“He must have been their magician,” Papa said. “To get through the blessing like that.”
“I guess,” I said. “Or maybe the Reverend didn’t bless the creek that day.”
“What was he wearing?”
“A cloak of dragon skin on the top half,” I said. “Deerskin on the lower, I think. A loincloth and leg coverings. He had a dragon crest feather in his hair.”
Papa nodded. “Some of the men have seen him from a distance. I think it’s time we bring him back for another visit.”
*
After I started doing the morning blessing, Papa stopped having me carry water. In fact, everyone wanted me to keep as close to the center of Blessing as possible, and I sat in the shade and watched everyone else work, just like Reverend Dawson had. Even Joe Franklin stopped grinning at me. When he did look at me, which wasn’t often, it was with wary respect.
I wondered what would happen when another wagon train arrived. Would their magician take over and send me back to carry water again? Girls could grow up to be witches, but I’d never known a girl to be a proper Minister. Then again, things were different here on the frontier.
For now, at least, I was well-protected. Papa decided I shouldn’t even sleep by Adeline anymore, lest she wake up crazed with fear in the night. And yet the Osage sent out their magician like a scout, even after he’d delivered that warning. Surely they knew what would happen.
Surely we should have suspected they knew.
Joe Franklin was in the party that caught him and brought him back. I heard the triumphant shouts as they crossed the boundary into Blessing, and sure enough Joe Franklin and his friends rode straight to me and Papa. Joe Franklin pushed the Indian off his horse so he landed at our feet. They’d bound him, and he landed hard, but made no sound. Papa rolled him onto his back and smiled up at Joe Franklin. “You did well, Franklin,” he said. “Is this the Indian you met, Hattie?”
I looked down at him. His face was swelling, where someone had hit him hard, and the dragonskin cloak was gone. “Yes,” I said. “I think so.”
The Indian kept his eyes closed, but I saw a flicker when he heard my voice.
“We should do it by moonlight,” Joe Franklin said, and grinned at my father.
“Of course. I’ll keep an eye on him till then,” Papa said.
Papa tied him to the Town of Blessing sign, and watched him from the shade just to be sure he didn’t get loose.
“What is Joe Franklin going to do?” I asked.
“Franklin’s not doing anything, Hattie. It’s you who’s going to do it,” he said. “Remember what I told you about power? You eat his heart, you’ll be able to control the dragons, just like he does. Dragons are wild creatures, wilder than wolves. It must be their magic that does it. If we eat his heart and burn his body, we’ll steal what we can of his magic and destroy the rest.”
His eyes were open now, I realized. He was watching us. He looked very calm for someone hearing about how people were going to eat his heart. “You’re saying I need to kill that man and rip his heart out?”
“You need to kill him,” Papa said. “I can take out his heart for you, but you should be the one to do the killing. It shouldn’t be so hard to eat it afterward. You’ve done it once now.”
Papa sounded perfectly calm about it. I decided I needed to take a walk, and for once, Papa let me go.
Mother was sitting in one of the half-finished houses, making fried bread and jackrabbit stew.
“They brought back the Indian,” I said.
“Well, thank goodness,” Mother said. “It’s a fine thing, don’t you think? Should solve a lot of our problems.”
“Do you know what Papa wants me to do?” I asked.
Mother sighed deeply. “I wasn’t happy when he had you take over for the Reverend. Magic isn’t ladylike. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. But I don’t see as we had much choice. We had to have some sort of protection.”
“But now he wants me to—”
“Shhh,” she interrupted. “You don’t want to disturb your sister. She might get upset.” Adeline was sitting in the shade at the back of the house, mending socks. “We’re almost out of medicine. I don’t know what we’re going to do once that’s gone. I might not be able to control her, if she tries to run out where the dragon could catch her. If the dragon stops coming—well, that’ll be much better, don’t you think?”
“Of course,” I said. “Of course I want the dragon to stop coming.”
“Well, then you’ll need to learn to control it, won’t you? It’s not as if anyone else here can do it.”
