by Karen Kay
“But, Gray Hawk, so many people were pushing in on me—trying to touch me, my dress, my hair. I thought someone had reached up toward me to scalp me.”
“I told you that you would be safe here.”
“But I—”
“Enough! There are other things I need to tell you.”
“Oh,” she said and glanced around her. They were seated in what Gray Hawk had said was his sister’s lodge. There was a delicious-smelling soup stewing over the fire as well as several slabs of meat hanging on sticks over it, and all about the tepee were the scents of sage and sweet grass, which, combined with the aroma of the food, made for a foreign, if intoxicating, fragrance.
Genevieve had just finished two bowls of the soup; Gray Hawk’s sister had served the meal before leaving the lodge to the use of her brother and his new sits-beside-him-wife.
There were all sorts of items here that Genevieve would have liked to examine in more detail, but she was afraid to ask the permission to do so.
She did note that all the tepees here were painted, this one’s design clearly seen from within. And there was a sort of lining, perhaps five feet high, that stretched all around the tepee. It was sewn into patterns and designs with different colors of rawhide and paint.
This lining’s design was a crisscross pattern of reds and blues all laid in strips and underlain with rawhide. The whole effect was bright, original and homey, and it made Genevieve feel more relaxed.
Robes and trading blankets were scattered all around the interior, too, and in the center of the tepee, a ring of stones had been placed around the fire, the blaze appearing to be always burning. Several backrests leaned against the tepee lining, and Gray Hawk sat back upon one right now.
Her gaze fell to him, only to find him staring at her. Unnerved, she looked away.
He said, “My sisters will put up a lodge of your own for you as soon as they can sew it together.”
“That is very kind of them. However, Gray Hawk, I need to return to my father. I cannot stay here long.”
He held up a hand. “I know. Later we will talk of it.”
“But Gray Hawk, we never seem to have this conversation, and it is so very important, and I—”
“Silence, woman.”
“Gray Hawk, I—”
“We will talk about it, I promise you, but I—”
“When?”
“You dare to interrupt me?”
“You interrupted me.”
“But you are a woman.”
“Yes? So? What has that got to do with it?”
He sighed. “It is a woman’s job to listen to her husband and to quietly—and I mean quietly—advise him. Do I need to teach you this, too?”
She bristled. “It is a man’s job, just as importantly, to listen to his woman. And no, you don’t. Do I?”
He gave her another stem look.
“Gray Hawk, I’m sorry to argue with you, but this is very important and I—”
“Silence, wife. I know how much you need to see your father, and I said that we will speak of it later.”
She sighed. She didn’t want to, anger him, yet… “When, Gray Hawk, when will we talk about it?”
He, too, breathed out deeply. “We will speak of this problem as soon as I have seen to the welfare and safety of my mother and my sisters.”
“All right,” she said. “And how long will that take you?”
“It will take me as long as it will take me. And each moment we spend arguing keeps me from performing this duty.”
She frowned and peered over toward him. Something in his tone, not his words, made her curious. “Do you worry?” she asked.
He grunted.
Interesting. She watched him carefully as she asked, “What is it? What has you so worried? Is it your family? They seem fine to me, but then I don’t understand all that happens here in your camp. Is it me? Have I done something to offend them—you?”
“Saa, no, you have done nothing.” He hesitated. “I worry because I do not want to be absent from the big buffalo hunt in the moon when we prepare food.”
“Why?”
“Because it is from this hunt,” he said, “that my people obtain most of the food that will see them through the winter. If I am not here, I will worry about my family.”
“But why wouldn’t you be here, unless… Does this mean that you are thinking of taking me back to—?”
“Quiet, woman. I am thinking.”
She bridled. “I was only trying to—”
“It is a very sorry diet when all one has to eat is dried meat and berries.”
“Yes, that would soon grow to be unbearable, but what does that have to do with—”
“I am all that my family has.”
“What do you mean? Have I missed something?”
“There is no one else to see to them.”
“I am afraid I still don’t understand.”
He frowned. “I believe I once told you about my father’s death.”
“Yes, I am so very sorry.”
“I also have no brothers, and my sisters are all still unmarried.”
“Yes? But—”
He held up a hand. “In our society, the burden of the family’s survival sits with the men. While it is true, as you have pointed out, that men cannot survive well without women, so too, women depend upon their men. Is it not up to the man to venture out each day in search of food? Is it not for the men of the tribe to see to the winter stores, their duty to see that all their families have enough food, enough furs and hides to see them through any harsh times…the winter?”
She sat still for a moment, unable to move. A thought had just occurred to her, and she wasn’t too certain what it all meant. At length, however, she said, “So are you trying to tell me that without you, your family could die this winter?”
“I would not like to say it could go that far, but it could happen. They could starve, or they could be very uncomfortable. I would not like to see either happen.”
“I see,” she said, and it was odd because she really did…see, that is.
