Nakoa's Woman (30 page)

He said nothing. When she looked at him finally and turned away, he turned her tear-streaked face back to his. “The Indian knows the Great Spirit, too, Maria,” he said quietly. “The Indian feels love, too. In your moments of deepest love, were you not met by me?”

“At the river! At the river!”

“So close to the woman you would keep upon her back so she can see only the sky!”

“You crawled from Nitanna—to me!”

“We see in love the joy of giving. Is that not true of you?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“In love, barriers are gone, doubts are gone, two become one in a union to conceive of themselves. Does this not happen?”

“Yes. It could have happened to us!”

“But only in the white man’s way! Maria, I am not a white man! I am Indian. A man must walk his own path. It is the woman who accepts change, as she accepts the change in her body from mating! Cannot life speak to you in its wisdom? Is all the love from the Great Spirit blessed only in a white man’s church? If you really love me, Maria, you would not demand you would accept!”

“I am tired of struggling,” Maria said brokenly. I want to live in my way, and you will have yours and the only thing for us to do is to part!”

“Or for you to grow into a woman. The female is eternal and bears the fire of creation too. If you do not accept her in love and in pain, you will be destroyed!”

“Nakoa, I cannot do it!”

“You have already. By the river you were a woman.”

“When we rode around the horse herds you said I was a reflection of your burning, like the moon is to the sun.”

“That is what you would like to be now. The moon, Earth Woman, who wanted death more than her husband and son, the little girl who weeps eternally at her mother’s grave! I know that when it became time for me to first enter you, you invited me in rage. You drove me beyond my restraint so you would feel pain and I would feel guilt in your agony! Maria, it is also the woman in you that did this, the woman that sought revenge against the child that would keep from her the touch of the sun!”

“Send me away, like you did Nitanna!”

“You see—you kill too!”

“Let me go!”

“Maria, how could you have had such a beautiful woman’s body?”

“For you to climb on!” she burst out.

They looked at each other in fury. A little breeze rustled through the ferns and touched Maria’s hot face. “Let me go,” she said again.

He grasped her shoulders and looked at her somberly. “Maria, hear my words, and do not speak until I have finished. Before you became my wife I denied you to myself. I did not hold myself from taking Nitanna. The thought of this did not even meet my mind. I wanted to keep you clean. I thought it was because I wanted to keep you in marriage, but I know that you could be carrying my child for the whole village to see, and my power would be strong enough for me to take you as a wife. My denial of what I wanted since the first day of your capture—this was so you could speak to the Sun! I would know—you would know—our Father would know that I had held you sacred in my love and could not see you defiled! Maria this is as sacred to me as your path of white flowers, your dress of white, your sacred ceremony in the white man’s church! In the tradition of my people, keeping you clean was deep ceremony to me! This was love, Maria, not lust. You are the woman I love.”

“I am sorry for what I said,” Maria replied, suffering at the hurt in his eyes.

“I accepted you as my sacred vision that came to me in my days of fasting. You would be my voice to the sun. Now do not tell me ever again that I wanted you just to sleep with. There are many women among my own people with beautiful bodies.”

Maria looked again into the fine handsome face, the full tender lips. His eyes still bore pain at her words. She suddenly wanted to kiss him.

“When I brought you to my lodge we became man and wife,” he said. “In a dream, we had the white man’s marriage ceremony. You are more than my wife. You are the other part of my whole self that, parted from me, will leave me bereft and grieving. For me, to know the fullness of myself, to find the way to my Father, I seek union with you. Maria, strong within my heart, I know that I am the man for you, that without your acceptance of me, you will be craven and empty, too, and never know the growth of your life. Have you heard my words?”

He was so close to her, she smelled his clean buckskin smell that once excited her so much. She thought of the way it had been when he had made love to her. “Yes,” she said, “I hear you.”

“What do you feel?”

“I feel a desire to kiss you. To kiss you just once.”

“Then do it. Kiss me just once, Maria.”

She pressed against him and kissed his lips gently. He was impassive beneath her touch.

“Was that enough?” he asked her when she had finished.

“No,” she said truthfully, and kissed him again. He didn’t respond. “Don’t you like this?” she asked.

“Not at all,” he smiled.

She smiled, too, and kissed him again, lingering against him this time, and waited for his hands to seek her breasts.

