Cowboy Creek Christmas: Mistletoe Reunion
“Like being a writer also makes you eloquent.”
“Am I?” He glanced over to find her looking up at him. For the first time he felt self-conscious in her presence.
“You have the ability to reach people. You’re able to inspire sympathy or understanding of anything you’re focusing on.”
That was quite a compliment. “You said you’d read my book.”
“And several articles.”
His book was a personal account, and it perhaps revealed more about him than he was comfortable with her learning. He didn’t know why her opinion was different than anyone else’s. People across the nation had read his book, and he wasn’t concerned about their reactions.
Sam couldn’t afford to expend any energy in the direction his thoughts kept leading. Enough was enough.
* * *
They rode in silence for a while. James rode back to let them know they would be arriving at the Cheyenne camp before long. Anticipation quivered in Marlys’s stomach. She’d been looking forward to this for so long. Meeting the indigenous people was part of her reason for leaving the East.
“James will test the temperature with these people before we approach,” Sam warned. “Strangers can be a threat to them, and we don’t know their situation today. They may welcome us, they may not.”
“Understood.”
They drew near the village, where smoke trailed out the tops of tipis arranged in an encampment. Two skinny dogs ran forward, one barking, the other sniffing the horses. Half a dozen braves stood facing them, as though they’d been alerted to the visitors. They wore deerskin leggings, moccasins and coats and hats made of fur.
James signaled for Sam to halt the wagon and rode forward. “Haáahe.”
“Nėhetáa’e. Nétsėhésenėstsehe?” the tallest of the Indians called out.
“He asks if I talk Cheyenne.” James nodded. “Héehe’e.”
“Tósa’e néhéstahe.”
“He asks where we’re from.” James spoke several more words, gesturing to Sam and Marlys. She heard their names, and James mentioned Cowboy Creek.
The Indian seemed to ask more questions and pointed at her.
James turned. “He wants you to climb down so he can look at you.”
“I’ll help you.” Sam climbed down and came around the rear of the wagon to assist her to the ground.
With one of the dogs sniffing at the hem of her riding skirt, Marlys took several steps toward the Indian. Sam remained right beside her.
“Nétsêhésenêstsehe,” he said to her.
“Red Bird asks if you speak Cheyenne,” James said.
She shook her head.
“Má’heóná’e,” James told them. “That’s the word for medicine woman,” he explained.
“Tell him I have medicine. Soap and blankets. Are there any children?”
James spoke with Red Bird and then turned to her. “There are about twenty children. A few are sick. Their medicine woman is old and feeble, and her helper died.”
“I can help them.”
James relayed her message, and Red Bird pointed to the wagon.
“He asks to see,” James said.
Marlys gestured for Red Bird to follow and led him to the back of the wagon, where she climbed up onto the bed to open crates and show him the contents.
Red Bird looked down at her. His eyes were so obsidian they shone, his dark skin lined from the sun, though he didn’t appear old. He had a broad nose and a long scar from his lower lip across his chin, but in his uniqueness she found him strikingly beautiful.
“Ho’eohe,” he said, and gestured for her to join him. Sam was right there to help her down, and she followed Red Bird toward the encampment. Red Bird spoke to James on the way past.
“Leave the wagon, but bring the supplies,” James said to Sam.
The other Indian men picked up crates as well and followed.
Red Bird led Marlys to the largest tipi, called out before entering and held the flap aside for her. She took a deep breath and followed him into what appeared to be their chief’s dwelling. A man whose long, coarse black hair was shot with steel-gray exchanged words with Red Bird. Red Bird led Marlys forward. “Né’seéstse’hena.”
“Take your coats off,” James interpreted.
The three of them did so, and the chief gestured for them to sit near the fire.
Among those in the tipi was a woman who was perhaps the chief’s wife and two women not much older than Marlys, as well as several children, ranging in ages. All the children sat quietly behind their mothers.
“Éhame.” The chief pointed to Sam.
“Chief Woodrow Black Snake asks if you are her husband,” James explained before he answered for Sam.
Red Bird spoke to Chief Black Snake, and apparently the chief asked to see the contents of Marlys’s crates and burlap bags. The men who had accompanied them displayed the contents.
