Full Circle

by Rosanne Bittner

  “I did much talking to Sara,” Anita answered. She straddled the horse like a man, even though today she wore a white woman’s calico dress. She flung a leg over and slid down, then tied the animal. “I told her and White Eagle to please send just one child and see that we will not steal him away or make him turn against his people.”

  “Well, it’s a start.”

  “I also talked to Big Belly. He is one of the lazy ones who hangs around the soldiers and trading post.” A sad look came into her eyes. “He is one of my father’s friends. He does not take good care of his children, Red Foot and Bright Feather. The government has given them the Christian names of John and Linda Adams. Big Belly said he would let them come to school. I think it is only because he wants someone else to take care of them. He lives in a little shack between here and Fort Yates. They will ride here by themselves. They should come soon.” She sighed deeply. “You will see. In a few more days I will have your school filled. You only have to be patient with my people. They are very stubborn and set in their ways.”

  Evelyn smiled. “I am well aware of that.” She led William inside the one-room building, where she had written the alphabet on the small blackboard at the front of the room. In spite of having the little school’s four windows open, it was still stuffy inside. She sat William down on one of several crates that served as chairs. In front of each crate was a small, crude wooden table that served as a desk, each one handmade by some of the reservation Indians, one of the many projects the government created for them to keep them busy. Her own cabin next to the school was nearly finished, and a privy was already in place behind it, a reminder that it would be quite some time before she lived in any kind of luxury again.

  She leaned down and spoke to William in the Sioux tongue, which seemed to comfort him, then handed him a beaded counting board to play with.

  “We’ll wait until the Adams children get here,” she told Anita. She looked toward a window when the wind again carried the sound of rhythmic drumming across the hills and prairie to the little school. Last night, when all else was quiet, the sound had been very distinct. Evelyn had even been able to hear the singing. It was a sound that gave her the chills, for she had lain in bed imagining what it must be like to hear that sound and know that Indians were coming to pillage and torture and murder. She understood the reasons for some of the things the Sioux had done, but there had been chilling cruelty nonetheless, and she could understand why the soldiers and white settlers often panicked when they heard Indian singing and drumming. The saddest part was, if there had not been the same cruelty on behalf of United States soldiers, and if treaties had not been broken over and over again by the government, the Sioux might never have resorted to making war.

  She and everyone else knew the drumming came from somewhere out in the hills, where those clinging to the old ways were illegally celebrating the Sun Dance.

  “It has been several days since the Sun Dance was begun,” Anita said, as though to read her thoughts. “By last night those who wanted to make the blood sacrifice would have done so. Do you know about the Sun Dance celebration?”

  “I have studied about it. I find it beautiful in some ways,” Evelyn commented, “but also terribly barbaric. I understand the spiritual concept of the sacrifice, shedding blood as a way of showing the sincerity of their prayers, their willingness to suffer in return for having those prayers answered.”

  “My people are not afraid of pain or death. They admire courage in others. In the days when they made war, it was the bravest captives who were allowed to live.”

  As Anita walked to a window, Evelyn thought how pretty she was, with a slender shape and an exquisite face. Her skin was very dark, but her complexion was creamy and smooth. She wore her long black hair twisted into a thick braid that hung down her back. She was very pleased and impressed with her Sioux assistant. Not only was there little difference in their ages, which was fast leading them to a close friendship, but Anita was courageous, one of the very few of her people who had learned to accept and live in two distinctly different cultures. She was a sweet, intelligent woman, and Evelyn felt sorry for her situation. She was shunned by many because she urged her people to learn new ways, and she knew Anita was ashamed of her father and brother, two of the “lazy ones” who had long ago lost their pride to whiskey.

  “It is not easy to turn away from old beliefs and customs, Miss Gibbons,” Anita continued. “It would be like someone coming and taking everything from you and telling you you can no longer be a Christian. The problem is made bigger by the fact that my people are very proud and unafraid.”

