Whitefeather's Woman

by Deborah Hale

  Jane shook her head. “I’ll make sure she gets them. Did you tell me her name means ‘Walks on Ice’?”

  John spoke up, his voice gruffer than he intended. “I suppose you think that’s funny. Well, it happens Auntie is a skilled midwife. Women of my people always call on her when it’s a hard birth. One spring when she was young, she crossed a river on thin ice to attend a woman in labor. The ice cracked behind her with each step, but she got to the other side safely. The elders said the Great Spirit made her step light because she was doing a worthy deed.”

  “I don’t think it’s funny, at all.” Jane looked him straight in the eye, her voice quiet but uncowed. “How wonderful to have done something so important folks are reminded of the story every time they say your name. I’ve never done anything that would earn me a name.”

  Her wistful tone blasted John’s conscience. He hadn’t meant to hurt her any more than he’d meant to kiss her the other day. Would he regain control of his actions once she was gone from his life? And if he did, would the price be too high?

  Ruth patted Jane’s shoulder and flashed John a scolding glare. “If you were a Cheyenne girl, your name would likely be Calls to Children. That’s a gift, and not everyone has it. Especially not… Ah, listen to me going on when you two should be on your way.”

  If Ruth was hoping to distract Jane, she failed.

  “Especially not…who?” Jane turned her soft hazel eyes on his sister.

  John knew from experience the futility of trying to hold anything back from that beseeching gaze. He also knew what Ruth had meant to say.

  “Especially not ve’ho’e, dear.” Ruth sighed over the offensive truth. “Most white folks are much harsher with their young than the Tsitsistas.”

  “I see. Then I guess I’ll fit right in at Sweetgrass, won’t I?” On that modestly defiant note, Jane drained the last of her coffee, then carried her dishes to the washtub.

  Oh, she’d fit in at Sweetgrass. Suddenly John had a bad feeling about the whole day ahead of him. Jane Harris would fit in at a Cheyenne village…when frogs grew teeth!

  “Oonâhá’e mâxhevéesevôtse,” said John as they rode north.

  “What does that one mean?” Jane nudged her horse to a slightly faster pace to keep up with him.

  Asking him questions about the Cheyenne language, she’d finally got John talking to her again. She couldn’t tell from his manner whether he’d seen her in the window the other night, so she’d made up her mind to behave as if he hadn’t.

  “It’s a saying of my people—‘when frogs grow teeth.’ It means ‘never.’”

  Jane laughed. “Back in Boston, we say, ‘when pigs fly.’ Some folks say ‘when hell freezes over.’ I guess none of those are too apt to happen, are they?”

  “A flying pig would be quite a sight.” John appeared to be doing his best to fight off a smile.

  Jane wished with all her heart he’d surrender.

  “Ruth told me a bit about Sweetgrass, but I don’t quite understand. Is it a government reservation?”

  Her question averted any threat of a smile from John, and she regretted that. His usual grave countenance was one of the most striking she’d ever seen. But his rare smiles lit up something inside of him. And her.

  “A reservation’s the one thing Sweetgrass is not. I don’t want my band living off government charity, overseen by Indian agents like we’re children who don’t know what’s best for us. We own every acre of Sweetgrass, and it’s a good piece of land. It has water with plenty of fish, woods where we can hunt and trap, tall grass where the buffalo herds still come. William Kincaid approved the loan and a lawyer in Livingston registered the deed.”

  “That must have cost a lot.”

  John gave a curt nod. “I reckon if I keep working for Caleb until five years after I’m dead, that should just about pay it back.”

  “I see.”

  It did illuminate a number of puzzling questions. Like why a man who so obviously prized his Cheyenne heritage worked as a ranch foreman instead of living among his father’s people. Like why he fought so hard against his obvious attraction for her. Did he think he had nothing to offer her compared to men like the doctor and the saloon-keeper?

  In terms of Endicott values, perhaps he didn’t. No big house in an affluent neighborhood. No fine carriages or jewels or accounts with the best tradespeople.

