Nakoa's Woman (3 page)

Behind them, Maria suddenly saw dust clouds rising, and could see five Snakes riding after them. “Hurry! Hurry!” she screamed desperately to Ana, and kicked her own horse so viciously that his quick response almost threw her from his back.

On and on their two horses raced, but the blue hills in which they could hide seemed to be as far away as ever. She glanced back at Ana again and was stunned to see how the Snakes were gaining upon them, and how far behind her Ana had drifted. Her sister was looking at her pleadingly, her face completely drained of color. She looked so innocent, so sweet, and so terrified, that Maria wanted to ride back to the Snakes and give her life so that Ana might escape. But while she watched, the roan stumbled and threw Ana to the ground. Maria tried to turn the bay back, but horse and rider fought each other in mounting terror, the bay wheeling and thrashing and refusing to be turned back. Sobbing, Maria beat him without mercy, choking upon clouds of rising dust and the agony tightening in her throat.

“Maria!” Ana screamed.

Around and around the bay turned as if he were pursuing some mad game of chasing his shadow.

“Maria!” Ana screamed once more and when Maria looked toward her she saw the Snakes brandishing the locks of her golden hair.

There was a woman’s scream. Maria heard it clearly. It had no beginning and no end, as if it had always existed in its own horror. The earth shatters the living and gives the living an end, cover, burial, but this thing, this scream, could never end, could never be shattered into even an echo. Its sound had torn her into pieces, and fragments of herself clung stubbornly to the bay that was once more racing for the hills.

Behind the thundering hoofs of the bay, flames from the wagon train and prairie grass licked the sky. The bloody sunset generated its own force; the prairie wind was quickened and its low sad sound reached her ears, its breath touching her face and stretching out across that broad land in the split second before the bay plunged into the shadow of the forest.

In the early darkness, Maria saw branches of the dense trees sweep down at her. A blue jay screeched excitedly. Suddenly a limb hit her upon the side of her head, and she was swept from the horse. She lay stunned upon the ground, and when she opened her eyes, she remained inert, watching the patterns that the branches above her made against the sky.

The bay stood quietly by her and remained even when there was the sound of the Snakes’ horses moving toward them. With effort, Maria got to her feet and held onto the horse for support. Blood rushed from her head wound and even began to cover a part of her bodice. Everything became blurred and indistinct. It seemed as if two Snakes had found her, and one swiftly dismounted and seized her. She struggled to see his face and met his eyes. They had no expression. They bore no hatred for her, no lust, not even an expression of mild anger. Yet he was going to kill her, as swiftly and silently as possible. In a great roaring he was strangling her, and she put up a tremendous struggle to breathe.

Suddenly the iron hands loosened their hold, and air burst into her starved lungs. The Snake looked at her in amazement, his hands clutching desperately at her shoulders. He made a low cry, almost indistinguishable, then slid to the ground. An arrow had been driven deep into his back. Maria looked up at the other Snake; amazement was upon his face too, and he slid swiftly from his horse. He drew his knife, his eyes searching the darkness all around them. There wasn’t a sound. The bay then moved slightly, and the silence returned.

With her heart hammering in terror, Maria began to inch toward the bay. She had just touched the horse when there was a sudden flashing of movement, and almost before she could see it, another Indian, a giant of a man, had come and had broken the Snake’s neck. Just as swiftly, he bent and cut and seized the Snake’s scalp. As she watched him in horror, he kicked over the corpse at her feet and just as neatly scalped it. The ripping of the flesh, the smell of the blood brought Ana to her mind, and she screamed. The Indian stifled her cry and threw her to the ground, covering her body with his own so quickly that she did not even have a chance to take a fresh breath. He would suffocate her. He would strangle her as surely as the other had almost done.

It was now completely dark. There was no light beneath the thick trees at all. Maria heard the approach of other horses. The rest of the Snakes were calling out to their companions. The Indian’s grip upon her tightened. His weight crushed her breasts and tortured her throbbing head. The Snakes rode all around them and finally went away. Still, the Indian held her in the vise of his strength.

When he finally released her, she was too numb to sit up. He picked her up and put her roughly upon the bay, mounting behind her. Without a sound, he guided the bay through the thickest recesses of the forest; like fellow phantoms his and the Snakes’ horses followed, and Maria felt that she was living through a nightmare of silence.

The Indian held her closely. The bloody scalps at his belt dampened her dress, and she strained as far away from him as she could. But he would give her no leeway. The pain in her head worsened, and each step that the bay took grew to be agony.

