Where the Broken Heart Still Beats (7 page)

So naturally we are pleased about this, although Mama does not entirely trust her, and Ben insists it is "another Indian trick." I must admit that they—and Jedediah and, of course, Martha—may be right. Only Grandfather and I truly believe in her, it seems.

The neighbor women tried to explain it to her, but she had no idea where they were going, or why. Could it be they were taking her back to her People? She dared not hope too much.

After they had caught her the last time she had tried to ran away, White Hair told her that she could go back to the People—she believed she had understood this—if she would do certain things: she must learn the speech of white people, and she must learn their ways.

She had thought this over and believed she could do what he wanted, if it meant that she could go home. "For a visit," White Hair said. But once she was with the People again, there would be no question of leaving to come back here. He would see that, and he would not force her. And if he did not understand—no matter. The People would not let her go.

And so she agreed to his request. Instead of shutting out the white people's words, she listened carefully when they spoke. Especially Loo-see. This was her language in the other time, the time before the People. If she tried, she knew she would be able to remember it.

Slowly she began to recognize more of their words, and she could make some sense of the strings of sounds that flew at her in a rush. Tentatively she struggled to speak their words, beginning by calling them by their names: Uncle, Anna, Isaac, Ben, Martha, Lucy, Sarah, James. She even began to use their name for her: Sinty-ann. Only to herself was she still Naduah. But she would not call her daughter Tecks Ann. Instead, she called her Prairie Flower, the meaning of Topsannah.

When the neighbor women came and dressed her in the new clothes they had made her, she tried to tell them that she needed buckskin to make the right kind of clothes to wear on her journey back to the People. But she didn't have all the words to explain, and they paid no attention to her.

If one of their men would shoot a deer or an antelope and bring her the skin, she would know what to do. She would soak the buckskin in water and ashes and scrape the hair and flesh from it, and she would work it until it was soft and supple, a beautiful color like the yellow fat they made from cow's milk. She knew exactly how to cut the skin with a knife and to stitch the pieces together. She had no buffalo sinew for stitching, but maybe their thread would do, or she could cut narrow strips of buckskin. And she would decorate her dress with fringes and beads so that when she returned to her husband and the rest of the tribe they would see that she was still one of them, unchanged by white ways. When she thought about seeing them again, her heart felt as light as a bird.

But she realized when they set out in their wagons pulled by plodding horses that they were not traveling north and west toward the plains but were moving south along a broad, hard-packed trail. Her heart sank. They were not going home.

Several families were making the trip—the Brown family and the Raymond family as well as a number of Parkers—reminding her of the times the People moved their camp. But this was so different!

When the People moved, as they did very often, it was to be nearer the buffalo or the white settlements they planned to raid or to find a sheltered place for the winter. The chief and a council of elders of the tribe decided when and where to move. Scouts chose the site, looking for a place with plenty of water and forage for the horses.

It was up to the women to make the preparations. They owned nothing that could not be easily moved; the less you had to carry with you, the better. Everything was packed in tanned hides, the sleeping skins rolled up, the tipi covers taken down from the lodgepoles, the poles pulled up and fastened to the saddles of horses and mules to drag the loads. Young children were tied to saddles on gentle mares or carried in cradleboards on their mothers' backs, the old and feeble rested on drags behind a reliable animal, and everyone else rode a favorite horse.

They traveled steadily, a long line of horses and people strung out across the prairie, until they had reached the site of the next camp. The women scrambled for position, choosing places in a rough circle around the chiefs lodge. As Peta Nocona's wife, Naduah always had a choice spot.

Making a new place to live was as quick and simple as leaving the old one. The women helped each other put up the tipis, standing on one another's shoulders to fasten together the tops of the lodgepoles and to tie on the skins. A fire pit was dug, a fire built, cooking begun.

But these white people! It took days of preparation, packing their clothing in leather-covered wooden boxes that were loaded on the wagons, everything cumbersome and difficult. Sinty-ann rode stoically next to Uncle, Prairie Flower sitting on her lap.