“You still don’t like this?” she flirted.

“Do not stop. I will bear it with Indian strength,” he replied.

She laughed for the first time since Nakoa’s marriage to Nitanna. She had aroused him; there was a leaping of passion in his eyes.

She lay upon her back and looked up at the gently moving ferns. “It is a beautiful day,” she whispered.

“Yes,” he said, stretching out beside her.

“This is a beautiful place,” she said.

“Now life is beautiful,” he said, looking down at her. Their eyes met and held. She drew his mouth down upon hers and they kissed long and lingeringly. Still he masked the passion that was in his eyes. In growing excitement she began to kiss his face, moving his hands to her breasts herself. Her heart was beating wildly against his palm. “Take off my clothes,” she breathed.

Naked, fire consumed them both. He still held himself from her. “Maria,” he said. “Accept my love—meet my lust!” She caressed him in rapture and exulted when he came into her and fought wildly against every withdrawal. The cool green shadow became the red heat of day. She was finally drained by her first orgasms, but the fire continued to burn and the tall ferns glowed in its light. It was a sacred light, and she turned so that he would take her again, and she was caught so strongly in her own satisfaction that she did not know the shuddering power of his. When she was suddenly spent, he looked at her tenderly, and brushed her hair back from her face as he had so often done before. “My wife,” he said lovingly, and let her sleep. In time he closed his eyes and in the deep shadow of the ferns they slept together, their marriage consummated, each deeply tranquil.

Chapter Twenty Seven

The next morning, Maria awakened upon Nakoa’s couch, and remembered that she had gone there herself, seeking him again. Something had awakened her; one of the horses had nickered, a white wolf had called from the prairie—or a newly awakened voice within herself had cried for him to possess her once again. She had tried to resist and go back to sleep, but she could only think of the way it had been that afternoon—and she had to hold the pulsating life of Nakoa within her again.

So she went to her husband, no longer in fury, but in hunger, and when he felt the touch of her kiss his response was immediate. He stroked her body, kissing her breasts and tantalizing her almost beyond endurance before his entrance. When he came inside of her they both ached to postpone what had to end. She moaned in ecstasy as she drew him deeper and deeper into herself. He brought her into climax after climax and during them he lay still to catch the heart of her inner trembling. At her last convulsion he finally allowed himself fulfillment and then tenderly kissed her lips and the tips of her softening breasts. He cradled her in his arms. “Now sleep, my culentet,” he whispered, and never had she seen his face so contented.

He slept almost immediately, but she did not. She began to fear the awful force that had driven her to him. Now she was more his captive than ever; she would toss everything to the winds to lie beneath him again. She watched the stars through the smoke hole of the tipi, and the fear within her grew. He was right. The female had been mastered in her body; this was the simple truth he had told her to learn. She began to cry softly, and when sunlight touched the skins of the lodge, her lashes were still wet.

In the daylight she looked at his tranquil face. In his sleep his arms were still around her and she cautiously removed herself from them and bathed herself with the water in the lodge. He awakened once and smiled at the sight of her bathing and then went back to sleep. Maria dried herself and dressed rapidly. She went outside into the morning air and started the cooking fire.

She was now a vessel to be filled by him in his need and desire, but always to be empty again. He used her, but he did not really need her. She could never entrap this wild and free man. He would walk in his own way and her life would be an agony of dependence upon him. He would take other wives and kill her with separation.

By the fire she knelt and prayed for strength, and it came to her like iron. She felt the same strength that had led her to the burial grounds even when the woman within shook and trembled to return to the warm fires of the village.

She had to mate with a man who would give his life to her, as she would to him, who would not be complete without her, and who would make her complete in his giving. The freedom of a wild eagle could not be fettered. She could not try to keep the morning eagle from the sky.

It was that simple.

He came to her while she prepared the food, and kissed the side of her face. While she moved, he watched her quietly, and never had she seen such light in his dark eyes. When she brought him food he kissed her hands. “Thank you for last night, Maria,” he said, as if her going to him in the middle of the night were a beautiful and wondrous thing.

She withdrew her hands and sat beside him. “Nakoa, I have to speak what is in my heart.”

“I listen,” he replied, eating with relish.

“I am going back to my people,” she said.

He looked thunderstruck.