After more than an hour’s riding, they reached the forest’s edge. The Indian stopped the horses. He dismounted, looking up at her and studying her in the starlight. He then seized her and stood her before him, as if he were measuring her height and the contours of her body. The terrible paint upon his face drove her from looking at him, and she turned away. He touched the side of her head, either seeking the seriousness of her wound or trying to see her face again, and all Maria knew was the smell of fresh blood upon his scalps.

Suddenly dim shadows of mounted men appeared at the forest’s edge. They stopped, looking at Maria and the Indian. “
OK-ye
,” someone called softly.

“
Ok-ye
,” the Indian replied, and four men rode toward them. They were staring at Maria in amazement.
“Pyeeteokweeweewa waapeakesiwa!”
one said in disbelief.

They, too, were painted. They all looked terrifying, and Maria uttered a low cry of fear in spite of herself. Her captor immediately gagged her, doing it so roughly that she became dizzy with pain. He bound her hands behind her back and placed her upon the bay. Once more, he mounted behind her and led the others out upon the prairie. The grasses were wild and thick and from a distance looked like a carpet of silver. But when the horses began to travel at a steady gallop, the grasses became cruel, whipping at her through her thin skirts and hiding deep and treacherous ravines that the bay took unknown, stumbled upon, and started fresh blood running down her neck.

Maria spun in and out of fainting spells. The fire of the wagon train had not burned itself out upon the prairie; it was searing yet in her brain, and there would never be enough blood in her body to quench it.

On and on they rode, their pace quickening, the flying hoofs of the horses following the path of the prairie wind. They rent soft land, leaped ravines and plunged unheeding through the deepest of rivers. Cold water made her skirts cling to her shivering legs; hot blood coursed eternally down her neck and congealed thickly between her breasts. She slumped against the savage behind her, but in no way did he know her pain, her weakness, her womanhood.

At daylight they changed course and sought the shelter of the hills. The Indians talked in low voices and then Maria was lifted from the bay. From out of old mists the painted face came before her again, this mask of this most hideous of men, and not ungently she was laid upon the ground. As she was covered with a buffalo robe the bloody scalps brushed against her and in them she saw the scalp of Ana. Strangling, she fled to a sanctuary deep inside of herself where this most agonizing of all days had never dawned.

Maria

Chapter Three

Maria awakened, and pain was still violently upon her. She opened her eyes and looked up into the clear blue sky and prayed for help. She was still bound and gagged. She tried to move and nausea came, and she began to strangle on vomit. Quickly her gag was removed, and when she had vomited, she lay weakly back and felt someone untie her arms. She was nothing now, for where were all those who had loved and cherished her? With nothing to love and cherish in turn she was not even a seed upon empty winds. She moaned in agony, and someone touched her and raised her to a sitting position. Two strong hands held her head and applied something cool and comforting to her wound. The burning in her head lessened, and with relief she opened her eyes. It was her captor; she knew this although he now wore no paint. The hideous face that had come at her from the mists was gone. In the morning sunlight she saw before her a handsome man. Here was a new strength too, more masculine than she had ever seen before. His black eyes were fierce with pride, and she wondered at the fact that he was Indian. He held no resemblance at all to the poor begging savages that she had seen back East.

She was staring at him, and she soon became conscious that her appraisal was making him angry. He stopped treating her wound and just as boldly studied her. His eyes traveled from her own to her lips, to her breasts and waist and hips and then back to her breasts. Fear of him made her heart hammer, and she dropped her eyes and felt her face grow hot. He said nothing. When she looked at him again, the boldness upon his face was gone. He knew her fear.

Slowly he raised his right hand in front of her, palm out and even with his shoulder. He rotated it a few times, trying to tell her something. She looked at him in perplexity. He placed the fingers of his right hand against the palm of his left, sliding his right off as if he were cutting meat.
“Iksisakuyi?”
he said.

He was asking her if she wanted food. “Yes,” Maria said. “Please! I am hungry.” When she nodded her head he understood her meaning. He handed her a calfskin bag in which was a mixture of meat and berries that she began to eat greedily. He signaled that she was not to eat so fast, and when she persisted, he angrily took the bag away from her. He then motioned her to get up and when she refused, scowling because he had taken away her food, he pulled her to her feet.
“Menuah,”
he said, pointing into the forest. He made sign that she should follow him, and she meekly walked behind him. She now saw the other Indians, and when they passed them, one of them called out something, and her captor laughed. Deeper in the forest, she lagged behind him, and impatiently, he reached for her again, holding her at his side for the rest of the way.

