Henry scowled and pointed at each child. “Last name Adams. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.”
Sophia hoped the children would remember.
The reverend took the boys outside. They returned in tears, their hair shorn. The Washington children circled to console them.
“Reverend Granville,” Sophia hissed. “Was that necessary?”
“Our mission—”
Before he could launch into another sermon, Sophia turned to face the portraits over the chalkboard. Jesus’ hair hung to His shoulders. George Washington’s curled to the lower lobe of his ears. Even Abraham Lincoln had his neck covered.
“Miss Makinoff, how dare you!” Henry stormed off.
Good riddance. Er . . . Thank You, Lord.
Fortunately the next group already had English names: Emily Knudsen, Logan LeClair, Hannah Howe, and Jim and Francis Roy.
The classroom filled with children. Twenty-seven wiggly, noisy students. How did James manage fifty? How would Catharine Beecher handle this situation?
Perspiration dampened Sophia’s brow. “May I have the fifth graders up front for recitation, please.”
Unfortunately no one could identify himself as a fifth grader. John Adams started a fistfight with Thomas Jefferson. Dear Lord, Sophia thought, and then realized she had hit on the answer.
“Let us pray.” The children had attended enough church to recognize the words. They bowed their heads and clasped their hands. “Thank You, Jesus, for all Your wonderful students. God bless our school day. Amen.” And before they could take a breath, Sophia dove into assigning seating.
Traveling with her father, Sophia had met innumerable ethnic groups, from Finns to Tatars to Turks. Each group had customs to ensure its continued existence.
The Ponca rule against looking another in the face, however, would impede survival in a world run by Europeans. Will might disapprove, but the students’ lives would go easier if they could learn to look others in the eye.
She had an idea. She directed the older boys in moving the tables and benches in a U shape, so they could watch each other. Beginning with Joseph, Sophia said “Good morning,” shook his hand, and held it.
“Good morning,” the boy said. And then for a fraction of a second, he returned her glance.
Will sat on the roof of Yellow Horse’s house and paused for a drink from his canteen. He wiped the sweat out of his eyes. If this heat kept up . . .
Just past the cornfield a movement caught his eye. He grabbed up his spyglass. Several dozen well-armed warriors on horseback splashed across the river.
The school! Dear Jesus!
The Sioux didn’t have to be sneaky. They knew the Poncas had no way to defend themselves.
Will clicked his tongue to catch Yellow Horse’s attention, then swung down from the rafters. They’d better not set this house on fire. He’d just about finished it.
He sent Yellow Horse to the church and took off at a run for the school. If only he had a rifle—no, a horse. He changed direction, only to find Long Runner’s yard empty. Will hoped the herd was well hidden.
Behind him the church bell sounded the alarm. To the south Black Elk’s wife snatched up their baby in her cradleboard and raced from their garden to the house. The yellow dog herded her puppies under her steps. Little Chief broke into a run, heading for his cabin. If Will wasn’t in a hurry, he’d stop to watch. It wasn’t every day you saw an elder run like a deer.
By the time he reached the school, Will’s lungs burned and his legs wobbled. The children weren’t outside. And they weren’t wandering to and from the spring. Good. He leaped to the stoop and yanked on the door. Locked.
“It’s Will . . . uh, Mr. Dunn.”
Sophia pulled him inside and barred the door behind him. “Did you bring any firearms?” The children sat on the floor in a tight circle, solemn as saints, but none crying. Tough bunch, these Poncas. The windows were closed and locked. The air steamed with sweat.
Sophia sat on the floor in a puddle of skirts. She flipped through the first part of the Bible. “I was just about to tell the story of David . . .”
David was Will’s middle name, so he’d made a point of studying the Old Testament king. Most of his life seemed to be a warning: be careful around women.
Sophia closed the Bible. “. . . David and Goliath.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Fitting. Mind if I join you?”
Rifle fire echoed off the bluffs.