Marlys explained that the blankets were gifts and that the bundles and jars contained medicine.
The chief sent for someone, and after several minutes a brave helped an aged woman into the tipi. She inspected the herbs and opened jars to sniff and taste, then she spoke to the chief. He signed for her to take a seat, and Red Bird helped her lower herself before the fire. Her cloudy black eyes surveyed the newcomers with keen interest.
The chief directed the two young women, and they brought the guests water, roasted nuts and jerky. Marlys instinctively understood they were being treated as honored guests, and the impoverished Cheyenne’s generosity brought swift tears to her eyes.
She asked James to tell her the Cheyenne word for every item in her sight, even the women and children’s names. The women nodded, and the children smiled shyly when she said their names.
“Néá’ee,” she said, thanking them. “Tell them it’s our pleasure to give them blankets.”
James spoke and got up to take the stack of blankets and place it before the oldest woman. She in turn handed one to each of her daughters or daughters-in-law, kept one for herself and instructed Red Bird to give one to the elderly medicine woman. The old woman touched the plain gray wool and nodded at Marlys. “Néá’ee.”
The chief’s wife spoke to one of her daughters, and the younger woman went to a huge woven basket under the slant of the tipi and returned with a folded item she placed before Marlys.
The blanket the old woman had given her was woven with colorful stripes, obviously made from the dyes of berries and plants. The edges had been sewn with short, soft leather fringe. Marlys blinked. She wasn’t an emotional person, and she understood these proud people’s honor depended on an equal trade, but this poignant communion between people of different languages and skin colors touched her heart and soul. Thank You, Lord, for showing me their hearts and giving me this important moment.
“James, please tell her it’s beautiful and will keep me warm for many years.”
James translated.
The woman raised her chin, and her daughters smiled. She then spoke directly to James. “Teke’ váótséva éháomóhtâhéotse.”
They conversed for a moment.
“She says a girl is sick with a fever. She asks if your medicine is powerful enough to heal Little Deer.”
Marlys’s heart leaped. She wanted nothing more than to help these people. She’d touted herself as a great healer—now was her chance to prove her worth. “I know little of their needs or the diseases common to this land and the native tribes,” she said aloud in an uncommon moment of self-doubt.
“Most likely they are immune or have cures for the sicknesses common to them, but the ones that baffle them are those they’ve contracted from the whites.” Sam gave her an encouraging nod.
She stood. “Take me to her.”
After a brief interaction, one of the braves who had accompanied them to the chief helped the old woman stand and gestured for Marlys to join them. Sam got her coat, and he and James stood. “Bring those two crates and my bag,” she said, and they left the chief’s tipi.
The brave spoke to James, and James told them his name was Gray Cloud. They referred to the medicine woman as Hausisse.
“What does it mean?” Marlys asked.
James spoke to the woman. “She said to some it’s She Knows, to others it’s Old Woman.”
Marlys followed them, trudging through trampled-down snow to another lodge, this one painted with animals and figures of women and children. “I like She Knows.”
Inside, there were several children, three lying under fur robes near the fire in the center.
“Teke’ váótséva éháomóhtâhéotse,” She Knows said.
“This is Little Deer,” James interpreted. “She has been sick for many days. The fever doesn’t leave.”
“What have you given her?” Marlys asked.
After a discussion James replied with the remedies the old medicine woman had given the child. Marlys instructed Sam to open the crates. He did as she asked and then took a seat away from the patients.
Marlys asked for water and used it to wash her hands. The child’s mother gave her a concerned look. “I want to help Little Deer,” Marlys said.
James interpreted their conversation.
“I am Blue Water. My child is not strong. She does not eat.”
“May I uncover her and look at her?”
Blue Water nodded and pulled the fur robe away.
The child’s tongue was cracked. She was painfully thin, her skin hot and dry. Marlys examined her for rashes or cuts, even checked the bottom of her feet, which were peeling.
“Are her feet sick?”
“No. The fever causes her skin to peel. We need to cool her down. Sam, bring me water that isn’t too warm, please.” She got cloths from her a crate. “Let’s move her away from the fire.”