  In terms of the things that really mattered—priceless assets like strength, honor and kindness—John Whitefeather was a millionaire and Emery Endicott a pauper. What John had just told her proved that he would go to any lengths to protect and care for those he loved.

  If she could someday count herself among that number, Jane thought she might be the happiest woman in the world.

  “We’re riding on Sweetgrass land now.” As John looked around at the flourishing land his voice took on a rich note of pride. “We’ll come to the camp soon.”

  He pointed toward the northern horizon. Jane shaded her eyes and peered into the distance. Sure enough, she could make out a cluster of tall, conical dwellings and slender plumes of smoke lofting skyward. It was as though she had stepped into the pages of a Beadles dime novel. With John by her side, she felt a quiver of excited curiosity, but surprisingly little fear.

  As they drew closer to the camp, some boys and girls about Zeke’s age ran out to meet them, laughing and calling to John. The girls wore beaded buckskin dresses and the boys fringed trousers. Several dogs with pointed snouts and curled tails barked at the children’s heels.

  “What are they saying?” asked Jane, thankful all the cordial commotion didn’t upset her placid gelding.

  “They say they’re happy to see me. The girls ask who you are. The boys want to know if I brought them any sweets from Whitehorn.”

  “Have you?” Surely a man this much at ease with children wanted sons and daughters of his own.

  One corner of John’s wide mouth tilted as he reined his mare to a halt. “I know better than to come without.”

  He dug in his saddlebag and tossed down a small paper sack bulging with some variety of confection.

  “Licorice,” he told Jane. “They’re all crazy about it.”

  The children ran away with the bag, calling back words of thanks in their own language.

  “Shouldn’t you tell them to share it fairly?” Jane slid from her saddle. She remembered the times she and her brother had fought over treats. Armed with her newfound contentment, she no longer battled to suppress memories of her family.

  John shook his head. “It wouldn’t occur to them to do anything else. Here at Sweetgrass the hunters bring back game for everyone in the village. The women make fry bread, and when mealtime comes everyone eats.”

  Had any of the men who wrote those dime novels about savage, warlike Indians ever been west of the Mississippi? Jane wondered. Might she have grown into a different, stronger woman if she’d been born into a community like this one, where the whole group took responsibility for nurturing all its members?

  They left their horses to graze, and John led Jane into a loose circle of tepees. Beside the smoldering embers of a large central fire, a group of older men sat talking. Around the camp, Jane could see four or five grandmotherly women doing chores, with cradleboards strapped to their backs. Two were scraping hair from an animal hide, another stirred something in a big cast-iron pot suspended over a smaller fire. Two more sat together talking over their beadwork. Fascinated, Jane took it all in.

  One of the women spotted John and called out to him. He led Jane over to where she sat. He addressed the old woman in the language Jane sometimes heard him speak to Ruth. It had a pleasing staccato rhythm and, from what she could tell, employed a much narrower range of sounds than English. She did not need to understand John’s words to recognize the tone of respect and affection in which they were uttered.

  “Jane, this is my auntie, Walks on Ice.” Was it her imagination, or did he look nervous making this introduction?

  S
he had picked up a few words of Cheyenne from Ruth’s conversation, but none of them seemed like an appropriate greeting, so Jane settled for smiling and nodding.

  Walks on Ice was a tiny scrap of a woman. Jane doubted she’d needed much divine intervention to cross the thin ice of a thawing stream. John’s aunt must have been a beauty, too, for her graying ebony hair was still lustrous and her high-cheeked features gave her a curiously aristocratic look.

  The old woman acknowledged Jane with a cool but polite nod, and one dark eyebrow raised in a haughty stare worthy of Mrs. Olivia Endicott herself.

  Suddenly Jane remembered the parcel in her hands. She knelt and held it out to Walks on Ice. “Ruth asked me to bring you these. Beads. Needles. Thread.” She pointed to the women’s handiwork.

