Firebrand's Woman

by Vanessa Royall

  He crashed down upon the earth, rolled over once, and lay still. Within the moment Swallow was howling over his body, trying to kiss life back into it.

  “It is over,” Torch told her, gently pulling her away.

  Swallow stopped wailing. Gyva was unsettled by the way she let Torch comfort her.

  Now Torch faced the tribe, especially the hotheads. “If there are any others who disagree with what fate has chosen, I invite you now to come forward,” he said. “If such turmoil should have come to our people that now we must choose our leader by blood, then so be it. Step forward.”

  “No, no!” cried the people. “That is not as it is meant.” And the hotheads, sobered by the dispatch with which Hawk had been destroyed, made quick to offer fealty to the new chief.

  “Thus it has come to pass,” cried Teva, “and thus it is to be.”

  “Let all the braves follow me to hold counsel,” Torch commanded. “We have much to determine, and our destiny first of all.”

  “What of Hawk?” someone asked.

  “Bury him like a dog!” came the response. “Bury him in a shallow grave at the edge of the forest, where rats and weasels and wild dogs can dig up and gorge upon his flesh.”

  “No,” Torch decided quickly. “He had faults, as do we all, but he was first a warrior, and served the nation well. The women will prepare his body now, and we shall bury him as a brave. Let us go.”

  So the men went off to hold counsel, to discuss the captive, and Roo-Pert Harris, and the fate of Bright Badger, and tribal policy for the days ahead. Gyva sought to help the women who would bathe and dress the body of Hawk, but they sent her away.

  “Hypocrite,” one said, although Gyva had meant only to act in accordance with the spirit of reconciliation so recently proclaimed by Torch.

  “We have had enough of you, white daughter,” others said.

  In the end, bereft and verging on heartbreak, Gyva was alone. She wandered about on the outside of the village, unable to feel much except her own pain and a vague joy for Torch. It seemed that a vast gulf separated them now, and that it always would. She seemed unable to focus her mind on that, however, and felt like disappearing into the trees. Then, walking behind a row of wigwams, she heard a soft moaning, and remembered the captive, who was at least as alone and abandoned as she was herself.

  No one noticed Gyva when she entered the wigwam. The captive lay on his side on the floor of the dwelling, sweating profusely now, as if he had been taken by fever. Overcome by sympathy, despite the fact that this yellow-haired white man might well have killed some of her people in days past, Gyva knelt down and hesitantly touched his forehead. His eyes fluttered and she quickly drew back her hand. He moaned again and opened his eyes. Gyva was startled by their color, which was the clearest, palest blue, like ice in a winter lake. Yet their effect was not one of coldness but rather of directness, of honesty.

  “Wa-ter…” he gasped. “Please.”

  Still kneeling beside him, Gyva debated with herself. He was a captured enemy and thus had no claim to comfort of any kind. On the other hand, the braves had said he had not fought during the battle, and certainly he did not have a knife. What harm could a measure of water do? A bucket rested at the base of the main pole that supported the wigwam’s horseshoe-shaped roof, and a dipper hung from a nail on the pole. Gyva filled the dipper and carried it to Golden-Hair. Tied hand and foot and lying on his side, he could not drink properly. Without thinking about it, Gyva put her arm under his head, bracing him, and lifted the dipper to his lips. He drank, tentatively at first, the water spilling over his parched lips, down his fine, square chin. Then he began to gulp deeply. She withdrew the dipper.

  “Not so fast,” she said, using the English that Teva had taught her. “It is not good.”

  His eyes opened wide in surprise, and he peered at her from behind fevered lids.

  “I speak your tongue,” she said, “but I am Chickasaw.”

  It was as if this news discouraged him, just when he had felt a glimmer of hope. Perhaps he had thought Gyva was someone who might have helped him. Now he seemed to sag in resignation.

  “Please. More water,” he asked in a dull voice.

  “Yes, but you must drink slowly. You will take cramps.”

  He looked up at her in startled surprise. “Am I not to die anyway?” he asked. Then he smiled. It was Gyva’s turn to be startled. He had a lovely smile, for a white jackal.

