Bound by Honor Bound by Love (13 page)

“
It’s not a good idea for a
woman to travel alone,” Julia said.

Woape hesitated but finally spoke.
“Onawa, if the chief is determined to keep white people out of the
tribe, that might mean we won’t be able to come here to visit. From
what you said, it sounds like the chief is determined to keep the
white man’s influence out of the tribe. If that’s that case, then a
white visitor would pose a threat to him.”

“
I’m afraid Woape’s right.
Chogan and I’ve seen the chief’s determination
firsthand.”

Onawa was afraid of that, and as she
thought of how empty her life was about to become without her
father, sister and Julia, she cried more into the
handkerchief.

“
Maybe once we leave, the
chief will realize how much the white people living here has
benefited the tribe and change his mind,” Woape ventured in a tone
that indicated she doubted the chief would ever do that.

Onawa shook her head and cried
harder.

“
I’m sorry,” Woape
whispered.

“
You have nothing to be
sorry for,” Onawa replied through her sobs.

“
I don’t know. Maybe I do.
I was supposed to marry Citlali and have full-blooded Mandan
children to continue our way of life in this tribe. Instead, I ran
away and married a white man and had his children. The chief wasn’t
happy with that decision.”

“
But it worked out anyway,”
Julia argued in an effort to comfort Woape. “Onawa married Citlali
and is expecting his child.”

“
But in our tribe, a man
often marries a woman and her younger sisters. That means Onawa and
I were supposed to have Citlali’s children, and the chief must
think of that from time to time.”

“
Well, Onawa can have twice
as many children and make up for the ones you aren’t having with
Citlali.”

“
The chief doesn’t see it
that way, Julia,” Woape replied with a shake of her head. “He
assumes I would have the same number of children as
Onawa.”

Onawa didn’t know what was worse:
learning her family and friends were about to be forced out of the
tribe or the realization that all the chief valued her for was her
ability to give Citlali children. After a moment, she decided it
was the latter issue that was worse since it meant the chief saw
her—and others in the tribe—as chattel. All everyone seemed to be
was a means to an end.

She wondered if Citlali saw everyone
the same way. Was she merely a way for him to have children? Did he
tell her he loved her the night they married so that she’d be a
willing participant to his bed? He hadn’t said he loved her since
that night, and it felt as if he had been distancing himself from
her. Perhaps it was because she was with child, which meant he
accomplished his goal. Maybe after she gave birth and it was time
to get her pregnant again, he’d draw closer to her and tell her
what she longed to hear. The thought made her blood grow cold.
Maybe when he looked at her, he saw a brooding mare and nothing
more.

“
Onawa?”

Blinking back more tears, she looked
at Woape who studied her with a concerned expression on her face.
“Why didn’t you want to marry Citlali? Why did you run
away?”

Woape sighed. “I knew he didn’t love
me. He was polite and willing to marry me, but I felt no warmth
from him. He was going to marry me out of duty, and I wanted
someone who wanted to be with me.”

Onawa recalled Woape’s guarded
reaction when she’d told Woape that Citlali said he loved her. No
wonder Woape hadn’t seemed to share in her joy back then. She must
have worried that Citlali didn’t mean those words, that he was only
saying them because it helped accomplish his goals.

“
You’re happy with him,
aren’t you?” Julia asked Onawa. “He loves you.”

“
He loves the fact that
he’ll be a chief,” Onawa sourly noted.

“
Granted, he does, but he
also loves you,” Julia insisted. “He told you so on your wedding
night.”

“
But he hasn’t said it
since,” Onawa protested.

“
Some men don’t feel like
they have to keep saying it. They figure once they tell you, you
know.”

“
He has no trouble
expressing his desire to see the tribe prosper. How often does
Chogan tell you he loves you?”

“
Citlali’s not Chogan. You
can’t compare the two.”

“
How often?” Onawa
insisted.

With a sigh, Julia answered, “A lot. I
don’t know how much because he does it all the time.”

She turned her gaze to Woape. “And how
often does Gary tell you he loves you?”

Woape shrugged. “I don’t know. A
couple times a month, I think.”

“
Citlali and I have been
married for three months,” Onawa began, “and he’s only told me
once—on the night we married. He hasn’t said it since. Either he no
longer loves me or he never loved me to begin with.”

“
Three months isn’t a long
time to go without hearing him say he loves you,” Woape assured
her.

“
If Gary went that long
without saying he loved you, would you be upset?” Onawa demanded,
trying to get her sister to understand why she wasn’t
happy.

“
I know what you’re getting
at, but Gary is nothing like Citlali. Citlali’s always hid his
feelings. You never can tell how he’s feeling about anything.
Surely, you knew this when you married him.”

Onawa’s face grew warm. No, she hadn’t
known it when she married him. She heard other people discuss how
difficult Citlali was to deal with, but she figured it was because
they didn’t want to take the time to get to know him. Now she was
beginning to think they had made the effort, but he had blocked
them out, just as he kept blocking her out. She hadn’t realized it
before. There was no denying the fact that he had been pulling away
from her ever since their wedding night.

Up to now, she dismissed it as him
being preoccupied with what he and the chief did for the tribe. But
there was no denying it any longer. For some reason, he put up a
wall between them, and no matter what she’d done, she hadn’t been
able to break through it. And what was worse was the fact that she
loved him to the point where her heart was breaking.

“
You need to talk to him,”
Julia softly advised.

“
Julia’s right,” Woape
said. “Things might not be as bad as you fear, but you won’t know
until you try to work things out with him.”

Though Onawa nodded and assured them
she would talk to him, she didn’t know if she dared. What if he
confirmed her fears? Maybe it was better to wonder and never know
for sure. Uncertain of what she should do, she stood up and offered
them a weak thank you before she headed back for Citlali’s
lodge.

