by Karen Kay
The people disbursed and from out of nowhere, an intoxicated man suddenly appeared before her. Pouncing on the neck of her horse, he grabbed the reins from her. At first she thought he meant to steal the horse, but then he spoke.
“Where’re ya goin’, girly?”
The words were English! She looked up suddenly. It was a white man, and his intent appeared to be not upon apprehending of her horse but on her.
She stated, calmly at first, “Let me go,” making a grab to regain the reins.
It didn’t work. The man only seized hold of her hands. “Ah, I gots me an English-speakin’ Injun. Come here, you pretty squaw, and set your harlot ways onta me.”
Alys was at once indignant. “I am no squaw,” she informed him, “nor am I a harlot, my good man. Now let go of my horse.” She tried to squirm out of his grasp.
Instead of letting up, however, the man moved in closer, doubling his grip on the pony…and on her. “Don’t like being called a squaw, do you? Must be a ’breed of some sort. And I’m guessin’ that I’ll be the one to be the judge of whether or not you’re a good whore. But you’re already eating your way into me heart, young calico. I sure does like a fight.”
Alys breathed in deeply, trying to keep her wits about her. What could she do? As of yet, the man’s hold on her didn’t seem too great, and he was drunk. Maybe she could evade him. She suggested in a matter-of-fact voice, “If it’s a fight you’re wanting, go pick on someone else,” whereupon she jerked away quickly, trying to free herself.
It didn’t work. He only held on harder.
“Why should I go lookin’ for someone else?” came the drunken answer. “Seems to me I’m doin’ you a favor. Not too often does a white man—th’ great Jake Berry at that—take a favor to one of you redskins.”
Jake Berry? Why did that name sound familiar? Surely this couldn’t be the same Jake connected with Lieutenant Warrington. But if he was, what was he doing here?
Her hands still trapped in his grasp, she kicked out at the man instead. A mistake. He grabbed her foot along with her hands, making her double over. Then he pulled…hard. For a drunken idiot, the man had incredible strength. She yelled again, “Let me go!”
“I likes ’em a little wild. Come here to your new papa.” Another sharp pull and he sent her tumbling from the horse.
She screamed, not that it would help her cause. No one would notice. Yelling, shouting, and crying sounded all around her; her own howl only adding to the general din.
The man unexpectedly let go of the horse to pull at the bodice of her dress, effectively countering her efforts to push his hands away. Unable to help herself, she screamed again.
“Stop it,” she howled. “I am a white woman.”
But her words, instead of gaining her freedom, only served to give the man courage. He even laughed. “I gots me a feisty one as well as a pretty good liar, you ’breed.”
“I am no liar.”
He laughed. “Sure you’re not. Come here, you calico.”
Dear Lord, this couldn’t be happening to her. Was the man bent upon rape? If he was, there didn’t seem to be a thing she could do about it, for she could not match his strength.
Then the worst happened. He ripped her dress down the front, while wave after wave of raw terror washed through her. One scream followed another as though drawn from her throat involuntarily, the sound of it so awful that one might have thought she were being murdered. And perhaps, for a woman, it was close to the same thing.
The man picked her up, her efforts to free herself ineffective. She cried out at the top of her lungs, “Dear God, help me!”
“Let her go!” a familiar male voice demanded—in English.
Jake Berry’s grip on her did not diminish, however. He spared only a swift glance up at her defender. “I found her, Moon Wolf, go find your own woman.”
Moon Wolf didn’t bat an eye. He declared, “How is it that you come among us, here at this trading place and do not know the woman, Jake Berry? And you, a trapper? Have you not yet learned that this woman that you hold against her will is my wife?”
“I ain’t holdin’ her against no will. She’s only playin’. And if’n she’s your wife, why ain’t she back there in the women’s quarters, instead of out here where th’ women are fast and cheap?”
“None of our women are cheap,” came the answer, which merely elicited a hoot from the white man.