She understood that Uncle was a brother of her father in the time before the People, and that father was now dead. "Killed by those same Indians that kidnapped you and John," Uncle said. She would not think about that. The mother, the one she remembered bathing her, the one who baked bread, was also dead. Uncle told her she had a sister and brother somewhere to the east. Not John, but another one, named Silas. "John stayed with the Indians," Uncle said. "We hear he married another captive, a little Mexican gal." That was all he would say. She could scarcely remember John or when he had disappeared.

When they first set out on the journey, everyone was in high spirits, talking and laughing. The sun shone, the breeze was fresh, and all around them little blue flowers bloomed on the rolling green fields.

"Austin," she heard them say often, and she thought that must be the name of a person. Later she realized Austin was the name of the place they were going. But what was to happen there? Why were they making this trip? She had no idea.

She heard talk, too, of "secession" and "legislature," but these words were meaningless to Sinty-ann.

When darkness came they stopped. Two dark-skinned slaves who traveled with them—Negroes, Uncle called them—set up the camp, carried water from a stream, and built a big fire. Why did white men enjoy such large fires while the People made only small ones that could not be seen so easily? The dark men also stood guard while the others slept. At daybreak they continued on their way.

After several days of travel, which tired everyone, they arrived in Austin. Sinty-ann had never before been in a settlement this large. Fort Worth, a half day's journey from Uncle's farm, was the biggest settlement she had ever seen; she had traveled there once with Uncle and Isaac to buy salt, sugar, and coffee. They called Fort Worth with its muddy central square a town. They called this Austin place a city, "the capital."

They found accommodations for the entire group in a large cabin with many rooms, some above the others, with steps leading up. A boardinghouse, they called it. Sinty-ann was given a room to share with Lucy and the young children and Mrs. Raymond and her two daughters. Lucy and Mrs. Raymond and one daughter took the big wooden bed with its snowy white cover. The children slept in a smaller bed pulled from under the big one, tumbled together like fox kits in a den. Sinty-ann spread her buffalo robe on the floor for herself and Prairie Flower. Ben had stayed behind with the other slaves to protect the farm, and no one seemed to be guarding her. They must have known she would be too frightened of this place to flee.

After they had had a day to rest themselves, the women dressed Sinty-ann in the blue and white dress with the white collar and Mrs. Raymond's silver brooch. She was still uncomfortable in these awkward clothes, but she knew that the women meant kindly and did not complain.

Then all but Prairie Flower and the youngest children, who stayed behind with the Negroes, set out together in horse-drawn carriages, which Uncle had hired. The carriages trotted smartly up a road leading to an enormous white building and rolled past a wide expanse of grass. They came to a stop at the broad steps that lead to the entrance with a row of tall, white pillars as thick as trees set across the front. Sinty-ann stared.

"It's the Texas State Capitol," one of the women said in a voice that trilled with excitement. "Isn't it grand?"

They walked into a great hall filled with white men who sat in rows listening while other white men spoke. Quietly the visitors took seats near the back, except for Uncle—dressed, Sinty-ann noted, in his finest suit and a black silk necktie. He strode briskly to the front of the hall, where he was greeted as a friend, and spoke privately to one of the men seated at a long table. Some of the men turned around to stare, and a murmur swept through the huge room.

Sinty-ann watched uneasily. Who were these men? When men gathered like this in the chiefs lodge, it was to discuss matters that concerned the tribe and to make important decisions. Now one of the white chiefs at the table at the front of the hall rose and began to speak. She heard her name, and her apprehension turned to fear.

Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Raymond rose and pushed her forward. Uncle was striding toward her, his mouth smiling. She knew that everyone was staring, watching her. Were these white war chiefs, then? Were they going to decide her fate? Is that why she had been dressed up and brought all this long distance, to face these judges?