With a minimum of effort she relayed her desire to find a vessel large enough to hold the girl. Gray Cloud brought an enormous but surprisingly lightweight bowl-shaped tub carved from a wood she’d never seen before.
Marlys and Little Deer’s mother made a secluded spot away from the heat by draping a blanket from the lodge poles and bathed the child in the tepid mineral water. They carried her to her relocated bed, and Blue Water attempted to cover her. Marlys stopped her with a gentle touch on her arm. “Let’s allow her skin and body to cool.”
Blue Water settled back with a nod.
Marlys draped only a light covering over her torso and gave Little Deer spoonfuls of water. Roused by the cool bath, the girl swallowed thirstily.
Marlys dissolved fermented soybean and coriander into water, as well as a combination of honeysuckle and forsythia powders, and spoon-fed it to her. She Knows came and watched, asked to sniff and taste. Marlys explained the curative properties of the mixture. Although she didn’t understand the cause of Little Deer’s fever, she’d learned this restorative Chinese fever remedy as a last resort, and it seemed She Knows had already used her vast knowledge of medicines to try the more common options.
Marlys had the education to remember and apply therapies for symptoms, but she’d never felt as humble or inadequate as she did at that moment. “Lord, You are the Great Physician. Help me understand how to treat this child. Touch her with Your hand of mercy, in Jesus’s name.” She glanced at the dividing blanket and called softly, “Sam.”
“I’m here.”
“Pray.”
Chapter Five
At the unaccustomed qualm in Marlys’s voice, Sam experienced a thread of concern. She now understood the magnitude of coming here and claiming an ability to help these people. If her treatment didn’t help the Cheyenne girl, and she worsened—or even worse, died—the Cheyenne could perceive it as intended harm on Marlys’s part. Right now there were more lives than Little Deer’s at stake.
“I’m praying,” he answered. “I have every confidence in you, and confidence in God to guide you and to heal the girl.”
He prayed. Time passed slowly. He took his journal from his satchel and wrote for an hour or more. James’s and Marlys’s quiet voices blended with the sound of the other children and their mothers and the crackle of the fire, and he may have dozed.
Becoming aware that the log had burned down, he went out and found a pile of cut wood and put another log on the fire. Unaccustomed to a stranger in their tent, the Indian women watched him warily.
There was nothing to do but wait right now, and his body grew tense from inaction. With a dozen eyes on him he went to his horse and unsheathed an ax, walking toward a stand of trees, where he pulled brush and fallen limbs into a pile and chopped a log into pieces. Periodically he left the ax in a limb to check on Marlys and James. Marlys was methodically checking each child and their mother for signs of sickness. She was treating a small boy when he went back to his task.
Eventually, a woman brought a sling and piled all the wood he’d chopped. It was the women’s job to find and cut wood, so she probably found his actions curious. But she did not protest. She carried the sling filled with firewood back to their communal pile several times. On her return, she brought him a steaming wooden bowl and handed it to him.
He nodded, drank the hot broth, and returned the bowl.
She wiped it out with snow and walked away.
Sam glanced at the sun. It was late afternoon. If they stayed much longer, they would be traveling home in the dark. He trudged back to the lodge and entered. The children were seated at the fire eating savory-smelling roasted meat. His belly rumbled. That broth hadn’t been filling.
“Marlys, we need to think about eating and leaving. We can’t travel in the dark.”
“You must be hungry. Get the basket I packed and share it with James.” She came around the side of the draped blanket. “I’m not leaving.”
He swallowed the first words that sprang to his tongue and pursed his lips in frustration. “We can’t stay. I have to get back to August.”
“You go. I’ll stay.”
“I’m not leaving you alone here.”
“I am not leaving tonight.”
James was seated far enough away to give Marlys, her patient and the girl’s mother privacy, but close enough to interpret. He got to his feet and stretched his legs. “What if I go back, keep August with Hannah and me overnight and come back in the morning?”
“I’ve learned enough words to communicate well enough,” Marlys agreed.
