Gabriella

by Earl Murray

  We moved perfectly together, our motion increasing. I wrapped my legs around him and a lifetime of holding back exploded within me. I felt uplifted in a way I had never known before.

  We rolled up in the blanket and held one another while the stars filled the sky and the wind spoke in the leaves overhead. In the far distance came the sounds of laughing and yelling as the fandango spread outside the fort.

  “You’ll be missing a lot by not going to Oregon,” he said softly. “And we won’t be traveling with Edward any longer.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Bones Brandt told me that he passed him and his men traveling north toward Fort Laramie. I think he’s in a hurry to reach Oregon and left you behind.”

  “That would be the best luck I’ve had on this trip so far,” I said. “But I’m still concerned about going all the way to Fort Vancouver.”

  “Travel north to Fort Laramie with me,” he said. “If you want to go back, catch a wagon train there. It’s safer than down here, with war about to start.”

  BENT’S FORT

  Gabriella’s Journal

  29 APRIL 1846, 1ST ENTRY

  I watched the Indians’ arrival with interest. As they approached from upriver, the fort cannon sounded a loud welcome. Young men dressed only in breechcloths raced their ponies in circles around the fort, yelling and whooping. It both surprised and scared me, but Owen assured me they were not painted for war.

  Their leader and his subchiefs were all dressed in finely tanned skins and beadwork, and wore feathered headdresses. They rode in order of ranking at the head of a long column. In the middle were the women and children, and the elderly. All their possessions were packed on travois pulled by horses, and more warriors brought up the rear.

  Owen commented that the young men seemed to be circling the fort more than normal and yelling cries usually reserved for actual warfare. So much so that a number of men inside the fort took position along the walls.

  William Bent and some of his assistants rode out from the fort gates. Mr. Bent motioned to Owen, and after mounting his buckskin, he rode out with them to have a meeting. I saw a warrior lead a pony forward that was pulling a travois. It held something covered with skins and was decorated with feathers and ribbon cloth, and a war shield hung from one cross-member.

  Bom joined me, along with Dick and Charlotte Green.

  “They tell me that there’s a dead man on that travois,” Bom said. “They’re getting ready for a burial.”

  I would learn what had happened from Owen before long. We all watched and wondered while the leaders gathered around the corpse and talked. Antelope gestured towards the mountains and one of the young men raised his lance, yelling loudly. He was silenced by Antelope. He quickly turned his horse and left.

  “Not going to be festive this time,” Charlotte said.

  The leaders dismounted and seated themselves in a circle, where they talked and smoked. The women unpacked the travois and set up the lodges, numbering nearly a hundred in all. They formed a series of circles across a large open area near the fort. Bom pointed out that Antelope and his family would occupy the central lodge of the largest circle.

  One of Mr. Bent’s men rode back into the fort, and after considerable time returned to the meeting with a pack string of five mules laden with goods, along with three good horses.

  “Those are gifts for Antelope and the subchiefs, and also the dead man’s family,” Dick Green explained. “Something bad’s happened.”

  I watched them unpack the gifts, a large collection of knives and awls and what Owen called “fusies,” a style of rifle, along with powder and ammunition. There was also a lot of brightly colored cloth and bags filled with blue and red and yellow beads, and vermilion for the women’s faces.

  Other bags contained flour and sugar and coffee, together with copper kettles and pans for cooking. Two large kegs of whiskey were offered but refused by the leader. Owen told me later that Antelope was one of the few chiefs who wouldn’t allow his people to drink what he called “white man’s poison.”

  “That’s one of the reasons why Kills It is attempting to break away with his own band,” Owen told me then. “A lot of young men prefer to make up their own minds about drinking.”

  Bom and the Greens went back inside the fort and I decided to walk through the encampment. I took my sketchpad with me and busied myself with drawing. There was so much to see that I felt I could never take it all in. The lodges were conical and supported by long, slender poles, the coverings painted in various bird and animal designs. The women went about their work with great skill and efficiency and didn’t seem to mind my watching.

  I noticed one of them staring at me. Her hair was long and loose, and she wore a skin dress with a beaded belt. She went into her lodge and came back out with the watercolor of Kills It.

  “I knew it had to be you,” she said in broken English. “My name is Willow Bird and I’m Kills It’s wife.”

  I was taken aback. She told me that she had learned English from two different trader husbands before becoming Kills It’s wife. She told me more about her life and her people, believing I would be interested and want to draw her. I asked her to pose with her teen-aged son, Hawktail.

  When I had finished the piece, Hawktail left to ride horses with his friends. His mother said, “He is mixed with white blood, and you know his father.” She pointed to Owen. “He was once my husband.”

  Gabriella’s Journal

  29 APRIL 1846, 2ND ENTRY

  When the meeting was over, Owen told me the news.

  “Edward shot Water That Stands yesterday,” he said. “It was from a long distance and no one understands why. But if it wasn’t for my friendship with Antelope, Edward and all his men would be suffering some terrible tortures right now.”

  “Where is Kills It?”

