Chapter Eleven

[Their songs] ought to be rescued from oblivion and permanently preserved.

—Walter McClintock, The Old North Trail

 

“Wife?” She drew back at once, trying to pull her hand away from his, but he held on tightly. “Please, Soaring Eagle, be serious.”

“I am.”

“No, you’re not. You’re teasing me, though the good Lord only knows why.”

“And if I were serious?”

“But you’re not.”

“But if I were, are you saying that you do not wish to marry me?”

“No, what I’m trying to say is that—”

“Then you do wish to marry me?”

She snorted. “Please, Soaring Eagle…”

“Please what?”

“I—I’m not sure. But truly, tell me what you intend to say to your people about me?”

“Besides the fact that I have found the one, she who would be my wife—if I could only convince her of my sincerity and if she would take me?”

“Soaring Eagle… I—I know you’re playing with me, that you don’t mean the things you’re saying.”

“Of course not,” he whispered, his face very close to her own.

She grunted, gazing away from him. “Will you tell them that I’m a photographer? That I wish to take their pictures?”

He paused, causing her to shift, to gaze at him. She caught her breath. He was already close, so near to her that all she had to do was breathe in and his clean scent filled her lungs.

And she thought, Even if he is playing a joke, I will never forget this: him, the land, the beauty, the West.

He brought her hand to his heart, holding it there as he sighed into her ear. “I will tell my people what they will need to hear in order that they see you in the same light as I do. But it occurs to me that I still know very little about you, and if I could, I would understand everything. So why don’t you tell me every aspect about yourself, from your first memory in this life until this very moment. But in doing so, I would ask that you reveal it to me slowly. I would have it take a lifetime in the telling, if you please.”

She gasped, her free hand coming up to brush across her chest, as though her heart required the contact in order to keep beating. She said, “Soaring Eagle, please. Y-you—what you’re telling me defies good sense. I—I barely know you, and you, sir, are moving too swiftly.”

“Am I? And yet you feel it too, don’t you?”

“I—I admit there is something. I had thought to ignore whatever it is that is happening between us, for I don’t understand it. I—I thought you disliked me.”

“And so did I at first.” He stared away from her toward the Blackfeet camp, his hand still clutching hers, keeping her fingers spread, there above his heart. “It’s hard for me to like any white person, and you are white. But if I were to make an exception, you would be it, I think.”

“But—”

“When I saw you talking to those men today, and you were defending me against them, I knew that you were…different. You are a good person, I think.”

“I would like to believe so.”

He nodded. “Until that moment, it had not occurred to me that the white race, much like the Indian, has its good and its bad people. Out here on the range, I have only seen the bad that your culture has to offer.”

She sniffed. “Surely you exaggerate.”

“Think you so?”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I do.”

“Ah,” was his only response, though he looked deeply into her eyes. He asked, “And what is your answer?”

“To what?”

With his free hand, he placed a finger under her chin, bringing her face up close to his. He whispered, “I would make you my wife.” With these simple words, he kissed her. And Kali, for all her analytical cleverness, forgot to think.

It wasn’t a simple kiss, either. His lips spread over hers, opening her mouth to him with the gentle insistence of his tongue. And Kali, barely daring to breathe, found she was a willing recipient for all he had to give. He let go of her fingers to bring both his hands to her face, his thumbs tracing over her chin and cheeks.

It left her own hand free to rest there on his chest. And Kali was quick to note that the texture of his taut muscles, there through the material of his shirt, created a feeling within her that made her ache for that shirt’s absence. But she was too shy to initiate the action. Alas, the mere idea of it was scandalous.

In that instant, however, his tongue found hers, frolicking with it. He nipped her lower lip, then kissed her again, making love to her with his lips as another man might use his entire body. And when she thought she might at last be able to catch her breath, he kissed her all over again, repeating the entire affair.

Of their own accord, her arms scooted around his neck, bringing him closer. His hand came up to the back of her head, pulling her to him. And Kali surrendered.

“Do you feel it?” he whispered.

