“Only this is not a Sioux village. We are not doing a Sioux dance. I danced your dances, so you will have to learn to dance our dances. The husband is expected to waltz with his wife after they get married.”
“I don’t know this word… waltz,” Gray Wolf grumbled.
“It is what we are doing, silly,” Daisy laughed.
The music had stopped as Madison realized the two were arguing with each other. He got up from the piano bench and approached them.
“If you are having a hard time figuring out the steps,” he said cheerfully, “I can show them to you again.”
“They are silly steps…they have no meaning. Dancing should have meaning. Each dance the Sioux dances has its own meaning.”
“This dance does have meaning,” Daisy muttered. “It is a wedding dance… our wedding dance. In a Sioux village when someone is tied everyone dances… all night sometimes!”
“Only they do not hold each other. They dance as a group for joy, not trying to do special steps together.”
“You just said the women shuffle and the men dance toe to heel…those are special steps,” Daisy accused. “Also the women dance in one direction while the men dance in another. That is kind of directing the way a dance is supposed to be done.
“That is different. It is only the way they use their feet, and showing the difference between men and women in the part they play in the tribe. The men on the outside protect the women on the inside. Everything else comes by the guidance of the spirit. Steps have no names. They are not called a waltz or a reel, or all those other names you give to your dancing.”
“Yet each Sioux dance does have a name, like the Crow Dance, Buffalo Dance, Victory Dance, the Squaw Dance, or the Ghost Dance, the Hair Kill Dance,” Daisy pointed out, refusing to back down. She refrained from mentioning the Sun Dance, considering it was not really a dance anyway.
“Those are the names of the reason for the dance, not the names of the steps to the dance. All steps are the same when we dance. We dance to bring the buffalo back in the spring. We dance to celebrate winning a war. We dance to bring the Spirit closer to us. We dance to show our thanks or our accomplishments. We dance from the soul, from our heart. Our dances mean something! It is only the costume that tells what dance we are doing and why!”
“This is getting nowhere, Madison interrupted. “Just watch and I will show you again,” he offered.
He took Daisy in his arms and started to demonstrate.
“You like to dance this way so much, you can dance the waltz with Little Flower for our wedding…if I dance with her, it will be in a Sioux tradition, not a white man tradition,” Gray wolf snorted. “Perhaps I shall return to my village and return in a year. If Little Flower still wishes to become my wife, she will have to show more respect and honor to her new husband.”
“What about showing honor and respect to me?” Daisy questioned. “You are not the only one getting married here!”
“I can see that you coming here is turning you into someone I don’t even know,” Gray Wolf grumbled. “You are not my Little Flower, who I asked to become my wife. You are someone that has forgotten all about the Sioux way. You appear like a stranger to me!”
With that remark, Gray Wolf turned and stomped from the dance floor. His soft moccasins, however, did not make a sound as he walked away.
A tear rolled down Daisy’s cheek. Why was Gray Wolf acting so stubborn? She was beginning to realize he resented being in a white man’s world. It was nothing to expect her to be in a Sioux world, but it didn’t seem to work the other way around. He had risked everything to find her, and now he talked about going back to his village. It made her fear he had no plans of coming back once he left her.
“Gray Wolf!” she called, pulling out of Madison’s arms and chasing after him.
When she touched his shoulder, Gray Wolf turned to look at her, his brow furrowed, his eyes sparking with anger.
“Don’t do this, Gray Wolf. Don’t ruin it all. I love you. I want to become your wife. It is not fair that you insist I forsake everything and live like a Sioux, while you will not even take a year to learn of my ways. How can I show you honor if you refuse to honor my feelings? You said you love me, but I fear it is only on conditions that you map out for me!”
“I do not like the way he looks at you when he holds you in his arms. It is not right! You are to become my wife, not his!”
“Oh, so that’s it. You are jealous! Madison is merely a friend, the same way Merry Morning was your friend. She was always trying to steal you from me! Only you chose me. I have chosen you, not Madison!”
“Yet you had promised to marry him before I came,” he accused.
“And you had promised to take Merry Morning as your wife before I came to your village!”
“We were children. It was our father’s wish. You agreed to become my wife and then went to another!”
“It was because agreeing to marry him, kept my father from forcing me to marry someone else. If I was going to be forced to marry someone, I wanted it to be someone I knew. Madison and I had become friends. I didn’t want to marry some stranger my father found for me. However, I loved you, and that is why I had refused to marry anyone, which made my father angry and insisted I had to get married.
“Then Madison said I didn’t have to marry him right away. I could wait a year. I was only trying to gain more time to see if I could get over my love for you. I have to admit, I didn’t expect you to come. I didn’t think you even knew where I was. Even so, I told Madison I could not love anyone but you. He was willing to accept that. You should thank him, not be jealous of him! He is trying to help me. He is trying to help you! He loves me the same way Merry Morning loves you, yet he wants to see me happy. He wants you to be accepted by my family. That is why he wants to teach you to dance. Don’t you see? You are getting angry over nothing!”
Gray Wolf gave her a long, steady stare, and Daisy held her breath, as his eyes burned into hers. Then he shook his head.
