Wind Walker (63 page)

But, it hadn’t been an easy journey seeing Magpie to her wedding day. For some time Titus Bass had known women were a headstrong bunch. He’d not encountered anything to change his opinion on that until he found out there was indeed a creature more headstrong than any woman he had ever known … and that was an adolescent female with her juices all stirred up for a handsome young warrior. How the family had ever gotten to this warm summer day without killing one another would be a story worth telling his grandchildren over and over again. A tale of pain and tears, a tale of just how the heart could shatter into innumerable pieces. A story of how Magpie eventually won a victory, how she had triumphed in what her heart wanted most.

Above the grassy meadow in sight of the log walls of Meldrum’s Fort Alexander the sun was reaching its zenith and the crowd had gathered, murmuring quietly, as Titus led
Waits-by-the-Water through their midst, slowly making a circle of the great camp crescent, moving at the head of the throng, gathering more and more onlookers, who followed them back toward their lodge. Eventually they stood before their own door as the crowd parted and the pony carrying the young warrior came through the whispering people. Yes, he had never looked more handsome—this proud, young war leader. On a pony beside the youngster rode the old seer, Real Bird, his eyes grown even more milky of late. The pair of horsemen stopped before the lodge of the white man and his Crow wife, dismounting and handing their reins to young herder boys who led the animals away.

The crowd fell to a hush as the young man took the old prophet’s arm and led Real Bird those last few steps, so that they both stood before the trapper who had made his home among the Apsaluuke people.

“Who is this comes to my lodge this day?” Titus asked as the crowd hushed.

“I am Don’t Mix,” the young warrior replied with a strong voice. “And I bring the holy man, Real Bird, with me.”

Already Scratch had a hard lump in his throat. The words came with difficulty as he croaked, “Why do you bring this holy man, this physician, this great healer with you today, Don’t Mix?”

“I bring the holy man here this day so that he can perform a wedding.”

“A wedding for who, Don’t Mix?”

He stood tall, a few inches above the old white man, as he proclaimed, “A wedding of your daughter—Magpie … and the man who loves her more than any other man ever could.”

“Who … who is this man who dares say he loves my daughter more than any other man ever could?” Scratch demanded. “Who dares to say that he loves my Magpie more than her father?”

“I would tell you his name,” Don’t Mix declared in a clear voice as he took a step aside, leaving Real Bird there before Waits-by-the-Water and Titus Bass, “but he will proudly tell you himself.”

“Who is this man?” the trapper demanded again, hurling his voice over the silent crowd. “I want him to show his face and tell me how much he loves my daughter before he hopes to take her hand in life’s hazardous journey.”

“It is me!” Turns Back announced at that dramatic moment, standing far to the side of the throng.

Expectantly, the crowd parted for his spotted pony. Behind him, Turns Back led a dozen of the finest horses in all of Absaroka. On two of them he had packed everything he owned, what few clothes and weapons were his alone, along with his shield and totems and the small shelter he and his new bride would erect at the edge of camp for their wedding night.

“Who speaks up, brave enough to say he is prepared to take my daughter from her father?” Titus roared, the lump hard in his throat, his eyes smarting as he looked upon this young man who came to a halt before the lodge.

“Turns Back is my name,” he said as the crowd fell breathless and he slid from the back of that spotted pony. Then he handed Titus Bass the reins to his warhorse. “I have come here to ask that you let me marry your daughter.”

Scratch turned to glance at his wife, finding that she too was crying, tears streaming down her bright copper cheeks, her eyes glistening in the midday light. He turned back to the young man, stared down at the reins in his hand, then held out those reins to the suitor. “I could never take a man’s war pony, Turns Back.”

An anxious murmur shot through the crowd.

“I will give away everything I own,” the warrior vowed, turning slightly to indicate his poor possessions and those twelve horses. “Give you all that I have if you will only say I can marry your daughter,
Pote Ani
.”

“Take back your war pony,” he declared, lifting the warrior’s hand and placing the reins into his palm. “I can’t accept such a gift from a courageous warrior of the people.”

Turns Back stared at his hand and those reins, fear and surprise in his eyes—for this was not the way things were supposed to happen at this very moment in the ceremony.

