Ride the Free Wind

by Rosanne Bittner

  But they also had a great hope, an almost childish outlook on their future and on their attitude toward the land. It was so vast! Soon the white man would stop coming. Soon the diseases would stop, and the buffalo herds would grow larger again. They were as one spirit, moving in unison, all with the same blind faith in Maheo and the good earth and the spirits. After all, the white man did bring some good things, like sweet sugar and iron kettles and bright cloth and beads. His whiskey caused a terrible headache, but it tasted good; and before the headache came, there was a wonderful feeling of being close to the spirits. It made a man feel stronger and happier. The white man also brought rifles. More and more Cheyenne were trading for rifles when they could, for although they preferred not to use the long guns in combat, rifles made the killing of buffalo much easier and safer, since it could be done quickly and from a distance where a man could not be trampled.

  It was also a time of great hope for Abbie, for she had been accepted by this strong and proud people, and she was learning that they were nothing like the evil, ignorant savages the whites had made them out to be. Her heart was full of happiness, for she had many friends among the women, the closest of all being Tall Grass Woman, whose round, happy face was always a welcome sight.

  Many of the women had taken part in painting Abbie’s tipi, and now in three places it was decorated with an eagle flying alone. These represented Zeke’s Cheyenne name, Lone Eagle. Tall Grass Woman had painted a white woman beside a red man to signify the mixed marriage, and Zeke’s mother had painted a row of blue stones of various sizes to represent the “crying stones” Zeke had given Abbie the year before when she had lost her family.

  “When you feel all is lost, hold the stones in your hands and keep the faith, Abbie girl,” Zeke had told her when he’d placed them in her hands. “Let the stones cry for you.”

  She had seen him use the stones once, when a little girl on the wagon train had been bitten by a snake and Zeke had buried the girl up to her neck in mud to save her life. His own faith and strong spirit had helped keep the little girl calm, and he had shown her the blue crying stones and told her a story about them that helped her not to be afraid. The stones had begun to sweat, little blue beads of water that tasted salty appearing on them. Zeke had told the little girl that the water was her own tears, and that the stones were crying for her.

  Abbie treasured the stones, for they had been Cheyenne Zeke’s first gift to her. Now she would give him a gift, a baby. Hopefully it would be a son. Already she felt flutters of life, and soon her belly would grow large with the tiny life it held. And although life with the Plains Indians was rugged—full of hard labor and constant wandering—she was happy, simply because Zeke was happy. She had lost all of her initial fear of the Cheyenne and was learning to accept their ways. She was also learning some of the Cheyenne language and struggling to understand their religion and social conscience. There were many rules because they lived by strict discipline and a code of ethics, and her only fear now was that she would somehow break a rule inadvertently. But she had Zeke, and as long as she had him, she would find her way among the People.

  It was after another hunt and a long day of laborious skinning and stretching of hides and dissecting meat that Abbie’s happiness ended. The destruction began with a weary walk to the river to wash buffalo blood from her hands and arms. Perhaps the destruction was mostly because Abbie was so young and inexperienced that she had decided too quickly she could abide by her new way of life; for what happened to her at the river brought her face to face with the reality of life in a savage land with a people very different from herself.

  She had walked to the river, ignoring Zeke’s constant warnings that she never leave the tribe and wander off alone. That was a strict rule for all women, but at the moment Abbie didn’t care about rules. She was tired and dirty, and she was thinking only about being clean again and about letting the cool waters soothe her aching arms, after which she would get a good night’s sleep.

  She stepped into the river, rinsing her hands and arms and then scrubbing them with the lye soap she had brought with her. Then she knelt to her knees to wash her hair, not caring that her tunic was getting wet; she would remove it when she got back to the tipi. She soaped her hair and bent over to rinse it, the rushing waters of the river drowning out the sound of footsteps behind her.

  Perhaps if she had been Indian, she would have felt the presence. But she was white, and it would take many years for her to develop the keen senses the red man seemed to be born with. Something suddenly pounced on her from behind, and she fell face down into the water.

