anatsa appeared, and followed them inside. They placed Maria upon her couch, and taking away Nakoa’s shirt, they saw in the bright firelight what Siksikai had wrought.

Nakoa looked at her and began to tremble, as if in convulsion.

“She will die, like the Snake woman,” Atsitsi said.

Isokinuhkin came into the lodge with Sacred Drum, his herbs, and hands of healing. With Anatsa’s help he attempted to stop the bleeding. Nakoa held the cold hands and never took his eyes from the swollen face.

“We cannot stop the bleeding!” Anatsa said, bursting suddenly into tears. She left Isokinuhkin’s side and began to sob helplessly. Atsitsi joined the medicine man, and the two of them worked without words.

The fire burned silently, consuming all of the wood. When it had sunk into embers, Anatsa put more fagots into the fire pit. Pressing her hands against Maria’s locket, she rocked back and forth in agony. She could not look at the still, tortured form and she could not bear to watch Nakoa’s suffering.

“We cannot help her,” said Atsitsi.

“Yes, we can,” replied Isokinuhkin. “We can!”

Nakoa watched her labored breathing, too frozen from himself to pray.

The wind howled, sucking at the skins of the lodge, and sending a scurrying of sparks up the smoke hole.

“She is my wife,” Nakoa said. “She cannot leave me!”

“She still breathes,” replied Isokinuhkin.

“She cannot leave me!” Nakoa repeated.

The new fire began to die too. All of the shadows in the tipi grew and moved helplessly with the changing caprice of the wind. In time Isokinuhkin removed the robe that covered her and examined her closely. “The bleeding has stopped,” he said in triumph.

Nakoa made a strangled sound and went to the door. “I am going to kill Siksikai,” he said. He looked back at Anatsa. “None of you leave her.”

“Yuh,” Anatsa replied, turning away from him in embarrassment. He looked as if he might weep and never in her life had she seen a man cry.

In the driving rain Nakoa walked to the inner circle of the high chiefs, where he knew Siksikai to be. He passed his marriage tipi and new pain almost smote him to the ground. He saw Maria as she had been in the moonlight of his marriage to Nitanna, begging for him with the petals of a white flower trembling in her hands. He saw Maria’s tear-streaked face, and he looked up at the storming sky in agony.

He had been raised upon acceptance. He knew the night must come, the darkness and grief of sorrow beyond any hurting of the flesh. But where were the gods now to give their strength to man? How dared the clouds hide the moon when she loved it so? How dared the stars move in the sky when she might never look upon them again? He saw Maria in her Indian wedding dress, with bone pendants flashing from her ears, and as he walked on, Maria’s face begging for him was all that he could see. Every thrust that he had made inside of Nitanna had brought the knife into Maria. Napi, Napi, where was the strength of acceptance?

He walked on, pushing against the wind that was raging against him. He heard the Medicine Drum begin its sacred beating to keep that beloved heart alive. Over the howling of the wind he strained every nerve to hear it. Maria was clinging to the rainswept earth, and he knew how feebly she grasped it.

Beat-beat-beat, then thunder rolled out from the skies and in panic he couldn’t hear the drum. Napi, my Father, the Sun—but the beating had not stopped, and in the falling rain, he began to sweat. He had put on his shirt, and some of her blood still clung to it and to his leggings. Crowds began to follow him; every male in the village wanted to see him kill Siksikai. Ahead, blurred in the wet night, Nakoa could see the fires of the Council Lodge.

Beat-beat-beat, but the drum beat more feebly. Without her he would not know the secret of union. Without her he could enter every woman in the world and find only emptiness. He looked frantically back at Atsitsi’s lodge.

The drum stopped. He stood still and waited for it to resume its feeble beating, but it did not. He saw Maria trying to save her sister with the yellow hair. He remembered her face as he almost raped her in Snake land. He saw her when she asked him to make love to her by the river, and then he saw her again upon his first wedding night, and he almost collapsed under the driving rain. “Live! Live! Live!” his thoughts raged against the night. She was his touch with the sun. But the drum remained silent. She was gone from him. She had left him. The only sound in the village was the howling of the wind.

He had reached the door of the Council Lodge. He did not know that he was there. He was still crouched in agony.

