General Rocendo then reached toward Pedro and clasped one of his arms. “Leave the wagon, Pedro,” he said tightly. “Now. And do not whine about not being strong enough. You chose to behave like a man. Act like one.”
Kaylene paled. “But, sir, he—”
“This is my son,” the general hissed, sending a glare Kaylene’s way. “I make decisions for him. Not a panther lady señorita. He has humiliated me enough by what he has done, let alone now, by lying his head like a child on the lap of a woman!”
“Father, I do not believe I have the strength,” Pedro said, groaning as he tried to raise himself to a sitting position. He cried out when he put his full weight on his leg. “My leg! Father, I cannot stand on my leg!”
General Rocendo’s eyes wavered. He turned and beckoned to his guard, Jose. “Jose, come and get Pedro,” he shouted.
Kaylene breathed more easily as she saw the more tender side of the general surface. She gave Pedro a hug, then sat back from him as Jose came and gently took him into his arms.
“Capitan Fire Thunder,” General Rocendo said, clasping his hands together behind him, “my son and his friends will never interfere in the lives of the Kickapoo again. You have my word. They will stay in the perimeters of their city, or pay for their disobedience.”
“As far as Running Fawn and her three friends are concerned, it is too late now for such promises,” Fire Thunder said tightly. “The girls’ reputations are already ruined. They will be exiled from my village! And I forbid them to come here, to be a part of the lives of Mexicans, the very people who have caused their shame.”
Kaylene was stunned to hear this. Fire Thunder had ignored her pleas. Running Fawn and her friends were going to pay the full price for their sins after all.
Kaylene so badly wanted to understand. People made mistakes. They learned from their mistakes! She couldn’t understand why Fire Thunder couldn’t give these girls a second chance.
Pedro paled when he heard what Fire Thunder had planned for Running Fawn. “No!” he cried. “Do not banish her. But if you must, do not keep her from coming to me. Although we are only children in your eyes, we are in love. I want to marry her!”
“Running Fawn and her friends’ punishments must be real,” Fire Thunder growled. “It must be truly felt. You will never see Running Fawn again!”
“I love her!” Pedro cried, tears flooding his eyes. He reached out for his father. “Tell him, Father, that you will allow her in our house as my wife. Tell him, Father. I love Running Fawn! Please, Father? Please?”
“Pedro, your fever is causing you to talk out of your head,” General Rocendo shouted. “Jose, take him away. I don’t want to hear any more of his lunacy!”
“I will go now,” Fire Thunder said, swinging himself back into his saddle. “But be warned, keep your young men away from our girls, or there will be hell to pay.”
Kaylene sucked in a wild breath when she saw the sudden anger flash in the general’s eyes.
She was glad when the wagon made a wide turn and they were soon out of the general’s courtyard, and on the road that led up the mountainside.
She scrabbled from the back of the wagon and sat down on the seat beside the silent warrior.
She cast Fire Thunder occasional glances as he rode his horse beside the wagon. He was quiet and brooding as he kept his eyes forward, away from hers.
Then he slid his eyes slowly her way.
She grabbed the opportunity to speak.
“Are you certain you wish to be so harsh on the girls?” she murmured, her eyes defiant. “There is such a thing as forgiveness for sins. Would it be so hard to give them a second chance? Why punish them so severely?”
“I have made up my mind and will not change it,” Fire Thunder said, his jaw tight. “It is an example for the other young girls who might chance filling their stomachs with a child at age fifteen! And such behavior tempts warring between my people and the Mexicans. Did you not see how close General Rocendo and I came to words that could cause a bitter hatred between us? No. I cannot. I will not change my mind.”
Feeling unnerved by Fire Thunder’s harsh decision, Kaylene grew silent.
Yet she knew that the Kickapoo had their customs; she had hers.
She would just have to accept what they did, or forget her plans to marry Fire Thunder. And loving him so much, she could not forsake Fire Thunder. Not for anyone, or for any reason.
