“Carrie, you must be still. Now, I’m going to pray with you, and we’ll ask God to make it go away. If you are very still, it will go away. Now, pray with me. Let’s say it in Dakota. That will make us think harder, and it will keep us calm.”
Rachel’s voice began, “Wonmakiye cin Jehowa hee: Takudan imakakije kte sni.”
When Carrie did not join her, Rachel asked quietly, “What comes next, Carrie? Do you remember what comes next?”
A moment and a whimper, and Soaring Eagle heard Carrie begin to recite, “Peji toto en iwanke maye kta; Wicoozi mini kin icahada yhus amaye kta.”
“That’s right. Now what is the snake doing, Carrie?”
“It put its head down, Mama, but it’s not moving. It’s not going away.”
“Let’s go on with our prayer. Minagi yuccetu kte; Woowotanna canku kin ohna amay kta; Iye caje kin on.”
Rachel urged Carrie again. “It’s working, Carrie. The snake will go to sleep and then we can get away. Say the next verse. Sit very still and say the next verse.”
As the childish voice obediently began to recite, Soaring Eagle stealthily crept along the creek bed and peered over a huge boulder. Below him, on a blanket, sat Rachel Brown, her bare feet dangling in the water. At her side was Carrie, but the two sat rigidly, not daring to move. Not three feet from Carrie, a huge rattlesnake had emerged from under a rock and was eyeing the two suspiciously, coiling up and waving its head back and forth.
Rachel was holding Carrie’s left hand tightly, trying to remain calm as they recited. They had finished the Dakota rendition of Psalm 23 and begun in English when Rachel saw movement across the creek. Soaring Eagle raised one finger to his lips as he bent to pick up a huge stone with his right hand. Then, before Rachel could say a word to Carrie, he had flung the stone with a mighty force that crushed the snake’s head and left it writhing in harmless death throes.
Carrie screeched and jumped up. Rachel sat trembling, her face white. When Carrie saw who had thrown the rock, she splashed across the creek and flung her arms around Soaring Eagle’s waist. Rachel wiped away tears of relief and quickly drew her bare feet under her skirts as she rose, weak-kneed, and tried to thank Soaring Eagle.
Finally, Carrie recovered enough to remember her lesson from Pastor Thundercloud. Tugging on one of Soaring Eagle’s braids to get his attention, she carefully made a fist, extended two fingers, and signed “friend.” Soaring Eagle smiled, and this time he let Carrie Brown see the smile.
“Thank you, thank you, Soaring Eagle,” Carrie chanted happily, hugging him again.
Soaring Eagle looked across the creek at Rachel and saw with amazement that she, too, was signing “friend.” One side of her mouth was turned up in an attempt at a smile. Ruefully, she rubbed the part of her mouth that would not smile.
Soaring Eagle stroked Carrie’s long red mane and, pointing to her, said, “Carrie—Red Bird.” Then, looking at Rachel he said firmly, “Good Bird.” Rachel blushed and bent over to pick up the quilt they had been sitting on.
“Thank you, Mr. Soaring Eagle. I don’t know how much of this you understand, but thank you.”
Soaring Eagle nodded soberly before turning away. Quickly he ascended the steep side of the ravine and trotted out of sight before Rachel could make any more attempt at communication. As Rachel and her daughter walked carefully up the pathway that led from the creek to where their team of horses had been tethered, Rachel began to tremble again with the realization of the danger they had been in and at the unlikely savior that God had sent to answer their prayers for help.
Chapter 16
Love one another: for love is of God.
1 John 4:7
He decided to go in. John Thundercloud looked up from the text for his sermon in surprise and smiled at him. Two blue eyes peered around the edge of the rough-hewn front pew. Before her mother could stop her, Carrie Brown trotted down the aisle, took Soaring Eagle’s hand, and led him up to the front. Rachel Brown smiled primly and scooted toward the open window, making room for Carrie’s guest.
Soaring Eagle had dressed for the occasion, wrapping his thick braids in strips of colored cloth, pulling on his ceremonial scalp-shirt and beaded leggings, and adorning his scalp lock with the five eagle feathers he had earned in battle. The congregation of Dakota men and women tried not to stare impolitely, but the sight of a wild Sioux in full battle regalia walking calmly down the aisle of their church caused quite a stir.
