Full Circle

by Rosanne Bittner

  Private Brady drew the wagon to a halt, and Evelyn climbed down, walking up and hugging Dancing Woman, who she could see had been crying. “I’m sorry,” she told the woman. She explained how it had happened, that it was not Many Birds’s fault, nor the fault of Katy or Lucy, who treasured their friendship with Many Birds. She explained how they had been tricked themselves by their cruel adoptive father. Several women came to the wagon and helped Many Birds climb down. The girl threw a blanket over her head and wept as the women led her into her grandmother’s tipi.

  Dancing Woman looked into Evelyn’s eyes. “This is what your people do to us,” she said in her own tongue. “I do not blame you. My grandson loves you, and you are like us, in your heart. But the others…” She glanced up at Private Brady with hate and agony in her old eyes. “They bring only bad things to my people, take away our weapons, our game, our homeland. They violate Mother Earth, destroy the pride of our men, rob our young daughters of their innocence, reduce us to beggars. It is a sad time for us. The circle is broken.”

  Evelyn grasped her hands. “No, Grandmother. Some of us can keep the circle whole. Things will get better. I promise.”

  The old woman shook her head, tears slipping down her cheeks. “Can you mend my Many Birds? Can you give her back her innocence, take away the pain in her heart, the bad dreams she will have?”

  Evelyn felt her heart breaking. “I wish that I could. All we can do is love and support her, and make her understand this is not her fault.”

  “And what will happen to my grandson? The messenger who came from your village said the soldiers found the man who did this to Many Birds. He was killed.”

  “What!”

  “Already they think it was Black Hawk who did it, and they have gone after him. If they catch him, they will hang him, even if he did not do it. Maybe they will shoot him before he can defend himself. There is no justice for a man like Black Hawk.”

  Evelyn felt as though someone was shoving a knife into her own heart. Seth Bridges was dead! Had Black Hawk done it? Who else could have? Katy? She felt sick with panic. The soldiers were after Black Hawk! Visions of Wild Horse’s death crashed vividly into memory, and she found it difficult to breathe.

  “I am going now to find out what has happened,” she told Black Hawk’s grandmother. “You know I will do what I can to keep Black Hawk out of trouble, and to see that he does receive justice. If I have to, I will find a way to help him escape.” She felt her own tears wanting to come. “I will not let them hurt him, Dancing Woman. I love him. I couldn’t bear to live without him.”

  The old woman nodded. “You are the only one who can help him.”

  The two women embraced. “I will let you know what has happened,” Evelyn told her. She turned away and climbed up into the wagon seat. “Hurry and get me back to my home.” She told Private Brady the news Dancing Woman had imparted.

  “Sounds like trouble.” The man got the wagon moving, thinking how strange it was that the pretty Miss Gibbons seemed to be so close to Black Hawk’s old grandmother, that she was so concerned about all these people. She even spoke in their language, a rarity among the whites who came out here to teach and spread the gospel. He headed out of the village, but drew the wagon to a halt when a young Indian man came riding into the village at a gallop. When he spotted Evelyn, he drew his horse to a skidding halt.

  “Black Hawk!” he said urgently. “They have captured him and are taking him to the fort! He is wounded. They say he killed the farmer, Seth Bridges!”

  Evelyn closed her eyes in agony. “Dear God,” she muttered. She drew a deep breath for courage to face what she would have to face in the coming days. “Hurry, Private. We’ll stop at the church first and see if they have found Katy. From there I will ride my own horse to Fort Yates. I have to talk to Colonel Gere, and to Black Hawk.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” As the man got the wagon under way again, Evelyn told herself to keep the faith. All these months she had believed in the vision, believed it meant that she and Black Hawk would one day be together in peace. She did not want to believe that it could mean anything else, but she also could not imagine how Black Hawk could get out of this mess. She struggled against a feeling of hopelessness and began plotting how she could help Black Hawk escape if he was accused of murder. She would not let him hang, even if it meant risking her own life to free him!