Natosin felt his son’s pain. Although the white woman had died and now his son could walk his path as head chief of the Pikuni, the old man would have traded all of his dreams and every moment left of his life to make the white woman’s heart beat again. How foolish he had been to speak against union. When one believed himself to be in the pit, then the Great Father had only to reveal greater agony to show the smallness of sight.

Beat-beat-beat so softly that it seemed an echo, the drum began again. Beat-beat-beat, it went on, picking up strength.

“Aio nochksiskimmakit! Nochkochtokit
—” Nakoa choked, straightening and standing tall before them. Tears were streaming down his face. Flowers would bloom in another spring. The moon would rise over the prairie in beauty again.

Siksikai sprang at him, his knife seeking his throat. Instantly a hand stopped his and held it still in a grip of iron. Siksikai looked into the enraged face of Apikunni. “Dog!” Apikunni shouted. “Woman! You would kill a man asleep?”

“Nakoa is the woman!” Siksikai shouted back. “Look how he shakes before me with a woman’s tears upon his face!”

Everyone around Nakoa was a stranger. His thanks to the Great Father flooded his soul and in his Father’s waters no hatred existed.

Siksikai was lunging to be free, and Apikunni pushed him toward the fire. “Nakoa,” he shouted. “Let me kill him!”

Nakoa stood motionless, the woman’s tears still touching his cheeks.

Natosin looked at his fine handsome son and thought, “He will be killed.” His son was a man asleep in his soul’s radiance. It seemed such a short time ago that Natosin had seen his son born in blood; must he see him die in blood too? “I am very old,” Natosin thought. “I cannot live through another winter.”

The drum beat on. Natosin stared intently at his son. “Do not listen to it! Do not listen! Kill Siksikai now!” But the head chief of the Pikuni sat perfectly still, his tongue silent, and his face bearing no sign of anxiety.

“Nakoa!” Apikunni was shouting again. “Let me kill him!”

“No!” Nakoa said harshly, as if he resented any sound that muffled the beating of the drum.

“Then kill him!” Apikunni said furiously. “Kill him now!”

Siksikai sprang away from Apikunni and moved at Nakoa, his face a mask of hate. Murder was in his moving hands, circling like a snake about to strike. Nakoa appeared to be seeing him for the first time. “A woman’s tears are gone,” Nakoa said. “Now you will have no time to feel yours!” Nakoa drew his knife, and the crowd in the lodge moved as far away from them as possible.

Siksikai lunged at Nakoa and drew some blood.

Siksikai attacked again, and Nakoa retreated.
“Omaciociccaak!”
Siksikai hissed, and spat into his face. Another of his blows just missed its mark. Apikunni struggled against the hands that restrained him. “Nakoa is still asleep!” he shouted.

Now, as head chief, I will stop this fight. I will raise my hand in sign for it to end, for I will not let a snake strike down my son when my son has no heart to fight. How could my own death have tasted so sweet when I choke upon the bitterness of my son’s?

“Meqneken-Eekimaawisa!”
Siksikai was taunting, his face shining with triumph.
“Wekimaawiw!”
Burning with boldness he came in close to Nakoa to lunge at his heart, and they all heard the sound of his knife as it bit into Nakoa’s shirt and down his leggings. They saw the blade draw an immediate path of blood, but in that instant, Siksikai’s knife was spent, and with his left hand Nakoa held it stilled. Fiercely, he looked into Siksikai’s face and whispered, “Here is a man who uses a knife upon a woman! Now he will have a knife used upon him!” Nakoa’s knife moved and Siksikai screamed and writhed in the shock of his own castration. “You will not have another woman!” Nakoa hissed, his face lusting at the agonized form that was convulsed at his feet. Siksikai screamed again, and Nakoa kicked at his mouth. He kicked the face again, and there was a gasp of horror around him, but out of control, Nakoa kicked at the face until all of its life and shape were gone.

In time, he stopped. His own blood now covered his shirt and his leggings. Breathing deeply, he turned toward the outer tipis. The drum was still beating.

Natosin gave sign that the lodge was to be cleared, and except for the high chiefs, the crowd went out into the rain. Natosin then spoke softly to his son. “You did not finish your words of earlier this evening.”

“I will speak them now,” Nakoa replied. “When the white woman is moved to my lodge she will be my wife. I alone will speak for her presence. I will move my lodge from the circle of the high chiefs and never seek to live there again.”

“The woman may yet die,” Natosin said.

