Gabriella

by Earl Murray

  She called the plant “stoneseed” and said it was plentiful in the foothills and mountains during the summer. She showed me the plant and said the seeds would develop in another full moon. I wished J. T. Landers was with us.

  While Antelope sang a prayer to his deceased son, I looked out across the country to the towering mountains that lay just ahead. Pike’s Peak rose high into the blue vastness, with sheer walls of high mountains running along both sides of the landmark.

  We had left Bent’s Fort soon after the meeting where the presents were exchanged. Antelope had invited Owen to their village, to talk over old times and also the future. He had been free to bring anyone else along that he chose. I thought long and hard about going straight back to St. Louis but didn’t want to leave him just yet. It was difficult, as Bom had decided to stay at the fort and work with Dick and Charlotte Green.

  “I’ll be treated much better here than in Oregon,” he said. “When you get to Fort Vancouver, you write me.”

  I left a number of sketches and paintings with Barton and the Rivet brothers. They promised to see to it that Mother received them when they got home. I hadn’t heard anything from her while in St. Louis, which I thought odd. She had promised to write daily and didn’t take such commitments lightly.

  To our surprise, Bones Brandt asked to come along.

  “I figure to stay a while at Fort Laramie and then move on,” he said. “I’m too old to get caught up in a war.”

  He looked far too old and skinny to have any strength, yet he saddled his own pony with ease and packed a large skin bag full of valuables.

  “Don’t worry about him,” Owen told me. “He’ll outlive you and me both.”

  We left, riding our horses and each leading a pack mule, traveling with Antelope and his band. I had plenty of sketchpads and watercolors to do a number of pieces. But I think the people are worried about me doing their portraits.

  Antelope told Owen that they think me sacred but are afraid of me. They had all seen the picture of Water That Stands, and now he’s dead. They worry that should I paint any one of them, they might suffer the same fate.

  It was even worse that Water That Stands had fallen to a white man’s rifle. Owen had explained to Antelope that none of us would ever condone Edward’s actions. I’m certain Antelope thinks that by even traveling with such a man, we are accepting of his behavior. But because of their friendship, Antelope asked Owen to stand beside him on a very hard day.

  According to Willow Bird, Water That Stands was Antelope’s favorite son. He had been tutoring the young warrior in the ways of a medicine man, believing that when the time was right, his own medicine would be transferred to this special person. Now a senseless act had taken that happiness away and had threatened to make his heart very bad.

  “It’s a difficult test for him,” she told me. “If he’s to stay a holy man, he can’t wish vengeance.”

  Antelope finished his prayer and said, “The man who killed my son must be very strange in the head to have behaved in the manner he did. Who shoots someone for sport? What honor is there in that?”

  Antelope had not witnessed his son’s death, but he had heard every detail from the young horse tenders who had gone searching for lost ponies. The report they brought back was that Water That Stands had ridden ahead of them to investigate a party of white men shooting buffalo. When he raised his hand to signal he wanted to talk, their leader dismounted from a black stallion and shot him.

  Willow Bird says the Arapaho way of life is changing. According to their elders, the times when warriors rode for horses and honor against other Indian nations is ending. The coming of the wagon people has changed everything.

  Now Antelope is being looked upon with suspicion. In honoring his friendship with Owen, he’s being accused of accepting the white man’s ways. Willow Bird says that she’s convinced no one will step forward to demand he step down as leader, or to ask for his white medicine shield, a sign of great honor.

  After the burial, we resumed the march upriver. Our destination is a special place called Manitou Springs. Indian people camp there without worry of attack by enemies. There is a general agreement, Owen says, that precludes any warfare from taking place there.

  I’m anxious to reach the mountains. It’s hard to keep my eyes off them. Heavy white clouds are now dropping snow on their high summits. Owen says he will take me over a divide called Ute Pass and then into some beautiful mountain country before turning north and heading for the trail towards Fort Laramie.

  When we reach there, I will have to decide whether to go on to Oregon with Owen or turn east with a caravan and return to St. Louis. I must admit that I miss Mother and home, but I love this traveling and the thought of seeing new lands and painting portraits of interesting people. It will be a very difficult decision.

  MANITOU SPRINGS

  Gabriella’s Journal

  10 MAY 1846

  The Boiling Springs, the place of the Manitou, is the most enjoyable of any place on my journey so far. Beautiful foothills and mountains surround a stream named for the bubbling waters that flow clear and warm to the touch.

  The people bathe naked and have no qualms about it. I save my time for the later hours of the evening and Owen often tracks me to our favorite pool, a large basin enclosed within a group of trees.

  One evening while in the water I heard soft, melodic music. As the music drew closer, I saw Owen emerge from the trees playing a large wooden flute.

  “Do you know the story of the woodpecker?” he asked me. “As the story goes, it’s the woodpecker who is responsible for the love flute. A young man traveling along the river on an evening like this wondered how he could win the heart of a young woman he wished to marry. As he thought about it, he heard beautiful music coming from the trees. He searched for the source and discovered that a woodpecker had pecked holes in a hollow tree and the wind was playing songs. He cut a hollow branch from the tree and after making holes in the wood, taught himself how to play. He went back to the village and won the young woman’s heart. That’s the story of the woodpecker.”