  Evelyn was tempted to tell the girl about her dream. It had returned again last night, and she had awakened to hear the drumming and singing on the night air. She had felt drawn to it, had even been tempted to follow the sound and go to where she knew Black Hawk must be.

  “Please just call me Evy, Anita.” She folded her arms. “Tell me something. I know that you are yourself a Christian now,” she told Anita. “But do you believe in dreams and visions?”

  Anita faced her. “Did not the prophets have visions? Did not Christ himself predict things that were to come, much as our own priests and medicine men do? Yes, I believe in dreams.” She frowned. “Have you had a vision?”

  Evelyn suddenly felt foolish. “It’s probably nothing,” she answered with a nervous smile.

  Anita stepped closer. “If it is something you have seen in your dreams more than once, and if it seems very real, then it has meaning. Our people believe that dreams are very personal. They should be shared only with someone who understands these things. Perhaps you should tell Night Hunter about your vision.”

  “The old priest?” Evelyn had heard about Night Hunter, a wise, old respected priest and medicine man, who, Janine said, preached against white ways. “He wouldn’t allow a white schoolteacher inside his tipi!”

  “I think that he might. You know the Sioux tongue, and after he spoke with you for a few minutes, he would realize that you are a good person who truly cares about our people. You do not have to be afraid of the old man, Miss Gibbons. He can seem frightening sometimes, but he would never harm you. He is very wise. He sees into the heart, and your heart is good. If he knew you had had a vision, he would respect you for it and help you understand it. Does the vision involve my people?”

  Evelyn felt embarrassed, especially for the fact that in the dream she was beginning to feel sexually attracted to the Indian on the horse. “Yes,” she answered. “It’s… part of the reason I decided to take this job. I felt as though I was supposed to come here.”

  “Have you talked to Reverend Phillips about it?”

  “No. I haven’t mentioned it to anyone. I would rather you didn’t, either.”

  Anita nodded. “If you ever want to go and see Night Hunter, I will take you. For now he is at the Sun Dance. In a few days he will come back to his village. It is about a half day’s ride from here.”

  “Thank you. I will think about it.”

  Anita glanced toward a window again, then suddenly became flustered. “Reverend Phillips is coming!” She smoothed her dress and pulled a piece of fallen hair behind her ear. “How do I look?” She fanned herself. “Oh, it is already so hot!”

  Evelyn watched in surprise. “Anita! Are you attracted to the reverend?”

  The girl drew a deep breath. “I think he is a wonderful man,” she said with a sigh.

  Evelyn smiled. “Does he know how you feel about him?”

  “Oh, no! Do not tell him! He would never consider—”

  Just then the door opened and Anita turned away, hurrying to the front desk to look busy.

  “Well, good morning to the two prettiest young ladies at Standing Rock,” the man announced. “I came to see if you had any better luck today.”

  Evelyn put her hand out toward William. “Anita convinced White Eagle to send William. She also talked to an Indian called Big Belly. He is sending his two chi
ldren.”

  “Lazy old Big Belly? Good. Those poor children of his are terribly neglected. If possible, try to get any children who come to school to also come to church services. I’ll have Janine come over here for a few minutes of Christian lessons at the end of every day. Maybe working together we can give them an education and convert them.”

  Evelyn noticed how the man looked at her, knew from the first day she met him that he had taken an interest in her. Now that she knew how Anita felt about him, she realized she had to discourage him every way she could. Perhaps she would talk to Janine about Anita, and Janine could find a way to hint to John that Anita was attracted to him. From the look in her eyes just before he came inside, Evelyn was convinced Anita was totally in love. She glanced at the girl, who sat at the desk looking at a Schoolbook. She knew she was not really reading it. She was just trying to avoid having to look straight at John.

  “You have Anita to thank for getting William and Big Belly’s children to come.” She heard a horse outside then. “That must be them now.” She hurried past the reverend to go and greet the children.