How could he talk? She nodded, breaking lip-to-lip contact, needing air, but her movement only gave him access to the sensitive places on her neck. Kali withered in his arms.

And it seemed a most natural act that he draw her onto her back, lying down while he rested beside her, one of his legs thrown over hers, his arms surrounding her, his body leaning over hers.

He said, “A marriage between us would be almost impossible.”

“Yes,” she agreed.

“And yet I would not have you without it, and I think that I would very much like to have you.”

“Have me?”

He just grinned down at her, the same sort of smile that had the ability to charm her right out of her wits. He said, “Have you in my arms. Keep you by my side. But my people would not understand why I would want you, and yours would probably try to kill me if we attempted to do these things.”

“Yes,” she said. “That’s true.”

“And yet my heart demands that I risk it. What does yours say?”

“I—I don’t know.”

He pushed her hair back from her face as he gazed so tenderly down at her. “I think we should marry.”

“I think you’re crazy. Aren’t you the same man who hated me last night?”

“Aa, yes, I thought I did,” he said, bestowing her with a kiss, first against one eyelid, then the other. “But I have changed my mind. Would you like to know what I was doing that night we first met? The night on top of Chief Mountain?”

She nodded, reaching toward him that she might touch him as he was touching her, desiring the feel of his skin, the warmth of it. She said, “I would like to hear that very much.”

She didn’t get very far in her caress of him, however, for he grabbed her hands and stilled them, kissing each of her fingers in turn. He smiled at her. “And now, dear Kali, I think you move too fast.”

“Me?” she asked incredulously.

“Aa, you.” With a grin, he lifted his head and said, “That night on the mountain, I was singing to the Night Light, our mother, the moon. I was asking her for guidance with my affections.”

“Oh?” asked Kali, withdrawing from him, even if so very slightly. That statement had the sound of a man who was surrounded by maidens, all awaiting their chance at him. “Were you having difficulties with your…ah, affections?”

“Aa, that I was,” he admitted. “I am twenty-eight winters old, an age when many men have married. And yet I had not met a girl to whom I could give my devotion.”

“Had?”

He smiled, nodding. “Had. Now, in the past, this would not have presented a problem to me, as I could have married anyone, knowing that if I found the one that I love with all my heart, I could still take her to my home and make her my wife.”

Kali nodded. He was speaking of polygamy, of course. Didn’t she already know that Indian men had once engaged in the practice?

“But now,” he continued, “with the coming of the white man, and the white man’s religion and his laws, I must be more selective. I had begun to fear that I would never meet the one, she to whom I could give everything that is in my heart to give.”

“Oh, I see.” Kali stared up and away from him, into the ever-darkening sky above her. And once more she asked, “Had?”

He merely gave her that half grin, the one that was becoming familiar to her. “My life has changed recently.”

“Oh?”

He nodded, and taking her hand in his own, he said, “Iihtawaakomimmot. Inihkatsimat. A’painahkimma. It’s what I was singing that night.

 

Ooooooooooo. Iihtawaakomimmot.

Ooooooooooo. Inihkatsimat.

Ooooooooooo. A’painahkimma.”

 

He sang it again.

His voice was deep, clear, unfettered by the conventions of classical training. At the sound of it, chills raced up and down her body.

To say that Kali lay spellbound would not have done the word or Kali, for that matter, justice. Until this moment, no one had ever sung to her, let alone in such a hauntingly beautiful way.

Odd that these things had come from a man whom many of her contemporaries might consider inferior. And she couldn’t help wondering, who was really the inferior? He who would chase after matters of material wealth, or he who would live with the balance of nature? Perhaps each was necessary, she conjectured, neither one being superior to the other, merely different.

She smiled at her thoughts.

“Now you sing it to me.”

“Me?” She pulled back slightly.

He nodded.

“But I don’t sing.”

He scoffed. “All people sing. Some more than others, some better than others. But to sing is the breath of life. Now you do it. Here, I will help you.”

He began:

 

“Oooooooooooooooooooo…”

 

He stopped. “You are not singing.”

