Medicine Wheel

by Ron Schwab

  Pilar again wrapped her arms about Kirsten’s shoulders. “Count on me, too. I will be with you every step of this journey.”

  20

  THAD HAD RETURNED home after a long morning of dehorning Hereford yearlings at Karl Schenk’s farm. Karl was primarily a crop farmer with a fair amount of bottomland, but like most farmers he carried a small cowherd to diversify his income. This was always nasty work, because the cattle had to be roped and snubbed to a fence post, and they fought like blazes as the vet sawed off the horn at the scalp. A major artery under the base of each horn spewed blood which showered the vet until he pinched off the flow with a forceps.

  They had worked fifteen head, and Thad was tuckered out. Quincy was trying to fashion a powerful clipper that would hasten the dehorning process, and he was anxious to try it. Many of the ranchers did their own dehorning work, and they were welcome to it.

  He washed off at the pump but decided more drastic action was called for, so he pulled out the big wash tub and put it in the office room, while Henry watched with casual interest. He heated several buckets of water and poured them in the tub and then lugged more water in from the pump. He grabbed a bar of lye soap and a towel, stripped off his blood-caked clothing and slipped into the tub, where he encountered heaven. He washed off the blood and morning’s scum and leaned back to enjoy the soothing warmth of the water. He had dozed off for a few moments, when the office door cracked open.

  “Doc?”

  “Wait,” he yelled. “I’m in the tub.”

  She was undeterred by his plea and entered the office and closed the door, standing not more than ten feet from the tub. He covered his private parts with cupped hands. “Kirsten, I told you I was in the tub.”

  She cast a disgusted look at the pile of blood-saturated clothes on the floor. “And a good idea I might say.”

  Henry, from his perch on the desk, meowed in recognition of his former servant. Kirsten moved to him and began rubbing his ears. “Henry, how’s my baby? Is Doc taking good care of you?”

  “Kirsten,” Thad said, interrupting the family reunion, “I’d like to get out of the tub.”

  “Oh, that’s fine, Doc. Go right ahead. Henry and I don’t mind.”

  “Would you be so kind as to hand me that towel?” He pointed to the towel that was hanging over the back of the desk chair.

  She plucked the towel off the chair and walked it over to the tub, standing above Thad as she placed it in his hand, which had to vacate its shield function. “You’re welcome, Doc,” she said.

  “Sorry. Thank you. Now, perhaps you can continue your conversation with Henry and turn your back while I get out of the tub. I’ll change into some clean clothes in my living quarters and return in a few minutes.”

  He climbed out of the tub, dried off quickly and darted for the door that connected the office to the living area. He tossed a quick look over his shoulder and saw that she was watching with her lips formed into a small smile. She lifted a finger in greeting.

  After he had dressed and returned to the office, he found her perusing the tintypes that nearly covered one wall. There were dozens of them he had taken of interesting inhabitants and special places in the Flint Hills. The wall was the nearest thing he had to a gallery.

  “She is beautiful . . . absolutely stunning.”

  “Who?” Thad moved next to her.

  “The Indian girl.”

  “She’s colored.” It disturbed him for some reason to apply a racial label to Serena.

  Kirsten pointed to a tintype of Serena standing near what to Kirsten would have been a pile of rocks, a portion of a stone circle in the background and the landscape of the Big Blue River Valley beyond. “That’s one of the buttes.” It was not a question.

  She turned and looked at him, studying Thad with her greenish-brown eyes. He thought she was preparing to interrogate him about Serena, but she evidently found her answers in his face and decided to drop the subject. He was grateful and a bit touched by her sensitivity to his privacy. This woman was a growing enigma.

  She turned away and returned to Henry, stroking his back as she spoke. “I stopped by to see about having my stitches removed. I was going to ride over to the C Bar C to see how Chet’s getting along with the place, but I changed my mind.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m being followed. It gives me a creepy feeling. When I’m done here, I’m heading back to Cam’s. I don’t want to chance being in the saddle after dark.”