  A smile softening her features, Walks on Ice patted the ground beside her, inviting Jane to sit.

  “Will you be all right here?” John hovered near. “I have to go talk with Bearspeaker and the other elders. The young men are out hunting and the young women are off gathering wood. They’ll be back soon. So will the children, once they’ve eaten all the licorice.”

  “I’ll be fine.” The ring of truth in her own words surprised Jane.

  For a little while after John moved away to confer with the elders, she felt awkward and out of place. Then a small girl, not long out of the cradleboard, toddled over and plopped herself in Jane’s lap. They fell into a game of peekaboo, then patty-cake. After a while more children joined them. Jane pillaged her memory for nursery songs with accompanying actions.

  They crowded around her, touching her clothes and her hair. It made her a trifle nervous until she realized that these children might never have seen a woman with clothes and hair like hers. She traded them touch for curious touch, praising the lovely bead and quillwork on their clothing, telling them they were clever, strong, swift and handsome. They might not understand her English any more than she understood their language, but she hoped they would know the tone of a compliment when they heard it.

  The sound of feminine laughter heralded the return of the younger women, with bundles of wood strapped to their backs and more in their arms. Some of the children ran to their mothers, talking excitedly and gesturing toward the white visitor. After they had unpacked their burden of fuel, the women came and sat near Jane and Walks on Ice. Pointing to them one by one, John’s aunt made the introductions with grave formality, also signaling which of the children belonged to each mother.

  Two of the youngest women brought everyone tin mugs full of a steaming beverage. Gingerly, Jane took a sip. It had a mellow sweetish taste, like sassafras tea.

  Some of the women took up beadwork; some sewed together pieces of tanned hide. One young woman suckled a small baby at her breast as Jane had seen Ruth do with Barton before she put him to bed. As they gossiped and laughed together, Jane let the bewitching melody of their language wash over her while she soaked up the novel sounds, smells and sights of the Cheyenne settlement.

  She eyed the tall tepees with their frame poles tufted out above patchwork sheaths of stout buffalo hide. Slanted racks with animal skins stretched for tanning. Cosy cradleboards, whose breathtaking beadwork spoke volumes about how the Cheyenne treasured their babies.

  As the molten-gold Montana sun made his slow arc across the Big Sky, he seemed to kiss the people of Sweetgrass with his blessing. And Jane wished she never had to leave.

  John Whitefeather sat among the council of elders, listening to their warnings and complaints, nodding his head at strategic moments and frowning as if in deep, concerned thought. His true thoughts concerned Jane.

  How soon he could steal his next glance across the camp at her without arousing notice. How amazingly well his kinswomen had accepted her. How very much he wanted to kiss her again and make the most intimate acquaintance of the tempting body she’d let him glimpse.

  As he’d expected, Walks on Ice had not been very pleased to see him show up with a white woman in tow. She hadn’t been bashful about telling him so, either. With a curt word, John had reminded her that he was the son of a white woman. In doing so, he also reminded himself.

  Watching Jane sitting among the women, looking more at ease than he’d ever seen her, John recalled another beloved pale face and head of light-colored hair. Strangely, Jane’s presence at Sweetgrass made him feel more at one with his band, just as it had made him less alien among the Kincaids. He’d brought her here to convince himself how futile it was to hanker after her. But his plan had misfired badly.

  The return of the hunters a few hours after midday brought John a welcome distraction.

  “We caught four rabbits in our traps,” Red Stone announced, “and we shot an old stag of good size.”

  A murmur of approval ran through the council, and several of the women went off to help dress the carcasses. As the hunting party took seats among their fathers and uncles and accepted cups of tea, Red Stone shook his head.

  “We bring a good kill, but also troubling news. The buffalo have moved north, looking for more plentiful water and greener forage. We must strike camp and follow them, or it will be a hungry winter.”

  “It is as I said,” Bearspeaker reminded John. “We cannot stay in one place. We depend on the herds, at least the pitiful remains of the ve’ho’e wasteful slaughter.”