  The reverend stepped closer to the desk. “Well, it seems you have been doing a good job, Anita. Thank you.”

  Anita finally looked up at him, wondering if he could read her eyes. “I will get more to come,” she answered. “It will help when they get to know Miss Gibbons better.”

  “Yes, she is going to be a big help. How do you like working with her?”

  “We have only just started, but I like her very much already.”

  Phillips smiled, and Anita felt an ache in her heart. I love you, John Phillips. What would a white preacher think of an Indian woman being in love with him? He was much older than she. Maybe he looked upon her as just a child. There was a time when she never would have dreamed she would fall in love with a white man, but week after week she had sat in his little church, one of only a few Indians who bothered to come, and she had watched and listened. She admired the reverend for his dedication, for his refusal to give up on her people, for often defending them when they were wrongly accused, for doing all he could to keep whiskey off the reservation. He was a good man, and since her schooling, she had learned to understand the white world, had learned not all white men were bad.

  “Miss Gibbons is easy to like,” he was saying. “She is a very sincere young lady. It took courage for someone her age who was living a comfortable life to come out here. I think she has never forgotten some of her experiences when her parents worked among Indians in Oklahoma. I think God chose her to come here.”

  The man turned to greet Evelyn when she led John and Linda Adams inside then. Both had refused to use their assigned names when they had got down from the horse they had ridden there together. “I am Bright Feather,” Linda had told Evelyn. “And this is my little brother, Red Foot.”

  Evelyn introduced them to the reverend, and Linda watched her in wonder, for this new white teacher had readily and graciously agreed to call them by their Indian names. She had asked in the Sioux tongue if they had encountered any trouble on their ride to the school. Bright Feather had never known a white woman who knew her language, nor had she ever seen one quite as pretty as this Miss Gibbons.

  “Oh, I know these two well,” Phillips answered. He patted young John’s head. “You will have fun learning new things here today, Son.” He looked Evelyn over appreciatively. “I just know that within a few weeks this school will be full. You’ll see.” He turned to Anita. “Good day, ladies. Janine and I will come back this afternoon.”

  The man left, and Evelyn noticed that Anita looked flushed, in spite of her dark complexion. “Anita! I do believe you’re in love!”

  The girl smiled, but Evelyn detected tears in her eyes. “The reverend would never care for me in the same way.”

  Evelyn folded her arms and stepped closer. “Maybe he just needs to be told how you feel. He is not a man to be forward about anything, you know. Perhaps you need to be the first one to say something.”

  “No, never! Never!” Anita rose and came around the front of the desk. “We should begin the lessons. Do you want to start with mathematics?”

  The shy girl’s cheeks were still red, and Evelyn could see the conversation made Anita uncomfortable. “Yes, we’ll start with numbers,” she answered.

  Anita took the counting beads from William and sat down on a crate in front of all three children. Evelyn walked outside for a moment to lead John and Linda’s horse closer to a watering trough. In the distance she could see a wagon heading toward the trading post. It was stacked with corn, and she knew Seth Bridges was bringing in another load. She was still in a quandary over what to do about the situation with Lucille and Katy. She didn’t want to make even more trouble for them. She decided she must talk to John Phillips about it… and about the fact that Anita Wolf was in love with him.

  As she tied the horse, again she caught the faint sound of drums. She wondered if Anita was right that she should go and see Night Hunter. The old man would probably just laugh at her dreams.

  Black Hawk could hear the gunfire, smell the smoke from burnt powder. He could hear the screams of women and children. He grabbed Little Fox and ran, searching frantically for his wife, Turtle Woman, and his other son, Small Bear.

  Bullets whizzed past him as he screamed Turtle Woman’s name, but there was no answer. The bullets came from the soldiers’ guns. Why were they shooting at them? He and his people had no weapons with which to shoot back. They had all just been captured and surrounded by the soldiers. He wanted to stand up and fight, even without a weapon, for what the soldiers were doing was wrong. Everything was confusion and death. If it were not for Little Fox, he would make a stand, maybe kill himself a couple of those soldiers before they murdered him as they were murdering so many people around him.