They came to a river, and he indicated that she was to drink. When she had quenched her thirst, he made sign for her to remove her clothing. Maria refused, and he again signed that she should bathe. She gestured for him to leave her alone, and he shrugged his shoulders, walking away from her. Watching the trees for a sign of him, she removed her dress and washed it, but she would not take off her chemise and stand where he might see her naked. When she had bathed, she lay upon a large rock and waited to dry her wet chemise. Birds called happily from the trees, and the water rushing by her made such a sweet and melodious sound that for a while she forgot grief. The air was pungent with the smell of warming pine and spruce. The sun was so warm that she could feel her chemise drying and the gathering of perspiration between her breasts. Still exhausted, she began to doze, with the water continuing to murmur contentedly at her.

Two hands touched her face, and then lips fiercely found her own and held her in a long and agonizing kiss. The Indian’s eyes were closed, and his face was even darker with passion. She gasped and began to struggle against him, but he effortlessly removed her chemise from her entire body. Maria felt an agony of terror and embarrassment. When she tried to cover herself, he held her hands, and then his lips went back to her own, down to her throat, to her breasts, and his hands caressed her hips. His excitement was so intense that he shuddered in his postponement of raping her, but rape her he would, and Maria now knew this was why he had taken her to the river and away from the others.

More than terror made her weep. More than the humiliation of being stripped and appraised, assaulted where she never had been touched before. His rape would be not just the destruction of her innocence and her virginity but the destruction again of the wagon train, dying in its own horrible and bloody sunset. Ana fled from her again; her mother died in the dismal rain; the Maria and Anson of just yesterday burned under orange pillars of smoke. Edith Holmes lay white and ashen and blood seeped and seeped from beneath her thighs.

“God! God!” screamed Maria.

He struck as if he had come in a nightmare from the dark and lustful core of her own being. But he stopped with her. At the beginning of his penetration he stopped, and suddenly the pressure of his whole body was gone. She turned on her stomach, hiding as much as she could from him, not able to bear looking into his face. She wept in hysteria.

When she was drained and could cry no more, she felt a cool little breeze ruffle her hair and pass over her naked body. Her dress had been brought from the rocks and placed beside her. Numbly she reached for it, and after she had put it on and fastened every button of her bodice, she looked up at him. He stood towering and mute, almost blocking the whole sky. Here was the shadow that had come to make her die.

He touched her arm, indicating that she return with him to the others. She started to walk with him, hiding her face from his own. Before they moved, he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her lips. He could not have been more tender. His black eyes were filled with a new light, and she noticed the sweetness and sensitivity of his lips. He yearned to speak with her but did not know how to convey his thoughts. He closed her eyes and kissed her lashes, and then searched her face to see if she understood: in his new gentlemanliness, she was to close her eyes to what he had done. She understood and looked at him mutely. He moved away from her, indicating the distance between them, and she read this to mean that he would never again attempt to rape her.

As they left the river, Maria glanced back at her torn and ragged chemise. Its white lace was soiled with the mud of the riverbank, and for a moment she felt as if she was walking away from herself, the girl who had been a virgin to life. In his gentleness, the Indian had penetrated her as deeply as if he had succeeded in raping her.

When they returned to the others not a one gave any sign of noticing them. Her captor gestured for her to lie down, and when she did, he lay down beside her. Her face became crimson with humiliation at having to lie beside him upon the ground. He fell almost immediately into an easy sleep, and when the others slept too, Maria studied them all.

They wore shirts, breechcloths, and leggings, and across their shirts and leggings ran strange black bands. Their clothing was tanned more darkly than any skins she had seen on Indians, and because of their dark clothing, the dyed hair that fringed their shirts and leggings showed up brilliantly. Every one of them carried a knife sheathed in his belt, but Maria noticed some difference in the dress of her captor and the others. He alone wore an ornate pattern of quill bands that ran the breadth of his shoulders and down the length of his sleeves and leggings, and he wore his hair in one queue rather than two braids as the others did. He was clearly the leader of the band and Maria took him to be a chief, but of what tribe she did not know.

The sun moved its slow course across the bright sky. Maria lay upon her back and watched it, and watched the slow moving of the shadows upon the ground. In time she became drowsy and slept deeply. When she awakened, it was with a start of horror. She had dreamed of drifting down into the depths of an endless sea, and she became crazy in its darkening shadow and wanted to embrace it, forever become a part of it, and never see the sunlight again. She shuddered, gasping for air, savoring its sweetness in large gulps. She lived. She yet lived, and swift and terrible tears came for Ana and her father who did not.