Back by the sign, Joe Franklin had taken over guarding the Indian, but he shuffled off a bit when he saw me coming. I sat down in the shade again. The Indian looked at me and said, “Hello, Hattie.”
“How do you know my name?” I asked.
“Your people talk about you. They fear you.”
“Joe Franklin is frightened, and that’s fine with me.”
“Cut me loose,” the Indian said. “I can take you to the village of my people. Your sister, too. You can go to the house of the chief and ask for protection and you’ll get it. The Osage revere those with your gift, whether they be men or women.”
“Or white?”
“I can see your gift around you like the feathers of a bird,” he said. “You are already greater than your Reverend ever would have been. You could command the skies and bring rain, you could call the buffalo and the geese, you could tell the fire to return to the earth, if you studied with the Little Old Men and grew to maturity.”
“Or I could take the power from you,” I said.
“You will regret it,” he said.
“How is it you speak English so well?” I asked him. “Did you learn it from eating white magicians?”
“No. For a time I was a scout for a white Army general.”
“So you worked for white people but now you’ve turned against us?”
“You don’t belong here,” he said. “We do. Listen to me, Hattie. If you don’t want to live with my people, persuade yours to turn back. You’ll be safe if you’re leaving.”
“I should persuade people? Why would they listen to me?”
“They have to listen to you. If you refuse to protect them, they’ll lose everything.”
I strode away angrily and went to walk the borders of the town. The dragon was nowhere to be seen today, but in the waving grasses beyond our border I thought I could smell someone else’s magic. Join the Indians? And yet he hadn’t answered me when I asked whether they really revered white magicians like their own. This Indian had been a scout for white men—for years, probably, judging from how well he spoke English. But he’d never truly been one of us, that was obvious, and I’d never truly be one of them either. They might not kill me, if I asked for protection, but I didn’t trust his offer one bit.
So then—go back? Adeline would like nothing better than to return to Ohio where she could forget all about dragons and Indians and the blood-stained dress that Mother had scrubbed but would never be clean. She was the pretty one; she could marry some solid man who would give her the quiet life she needed. Papa would be furious with me, of course. I didn’t care to think about that too much.
What would I do in Ohio? Neither clever nor pretty, a magician and a girl, I supposed I could set up shop as a particularly powerful witch. If I had the power in me to learn to command the skies, then surely I could learn to dowse or deliver babies. There was an old lady in Cleveland, she had a very nice house and it wasn’t so bad to be on the outskirts of town. I could be the favorite aunt to Adeline’s children.
No, I thought. I want the freedom of the frontier. There’s nowhere but Blessing that I can be who I am.
*
It was me and the men, once again, who gathered in the moonlight. Papa took me aside first and showed me a pistol. “I thought this might be easiest for you. Just put it to his head and pull the trigger. I’ll take care of the rest.�
��
They’d built up a bonfire nearby. Reverend Dawson’s remains had been buried next to the Town of Blessing sign, because some of his magic would linger to protect the town. The Indian’s remains would be burned.
My hands were slippery with sweat; I had to keep wiping them on my skirt.
Joe Franklin put a blindfold on the Indian. “Consider yourself lucky,” he said to the Indian, loud enough that I could hear him. “They gave Hattie a gun to make it quick. If it were up to me I’d do it with a knife and I’d take my time.”
I stared at the Indian from the edge of the circle of firelight. My hands were shaking. Papa put his hand on my shoulder and walked me forward, then placed the pistol in my hand, wrapping my fingers around it. It was cold and smooth, and my hands were sweaty and shaking. As I started to raise the pistol, it slipped and I dropped it. It didn’t go off, just hit the ground next to my foot with a thud. I heard the Indian’s breath catch. “You still have a choice,” he said, very quietly.
I crouched down to pick up the gun. “I think you’re going to have to do it,” Joe Franklin said to Papa. “I don’t think she’s got—”
“She’ll do it,” Papa said.
