Devil Moon

by David Thompson

  “Horatio,” as Evelyn well knew, was Shakespeare’s nickname for her father. “What would Pa have to say about what I do? It’s between Dega and me.”

  “Does your father mind the two of you being together? Sometimes parents take exception.”

  “I don’t see how he could,” Evelyn said. “So what if I’m white and Dega is an Indian? Pa married a Shoshone, after all.”

  “That wasn’t what I was talking about,” Shakespeare clarified. “Land sakes, girl, I married a sassy red wench myself.”

  “Oh, Uncle Shakespeare.”

  “Don’t ‘Uncle Shakespeare’ me. I will call my wife that to her face and she will be flattered.”

  “So Blue Water Woman is a wench, is she?”

  “All women are. Some hide it better than others, but deep down all women want the same thing.”

  “And what would that be?”

  Shakespeare started to say something and caught himself. Instead he smiled and said, “They want a heart to entwine with their own.”

  Evelyn thought of Dega and her chest grew warm. “Even if that’s true, I’m still not admitting I’m in love.”

  “A woman’s prerogative. And for your sake I will graciously drop the subject.”

  “Thank you,” Evelyn said. “I’ll have to tell your wife that she’s wrong about you.”

  “What did the wretch say?”

  Evelyn snorted. “How did she go from being a wench to a wretch?”

  “She’s female. Your kind does it with every other breath.”

  “Oh, Uncle Shakespeare.”

  “Don’t start with that again. What did my darling wife claim this time?”

  “Only that your tongue is so tart, you must have been born with a sour disposition. But she was smiling when she said it.”

  “That was the word she used? Tart?”

  Evelyn nodded. “She was quite proud of it. She said it was a word worthy of your precious William S.”

  “The nerve,” Shakespeare said, and paraphrased, “All that is within her does condemn itself for being there.” Lifting his rifle, he marched on by. “If you’ll excuse me, there’s a certain upstart who needs a tongue-lashing.”

  Evelyn grinned and continued on her way. She thought of his remark about the military and virgins and felt herself blush. That was another thing she’d never given any attention until recently. Why should she, when she was never going to marry? Sighing, she stopped and gazed toward the east end of the lake. The Nansusequa lodge was a dark block in the shadows of the tall trees. Dega was there somewhere, going about his daily chores. It had been a few days since she saw him and she dearly yearned to.

  That got her thinking. Usually when they were together, others were around. His family or her family or Shakespeare and his wife. It was rare for them to be alone. The last time had been when they went on a long ride up into the mountains. She decided to go on another. Only she couldn’t just tell her mother and father and say she wanted to go off with Dega to be alone with him. She needed an excuse.

  Over by the cabin the chickens were pecking and taking dirt baths. The rooster flapped his wings at her as she went by. She opened the door and went in and stood a moment so her eyes could adjust. Her mother, Winona, was at the counter chopping a rabbit into bits for a stew.

  “Where’s Pa?” Evelyn asked.

  “He went to visit your brother and see how Louisa is coming along,” Winona said in her impeccable English.

  Evelyn pulled out a chair and sat at the table. Her sister-in-law was in the family way and everyone was doting over her. She wondered if they would do the same when she was in the family way, and blushed again.

  “How was your walk?”

  “It’s a beautiful day,” Evelyn said.

  Winona turned. She had a bloody knife in one hand, and the fingers of her other hand dripped red drops. “Too beautiful to clean your room as you promised you would?”

  “I said I would get it done by suppertime.”

  “And you will stall until it is nearly time to eat and then do it,” Winona predicted.

  Evelyn wanted to stay on her mother’s good side, so she said, “I’ll clean it in a few minutes. First I wanted to ask you something.”

  Winona turned back to the counter and began putting the pieces and bits into a pot. “I am listening.”

  “Pretty soon the weather will change,” Evelyn began by a devious route. “Winter will be here and we’ll have snow up to our necks.”