The Indian beside her still slept. Again Maria studied his handsome face with its tender lips, so incongruous to the complete man. He had no facial hair; she remembered that Indians kept it pulled with tweezers. In his sleep, the Indian’s hand moved, and she studied his fingers. They were long and slender. His nails were clean, pink, smooth, and tapered without any bluntness. As she was watching his hand, it moved and brushed against her. Swiftly, she sat up, and he sat up too, his dark eyes meeting her own.

“Kisipenae
—
lantamen hec?”
he asked her.

“I don’t understand,” Maria said. “How could I know your language?”

He held both of his hands before her.
“Kewaapami,”
he said, and repeated the word again. This was his word for hands, and he waited for her to repeat the word after him. Suddenly the indignity that she had suffered from him that morning came back in overpowering force. A few hours before he had tried to rape her, and now she was supposed to sit meekly by his side and learn his language!

“Nhikas,”
he said, indicating his fingernails.
“Nhikas,”
he repeated, still patient with her.

“Shtinkas,”
she said stupidly.

“Nhikas!”
he said, frowning.

“Pinkas!”
she answered promptly.

He pointed to his fingers.
“Ohkitchis,”
he said.

“Rinkas!”
she said. He frowned.
“Rinkas!”
she repeated belligerently.

“Ohkitchis!”
he said furiously.

“Shtinkas!”

“Nhikas!”

“Shtinkas!”
They glared at each other, and the language lesson came to an abrupt end as he got up and left her.

Maria smiled to herself and stretched out upon the ground. It did not take her long to go back to sleep. When she awakened it was late afternoon, and she was very hungry. She thought gleefully of all of the ways that she could vex the Indian; let him see what an idiot he had found for a wife! A strong wind was building in the pines; the night would be cold. Shivering, she looked around for him. To her amazement, she saw that the Indians were eating. Well, savages would eat before a woman did. She had always heard that a wife to them was not as valuable as a horse. Getting colder in her thin dress, she watched them consume their meal, and she thought that they would never stop. They ate on and on and on; her captor seemed to be relishing his food. He saw her watching him, and bringing his food, sat down by her, and continued eating.

Her stomach began to growl. Saliva gathered expectantly in her mouth, and she had to swallow again and again to keep herself from

“Oh, I am the belle of the ball!” Maria said to herself bitterly. She looked beyond the shelter of the trees. How many more nights would they ride? Where, oh God, could he be taking her?

Her captor suddenly touched her arm, and she started away from him violently. He moved like a cat, without any noise at all. He had placed another robe upon the ground, and upon it he had placed an assortment of food.
“La lematahpi,”
he said, indicating that she should sit down.

There was the mixture of meat and berries, but there was something else that looked crisp and delicious, some kind of meat that had been cooked and smoked by itself. Almost joyous with relief, she reached eagerly for the food. He restrained her hands, and she stared up at him, dumbfounded. “You told me to eat!” she said. Was he going to torture her again? The idea of starving herself to death had vanished entirely. Stubbornly, she reached for the food again, but he slapped her hand smartly with the back of his knife. Murderously, she flew at his face, aching to claw its smooth surface, but he slapped her own, sending her spinning away from the food. Like a whipped animal she crept back, and sitting by it, began to weep. How could an Indian be smart enough to be such a tyrant? Between sobs, she saw him waiting patiently. He had not touched the food, so it was meant for her. Wiping her face, she quieted and looked at him.

He held his hands before her face.
“Nhikas,”
he said quietly. The language lesson!
Nhikas,
the word for fingernails. Maria swallowed hard, and after studying the food carefully couldn’t fight any more.

“Nhikas,”
she said sullenly.

“Kewaapami,”
he said clearly, again showing her that the word meant hands.

“Kewaapami”
Maria repeated.

“Nkitenenc,”
he said for fingers.

She repeated the word and learned the rest of the words he wanted her to. The lesson went on and on, and for the words she learned, she was tested and retested. Satisfied with her progress, he at last indicated that she could eat, and while she did so, he never took his eyes from her face.

She ate everything that he had given her. When she finished, he signaled that water was nearby by cupping his hand, putting it to his mouth, and pointing to a meadow a short distance from them.

She got up and left him, and he made no move to follow her. At the spring she drank thirstily. All of the Indians remained at their camp, giving her privacy, and in spite of the miserable morning, she bathed herself. When she returned to the Indians, her captor was riding away with two of them. Two were left to guard her and one of them indicated a crude bed that had been made for her. She lay upon it, falling to sleep almost immediately. When she awakened finally, it was later, much later. It was now raining hard and water was dripping down upon her face from the thick branches overhead. But it was not the rain that had awakened her, and remembering what it was, she gathered the robe around her, and got up with wild hope racing in her heart. She had heard the firing of a rifle.