***

Citlali sat in the man’s private area
of his lodge so no one would ask him why he hadn’t returned with
Onawa. He wondered if she would come back to his lodge tonight.
Perhaps she would go to her family’s lodge. Citlali didn’t want to
think it. He knew she had every right to be upset, and he knew she
might divorce him for betraying her family. Women in the tribe
divorced their husbands for reasons less than that.

He winced. He knew he was supposed to
be gracious and let her go. It was the way of their people. But the
idea that she might actually do it made his stomach turn. His gaze
traveled to the area of the lodge where Onawa usually entered, but
she didn’t come through it like he hoped. By the fire pit, his
sister worked on her beads, and his brother sat down to talk to
her. After a minute, his brother glanced his way and snickered.
Citlali frowned, not caring for the way his brother chose to mock
him.

Who cared what his brother thought?
Citlali had more important things to worry about. He glanced at the
entrance again and noted that Onawa still wasn’t there. With a
sigh, he closed his eyes and focused on calming his swirling
emotions. He didn’t like this. He felt way too vulnerable.
Clenching his knees with his hands so he would get up to leave the
lodge and look for Onawa, he took deep breaths to relax. In the
past, it worked. Except this time it didn’t. No matter what he
tried, he couldn’t relax.

All he could think of was the hurt
look on Onawa’s face. It had been the hardest thing he’d ever had
to go through, and if he was lucky, he’d never have to endure that
again. It took all of his strength not to break down and beg for
her to understand that defying the chief wasn’t done
lightly.

He heard his sister call out to Onawa,
so he opened his eyes, grateful that she had returned. He resisted
the urge to bolt up and run over to her, to thank her for not
divorcing him and to ask her to always stay with him. There were so
many things he wanted to say, and yet, he couldn’t find a way to
voice any of them. So he opted for sitting still for a moment
longer while he settled his nerves.

Onawa sat beside his sister and talked
to her in a low tone. He hid his disappointment. He wished she had
come over to him, but considering no one was to disturb him while
he sat in this particular corner of the lodge, he couldn’t take her
action personally. Deciding to give her the opportunity to approach
him, he rose to his feet and went to the small room they shared. He
figured they should speak in private. For sure, he didn’t want his
brother hearing anything she told him.

He glanced her way before he slipped
into their room, and though he willed her to look in his direction,
she continued talking to his sister. Their heads were bent close
together, so he couldn’t even read her lips to get an idea of what
she was telling his sister. Feeling the weight of someone staring
at him, his gaze went to his brother who was looking right at him.
He felt his expression harden as a scowl formed on his face. His
brother’s eyes widened in surprise. Realizing he’d slipped and
showed his brother that he bothered him, Citlali stepped into the
room and set the buffalo skin in place so he was alone—or as alone
as he could be in the lodge.

He sat on the bed he and Onawa shared
and removed his clothes. He hoped she wouldn’t take too long to
come to him. Even as he was relieved she returned to the lodge, he
couldn’t help but worry that she chose to spend so much time with
his sister. Pushing aside the mounting doubts threatening to force
their way to the surface, he hung his clothes on a hook and settled
into the bed. He could smell Onawa’s pleasant scent on the buffalo
blanket. Closing his eyes, he brought the blanket to his nose and
took a deep breath, imagining for just a moment that she was in bed
with him. When he opened his eyes, the spot beside him was
empty.

With a sigh, he stared at the ceiling
and listened for any words that Onawa might be telling his sister,
but she was too quiet. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been so hasty to
retreat to a place where he could be alone with her. At least
before, he could see what she was doing.

He closed his eyes and waited for
Onawa to come to him. Seconds turned into minutes, and by the time
a half hour had passed, he gave up counting the seconds. She was in
no hurry to see him, and who could blame her? He was lucky she
bothered coming back to his lodge at all.

He finally drifted off into a fitful
sleep. In it, he caught images of an impregnable wall that circled
the entire village. All full-blooded Mandans were locked inside,
and Onawa was unable to see Julia, Woape, her nieces, and her
father. She tried to climb the wall to get outside, but when that
didn’t work, she dug a hole until she reached the underground tribe
of Mandans who never made it to the surface of the earth. They
showed her a passage that took her above the ground, and the Lone
Man led her to the river where a large sacred bundle led her to the
people she loved.

Woape and her father and nieces were
all white. Their heritage had been removed from them, and Onawa
took the corn from the sacred bundle and it transformed her into a
white woman. She gave birth to a white child. Woape asked who the
father was. Onawa said the chief of the white man was the father,
adding that she loved him. When Woape asked about Citlali, Onawa
said she never knew someone by that name.

At that point, Citlali woke up, his
heart pounding loudly in his ears. He had no idea how long he
slept, but beside him, the bed was still empty. Maybe Onawa
wouldn’t sleep with him tonight. Maybe she planned to sleep alone.
He didn’t know if he could bear that thought. Just as he was ready
to get out of bed and get dressed so he could recommend she go to
their small room, she pulled back the buffalo hide and stepped into
the room.

Relieved but not wishing for her to
know he was awake, he closed his eyes and pretended he was asleep.
His heartbeat calmed. Good. She was still with him. She wasn’t
going to run off because she couldn’t stand him like Woape had. He
focused on her movements as she got ready for bed. He wondered if
she was still upset with him or if she’d forgiven him?

She approached the bed and slipped
under the blanket. He waited for her to snuggle up to him like she
usually did, but tonight, she turned her back to him and pulled the
blanket over her head. He hesitated to say something to her since
he now knew she wasn’t happy with him, but after his nightmare, he
felt compelled to try to do something to ease the tension between
them.