  Thirty

  “You let me in there right this minute! I have papers here from Agent McLaughlin and from Colonel Gere allowing me to see Black Hawk!”

  A young private studied Miss Evelyn Gibbons with a frown. “Lady, that’s Black Hawk in there. He’s already killed a man, stuck a knife right in his heart. Don’t you know how dangerous it is for you to go in there? He might grab you and use you as a hostage to try to escape. I can’t—”

  “I happen to love him, Private, and intend to marry him, as soon as he is cleared of these charges, which he will be! Open that door and let me in. From what I am told of his injury, he is in no shape to try to use anyone as a hostage, and I have no fear of that happening anyway! Now, are you going to let me inside, or shall I have you reprimanded for disobeying orders? I have been riding since five o’clock this morning to get here, through snow and wind and cold! I am not leaving until I am allowed to see Black Hawk!”

  The private blinked in surprise. Marry him? This pretty young schoolteacher was going to marry the notorious, murdering Black Hawk? He sighed, taking a set of keys from his pocket. If the woman insisted on being so demanding, the hell with her, he thought. She had to be a little bit stirred in the head.

  “It’s your own risk, lady.” He turned and stuck a key in the lock to the thick wooden door that led into the tiny brick cell located in one corner of the fort grounds. The moment Evelyn saw it, she felt sick—so small, in such a lonely area of the fort, where a person could hear little of what was going on outside. The room had only one high little window at the side. Though she was glad it was no longer the middle of summer, imagining how hot such a cubicle must be, remembering Black Hawk had already been in here once when it was still hot, now she worried the opposite might be true. It was surely cold and damp inside, with the miserable December weather they had been having, and Black Hawk was wounded. He could get sick and die before a trial ever came about.

  The private pulled his pistol and stepped back, then kicked open the door. “Stay put, Black Hawk, or there will be another bullet in you,” he warned. “Go on in,” he told Evelyn, without taking his eyes from the door.

  Evelyn hurried inside, where it was so dark she could hardly see Black Hawk at first. The private closed and locked the door. It took a moment for Evelyn’s eyes to adjust to the dim light, and for her nose to adjust to the damp smell, mixed with the smell of human waste from an untended chamber pot. She shuddered at what a hellish place this was for any man, let alone one who took pride in cleanliness and who was accustomed to freedom and fresh air and sunshine. And how was a wounded man supposed to heal in such a place? How dirty were the blankets on his cot? “Black Hawk?” She could barely make out the figure lying on a cot against the back wall.

  “Go away,” he told her quietly. “This is no place for you.”

  Her heart fell at the agony in his voice. The fight was gone out of him. “And if I were the one lying there, you would not come to help me? Support me?” She walked closer. She could see him now, lying on his back, staring at nothing. “Black Hawk, tell me in your own words you did not kill Seth Bridges. That is all I need to hear. If you say it, I’ll know it’s true. If you did kill him, you would tell me.”

  He slowly turned his head to look at her, and she saw the hopelessness in his dark eyes. “I did not kill him.”

  She nodded. “Tell me what happened.”

  He watched her sadly, his voice flat and lifeless when he spoke. “I did as you told me. I let the soldiers help Many Birds. I was riding down to meet them because I wanted to take my sister to Grandmother my
self. They started shooting at me. I did not know why. I had no weapon for shooting back, and I was confused. I turned and rode hard, tried to get away.” He looked back at the ceiling. “They say Sergeant Desmond is the one who found the dead body. I believe he killed Seth Bridges. He would enjoy having me blamed for it, and he knows there is not one person who would believe otherwise…” He looked at her again. “Except you. But you do not count. They think you are a foolish woman whose love for an Indian man would make her believe anything just to save him.”

  Evelyn felt a lump swelling in her throat. Black Hawk’s situation seemed just as hopeless as he already thought it was, but she did not want to convey to him her own worry. “Black Hawk, the only evidence they have is that Seth was stabbed and you carry a knife. Surely they realize you didn’t have time—”

  “They will not stop to figure such things,” he interrupted. “My knife had blood on it—rabbit blood, from that rabbit I cleaned for you the night before. I threatened to kill Seth Bridges, and I ran from the soldiers. That is all the evidence they need.”