  “He and his followers are off preparing for war. Antelope says he can stop him. The gifts seem to have satisfied the family.”

  I showed him the sketch of Willow Bird and Hawktail. He studied it, his eyes wide.

  “She’s alive?” he said.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were married?”

  “I’m not married.”

  “Did you leave her to go back to St. Louis?”

  “No, she got rid of me,” he said. “In their culture the woman owns the lodge and all the belongings, except her husband’s war articles. She booted me out. I left for about a month and came back to talk to her, but learned she and Hawktail had been stolen by a Ute war party. I heard later they had been killed along with some other captives. I’m glad they’re both alive, but I don’t think she treated me fairly.”

  He told me that Willow Bird had been given to him by Antelope, her brother, for a wife. As Antelope’s father and mother had both died of sickness, it had been up to him to see that his sister was well cared for. Owen had offered five good horses and a trade rifle.

  “At first the marriage was good,” he said. “But I soon learned that Willow Bird had always wanted to be Kills It’s wife. He hadn’t gained war honors yet, but soon after Hawktail was born, he led a successful war party against the Utes. She left me to be with him.”

  He said that he had been dishonored and to save face would have had to fight Kills It. He believed that no matter the outcome, Hawktail would have been scarred for life.

  “Maybe leaving was the honorable choice,” I suggested.

  “Had I not left, they wouldn’t have been captured,” he said. “I learned later that a Ute war party had struck the village while Kills It and most of the warriors were on a war party against the Pawnee. He should have stayed home.”

  “None of that matters now, does it?” I said. “Don’t you want to get to know your son?”

  “I would, if that’s what he wishes.”

  “Go and see him,” I urged.

  “I don’t know if I’m ready.”

  “You haven’t got a choice,” I said. “If you’re traveling on to Oregon s
oon, you had better get to know him now.”

  Quincannon’s Journal

  29 APRIL 1846

  I have a lot on my mind now, not the least of which is Willow Bird and Hawktail. It changes everything so much. I want to spend time with my son and learn how he’s doing. And then there’s the matter of getting to Oregon.

  I sent Lamar ahead with the men yesterday, right after learning from Bones Brandt that Latour was at Fort Laramie. I hope they can find him. We’ll be a much stronger force all traveling together.

  I told Lamar to meet me along the trail at Fort Hall. I want to spend some time with the Arapaho. When I leave I’ll be able to travel fast enough to catch up to them, especially if Ella decides to go back home.

  I wonder what I can say to change her mind? She seems to understand me better than I do myself. For someone without children, she seems to know what it’s like to love them.

  Seeing Hawktail has brought up a lot of pain. He was only four years old when I left. I remember him sitting beside his mother’s lodge, watching me as I saddled my pony, tears streaming down his little face. When I came to say good-bye, he rushed into the lodge. He didn’t want me to see him crying.

  I’ve never forgotten that day. There was nothing I could do and the frustration of it all drove me into rages for weeks after that. Willow Bird had made her decision and it was final. I could have stayed in the mountains, but I had tired of fighting Indians and scraping for a living. I wanted better than what was being offered. Beaver prices were dropping already and the fur companies were going all-out for what was left. There were plenty of Americans cutting one another’s throats, to say nothing of the Hudson’s Bay Company.

  I thought that returning to St. Louis would bring about better times. Maybe I could get the farm back. But the men who had swindled my mother out of our land had sold it to someone else who had no idea who I was or what I was doing there asking questions. I decided to leave that part of my life behind for good.

  I managed a small trading house upriver for a man named Watkins, who succeeded in staying in business by catering to a market the bigger traders cared nothing about. Emigrants moving from one place to another are always in need of food staples—flour and sugar and bacon—and will trade plows or wagon parts, even horses, for what they need. Watkins then traded those items back to other emigrants or local farmers and made a large profit.

  He spent most of his time in the city, trusting me to run his business. I thought about Hawktail a lot during that time, as the Watkins children and their cousins would come and go around the trading house. I wondered what kind of man he might have become had he lived and if he would have carried a lot of me with him.

  Now I know that there’s a lot of me in him. It scares me to think of approaching him. I wonder what he thinks of me. He has certainly been well cared for and I know he’s being trained in his people’s ways by any number of uncles, each of whom—in their tradition—is considered another father.

  I will find the right time and place to approach him. I hope his grudge against me isn’t too great.

  Gabriella’s Journal

  1 MAY 1846

  Never before have I discovered that I knew so little in such a short time.

  I look back on the evening in St. Louis when Owen Quincannon told Indian stories at the hotel and later informed me that my beliefs about savages in the American West were wrong. At that time I didn’t know he had married one of them and had lived among them.

  Willow Bird sat for her portrait this afternoon and I’ve got to say that she’s one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met. No one can say that her dark eyes aren’t filled with wisdom. She said her time is counted in winters and that at the time of her first marriage, she had counted thirteen.

  She wanted to know all about where I grew up and how I came by such a good pony. I believe she’s quite impressed not just by my artistic talent but by my ownership of Whistler. Even the men took notice, though they came nowhere near me and asked no questions.