“Not at all.” A beam of sunshine caught in her hair. If the Brulé looked in they might see her, but the children were hidden behind the half-wall.
He took up a post in front of the door. They’d have to get through him. And once they did, the children would all be goners. He couldn’t think what they’d do to Sophia. Or the possibility they’d set the school on fire.
She began in a whispered voice: “Now, David was a shepherd boy. His job was guarding the sheep.” She looked at Will. “Has the tribe considered raising sheep?”
Will nodded, but someone higher up than he and the agency farmer had decided on cattle and hogs. He told the children, “David guarded the sheep like Hairy Bear herds the cows, like Walking Together watches the horses.” The men were out in the fields now, with no place to hide. Will sent up another prayer for God to keep them safe.
Sophia resumed her story. “When lions—Do lions live here?”
“Coyotes.”
“When coyotes tried to eat the calves, David used his sling to throw rocks at them.” Sophia acted out the throwing motion, looking more like a dancer than a warrior. “He became skilled at throwing rocks. He could kill a coyote with one rock.”
The children were impressed.
“One day David’s father called him. ‘Please take this lunch pail to your brothers. They are fighting a war.’ David was a boy, about the age of Thomas Jefferson, here.”
Thomas Jefferson? How had White Knife become—?
Oh yeah, the rev had walked Sophia to school this morning. No doubt he was to blame for the haircuts too.
“Not old enough to be a warrior,” Will explained.
Back in the village a woman wailed. Will gestured for the story to continue.
“When David got to the field where they were fighting, he found his brothers were afraid. A big enemy walked up and down the field, saying he was ready to kill David’s family. His name was Goliath.”
“Bigger than Mr. Dunn?” asked Marguerite.
“Bigger than Big Snake.” The tallest man of the tribe.
Sophia nodded. “As big as Mr. Dunn, Reverend Granville, Mr. Lawrence, Big Snake, and Brown Eagle, all put together.”
“Oooh.”
“David asked his brothers why they were not fighting Goliath.”
“Because he’s Brulé,” Joseph whispered. “He’s got guns.”
“No, I cannot remember what tribe he belonged to, but he was not Brulé and he did not have a gun. But he was too big for the brothers. Little David said he would fight Goliath. His brothers could not talk him out of it, so they gave him their armor.” She glanced up at Will for a substitute.
“Shield.”
“But the shield was too big for David, so he—”
“If Goliath was so big, where did he sleep?” Frank asked.
Will said, “In a big tepee. His feet stuck out the door. Now, let Miss Makinoff tell you what happened.”
More women took up the cry in the village.
“David gave the shield back to his brother. He found a good stone in the creek. Then he returned to the battlefield. At first Goliath did not see him . . . David was so little.”
Sophia moved as much as a Ponca storyteller, but with prettier motions. Had she studied that fancy dance, ballet?
She squinted and held her hand over her eyes. “Goliath said, ‘Is that a mouse? Is it a bird? No, it is a boy.’ Goliath taunted him, called David bad names. Then David put the stone in his sling. He swung and threw it as hard as he could. It hit Goliath and killed him!”
“I want to kill Brulé,” said Rosalie from her hiding spot deep in Marguerite’s lap.
“Me too,” said the rest of the children.
Sophia widened her eyes at Will.
“Can you kill a coyote with one stone?” he said. “No? Then God hasn’t trained you to be a warrior. But He’s teaching you a lot here in school.”
The floor shook as someone walked up to the school. Will put his finger over his mouth.
“They are gone,” Brown Eagle called. “You can come out now.”
Will opened the door and gulped fresh air. The village echoed with wailing. Brown Eagle pulled his children close. The other students ran for home.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Eagle.” Sophia struggled to her feet. Her fingers shook as she raised her pocket watch. “Oh dear. It is only three—”
“No one will fault you for letting school out early.”
“Class dismissed. I will see you tomorrow,” Sophia called to their retreating backs, then whispered, “God keep you.”
“Well?” Will asked his friend.