“I have still taken her. I will move out of the circle of the high chiefs.”

“You can never follow me as head chief.”

“I have accepted this.”

“There are no more words to be said?” the old man asked softly.

“There are no more on this subject, my father,” Nakoa answered, his face suffering.

“Then so it will be,” said Natosin.
“Kenny aie ki anetayi imitaiks,”
he said in traditional sign the feast had ended, and then his voice broke, and he did not go on. Silently the chiefs departed, but Nakoa remained.

“My father,” Nakoa started with great tenderness, but Natosin raised his hand for silence.

“I have accepted your words,” Natosin said. “I do not want to hear them again.”

“All right, my father,” Nakoa said with emotion, and left the lodge.

Sacred Drum continued to beat. The old man put his head into his hands and wept. As the fire died, his shadow grew along the council wall. The wind had stopped and the village was silent except for the beating of the Medicine Drum. Natosin listened to it beat-beat-beat, and then the thing lying so grotesquely at his feet shuddered in its last coldness, and kicked out convulsively at the glowing embers.

Chapter Twenty Four

Limping heavily, and bone weary, Anatsa walked slowly toward the lodge of her husband. It was not far from daylight, and the storm was clearing. Esteneapesta, the thunder maker and voice of many drums, had stilled, and to the east a false light gleamed. In her tiredness, Anatsa thought it to be the sun, and she stopped walking, and crossing her arms over her breast, faced it. The Medicine Drum still beat, caressing the night.

Tears slid uncontrolled down her cheeks. Maria had not died, but an awful emptiness enveloped Anatsa. She touched the gold locket at her throat. She saw Maria’s face, smiling and happy, and then she saw it haunted and tear-streaked when she could not accept Nakoa’s marriage. Then she saw Nakoa as she had just left him, sitting with head bowed at her couch. Beside him was the beautiful face beaten and swollen, the thighs bruised and mutilated, the body that stopped bleeding, only to start again. Every movement brought fresh blood and new agony to Nakoa, and it was his suffering and not Maria’s that had driven her from the lodge. “Napi, Napi—help them both! Help them both!” she whispered to the glimmering sky. “Whatever it may be for them—whatever it may be—help them both!”

Sadly she moved on.

And as she moved on, the evil thing, the insane thing that had followed Maria to where Siksikai had waited, moved out from the burial grounds and crossed the river near which it had already taken two lives. In the smoky gray of ending night it thought of the silent tipis and the dozing horses tethered to the lodges of the Pikuni Mutsik.

Anatsa walked on, and as she did she imagined that the drum weakened. Ahead she could see Apikunni’s lodge, and his warhorse picketed to it. She thought of her husband and of her marriage, and unbearable pity for Maria smote her. She had so much. She had everything, and now Maria struggled even for her life. Once more she halted, and faced the eastern sky in position of prayer. She spoke aloud:

Father, the Sun,

hear my words.

You know that I have lived straight,

that I have been pure.

Hear my words, Father, the Sun.

If the white woman lives,

I will for you become Sun Dance Woman.

I will starve my body of food and drink.

I will suffer my body,

if this white woman lives!

Father, the Sun, Behold me! Hear me!

Let the white woman walk a long path filled with happiness and love.

Let her have strength of body and heart,

and for you I will humbly make sacrifice!

I will make sacrifice, Father,

I—will—make—sacrifice!

She finished her words and shuddered, shivering and cold. The coming day seemed to bring strange light, the yellow suffocation she had felt in the mountains with Apikunni, and at the river before Kominakus had been killed. The Medicine Drum beat, and now she knew that it would not stop, and even with the yellow sky a serenity came to her. She smiled, and smiling reached Apikunni’s lodge. Because she had stopped to pray, she reached it the same time as did the Crow who had hidden for so long in the burial grounds.

She did not wholly grasp his presence. She saw the strangeness of his deerskin bleached white, of his long hair, of one forelock cut and trained to stand erect in a most terrifying manner.
“Aween?”
she whispered. “Who is it? Why are you dressed in the manner of the—Sahpo!” She cringed. Quickly she raised her arms before her, but he stabbed her in the breast, and she looked at him in amazement. He stabbed her again, and as she doubled over he cut the thong that held Apikunni’s horse picketed, and rode away.