“I…I couldn’t. Really, I…I don’t know the words. And I don’t know your language.”

“Then sing me one of your own.”

“I…I don’t know any.”

But he was not to be put off. “Then,” he said, “we will make up a song of our own. It will be our song. Aa, it is true, there might be trying times ahead of us, and I think we will need a song. Something that will bind us together.”

Her throat constricted, and she felt the threat of tears in the back of her eyes. Their song?

Oh, how she liked the sound of that. Too much.

Looking toward him, she almost sobbed at the sight of the pure magic of him, at the thought of what he was suggesting. After a moment, she managed to say, “I—I’m no poet. I’m merely a photographer.”

“You don’t have to be a poet,” he said, bringing his lips in close to her cheek. “We could start it this way…

 

Ooooooooooooooo. When you hear my voice on the wind,

When you see the eagle fly,

Know that these tell of my love for you.”

 

“That is beautiful, the words, the melody.” She shifted her face until her lips were almost on a level with his.

He grinned at her; she felt it there, against her cheek. He said, “Now you sing it.”

“I…I couldn’t.” She backed away slightly, glancing at him. “My, but you are quite a poet.”

“Ah.” He slanted her a devilish grin. “And do you like me better as a poet or as a cowboy?”

“I…I think I like you fine the way you are, both ways.”

“Enough to become one with me?”

She turned her face away from him and frowned. She was beginning to believe the man was serious. And this could never be—must never be. Though he touched her heart in a way no one had ever done, there was something within her that demanded she hold back from him. It was as though she distrusted the man, as though she knew instinctively that this one man could cause her great hurt.

Besides, didn’t he realize? Didn’t he know? Couldn’t he see? She had a life of her own—responsibilities, obligations: her father, her work. She was a roamer, a seeker of new heights.

And Soaring Eagle? Didn’t he have duties to perform for his people, for his tribe? Hadn’t he been sent away to school so that he could become an asset to his community? It didn’t take a genius to realize that while he would be tied to the reservation, she would be off roaming the world, studying some faraway culture.

No. He, like she, had a life ahead that was as disconnected from the other as anything could be.

He might send her to dizzying heights, but, she thought soberly, perhaps there were some dreams that were not meant to be made into realities.

Well, best to take the tiger by the tail.

Inhaling deeply, she began, “You know that a…a union between us isn’t possible. Though I might find you…charming, there are too many differences that mark us, differences that would make such a…a marriage…an unhappy state of affairs.”

“You mean because I am Indian and you are not? Now, who is being prejudiced?”

His words came close to her ear, but she wouldn’t turn her head that tiny distance to look at him. She dared not. His charm was too endearing, his pull too magnetic. And so she said, “It’s not prejudice. As even you’ve pointed out, your people would never accept me for who I am. Always, I would be the white woman who stole away one of their own. And my people…well, I don’t need to say more. Apparently, you’ve already seen this for yourself.”

“It would be difficult to create a marriage, it is true, but not impossible.”

“I disagree,” she said. “Besides, the petty intolerances would only be the beginning of our troubles. There are other things that set us apart, I’m afraid.”

“Other things?”

“Yes. Contrasting mind-sets, if you will. Both those of a spiritual nature and those that are social. It would require quite a span to bridge the gap of our differences. And I’m afraid I’m not very good at spanning distances.”

“And yet,” he countered, “no two people are ever alike. What a boring life it would be if no one had contrasting viewpoints about life.”

“True. But most couples start with common realities—at least about the way life is lived, about the society in which they exist. But ours… No, I’m afraid you’d always be trying to change me, wouldn’t you? And me you. I don’t think that’s a good way to start something as important as marriage.”

“And yet some people begin with less than what we have.”

She twisted around, finding his face very close to her own. It was almost more than she could take. She wanted his arms around her, and yet at this moment she feared that. He was too potent, too desirable. And she had to keep her distance. She had to.

Still, she was curious, and she could barely help herself as she asked, “Please, Soaring Eagle, tell me. What things do we share? What do we have in common?”