“Walking Together. Thirty of our best buffalo runners. Two cows.” Brown Eagle swallowed hard. He put Rosalie on his back and they headed for home.
Will shook his head and looked down.
“Pardon me?”
“They killed the young man who guards the horses.”
“This is an outrage. I want a rifle! How am I to keep my students safe?” Amazing how many shades of red a white woman could turn. “Could you make shutters, please? And an escape hatch in the floor. Where are the soldiers who are supposed to protect us?”
“Fort Randall might send someone over in the next day or so. If they can find anyone not on sick call.” Will took a gulp of water from her bucket, then dumped the rest on his head. “The locals object to arming Indians.”
“But the Brulé were shooting. I heard them.”
“Between buying from smugglers, stealing from settlers, and negotiating a better treaty, they’ve managed to stockpile quite an arsenal.” He nodded toward the river. “Those steamboats heading upriver are full of breech-loading rifles for the Sioux. The entire Ponca tribe owns one musket, a few shotguns, couple pistols, bows and arrows. No ammunition.”
“Well, it is wrong. Unjust. The situation must be rectified.” Sophia swiped the blackboard. “I have never been so frightened.”
“You hid it well.”
Her back straight, chin high, she punctuated her words with angry swings of her arms. If her students could see her now, they’d run away and never come back. “My father, Constantin Ilia Makinoff, was never afraid. Even when the tsar threatened him with exile to Siberia.”
“Not that you know of.”
“Huh.” She snorted, not letting up on herself.
“You kept your wits yesterday surrounded by angry Poncas, even with Long Runner.”
“Russian officers travel with their families. So I have seen Cossacks, Mongols, and countless others who wear their hair differently, dress differently, look and act differently. It is not a reason for fear.” She studied him, her head tilted, as if puzzling him out.
Well, he’d been doing his own puzzling, and she’d just given him a big piece: she hadn’t grown up in a palace.
She turned with a swirl of her skirts. “Thank you for completing my Bible story. It is more difficult to teach than one would think, the Bible.”
Will nodded. “And even more difficult to live.”
CHAPTER TEN
From the wails echoing around her, Sophia could almost imagine she attended a Russian funeral. At home she would have been looking at a gold-ornamented iconostasis at the front of the sanctuary, filled with images of Jesus, the apostles, the saints, and other holy icons. Here, the Church of the Merciful Father was plain.
A wooden cross hung on the wall. A linen cloth covered the altar table. The pulpit had been constructed from a packing box, like the school’s furniture. Instead of stained glass, clear windows were propped open with sticks. Instead of gold-brocaded vestments, Reverend Granville wore an unadorned black cassock. Instead of singing, he droned through the Episcopalian funeral service.
Henry really should remove the benches so they could worship like Russians—standing, chanting, prostrating themselves. Finally he said the “Amen,” then pumped out a dirge on the melodeon. The pallbearers left with the coffin. The rest of the tribe shuffled about, making no attempt to be orderly. A son of the tribe had been cut down in his youth. Forming a line would not ease their pain.
Sophia followed Brown Eagle’s family. Little Rosalie had fallen asleep during the long service. Her pregnant mother, Elisabeth, struggled to carry her as Mary guided the other four children. Sophia reached for the girl.
“No.” Henry caught her arm.
“But—”
Will must have sensed her thoughts. He turned back, eased Rosalie onto his shoulder without waking her, then followed Brown Eagle up the bluff. Sophia could not have managed the climb while holding the little one, but Will’s long legs conquered the slope without difficulty.
“You do not continue to the graveside?” she asked Henry.
“To the burial ground?” He followed her gaze and shook his head. “We need to set a good example for the tribe. Show them that our funeral service is sufficient. There’s no need for barbaric dancing, wailing, cutting themselves.”
Cutting themselves? Sophia allowed Henry to turn her toward the house.
His grasp tightened as if holding her prisoner. “They used to bury a brave with his horse, food, and possessions for the journey to the happy hunting ground.”