When they arrived at their village, Kaylene watched Fire Thunder dismount and give the reins to a young brave. He did not look her way as she climbed from the wagon.
Her insides grew cold when she saw the determination in his steps as he walked toward Black Hair’s lodge.
Knowing what he was about to do, and fearing for Running Fawn, Kaylene followed him, but kept far enough back so that he would not know that she was there. She did not want to give him the opportunity to turn and scold her, and send her to his lodge.
Hearing whispers on all sides of her, Kaylene looked over her shoulder and noticed that everyone had heard the arrival of their chief. They had come from their lodges and were watching Fire Thunder.
When Fire Thunder stepped up to Black Hair’s lodge, he did not have to announce his presence. Black Hair had also heard Fire Thunder’s arrival. He came outside, a firm grip on one of Running Fawn’s wrists as he half-dragged her with him.
Kaylene moved closer as Fire Thunder and Black Hair stood eye to eye.
“My decision is made,” Fire Thunder said, his eyes locked with Black Hair’s. “My friend, I must send your daughter and her friends away from the village, to live in exile. You know, as I, that I have no other choice.”
Running Fawn screamed and wrenched herself free from her father’s steely grip. She ran to Kaylene and grabbed her hands. “Tell Fire Thunder not to do this!” she cried. “He loves you. He will listen to you. Please, Kaylene, tell him not to send me and my friends away!”
Fire Thunder went to Running Fawn. Gently, he took her by an arm. “Do not bring my woman into this,” he said softly. “Running Fawn, go and gather up your belongings. This is the time to prove that you are strong, that you have the brave heart of a Kickapoo.”
“Fire Thunder, are you sure you must do this?” Kaylene asked, her voice breaking.
“All people need authority,” Fire Thunder said, his voice thick with regret of what he was forced to do to four of his people. “I am my people’s voice. Never must I falter in my decisions that affect my people’s future. The youth, the children are my people’s future. They must lead clean, respectable lives. Making love loosely, unwed, at such a young age, and with young men not of our culture, soils the bodies and futures of those who commit such sins. I will not have children walking around my village heavy with child to display their disobedience, their sins. Our youth, as they grow into adulthood, must set good examples. Running Fawn and her friends were given many chances to prove they were good at heart; clean in spirit. I have come to the very end of my patience. What must be done, will be done.”
Kaylene stifled a sob behind a hand.
When she felt a gentle hand on her arm, she turned and gazed into violet eyes.
Dawnmarie slipped an arm around her waist. “Come with me,” she murmured. “Let Fire Thunder do his duty as chief, as I often had to step aside to let White Wolf do what he must do as chief. You will learn in time to accept that what your beloved does is for the betterment of his people.”
Kaylene gave Fire Thunder a soft gaze, smiled a quiet apology for having spoken out of turn, then turned and walked away with Dawnmarie toward Fire Thunder’s lodge.
When Little Sparrow came and took her other hand, Kaylene was able to put what was happening behind her, to the farthest recesses of her mind.
Fire Thunder went and got the other three young women and waited for them to get their belongings.
Then when all four girls were huddled together, Fire Thunder embraced them each and said a soft prayer over them.
“Go
in peace,” Fire Thunder said softly. “Kitzhiat, our Great Spirit, will always be with you.”
Downcast, tears silvering their eyes, the girls left together.
Solemn and heavy hearted, Black Hair watched his one and only child leave the village. His gaze shifted to the mothers of the other three girls. In their grief, they were chanting, crying, and pulling at their hair.
He looked again at the girls as they walked farther and farther from the village. And although he knew that their expulsion was the fate of those who lived reckless, shameful lives, he could hardly bear to live with the decision, or without Running Fawn.
Although he was trying to be strong, he hung his head. He was so tormented, he was not sure if he could make it another day with the guilt lying heavy on his heart.
His own daughter! How could she have done this? She betrayed his loyalty to their chief by her wrongful behavior.