“And when I captured you, it was this that caused you so much worry?”
“Mostly.”
She stared off ahead of her.
Had she been blind? Why had she not realized until this moment just how worried this man was about his family? Why hadn’t she seen that he was as concerned about his responsibilities to his family as she was about her own?
While it was true that she had known he had a problem here in his village, she had never before been concerned about how he felt. Not really. She had mouthed the words, but…
Why hadn’t she?
Had she still, despite all she had learned about him, all that she felt for him, seen him only as a foreigner? An Indian without any feelings or emotions?
Had she?
She grimaced, facing perhaps for the first time an unsavory truth about herself: she simply hadn’t cared.
It was not a pleasant thing to realize about oneself.
She lifted her head. Well, she cared now.
She was seeing this man as if she looked at him for the first time. He loved his family. He worried about them. He was trying to do the best he could for them.
The least she could do was lend a hand while she was here, if she was able.
And so it was, for the first time in her life, that Genevieve Rohan felt compelled to ask, truly interested, “What must you do in order to support your family?”
Again he hesitated, giving Genevieve an odd look, but at last he said, “I must see that the women have many food stores, and if they do not, I must hunt many buffalo so that they do.”
“And how could I help?”
He looked at her curiously and said, “You could assist me in finding just how much food my mother and sisters have stored. You could also help my sisters with the drying of the meat I bring in; perhaps too with fixing the food and with tanning the hides. That would allow me more time to hunt and to find
someone who will provide for them throughout the winter.”
“I see,” she said. “You know, of course, that I am not very skilled in doing any of these things.”
“Anything you could do would assist them. Also, you could prepare my things, and yours, too, in case we need to move. There are certain ways of making moccasins and leggings and robes for the cold winters. My sisters will gladly teach you this so that you can prepare.”
“All right,” she said. “I didn’t know that the making of clothing was different.”
He nodded. “It is the same in the white man’s culture. You wear heavier clothes in the winter. So too do the Pikuni. We long ago observed that the best furs for warmth are those that we catch at the beginning of winter. Then the animals have a thick hide and heavy fur. These are the skins and furs we use for warm robes, for winter moccasins, for bedding robes. My sisters will show you.”
“But Gray Hawk, I am not so certain that I—”
“I want to tell you how proud I am of you that you have decided to help.” He suddenly grinned at her. “I knew that you would make the best sits-beside-him-wife that a man ever had.”
“I—” She meant to deny it, but truly, what could she say after such a sweeping and, yes, a flattering statement?
Besides, he had surged to his feet and was already standing at the tepee entrance. “I must go now to see nitakkaawa, my friend. I will also send my sisters to you that you may get started.”
“I—” Again, she froze. And so when she heard herself saying, “I’m only happy to assist,” she decided she would do just that…try to help.
After all, these were primitive people, and she lived in a much more advanced civilization than they did. She could probably show them a few things…
Chapter Eighteen
By the end of the day, the entire camp was buzzing with the news.
Not only had their elusive Blackfoot brother married, but this same warrior, who was feared by their enemies, who had already counted over twenty coup though he had barely reached twenty-five winters, had been captured.
Not by an enemy tribe, not by a brave warrior.
No, he had been captured by a white woman.
Gray Hawk heard the stories and chuckled.
Let them think what they wanted. It was good, the people accepting his wife so readily. It was what he had intended should happen.
That she had also done such a brave act when she had captured him, would only add to her credit. Rarely did a man undertake such a deed, an act that might claim his life, and that a woman had set out to do it—and had accomplished it—would be told of in this camp and in many others for years to come.
In truth, many men in the village were already singing songs of her praise and, for the first time, those same men were allowing women into their circle to sing with them.
It was remarkable.
He didn’t tell anyone of his own escape nor of his capture of her. There would be time enough for that later.
He sat now inside his more-than-friend’s lodge, having been invited there to smoke.
He had given his friend a pony for his part in helping Gray Hawk’s family, but there was more assistance needed and another horse to offer if his friend, White Eagle, would aid him once again.
Not that he expected White Eagle to refuse. Being a more-than-friend meant just that. White Eagle was a friend, yet more.
The two of them had given their vows long ago to act for the other, to each one lay down his life for the other, if need be.
It was a custom shared by all the different Indian tribes. More-than-friends went into battle together, hunted together, went on raids together, helping one another and ensuring each other’s safety. If one was ever injured, so too did the other take on the injury as though it were his own.
When Gray Hawk had lived among the whites, he had looked in vain for just such a tradition, but he had found none. In truth, what he had discovered had startled him.
Among all people, there are those who deal in lies, who backstab, who pretend help while bringing misery and death. Among all races of men are those who make their own lot “better” by tearing down the good deeds of others. Such people are few.