John Thundercloud nodded to Soaring Eagle and returned to his sermon. He spoke in English. Soaring Eagle was pleased to find that much of what Thundercloud said made sense—linguistically.
Pastor Thundercloud had called his sermon that day “The Dying That Gives Us Life.” Soaring Eagle understood the words. He listened to the pastor read the text from 2 Corinthians.
We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.
Soaring Eagle wondered at Thundercloud’s ability to read these words and apply them personally. He thought how good it would be to say those words and mean them. They were the words of a man who had fought a great battle and refused to be defeated. But how could a man who had been taken from his homeland and imprisoned be saying these things? Soaring Eagle grew angry as the pastor talked of loving and forgiving. He decided not to listen any more. But just when he was about to get up and leave in disgust, Carrie Brown’s small white hand found its way into the battle-hardened hand of the Lakota warrior.
Soaring Eagle looked down at Carrie. The child was beaming with satisfaction. He couldn’t help himself. He smiled back.
John Thundercloud gave a sermon that challenged his congregation that day. Soaring Eagle was not ready to hear those words. Still, God used a child to give the sermon that Soaring Eagle needed. It didn’t require words, but it had a title. Carrie put her hand in Soaring Eagle’s and spoke the sermon called “Love.”
On the day that followed Soaring Eagle’s first true attendance at the Santee Church, Rachel Brown stepped out her front door and nearly tripped over a piece of bark holding a huge, fresh trout. The next day, there was a prairie chicken. Mary Riggs reported the arrival of mystery game on her doorstep one morning—as did Martha Red Wing and John Thundercloud’s wife, Gray Dawn.
When Carrie tumbled out the school door for recess that morning, she noticed that Soaring Eagle walked beside James Red Wing as he prodded the mission’s two white oxen to pull the water wagon up a steep incline. The water wagon had made its daily trip to the nearby river, and when it neared the Riggs’s cabin, Soaring Eagle hoisted a barrel out of the back of the wagon and carried it in.
When school was over that day, Carrie skipped to the building site for a workshop that was to open soon. Soaring Eagle was helping James Red Wing skin the bark off a felled log. Every day thereafter, Carrie saw Soaring Eagle helping at chores and taking part in mission life. He was still very quiet, but he worked diligently alongside the other men.
The next Sunday, when Rachel and Carrie Brown entered the tiny church building, Soaring Eagle was already there, sitting on the back pew, waiting for the service to start. Carrie looked slyly out of the corner of her eye at him as they walked past and grinned. Soaring Eagle pretended not to see her. Still, he turned one palm up and clasped his two hands together. Carrie understood. He was thanking her for last Sunday.
After the sermon, Carrie hurried outside to look for Soaring Eagle. “Your friend has gone hunting, Carrie,” James Red Wing said.
Carrie pursed her lips with disappointment. After bolting down her lunch, she ran outside to play, wandering ever closer to the far-off grove of cottonwoods and the sand-bottomed creek where she and her mother had last picnicked. With a careful look about her and under every rocky ledge, she settled onto the bank of the creek and dangled her bare feet in the clear water, singing softly to Ida May, the corncob doll. A shadow fell across the water and, before she had a chance to look up, Soaring Eagle ha
d settled beside her.
“Can I see the pretty ladies in there again?” Carrie pointed to the locket.
Soaring Eagle took off the locket and handed it to her. As she looked at the women, Soaring Eagle pointed to Walks the Fire. “My mother.” Before Carrie could ask the question, Soaring Eagle explained her presence among his tribe, ending with, “she had hair like the setting sun, the color of Red Bird’s hair.”
Carrie smiled with pleasure before asking, “Who is the other one?”
“I think she is my sister. She came after Walks the Fire was taken from my village.” Soaring Eagle changed the subject. He pointed to the horizon and said, “My father hunted buffalo here.”
Carrie looked up at the somber face. Pointing to the scar on his left cheek, she asked about it, and Soaring Eagle told her the story of how he earned his name. Carrie gasped, “You just stepped off a cliff? Just like that?” She pointed to the top of the ravine. Soaring Eagle looked up and shook his head. “No, much higher.”