  “But… the dream… the vision—”

  “In the vision we reached out to each other, but always the other one disappeared. Now we know the true meaning… that we can never be together. Night Hunter said a white man would die, and I would be in much trouble because of it. Now we also know the meaning of his dream.”

  “He also said that I would somehow help you. I will find a way, Black Hawk. Maybe I can get a lawyer to come here from Omaha. Maybe—”

  He waved his left hand as though to shut her up. “You live in a dream, Wenonah. Rich white lawyers do not come to places like this to defend an Indian. Sometimes I do not think you realize just how your people really look at mine. I am nothing to them. If I die, they are simply rid of another troublemaking Indian, and the murder is solved—no questions.”

  Tears filled her eyes. “No. I refuse to believe this is all hopeless, Black Hawk.” She knelt onto the cement floor beside his cot and touched his arm. “The doctor said you refused to drink any laudanum before he removed the bullet.” He continued to stare at the ceiling. Evelyn knew he was ashamed of the putrid cell and the fact that he was a helpless prisoner. His pride had been deeply wounded, and like so many other proud Sioux men, his own spirit would soon be broken if she could not help him out of this situation.

  “The laudanum is almost the same as whiskey. I will not drink something that makes my thoughts leave me, nor will I allow myself to be asleep while I am at the hands of a white doctor. I would rather feel the pain. Pain gives me strength.”

  Evelyn forced back the tears that wanted to come. “Are you in a lot of pain now?”

  He sighed deeply. “It is not so bad.” He deliberately bent his right arm, raised it a little. Perspiration broke out on his face. Evelyn could see that it brought him deeper pain than he let on, and she became aware of the old bloodstains down the back of the right sleeve of his buckskin shirt. “The doctor put something on it that burned. He said it would keep away infection. My shoulder is wrapped tightly.” He let out a quick little laugh that rang of bitterness. “It is strange what your people do—operating on a man, saving his life so that they can hang him.” His voice broke on the last words. “Do not let them hang me, Wenonah.” The words were spoken softly but full of passion. “It is the worst way for an Indian to die. Shoot me yourself with a gun if you can.”

  She squeezed his arm. “You are not going to hang!”

  “Promise me! If you love me, you will not let me hang. No one will punish you for shooting an Indian.”

  Her tears finally came then, and she rested her head against his arm. “I promise.” Her head ached from holding back a need to vent her grief, a need to scream. “If only there was some way to prove your innocence,” she groaned. “They found Katy hiding inside a kitchen cupboard. No one knows what she saw or heard, or why she didn’t let her presence be known. They brought her to my house, but she just sits in a corner and won’t talk. She is terrified of something. I don’t know if it’s from seeing poor Many Birds tied to that bed, or from Seth threatening her and Lucille with that knife, or waiting all night for Lucille to return with help. No one knows what she heard or saw after Lucille left.”

  “If she was hiding in the house, then she knows nothing. Seth Bridges was found in the corn crib… by Jubal Desmond.” He closed his eyes. “What did Seth do to my sister?”

  Evelyn wiped at quiet tears. “He forced whiskey into her so that she passed out. He… tied her to his bed. I don’t need to explain what happened then.”

  Black Hawk let out a pitiful groan and rolled to his left side. The right back side of his shirt was ripped and bloodstained. Evelyn’s heart ached for his pain, both physical and emotional.

  “I took her to your grandmother,” she explained. “Many women came to tend to her. She has so much love and support, Black Hawk. It’s probably a godsend that she was in too much of an alcohol daze to remember much of it.”

  “That does not erase the shame of it.”