  She gave him some more water, then lowered his head to the earthen floor of the wigwam.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  Gyva knew she ought to move away from him, leave the dwelling, but for some reason—perhaps simply the desire for some kind of companionship—she remained kneeling beside him.

  “Are you in great pain?” she asked, after a little while.

  “I cannot…feel my hands…” he said. “Are they still a part of me?”

  “Yes,” she said, glancing at the knots behind his back. Golden-Hair’s hands were almost purple from lack of circulation. Impulsively she yanked from the knots the wooden stick that had been jammed into them, releasing the pressure somewhat. He could not escape anyway. What was the point of the added torment?

  “You are kind,” he said, feeling the pressure ease. “Will you not cause trouble for yourself?”

  Again he had surprised her. He was thinking of her situation and safety. Was this not odd? Everyone knew that the white jackals cared not a thing for others, not even for those of their own kind. Was it some trick?

  She drew away slightly, lest he have some ruse in store for her.

  “What is the matter?” he asked. “Have I frightened you?”

  “I told you I was a Chickasaw!” she declared, too passionately, and too quickly. “I am afraid of nothing.”

  He seemed to study her. “You look like an Indian,” he said, after a moment, “and yet…no, I cannot see clearly. It is gloomy here, the light…”

  “My mother was a white woman,” Gyva heard herself tell him, wondering why she had done so. Was it because he seemed gentle? Was it because of his honest eyes?

  “You have her beauty,” he said. “Why are you here among these people?”

  He was asking too much. “Why have you invaded our homelands?” she shot back.

  His face darkened; he seemed sad. “I come to forget the past,” he said, “and to farm in peace in the lands north of here.”

  “Harrisville?” she asked, thinking, peace indeed! Thinking of Bright Badger, abducted under her very eyes!

  “Yes, that’s the place. We were on our way there, by wagon train, when your braves attacked our party. We were not fighters. We were barely armed. And we were cut to ribbons.” He gave her one of his piercing, direct looks. “Some of your people have little mercy,” he declared. “I am glad to find, in you, an exception.”

  “Ah!” she said.

  “Ah?” he repeated. “Your tone is puzzling.”

  “You seek by guile and flattery to turn me to your will.”

  His response was laughter, soft and immediate. “Would that I could, and then I should be free of this place.”

  “That will not be,” she said, looking at him, feeling an unusual sadness come upon her.

  “You are unhappy,” he said. “Why? Certainly not because I am to be killed.”

  “Of course not! Every one of you white men deserves to die, for what you have done to us. Driven us from our hunting grounds, driven us back here into these mountains! Why—”

  “Wait, I swear that I never—”

  “—And the monster Jacksa Chula, who does not let us rest!”

  “Wait—stop! Who is this monster?”

  “The old and fierce one—Jacksa, who kills Indians.”

  “Do you mean Andrew Jackson?”

  Gyva nodded decisively. “Aye! Jacksa,” she repeated. “He who is called by the name of the hickory tree.”

  “He is no monster. He is friend to my family.”

  “But he has
killed Chickasaw, and Cherokee, and Creek, and Fox, and—”

  “And Indians have killed Floridians, and Georgians, and Carolinians, and Virginians, among which my family is numbered. We have lived there for two centuries, you know, and cultivate vast plantations.”

  Momentarily he seemed to grow very sad, thinking of something far and lost.

  “Jackson is only defending white people here in the west from the depredations of savages.”

  Gyva considered his words. He was not speaking the truth, of course, could not be speaking the truth; but he apparently believed what he was saying, for in his voice was the ring of honesty. And he spoke formally—an educated man. Well, so he was misguided, not evil. It was unfortunate that he would have to die. No, he deserved to die. But—but if the white men felt the Indians were set upon killing them, and the Indians felt the white men were bent on the task of reciprocating…

  Things were more complicated than she could at that moment decipher. Perhaps Torch’s restraint in dealing with the white men was more salutary than she had once thought.

  “We shall destroy Jacksa Chula,” Gyva maintained, with more defiance than necessary.

