Walks the Fire (20 page)

Returning to her litter, Jesse dug out the Bible. She opened it and began reading aloud.

Most of the tribe had not heard Jesse speak in her tongue for years. The foreign words were meaningless to them. It was only in the face of the reader that they could discern the comfort the words must speak of.
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…”

When Jesse had stopped reading, she bowed her head. Her lips moved in a prayer. From across the years, she remembered a hymn and found herself singing it.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see.

She went on to the last verse:

When we’ve been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun

We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we’d first begun.

Her voice cracked and failed several times, but she struggled on to complete the song.

As the final note died out, Jesse turned away from the grave. Her shoulders sagged, and she would have stumbled had Prairie Flower not been there to hold her. She led her to the litter, then walked back to the grave, where the other women circled and began the keening. When the cries had subsided, Prairie Flower turned to see Jesse sitting, head in hands, on her litter. Soaring Eagle stood at her side. The loss of his father meant that he was the leader of the family now, and he took his new position seriously, not allowing himself to show any grief, eager to prove his manhood.

Prairie Flower helped Jesse up. “You will sleep in my tepee tonight, Walks the Fire. And Old One too. And Soaring Eagle.” Jesse allowed herself to be led away like a child. With relief she realized that Prairie Flower’s invitation meant she would not have to struggle to erect her own tepee for shelter tonight.

The people moved about quietly, raising their tepees so that each one faced the east. Soaring Eagle wandered off by himself. The sun was setting, and fires were started. Supper was prepared and taken in a subdued manner. Occasionally a baby whimpered or a dog barked, but most of the evening was spent in unnatural quiet. Families whispered of the strange things they had witnessed that day or shared a memory of Rides the Wind. Many wondered how his white woman would fare among them now that he was no longer alive.

When Jesse finally sank onto her pallet in her friend’s tepee, the drums had broken the silence, calling the village to dance and sing and tell the life of Rides the Wind. Alone, Jesse listened and wept quietly. Shadows danced about her on the walls of the tepee. The fire crackled, and Jesse longed for the shadows to take the familiar form of Rides the Wind coming to her. She wept, her body shaking with each new wave of grief.

At last, the sounds of the village slipped away and Jesse slept. As she slept, her hand came to rest over her abdomen. The child within had stirred.

Eighteen

Hear my cry, O God; attend to my prayer. From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
—
Psalm 61:1-2

Then there was the grieving.
She had buried a child and lost one husband, but this was different. Sadness brooded over her, a dark, heavy presence that covered every act, every word. At times she felt breathless from carrying the weight of it.

Old One cautioned Jesse not to travel too far from the tepee. “You might see something that frightens you—the child would be marked.” When Soaring Eagle hunted and brought in rabbit, Old One refused to cook it for fear the baby would be born with harelip. Duck was forbidden lest the baby have webbed feet. Jesse complied with the superstitions, too weary with grief to protest.

When Jesse grunted with the effort to bend and cook, Old One took over tending the fire. “Eat much meat—cook little. We do not want the child to go back to the hills.” The familiar saying used to describe the death of a baby made Jesse flinch. She fled outdoors, hoping to find someplace that death would not haunt her, but her feet swelled in the heat of the day, and Prairie Flower forced her back inside her tepee, insisting she rest. She encouraged her to make clothing for the baby and brought plentiful supplies.

The kindnesses of her friends brought little comfort. All their attention could not fill the emptiness.

Over every day, in every moment, the absence of Rides the Wind presided. When Jesse fled the tepee to walk in the open, there was Red Star, hurrying across the landscape to nuzzle her shoulder. But Red Star’s welcome hung in the air, unanswered by the shrill neigh that had always followed it. Wind was not there.

When Jesse returned to her tepee, she was faced with the conquests of Rides the Wind painted on the outside. Inside, there was his parfleche. Oh, why had she kept it? Why hadn’t she buried it with him?

Jesse picked up his parfleche, running her hands along the edges, feeling the rawhide thongs.
His parfleche… his stitching
…
his tepee
…
his mother…
one hand fell to her swollen abdomen. Something pressed against her hand. Jesse pushed against it. It pushed back. She looked about the tepee.
His tepee
…
his parfleche
…
his baby.

She should be planning for the baby. She should—but no, not today—perhaps tomorrow. But tomorrow the grief was back, covering everything. Jesse pushed it aside, took a breath, and started another day. She carried the grief, carried the growing baby, carried wood for the fire. Just carrying it was all she could do. Beating it down into something she could carry took all her strength. When the evening fire died and her strength waned, the grief loomed up and won. It carried her into the night and filled her dreams. It denied her rest. She woke and listened for his breathing. She reached out to feel the emptiness next to her. She inhaled only smoke from the fire. There was no scent of war paint and animal skins and warm flesh.

Soaring Eagle returned from hunting with his friends. His father’s death had matured him, seemingly overnight. He was tender with Jesse, no longer her little boy, but a young man who wore the mantle of manhood willingly and took pride in his ability to provide his two women charges with meat. His care brought little comfort, for in the line of his jaw, Jesse saw another’s face. When he spoke, the inflection of another’s voice hung in the air. And the grief came rolling in.

Jesse fought it desperately. It seemed bent on smothering her very will to take breath. Still, she clung to life. She marked every sunrise without Rides the Wind by inserting a black bead into the design on the dress she was decorating. When thirty black beads had been worked into the design, the dress was finished. But the grieving was not.