So Titus did his very best to reassure the young man who had despair written across his face. “You are a warrior of our people,” Scratch told him as his voice slowly grew stronger. “And a warrior must have a war pony to fight our enemies.”

“Then take the rest of these horses,” Turns Back pleaded before that hushed crowd of onlookers, murmuring about the father’s refusal of gifts. “Take everything that I own—”

“You do not own very much, so it seems,” Scratch chided him, looking over what little was loaded on those two ponies.

Turns Back hung his head. “I know it is not enough to pay you for the hand of someone so wonderful as your daughter, Magpie. In fact, I realize I will never own anything near enough to pay in return for a woman like Magpie.”

“Look at me, Turns Back,” he commanded. The warrior raised his eyes, unflinchingly steady at the white man. “I think a good man is one who gives away much of what he owns. He returns from a raid—and he gives away the horses he has stolen. He brings back blankets and weapons—he gives them away as well. Is this what you have done, Turns Back? After every raid against the Blackfoot, the Assiniboine, the Lakota, and others?”

“Yes,” he answered in a clear voice. “I would have kept it all in trade for Magpie if I had known that you would want it in return for your daughter.”

“No, Turns Back,” he said with a stone face. “I don’t want your horses. I don’t want all that you own. None of it is worth anything to me.”

The crowd gasped. This had never been done before. No father had ever turned down the offer of gifts for his daughter when a marriage ceremony was announced and the whole village brought together in this way. People all around them were whispering, many of them leaning in to get themselves a look at the face of Turns Back as he stood there in abject shock. This white man had just broken the long-standing tradition of the Apsaluuke.

Turns Back started to stammer, “I-I have n-nothing more to offer—”

“I want only one thing from you, Turns Back,” Titus said as he reached out and took hold of his wife’s hand with his left. Then he raised his right hand and held it out between himself and the young warrior, palm up. “These ponies, these weapons and totems—they are not worth anywhere near as much as what it is that I want my daughter to have from you.”

“Wh-what can I give you to make you let me marry her?”

“It’s not what I want from you, Turns Back,” he said, seizing the warrior’s wrist firmly. “It’s what I want to know that you will give my daughter.”

“Anything!”

“Your heart,” he said to the youngster in a whisper. “Tell me she will forever have all of your heart.”

Relief washed over the young man’s face, and his eyes began to pool with emotion. “Yes! Yes, this I promise you!”

“Promise her … promise her this now,” Titus said as he released his hold on the warrior’s wrist and took a step back to the lodge, pulling aside the door flap.

Out of the darkness stepped a radiant white light as Turns Back gasped in surprise. Magpie had never looked more beautiful.

Her hair gleamed, shiny with bear grease, both braids intertwined with red silk ribbon, each wrapped with white ermine skins, the black tips of their tails spilling across the tops of her breasts. The fringes on the sleeves were so long on that snowy white dress they nearly brushed the ground, where she stood in a pair of matching white moccasins tied around her ankles. The entire yoke of the dress, both front and back, was covered with the milk teeth of the elk, the umber crowns which tarnished those teeth stark against the blinding whiteness of the gown. Down both shoulders ran a four-inch-wide strip of porcupine quills of brilliant colors: oxblood red, greasy yellow, robin’s-egg blue, and a hint of moss green. It was truly the most beautiful dress Waits-by-the-Water and her eldest daughter could have created for this most special day.

Down the center part of her hair, Magpie had rubbed a
dark strip of purple vermilion dye, and a smear of it to high-light each cheek, in addition to one wide strip of the reddish paint extending down the center of her chin. This would be the last day she could ever wear paint as a woman of the Crow. From this day on, she would no longer be a virgin. Now she would be a wife—

“Tell my daughter, Turns Back,” Titus spoke in the hush of that crowd admiring the beauty of this bride who stood in their midst. “Tell Magpie what you wish to give her.”

Turns Back took a step forward so that he stood right before the young woman. At last she raised her eyes to his. They never once left his face as he took the wide eagle-feather fan from her hands and passed it on to Magpie’s mother.

