Scarlet Plume, Second Edition (27 page)

The new medicine man, Center Of The Body, once known as Bullhead, placed a sacred stone on a slightly elevated drift of pink sand. Center Of The Body, gaunt, slate-cheeked, moved with slow, uncertain steps. He painted the stone red and ornamented it with specially selected feathers. He planted a long knife in the ground in front of the sacred stone. He scattered some dried sweet grass and silver sage on the ground around the stone and the knife. Then Center Of The Body retired to one side. Whitebone, restored to warmth and health, watched all that his new medicine man did with narrowed, intent eyes. It was apparent at the end that he approved of Center Of The Body’s performance.

Drums boomed out a steady beat.

Walking Voice cried, “Let the mothers with their pure virgins step forth.”

A dozen Yankton women led their daughters to the sacred stone. The maidens were all neatly dressed in white doeskin tunics. Each maiden had a red dot on both cheeks and vermilion painted down the parting of the hair. The hair was combed to a luxurious jet-black shine, hanging down straight and stiff to the shoulder. All wore a single yellow coneflower over the ear. One by one the maidens touched the sacred stone and looked to the power of the sky to declare their purity with a solemn oath. Done, they then stepped back a dozen paces and sat down on the clear pink sand in a semicircle. The mothers deposited gifts for the feast at the foot of the knife: venison, flatcake, boiled duck, sweetmeat made of buffalo brains, plum broth, and that rarest of all delicacies, choked pup cooked whole.

Walking Voice called aloud again. “Let the young braves come forth.”

A dozen handsome young men dressed only in clout and moccasins stepped from beside the stream, where they had been working on their toilet. They had made their faces savagely beautiful with fresh red paint and they carried the courting robe.

One by one, with flashing eyes and impassioned words and gestures, the young men related how they had killed a hated enemy and scalped him. This one had overcome a Pawnee, that one a Chippewa, that one an Omaha, and one even a white man. After all had spoken they formed a line facing the maidens.

Walking Voice turned to the rest of the Yanktons, assembled to one side of the ceremony. A few of the young boys had climbed up on a rocky ledge for a better view. Walking Voice cried, “If anyone among you knows of anything to say against any maiden sitting in this sacred circle, say it now.”

All were silent. For a single fleeting second the Shining People sat very stiff, as still as statues gleaming in a sculptor’s marble shop.

“It is good. Now let the feast begin.”

Four Only dished out the food on big pieces of ash bark and served all the virgins and their mothers. Four Only also dished out food for herself and her daughter Drowsy Eyes. From time to time Four Only flashed a black, suspicious look around at the assembly. Four Only was living with her fourth husband, her first three having been killed by the enemy.

Drowsy Eyes was comely, plump, and had a soft, languorous manner. She had the look of one who might very well have lain in the grass with a brave.

When the last one had been served, the virgins began to eat in a leisurely fashion, unconcernedly, looking to neither the right nor the left.

Silence. Everyone waited to see if there would be a challenge.

The young braves stared down at the maidens. The morning sun shone on their naked skins, some rose-brown, some penny-brown, some rust-brown.

The maidens continued to eat unconcernedly.

From her vantage point in the darkened separation hut, Judith was momentarily distracted by still another play. Up on a slope above where the Virgin’s Feast was being held, the she-dog Long Claws was behaving strangely. Long Claws was frolicking about alone in the tall grass like a young bitch in heat. Then, even as Judith watched, a wolf came slinking out of a patch of wolfberries. At first Judith thought the wolf meant to harm Long Claws. But then she saw that the wolf, a splendid male, had more the look of a lover than a killer. The male wolf’s phallus protruded glistening and pink in the sun. Long Claws seemed delighted to see the male wolf, and after frisking about a little more, presented herself to him. He promptly mounted her and made connection. Slowly he pumped her out of sight into the bushes.

“Disgusting.”

And only then did it come to Judith why it was that some of the Indian dogs had that crazy wild look.

When Judith looked back at the Virgin’s Feast again, she saw that the mood of the ceremony had changed. Whispering had sprung up among three of the young men. The three were known as Moldy Clothes, Large Organ, and In A Hurry To Become A Copulator. The last was better known as Copulator. Moldy Clothes and Large Organ seemed to be urging Copulator to speak his mind. Copulator apparently had once told them a certain story.