  I agreed to paint Willow Bird sitting on my pony in exchange for a soft doeskin dress, finely decorated in porcupine quills of red and black and green. It’s the finest garment I’ve ever owned, and that includes my wonderful blue dress. I wore my blue slippers with the new dress and Willow Bird laughed.

  “How far are you going to walk in those?” she asked.

  “They’re for dancing,” I said.

  Before it was over, I had traded her the slippers for three pairs of moccasins, one of them an Apache-style boot that ran clear to my knees. “They’re for if you ride in the tall cactus,” she said. “And now I can dance in the slippers.”

  We finally got around to discussing Owen and she told me that he was a good man whom she loved dearly, but that he would have died had he stayed with her.

  “My husband before him was killed by enemies,” she said. “I didn’t want that for him.”

  “Did you tell him that?” I asked.

  “I tried to, but he said I was only making excuses.”

  “Then you really didn’t want to send him away?”

  “I didn’t have a choice,” she said. “The Creator has a plan for us all and we must live by it.”

  She explained that Kills It was soon to rise to power because of his love for warfare. Older leaders held power because of their dreaming, and not warfare, but in the years to come all leaders would have to be fighters.

  “The old people say a time of much bloodshed is coming,” she said. “Our leaders will have to spill more blood than our enemies if we are to survive.”

  I asked her why she didn’t resent me, as I was of white blood.

  “Our people have never decided who was good or bad by skin color,” she said. “It’s what’s in your heart. But now there are a lot of people of different color than our own coming into our lands, some good, but many bad. We can no longer trust as we once did.”

  She told me that as a girl she used to hear stories of bearded men with white skin who wore metal shells harder than a turtle’s back.

  “They came across the big waters in huge boats and journeyed up from the south on medicine dogs, what we know now as our buffalo ponies. The Indian peoples in those lands thought they were gods. But they weren’t and came only for riches. They brought with them men in long robes who said they carried messages from their god, but stood by and watched while the metal-shelled men tortured the Indian peoples.”

  She spoke matter-of-factly, with no animosity. What she was telling me was simply the way it had occurred and had to be accepted as such.

  “But we will never understand,” she said, “why it is that your people wish for so many things to make themselves happy but never are.”

  She sat and admired the painting of Whistler and her. She called all her friends and relatives to come and see it and smiled while they stared at me. One old woman looked at my hands and felt them with her own. She put my fingers up to her forehead and smiled. Willow Bird said she was making up a song about me.

  It was ironic that we were having so much fun, while not far away, women were crying. Water That Stands would be taken for burial the following day. His war shield and all his weapons would be buried with him. His best horse would be killed and left beside the grave so that he might ride it across to the spirit world.

  Willow Bird told me all this and asked me not to paint any pictures of those in mourning. I hadn’t thought of it, as I wanted subjects in festive dress or in everyday living. I had already seen those in mourning and was told that the blood on their hands was from cutting off fingers and that on their arms and legs was from knife gashes.

  “They will not wash until the mourning period is over,” Willow Bird said. “That way the Creator knows they are giving of themselves in sacrifice so that Water That Stands might have a good life on the Other Side.”

  Gabriella’s Journal

  3 MAY 1846

  We are camped on a small tributary of the Arkansas, just north of a fortified vill
age called Pueblo. It is a trading house similar to Bent’s Fort, on a smaller scale. Owen tells me the two factions are in competition.

  It’s been a difficult day and the camp is a solemn one. Water That Stands was buried along the trail near the river, at his mother’s request. He had been born in the same exact spot twenty winters before.

  Willow Bird told me that the family would grieve for a long time, perhaps a year. They were all very bloody from inflicting wounds of grieving—cuts in their arms and legs, and often along the forehead. Willow Bird herself is missing the last joint of the little finger on her left hand. She cut it off with a knife when her first husband fell to the Blackfeet.

  I stood with Owen beside the grave. Next to him was Antelope. Water That Stands lay in the ground, dressed in his finest war shirt, wrapped in robes and blankets, his weapons lying with him, his dark and sullen face painted for his journey to the spirit world.

  “It was not a good way for him to die,” Antelope told Owen. “I only hope that he is granted a good life in the Other Side Camp.”

  Antelope cut his hair and let it fall into the grave. Braids that had once trailed down nearly to his knees were reduced to uneven locks that reached just below his neck, tainted with blood from self-inflicted wounds along his shoulders and back.

  I had learned a lot from Owen about the Indian culture and in particular the Arapaho. I had learned even more from Willow Bird, who gave me the name Woman Whose Hands Are Sacred. She believes my ability to paint portraits to be a special gift from the Creator.

  I believe her and know that we are already good friends. She says that she has much more to teach me and that I should allow myself to learn as much as I can about her people’s culture, for some day I will need the knowledge to survive.

  One of the first things I learned is how to grind a little white seed up into powder and drink it with water to avoid pregnancy.

  “We often have hard times when having a child wouldn’t be good,” she said. “In fact, those times would kill both the mother and the child.”