Chapter 20

Chapter 20

The wind picks up, and the frost thickens in the early mornings. Weayaya announces that it’s time for the Buffalo Hunt, and the camps gather together again. Mato rides his horse beside mine as we line up before the grazing herd and spits down between us, giving me a steel glare. I decide right there I’m going to kill more buffalo than him, and I do.

Mother charges up. “I cannot skin and prepare nine buffalo in two hours!” She flaps her hands down. “Kohana, this was wasteful.”

I get back on my pony. “I will find some other squaws to give these to.”

I ride right back into camp and find the one I’m looking for.

“Paytah, I have great news. I have shot far more than my mother can manage and thought you might come and take some for the winter.”

He turns red. “I have no squaw to go cut them. My mother has to see to my father’s kills.”

“I was thinking that you might want to cut them your—”

He flies up unevenly on his good leg and rages. “I am no winte! I will not put on a skirt!”

“I was only thinking I could take you out on a travois so that you could provide for yourself.”

He turns his head away from me in thought and then turns back slowly with purpose. “Just because Wakinyan did not want you, does not mean that I will be your squaw.”

I leap forward, grab his robe, and hold my knife under his throat. I’m about to at least send him crashing to the ground for speaking to me that way, but I see in his eyes a desire to die. He is trying to get me to kill him.

I drop my knife to my side, let go of his robe gently, yet even that sets him off balance, and he falls down, hard, on the log.

“Kill me you coward!” he yells through tears of self-pity. “And you call yourself my friend!”

I glare at him. “I do not kill children.” I walk to my pony as he struggles to get to his feet. Dragging his legs, he hobbles off in great fury, and I turn to see Apawi crawling on his belly toward him, dragging both limp legs behind him. Paytah seeing what he is illustrating, hobbles over and kicks Apawi in the side with his good leg, and Apawi screams a silent scream. If it hadn’t been so pathetic, I would have laughed at the strangeness of it all.

I decide to go to the edge of camp and give all but four of my buffalo away to the wintes and widows. I even let them use my ponies and travois, for which they all give me blessings. It’s nice to do something good.

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The next morning, when I ride out with Chayton and Hanska to scout for the best herd to hunt, I find that Nagi has learned another great skill. He flies out in all directions and then comes back cawing for us to follow him to the largest herd. By the end of the festival, I have the most buffalo kills, and I’m popular in camp with all that I’ve given away. Weayaya stands proud.

After the festival is over and the camps split for winter, I pack up my pony again for another hunting trip. As I walk my pony out of camp, a wind sweeps the prairie grasses, reminding me of something important.

I leave my pony so as to swim through the grasses, parting them with both arms and search the muddy ground below. Finally, I spy the bright stitching of one moccasin, and I bring it up to examine. It’s dried, rough, and a bit misshapen now after the weather I’ve left it in, but the beads are still intact and tight. I do circles around where the first moccasin was found, and my heart beats faster as I worry some animal must have taken it away. But then farther away than I thought I’d thrown it, I see the bright blue beads and pull it up out of the grasses. Both are in the same wrinkled shape. I peel off the red-beaded ones mother made me and pull and squeeze to get Wakinyan’s on. Although now they’re a terrible fit, it’s my penance to wear them back in for discarding them so. Each blister earned and each painful step reminds me of her and, thankfully, displaces the pain from my heart.

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Nagi now flies so well he has to flap in circles to stay with me. He also disappears for some time to return with berries, an egg, or a small rodent. He always brings it back to my shoulder to share with me, but I shoo him off to enjoy it on his own. Even if Nagi isn’t the best medicine, he quickly becomes my best friend.

If an animal crosses my path I kill it, but I’m not tracking four-legged prey. I search out the hunting paths that lead from the white settlement. I follow many trappers deep into the woods, only to see dark hair when they remove their fur hats. One day, my pony keeps bucking when I try to move her forward. Her eyes show white as she sniffs the air ahead of us.

Bear.

I heed my mare’s warning and retreat down the path. I hear voices coming up the mountain path beneath us, and I jump my pony over the brush in order to watch them pass. Two men on horseback come by, one with yellow hair poking out under a beaver hat. I point my musket straight at his head but see it’s not Chase with him but the other trapper. I know I won’t be able to reload quickly enough before he shoots one of the many muskets hanging at his side. I have to wait until I find Peirpont alone.

After they’re high up the path, I decide it’s safe to go down and try to see Wakinyan. As I lean back for my pony to make the steep descent, I pray to the Great Spirit that the bear will find him and solve my problem.

I cross the dirt road in town above where her dugout is and tie my pony behind some rocks so I can sneak up behind on foot. She’s there, plunging his dirty clothes into a rusty bucket of water. She scrubs them aggressively and keeps slapping the cloth with a bar of soap. She wears the tight and restrictive clothing of the white man, and as she leans back to take off the strain of bending over, I notice her protruding belly. My stomach churns at the sight of it.

Evidence that she truly is no longer mine.

I look around, and not seeing any white men, I scramble down the side of the dugout and she turns in fear at my sudden intrusion. She, at first, smiles at the sight of me but then puts her finger up to her mouth and points to the dugout next to her. As I stand before her, I hear the trappers talk and laugh within.

But being so close to her is worth the worst risks, and I stay silent as I burn every curve and color of her face into my mind. She brings her finger to her lips again to make sure I remain quiet, exposing large purple and yellow bruises on her wrist. I grab her arm below the bruise and she opens her mouth in pain. I release my grasp but tear the button and pull up her sleeve to see not only bruises in every color of healing, but burn marks all up her arm. A rage surges through me, and if he were there, I would have killed him with my bare hands. She takes my head in her hands and gives me a look that tells me she’s given up long ago.