“Nakoa, I have to walk in my own way. I have to walk my own path. I am sick for the white man’s food, his clothing, his books and his music.”

He dropped his food bowl, his hands shaking. She rushed on, “I want to walk again upon streets and see lights shining from houses. I want to see carriages, and boats and trains. I want to be with my own kind.”

“These are playthings. You do not know what you are sick for. You are sick because you felt the emotion of the woman and you want to remain the child.”

“Don’t tell me of last night!” she almost shouted. “I do not want to hear of what I did!”

“Last night is speaking to you in powerful voice.”

“I will not hear of it! I will be free!”

“You do not know what you will be because you do not know what you are!” He paced before her, his lips twisted. Finally he stopped and his face became smooth and devoid of agony.

“All right,” he said calmly. “I accept. You cannot, but I can accept. I never saw you as you are, but as I hoped you to be. Napi forgive me—in my love—in my lust—in my blindness, I struck out at my father for nothing.”

Maria bowed her head. “Then you will let me go?” she asked.

“You forget that you might be bearing my child. If the time comes when you know you are not—then you will go. Even now you are forever free from me, Maria. I will never seek you again. You will not come to my couch again. If after what we felt together last night, and yesterday at the meadow—if after these moments you ask to go free, then every word I could utter the rest of my life would be useless. I am silent. Everything between us is finished. I accept it.”

“What if I do have a child?”

“The child will be left with me. When you are well enough for traveling, Apikunni and some of the Mutsik will take you back to the white man’s trail.”

Her throat constricted and she ached to tell him she was sorry. “Nakoa—Nakoa—” she faltered.

He looked at her grimly. “Do not say that you are sorry. There shall be no more words between us—of what we were or might have been—together!”

She started to weep.

“Dismantle the lodge and pack our things,” he said. “We will ride to the main camp when you have finished.”

He left her and, taking the water paunches, rode to the river.

Maria did what he asked. When their tipi was down and all of their possessions packed, the desolation of the empty camp was appalling. She looked out at the silent prairie and remembered the way it had been. She saw where the entrance of the village had been, where he had kissed her and first called her culentet. She saw Anatsa walking the path to the river, and she saw where Mequesapa used to sit, playing his deerskin flute for Siyeh. Winter snow would cover it all, and she looked out toward the burial grounds and wept.

He was standing over her, saying nothing. She helped him pack the horses and they rode silently from the deserted camp. A meadowlark called out from the grass and was answered. The fragrance of the prairie grass warming in the morning sun smote her and she breathed deeply in unbearable pain. Purple finches and the white crowned sparrow were flushed from their nests, but were seen by neither of them. Behind, the ashes from their cooking fires remained deep in the fire pit. That afternoon the wind from the mountains rose and scattered them away. A brilliant sunset came and went and the full moon rose late. Across the silver river Anatsa rested quietly, mated and murdered, and in the pale moonlight her face was still serene and beautiful.

In the mountains, a fierce wind swept down upon them. Maria felt terror from its strength and from its roaring through the pines. Cones tumbled down from the trees. In the deepening gloom she sensed the stalking of death. They had intended to stay at the old campsite; she had changed this plan and now the breath of hell was loosed.

The horses bowed their heads into the wind, and Maria shivered upon the bay. Her long hair was whipped away from her face; dust stung her eyes and lips.

Far ahead of them two trappers left the trail and sought the shelter of a ravine.

“Goddamned wind,” one said.

“Forget it,” the other replied. “We have plenty of time.”

The bay stumbled. “Nakoa!” Maria shouted, and he looked back at her. “I want to stop! I am cold!”

He nodded and signed for her to assemble the lodge in a grove of spruce near the trail. He had watered and picketed the horses before she could even organize the possessions he had unloaded. He left her again when she assembled the tipi and because her hands were stiff with fear, she silently cursed him for deserting her.

Night rushed down upon her like a wild thing. When she finished the tipi, she could not start the lodge fire. The flames blew out repeatedly.

She cried out in despair. When Nakoa came in he adjusted the doorflaps, dug a larger fire pit and started the fire.

“Thank you,” Maria said in wrath.

He didn’t reply.

“Are you never going to speak to me again?” Maria screamed.

“I have brought fresh game. I have prepared it for cooking.”