  “Sometimes the snow is deep, yes. Do you want your father to repair that sled he made you?”

  “What? No. I haven’t used that in years.” Evelyn traced the shape of a heart on the tabletop.

  “Then what was your point?”

  “Only that once the snow hits, we don’t get to go anywhere. We can be socked in for days or even weeks.”

  “Winter is as it is.”

  “I know that. I’m not griping about the snow. I’m saying that I’d like to get away for a day. Maybe ride up into the high country.”

  Winona shifted toward her. “Oh?”

  “Yes.” Evelyn saw the hint of a grin at the corners of her mother’s mouth. Or maybe it was her imagination.

  “Would you go alone?”

  “No. Pa and you wouldn’t like that. So I was thinking of asking Dega to go along. I was thinking we could pack food and make a picnic of it. The last outing of the summer, so to speak.”

  “So to speak,” Winona repeated, and stabbed a juicy chunk. “It is fine by me if it is fine by your father.”

  Inwardly, Evelyn smiled. Her father nearly always let her do things if she got her mother’s approval first. “I’ll ask him when he gets back.”

  “Have you asked Dega yet?”

  “No. If Pa says yes, I’ll ride over to the Nansusequa lodge later. We could go tomorrow morning and be back by nightfall.”

  “All day? That is a long picnic.” Winona looked at her. “What will you do with yourselves?”

  “Mostly we’ll ride and eat and admire the scenery and the animals,” Evelyn said, her cheeks warm yet again.

  “You will go armed. Take your rifle and your pistols. And you will tell Dega to be on his guard at all times.”

  “We’re not kids,” Evelyn said.

  “You’re not adults, either.” Winona put down the butcher knife. She poured water from a pitcher into the pot and carried the pot and a large wooden spoon to the stove. “After all the things that have happened to you, you shouldn’t take the wilderness lightly.”

  “That’s one thing I’ll never do,” Evelyn vowed. Over the years she had encountered bears and wolves and hostiles and more, and nearly lost her life on several occasions.

  “I hope Dega’s parents will let him.”

  “Why wouldn’t they?” Evelyn asked. “They’ve always been as nice as can be to me.”

  “I am sure they will,” Winona said. “They are dear people and have become good friends. We are lucky to have them as neighbors.”

  “Yes,” Evelyn agreed. “We are.”

  “You will be back by nightfall without fail?”

  “I give you my word, Ma,” Evelyn said, averting her gaze. She couldn’t look her mother in the eye after telling such a bold-faced lie. She had no intention of making it back by dark. In fact, she planned on the opposite; she was going to stay all night alone with Dega in the wilderness.

  She couldn’t wait.

  Chapter Eight

  Tihikanima found her son seated on a log in a sunlit glade. He was sitting so still and blended in so well, with his green buckskins, she almost didn’t spot him. He was gazing off toward King Lake with a longing expression she had seen many times of late. He wasn’t really looking at the lake; he was pining for the new female in his life. She strolled out of the trees, her arms crossed over her bosom, her doeskin dress the same shade of green as his. He was so enrapt, he didn’t notice her until she was almost on top of him.

  “Mother!” Degamawaku stood. “What bring
s you here?”

  “I was out for a walk,” Tihi lied. She had come specifically to see him, but he must not know that. “May I join you?”

  “Of course.” Dega motioned at the log. “There is plenty of room for both of us.”

  “What were you thinking about when I came up?” Tihi reminded herself that she must not be obvious or he would resent it.

  “About a buck I saw this morning,” Dega said.

  “Does this buck have a name?” Tihi countered. “And would the name be Evelyn King?”

  Dega smiled and sat next to her. “I do not think of her all the time.”

  “Only most of it.”

  “I have made no secret of my fondness for her. She is a fine girl, Evelyn.”

  “Yes, she is,” Tihi was quick to agree. In that, at least, she was sincere. She did think that Evelyn was a fine person: cheerful and courteous and caring. But to Tihi that wasn’t enough.