She tried to straighten, but couldn’t. Some unbearably heavy force pulled her to the earth. A man in shimmering white had stabbed her, but it was poor Maria who was cut and bleeding, not she! She smelled fresh rain on the wet earth, gentle rain that she had always loved so much.

“Apikunni! Apikunni!” she called, and to her amazement, he was already with her. From far off she heard the beating of horse’s hoofs. Death had ridden out of a yellow sky after all. All of her coldness had not been wrong.

“Anatsa! Anatsa!” her husband moaned, and gently tried to move her. Her chest, white hot with pain, stabbed her again in mortal agony, and he put her down, and pillowed her head with his hands. Tears from him touched her face, for surely she was not crying!

She clenched and unclenched her hands. “I will not die!” she whispered, but she saw in her husband’s face that she would. “I did not even reach you,” she said, mourning that she had not even reached the lodge and lain with him in their bed. “I—did—not—reach you,” she said again, with great effort, for now she was too tired for talk.

“You reached me!” Apikunni answered, and then great silence began to grow between them.

In silence she smelled the rain of the earth again, and skipped through warm meadow grass to the glen. There Apikunni waited by the pink swamp laurel, and she was whole and beautiful, and her breasts were warm and full for him. They walked into the autumn of smoky mists, and then into the frozen winter, and clasping hands they sat before the council fires with flames crackling red and orange. Outside, spring bands from the sky were driven away in summer wind. The glacial fields had melted, the snow crept silently into streams and rivers, and on the new earth their son walked ahead of them, and shafts of the sun came through the trees and caressed him with light. The circle was completed, and the world at last lay whole and beautiful.

Upon the twenty-first day of her marriage, Anatsa lay quietly in death, her face more beautiful than it had ever been in her life. Her husband released her still hands. In agony he looked to the eastern sky where the sun was beginning to show. Above it a star shone steadily, and involuntarily he watched it, for it was as if she were already there, lost to him as he stood bound to earth, and frozen forever as a part of the great and final silence of the skies.

Beat—beat—beat, sounded the drum, and the moon, full that night, moved reluctantly across the prairie, as if it would stay in its full beauty. Two women had lain sorely wounded, and one had lived and one had died, and the new day came tenderly, with the last of the storm clouds gone.

The sun shone warmly upon the refreshed land, cooled and comforted by the summer storm. Women went to the river for wood and water. Cooking fires were lit, and smoke from them curled lazily into the blue sky. Someone found Apikunni and his dead bride. Someone carried her slight form away from him. Wailing then came from the lodge of Apeecheken, the long Indian lament for the dead, and more fires were lit, and in the afternoon sun the dogs fought lazily over discarded meat.

Apeecheken would shun all public gatherings, all dances, and all religious ceremonies of any kind. She would wear old clothes and not paint herself, and shun the wearing of ornaments. She would do this, and then when slow time had moved, she would give birth to a new son, and in his growing, and in her love for him, the thought of her sister would come less and less, and Anatsa would be a memory absorbed without grief.

But it was not so with Apikunni. And it was not so with Maria. She heard the drum too. It throbbed and beat against her suffering flesh, an anvil pinning her to pain. With the drum she heard Nakoa’s voice. “Culentet,” he said. Little white bird; he called her little white bird, as he had done when he had first kissed her outside of the Indian village. Nakoa, why did you do that? Why didn’t you just take me then—as you did later? What did you do to me?

Hurt! Hurt! Hurt! She became suddenly rational, and saw him. He was trying to still her agonized thrashing. She looked up into his black eyes. “Hurt!” she screamed. He gently touched her face. “I am,” he said quietly, and she was off again, linked to him only by that awful drum.

Ana, Ana, help me! “We are all dead now,” she sobbed and in her moving, pain stabbed her so deeply that her face became wet with perspiration.

But the drum wouldn’t stop. The awful drum wouldn’t stop.

Ana, this is a Blackfoot village. See all of the tipis with their black bands at the bottom and the top, and the little white circles did you know everything is a circle? I want you to meet Nakoa. Isn’t he handsome? Ana, I love him, but he wanted that dirty Meg! Anatsa, were you really Ana all the time?

Look at those Shawnees, all ragged and dirty. The poor miserable Indian! But Father, the Blackfoot are different! Look at the land. It is wild and savage; only a strong people could live here! All right, Father, let me present Nakoa. He is the man I love. He is my husband already. Why is Nakoa dressed like a white man? He would never do this—walk the path of a woman! Father, make Meg get away from him! Dear God, I have to leave! Where is the white horse Nitanna said would be in the burial grounds?