  “I know that, but at least she has little memory of whatever vile things that man did. And now he’s dead. I’m glad of it, except for the fact that you were blamed for it. I’m glad Lucille and Katy no longer have to live with whatever hell he put them through. So far they won’t talk about it, perhaps because of their shame. I would not have minded being the one to kill him, but the fact remains someone did, and we have to find a way to prove it wasn’t you.”

  “That will never happen.” He kept his back to her. “Please go. I am ashamed for you to be here. Go away and forget me. Go teach the children and live like a white woman. Find a white man to marry.”

  She rose. “Do you really think I could forget you? No man could ever take your place, in my heart or in my bed, and I won’t listen to you talk this way. This is not the Black Hawk I fell in love with, the strong, rebellious fighter I met at Many Birds’s puberty ritual. This is not the Black Hawk who defended me against those whiskey peddlers and has refused to bow to the soldiers or to give up his Sioux beliefs and customs. This is not the Black Hawk who has always been a good father to his son… a son who needs him, loves him, respects his father’s courage.”

  On those words Black Hawk finally turned over again. He slowly sat up, then ran his left hand through his hair, pulling his hair behind his back. “How is Little Fox?”

  “He is afraid for you. I promised him you would not die.”

  He raised his eyes and looked up at her. “You are a woman full of false hopes.”

  “I am a woman in love, and a woman who believes in her dreams. God did not direct me out here just to let me fall in love with you and then see you die. I believe His purpose was for me to be here for you when you needed me, and for me to be a part of keeping the circle. You represent the spirit of your people. If you die, then the circle will be broken. If you live, your people will take great hope in it, and our marrying and having children who carry the blood of both races will be a sign that the circle of life can continue, but in a new way. You must have faith, Black Hawk, faith in our love, faith in the God we share, the God who brought us together, faith in the vision we shared.” She knelt once more and took hold of his hands. “We are going to get through this.”

  The guard outside pounded on the door then. “Long enough, Miss Gibbons. You all right in there?”

  “I’m fine,” she called out. She leaned up and kissed Black Hawk’s cheek. “Pray, Black Hawk. Draw on the strength you’ve developed through the Sun Dance ritual and your closeness to Wakantanka. Don’t give up hope. You and I and Little Fox will be together again.”

  She heard the sound of a key turning in the lock. Light filtered into the bare little room when the door opened. “Time to go, lady,” the private outside told her.

  Evelyn paid no heed. She searched Black Hawk’s dark eyes, now that she could see them better, and her heart was crushed at what she saw there. New tears filled her eyes. “Don’t forge
t who you are, Black Hawk. You are a Sioux warrior, proud, true to your heart. You have done nothing wrong, and it is the white man who is making himself a fool through all of this. They’re all wrong, and God will help us find a way to prove it, and to prove who the real killer is. God will let us be together… one way or another.” She touched his face, alarmed by how tired he looked, the circles under his eyes. “I love you,” she whispered. Their eyes held as she rose. “Remember the vision.”

  She turned to the private, pulling her fur coat closer to her neck as she glanced at a potbelly stove in a corner of the room. “It is freezing in here, and I see no wood for a fire. Bring some wood so Black Hawk can build a fire to take away the dampness and chill. How can you expect a wounded man to survive in these conditions?”

  “They’re supposed to bring him some wood pretty soon now.”

  “It had better be soon! I will talk to Colonel Gere about this. The conditions in here are deplorable and inexcusable! In this country a man is considered innocent until proven guilty, and every man deserves the right to be treated better than an animal.” Evelyn quickly left then, not wanting to break into tears in front of Black Hawk. She waited for the young man guarding the door to close and lock it again. “And see that his chamber pot is emptied often,” she told the young man, “and that he is given clean blankets and is fed decent food.”

  “That’s up to Colonel Gere, not me.”

  “I will take care of that. You had just better do as he says. That man in there is a fine example of a proud Sioux warrior. Treat him with the respect he deserves, Private. Even if he were guilty, which he is not, give some consideration to why he would want to kill Seth Bridges. What if a man did those deplorable things to a sister of yours, Private? How would you feel about that?”