by Karen Kay
It had been more than beautiful; it had been awe-inspiring, looking more like a place of enchantment than a mere earthly haunt. Funny, she thought. At the time, images of gods living there, playing there, had come to mind.
Kali smiled and shook her head. Enchanted? A godly retreat? Now she was sounding like some romantic poet.
Her father harrumphed, interrupting her thoughts. “Do you think he’ll be there tonight?”
“He?” Startled, Kali’s fingers slipped over the pins she had been placing in her hair.
“Yes,” said her father. “You know. Chief One Bull. The Blackfeet chief.”
“Oh, y-yes,” Kali stuttered. “Chief One Bull.”
“That’s right, m’dear. Who else would I be speaking of?”
“No one else, Father. No one else,” Kali responded, although she couldn’t help but wonder, would he be there?
At the thought, a warmth stole over her. Had the man she’d seen on the mountaintop been real or illusion?
Oh, to be sure, she had touched the poor fellow’s fan, but even now, in the light of day, she nurtured uncertainties about it.
She said, “I would imagine that Chief One Bull will attend the festivities. After all, he is their tribe’s leader.”
“I hope so, m’dear; that’s why I’m thinking you might want to wear the white tonight.”
Nonchalantly Kali shrugged. “I hardly think it matters. Truth is, if I am correct in my estimation, I will hardly be noticed.”
“You would be if you wore something else. You might even attract the eye of several of the males in this part of the country.”
Kali tried to smile, but the effect was little more than a grimace. “Stop that, Father. I have no interest in appearing fetching to some good-for-nothing man, so set your thoughts onto something else. You, my distinguished and handsome father, are my focus, and the author of over twenty books on native studies. It is you who should be in the limelight, not I.”
“But m’dear—”
“Hear me on this. The only impression I want to leave tonight is that of being a businesswoman. I have no desire to be more than that which I am, and if I want to give others a correct opinion of me—and the nature of our work—I had best look professional.”
Her father paused and frowned, looking as though he might like to say another word or two. But at last, with a shake of his head, he smiled at her and said, “Yes, Kalifornia,” which only caused Kali to wince even more.
Kalifornia. It was her full name. She sighed.
Truth was, Kali had never come to terms with her name. She was certain William Wallace had christened his only child much in the way of keeping with his profession, and had probably thought the name, Kalifornia, a rather exotic endearment. But to Kali, who had been raised in the conservative halls of New England—far away from her father’s gallivanting ways—the name had been a never-ending source of teasing and personal embarrassment.
A battle she’d had to withstand alone. She’d had no brothers or sisters to defend her; her father had never stayed home for any length of time and her mother had never been well. Truth be known, no sooner had Kali turned eleven than her mother had passed away.
Unfortunately for Kali, she’d been old enough to experience her mother’s loss as a genuine tragedy. And though she had tried to tell herself that her mother’s passing was probably for the best, that her mother had gone on to a better place—a world where she suffered no more—it hadn’t helped.
Nothing had brought relief. Nothing, that is, except to lose herself in her schoolwork and the logic of rational thought. Ah yes. That’s when she had realized the value of logic, deduction, reasoning.
It had been a blessing of sorts. Rather than submit to the rigors of personal trauma, Kali had instead developed her mind. With logic she could weather unwanted emotions; with reasoning she could lock away her grief; with careful deduction of facts she could avoid pain and a good deal of anguish.
After his wife’s passing, William Wallace had tried to settle down. He had returned to New England, and for an entire year had attempted to become a part of the orthodox society he abhorred. He’d done his best, his wanderings perhaps allowing him to garner an ability at pretense. But in the end, any attempt at stability was as fleeting as a moonbeam’s embrace.
Instead a new era came into being, not that William Wallace had been given much say in it. It happened as he was making arrangements for yet another excursion into the world of native studies. He was in for a shock.
True, he had done all the right things to ensure Kali’s future—hiring a governess and a new housekeeper—only to discover, when he was set to leave, that his daughter had come into a mind of her own. She would not remain at home alone. Not without him.
And when he had tried to steal away, Kali had sneaked right after him. From then on, it hadn’t taken much effort on her part to convince him that his best bet was to hire a tutor and take his daughter with him. In sooth, from then on Kali had become his most constant companion and, if one were to be completely honest, his very best business associate.
Kali brought life and imagination to her father’s work. For her father had been more author than photographer and his pictures had reflected this, being more afterthought than a means of bringing notice to a people and their plight.
But Kali, with her innate sense of art, her eye for the unusual and her insistence on perfection, changed all that. And eventually her input catapulted her father’s work in the field of native studies into notoriety. His ideas and his sense of what was worthwhile to photograph had made her job easier, yes. But it had been Kali’s genius with mood, with lighting and with an empathy for the subject of the photograph that had brought the father and daughter team distinction, as well as a fair measure of financial success.
In the mirror, Kali watched as William Wallace plucked his hat up from a nearby table and, placing it neatly on his head, said, “Even though Chief One Bull and a few other chiefs have been invited to the Indian agent’s dinner party—as a favor to us—that does not ensure that they will come.”
