Proud Wolf's Woman (29 page)

“Yes, and here we will find many horses, when they all come to drink.”

Julia smiled, and said, “I’m parched. I think I’ll take a drink, too,” she bent down to take a sip.

“Julia, don’t!” But he was too late. She had already put the water in her mouth. She gasped and spit it out at once while Neeheeowee stood beside her—laughing.

“It is not funny.”

“Truly, you are right,” he said, still laughing, and Julia, after a moment, began to smile, too.

She sat down beside the lake. “I’d forgotten what you said about its bitter taste. It doesn’t seem as though it should taste so awful. The lake looks like some enchanted land from a fairy tale.”

“What is this ‘fairy tale’?” He said the words in English, as she had.

“It is a story,” she said, “about enchanted places and people. People who hold much mystery, who work in magical ways. And though we in my culture know these stories are not true, we nevertheless love to hear them over and over.”

Neeheeowee nodded. “As do my people. We also like these stories. There is a myth about this place, too. Would you like to hear it?”

“Yes,” Julia said, immediately turning toward him with interest.

Neeheeowee came down on his haunches beside her and, picking up a rock, he tossed it into the water. “At the bottom of this lake,” he began, “lives a huge serpent. It is very big and very strange, for it creates this bitter water that we see here. It is the reason the water is so hard to drink. This is the environment that the serpent needs in order to live.”

Julia smiled. “It is there, right now, as we speak?”

Neeheeowee nodded. “It is there.”

“Can I see it?”

“Only if you are foolhardy enough to swim in its waters. For the serpent guards its home well. And though it allows all those horses, you see over there, to drink its water and roll around in it, if a man ventures into its depth, he is immediately captured by the serpent and taken below the water to his death. It is why no one bathes here, either. The serpent allows no one near it.”

Julia grinned. “I see. Could I stick a toe in?”

Neeheeowee chuckled. “You can try it and see.”

Turning from him, she did. When Neeheeowee roared like a beast beside her, Julia was startled into snatching back her foot. He grinned at her.

“If we cannot drink this water,” she said, “where will we find water today to drink?”

“There are other lakes nearby. Do not worry. This is not like the land that we crossed at the beginning of our journey together. There is much water here to drink and to bathe in.”

“That is good,” she said, then after a while she asked, “How will you catch those ponies? I always thought you needed a good horse in order to ride down and capture a wild one.”

Neeheeowee nodded. “It is always best to catch a horse that way, but when you don’t have a pony to ride, there is another way. Do not worry. I will show you how to do it.” He looked down at her. “Tell me,
Nemene’hehe,
do you wish to learn how to capture a wild pony?”

And to his question, Julia replied with a firm, “Yes, sir,” translating its meaning when she saw him smile.

It was sometime later that Neeheeowee took Julia into a ravine on the other side of the lake. “A ridden horse,” he was explaining, “cannot overtake a free animal except in the early part of spring, when the ponies are half-starved and have no endurance. So at this time of year, we sneak up on a herd of the wild mustangs, hauling ourselves over onto the sides of our horses so that the wild ponies cannot see us.”

“What would they do if they saw you?”

“They would run,” he said. “The mustang has a keen eye and will run from you if he spots you from very far away. That is why we have to sneak up on them before we ride them down and tame them.”

“But Neeheeowee,” she said, “you do not have a pony to ride to catch them.”

“Do not worry. There is one other method of taking the wild pony, but it should never be used unless you have to. It is said that this method has come to us from the white man. I do not know. I only know this way breaks the spirit of the pony forever. So it is never used unless you must. Do you have the hair rope and the hoop made out of willow?”

Julia nodded, holding up the rope and hoop for Neeheeowee’s inspection; the rope was woven from buffalo hair and the hoop formed from willow branches tied with strings to hold the ends together. He took them both from her, hauling the items onto his shoulders.

“Stay here and watch. This first animal I must take by this way called ‘ceasing,’ but all the others I will ride down and tame in the usual way so that the animals keep their spirit.”