Copulator was tall, long-limbed. He impatiently flicked an elkhorn quirt against his leg. He had proud, thick lips. He had knowing eyes. It was apparent he had come to understand the way of a man with a woman.

Poor haggard Four Only glared hard at Copulator, then shot a worried look at Drowsy Eyes. Four Only feared the worst.

At that moment the new Contrary, Traveling Hail, wandered into view, walking on his moccasined hands. His head was hidden by the long fringe of his buckskin hunting shirt. His feet were covered by a hood on which was painted a grotesque face. He was throwing the influence of the spirit of heyoka into the assembly to counteract whatever was about to happen.

Copulator finally made up his mind. He stepped boldly in front of Drowsy Eyes. He pointed a belittling finger at her, a sneer on his thick lips. “You have been made pregnant by a snake. One I know saw the snake enter you. You are not a virgin. Why are you sitting in this sacred circle? I have said.”

Drowsy Eyes looked Copulator in the eye. Her face slowly darkened over. She was so angry that for a moment she couldn’t talk. She was beyond putting on the usual maidenly act of injured innocence.

All eyes narrowly watched both accuser and accused.

Copulator glared at Drowsy Eyes, imperious.

Drowsy Eyes glared at Copulator, steady.

Soon it was seen that Copulator was nervous.

The assembled Yanktons, noting the nervousness, immediately began to cry in unison, “Swear by the sacred stone! Swear by the sacred stone!”

Drowsy Eyes took courage. She rose to her feet. With queenly bearing she stepped forward and knelt on the silver sage strewn on the pink sand. She embraced the sacred stone.

“Ahh!” cried the crowd. It was apparent that Drowsy Eyes was innocent. Immediately they began to jeer and howl at Copulator.

The accuser slowly backed away.

Drowsy Eyes looked him in the eye with blazing scorn. Her lips were squared in contempt. She said scathingly, “Ha! So you are the great copulator, eh?”

Copulator flushed purple. The elkhorn quirt in his hand began to whirl around and around.

Drowsy Eyes had more to say. “The only woman who will have you is your own hand. Well, lie in the grass with your own hand then.”

Some two dozen men and boys closed in on the would-be great copulator. They jeered him to the skies with high Yankton ridicule.

Copulator turned and fled up the Dells. He bounded like a scared jackrabbit being pursued by a pack of howling wolves. Sticks and stones flew after him. “Ha, ha!” cried the little boys. “See him run. Now he is truly in a hurry. Ha, ha!”

A thrilling shriek of triumph went through the camp. It was the mother Four Only. She was overjoyed. She shrilled once more, then collapsed on the pink sand.

Six days later Judith wandered downstream to take her purification bath. She knew of a lovely beach where the branch made a leisurely turn deep in the Dells. It was private, the pink sand was very fine, and the high red rock walls kept out the wind.

She slipped out of her doeskin tunic and leggings and moccasins. Kneeling naked at the edge of the slowly sliding stream, she scrubbed her clothes clean with pink grit, then draped them in the sun over a large boulder.

A small hollow of water gleamed beside the large boulder. It was a place where birds might come to drink and bathe. It was perfectly smooth and shone like a polished mirror.

She stood looking down at the hollow of water. She saw herself on its surface. Her blue eyes, she saw, had a lost, beaten look. Her hair, done up in two heavy braids, was strangely darkish. Her cheeks and neck were also strangely dark-skinned. She was quite thin, even stringy looking. The rest of herself she could recognize—a pink skin with a faint golden fuzz.

She shuddered. “Thank God I am not mother again.”

She undid her braids. With her fingers she combed them out. She looked for lice; found none. Her hands became greasy with tallow.

She toed into the water. It was surprisingly warm for September. The sun was directly overhead. She went in over the ankles, then the knees. The pink bottom shelved downward slowly, deeper. She cupped up water in both hands and let it run down her arms and off her elbows. She cupped water to her face. She cupped water over her pudding belly. She loved it. She waded in deeper. Water welled up her thighs. Water touched the gold tufts of her pudendum.

“Oh! It’s so good.”

Water lapped around the paired loaves of her buttocks, then up around her hips.

The bottom seemed to shelve off steeper and she decided to swim for it. She slid forward, her breasts going under and then her shoulders. She paddled along gently. She nosed into the shadow under the south wall of the turn. The darkened water seemed a bit forbidding to her. After a moment she turned and paddled back to sunny waters. She swam leisurely, slowly. She luxuriated limb for limb in the warm branch water.