“I know, Father. We can only hope. Tell me, was it this hard for you and Mother to meet the chiefs when you visited here before?”
William Wallace chuckled. “It wasn’t so very arduous to meet them, m’dear, but it was rather difficult to find them, there being no reservation at that time, and certainly no train to carry us to them.”
Kali frowned. “It’s funny, Father, how little you’ve told me about that time of your life. It was the last time Mother accompanied you on one of your excursions, wasn’t it?”
“That it was, m’dear. That it was.”
Silently, Kali stared at her father in the mirror. Did she dare hope that her father would shed some light on that period of his life? On the Indians themselves? It seemed to her as though there must have been something more.
Holding her breath, she met her father’s reflected gaze, held it. Cautiously she smiled.
But her father turned away and coughed, saying instead, “The Blackfeet agent tells me that the Indians won’t allow us to photograph them.” His eyes avoided hers. “Nor will they allow us to study their ceremonies. Not without invitation. If Chief One Bull likes us, he might invite us to his camp. The agent also tells me that two members of the Medicine Pipe society are looking for a new man to keep the pipe. He’s insinuated that perhaps the chief might invite us to watch…that is, if he likes us. And I daresay it would be quite a feather in our cap if he did.”
Shaking her head, Kali let out her breath. Maybe someday he’d tell her. Maybe. Aloud she said, “It certainly would be a feather in our cap, Father.”
She turned her gaze away from him and, picking up a hairpin, finished pinning a lock into place. “I’ll do my best not to disappoint you tonight.”
“Oh, you could never do that, m’dear,” said William Wallace. “Besides, if the agent is correct, I don’t think you need to worry about charming these people overly much. Factually, th
e Indian agent assures me that he has tremendous influence with his Indian charges and tells me that our invitation is practically assured.”
Kali turned. “Yet nothing is ever completely assured,” she countered. “Still, if this agent has that much sway with these people, it would be a relief, wouldn’t it? Now, what was that you said about the Medicine Pipe?”
“There will be a ceremony for the new owner in a few days.”
“It sounds exciting, doesn’t it? What is a medicine pipe, by the way? Do you know the difference between it and what the common Indian man might use as a pipe?”
“No, I’m afraid that I don’t. But apparently it’s an honor to be chosen to receive it. According to Mr. Black—their agent—the society must select a man who is prominent in the tribe, as well as one who can afford to pay for the pipe, since he will have to give many feasts in its honor.”
“Hmmm.”
“And that’s not all. There’s a ceremony that goes with the passing of the pipe.”
“Oh my,” said Kali as she quickly, yet firmly, affixed a black lace ribbon into the reddish tresses of her coiffure. “It sounds like just the thing, doesn’t it? Something that I’m sure would be a source of excellent pictures—if the Indians invite us and if they will let us photograph them.”
William Wallace paced forward to pat Kali’s hand. “Don’t worry about that, Kalifornia. I’ve tried to fix everything with the agent…at least as well as I can.”
“I know. I know. Still, one can never be certain until the thing is done, can one?”
Her father harrumphed. “Well, if Mr. Black is wrong—and I don’t venture to say he is—I have you to count on, don’t I? You’ve never failed me yet.”
Kali swung around toward him and grinned. “Be kind when you say that, Father. I promise I’ll do my very best. But it’s never the thing to count one’s chickens first, now is it? Well, here we go; I’m finally ready.” She turned to face him, prepared to leave, but stopped as a thought occurred to her. “Father,” she said, “do you know if the Blackfeet are a patriarchal society?”
“I believe they are, m’dear, but I’m not certain of it. Why do you ask?”
“Because if they are, and if the agent hasn’t quite ‘fixed’ things for us, it might be harder for me to acquire an invitation to the Indians’ ceremonies. You do realize that much of our work in the past has been done with societies that trace their roots through their mothers’ side of the family, not their fathers’. In truth, I think this is what has made it a little easier for me to gain admittance in many cases. But what do we know of the Blackfeet, after all, except that they were once a fierce tribe?” She frowned. “Didn’t you learn anything else about them when you were here before?”
William Wallace shrugged. “I hadn’t come here to study the Indians, if you will remember, Kalifornia. Your mother and I had come here for her health.”
“Yes. So you have said in the past. But you did meet with them, didn’t you?”
“Yes. In a way.”
“In a way?”
Looking elsewhere, William Wallace’s reply was silence.
“Surely,” continued Kali, “you must have learned something about them.”
Still mute on the subject, her father turned away from her, showing Kali his back. After a time, he said, “We barely had anything to do with them. But you pose a good question—about how they trace their lineage—and I’ll see to it as soon as we meet with the agent this evening.”
“Very well,” said Kali, a note of frustration in her voice. “Perhaps,” she added, “we should have tried to learn more about this tribe before we came here. After all, how many times have you told me that our work depends on knowing and observing the customs, manners and taboos of these cultures? Remember? ‘No matter how strange they may appear’,” she affected her father’s accent, “‘or how much they might conflict with our own personal desires, we must abide by them’?”
“Hmmmm, yes, m’dear, yes,” her father agreed. “Point well taken. I’ll do my best.”