“Go eat your horse!” Maria said in rage.

He looked at her calmly. “I need my horse,” he replied. “We will eat the meat you will cook. I am tired of pemmican.”

“’Go Kutenai! Stop Kutenai!’ I am not Kutenai!”

“No, but you can prepare food.”

“Yes, I can do that.”

“It is something,” he said coldly.

She cooked the meat and they ate it with fresh berries. “You are sulking like a child,” she said bitterly. “You are the child!”

He looked at her directly. “You speak again without thought. I have said there are no more words between us.”

“Then make some!”

“Why? Is silence so terrible?”

“I am lonely.”

“Both of you?”

“Nakoa, why must you be so bitter?”

“I did not take my marriage lightly.”

“You mean your marriages.”

“I took neither lightly. You did not accept even one.”

A gust of wind shook the lodge, making the fire move as if to seek escape from them.

“Nakoa, I feel such fear! Be kind to me, please be kind to me!”

He shuddered.

“Nakoa, I loved you—I did not lie in the way I loved you.”

“At what time? When was this time when you did not lie?”

“Before your marriage.”

“You lie now, after our marriage.”

“I am speaking about Nitanna.”

“Stop speaking of her. She had no part in our marriage.”

“Didn’t she?” Maria asked.

He rose and faced her wrathfully. “I said there were to be no more words. Do you want to sleep in this lodge alone?”

“No,” she said sorrowfully. “I do not want your anger. Please, Nakoa.”

“Do not weep.”

“I won’t. May I speak?”

“Not about Nitanna.”

“All right. But do not hate me!”

“You have the love of your mother.”

“Nakoa, I have no one. You know my mother is dead!”

“No, I don’t. She is alive to you. Let her die and rest in peace.”

She hid her face. “I wanted to love you,” she whispered. When she looked up he had lain upon his couch and had turned his back toward her.

“Don’t go to sleep!” she said, panic-stricken.

“Lie with your mother,” he said.

She went to him and shook his shoulders. “Nakoa, have pity upon me!” He turned toward her. Her teeth were chattering.

“Maria, what is the matter with you?” he asked angrily.

“I feel death. I have felt it ever since we left the old camp.”

He sat up, studying her face thoughtfully. “Have you not heard my words, that without each other we will exist but not grow? Of course you have felt death, for that is what we are meeting. I have accepted. Now let the woman in you die in silence.”

She put her head upon his lap. If he would only touch her with his strength!

“What do you want of me?” he asked.

“I want your comfort, your touch. I want your touch! Dear God, I would even—”

“You would make that sacrifice? How lonely you are in your dying!”

“Help me, Nakoa.” The wind surged mightily against them again. “There is so little time,” she sobbed, “we will soon be parted.” He gripped her hair, holding her eyes to his own.

“How closely am I to hold you?” he asked. “How closely for just this moment?”

“I don’t care!”

“I do!” he said in a rage, and flung her from his bed. She fell to the floor and he stood over her in shaking fury. “I told you not to come to my bed again! I will not be beaten with your body! I will not let the present increase what I cannot have! Go back to your mother’s singing! Just give me my son and the blood in him from me! Go back and leave some room upon my couch for a woman!”

He became frenzied. “And if silence sickens you so, we will have talk. We can speak of my horse, Kutenai. We can speak of the bay, who was also blessed with coming from the white man! We can speak of food, of the lodge fire, of the possessions we carry and pack and unpack. We can speak of the lodge, of the earth and the stars, and the noises and sign of forest animals. But we will not talk of you, and we will not talk of me, or of women and men, and the feelings they are said to have! Do you hear me, Maria?” Tears shone upon his cheeks, and she was amazed at seeing them.

“Yes,” she said quietly.

“We will say nothing of real men or real women!”

“All right.”

“You will sleep alone, and I will sleep alone until I take another wife. You will never show yourself naked to me again! You will never touch me again—in any way!” He paced in front of the fire until he was calm. “I wait for my son, and that is all. That is all you have to give.” He turned his back to her. “When our child is born, I return you to your mother, and may she shelter you and love you in your agony of not being able to do these simple things for yourself!” He turned to her finally and at the sight of the suffering upon his face she sprang toward him, and without thought, reached to touch him. He slapped her across the face and sent her spinning away.