“Magpie,” he said, his voice cracking with nervousness, this time in the way of a young lover declaring himself, “I give you everything I own.”

“Turns Back, I was standing inside my parents’ lodge when you spoke of this to my father.”

“I don’t have much to give you … but I give it all to you.” He wrapped his hands around both of hers and held them midway between their breasts.

“Do I have your heart?” she asked. “This day, and for all days?”

“Yes, oh, yes,” he answered fervently.

“That is all I could ever ask of you, Turns Back,” she said in the stillness of that moment. “There are others who can offer me many fine things … but you are the one who has won my heart. You are the one who can give me what no other man can ever give me.”

“Then you will be my wife?”

“Yes, Turns Back,” she said, starting to cry, smiling in spite of the tears. “I will be your wife … and bear your children … and I will wait for you when you ride off to make war on the enemies of our people … and—I will grow old with you, Turns Back. Like the seasons of the year, we will know our spring and summer, our autumn, and we will know our winter too. I will grow old with you … and I promise my heart will love you more each day of our life together.”

Tears spilled from Turns Back’s eyes as he looked over at the old prophet. He asked, “Real Bird, will you step over here and give us your blessing? Will you say a prayer for our union?”

Titus helped the old man shuffle closer, then pulled Waits-by-the-Water close, so that the three of them stood around the young couple, joining their arms to form a circle of love around Turns Back and Magpie as Real Bird began to sing, his high, reedy voice sailing on the breeze of that hot summer day.

The four of them were crying for joy, tears streaming from their eyes as the old prophet gave wing to his prayers for these young newlyweds, his own blind eyes closed as he raised his face and shouted at the sky.

“Creator Above! Hear me! Grant this man and his woman your every blessing. May he be strong in protecting your people … and may she be fruitful in bearing the generations to come!”

Opening his eyes he held out his thin, bony hands to the young couple. Slowly he raised their arms in the air with his and gave a wild, shrill cry. All around their small circle the many hundreds lifted their voices, drunk with triumph and celebration. Men yipped exuberantly, women trilled their tongues in victory calls, and children screamed and laughed, suddenly freed to dart in and out of the crowd, shrieking joyously in play.

Turns Back seized his new bride, clutching her against him tightly as they both gushed with laughter on this happy, happy day. Scratch leaned in to kiss his daughter on the cheek as Waits-by-the-Water kissed Magpie’s other cheek. Then the old trapper pounded his new son-in-law on the back of his war shirt, which was draped with black-tipped winter-white ermine tails and enemy scalp locks. Suddenly among them were Jackrabbit and Flea, the tall youth lifting up little Crane so the girl could give her big sister a congratulatory embrace.

“The feasting and songs will begin as soon as we walk down to the grove by the river!” Titus roared above the
tumult as the throngs surged in to shout their wishes at the newlyweds.

Led by Don’t Mix, all of Turns Back’s loyal friends had been helping the white man over the last few days, hunting buffalo, digging long trenches, and dragging in a great store of firewood before they started roasting huge slabs of lean, red meat over the immense beds of coal they had begun firing day before last.

“I could not have done this without you, Don’t Mix,” Titus said to the young warrior as they reached the crowded grove, where Magpie’s girlfriends were helping to carve off chunks of buffalo for everyone pressing forward in a great wave.

“Everything is as it should be,
Pote Ani
,” he said to the trapper. “Your daughter is in love with my best friend. If she could not marry me, then she deserves to have Turns Back as her husband.”

“Thank you for not standing in their way and making things hard on them when he finally went to her and spoke of the feelings in his heart,” Scratch confided. “And when Magpie came to you and told you she wanted to marry another.”

He smiled in that handsome face of his. “It is for the best! Now I have lots of time to look over the other girls in the village and pick one of them for my bride!”

“Titus Bass!”

He turned at the loud call, recognizing the voice of the old friend before his eye found Robert Meldrum threading his way through the milling crowd, a small brown jug suspended at the end of one arm, two tin cups looped in the fingers of the other hand.

“Round Iron!” he cried, using the Crows’ name for the American Fur Company trader, which referred to Meldrum’s blacksmithing abilities practiced here at Fort Alexander.