“I cannot think. I do not feel comfortable here. Your parents don’t trust me. White people stare at me wherever I go. I think they fear I may take their scalps, and I have to admit, I have thought of it every time I think about how the white man is taking our land!” Then he laughed. “I need to clear my head,” he mumbled and turned away.
Madison gave Daisy a sympathetic glance when she returned to the ballroom. She threw him a little shrug, feeling frustrated with how everything was turning out. When Gray Wolf had come looking for her, she was so sure her life would be better, but apparently, it was just making things worse! Gray Wolf refused to fit into her society, while expecting her to accept his Sioux society. She was beginning to resent his stubbornness, the same way he resented having to change his ways in order to fit in.
“I don’t think my parents are making it easy for Gray Wolf to feel comfortable here,” she sighed, looking into Madison’s kind eyes. “Even though Father has given his permission for me to marry Gray Wolf, they won’t be happy until they are sure he gets rid of all his ‘heathen ways’! Mother suggested he cut his hair the other day. She doesn’t realize that to the Indian, their hair is an extension of their soul! If they cut their hair, they lose part of their soul. The only time an Indian cuts their hair is when they are willingly giving part of their soul to a loved one when they die. A wife will cut her hair and even her finger off, to show her deep mourning for her husband when he dies. To them, it is a sacred sacrifice to show their loyalty.
“Just cutting your hair for no reason is demeaning! It steals something away from them. Everything the Indian does has to have some sort of deep spiritual meaning. That is why Gray Wolf is balking at learning to dance a dance he doesn’t believe has a spiritual meaning.”
Madison looked shocked. “I never knew that,” he mumbled. “Only if Gray Wolf refuses to bend a little, how are you two going to be happy together? Now that you have tasted a little of the kind of life you can live here, how can you go back to th
e Indian way of life?
“What purpose would it be to learn to play the piano when you know there are no piano’s in an Indian village? You want to learn to read, yet none of the Indians even have a written language. Both you and Gray Wolf are going to have to decide which world you really want to live in. Whichever it is, one of you will to have to compromise and sacrifice something.” Madison paused and then said quietly, “If you truly love each other, I suppose it would be worth it.” He gave her a meaningful stare and then shrugged.
“What do you want to do?” Madison changed the subject, his tone of voice lighter. “It appears that Gray Wolf doesn’t wish to dance. Would you like another piano lesson?”
“I do love playing the piano,” she said with a weary smile. She was beginning to believe that Gray Wolf was right. Coming here was changing her. She thought about what Madison said. She knew if she went back to the Sioux village, she would miss all the wonderful things she was experiencing now. Not only that, but she would miss the ocean. She did love the ocean!
Daisy spent the afternoon with Madison, playing the piano and singing together. The songs he was teaching her were nothing like the Indian chants she had grown accustomed to.
Even though the love flute sounded exotic and mellow and the melody could capture her heart, Indian songs were nothing like American songs. There were no set words or melody. Like dancing, the chants came from the soul, creating themselves the moment they left the singer’s tongue. Each chant was similar, but different. However, when chanted together, they all seemed to blend, even if they did not follow a certain melody.
Daisy discovered she had a talented singing voice, and it thrilled her, when Madison would start to harmonize with her, giving the song depth. She rather enjoyed being around Madison. Even Loran was fun to be around and talk to. Only she did not have that deep overwhelming feeling about them as she did when she was near Gray Wolf. She knew, had Gray Wolf not come, she could have never gotten over her feelings for him.
She cursed Talking Dog under her breath for his treatment of her which made her want to leave the Sioux village in the first place. Had she remained, Gray Wolf would have come back from the hunt and assured her of his love for her. Now her life was so much more complicated.
“Your piano playing is improving so rapidly!” Daisy’s mother’s voice called from the doorway. “I am so proud of you, Daisy. However, I thought you were supposed to be teaching Gray Wolf to dance. Where is he?”
Daisy shrugged. “Dancing was too tedious for him, I guess. He went for a walk, or maybe a ride. He should be back soon.”
“I suppose there is nothing to worry about. After all, he has a whole year to learn to dance, and we plan to have many gatherings, which will give him the opportunity to practice.
“Davy seems to like Gray Wolf well enough, and I am pleased that he is starting to learn better manners. He gets so excited when Gray Wolf offers to teach him something more about wild life or whatever it is he is teaching Davy. Only, I just thought Madison should start spending more time with Davy then he has. We don’t want him to turn into a wild Indian, and he used to enjoy tagging along with Madison at the hotel, learning things about the business.”
“Perhaps his father would be better at teaching Davy more about the business,” Madison mumbled, wondering why Davy didn’t spend as much time with his father as he did, either with Gray Wolf or himself.
“Blake is too impatient with him. When Davy does not catch on fast enough it upsets him. I suppose that is why Davy kept acting up. Now he has others that seem to have more patience with him. I so appreciate the time you spend with him, Madison, yet, now it seems you spend more time with Daisy, teaching her, than you do with Davy. I am sure that is why he decided to lock her in the farmhouse. You know how sensitive Davy is. He has always been the center of attention.”