  A strong hand held her beneath the surface, and Abbie realized that whoever this was, he or she meant to drown her. A sheer desire to live and have Zeke’s baby brought her the strength she needed to reach up and grasp the arms that forced her down. They felt slim like a woman’s. Abbie dug her nails into them and twisted. She felt gravel biting into her cheek when she did so; but she managed to push her attacker off, and the two of them began rolling in the water.

  At first Abbie was too absorbed in fighting for her life to scream as she poked and scratched and struggled and rolled. But her attacker was bigger and stronger so finally she found herself on her back, her arms pinned down and her attacker sitting upon her. Water splashed over Abbie’s face, blurring her eyes, but she could make out a woman’s form.

  “Tonight we fight for our man!” the woman hissed.

  Abbie recognized the voice. It was Dancing Moon!

  “I have been waiting for this moment to find you alone, white woman!” the Arapaho snarled. She let go with one hand and backhanded Abbie. It had happened too quickly for Abbie to react and now she knew that without help she would not win a fight with this strong and vicious woman. Dancing Moon meant to kill her. When the Arapaho woman hit her again, Abbie reached up, dug her nails into Dancing Moon’s face, and screamed for Zeke despite the mixture of blood and water in her mouth.

  Dancing Moon jerked Abbie’s hand away and pushed her arms back down. “White bitch!” she snarled. “Now you have shown your weakness! They will laugh at you for calling for help! A true Cheyenne fights her own battles! She does not call for help!”

  Abbie arched upward, trying to get the woman off her, but Dancing Moon only laughed and raised up slightly to jerk Abbie around so that her face was in the water again. “Now you cannot scream!” she told Abbie. But already Dancing Moon could hear voices and footsteps; there was not enough time to wait for Abbie to drown.

  Again Abbie struggled, and Dancing Moon let go with one hand to take out a small knife from a belt she wore around her tunic. She raised the knife just as Abbie managed to turn over again. Abbie screamed and struggled to get away, wiggling up just enough that the knife came down in her abdomen rather than her chest.

  Pain and blackness enveloped Abbie. She could feel Dancing Moon leaving her, and for a moment there was only the feel of the cold river water splashing over her face. Then there were more voices, and strong arms were lifting her.

  “Abbie!” someone groaned. “My God, Abbie, what’s happened to you?”

  Who was talking to her? Terrible pain pierced her belly. Was it the baby? No! It was too soon for the baby! The baby! Something stung terribly at her face, and she could taste blood. Her nostrils, ears, and throat were full of water and she was coughing and choking; yet she was unable to speak or focus her thoughts. Everything hurt, and someone screamed Zeke’s name. Was it coming from her own lips? No. She couldn’t speak! And yet …

  “Someone has attacked her!” a man’s voice spoke up.

  “Whoever it was, he’ll die!” a voice close to her responded. “And he’ll die slowly!” There was a tenseness in the arms that held her.

  “Be calm, Zeke,” a woman’s voice spoke up. “She will need you to be calm. And there is the knife wound. You are the best at fixing knife wounds. You must be calm and help her, my son.”

  “Who would do this!” came the desperate reply.


  “It is too dark to find the attacker tonight,” someone at a distance said. “It is dangerous to go out among the spirits of the dead when the sun is down.”

  There was a sudden warmth around her, and, sensing a dim light, Abbie could smell the sweet smoke of herbs. She recognized the smell as that created by the Shaman, the medicine man, when he burned special herbs and leaves as part of the ritual of doctoring the wounded. But who was wounded? Was she the one who would be the object of the Shaman’s rituals? She felt her tunic being removed.

  “My God!” someone groaned again. “Abbie!”