  “Any idea who’s following you?”

  “It could be a deputy. Maybe the law’s watching to be sure I don’t slip out of the county. And maybe it’s somebody else. The same rider was spying on your brother’s place this morning.”

  “I’ll ride back with you when we’re done here.”

  “No, Thad, that’s alright. I’ve got a Winchester in my saddle holster.”

  “The last thing you need is to shoot somebody else right now. I’ll ride back with you. I’ll try to wrangle an invitation to supper from Pilar. Now let’s see to your stitches.”

  Thad motioned for her to sit on the desk. “I don’t have a proper examination table,” he explained. “I generally only see emergency human patients, usually at their homes.”

  Kirsten had healed remarkably well, making removal of the stitches a bit more uncomfortable for her. She flinched once in a while when he removed the stitches from her face but did not complain. He noted that the swelling in her nose had pretty much disappeared, leaving only a residue of raw flesh and tenderness. The black and blue blotches on her face were starting to fade to pink and yellow, and the swelling was nearly gone.

  He hesitated noticeably, he guessed, when it came time to deal with the wounded breast. She simply unbuttoned her shirt and exposed the injured nipple and her unencumbered breast. “What do you think, Doc?”

  He examined his handiwork and proceeded to extract the sutures. “A masterpiece. You were fortunate to have a skilled surgeon.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, “one who cares for udders.”

  Summer 1874

  21

  THE TWENTY-MINUTE climb to the top of the mesa had not been unduly arduous. It had been a steep, rugged hike, following a winding, well-worn deer path, but there was nothing particularly treacherous or dangerous about the trail. Thad often marveled at the instinctive engineering prowess of nature’s creatures, as they carved out their private roads and crossings.

  Serena was a bit gimpy on her ankle, he noted, obviously hurting some, but she had not complained and had spurned any assistance when encountering a few rough spots on the trail. She stood beside him, looking at him expectantly as he took in the scene. The mesa was roughly fifty yards in diameter at the widest point running east to west, he figured, and possibly twice that long going north from where they stood on the south end. The ground lay almost perfectly flat like someone had sliced off the top with a knife—not all that unusual in the Flint Hills. The theories of some geologists suggested this was a product of a great glacier carving its way through eastern Kansas eons ago. Lush prairie grass cloaked the surface, no doubt the draw for the deer that had blazed the trail. A few old cottonwoods had somehow dug their way into the surface and held fast near the east edge of the bluff. He could see for what seemed like miles, and the view of the Big Blue River and its surrounding valley floor was breathtaking.

  The stillness reminded him of an empty chapel. Whoever or whatever God is, this is His real temple, Thad thought. This is where you have your best chance of finding Him.

  “This is beautiful,” he said. “If this is what you wanted me to see, I’m not disappointed.”

  “But do you see the stones?”

  “What stones?”

  Serena pointed toward the center of the bluff top where he spotted an array of white limestone rocks barely sticking out above the tall grass.

  “Yes,” he said, “I see. Is there something special about them?”

  “That’s why I brought you here. Leave the cante
ens and lunch fixings by the trees and come look.” She took off, limping slightly, toward the strangely arranged rocks.

  When he joined her, she was sitting on the edge of what seemed to be a circular stone cairn or altar that rose about three feet above the ground. The cairn sat in the center of a near-perfect ring of stones, perhaps fifty or sixty feet in diameter. Four larger stones broke up the ring with arrowhead-like ends pointing outward, and lines or spokes of small stones extended from the cairn to the four points.

  “What is this?” he asked.

  “It’s my medicine wheel.”

  “Your medicine wheel? You made this? And what’s a medicine wheel?” He began walking the perimeter of the circle, studying the limestone components.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course, I didn’t make it. But I found it, and I’ve made it mine. I came across it last summer when I visited, and now I come here every chance I get. I read about the formations when I went back to school. There are as many as a hundred of these, maybe many more as yet undiscovered in the northern United States and Canada. I didn’t read of any this far south.”