Julia heard the playful neighing of the ponies off in the distance and spotted the herd just up ahead of the ravine. There must have been fifty of them, all arrayed in coats of different colors, frolicking and playing out on the prairie like children. The wind blew their manes, which were thick and straggly, all over their necks and faces, while their tails, long and full, swept over the ground with their every move. There were so many colors of them, from milky white to midnight black, that Julia had trouble keeping track of them all. Here was a cream color, there, a gray, a sorrel, a pied. She lost track of them all.

Neeheeowee had sneaked up to the edge of the ravine, his position there facing the wind, while he readied his bow and arrow. He took aim.
Swish…
The arrow hit the gristle at the top of the neck of one of the ponies. The pony fell, stunned.

Neeheeowee grabbed the rope he’d slung across his shoulder, leaping out of the ravine at the same time, and within seconds he had the feet of the mustang hobbled. He then approached the head of the pony, a mare, slowly, placing his hand first over the animal’s eyes, then gradually bending down to breathe into its nostrils.

To Julia’s amazement, the pony became instantly docile, leaving Neeheeowee with nothing more to do than let the mare rise. He petted the animal, he crooned into her ear, he then removed her hobbles, transforming the hair-rope into a sort of bridle, and jumping onto her back, he rode her over to Julia.

Julia stood amazed while Neeheeowee grinned.

“Now,” he said, “I will use this mare to capture three more ponies.”

“You will ride that mare?”

“Yes,” he said. “She will not fight me. She is docile and will remain so. She is conquered.”

“But how can that be?” Julia asked. “It is not long enough for you to be certain she is docile.”

Neeheeowee gave Julia a strange look. “How long it takes,” he said, “has no bearing on whether she is tame or not. She will not fight me.” Here he leaned down toward Julia, the look on his face at once wicked. “Be careful, woman,” he said, “or I will use the same technique on you.”

She snorted, though a smile pulled at the corners of her lips. She had climbed out of the ravine and had begun to approach the mare, slowly at first and then with more certainty. She reached out a hand toward the mustang, cooing softly to the animal at the same time. After a while, she asked, “Why do you breathe into the pony’s nostrils? Is there a reason?”

“Haahe,”
he said. “When I breathe into her nose, I impart some of my Spirit into her. It helps her to obey me later.”

Julia smiled, petting the mare a little more. “Why do you need to take three more horses?” she asked after a while. “There are only two of us.”

Neeheeowee looked away, pointing to the herd. “We will each one of us ride a pony,” he said, “while the other two will carry our supplies. Besides”—he sent her a lopsided grin—“we do not want to come into the camp of my brother, Tahiska, as though we were poor relatives. Two of these mounts will be a gift for your friend and her husband.”

“I see,” Julia said, nodding. “That is very thoughtful of you.”

Neeheeowee grunted in response to her compliment, and then handed her his lance. “Take this and keep it with you. I will be gone for a little while taking these ponies. Use it if you must.”

Again, Julia nodded, looking on as Neeheeowee turned his wild pony, now docile, and lay down flat on her back as he approached the remaining animals in the herd, a few miles distant. Julia shielded her eyes from the sun as she watched the whole procedure of taking wild ponies, which seemed to be the same as what Neeheeowee had done before except that here each pony was taken by running him down, choking him, throwing him to the ground, and then hobbling his feet. The rest that followed was always the same, with Neeheeowee breathing into the mustang’s nostrils as a last action.

Amazingly, the whole procedure took less than an hour for each pony thus obtained. And by sunset Neeheeowee led four new mustangs into their camp.

He hobbled them all, then petted each one, pampering them, talking to them soothingly, and there was not one part of the ponies’ bodies that did not feel his hands. Julia looked on, mesmerized by what she saw, especially when she considered how little time it took to accomplish it.

She said as much to him as she walked up to him where he still petted and groomed each animal.

“These are not the best of the herd,” Neeheeowee said in explanation. “The fleetest and the best of the herd get out of the way the fastest, and there is no catching them at all, for they are always the leaders of the pack. The only way to capture them is the same way I captured this mare, but it is not worth it to be done, for it kills the character of the horse. Those horses I traded for you at the Kiowa camp—do you remember them?”

“Yes, I do.”

“They were horses that were the best I could find out here on the prairie, leaders all. It took me some time to capture them for I would not take them by the ‘ceasing’ method you saw me use earlier. To capture ponies like that one needs a gentle mare to lure them and then to capture them and tame them. Once I had them I then trained them to be the best warhorses on the plains. They were a special trade.”