Howling Wolf watched Prairie Flower help her friend prepare for the baby. He sat in his empty tepee at the edge of the village and replayed scenes from the past until he convinced himself that the white woman’s arrival in camp had been the start of his worst troubles.

In his eyes, when “Woman Who Makes No Fire” had arrived in camp, Prairie Flower’s attentions had turned from her own tepee. She had been caught up in teaching the woman. She had forgotten her own husband.

Was it not her helping the white woman that had forced Howling Wolf to start his own fire the day of the buffalo hunt?

When “Woman Who Makes No Fire” had become Walks the Fire, Prairie Flower had deserted him for many nights to tend her wounds.

Then, Walks the Fire had tricked him out of the lovely new wife he had brought to camp.

Sitting alone in his tepee, Howling Wolf went over and over each incident. Each time his resentment for Jesse grew. He began to believe that ridding the tribe of the white woman would enable him to regain his position with Prairie Flower. If he regained his wife, the people would no longer call him
canniyasa,
the derisive term they used that meant he had shown himself unfit as a husband.

A plan began to form. When it was complete, he kept it to himself, going over and over the details.
Soaring Eagle will go to hunt as soon as we make winter camp,
he thought.
Then I will repay the white woman for all she has done to me.
He watched Jesse furtively, smiling to himself.

The village joined thousands of Lakota moving through
Pte ta tiyopa,
the “Gate of the Buffalo,” and into winter camp in
He Sapa,
the Black Hills. Heavily wooded with dark pines, the hills hid countless pure springs. Abundant wood and game and shelter from winter storms made it a favorite winter camp for both the Lakota and the buffalo.

When Jesse and Old One tore down their tepee, Jesse reverently carried Rides the Wind’s parfleche to the travois and took great care to see that it was firmly strapped in place.

Her heart ached as they walked along the narrow stream bed that marked the trail.
Only last year,
she thought,
he had me look up to see how the trees almost touch at the tops of the cliffs.
Jesse stopped abruptly, pretending to have a rock in her moccasin so that her tears would not be seen.

Arriving at winter quarters, the people set up camp and settled in. Jesse moved quietly through the days and Old One worried. Talks a Lot offered a new cradle board for the coming child. Prairie Flower stayed nearby and watched her friend closely. Howling Wolf leered at them from across the camp. He watched Jesse’s growing belly with quiet delight, plotting and waiting.

Working with her hands kept Jesse sane. She opened her Bible each evening out of habit, but Rides the Wind was not waiting to absorb the beloved words, and they lay dead on the page, lost in a stream of tears.

It had been her habit to greet each day with Rides the Wind. Together they would face the rising sun and pray. He had often used the very words she had read by the previous night’s fire. Now, no words came. The wound of his death lay fresh, and she had no words for the pain. Raising her empty palms to the sky, she waited for the sun to rise, wordlessly offering her emptiness to God.

Not until she lost count of the black beads in her work did Jesse find words for her grief. Even then, they were not her own, but those of an ancient who had also known the deepest sense of loss.

Hear my cry, Oh God; attend unto my prayer. From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I.

The psalms began to tumble from her mouth, giving voice to the hurt.

Save me, O God; for the waters have come in unto my soul I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I have come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. I am weary with my crying: my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.

Jesse read the same words again and again. And the living thing that had held her under a weight of darkness began to lift.

Lord, I cry unto thee: make haste unto me; give ear unto my voice, when I cry unto thee. Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.

And then one morning the grief quieted. It lay curled on the horizon as dawn broke. It prowled along the edges of her day. But it let Jesse breathe and move through the day without the constant battle. Old One saw her smile at Soaring Eagle. A soft light returned to the gray eyes. Howling Wolf noted the change, too. He decided to wait until spring to avenge his hatred.

Only once after that did the grief nearly overpower her—at the water’s edge. She looked down and saw the absence of the face that should be reflected beside her own. She tamed the grief by slapping the water’s surface, destroying the image. It retreated. Life went on.

By the Moon of Strong Cold Jesse had grown large with child. Prairie Flower brought her the softest, whitest skin Jesse had ever seen.

“It is the skin of an unborn buffalo calf,” she explained, adding shyly, “I was saving it for my own child… but now…” Tears stung her eyes, and she brushed her hand over her scarred face.

Jesse wondered why the kindness of a friend should bring the grief prowling back from the shadows. Managing a whispered thanks, she clutched the skin and fled across the camp to her own tepee where Rides the Wind was not; his coming child pushed the very breath from her body as she panted from her short run. The baby churned and kicked. A tiny foot pushed against Jesse’s ribs and she pressed against it. The foot kicked back, harder, and she whispered, “Your child insists on his own way, best beloved.”

And then, one morning, Jesse raised her palms heavenward and found her own words tumbling out in place of the psalms she had been reciting.

The grief retreated to the fringes of her day. It still surprised her at times, leaping out with fresh attacks when she was least prepared. But time had begun to heal the wound. When she woke to the absence of Rides the Wind, she filled the emptiness with his favorite passages of Scripture, reading them over and over until they became part of her.

Soaring Eagle spent the winter months gentling a new pony. He had taken over the care of his father’s herd and tended the animals with genuine tenderness, proving that he had learned his father’s lessons well. Jesse watched as he faithfully gained the trust of a young horse, teaching it to run swift and straight as its rider slid sideways until only one knee was visible to the pretended enemy. The two would chase around a meadow again and again until great clouds of frosty steam rose from the pony’s gaping nostrils. Then Soaring Eagle would slow the pony to a walk and carefully cool him down before turning him out with the other horses.