Moon Wolf persisted, “Since when did our women have to stay in certain places in order to be safe from men trying to force themselves? Since when can they not roam where they wish without fear of rape?”
“Since I come into your camp and say so, that’s when.”
“Then perhaps it is Jake Berry who is at fault and Jake Berry who should be killed before he dirties more of our women.”
The man loosened his grip on Alys, allowing her to disentangle herself from him. Clutching the shattered ends of her dress around her, she fled toward Moon Wolf, putting him between herself and the white man. She gasped, her breathing coming in short spurts, while tears fell down her cheeks. She gulped unsteadily for air, her composure shattered.
But the danger was not past. Her man stood between her and certain hell. And it was she who had put her husband’s life in danger by not staying where he had told her.
Jake Berry demanded, “Get outa my way, Moon Wolf.”
Moon Wolf held his ground. “Here I will stay. This is my woman. You cannot have her without going through me.”
An evil laugh split through the air before Jake Berry spoke the words, “Fair enough.”
It all happened so quickly that Alys had no chance to feel fear. A revolver was drawn, a shot was fired, Moon Wolf pushed Alys to the ground and dodged, throwing a knife through the air. Immediately, she heard a gasp and a thump, and looking around, watched as Jake Berry fell to the ground, the knife through his heart.
Alys collapsed onto the ground behind Moon Wolf, sobbing. Nothing, not all of her Wild West training, nor her more staid education in the east, could have prepared her for such a confrontation. She had felt, had been, so helpless.
Moon Wolf picked her up in his arms and, taking hold of the reins of her pony, began walking her toward the lodge of his sister.
He whispered into her ear, “It is over. He is dead, never to bother you again.”
She could only nod, still sobbing.
“Sh-h-h. It will be fine now.”
“I’m so…so very sorry,” she cried.
“For what? What did you do wrong?”
“I came a-after you when you had ordered me to stay away.”
“And when have you ever listened to me and what I tell you to do? The fault, if there is one, is mine for bringing you here. Or maybe the fault is this fort and the whiskey. This is what it does to my people. Never, not ever, in an Indian encampment, before the white man came to us with his drink, were our women assaulted in our own camp. But now, look at us. All those around us are so drunk, no one even notices the abuse, let alone stands by to protect their women. It is the liquor that is the cause. It is the liquor that I fight, that I will continue to fight so long as I exist.”
They had reached his sister’s lodge, and Moon Wolf entered it after scratching at the entryway. He took Alys to the women’s section of the lodge and set her down on the warmth of a buffalo robe.
It was well known in a Blackfoot camp that after a certain age, a man was not supposed to address his sister, at least not directly. However, casting aside conventions in light of the present situation, Moon Wolf found himself asking, “Have you water to drink that you might give it to my wife?”
“Aa, kyai-yo.” His sister rushed to bring something to him. “Tsa anistapiiwaatsiksi? What happened?”
“A white man called Jake Berry, who came here to guard a whiskey shipment, tried to force himself upon my wife. She is still frightened, I think. I ask of my sister that she take care of my wife, to guard her and not let her go out again until she is well. I must
go, for there are things I must still attend to. I would have these things done and leave here as soon as possible.”
“Kyai’-yo, soka’piiwa, it is good. You go,” his sister said, nodding and coming down on her knees before Alys.
With a brief nod, Moon Wolf arose and slipped quietly out of the lodge while his sister spoke these words to Alys, “Nit-ik-oht-yaahs-i’taki k-ikaa-o’too-hs-yi, I am glad you have arrived.” Whereupon she took Alys into her arms, much as one might a small child.
And while Alys tried to compose herself, the gracious woman began to sing a song, the melody tender and in a strange, minor key.
Kitsikakomimmokoo
(you are loved),
Nitanistoo’pa (I said it),
Soka’piiwa (it is good).
Nitanistoo’pa (I said it),
Soka’piiwa (it is good).
Kitsikakomimmokoo
(you are loved).