I picked up the gun, holding it in both hands this time, and looked at the Indian. He stood still, and I thought his eyes, under the blindfold, were open and looking at me. I took a deep breath, then pressed the gun against his head.
The gun didn’t slip as I pulled the trigger.
The noise was deafening, and I gasped and stepped back. My hand felt bruised from the gun’s recoil, and the Indian’s head was nearly gone, reduced to a bloody mess; Joe Franklin had been caught in the spray of his blood, and he wiped it calmly off the side of his face. The Indian’s body hung limp, and Papa shouldered me aside to cut him loose and lay him on the ground. He took out the knife. “Wake the women,” he said to one of the other men as he worked. “This time everyone eats.”
“Even Adeline?”
“No,” Papa said. “No, not Adeline. But everyone else.”
The women joined the circle as Papa cut the heart into pieces, and I watched as my mother ate a piece, and the other wives. Papa saved the last piece for me. The Reverend’s heart had tasted salty and tough, but the Indian’s burned like fire in my mouth, and I could barely swallow it. Tears came to my eyes, and I turned away so that no one would think I was crying from fear or sorrow.
“Go to bed, Hattie,” Papa said. “We’ll take care of the rest of him.”
In my sleep, I heard the scream of a thousand dragons, and I looked up to see a vast flock blackening the sky. “Stop,” I shouted up at them. “Go away. I can command the skies!” They didn’t listen to me.
Instead, they dived down like eagles seeking prey and seized us all. I tried to run, in the dream, but my feet stuck to the ground. I tried to call for help, but the words stuck in my throat. And then dragon claws were tearing into me, and there was nothing I could do, and I thought I would wake, as I’d had enough nightmares to recognize one for what it was, but instead I found myself back on the prairie, looking up at a thousand dragons blackening the sky . . .
*
And now I heard the war-cry of Indians, and they rode toward us on horseback. “Stop,” I shouted, but the hoof-beats shook the ground like an earthquake. I tried to run, but I couldn’t, and I tried to call for help, but no sound emerged, and the horses rode over me like grass and I thought I would wake . . .
*
. . . the fire was coming, it was coming, sweeping through the prairie, burning dry grass, the wall of flame, I could feel the heat of the monster no one could possibly outrun . . .
Where was Adeline? Where was Adeline?
*
“Wake up! Wake up!”
Adeline was shaking my shoulders, sobbing hysterically.
“Hattie, wake up. Oh, why won’t anyone wake up? Wake up,” she wailed.
“I’m awake,” I muttered, but I wasn’t, not really. When I forced my eyes open I could see Adeline’s face, but as soon as I closed them the flames roared around me again. The sun scorched my eyes as I opened them; it was broad day, and I needed to renew the blessing. I could hear the magic roaring around me but when I reached for it, it burned me like fire . . .
*
Where is Adeline? Where? Where?
“I’m right here, Hattie.” Adeline’s voice was dull and quiet. “I’ve been right here the whole time.”
I opened my eyes and sat up. The dreams were gone. I was damp, and my mouth felt coarse and sticky. It was dark, and no fire burned. I could make out the town around me in the moonlight, but only just.
“I’m all right,” I said to Adeline, sitting up. “I’m myself—what happened?”
“I woke up four days ago,” Adeline said. “And everyone was asleep. You, Papa, Mother . . . everyone but me. When I tried to wake up Papa, he thrashed and shouted about dragons. Mother was the same. And you. And everyone. I’ve been waiting and waiting for the Indians to come and finish us off, but they haven’t . . .”
“Can I have something to drink?” I croaked, and Adeline burst into tears and handed me a ladle. I drank deeply.
“I sat by you,” Adeline said, “because you were the only one I could get to take water at all. Sometimes you’d wake up just a little, and I could make you swallow some. Mother—Papa—”
“Well, maybe they’ll wake now,” I said cheerfully, and tried to stand. My legs didn’t want to obey me. “Can you help me up?”
Adeline shook her head. “They’re all gone,” she said. “I couldn’t make them drink, and in the sun . . . they’re all dead, Hattie. Mother, Papa, Joe Franklin, everyone but you and me.”