She looked around wildly, wanting to flee, not knowing which way to go. In a panic she broke away from the women who were leading her to the chiefs and tried to run from them. Maybe they would kill her as she ran. She didn't care; they could kill her if they wished.

But Mrs. Brown seized one arm and Mrs. Raymond the other, and she heard their hushed whispers trying to calm her. She was stronger than both of them, they were no match for her, but in a moment Uncle was beside her with Mr. Brown. She knew that she could not fight off all of them. She quit struggling and stood still, head down and eyes closed, waiting to learn her destiny.

Lucy explained it to her afterward. "They were honoring you, Sinty-ann. Everyone cares very much for you," she said, taking Sinty-ann's hand in hers. "They're giving you a league of land, for you and Prairie Flower to live on, if you want to. And they've promised to give you a hundred dollars every year. That's a lot of money. You can use it to buy things—you know, to trade. It's wonderful news, Sinty-ann! You should be pleased, not frightened. They are doing something good for you."

Sinty-ann understood some parts of what Lucy was telling her. But it made no sense, the thing the men had decided to do. Why would they want to give her these gifts? And so she asked, "Why?"

"They want to make up to you for what you suffered all those years before you came to us," Lucy said.

It still made no sense, but she pretended that she understood and nodded her head.

After that, the white people would not leave her in peace. People kept coming to the boardinghouse to look at her, to ask her questions, or to talk to Uncle about her. They brought a large piece of paper with printing on it and showed her her picture. They called it a newspaper, but she didn't understand how that picture got there.

She also had to visit some of their homes, escorted by a member of the Parker family. A few of them even boldly asked her about her husband and her sons, not caring that the mention of them cut her like knives! They would not let her return to the People unless she promised to speak their language and live as they did, and yet they wanted to stare at her, to pry into her heart. And they fussed over her little girl, calling her Tecks Ann, picking her up and carrying her around, showing her off.

Prairie Flower seemed to like the attention. She laughed and chattered to these strangers, using the few white man's words that she had been taught. Sinty-ann longed to snatch the child from them, to hide her away so that they couldn't see her and she couldn't see or hear them. They acted as though the little girl belonged to them.

"Little heathen," she heard the women say when they had climbed into the wagons and started the long, tiring journey back to the farm. "We must do something about that."

"Scriptures, that's the thing," Mrs. Brown said to Anna. "I believe if you start teaching these poor lost souls the Word of God, it will make all the difference in the world to them."

"Yes, Ruth," Anna said. "We have been praying with them, but I agree that spending more time with the Good Book might be just the thing. Surely they can be taught to memorize some simple verses."

The women's conversation drifted past Sinty-ann's ears. She paid no attention to it. Maybe, she thought, when this long trip was over, Uncle would see how well she was taking on the ways of his people, and he would keep his promise to help her find her People.

In the wagon ahead of theirs, Lucy's yellow hair drifted lightly over the shawl she wore wrapped around her shoulders. Sinty-ann tried to imagine Lucy as one of the People, as she had been at that age, and the thought almost made her smile.

An idea came to her. Perhaps she could take Lucy with her when she went back. Not as a captive—she would ask Peta Nocona to see that she was not harmed, that she would be safely returned to her family (Sinty-ann could imagine Hair Beneath His Nose coming after them, shooting his gun, killing everyone in sight, as he had done at the attack on their camp). Then Lucy would understand, and she would be able to explain to Anna and Uncle and the others why Sinty-ann must remain there with her People, and not here with strangers who claimed to be her family.

But then she discarded that idea. Lucy's parents would never allow such a thing. Besides, Lucy might not be able to survive such a trip. She was a white girl, after all, not strong, not like the People. Not like her.

It pleases me to write that Cynthia Ann seems truly to be keeping her promise to return to our language and customs. Grandfather's bargain that she can go back to her tribe for a visit if she does these things must have brought about this change. We can see that she is trying very hard and with great success.