“O, it’s good, so good.”

Her fingertips touched bottom and she stood up. She stretched to her full height. Her chest lifted, her belly shrank, her seat arched back. She looked around to make sure no one was watching. She saw only a fox squirrel playing in a gnarled oak high on the south wall. She stretched again.

“Wouldn’t Angela have loved this. So beautiful here. So by one’s self.”

A wave of gall-like nostalgia misted up in her. Never again would she sit with Angela and Vince around their once happy table. St. Paul was the dearest spot on earth to her and never would she see it again.

She fell to her knees. Her lips shaped a prayer. She thought this strange. She and Vince had never been much on religion. “Oh, Christ Jesus,” she prayed, “thou who art able to save souls from hell-fire, come save my body from fiends. I am lost in a far place. Amen.”

The fox squirrel chattered at her from the very tip of a twig in the gnarled oak.

Embarrassed by the sudden need to pray, she moved into shallower water and began to scrub herself thoroughly with handfuls of pink grit. She cleansed herself between the thighs. Not only would she purify herself, but she would also rub off all touch and memory of what the Indian studs had done to her. She scoured her face. She filled her hair with pink sand and rinsed it out. Again and again. A frenzy of scrubbing and scouring and washing possessed her.

Gradually the tallow and tannin came out of her hair. Slowly its original color returned. In the sun her hair became a sun-whitened gold again.

She rinsed her hair until it made a squinching sound between her fingertips. She threw her long hair over her shoulders this way, then that way.

She laved her limbs with the warm, clear water. She poured handfuls of water down her shining belly. She felt renewed. She felt clean again.

She ran. She skipped across the pink beach. She pirouetted on her toes. Eyes half-closed, dreamy, she let the sun make love to her skin.

She let her tongue play along the edge of her lips. The tip of her tongue touched four black stubs of hair on her upper lip. Goodness. She had completely forgotten about them. They had grown back. She recalled again how she had always been careful to keep them pulled so Vince wouldn’t see them. Well, she had no scissors with her and would have to let them grow.

A pebble fell from high off the south wall, plunked into the dark, deep part of the stream.

She glanced up, wondering what the playing fox squirrel was doing.

She stiffened. Someone had been observing her all along. Whitebone. Old face of the same color as the weathered red rock, he sat in a crevice in the shadow of the gnarled oak. He sat immobile, so fixed that the fox squirrel played unconcernedly just above him in the green leaves of the oak.

Judith dove for the deep water. She stood in water up to her neck. A delicate crimson came and went on her scrubbed cheeks.

Whitebone stood up. He spoke in a low, grave voice, full of awe. “White woman with the white sunned hair, know this. I have seen a great thing today. You are sacred. I see that I have done a bad thing. It was wrong for me to wive a sacred white being. You are wakan. This I did not know. You belong in the company of the spirit of the Buffalo Woman, she who lives behind the braiding waters at Falling Water. From this time on, you shall live in a sacred tepee apart. No man shall touch you again. Wakantanka reveals his presence in all white creatures. Your presence shall make the Yanktons a great people. This is true. This is right. Bathe in peace, white woman with the white sunned hair, this is your sacred bathing place. I have said.”

Judith listened to it all with gradually widening high blue eyes.

With a groan Whitebone got to his feet and stomped back to his camp.

By the next night Judith found herself living the life of a white goddess. She was given a white doeskin tunic, white leggings, and white moccasins, all exquisitely worked and decorated with porcupine quills. The Yankton women set up a new buffalo-hide tepee in the center of the camp circle where she was to live alone. The new tepee was nearly white and translucent. She was given a sacred white buffalo fur for a bed, a white wolf fur for a sleeping robe, and a pair of white weasel mittens for cold mornings. As a special favor, the new medicine man, Center Of The Body, instructed her to wear her hair loose and flowing. The people were to see and to take heart from her sacred sunned hair. She was also instructed to avoid walking or sitting in the sun unless fully clothed so that the skin on her hands and neck might regain its former pristine whiteness. Whitebone himself took his sacred white emblem, the weathered jawbone of a dinosaur, and adorned the top of her lodge with it. Two guards stood outside her door.