  Eight

  For the next few hours Abbie knew nothing but fits of pain punctuated by long moments of unconsciousness. The pain tore at her abdomen, as though witches’ claws were gripping her insides and tearing at her. When conscious, she could hear women’s voices, feel a man’s gentle hands stroking her hair and occasionally sense a cool cloth on her forehead. She was aware of a soft chanting in the background and the continued sweet smell of burnt offerings. But she did not remember that she had screamed her way through the stitches Zeke had taken with a crude bone needle and thread made from the thinnest intestinal membrane of the buffalo, boiled for cleanliness and slit into paper-thin strips. Nor was she aware that the tiny life she had carried in her belly had been expelled because of the shock of her attack and stabbing, and that she no longer carried Zeke’s baby. Now she sensed only awful pain and then blessed blackness.

  Not until morning sunrise did she open her eyes in full consciousness, to realize she lay in the Shaman’s tipi. The old man, face painted, was quietly chanting and waving gray feathers that caused the smoke rising from a sweetly scented fire to waft over her body. At first she lay quietly, her eyes focusing on her surroundings, her mind finally beginning to remember and to understand.

  “Zeke!” she whimpered. She did not realize he had been sitting near her head, where she could not see him at first. He was immediately at her side, bending over her and putting a hand gently to her badly scraped face, careful not to touch the deep cuts where someone’s nails had dug into her. His face was drawn and pitifully tired-looking, his eyes desperate and wild with grief.

  “Abbie girl!” he said in a near whisper. “I … thought I’d lost you!”

  She started to rise but cried out with pain.

  “No, don’t move!” Zeke warned her. “I had to stitch up the wound on your stomach. You’re in a bad way, Abbie, and you’ve got to lie still.”

  “The … wound?” she asked, closing her eyes and trying to remember.

  He bent closer and kissed her eyes. “Abbie, who did this to you?” he asked gently. “Tell me who did this, and he’ll pay.”

  She struggled to remember. The hands! The awful, strong hands! And the water! Choking! Struggling! “She … tried to drown me!” Abbie whimpered, tossing her head and breathing rapidly. “She said … we had to fight … for our man! She wanted me … to die! Zeke!”

  “Hush, Abbie!” he told her grasping her face between his big, gentle hands. Someone else entered the tipi and sat down near her.

  “Zeke,” a woman’s voice spoke. “She is better?”

  “Damn!” Zeke groaned. “It was her! It was Dancing Moon!” His voice sounded bitter and broken. “I should have killed her the night of the dancing!”

  “Be calm, Zeke,” came the woman’s voice. Abbie felt a gentle hand on her forehead. “Tell us, Abigail. Was it Dancing Moon who did this to you?”

  Abbie’s body jerked in a sob, and pain tore through her again. It hurt to cry and yet she could not stop. She was suddenly enveloped in the realization that she must have miscarried.

  “Yes,” she whimpered. Then the awfulness of it all hit her, the terrible knowledge that she had lost the precious life that she had so wanted to carry in her womb to full term. “Yes!” she said louder. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

  “Don’t, Abbie!” Zeke pleaded, grasping her hands tightly. “My God, Abbie, you’ve got to lie still!”

  “I don’t care!” she screamed. “My baby’s gone, isn’t it? Tell me, Zeke! My baby’s gone!”

  He kept a firm hold of her hands and bent down to kiss her damp hair. “Yes, Abbie girl.”

  She groaned and gritted her teeth, and horrible, wrenching, painful sobs swelled up from her soul.

  “Abbie, at least you’re alive!” Zeke moaned, trying to console her. “You can have other babies.”

  “I wanted this one!” she sobbed. “Oh, God, I wish … I was home! I want my … mother! I want Pa! I … hate it here! I hate it! Everybody dies! Everybody dies! I want to go back … to Tennessee! I want to sit … on the swing … in our back yard! I want my mother, Zeke! They don’t … want me! Your people … don’t want me!”

  “God, Abbie, stop it! That’s not true!”

  “It is! It is! They tried to kill me!”

  “Abbie, don’t do this! That was Dancing Moon. The others love you, Abbie. I love you. You’ve been happy with the Cheyenne.”