“I think you must have had an angel watching over you!”
Soaring Eagle frowned. “Angel. What is angel?”
“You know—an angel—with wings! God says we have angels watching us, taking care of us.”
Soaring Eagle laughed. “I do not think your God would have sent angels to help a frightened Lakota boy so many years ago.”
Carrie shook her head. “He would too! He cares about everybody. My mama said so.”
Soaring Eagle deferred. “If Good Bird has taught you this, then you must believe it.”
“Did you believe what your mama taught you?”
Soaring Eagle shook his head. “She believed.” The memory of the old Bible folded up carefully in his parfleche rose up to accuse him. “Even though I did not believe, I still remember.”
The afternoon passed with Carrie asking questions and more questions. Each one took Soaring Eagle back to his people—back to his childhood—and back to a time when the Lakota were the hunters, not the hunted.
“Why are you so sad, Mr. Soaring Eagle?”
“I am not sad, Red Bird. The Lakota learn silence to hide from our enemies and to catch the best game. We learn to wait so that we will not rush into battle foolishly.”
“How come you’re so strong?”
“A man among my people must be able to go without food or water for two or three of your days and not complain. He must be able to run a day and a night without rest.”
“That’s how you ran so far to get help when your father was hurt on the cliff!”
“That is how I ran so far.”
“What do those feathers mean?”
“They mean that I have ‘counted coup’ five times on my enemy. In battle, we run to strike the enemy with our hand or with a stick, without killing him. To run at a man who shoots at you with his gun and to strike him with your open hand, that is a brave thing. When my friends saw that I had done this, they said it around the campfire, and I was allowed to wear one eagle feather for each coup.”
“Then you must be real brave!”
Soaring Eagle smiled. “There are many among my people who have more than five eagle feathers, little one. Five is not so many.”
“Would you like to find your sister?”
Soaring Eagle thought for a moment. Then he shrugged his shoulders. “My sister would not be pleased to meet her brother.”
“Why not? If I had a brave brother, I’d want to meet him.”
“Because, little one,” Soaring Eagle rose. “I think that I killed her husband.”
Carrie tried to absorb the meaning of the words, but Soaring Eagle gave her no time to ask further questions. “The sun is getting low in the sky. You must return to the Bird’s Nest. Good Bird will think that a bad spirit has come to steal you away.”
Carrie scrambled up the steep side of the ravine. From behind her, an owl hooted. She whirled around at the top of the hill and looked back. The owl hooted again. It was Soaring Eagle.
“Do it again! Do it again!”
Soaring Eagle complied, calling up, “That is Hinkaya. What do you call that bird?”
“Owl,” Carrie answered.
“Owl says that you must hurry home now, little one. I will follow to guard you from the night.”
Chapter 17
And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.
Luke 12:18
David, be reasonable. We’ve been traveling for thirty-five solid hours; we haven’t had a decent meal since we left Chicago,” Abigail Braddock peered out the door of the Lincoln railway station and exclaimed, “and we’ve landed in the middle of a lake, for heaven’s sake! We’ll be in Lincoln for a month, dear, you don’t need to rent a carriage this afternoon and flounder through the mud. Let’s find the Hathaway House, greet Augusta and Mrs. Baird, and settle in for an evening reading the paper and getting reacquainted with our friends.”
David Braddock paced up and down the railway platform, muttering at the inclement weather. It did, indeed, appear that the railway station had been built on an island. Water surrounded the station and separated railway passengers from the boardwalks of the city of Lincoln.
“I imagined something a bit more—”
Abigail raised her eyebrows and finished her son’s sentence, “Cosmopolitan? They’ve only existed for ten years, dear.” Abigail squinted and peered across the lake at the fledgling city. “I’d say they’ve gotten a good start. And besides, didn’t you say you wanted to precede other investors? If everyone back home in Philadelphia were looking to Lincoln, Nebraska, you wouldn’t be finding any bargains. Don’t let a little rain discourage you. Where’s your pioneer spirit?”
David bent to pick up his mother’s traveling bag as he said, “Any number of our friends would take one look at this bog and get back on the train for home.”