  “That’s a good story,” I agreed, “but what’s your point?”

  He removed his clothes and stepped down into the water. I’ll admit, I always enjoy it when he comes to me naked. He took me in his arms and we kissed while the warm water bubbled all around us.

  “I’m going to play that flute day and night, until you say yes to following me,” he said.

  I had no inclination towards arguing with him at the time. I was enjoying his strong arms and his response to me as I stroked him under the water. When neither of us could stand it any longer, we made love, while the birds sang evening songs around us.

  Afterwards, we nestled in the warm water and Owen brought up having a life together.

  “You’ve got nothing to return to England for,” he said. “You’ve told me yourself that your mother seems to have abandoned you, that she didn’t write you like she promised.”

  “I have to admit I still don’t understand that,” I said.

  “Then what’s keeping you from agreeing to go with me to Oregon?” he asked.

  “I can’t sell artwork to settlers,” I said. “Perhaps when I’ve gained a following in England, I can return and we’ll talk more about it then, since you refuse to go over there with me.”

  “How would I fit into your society?”

  “Just fine, with a coat and tie instead of buckskins.”

  “Maybe you would fit better over here,” he said. “You’ve told me before that you’ve often wondered where you truly belong.”

  All he said is true. I’ve never felt that I truly fit in. While growing up I used to sit on the beach, looking out across the Irish Sea, wondering where I came from, who I was, and where I was going. But more than wondering where I came from, I was aware a part of me existed somewhere else, far away from Lancashire.

  “Yes, I’ve always been searching for something that was missing,” I said. “Stra
ngely, though, I knew I would find that part of me on this journey.”

  “You’ve found it?” Owen asked.

  “Yes, I have,” I said. “The missing part of me that makes me whole is you.”

  “I’ve felt the same way, ever since I first met you,” he replied. “Why would you ever want us to be apart?”

  “It’s not that I would want that,” I said. “But there are things I need to do before we can be together always. One of those things is to become established as an artist.”

  He stepped out of the water and left without saying anything. He doesn’t understand that I need fulfillment as much as he does. Perhaps ladies of my class aren’t supposed to desire things for themselves, but that’s something I won’t adhere to.

  I know that Willow Bird has her own ambitions, but is unable to fulfill them. Even more than I, she is caught in a society that expects more from her than she can possibly produce.

  She is the main reason I am so interested in these people. Owen was right, they are not the complete savages everyone thinks they are, nor are they noble and above reproach. They are no different from any other race of people: they have wants and needs and a desire to know what it takes to find happiness.

  Though the villagers here are strongly opposed to the white movement into their country, they are very hospitable. Our stay has been more than pleasant and I fear I’ve used too many of my paints and sketchpads. I have painted the surrounding foothills and mountains many times. Willow Bird and Hawktail have both sat for their portraits, and Antelope as well. But none of the others will even come close to me.

  Still, I have enough work and memories from here to last a lifetime. Perhaps I will travel back home from Fort Laramie and work to sell my paintings, then return by boat to Fort Vancouver and meet Owen there. I have no shortage of subjects to interest the English aristocracy.

  Nothing in picture form can convey all that I have learned. Willow Bird has shown me so many things and has even included me in some of their sacred ceremonies. I have been in a sweat lodge once, and that’s enough to last me forever. If that ceremony was meant to burn the old life out of me, it surely succeeded.

  As I understand it, going into the darkness of a small round lodge covered over with buffalo skins is like going back into the womb. The darkness is penetrating, but not nearly so much as the heat. I sustained it through the sacred four rounds, but I don’t know how. Perhaps I do. It truly was God above who came in answer to my prayers, along with the Arapaho ancestors who took pity on me.

  Willow Bird sweats with her friends and relatives on a regular basis. She says that during the days before the Sun Dance ceremony, it’s a daily occurrence. I can’t imagine anyone being able to stand that ordeal day after day. Once was enough for me.

  I will admit that, that one time, though, has changed my outlook forever. I have truly been reborn in a way. I don’t see things the way I used to and am convinced that a Supreme Being exists and cares for all living things.

  “If you take your time in the sweat lodge seriously,” Willow Bird told me, “the Creator will always look down on you with favor.”

  To her way of thinking, we have only our bodies to offer the Creator in thanks for the divine life He has given us.

  “When you give yourself to the Divine and do so without reservation,” she said, “that is a measure of true faith. You will never again be afraid of anything in life, for you know how powerful the Creator is. Good things then come to you.”

  She told me all this while we waited for the rocks to heat up outside the sweat lodge. The small, round structure was made of willows that had been cut and planted into the ground in a large circle, then doubled over and the opposite end planted as well.

  “Only one who has the right to build such a lodge can do so,” Willow Bird explained. “No one else is allowed.”

  We watched the rocks as they heated to a glowing white. They were placed in a pit inside the lodge. When the time was right, we all stripped naked and entered the lodge, sitting in a circle around the pit of rocks. I’ll never forget how those rocks glowed and how much heat they gave off.