Then daintily, soothingly, as though Alys had merely had a bad nightmare, Butterfly Woman rocked Alys back and forth, over and over until at last the worst of the fear had passed.
“The redcoats are coming.”
Moon Wolf awakened her with these words.
“What?” She stirred beneath the warmth of the buffalo robe and gazed around her, disoriented. Ah, yes. She was in the lodge of Moon Wolf’s sister, Butterfly Woman. She yawned and asked of Moon Wolf, “Have you even been to bed yet?”
“Saa, no, and I will not. We must prepare to leave at once. I know this might be hard for you, especially after what happened today, but it cannot be helped. My sister is already up and is starting to pack so that she and her family may leave here quickly.”
“But why? Why must we go now? What time is it?”
“The last brother is pointing toward the ground.”
Alys paused for a moment, recalling what Moon Wolf had told her about the night sky. She groaned. “But that means it’s still the middle of the night.”
“It matters not; we must go,” he urged, pulling down the buffalo robe and rubbing her arms.
“Hmmm,” she murmured. “That feels good.”
“Then turn over. I will rub your back. But you must promise me that after I do this, you will arise and pack our things.”
She obediently turned over, muttering, “But we brought very little with us.”
“Then it will be easy,” he said, beginning to massage her back, starting at the neck.
“Tell me why we have to leave,” she asked as she brought a hand around to scratch an itch.
He scooted that hand away. “I will do that,” he said, and did so, proceeding to scratch her entire back, leaving out, however, an awfully big section in the middle. He said, “Scouts have returned to tell us that the redcoats of the Queen Mother are coming here to arrest these American traders. The whiskey sneakers do not know of this yet because we caught their scouts before they could warn them.”
“Hmmm,” she responded. “Is that good?”
“It is very good, it means that the whiskey sneakers won’t be able to hide their liquor, and that the redcoats—”
“Moon Wolf,” she interrupted, “you are ignoring a part of my back. Could you scratch it in the middle?”
“How careless of me,” he said, but she detected a note of teasing in his voice. He proceeded to scratch her, still ignoring the middle.
She brought a hand around to do it herself, but he immediately captured it. “I will do this for you.”
She laughed, “Then do the middle, too.”
“You mean like this?” He scratched the middle-upper section of her back.
“A little lower.”
“Here?”
“No, that’s too low. Moon Wolf, I think you tease me.”
“Tease you? How can you say that? Am I not doing all that you ask of me?”
She groaned. “No, you are not. Here, I’ll do it myself.”
Again he caught her hand. “Saa, no, I will do this for you.”
She moaned. “Then do it, scratch the middle.”
He scratched over to the left, then the right. “Do you mean like this?”
“Men,” she muttered. “Stop it, Moon Wolf.”
He laughed and scratched the middle up and down until she was satisfied. “Come,” he said, “you must arise and get dressed.”
“Hmmm.” She rolled over, the buffalo robe already pulled down toward her waist. “Tell me more.”
But Moon Wolf was looking at her, his glance falling heavily onto her breasts, an odd expression in his eye. At some length he brought his gaze up to meet with her own. He grinned. “It seems so long since I have seen you like this, that like a child, I cannot help looking.”
“I am not stopping you.”
His eyes narrowed. “Yet you should. We must leave here at once.”
She drew her arms under her head, so as to draw even more attention to her chest.
A gleam came into his eye. She should have sensed what was coming next, but she didn’t.
He tickled her.
And she gave an involuntary screech.
“Sh-h-h.”
“Then don’t tickle me,” she whispered.
He grinned at her. “Come on, we have much to do. We will let the redcoats deal with these traders. Maybe they will take away their liquor. It is said that this is their purpose.”
“Good.” She rolled over, and he tickled her again, this time with his hand over her mouth.
“Moon Wolf!”
He laughed. “Come, I am anxious to go. There is a rumor that a new lawman has come to Fort Benton.”