She tried escape again. She sank into darker waters; she saw shadows weaving against the sky above her. Great hands came into the waters after her. Great hands held her pinioned against the hot dry air. There was no way she could escape him. Upon the seventh day after Siksikai had mutilated her, Nakoa brought her back from death. Around her now was the warmth of the sun. She opened her eyes and knew only him. “We had such a beautiful wedding,” she whispered. “Nakoa, why did you take me to give me such pain?” His hand gently covered her lips, stopping her words.

Apikunni refused to burn the lodge they had shared together. In this way he broke tradition. He also carried Anatsa to the burial grounds himself, and he placed her upon her burial platform, gently putting all of her sewing and tanning instruments by her side. He held her cold hands, and kissed her serene lips, and then he left her alone in shadow under the summer sky. For eight days he disappeared, and remained neither at their lodge nor near her body.

When he returned to the village, the Medicine Drum was silent, and he knew that Maria had died, or was no longer close to death. Insulated from the world, he made no effort to find out which it was, for he was still apart even from the man as close to him as blood brother. Instead he went silently and unnoticed to his and Anatsa’s lodge, and sat upon their couch, and for minutes was crushed by inner desolation and emptiness.

The belongings that he had not placed with Anatsa had been removed. He looked at the ashes still in the firepit; she had started the last fire that had burned there. She had brought warmth to their lodge, and now it was lifeless and cold. He wanted to kneel and touch the ashes, to bless them as a part of her, but he could not. He could not slash himself, or cut his hair; his grief had to be silent. And so he painted his face in the fashion of the Indian for killing, and he marked his new warhorse, and in the next dawn, when the sky was red with sunrise, he left the Pikuni tipis and followed the long trail to Crow land.

He left silently, but a blind old man unable to sleep sat outside his daughter’s lodge and heard him pass. He knew that the warrior rode toward the rising sun and that the warrior was Apikunni who would ride until he found his warhorse picketed outside a Crow lodge. And then he would kill the murderer of his bride. The old man dropped tears upon the flute that had been silent in his hands since Siyeh’s death.

In time he heard the passing of another horse. Another warrior followed Apikunni. It could be no one but Nakoa. So the white woman would live. Fresh tears came and ran down the old man’s face. He wept for both the dead and the living.

For five days Nakoa and Apikunni rode toward the eastern sky, and then they saw smoke rising from many wood fires. In front of a lodge they saw Apikunni’s horse picketed. Apikunni did not wait for the new day, but rode boldly through the village, stopping near his horse. The Crow left his lodge, and in front of his people, Apikunni killed and scalped him. Dogs awakened and barked frantically and a crowd began to gather around the dead Crow. Apikunni stood surrounded by his enemies, but before a Crow could issue a sign of challenge, Nakoa, painted for war and known to them all, rode out of the shadows. The Crow watched silently as the two Mutsik left the village, Apikunni leading his warhorse, the bloody Crow scalp dangling from his belt. Women and children watched them fearfully. Warriors followed at a distance, and when the Blackfoot had gone, there remained a respectful silence.

For five days Nakoa and Apikunni rode back to their village, and when they reached it, they parted, Nakoa taking the extra horse to the herd. Apikunni rode directly to the burial grounds. On the trail to the river he saw her slight body ahead of him, and with a wild plunging of his heart he quickened his horse, but saw instead another maiden, another face.

The river flowed strongly on, shining in the sunlight, winding its way into cool shade. She would never bring vessels to it again. Its empty waters would never reflect her image again.

In the shadow of the dead, a light wind moved gently in the trees. He stopped his horse beneath her platform and looked silently up at her still figure. Her skinning knives were moving beneath her. With tears falling unashamedly down his face, he touched the scalp at his belt. It did not lessen his pain. “Anatsa,” he said sorrowfully, “this is all I could do!”

She remained silent, deep in sleep.

Apikunni bowed his head, and his horse pawed at the earth impatiently.

He left her finally, and never again returned to the burial grounds. From the earth she had come and back to the earth she was returned. All of the elements would seek her, the four winds, the rains, the winged of the air; and together with the earth, each would take a part, until she again became one with them all.