For answer, he traced his fingers down her cheek, the simple action causing shivers of anticipation to leap within her, as though awakening her. And there in his eyes, she saw something she had never thought to witness in another’s gaze: admiration, purely sensual and carnal.

She was held in awe by the look until at last he whispered, “Passion, excitement, that’s what we have. Passion for life; admiration for one another. Surely you feel it too.”

“I—I…”

He placed a finger over her lips. “If you will listen, I will tell you a story that might help. It is about two people who were so different, it seemed that there would never be a happy ending for them. But what neither of them realized was that one alone, without the other, was only half-alive. For you see, these things mean much. Would you like to hear the story?”

She nodded. “Yes. Yes, I think I would.”

“Very well.” He brushed his fingers down her arm before gently taking her hand in his own. “This is a tale of a poor boy who once loved a girl of some wealth. She would have nothing to do with him, that is, until he sang her this song:

 

Oooooooooooooooooooo. Nitawahkahtaahiksi,

Miina’pitsiihtaat.

Ooooooooooooooooooo. Kitsikakomimmokoo.

Kitsiikakomimmo.”

 

As his voice lingered over the words, Kali felt awestruck by the beauty of the moment.

“It means,” he said, “‘Sweetheart, do not worry. You are loved. I love you’.”

Kali shut her eyes and inhaled deeply. She hadn’t known, hadn’t been told, hadn’t realized the enchantment of these people’s legends. With a hand over her chest, she found it hard to utter a single word.

But she didn’t need to speak at all, for Soaring Eagle was continuing.

“He captured her heart with this song, but her parents would not let her marry him, for he was too poor and could not provide for her. To them, their daughter was of a different ilk than he was, and they wanted nothing to do with him.”

“But she loved him?”

“Very much,” he replied. “Now in order to win the affection of the girl’s parents, the young lad went to war to win honors and wealth. For only in this way might her parents look upon him as a potential husband for their daughter. And so this he did, but he was gone so long that when he returned, he found that his love had fled her home and had not been seen in many, many moons. All assumed she was dead. It used to happen sometimes, although not very often. Parents arrange marriages to the best of their ability, but sometimes the girl is so saddened by these agreements that she will go out onto the prairie and kill herself.”

“Oh no, that’s so sad. Please don’t tell me this has a sad ending.”

He grinned at her. “You must wait to decide for yourself. Now, this young man, coming back to camp, felt in his heart that his love was still alive, and rather than settle down with another, he spent his life searching for her. He was called the wanderer, and wherever he went, he would sing this song, their song, so that she would know him.”

“And did he ever find her?”

Soaring Eagle nodded. “That he did, but by the time they finally did come together, they were old people in the last years of their lives. He was blind, she almost so, but one day he heard her song in the hills behind his village, and when he heard it, his heart gladdened, for he knew her at once. He went to her and gave himself to her, and she to him. For you see she, too, had never married. Some hearts are like that. They are made for each other, and no one else will do.”

Kali sighed, drawing in toward him. “That’s a lovely story.”

“Aa, so it is. It is said that they are still together in the Sand Hills, where my ancestors have all gone to live. And there, it is said, the two lovers are forever young and are forever in love.”

Kali’s heart quickened.

“And now, what do you think? Is that a happy ending?”

“Oh, very much so. It would have been tragic if they had never been able to meet in the flesh.”

“Yes,” he said, squeezing her hand. He was silent for many moments, until at last he said, “And so, too, should we marry, that we may yet know one another in the flesh.”

“I—I—I… No. I’m not convinced. Legends are beautiful things, but they’re not about real people, and they’re not the stuff out of which reality is made.”

He sighed. “Think you not?”

“That’s what I believe.”

“Then,” he said on another sigh, “we may never marry, for it’s true. Our path would be difficult and it would take us both, acting together, to conquer the bigotry that surrounds us. But there is one other thing: have you considered that our differences could make us stronger? Closer? Deeper in love?”