The sun breaks through the pines above and shines down on us. Her hair has lost its brilliant sheen and even her green eyes have dulled. I take her hand in mine and pull her up the bank with me, but she yanks back and drops my hand. She shakes her head and pulls her clothes tight over her swollen stomach. I nod sadly, and she sees my moccasins and smiles. She leans in to me, gives me a quick kiss on my cheek, and waves her hand.

I don’t know how many times I can say goodbye to her before I will not survive it. But I take one last look and make my way back up the bank to my pony and gaze down at her one more time. She has already started her work again and, just in time, since one of the trappers walks out. After he passes, she looks up at me, and I turn my mare to go.

I understand Paytah’s wish.

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As I cross the path far up ahead and find the trail that Peirpont took, I decide I don’t care if his companion shoots me. As long as I get Peirpont first, that is all that matters. But something catches my eye. Chase leans against a tree on the path, whittling. I stop my pony, and he finally looks up and points his knife down in Wakinyan’s direction. “Truly heartbreaking that was.”

I realize he’s been watching us. I start my mare up again, not wanting to deal with his jokes. But he puts his hand up again. “Sorry. It’s not a joke.” I stop again, waiting for him to tell me what he wants. “Look, Kohana, we understand each other.”

I wonder if that is true.

He continues, “I know who lies up this path, and I’m telling you that would be a mistake.”

I kick my pony to go again, but he says even louder, “It would be a mistake because then no one would take care of Wakinyan and her baby.”

He’s right. She’d probably end up in a bad position, being husbandless in the white settlement. “What can I do though? You must know he is beating her.”

He nods with his eyes downcast but then brings them back up to me. “There is a better way.”

“What is that?”

“You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.”

My face twists in disgust at his proposition and he laughs. “No, that means I’ll help you, and you help me.”

“What could you want from me?”

He takes a step forward. “I need you to speak to Mika to see if she would leave Hanska for me.”

I shake my head right away. “Hanska is my friend.”

“I thought Mika was your friend too?”

He’s right. I think about her face and the sadness she carries with her now and know she suffers as much as I do. “And if she does?”

“I know of your custom where an unhappy wife can leave if she escapes to another man’s teepee before her husband finds her.”

I nod. “But if Hanska were to find out he might hurt her.”

“That is why I would need your help. You can talk to her and come up with a plan. Maybe even draw Hanska away—”

I shake my head. “I will talk to her and be your go-between, but I cannot deceive Hanska by luring him away.”

He thinks about it. “Fair enough. Speak with her, and I will find you.”

“And what will you do for me?”

He points to Wakinyan. “If Mika gets to my teepee safely, I will get Peirpont to trade Wakinyan to you.”

“How would you do that?”

He walks toward me. “He owes me. So do we have a deal?”

I shake his hand, as white men like to do, and ride off, away from Peirpont’s trail.

A week later, I find the perfect opportunity when my mother and Mika go to the river for water together. Mother heads up stream so I can talk to her alone.

“Mika, I have been sent by Chase.”

She drops one of the water bags into the river but grabs it up again and holds it, empty, in her hands.

“He wants me to find out if you would leave Hanska to go to him.”

She looks off across the river and dips the bag repeatedly, filling it up. Then stands up straight. “You can tell him I will go.”

“Tell no one of this then, because you will be a great risk. You must wait until the perfect time.”

She nods, and Mother returns. “Squaws are coming.”

I walk off in the other direction.

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A few days later, Chase comes back into our camp. Hanska stiffens at the sight of him. Hanska turns to me that night and says, “I know what Chase is up to.”

I pretend not to know what he is talking about.

“Why is he now living in our camp with Reynard back with Otaktay?”

“Maybe he has had an argument with Reynard, which is why he left in the first place.”

Hanska digests this until the next day, when Reynard returns and moves his teepee right beside Chase’s. Chase comes to my teepee one morning. “I have not seen Mika outside her teepee for days.”

“My mother told me that she is being kept roped day and night.”

He sits down hard. “That makes things much harder.”

“And she said that he has paid for an old woman to sit with her when he leaves the teepee.”

“Ha!” He laughs. “At least I’m driving him crazy.”

I sigh. “This might be impossible.”

He laughs again. “Well, you sure have your work cut out for you.”

“What? I have already done my part of the deal. I have talked to her.”

“No, I said talk to her and get her to my teepee safely. So get to work, Kohana.” He jumps up and walks away.

I know my answer lies within the medicine lodge. I steal inside while Weayaya is out and search through the painted medicine bags, but nothing is named or described.

“What are you in search of, Grandson?” His voice makes me jump.

I realize I have other no choice. “I am trying to help Mika leave Hanska.”

He nods like he saw it coming. “Force, no matter how concealed, begets resistance.”

“Hanska has her tied day and night and watched while he is gone.”

He looks at the bags in my hand. “And you think you can find something here that will help her.”

“Please, Weayaya. Mika is unhappy—”

He stops me there with one hand up. “No need to lie to me, Kohana. I see what your motivations are.” He bends over and riffles through the little bags until he brings one up to the light trickling in through the opening. He smells it and pulls it away quickly. “Yes, this is the one.”

He places the sack in my palm. “Have her hold this under her babysitter’s nose, and soon after, she will sleep.”

It’s just the thing I was hoping for. Excited, I close my hand and turn, but Weayaya holds my arm. “Promise me, if you do not get Wakinyan, then you take another wife.”

I cannot lie to such a knowing face, and my silence is enough for him. He drops my arm and looks at me sadly. “You cannot see the future with tears in your eyes.”