Abigail smiled wisely and pulled on her gloves. “I dare say you’re right.” She patted his back and teased, “But then they aren’t being met by a lovely widow who is at this moment riding in a wagon that’s headed directly toward us.”
David stood up abruptly and looked across the bog. Indeed, there was LisBeth, perched next to a disturbingly handsome man who urged a smart pair of bay geldings to step high as they sloshed their way toward the train station.
Abigail and David stepped out to the edge of the platform and LisBeth motioned to the driver. The wagon pulled up and LisBeth bounded down, apologizing for being late, asking the man, Jim, to help David with the luggage, and explaining why Augusta hadn’t come herself—all at once. “I told her you’d understand.” Thrusting out her hand she concluded, “Welcome to Lincoln, Mrs. Braddock.”
Abigail smiled warmly. Motioning to the wagon, LisBeth apologized again. “I’m afraid this is the best we could do. It’s a scandal, and Augusta nearly had an attack of apoplexy when Joseph told her the carriage’s wheel broke just this morning.” Looking at Abigail’s fine silk dress and the rough wagon, LisBeth suddenly frowned. “I guess Augusta was right. It is a scandal.”
Abigail shook her head, “Not to worry Mrs. Baird. Remember, I’m new money, as they say. I remember riding in one of these when Mr. Braddock was just getting started.” With one quick step, Abigail grabbed the wagon seat and hoisted herself up. She laughed lightly and arranged her skirts primly, looking down at LisBeth with a grin. “I’m old, but I’m spry!” She raised her parasol with a snap just as David and Jim emerged from the train station hauling two huge trunks.
“I’ll ride in the back, LisBeth,” Jim offered. “The gentleman can drive, if he likes. If Mrs. Braddock doesn’t mind being crowded a bit, you can all three fit on the wagon seat. It’s not that far to the hotel.” Without waiting for a reply, Jim grabbed the side of the wagon and leaped into the back.
David offered, “That’s a fine set of bays, Mr.—”
“Callaway. Jim Callaway, Mr. Braddock.”
LisBeth climbed up beside Abigail, and D
avid slogged through the mud to climb aboard and take up the reins. As he settled on the wagon seat, he felt moisture oozing under the soles of his new boots. Looking down he noted with dismay that he was covered with mud nearly to his ankles. Abigail looked down at the mess and stifled a grin. “Welcome to the frontier, son,” she whispered gleefully, “I think it’s going to do us both good.”
In Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1877, it was the custom of the daily newspaper to list who was registered at what hotel. Augusta Hathaway and John Cadman, owner of the Cadman Hotel, kept careful notes regarding their competitor’s guest list and waged a friendly war to end each year with a total greater than the neighbor’s. The land agents Walsh & Putnam and A. J. Cropsey took note of newcomers and were careful to “drop by” the hotel dining room to invite prospective customers to visit their respective offices. Agnes Bond read the list religiously—with an irreligious motive. The morning after David and Abigail Braddock registered at Hathaway House, Agnes scanned the list and rushed outside to where Charity was hoeing their spring garden.
“David Braddock, Charity—where have we heard that name before?”
Charity straightened up and leaned against the handle of her hoe before answering. “Can’t say as I recall, Mother.”
“Well, think, girl! David and Abigail Braddock are listed here as registering at the Hathaway House Hotel just yesterday. Oh, and listen to this:” Agnes read,
We understand that there are several capitalists in the city, among them Mr. David and Mrs. Abigail Braddock of Philadelphia. The report is that, if things suit them, they will invest largely in Nebraska real estate. We hope they will be pleased with what they see.
“Now,” continued Agnes, “I know I’ve heard—” Agnes stopped in mid-sentence. “I’ve got it! I remember now. Last fall when I overheard LisBeth Baird—” Charity smiled knowingly and her smile brought Agnes up short.
“I mean, last fall when I just happened to come in and accidentally heard LisBeth Baird arrange to sell MacKenzie’s homestead to that Callaway fellow, LisBeth said—I remember now—LisBeth said, ‘I was hoping to talk David Braddock into buying the place.’ Now David Braddock has turned up in Lincoln. I bet she met him at the Centennial. Now, the question is, who’s Abigail? His mother or wife?”
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