He turned to say something to Fire Thunder, to apologize again, but Fire Thunder was almost at his cabin.
Everyone turning their backs on him, Black Hair walked through the village until he got to the corral. He saddled his horse then swung himself into the saddle and rode away in a different direction from the path that took Running Fawn away from him.
He had to get away, to think, to plan his future which no longer included a daughter.
He had to plan a future that surely no longer held the full respect of his best friend, his chief.
Chapter 24
It smites my soul with sudden sickening;
It binds my being with a wreath of rue—
This want of you.
—IVAN LEONARD WRIGHT
Two days had passed and the Kickapoo were involved in another celebration—the first of three Feasts for the Dead ceremonies, which always followed the New Year. No children were allowed. Only the adult men and women participated in this solemn ritual.
It was midmorning. Fire Thunder sat on the west bench, with Kaylene at his left side, while the other Kickapoo men and women, among them Dawnmarie and White Wolf, sat on the north and south benches, all facing the fire. A ladle rested on everyone’s lap, which would be used during the ceremony.
Ten large pots of ne-pupe cooked slowly over the fire. This was a special stew made of venison, corn and squash, and it would be accompanied by fry bread and wild berry cakes.
Earlier in the day, Fire Thunder had explained the ceremony to Kaylene. Just like the living, the Kickapoo dead must eat three meals. And so, when a person passed from this world, one of his relatives took on the solemn responsibility of attending the three yearly festivals during which the dead were offered the necessary sustenance. If this duty was neglected, the spirits of the dead might return to harm the living.
There were many attending the feast today, for almost every adult in the village had lost a loved one at some point during his or her lifetime.
The feast meant more than one certainty to Kaylene. Soon after, when the sun rose tomorrow, she would be saying a final farewell to Dawnmarie.
And that made her sad. Kaylene hated to see Dawnmarie leave, because Dawnmarie had become a sort of mother figure to her. Theirs was a genuine sharing. Unlike what Kaylene had found with Running Fawn, there was a trust between herself and Dawnmarie.
Also, tomorrow, John Shelton was going to be released from his captivity—not so much to give him his freedom, but to give him the chance to unknowingly lead Kaylene to the carnival, so that she could question the woman she now knew was not her mother.
Fire Thunder was responsive to Kaylene’s troubled heart, to her needs, and had volunteered to help her find her true mother after procuring the needed information from Anna Shelton.
Of course it went against Fire Thunder’s grain to release a guilty man from imprisonment before he had received his full punishment.
But Kaylene had convinced him that John had suffered much already while being caged in total isolation. Surely just sitting there pondering his fate from day to day had put the fear of God in him, perhaps causing him to change his ways.
Yet deep down inside where Kaylene’s memories were sharpest of John’s mental, and sometimes physical abuse to Anna Shelton, she had to wonder whether or not she should help him return to be a part of Anna’s life again. Kaylene’s only hope was that the captivity had changed John Shelton.
Yet she had not fully trusted that enough to ask John to willingly lead her to the carnival. Knowing the mean side of him so well, Kaylene dared not depend on him changing so much so quickly.
Therefore, they would follow him without him being aware of their presence on the trail.
Kaylene gazed over at Dawnmarie, where she sat opposite the fire from her on the bench. She smiled when she saw Dawnmarie’s radiance, and the peace she outwardly showed as she sat among her true people, participating in the ceremony that would bond her with them for eternity.
Dawnmarie surely had to know now, for certain, that she had a place in the hereafter with those who had passed on before her. A place was being reserved in the heavens, where she would one day walk hand in hand again with her dearly departed mother, Doe Eyes.
Kaylene frowned when she looked among the warriors who sat around the fire. Black Hair wasn’t there. No one had seen him since Running Fawn had left the village.
Sighing, Kaylene realized that the celebration today was tarnished somewhat by the girls being sent into exile, and from those who loved Black Hair, wondering where he might be. He hadn’t told anyone he was leaving, yet he had gone without a trace.