“A lawman? You mean a sheriff?”
Moon Wolf nodded. “Some of our people have just come from there and say that he has already arrested some of the whiskey sneakers and that he has destroyed some of their supply.”
“He has?” She sat up sparing no more than a moment to wonder if it had been her series of letters which had brought the law to Fort Benton. She said, “Then this is good.”
“It could be very good. If this man is honest and is true, it could mean that…haiya, I think we will talk of that later.”
She had arisen, was standing nude in front of him.
“Ok-yi, come here.”
It wasn’t in her to fight him; she surrendered at once, falling against him, his lips at her belly as he knelt before her. “Hmmm,” she let out a low moan. “Has your sister already left?”
“Saa, no. She will return soon.”
Alys shrugged. “Too bad.”
She could feel his lips on her stomach, his tongue tracing the outline of her belly button. She asked, “Your work here is done, then?”
“The liquor shipments did not arrive,” he murmured. “Our attack on the whiskey train worked well.” He drew back from her. “But come, I do not wish to be here when the redcoats arrive. There will be much confusion and someone could get hurt. And we have no more need to be here. Get dressed and let us go. Perhaps we can find a safe spot where we could stop on the way back to the fort.”
“Perhaps we could,” she agreed. “Or maybe I should say, I think we’d better.”
He laughed, a warm, beautiful sound that had her sighing.
She became suddenly serious and said, “I did not thank you for what you did for me today.”
He shrugged. “I need no thanks to protect my woman.”
“All the same,” she insisted, “I would have you know that I am beholden to you.”
“Beholden?”
“Yes, beholden. In your debt.”
He drew away from her and looked up to her, whispering, “Never, not ever are you ‘beholden’ to me.”
“But—”
“Is not your life my own? Do I not protect you now as I would protect myself and all whom I love?”
With his words, his sincerity, a tear threatened to spill over, onto her cheek, and she shook back her head to keep it away. He was such a good man.
He rose up onto his feet before her and, putting a finger ind
ulgently under her chin, lifted her head up until her eyes met his. He commented, “Is not our path now the same?”
She compressed her lips together, as though the action might hold back that darned tear. “Moon Wolf, I—”
“Know that I would protect you as though it is through you that I breathe,” he said, putting his arms around her and pulling her against him. “Believe me. From now, until I cease to exist upon our mother, the earth, you, your spirit and your life force are here in my heart, forever.”
He placed his hand over her heart, then his, and, reaching for the back of his neck, he released the single shell chain necklace that he wore. With both hands, he placed it around her neck, saying, “Once, long ago, I gave you this necklace that I might honor you. Now, again I give it to you that you might always be reminded of my love. This which I feel for you will never die. And now, you know it.”
The threatened tear fell, and with a sob, she threw herself into his embrace, her arms coming around his neck to hug him. “I love you, Moon Wolf,” she said. “I love you so very, very much. I am glad to have the necklace once more. I had wondered about it, why you did not give it back to me when I left it with you.”
He shrugged. “I thought you no longer wanted it.”
“Never,” she shook her head. “That was the first night I pretended to be the Wolf Shadow. I only left it with you so that, if something happened to me, you would remember me, too.”
He breathed in deeply. “Know always that I do not need, have never needed, such a reminder to keep you forever with me.”
“Oh, Moon Wolf.” She held her hand over her heart, the universal sign for love. She said, “You, too, are in my heart. I love you.”
In reply, he pulled her into his arms, repeating in her ear over and over, “Kitsikakomimmo, kitsikakomimmo, kitsikakomimmo…”
And together, in one another’s arms, they cried.
“This is a beautiful spot,” Alys commented as she sat down next to a clear mountain stream. She and Moon Wolf had stopped beneath a shelter of aspens and pine trees, which grew profusely on this mountainside. They had both of them hobbled their ponies and had paused to rest as they pushed their way back to Fort Benton. “Tell me,” she continued, “is there danger of meeting bears here?”