  “I’m guessing they’re made by Indians.”

  “You are a master of deduction. Of course they’re made by Indians. It’s kind of a mystery what they’re all about, but it’s a fair guess they have something to do with ceremonies or religion. There are all different kinds. They don’t all have a cairn in the center, but they all have a hub of some type. Some may have fire pits or what appear to be sacrificial altars. Others may have more spokes.”

  “Hence, ‘medicine wheel.’”

  “Yes, and many have the four stones placed at the four points of the compass—north, south, east and west. Do you have your compass?”

  “In my saddle bags.”

  “These stones will line up precisely with the directions on your compass.”

  “I’ll take your word for it. This is quite a finding. Have you reported this to anyone?”

  “Only you.” She came up to him now and took his hand. “I’ll share it with you but nobody else. Do you promise?”

  She behaved like a little girl when it came to her medicine wheel, he thought. Keenly aware of her hand in his, he would have promised her anything at this moment. “I promise. It must have been Kansa.”

  “That’s what I wondered. I couldn’t find any other tribes that were ever settled near here. Pawnee and Osage seemed to pass through but weren’t permanent to the area, and you wouldn’t make something like this for an overnight stay.”

  “No, and the Kansa . . . some call them the Kaw . . . lived in this part of the Flint Hills for a long time before the 1850s. Manhattan’s located on an old Kansa village, my uncle El says. It was called Blue Earth Village . . . had over a hundred lodges. Some of them were still up when my family came here in the late 1850s, after most of the Kansa had been moved to Council Grove or further south in Oklahoma Territory.”

  “I don’t think anybody else has stumbled on to this place, or if they did, they weren’t curious enough to report it to anybody who cared.”

  “I doubt if there have been many pass this way. It would take some effort to get up here, and there wouldn’t be much point in it. For that matter, what pulled you here?”

  “I don’t know, really. I was taking a run down in the valley, and I caught sight of this lonely bluff and was just drawn to it. I knew you would have to be able to see forever from it, so I turned this way, found the trail and climbed it. I’ve claimed it as mine ever since.”

  Thad smiled and squeezed her hand gently. “Well, I don’t see anyone fighting you for it yet. By the way, do you ever get hungry?”

  22

  THAD UNROLLED THE oil cloth poncho he had removed from his saddle bags before their climb up the bluff’s wall and spread it in the soft grass at the base of one of the cottonwoods. Shade was sparse, but the mesa caught a generous breeze, and it seemed to him an idyllic spot for a picnic with a fetching young woman. Of course, he admitted to himself, any spot and any weather might have suited him for a few moments alone with Serena.

  They leaned back against the tree trunk, Thad facing south and Serena facing east overlooking the Big Blue River Valley, munching on their sandwiches with a canteen between them. They had two canteens of water, but somehow the sharing of the single water container had become sort of an intimate act between them.

  “I’m curious,” she said. “You’re nineteen years old. You live with your aunt and uncle, I gather. Are you planning to be a rancher?”

  “I’d like to. I have a few cows of my own now that I run with Uncle El’s herd in exchange for ranch work and vet services. But I hope to be a veterinary surgeon, too. The Judge isn’t real keen on the idea, but he’s sort of given in to it with some conditions.”

  “You said the Judge is your father?”

  “Yes. He’s not really a judge . . . not now. He was a judge back in Illinois, but most folks call him ‘Judge’ and his kids refer to him that way. But we usually call him ‘Dad’ when we’re talking to him. He had hopes I would be a lawyer like most of the family, but it’s never interested me. I want to do something that keeps me outdoors. The idea of living out my life in a cramped, musty law office doesn’t appeal to me much. I told you I’m kind of a vet now, and I could just declare myself one and keep on learning by doing and make a living at it. The Judge wants me to go to school, though, and since there aren’t any veterinary schools in the country, he insists I attend medical school, and says that will help me tend to animals.”

  “That’s strange, but I can see the argument.”