  She struggled to get away from him, filled with horror at her memories of death—her mother, her sister, her brother, her father. Now her baby was gone! Everything was gone! And here she lay in a foreign land amid a foreign people. Perhaps she had been lying to herself all along. Perhaps she could not live her life with this man who understood savageness in a way she never would. Perhaps doing it for a man’s love was not enough to carry her through. She felt sick and weak and small and white … so white and foreign!

  “Make him go away!” she screamed, pushing at the Shaman’s hand as he held eagle feathers over her forehead. “Make him go away! I don’t need his chanting and his… pagan rituals. I’ve already lost my baby! I’ve lost … everything. Everything! I can’t go on, Zeke. I don’t want the Cheyenne. I don’t want anything! It won’t work! I just … want to die!”

  She did not see his ashen face or the horror in his eyes. She felt him move away from her. He barked something to the Shaman, and the chanting stopped. Abbie lay there unable to control her crying while a woman’s gentle hand stroked her hair. Someone covered her with another robe, and suddenly she knew the tipi was empty, and that was how she felt. Empty. Totally and agonizingly empty.

  A gentle breeze ruffled the coup feathers in Zeke’s hair, and birds sang nearby. He sat on a flat rock, lightly picking at his mandolin while staring absently at the dancing waters of the river nearby. He sat alone, in a place where he knew no one would come and see his tears. But when he heard footsteps in the distance, picking up the sound early with his keen ears, he quickly turned to see his mother approaching. He set the mandolin down and turned away again, wiping tears from his cheeks with his fingers as she came closer.

  “Leave me!” he groaned. “You should not … see me now.”

  “Why?” she asked quietly. “Because you weep?”

  He sighed deeply. “She … loved my music,” he replied brokenly. “And she loved me. It won’t be that way for us again.” He rubbed at his eyes and his shoulders shook slightly, and Gentle Woman’s heart ached for her lonely half-breed son. “Please … leave me, Mother,” he again requested.

  “There are many kinds of weeping, my son,” she went on. “To weep over the bad fortune of someone we love brings no shame. It is natural.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “Zeke, it is difficult for a man to understand what happens to a woman when she loses a child. Many things take place … inside of her … things that she cannot help. It is like … like it is with some women at their flowing times … when they may not be as patient. It is something she cannot stop from happening, Zeke. It makes her say things she does not mean, and hurt those she loves when she does not want to hurt them. Do you understand what I am telling you?”

  He rose and moved away from her. “She’s right, you know,” he choked out. “It won’t work. I was foolish to think it would!”

  “She’s young, Zeke. And all of this is so new to her. Do not lose faith. She is a child, Zeke. A little girl! And she has lost too much too fast. When she is
healed, and the awful loneliness of losing her baby has left her, she will be your Abbie again. You have so much love for one another, Zeke. But you are a man, and she is a child. You must be patient. Surely you knew when you married her that it would take time and patience for her to grow into a woman.”

  He wiped at his eyes again. “I knew that. But making her live this way … it’s too much.” He picked up a rock and threw it hard into the water. “I was a fool to marry her. A fool!” He whirled. “Not because of her, Mother. Because of me. Me! Because I’m a half-breed and life with me will destroy her! I … I tried so hard to keep myself from her … to convince myself that I must leave her—send her on to Oregon and never see her again. I’d learned my lesson with Ellen. This is what I get for breaking my vow to never marry another white woman! This is what I get for being weak with love for her. I’ll ruin the very thing I love the most, just like I ruined Ellen!”

  “You did not ruin Ellen! You loved her! You were good to her. You had a right to marry her, Zeke! You are a man. It does not matter that half of you is Indian and half of you is white. You are just a man. And you can love any woman you choose to love. If she happens to be white, then she is white.”

  Their eyes held for a moment, and her heart ached for this firstborn son who had suffered so greatly in his short life because of his mixed blood. At the moment he was four years old again, and he was being dragged away from her, for the same desperate, lonely look was in his eyes. She stepped closer and grasped his arms.

  “Zeke, give her a few days. It is her pain that is talking, that is all. Her physical pain, and her mental pain. Her heart is full of sorrow.”