  Out on the water, mallards were swimming and geese were honking. A large fish leaped clear and splashed down.

  “What are you intentions with her?” Tihi asked. She had to force herself to keep her tone unemotional.

  Dega shifted. “Why do you ask?”

  “You are my son,” Tihi said. “You are my oldest. I have nurtured you from when you were a baby in a cradleboard. I care for you and want only the best for you.”

  “Did Father send you to talk to me about her?” Dega asked.

  “I am here on my own,” Tihi admitted. Her husband would be upset if he knew. She had broached the subject with him and he had made it plain that he did not want her to interfere. But she couldn’t stand by and say nothing. Too much was at stake.

  “I should think you would be happy if Evelyn and I become close,” Dega said. “I could do worse than pick her as my wife.”

  There it was, out in the open where Tihi wanted it. Now she must be extra careful. “You are young yet to think of that.”

  “I have seen almost nineteen summers.”

  “Evelyn has seen only sixteen.”

  “So?” Dega said. “You took Father as your husband when you were that age. And Evelyn tells me that among her people many take husbands and wives when they are as young as she and I are.”

  “Among her people,” Tihi repeated. He had unwittingly given her the opening she wanted.

  “Why do you say it like that?”

  “She is white and you are not.”

  “So?” Dega said again. “Nate King is married to Winona, a Shoshone. Shakespeare McNair is married to Blue Water Woman, a Flathead. Zach King is half and half, and he has a white wife. What difference does it make that Evelyn looks white and I do not?”

  Tihi chose her next words with great care. She didn’t want him angry with her. He must think she shared his fondness for Evelyn, even if she didn’t. “When two hearts are in love, only their love matters.”

  “That is how I feel, too.”

  “But there is more than just your hearts involved, my son. She is white. You are Nansusequa.” Tihi paused. “Need I mention that our family is all that is left of our people? That the rest of our people were wiped out by whites who sought our land for themselves?”

  “I was there, Mother,” Dega said bitterly. “It was the most terrible day of my life. I do not understand why Manitoa deserted us.”

  To the Nansusequa, Manitoa was the source of all that was. Their other name for it meant That Which Was In All Things. They revered the Manitoa above all else. Because of that reverence, for untold generations they had striven to live in harmony with all that was around them, and by doing so, be close to That Which Was In All Things. For untold generations they were a peaceful people devoted to one another and their customs. Then, in one brief burst of brutal violence, all that they were and all that they believed had been nearly wiped out by greedy whites.

  Only their family escaped. The five of them were the last of their kind, the very last of the Nansusequas.

  “Did Manitoa desert us or did we desert Manitoa?” Tihi responded. She’d had a hard time reconciling the tragedy herself. She could still hear the screams and see warriors and women she had known all her life having their brains blown out or their bodies skewered on sharp blades. “But it is not That Which Is In All Things that I have come to talk about.”

  “Then what?”

  “Our responsibility to those we lost.”

  Dega scratched his handsome head in puzzlement. “I am confused,” he confessed.

  “As the last of our kind, we owe it to those who fell to live as Nansusequa should.”

  “We do that,” Dega said.

  “We wear Nansusequa clothes and live in a Nansusequa lodge,” Tihi said. “But what about in here?” She touched her head. “Or in here?” She touched her bosom over her heart.

  “We are Nansusequa through and through, as the whites would say,” Dega declared.

  “Are we?” Tihi paused for effect, then said, “A Nansusequa does not give his heart to an outsider. Nansusequas only marry Nansusequas.” There. She had said it.

  Dega stared at her for the longest while, his face impossible to read. Finally he said, “I cannot believe what I am hearing.”

  “Why not?”

  “You are saying that you do not want me to feel for Evelyn as I do. You are saying that you do not want the two of us to be together.”

  “She is an outsider.”

  “The Kings are our friends,” Dega said. “They helped us when no one else would. They gave us a place to live.”