  “I can’t dispute it that much. He’s probably right, but I’m sure he expects that after I finish school I’ll decide to be a medical doctor, which he sees as the next best thing to being a lawyer. That won’t happen, though. I’m going to set up a vet practice here in the Flint Hills and have my ranching dream at the same time.”

  “Well, your brother’s a lawyer: that should please your father.”

  “It does, but it’s a family disease. Cam’s twin, Ian, is a lawyer north of here in Nebraska. My twin sister, Hannah, is in law school . . . plans to go to Wyoming or Colorado when she’s finished. I’ve got cousins and uncles and whatever all over the country who are members of the bar. My brother, Franklin, escaped the plague; he’s a Methodist preacher . . . rides a circuit in Nebraska. Think I’d rather be a lawyer.”

  “Well, I’m going to be a lawyer, too,” Serena announced confidently. “I’ve known for a long time.”

  “Oh no,” he said. “Anything but that.”

  “Like Charlotte Ray. She’s the first colored woman admitted to the bar in Washington, D.C. She went to my school and then graduated from Howard University School of Law a few years ago . . . Phi Beta Kappa, no less.”

  Thad replied teasingly, “Seems I can’t get away from the varmints.”

  Serena abruptly changed the subject again. “Your family’s like mine, a lot of difference in the kids’ ages.”

  “Different mothers. Cam, Ian and Franklin were born to the Judge’s first wife, Sarah. She died back in Illinois where the Judge served on a court of appeals of some kind. Later he married my mother, Deborah . . . she was twenty or so years younger than the Judge . . . and they came to Kansas with my Aunt Nancy and her husband, El . . . Eldridge . . . Clay, along with other Free Staters when my mother was with child . . . or children, I guess I should say. She died after they arrived here, giving birth to Hannah and me. Aunt Nancy and Uncle El didn’t have children of their own, so they took the babies in to care for and we just pretty much stayed. The older brothers remained with the Judge and a housekeeper he took on.”

  Serena reached back and took his hand. “How sad.”

  “I guess it would seem so. I just never thought about it that much. I never knew my mother and it’s hard to miss someone you never knew. She was only nineteen, and I do wonder sometimes what she would be like now or what life would have been like. But I couldn’t have had better parents
than Aunt Nancy and Uncle El, and the Judge always kept me in his life, made sure I got to know my brothers. He never let me forget we were family and demanded that I spend time in town. I still can’t miss Sunday dinner at the Judge’s without accounting for it.”

  “So you come from a line of abolitionists?”

  “Oh yes, and I’m kind of proud of that. And Republicans . . . except Cam. He’s a Democrat, which makes for some interesting Sunday dinners. I don’t have much interest in politics.”

  Serena inched nearer to him and rested her head on his shoulder, still clinging to his hand. Thad tried to pretend this was the most natural thing in the world, while his heart hammered in his chest.

  “Do you have a girlfriend?” Serena asked.

  “Not really. You have a boyfriend?”

  “Not really.”

  “Ever had a girlfriend?”

  It embarrassed him to admit it, but he replied, “Not really. I’ve taken a few girls to barn dances and the like, but I’ve always had so much work with the animal care and helping Uncle El, I haven’t had much social life.”

  “How’d you get time to meet me today?”

  He grinned sheepishly and blushed noticeably. “Uh, I’m fixing fence . . . in the north pasture.”

  Serena laughed and looked up at him and, her eyes twinkling mischievously, said, “And I decided I liked you because you were the least devious person I’d ever met. I sure had you wrong. You’re as bad as I am. Maybe you’d better rethink this business of not being a lawyer.”

  He shrugged. “Sorry to disappoint you. I just couldn’t stand the idea of not seeing you again. Besides, I did fix a little fence before I rode off to meet you.”

  She put her hand behind his head and gently pulled it toward her. Their lips met, and she kissed him softly. “A secret? I’ve never had a boyfriend. Ever.”

  “I’d like to make an application.” This time his head moved toward hers, and he kissed her with fervor.