Everything was keenly quiet in the council house. There were no musical instruments playing. All that could be heard above the popping and hissing of fire in the firepit, were the breaths of the people.
All waited for Fire Thunder to begin the ceremony. It would not last long, but it meant very much to everyone who was in attendance today.
Fire Thunder stepped down from his bench. He withdrew a small pouch from his front right breeches pocket. He held it in the palm of his left hand as he rose his eyes upward, his voice low and husky as he prayed and chanted.
He stopped long enough to open the pouch and sprinkle some tobacco into the fire. This was his offering to the spirits.
He again prayed, notifying the other manitou to carry the message to the spirits of the deceased who dwelled in the West with Pepazce. The spirits were urged to attend the feast.
Goosebumps rose on Kaylene’s flesh as Fire Thunder continued to pray, asking for blessings and long life for all those present. He prayed for Dawnmarie, asking the spirits to accept her as one with them.
When Fire Thunder’s prayers ceased and he sat down again beside Kaylene, an elderly man stepped forth who was called the “waiter” today. With a trembling hand, he dipped his ladle into one of the pots of stew and took a bit of the food from the brass kettle. He slowly poured the food on the ground to the west of the fire, this also a gift for the spirits.
After he had served the spirits, he emptied the contents of the kettle into large pans and placed several in front of the benches where the people sat, quietly waiting to do what was required of them next.
He then passed everyone broken pieces of fry bread, and then bits of the sweet berry cakes.
Before everyone began to eat, Fire Thunder rose from the bench again and sprinkled a bit of Indian tobacco near the food for the spirits and invited them to join them for this occasion.
“Your sons and daughters are giving you tobacco and a feast,” Fire Thunder said, his eyes lifted heavenward. “Surely come and join us in this occasion.”
He sat back down and joined the others as they quietly partook of the food.
While eating, and being a part of this spiritual ritual, Kaylene felt the same strange feelings overwhelm her that she had felt countless times since she had arrived at this Indian village.
She did not feel awkward or strange partaking in this ceremony. She felt as though she had done it before, somewhere in time, through the eyes of someone else, yet in
truth, whose eyes were now her own.
A shiver raced through her when she felt as though someone’s breath was touching her cheek in a soft, caressing kiss. But Fire Thunder was the only one near her, and he was meditatively eating the food, not even offering her a quick glance, much less a kiss.
The strangeness of these feelings somewhat frightened her. Would she ever know why it was happening? How would anyone even know how to explain it?
The food now gone from the pans and large copper pots, Fire Thunder rose to his feet again and prayed.
When the prayer was over, everyone rose and left quietly through the door at the north side of the lodge.
The last to leave, Kaylene walked beside Fire Thunder toward the north door.
A sound behind her caused her to look over her shoulder just as the waiter took a burned end of a log and carefully raked the food and tobacco that had been offered to the spirits into the fire.
Fire Thunder caught her looking at what the waiter was doing. “The fire will be allowed to burn until morning,” he explained. “Before breakfast tomorrow the ashes will be gathered and taken outside, to the west side of the council house, in a place specifically reserved for this purpose.”
“You told me that there are three such ceremonies like the one that was performed today,” Kaylene said as she walked with Fire Thunder. “When will the next one be held?”
“The second Feast of the Dead will be held in the summer when cantaloupe and watermelon will be the main foods served,” he said, smiling at White Wolf as he and Dawnmarie waited outside for them.
“And so do you think our wives can do without us for a while?” White Wolf said, clasping a gentle hand on Fire Thunder’s right shoulder.
“I think they would not mind if we leave for a while as I show you my longhorn cattle, and the land that I am so proud of in this beautiful mountain valley,” Fire Thunder said, smiling at Kaylene. “I believe my woman wants time alone with your wife, anyway. They have good-byes of their own to say.”
Wild Whispers Page 25