  An old woman entered and sat next to the door. She said some prayers and tossed cedar onto the rocks. The incense filled the lodge with a strong perfume that Willow Bird told me would drive away bad spirits and invite good ones in.

  The old woman had a large kettle of water and a ladle. When she closed the flap, she said more prayers and poured water over the rocks. The steam was suffocatingly hot. Willow Bird had made me a switch from chokecherry branches and I used it along with the others to swat my back and sides.

  The old woman continued to pray and poured even more water on the rocks. The heat was so intense that I felt I would burn alive. It took my breath away. Willow Bird had told me to lean forward and put my nose close to the floor. I did this and slapped my back and sides with the chokecherry switch.

  “By so doing,” Willow Bird had explained earlier, “you will become one with power of the heat and the spirits will be able to help you.”

  The ceremony began in late afternoon and concluded near nightfall. After each of the four rounds, we left the lodge to recover and gather strength. I have never been so tired and at the same time so exhilarated in my life. My senses were open to sights and sounds I hadn’t experienced before and every bird’s song was a mastery of music. The clouds in the sky seemed close enough to touch, and the green of the leaves and grass was so brilliant they seemed to glow.

  I tried doing some new watercolors and discovered that I could bring out a better image by mixing colors more to the complexities I remembered from the sweat lodge. Willow Bird smiled broadly, knowing that I had benefited from my experience. Even old Bones Brandt, who spends considerable time alone, exclaimed at the richness of a new portrait I completed of him.

  “Looks like I might just step off that parchment,” he said.

  There was a sadness to his eyes that I couldn’t keep out of the portrait. Try as I might, I could get no brightness to come through.

  “You create the image as it truly is,” Willow Bird said. “That is part of your gift.”

  She then asked me why I never painted a portrait of myself. I told her I had an aversion to that. I’ve thought about it and I don’t know why, but I’ve never wanted to see myself straight on from an image I painted.

  “You look into the mirror without a problem,” she said. “Why not paint yourself?”

  Willow Bird has a way of seeing into me that is unnerving. She seems to know me better than I do myself and I often wonder if she doesn’t have a gift of her own: a gift of seeing into another’s soul.

  Quincannon’s Journal

  12 MAY 1846

  I’ve spent considerable time with Antelope and have discovered how much has changed between us since our friendship began. He tells me that my time in the settlements has made me the same as any other white man and I argue that it hasn’t.

  Kills It hasn’t returned with his warriors and there are villagers who wonder if Ella and I aren’t to blame. Maybe Antelope needs an excuse to send me away.

  He’s preparing for a hunting trip. Before he leaves will be a good time to tell him we’re leaving. I’ll miss the friendship we once shared but I guess what they say is correct: Time changes everything.

  I’ll also be saddened to say good-bye to Hawktail. I likely won’t ever see him again, but I can’t tell him that. I guess I shouldn’t feel that way, as anything can happen in life.

  We have developed a very good relationship, and though he spends most of his time with the horse tenders, our time together has given me considerable satisfaction. When I first approached him, I wasn’t certain what his reaction would be. Now I feel that we’ve always been close.

  The second day after we camped, I asked him what he thought of Parker. In my opinion my buckskin was as good a horse as any other to be found, and he agreed.

  “I expected you to have a good pony,” he said.

  “How
would you know that?” I asked.

  “I might have been small when you left, but I already knew you very well.”

  That day we rode across the hills together. An early afternoon thunderstorm had cooled the air and brought a sparkle to the lush landscape. Hawktail led me up a small draw where a little creek gurgled through the rocks and wildflowers. In this little hideaway the wind was silent and the birds chattered in the trees.

  “I come here a lot to sit and think,” he said. “I used to dream that you’d come back to live with us.”

  “I had the same dream,” I said. “You weren’t old enough to understand at the time, but I had to leave. There was no choice.”

  “I knew that,” he admitted. “I also knew that my mother made unusual decisions for reasons I couldn’t understand. I know now that she was trying to protect you.”

  “I don’t know if I can believe that,” I said.

  “But it’s true,” Hawktail insisted. “As a child, I had dreams of you dying in many different ways.”

  “What you were seeing was my pain,” I said. “It was so hard to leave you.”

  “Maybe some of it was that,” he said, “but not the other visions. I saw warriors charging you and trying to cut off your head.”

  For a moment I was shocked. Hawktail had just explained my dream to me. I had initially believed the dream to be a warning to stay out of hostile Indian country, but the meaning had been much deeper.

  Willow Bird had once told me that her first husband, another trapper, had been killed before her eyes by Blackfeet Indians. She had escaped only by submerging herself in a beaver pond. She had told me often that she worried for my safety, but I had always assured her that I wasn’t going back into Blackfeet country, that it wasn’t worth it. Still, she persisted that I was in danger.

  When she asked me to leave her lodge, she never explained that she believed it to be for my safety. Kills It had always expressed an interest in her and resented both me and Antelope after the marriage. I had always believed that she loved him and not me.