  “I doubt that,” Golden-Hair replied. For the first time there was a touch of hardness, of steel, in his voice. “He is already a great leader of his people, and beloved here in Tennessee. One day he may well be—what do you call it? Great White Father?”

  Gyva thought of the man who had killed her mother. She would not speak of this. He must not know of the terrible bond that connected her to Jackson, like a secret of the soul.

  She stared coldly back at him.

  “What is your name?” he asked after a moment.

  “Why do you wish to know?”

  “It is but a friendly question, an inquiry of courtesy among my people. I am Randolph, Jason Randolph. Of Virginia. I am a planter by heritage, and have read law and literature.”

  “And I am Dey-Lor-Gyva, and I make grain cakes, and know legends.”

  “Dey-la…what? Delia?”

  “No, no. What? You cannot speak it? Dey-Lor-Gyva! Beloved-of-Earth, it means in my tongue.”

  “Ah, Delia!’ he repeated, as if teasing her. “I believe I can pronounce it well enough.”

  “No, Dey-Lor-Gyva. My tribe calls me Gyva.”

  “No, I think Delia is much better. Have you a man, Delia? A husband?”

  Gyva thought of Torch, felt Jason’s eyes on her. Blood rose to her face.

  “I see!” he cried.

  “You see nothing,” she said. “Have you a wife?”

  Once more that look of sadness. “I did have,” he replied. “I had a son as well. But they are…passed away.”

  The look of melancholy touched something in Gyva. She remembered the clothing in his baggage. “I am sorry,” she said. “How?”

  “They were killed,” he answered, curtly but without bitterness. “Killed and scalped in our house while I was away buying supplies. The house was burned, too,” he added desolately.

  Indians had killed his wife and child?

  “Of what tribe were they?” she asked.

  “What does it matter?”

  “It matters a great deal. Were they Chickasaw?”

  “It is all the same, is it not?”

  “Nay. Not so. There are Chickasaws who are wicked, true, but…”

  “So you are noble?” he asked, with a skeptical glance. “And the Choctaw, let us say, are savages?”

  “The Choctaw are devious and unprincipled.”

  “That is a wondrous thing to know,” Jason returned. “And I shall remember it tomorrow when I die on a Chickasaw gallows.”

  Startled to momentary silence, Gyva did not know how to answer him.

  “Do you think you might be able to get me a bit of food?” she heard him asking.

  “I do not know.”

  “A girl lovely as you? Certainly you must be able to have almost anything you desire among your people, just for the asking.”

  Now it was her turn to appear despondent. “I am not in favor.”

  Jason looked at her curiously. “What? Have you transgressed a code, Delia? Failed to keep your wigwam neat?”

  “No, please do not jest. It is a serious thing to me.”

  He saw the seriousness of her concern, and asked to know the cause of her distress.

  Perhaps it was his genuine interest, perhaps simply the fact that she had no other with whom to speak. But she told him everything, or almost everything. The conditions among her people, the manhood ritual, the struggle for the chieftaincy, Hawk and Little Swallow, and her own-myriad blunders.

  “And this Torch? He is the one called Firebrand, is he not?”

  “Yes, but the appelation is most unjust, he—”

  “And you love him, don’t you?” Jason asked bluntly.

  “Why, I…no…how did you…?”

  “Some things are the same in every land,” he said quietly, “and among all people.” He looked at her directly. “But had I your love, I would not treat it so.”

  “He…Torch…treats me…well. He has many complex matters before him.”

  “I expect that he does. But while he thinks of them, perhaps you could get me some food. I would be most grateful.”

  Thinking that perhaps she might be able to smuggle him at least a piece of barley cake, Gyva started to rise, when the sounds of voices and footsteps approached the wigwam.

  “Oh, I must be—”

  “Delia…”

  “I ought not be here.”

  But it was too late. The hanging skins at the entryway were pushed aside, and several braves peered in.

  “Gyva again!” one cried.

  “Plotting with the captive!”

  “Has she released him? I am sure she has released him.”

  “No, he is still here.”