Kali paused, for the pull of his attraction was that strong. At last, however, she shook herself, as though to free herself from his appeal. And she said, “No, I fear it would not work out that way. You see, I don’t trust matters of the heart.”

“Ah, I understand. You are afraid of love.”

“No, I’m not. I’m simply being reasonable about it. Few couples are ever happy who start with as much against them as we would have. Don’t you see? There are some things one must think through completely before acting. It’s not good to simply presume that all will be well, without any forethought.”

“And yet,” he said, “there are few couples who ever have the promise of complete, lasting and devoted love. Kali, I would have you know what is in my heart, and I what is in yours, so that, if the time ever comes and you wish me by your side, you have merely to open your mouth.”

At these words, Kali’s heart ached. In faith, she felt close to tears. But why, she couldn’t say. She was doing the right thing. She knew she was doing the right thing.

“I should tell you what is in my heart,” he continued, “but sometimes a man can be reticent. It is not always easy for a man to put his deepest longings into words. Do you see? And so in my culture, there are times when a young man will sing a song…especially he will sing one to his sweetheart. It is the only way he can tell her the things he dare not speak.”

“He does?” she asked, feeling practically mesmerized by Soaring Eagle’s words.

He nodded. Alas, he was little more than a hairsbreadth away, but he leaned in closer still, and began softly:

 

“Ooooooooooooooooooooo.

When you hear the wolf howl,

He brings you my message.

I cry for you.

Ooooooooooooooooooooo.

When the wind calls your name,

Know that I search for you.

And when we find one another,

the earth will become a happy place.

Ooooooooooooooooooooo. You are my love.”

 

Shivers ran up and down Kali’s spine. She shut her eyes, the feeling within her so rich, so intense, she thought she might perish if she didn’t respond in kind.

But he gave her little chance to do so. When the last note trailed away, he kissed her, his lips as gentle a caress as the wind about which he sang.

And then, lifting his head, he said those few words she had been waiting all her life to hear. “I love you, Kali Wallace. I think I have always loved you.”

“Oh, Soaring Eagle,” she replied in a rush.

“Marry me, Kali. Know that it is not an easy thing for me to ask. But I have never meant anything more in my life.”

She drew back from him, her gaze trained on some spot midway between his kerchief and the top buttons of his shirt. “Please, Soaring Eagle, please understand. I—I can’t,” she said. “Though your legends are beautiful, and your songs touch my heart in a way none other has ever done, you must know that I can’t…that we can’t. For your sake as much as for mine, I have to think logically, with an eye to the future. Perhaps,” she offered, “legends can afford to indulge the desire of the heart. Real people, however, seldom can.”

“I disagree,” he said. “Real people must follow their hearts if they are to attain peace with themselves and within the circle of life.”

Kali came up onto her knees before standing up entirely. To her horror, she was shaking. “I can’t marry you, Soaring Eagle. Not with conditions as they are. It’s been a day of adventure, it’s been fun and I am in your debt. But you move too fast. In truth, I cannot forget that last night, even this morning, you acted as though I were as annoying to you as a thorn in your heel.”

“Merely a wish to remain a bachelor for a while longer, I think.”

“No. Please understand that whatever happened out there on the prairie this afternoon, and perhaps here also, should never have happened. I’m sorry for my part in it. But please accept my final word on this, and don’t ask me to marry you again. I—I don’t think I could…” …keep saying no, she finished to herself, gulping.

She knew she was being curt, being firm—perhaps a little too firm. But someone had to be.

Casting him a quick look, she was aware that he had questions, questions he might likely pose. But Kali knew she would never last through them. Even now she was close to tears.

And so, with the hope that she could hide behind the facade of disagreement, she turned away from him to make her way back down to the pony herd and to her wagon, feeling horribly, utterly alone.

She stumbled. Indeed, she had gone no more than a few paces when she heard him call after her, saying, “Do what you wish. Say what you will. I’ll do as you ask and not pose the marriage question to you again. But married or not, separated or not, you will never forget me, as I will not forget you. This I promise you.”