“I see,” Julia said, then hesitated. “Why did you spend so much time with them? You must have had some plan in mind.”

Neeheeowee looked away from her, his attention still seeming to be on the mustangs. At last he said, “There are some things it is better not to mention, for in broaching these things, one can hurt another or possibly make them feel indebted. You have asked me about this so I will tell you if you truly wish to know, but I fear that it may not be to your liking. Do you still listen?”

“Han,”
she said. “Yes.”

“I was going to trade those particular mustangs for the fine guns that the Kiowa possess. I wanted them so that I could track and kill all the Pawnee who were involved in the killing of my wife.” He shrugged suddenly. “I traded for something else instead.” He smiled. “Someone else. I do not regret it.”

Julia couldn’t speak for a moment. At last, though, she said, “How you must have resented me.”

He paused. “I did at first,” he agreed, “but it did not last long. One look at the way your fringe moved with each step you took gave me so many more problems that I forgot to be angry.” He chuckled, but still he did not look at her, his entire attention centering upon the animals he had taken today, or so it seemed. And then he added, “I am glad I have met you again. I do not regret giving those horses away.”

By the time he said this he was on the farther side of first mare he had caught this day, his hands still rubbing up and down her. After a while, he glanced up and over the mare, his gaze catching Julia’s, and the two lovers looked at one another for a very long time. Julia was uncertain what to say. At last she averted her gaze. “I did not know,” was all that she said.

Neeheeowee patted the mare one more time, then coming around the animal, he stepped over toward Julia. He came up behind her and, placing one hand on her shoulder, he bent toward her, saying, “My regret over the fate of that trade lasted but a moment. If I could, I would give more for you now than all that I possessed at that time.”

Julia spun around toward him. “Would you?”

Neeheeowee grinned, but he said nothing; instead, he pulled her into his embrace. He brought her head in so very close to his own and Julia, looking up at him, thought her world surely spun. She closed her eyes, bringing her head back to rest on his chest. And that’s when she heard it, the whispered words that meant so much to her, “Do it again for you? Never doubt it,” he said, and Julia hardly even dared to breathe.

Chapter Sixteen

Julia had prepared a stew for their evening meal and both she and Neeheeowee sat around the fire, satisfied, their hunger sated. Off to one side, the horses nickered to the accompaniment of one cricket after another while a thousand stars gleamed in a black sky overhead. Neither Neeheeowee nor Julia spoke. Neither one felt the need, their silent companionship enough.

At length, Julia said, “Tell me about the Lakota camp where Kristina lives. I know already that the Lakota are the same tribe as the Sioux, that the tribe calls itself the Lakota, that the name Sioux is a name given to them by the white man.”

“Haahe,
yes,” Neeheeowee said, and then thought a moment. “There are seven bands of tribes within the Lakota,” he began, “and your friend lives with her husband in the Minneconjou band. It is like any other Lakota camp, only the Minneconjou generally range a little north of the other bands. Their people are known for their excellence in hunting and in warfare as well as for their intelligence. They have many great orators, and their wisdom is always sought in council. Your friend does well for herself.”

“I am so glad,” Julia said. “Please, Neeheeowee, tell me about her life there.”

He paused. “She and her husband, Tahiska, have three children now, I believe; a boy and two girls, and the children keep their mother and her many relatives busy.”

Julia thought for a moment. “What do you mean
her
relatives? She left her mother and father behind her. How could she have relatives in a Lakota camp?”

“There are many rules of living amongst our people that may be different than yours,” he said. “Let me explain. When Kristina came to live with the Lakota, she found herself amongst in-laws, and it is always hard for a new wife to settle in when she must always guard what she says. Around in-laws there are a great many taboos, and so Kristina was not able to find a place where she could relax. After a year, there was a man and his wife who saw that the young Kristina, though happy with her husband, could never be herself amongst the people. They took pity on her and because they had lost a daughter two seasons of the moon ago, they adopted Kristina into their own family, to replace the daughter they had lost. It is a pleasant situation for Kristina, for now there is always a place where she can go and never worry about doing or saying the wrong thing.”