“Right,” said Kali thoughtfully. “Right. Well, we had best leave to go to this party. I must admit that after snapping those pictures on the top of Chief Mountain, I am anxious to do more work here. I think this very well might be our best project yet.”
“Do you really think so, my dearest daughter?”
“Quite,” she said, sweeping away her disappointment from earlier as she stepped forward and took hold of her father’s arm. Affixing a bright smile to her countenance, she repeated, “Quite.”
It was a warm summer’s eve. The agent’s dinner party had gone well, although the Indians hadn’t been invited to the feast. They were due to arrive upon its completion, however, and Kali was anxious to meet with them.
It was an odd arrangement, Kali thought, to leave the honored guests out of the main festivities. Still, she had witnessed more peculiar things in her travels, and since she was a stranger to the newly formed state of Montana, she would abide by what the Indian agent thought best.
The sound of hoofbeats striking against the hard, dry ground interrupted Kali’s thoughts. Stealing a look out the window, Kali espied fifteen to perhaps twenty riders. Indians.
At last. It must be close to nine thirty, Kali estimated, although the exact time was hard to tell in this locale. She had already noted that, since it was summer, this territory—so far north—didn’t show signs of night until well past eleven o’clock. And even then, the sky was rarely in complete blackness.
Touching her father’s shirt sleeve, Kali murmured, “The Blackfeet are here, I think. Perhaps we should go out and greet them from the agency’s porch.”
“Certainly, m’dear.” Her father patted her hand.
Kali and her father led the others out to the veranda, where they were greeted by the thrill of crisp mountain air and the splendid phenomenon of a golden sunset. It couldn’t have been more beautiful, Kali thought, since the setting sun bathed the newly arriving guests in a tawny red light.
Two by two, the Indians proceeded abreast into the agency like some grand military procession. And what a magnificent, colorful spectacle it was to see.
Each chief was sitting proudly astride a prancing, painted steed. Yellow, red, blue and white designs had been hand-sketched onto each horse, those colors beaming under the burnished rays of the sun. Something on the horses or perhaps the men’s regalia tinkled with each movement, the sound pleasant against the accompaniment of the animals’ hoofs.
The Indians themselves looked as spectacular as any royalty she had ever seen. Each chief was adorned in a war bonnet, the headgear in many cases boasting perhaps a hundred feathers. Here was a red, white and blue one; there was a yellow and blue one; another was red and white. Kali grinned, her eye catching the difference between the Blackfeet headdresses and those of other tribes she had visited. On these Blackfeet chiefs, the feathers of the headdress stood straight up instead of falling away from the head at an angle. White strips of ermine fur fell down from each of the headdresses, covering the wearer’s ears and granting the chief a look of dignity. Kali caught her breath when one of the chiefs turned away so that his back faced her. A “tail” of feathers had been attached to his headdress, the feathers being so numerous that this “tail” fell down the entirety of his back and over that of his steed.
Completing the picture, as might have been expected, each chief wore leggings, breechcloth, shirt and moccasins. But there the likeness to one another ended. Here was a gentleman attired in a beautifully beaded vest of blue, with red, white and yellow flowers. Over there was another whose shirt was dyed a light blue and accented with a vest of light red porcupine quills, flaunting designs of blue, yellow and red. This one’s shirt was bleached elk skin, with fringes of yellow, blue and silver; that one’s was painted in figures of animals.
Kali blinked. The parade’s grandness was dazzling, she thought, and quite something to take in all at once. Suddenly her fingers itched to get hold of her tripod and
camera. But Kali curbed the impulse, twisting her hands behind her back. She was all too aware of the circumstances; knew that to snap pictures without first obtaining the Indians’ permission would be a breach of etiquette that might mar her relationship with the tribes forever.
Still, excitement raced along her nerve endings. She had been right in thinking that this could be the best collection of photographs she and her father had ever captured…if she could make the Indians like her and if they might open their hearts to her, an unfortunately dubious prospect. For indeed, the agent had confirmed that the Blackfeet were a patriarchal society.
Still, she wouldn’t think about that now. Somehow, this evening, she would gain their confidence. Somehow…
Kali inhaled, and the fresh fragrance of clean air mixed with the sweet scent of prairie grass, as well as the more effusive odor of horseflesh, reached out to her. With a smile of contentment on her lips, Kali stepped forward and slipped her hand through the crook of her father’s arm. She whispered, “Father, they’re splendid, aren’t they? If I ever had any doubts about coming here, they have all disappeared now. We really must do all we can to get permission to photograph them.”
William Wallace said, “Not to worry, m’dear. I have every faith in you.”
She sighed. “Do you? I wish I were so confident. You might need to help me.”
“Kali.” William Wallace looked shocked, and not a little nervous. “You know I abhor that part of our work. Interacting with others is your expertise. You’ll find a way. I know it.”
Kali shook her head, glancing down at the ground. “I’ll do my best, Father. I truly will.”
“I know it, m’dear. I know it.”
Smiling, Kali glanced up at her father, but instead of seeing him, her gaze landed upon one of the younger men in the procession of chiefs. My, but he was a handsome man, at least from this, her angle of him. Handsome and familiar…