  Shielding Little Fox with his body, he ran with the others to try to find shelter from the singing bullets. He felt one graze across his upper right shoulder, and he grunted and fell, then got up and kept running. How could this be happening? He had fled here with Big Foot, the old Indian leader who, like he and the others, had become afraid when Sitting Bull was shot down by their own Indian police. They had few weapons, were not looking for a fight, just safety. When the soldiers found them, they had taken what weapons they had, and then there had been a gunshot. He had no idea who had fired the shot or why, but that was all the surrounding soldiers needed to believe that a fight had begun. They had opened fire. Poor old Big Foot, who had already been dying of pneumonia but had been dragged out into the cold anyway, was among the first to be killed.

  He ran, clinging to Little Fox, gasping for breath. He stumbled down a small hill, and that was when he saw them, Turtle Woman and Small Bear. Turtle Woman lay dead, shot in the head; Small Bear lay beside her, where he had apparently rolled out of her arms when she fell. He had been hacked almost in half, his tiny, bloody body already stiff.

  Never would he forget the horror of that moment. Never! Nor would he forget the sight of Sergeant Jubal Desmond, who sat nearby on his horse, a smoking gun in one hand and a bloody sword in the other. When Black Hawk reached out to touch his baby boy and felt how cold his little body was, he had gasped and cried out in grief, as he did now… in his semiconsciousness, a deep sleep brought on by pain and fasting and loss of blood from the Sun Dance ritual.

  The cry in the dream came out of his mouth in an agonizing groan, and the shock of the memory startled him awake. He opened his eyes to see the old priest, Night Hunter, bending over him, waving sacred smoke over his face and chanting a song for healing. Black Hawk tried to sit up to gather his thoughts, but he felt as though he could not get his breath. Pain enveloped him, and he fell back against a pillow of straw and buffalo hide.

  “You must lie still, Black Hawk,” someone told him in his own tongue. It was a woman’s voice. He turned to see Otter Woman sitting near him. She leaned over him, pressing a cool rag to his forehead. “You have been ver
y sick since the Sun Dance. Your wounds are full of the bad spirits, who try to take over your body,” she told him softly. “Night Hunter has treated your wounds and fought the bad spirits with healing herbs and prayer.” She touched his hair. “You were the bravest of all the dancers. Wakantanka will surely smile upon you and take the bad spirits away and make you well.”

  Black Hawk swallowed. “Water,” he mumbled.

  “I will get you some,” Otter Woman answered.

  Black Hawk watched her move about. Otter Woman was a good friend, sometimes a lover. She was not beautiful, had long passed her youth, but she was pretty enough, plump in the right places. Otter Woman had been widowed twice, by two men who had been brothers. Now she lived with her grandmother, but often she came out to find him, offering to tend to his manly needs. Otter Woman had always been loose. She liked the men, but since offering herself to him, he suspected she had been with no one else. He did not love her or want her for a wife, and she did not expect it. She could have no children. She was simply someone to share a bed with when needed, someone to hold in the night when he ached for Turtle Woman. In return, he often brought Otter Woman fresh game, which was so much better than the rotten meat supplied by the government.

  How he hated the white man’s government, the white man’s power and superior weapons, the fact that there were so many white men in the East that it was impossible to ever again consider defeating them. How he hated this new way of life, this helpless feeling. He hated the soldiers who patrolled the reservation, the spineless, worthless white whiskey traders who often snuck onto the reservation to sell their firewater to the Sioux. The whiskey made his people weak and silly. Those who liked the drink did not seem to see that. Some would kill for one drink of it.

  Everything about life as he once knew it was changed now, and warriors like himself belonged nowhere. It felt good to suffer this way, to know it was because he had made the ultimate sacrifice again at the Sun Dance. At least he had that. He would never let go of his beliefs, of the old ways. Never!