“And now they are too poor to follow their tradition.”
“Thank God.”
Thank God? Sophia pulled away. Did he ascribe the tribe’s suffering to a loving God?
“As we gain access for the truth into the hearts of the people, their superstitious prejudices and heathen rites are melting away. They have given up their dumb idols, magic, taboos, cults. They no longer send their boys out for days, without food, in search of a vision.”
“Orthodox monks fast for illumination.”
“Hallucinations brought on by hunger.” Henry enjoyed eating too much to consider dispensing with meals in search of spiritual enlightenment. “I’ve seen their shamans draw a stick or worm from a patient using sleight of hand.”
There was no sense battering against this fortification. She changed tactics and launched from a different direction. “Have you ever considered simplifying the service?”
Henry’s horrified glare spoke volumes. “The Book of Common Prayer was developed by the finest minds of the Church. I would not dare to change one jot or tittle.”
“Few who speak English as their first language understand ‘disquieteth’ or ‘howbeit,’ ‘celestial’ or ‘terrestrial.’ The concept of grass growing and withering is universally understood, but couched in such archaic terms it is incomprehensible. I do not suggest changing the intent or content, but merely paraphrasing for clarity.”
He sputtered, then retreated to the comfort of his favorite sermon. “Our mission here is to—”
“I understand the mission. But how much better Christians would they be if they comprehended your teaching?”
Henry’s scowl deepened.
“Well then, if you are not inclined to simplify the text, perhaps you might share it with me ahead of time. I will teach my students the King’s English, so they might explain it to their families.”
“The king? This is America. We won’t have a king!” Henry stomped off toward the house.
“Better than a boxing match.” James chuckled behind her, then matched his stride to her short steps. “Do you do that deliberately?”
“Do what?”
“Annoy Henry.”
“Certainly not.” She ought to be ashamed. And she was, at least a little. Still, it would be easier to behave in a Christlike manner if Henry was not such a—what would her students at the College call him? A nin
ny.
The agent grinned. “Sophia, you’re a most entertaining addition to our staff.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sophia arrived last for breakfast the next day.
“Ah, I see you don’t follow ‘early to bed, early to rise,’” James said.
“Hmm?” Sophia said. “Oh yes. Benjamin Franklin. But it is Saturday, after all.” She poured her tea, then picked out a muffin. She took the seat across from Will. “I wrote letters until late in the night. When is the mail picked up?”
“I’ll take them to town if a steamboat doesn’t stop by in the next few days,” James told her. “You’re writing home, telling your friends of your adventures in the Wild West?”
“I am writing a New York congressman about the conditions here. It is a disgrace.”
“Sophia, you’ve got to understand.” The agent straightened to his full height. “Best estimate, we’ve got three hundred thousand Indians in this country. At any time a good portion of them are ready to slit our throats. The problems of seven hundred docile Poncas are of no interest to anyone in Washington.”
“Then we must make them so.”
“I’ve sent plenty of letters.” He pinched his forehead as if he might be suffering from a headache. “You’d better let me see what you’re writing. Don’t want to make the situation worse.”
“Certainly,” she said, with no intention whatsoever of honoring that request.
Henry wandered in with ink-stained fingers and hair standing on end. Laboring over tomorrow’s sermon, no doubt. He spotted Sophia and pushed his hair down. “Mother’s been awake for hours, doing laundry.”
“Is that one of my duties?” Sophia asked with a raised eyebrow.
“She’s managing,” he muttered.
“I heard that.” Nettie waltzed into the kitchen and waggled her finger at her son. “It’s not as if you ever spell Will from hauling water. Laundry’s done, except for your bed linens, Sophia.”
“I shall—” Sophia started to stand.
Nettie waved her back into the chair and poured herself a cup of coffee. “Finish your breakfast. I plan to sit a spell. And then I’m thinking we could dive into that barrel of clothing from your college friends, see if we can make any sow’s ears out of the silk purses they sent.”
Through Rushing Water Page 7