*
The Indian magician came at dawn. She was an old woman, old enough to be a grandmother, and when I smelled her magic I thought she could probably command the skies, the winds, the buffalo herds, and the dragons.
“You were warned,” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“You made your choice.”
There wasn’t much point in arguing. “Adeline didn’t,” I said.
“That’s true,” she said. “Your sister can remain with us. She will be safe here, and can rest and recover. If she chooses to return to your people in a year or two, we will guide her back.”
“What about me?” I asked.
“We gave you a message,” she said. “The man you murdered, Sees-Far, gave you a message. We belong to this land. Your people do not. We’re sending you back with that message. Give it to the rest of your people.”
“What if they don’t listen?”
“Then perhaps they will eat your poisoned heart, and suffer your fate.”
*
I still hear the dragons in my dreams. Sometimes they speak to me in Sees-Far’s voice. Sometimes they speak to me in Adeline’s; sometimes they say nothing I can understand. They no longer eat me, night after night. Only sometimes.
In these dreams, the power I ripped from Sees-Far rises up around me like a prairie fire: wild, powerful, and utterly beyond my control. I wonder sometimes what this power would have felt like if I’d freed Sees-Far and gone to his people to ask for protection. If I’d asked to learn, instead of trying to swallow him up.
Oh, I’ve asked for forgiveness. I’ve asked for comfort; I’ve asked for release. So far, all have been denied me.
Perhaps, my friend, you would like to take this burden from me. You could bind me, wait for darkness, devour my heart and with it the power I can neither use nor bear. Perhaps it was not the great power of the Osage, but my own weakness that led to what happened at Blessing Creek. You are strong; you are clever; you are confident. Maybe you could eat my heart and my power and turn it back against the ones that Sees-Far sacrificed himself to protect.
Or perhaps you will listen, as I did not.
If you are wise, friend, you will turn back here.
Author’s Note
When I re-read the Little House books as an adult, I was struck
by how much I’d missed as a child—particularly in Little House on the Prairie. Pa moves into Indian Country illegally and deliberately; he settles on land he knows belongs to other people. Laura asks some questions about this early on and is told to hush. I had remembered the scene where Indians come into the family’s house, but rereading as an adult, I picked up on a detail I had missed as a child: Laura describes the Indians’ ribs being visible against their skin. She is describing men who are starving to death. Why are they starving? Because their uninvited neighbors were burning their fields in an attempt to force them off their land.
White American writers have written volumes about Native Americans and the western frontier, and so many of the stories we’ve told (and continue to tell) are profoundly dishonest. Frequently, the dispossession and displacement of Native Americans is treated like a natural disaster, something terrible that happened, rather than something terrible that was done. (Done by white people.) Many stories focus on the lone white person who Gets It and throws in his or her lot with the Lakota (or the Na’vi). These stories give white readers and viewers a comfortable window on the past, with a solid framework they can use to reassure themselves that they’d be One of The Good Ones.
I wanted to write a story that provided a different sort of window. “What Happened at Blessing Creek” came out of some pondering I did about whether it was even possible to write an honest story from the white perspective that didn’t pretty anything up. I’m still not sure if this story succeeded or failed at my goal.
CLEANOUT
I. Entry
agda and I hadn’t spoken in three years when she, Nora, and I had to meet at our mother’s house to clean it out and prepare it for sale.
She and Nora were speaking, and Nora and I were speaking, but after five minutes of glowering, Nora told us she was not acting as our go-between for another minute, and if we didn’t quit acting like children in a snit, she’d leave and let us sort out all of Mom’s junk by ourselves.
That was a sufficiently horrifying prospect to cow both of us into better manners. Because there was a lot to go through. Our parents were immigrants from some former Soviet republic with a lot of mountains, and after coming to the U.S. with just the clothes they were wearing, they apparently never threw anything away ever again.
Cat Pictures Please and Other Stories Page 12