  “But she intended to release him—that is certain. Else what is she doing here?”

  “What is this?” demanded Torch, entering. He wore the headdress of a chieftain. He looked as somber, remote, and powerful as ancient law; he seemed to have aged ten years in the space of a day. “Gyva…”

  “I but gave the prisoner water,” Gyva said, standing before him, meeting his eyes. She did not shrink away. She was the one who had so many times given him ultimate delight. She knew his body and how it responded as well as—if not better than—she knew the way of the rapids in the river, the soft trails down among the forest trees. If by donning the portentous headdress, Torch had forgotten what she knew of him, had given him, then all was over, and the better to know it now.

  But he had not forgotten. She saw it in his eyes, and she saw that he was vastly troubled now, torn between love and duty.

  “You ought not to be here,” he declared softly, but authoritatively, too.

  “His wife and son were killed by Indians!” cried Gyva.

  All eyes turned to her.

  “How sad,” exclaimed Tall Heron.

  “I believe it is her white blood speaking,” observed Arrow-in-Oak, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “‘His wife and son were killed by Indians!’ How devastating for the unfortunate jackal.”

  “I am overcome,” mourned Fast River, bending over the captive, reinserting the stick in the knot that bound Jason’s hands, giving several brutal twists. Jason cried out.

  “Will you not have sufficient opportunity to torment him tomorrow?” Gyva cried.

  “He might practice screaming now,” grunted Tall Heron.

  Fast River twisted the wood some more.

  “De-liaaa…” sighed Jason, and passed into unconsciousness.

  “What was that he said?” asked Torch sharply.

  “It is what he calls me. He cannot or will not speak my true name.”

  Torch frowned. The others grunted. “So you have spoken with him for a long period?”

  “Not so long.”

  “You have exchanged names.”

  “What is that?”

  “Much, when you ar
e already—” Torch broke off and looked at the other braves. “See to preparations for the execution,” he commanded. When they had departed, he looked sorrowfully at Gyva. “We must talk,” he said.

  “Then do so.”

  “Not here,” he said. “I must meet you one last time in our special place.”

  Her heart went cold, but she suppressed a shudder. One last time! No, that was not true. That could never be true. She herself would change the will of heaven, and thus render false his thoughtless words. She would seek Teva’s magic. She would invoke her own magic…

  “When the moon begins to hide behind the second mountain,” he said, and strode through the door of the wigwam, rippling the skins that hung in the entry-way.

  Moments later Gyva left, too. But not before she removed the stick in the knots that bound Jason Randolph.

  Chapter II

  Clouds drifted in to cover the stars and the moon. Lying awake in her wigwam, Gyva tried to judge the time. Around her, women were tossing, snoring; children were muttering in their sleep. Torch was chief of the Chickasaw, but there was no great measure of peace among his people. Perhaps it was too soon for peace.

  If I go too soon to the willows, Gyva was thinking, I will lose by the appearance of anxiety what hold I might yet maintain over him. But if I go too late, I may lose a last chance to be of influence to him.

  She peered out of the wigwam and tried to judge where the moon might be. The village—her home village, which she had known forever—lay crouched against the darkness of the night, beneath the darkness of the mountains. For one long, excruciating moment it seemed suddenly remote, alien to her. Wigwams that had passed before her vision ten thousand times or more now loomed low upon the ancient Chickasaw earth, and Gyva had a shuddering premonition: In the hearts of your people you are not wanted anymore.

  She thought with true sympathy of the white man who lay not far away, awaiting the dawn of his death day. Was there some comfort, whatever the agony might be, in knowing the day on which one was to die? He did not seem a dangerous or warlike man, this Jason Randolph. What had happened to him had been bad luck and accident, just as—with the timing, machinations, and good luck of Little Swallow, Gyva herself had been brought low by ill luck and accident. What would it be like, she wondered, to know you were going to die? That one morning hence, the sun would rise warm and shining upon the mountains, the fragrance of a thousand flowers would ride the blue air, and the living would eat and drink and laugh and steal away to know the keen delight of a lover’s body. And you yourself would be dead.