“You cannot blame Davy’s actions on me,” Madison frowned. “Davy needs to learn that since Daisy has returned, my time has to be divided between the two of them, unless you prefer to bring in a special tutor for either Davy or Daisy. I also have my work at the hotel to occupy my time. I can only divide myself up so many ways.”
“Sorry, Madison, I didn’t mean for it to sound like a complaint. If tending to both Daisy and Davy is too taxing for you, I am sure Loran could help with the overflow.”
Madison shrugged. “He has been helpful in teaching Daisy to Dance, and he could teach her the piano as well. However, I enjoy teaching Daisy.”
“I can see that. I was happy when I thought it was you she was going to marry. It must be difficult for you spend so much time with her, considering her plans have changed now.” She gave him a sympathetic shrug.
“Yes, very difficult,” he muttered. He glanced at Daisy. “Only I hope if Gray Wolf backs out of this marriage, the way he seems to be balking at learning how to dance, Daisy may reconsider.”
“I am not someone to bargain over,” Daisy said, stiffening. “I love Gray Wolf, and he loves me. He is just having a hard time adjusting. It took me a long time to get used to living with the Indians. He will just have to learn to accept that life can’t always remain the same, the way he wishes it would.
“It is the government’s fault they are having so much trouble with the Indians. They take away their land, break their treaties, cheat the Indians when they pay for land, and then blame the Indians when they get angry at the mistreatment! In the end, everyone will suffer!”
“You don’t have to worry your head about government politics, Daisy,” her mother scolded. “You need to leave that sort of thing to those men in charge. A woman’s place is in her home, serving her husband, not questioning how the country is run. Women can’t even vote, so your voice has little impact on the situation.”
Daisy lowered her head. She barely had any impact on how her own life could be run. Everyone wanted to direct her path the way they felt she should go. Between her mother, Madison, and Gray Wolf, she felt like she was being pulled apart. She had to admit to herself that her life with the Sioux was so much simpler. Her only worry then was preparing for the winter, and joining in at special celebrations. Once she became Gray Wolf’s wife, her mother was right… it would have been focused on serving him and doing her part to make life more comfortable.
Yet, women did have a small say in the way Indian politics functioned. There was always a Wise Woman of the tribe who could join the societies and advise the elders and chief. Husbands always tried to please their wives, and if a brave misbehaved, he would do anything to avoid one of the women berating him for it. They never missed a thing and pointed out when the young braves were not living up to their expectations. It made the tribe stronger, she decided.
“I’m tired,” Daisy said abruptly, wanting to escape everything… not only the room, but life in general. “I think I will go lie down.”
She rushed past her mother and down the stairs to the floor her room was on. She, like Gray Wolf, needed time to think.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“I must go back to my own people,” Gray Wolf mumbled, as he stood beside Daisy in the stable yard. Wind Rider pawed the ground beside him, tossing his head restlessly. Gray Wolf’s eyes looked pained as he held Daisy’s hands in his. “I do not like the white way of living. I love you, though. I know the only way to have you is to wait for a year and then get married in a white man’s church. I am willing to do that. Still, I must return to our village and wait the year out there. When I return, I will bow to your parent’s request to get married in a church, and even wear their cursed clothes, but afterwards, you must return to our village with me if you still wish to be my wife.”
“This is not fair, Gray Wolf.” Daisy complained. “You have not given it enough time. The whole purpose of waiting a year was for you to learn a little about my culture first. I stayed eleven years with you in your village. You can’t even manage a year staying with me?”
“That was different. You were a child. You were lost. You had no place to go. I am a
man. I have already learned how to live my life.”
“You say that, when you know full well you could have taken me back to my parents. You are using that as an excuse. You are using this as an excuse to leave me here and then expect me to follow you back to your village without you even trying to live the same way I do. I don’t think you love me enough to sacrifice even a year of your life for me. Considering a brave’s life is all about sacrificing, you would think you could manage it!”
Gray Wolf’s eyes smoldered. His heart was torn between loving Little Flower and being loyal to his own people. He knew how the whites hated the red man. He knew he could not be happy living the kind of life her people lived with no purpose or ceremonies to guide his life. Everything he did was to be in harmony with the Great Spirit and Grandmother Earth. He needed that purpose in his life, even if Little Flower didn’t.
“If you love me, you will come back with me after we become husband and wife,” he challenged.
“If you love me, you will stay the year,” she countered.
He stood there for a very long time, just staring at her, his insides warring and his head starting to feel like it would explode. She didn’t understand him! Eleven years with his people and she still did not understand.
“I am now a man, a warrior. When I became a man, it was to serve my tribe. My people are being pushed from their land and I cannot stay loyal if I am not willing to return to help them fight their war against a government that thinks it should own the entire world.”
“Your people will never win over the American government. Even if all the tribes pulled together, there would not be enough warriors to accomplish anything. You must realize that, Gray Wolf. The day of the Indian is slowly coming to a close. You are going to have to learn to accept that and adapt to a new way of life.”
“Never!” Anger seethed from every pour of his body as he said the word. “This is our land. It has been our land from the beginning of time, and now the white man wants to change the will of the Great Spirit!”
Little Flower Page 23