But while in the white man’s camp, Gray Hawk had never witnessed so many of these kinds of people in one place. There he had seen so much lying, cheating and murder—and by those reported to be best of friends—that he had become leery of ever trusting a white man.
He wondered how the white man would ever survive. How could he live and not know that friendship was a matter of life or death? That to live alone always courted disaster? In this country, the more friends one had, the longer he might live.
But a more-than-friend went even beyond all this.
A more-than-friend shared in the other person’s happiness as well as each other’s misery; they shared one another’s adventures, their triumphs, their very life itself. If one’s lodge was full with food, so too was the other’s.
The only thing a more-than-friend did not share was one’s wife, although it sometimes happened that if there were a death, a more-than-friend might be expected to take on the other’s family, to care for it and see to its welfare, as White Eagle had done for Gray Hawk’s family.
Still, such unselfish giving, whether expected or not, never went unrewarded.
It was why Gray Hawk had offered his friend a horse. It was why he was prepared to offer more.
“My brother,” Gray Hawk started, “I have a few more ponies to offer you and a favor to ask of you.”
White Eagle’s expression didn’t even change. “It was what I anticipated when I first saw you walk into camp. It is because of the white woman, is it not?”
“Yes,” said Gray Hawk. “I have taken her as my sits-beside-him-wife, and so her problems have become as my own. And she has worries.”
“I remember,” White Eagle said. “At the white man’s trading post, she was trying to persuade one of us to accompany her back to her home. Anyone would assume that a woman who would offer such a thing must have many problems. What are hers?”
“I don’t know them all, but the one that worries her most is her father.”
“What? Surely he must approve of you. Does he know of your excellent war record? If not, I could go to him and tell him…or perhaps, because you were so far from home, you did not have plenty of horses to bring to him? Other gifts?”
“It is nothing like that,” Gray Hawk said. “I did not meet him. We did not travel all the way to her home. I escaped the white man’s medicine canoe long before that.”
This news had White Eagle sitting up and leaning forward. He asked, “Did you have the Cree love medicine with you, that the white woman came with you willingly? I have heard that theirs is a powerful medicine.”
Gray Hawk grinned. “She did not exactly accompany me of her own free will.”
White Eagle looked up quickly. “You stole her?”
“Aa, yes.”
White Eagle grinned. “What a great coup. Why have you not said anything about this?”
“I decided it was not as important as my sits-beside-him-wife gaining acceptance among our people.”
White Eagle looked into the fire a long time before he said, “I think you are wise to consider this. Did she truly steal you?”
“Yes, she did, with the help of some others.”
“Then she is an unusual woman.”
Gray Hawk only nodded his agreement.
White Eagle said, “What is it you need from me, my brother?”
“I must take my wife back to her father for the winter. Her father has some trouble that bothers my wife greatly, and so I must take her to him. She thinks that I can help the man. And so I must try.”
“Aa, yes, nitakkaawa, my friend, you are right. You must try, otherwise your wife might be forever unhappy. You wish me to care for your mother and sisters, then, in your absence?”
“Aa, yes. I will also ask my uncle, Black Calf, to help, sinc
e you also have your own family to support.”
White Eagle nodded. “It is good. There are many buffalo in our country this year. Our chances of success in the moon when the leaves change color are great. Do not worry. I will see that your family has enough meat to see them through the winter. And I will ask Black Calf to help.”
“I am very happy to have your help, my friend, and I am prepared to give you two more of my ponies, plus my best buffalo horse, for all these things that you will do for me.”
White Eagle stared at his friend. He said, “Your buffalo horse is known to be the best-trained pony in our camp. Many times has he ridden you in close to the herd to make the kill, and never once has he fallen or made an error in his judgment. You are certain you wish to give me such a fine animal?”
Gray Hawk grinned. “I am certain.”
“She must mean a great deal to you, this white woman. I can see by your actions that you hold her in great affection.”
“Saa, no—well, perhaps a little. It is only that—” He stopped himself. Somehow his words didn’t ring true. A little? Was that what he honestly felt in his heart?
He changed the subject. “I have heard,” Gray Hawk said, “that the geese are flying high.”
“It is true.”
“Also, I noticed on my journey here that the skins of many animals have thickened already; I saw several rabbits that have turned white before their time, and I observed that the songbirds are all gathering into flocks.”
“So it is. We have seen these things too.”
“Then you must understand that because these things are all signs of an early winter, I feel I must do this thing quickly, take the woman to see her father, lest I strand myself and my wife in a blizzard. It is why I will have very little time to spend in the camp. I hope you will excuse my hurry.”
“Nitsikksisitsi’tsii’pa, I understand.” White Eagle took a puff on his pipe before passing it to Gray Hawk. “Do you know where this town is that you must take her?”
“No. I know only that it is south and that it sits on the Big River. But I also learned that the big medicine canoe made the journey upriver in a little over two moons. And since I can travel as quickly as it does, I think it might take me that long.”