  John drew a deep breath. How could he make them see the world as the whites did? With property divided into neat parcels and held by individual owners, entitled to keep others off. At the point of a gun, if necessary.

  “You told me the old stories yourself, Bearspeaker. How, long ago, the Cheyenne lived far to the east, growing corn and squash, living in permanent lodges. Then times changed. The Sioux came and pushed us west onto the Plains to follow the buffalo. Our people had to make homes of hides and poles that would travel with us. Now times have changed again, and we must change our way of living again.”

  The men grumbled among themselves and cast him reproachful looks that said ve’ho’e.

  Part of John Whitefeather wanted to wash his hands of the whole thing. He was tired of struggling to live between two such different worlds. His head ached from trying to balance two viewpoints, so completely opposed. His heart yearned to belong.

  Let his kinsmen chase the herds until they ran into trouble with white settlers, and the government sent soldiers to slaughter them outright or kill them slowly in the prison camps called reservations. John could stop paying most everything he earned to William Kincaid’s bank, and let Will foreclose on Sweetgrass. John could work and live just for himself.

  Then he glanced up and caught Jane watching him. She did not blush and look away as she had so many times in the past few weeks. Instead she held his gaze and smiled. Her gentle, delicate face radiated admiration and encouragement. John could almost feel his heart melt within him.

  He had heard that phrase used, but never understood it until this minute. He wasn’t sure most English speakers did, either.

  Like all elemental forces of change, melting hurt. It transformed something of solid strength, like ice or iron, into formless liquid that moved, flooded, swallowed. A wise man respected its power.

  “Does it matter so much if we change our dwellings or what we eat?” he asked, knowing he had committed himself to their survival and there could be no turning back. “As long as we can keep our dances and our rituals and our language? Don’t think of our boundaries as a prison. Think of them as a fortress.”

  “This is good land,” agreed Red Stone. “Better than our brothers on the reservation must make do with. We have game and fish, wood for our fires. Soil that might grow crops. If you can get me seed, Night Horse, next spring I will plant. When the rains come, the buffalo will return.”

  Some of the others still looked doubtful.

  “Change is a fearful thing,” John conceded. “It takes great courage to embrace change, and great wisdom to decide what things we can change and what things we must cling to at any cost.”

&nbs
p; If there was one quality his people prized about all others, it was courage. Make planting a seed or building a house sound like an act of bravery and they might be willing to try.

  Did he have the courage to risk personal change? John wondered. Did a lone wolf who had spent his life prowling at the edge of the pack dare to seek a mate?

  It scared him almost spitless to contemplate. Though not half as much as it scared him to think of handing Jane over to another man.

  “What were you and the men talking about?” Jane asked John as they rode back south, their stomachs full of fry bread and rabbit stew and Juneberry pudding.

  “I was preaching the gospel of change.” John’s voice sounded weary and just a little bitter. “Now I know why some of those Old Testament prophets they taught us about in residential school were so unpopular.”

  “It’s hard to give up doing what you’re used to.” She wasn’t thinking about the Cheyenne, Jane realized, but herself. “Even when the old ways aren’t good for you, or they don’t work anymore. It’s like that saying, ‘better the devil you know.’ I saw a play once with Mrs. Endicott where the hero said fear of the unknown is so strong it makes us willing to suffer the troubles we have rather than run away from them and risk landing in something worse. I never forgot that.”

  “Yet you left Boston to come all the way out to Montana. Are you really that much braver than you seem, Jane? Or were your troubles back there so bad they made it worth the risk?”

  The sun had almost set behind the Crazy Mountains, lighting the horizon in shimmering bands of red and gold as spectacular as everything else in the Big Sky.

  Jane wasn’t sure she could find the courage to answer John’s question. The other night she had flirted with baring her body to him. From a safe distance and completely on her own terms. Did she dare bare her ugly past and risk turning him away forever?