  “Nate and Winona do not hate our kind, I will grant them that,” Tihi conceded. “But as friendly as they have been, they are not Nansusequa. As generous as they have been, they are not Nansusequa.”

  “It makes no difference to me.”

  “It should,” Tihi said. “If you love your people, if you mourn for them every day as I do, then you should want to honor their memory by not giving up their ways.”

  “You have thought this all this time?”

  Yes, Tihi had, but her husband insisted she not interfere, and until now she had abided by his wishes. “I did not have cause to think about it until you took up with her.”

  “I care for Evelyn greatly, Mother.”

  To soften the sting, Tihi smiled and ran her hand over his long black hair and caressed his cheek. “I know that, son. It is why I have been reluctant to bring it up. The last thing I ever want to do is hurt your feelings.”

  “I care for her greatly,” Dega reiterated.

  “Enough to take her for your wife. When will that be?”

  “I…” Dega hesitated. “I have not thought that far ahead.”

  Tihi felt a twinge of anger. Not at him, at Evelyn King. For he was plainly lying to protect Evelyn, and she could count the number of times that he had lied to her on one hand and have fingers left. “Let us talk that far ahead, if you do not mind.”

  “I always do as you say,” Dega said, but he did not sound happy about it.

  Tihi’s anger climbed, but she kept her self-control. “Let us say that Evelyn and you continue to see each other. Let us say there comes a time when you think that you love her and she thinks that she loves you.”

  “It will not be because we think it,” Dega said. “It will be because we are in love.”

  “Of course. My mistake. And when that time comes, you will naturally want her to be yours and she will naturally want you to be hers. So let us say that you become husband and wife. What then?”

  Dega appeared puzzled. “We would live as Father and you do.”

  “Will you come live with us?”

  “What?”

  “You heard me,” Tihi said. “It is Nansuseqea custom for a man to bring his new wife to live in the lodge of his father and mother. If you take Evelyn King for your wife, will she come live in our lodge?”

  “I do not know if she would like that.”

  “Have you asked her?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

 
“It has not come up.”

  “All right. Let us put that aside for the moment.” Tihi went on smiling to show her forbearance. “One day you will have children. How will you raise them?”

  “As Father and you raised me.”

  “As Nansusequas? Or as white? Evelyn’s mother is Shoshone, but Evelyn prefers white ways to Shoshone ways.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Dega said.

  “You should. How your children will be brought up is important. Will you raise them as whites so they never know their Nansusequa heritage? Or will you raise them as your father and I raised you and your sisters, as true People of the Forest?”

  Dega put his elbows on his knees and his chin his hands. “There is more to marrying her than I imagined.”

  “I am happy you see that. It is why I brought it up.” Tihi shammed interest in a bald eagle soaring above distant peaks. “We are the last of our kind, my son. Once we are gone, the Nansusequa are gone. Unless…” She rubbed his shoulder. “Unless you and your sisters raise your children in the Nansusequa way, and their children after them.”

  “Speak plainly, Mother. Are you against me marrying Evelyn?”

  “Did I say that?” Tihi hoped she was hiding her emotions well enough. “Should you decide she should be your wife, I will stand by you as I have always stood by you in all that you have done. But it would be a shame, would it not, to have the Nansusequa way be lost to the world?”

  “Yes, it would.”

  Tihikanima smiled sweetly. Now she must feed the fire of doubt she had planted so it became a raging bonfire. “Think about it, my son. We are the last of our kind. I keep saying that because it is important for you to fully understand. After we are gone, the Nansusequa will be no more.” She paused and gently squeezed his arm. “Unless you and your sisters carry on the beliefs and customs of our people. On your shoulders rests whether the Nansusequa die out or are reborn.”

  “Reborn?” Dega repeated.

  “Your children, my son, and Tenikawaku’s and Mikikawaku’s, are our future. They will in turn have children of their own, and their children after them. Hopefully, large families. If each of you has five children and each of them has five children and so on, in a hundred summers there will be a hundred Nansusequa where now there are only five.”