Sam ran a hand through his hair. Short of throwing her over his shoulder, he wasn’t going to get her to go back until she was ready. He might have figured as much. He glanced at the other children in the lodge, at James and back to Marlys. He raised a hand in defeat. “All right.”
She hurried toward him. “Thank you.”
“You didn’t leave me much choice. Let James know if there’s anything you want him to bring tomorrow. James, I’m going to get the basket of food. You’ll eat with us before you leave.”
Once the basket was opened, the curious children crept from their places and sat close. Sam broke off pieces of rye bread and piled them into a woven bowl. He gave away all the hardtack, and James passed on it, as well. In the Army, he’d eaten enough of the tasteless unleavened biscuits to last him a lifetime. The Cheyenne youngsters got over their shyness to accept the food and join them. Marlys unwrapped smoked fish, and the aroma drew the women forward, too.
The Cheyenne women gave their guests wooden bowls of roasted game and tender cooked roots. Marlys cut a dried apple pie into a dozen slivers, so each child and mother had a tiny piece.
James made them a pot of coffee with a dented pot he carried in his saddlebags, emptied it and packed to leave. “I’ll bring more food in morning.”
Sam walked to the edge of the camp with him.
“Nothing else we could’ve done,” James said.
“She’s immovable when she has her mind made up. I’ll pay you double.”
“Once we got here it didn’t seem like a job,” James admitted. “After seeing those children, I was thankful she planned this.”
Sam couldn’t disagree. “Safe trip home. Please tell August I’m well, not to worry, and I will be home tomorrow.”
He watched James ride away, said a prayer for his safety and another for August to feel safe that night, and trudged back to the lodge.
After the meal was cleared away, Marlys continued her examinations of the other children. None were as sick as Little Deer, and some were only there with a sibling who suffered from symptoms. She Knows had settled onto a pallet of furs, her watchful gaze on Marlys, but had seemingly acknowledged the white woman was there to help.
Marlys and Blue Water bathed Little Deer one more time as night fell. The child roused this time and watched Marlys with uncertain black eyes. Her mother spoke softly, soothing her. They had her settled for the night when a brave entered the lodge and swiftly crossed to the child’s side. He knelt beside her and spoke to Blue Water. She replied, and the Indian’s eyes settled on Marlys, taking in her hair, her now-wrinkled apron and the array of her supplies.
He returned his attention to what Marlys now assumed was his daughter, and gently touched her face and hands. The girl’s temperature had cooled considerably, but she was still warm. After a few minutes he left.
After tending to the fire, the mothers settled their children down for the night and lay beside them.
Marlys gave Little Deer more water and another dose of the remedy she’d prepared. Blue Water unrolled two pallets and gestured to Marlys and Sam.
“Néá’ee,” Marlys thanked her.
She glanced at Sam.
“I’m not leaving you alone,” he said. “I’ll be right here.”
“Nor do I want you to go.”
He slid one of the pallets several feet away from hers, in plain sight of all the women, and stretched out on top of the comfortable furs.
He listened more than watched as Marlys washed her face and hands and used what looked like a porcupine tail that one of the women handed her on her hair. She was a curiosity. She didn’t conform to what their society would consider feminine fashion. Her hair was uncommonly short, and her clothing functional and undecorated. He’d never seen her wear jewelry or drench herself in perfume. Instead, she smelled always like lavender and hyssop and other natural scents. Her movements, her voice, everything about her was feminine, even without ornamentation or fripperies.
Back during their short engagement in Philadelphia, they had discussed literature and politics, and he’d learned she was intelligent. She’d never hidden her desire for education or her interest in medicine, so he’d understood her ambition. But he’d never seen her as she’d been today. Fearless. Impervious. Undeterred. Compassionate. Kind.
He reeled those thoughts in as soon as they’d slipped into his consciousness. This was the woman who had broken off their engagement because of her ambitions. She didn’t have time or patience for a relationship. She wasn’t inclined to set her career aside and focus on a marriage. It was plain that she was still as determined as ever to broaden her scope of understanding and knowledge, to discover as much of the world as was possible.
People were who they were. She couldn’t be expected to change for him. He hadn’t expected it then. He didn’t expect it now.
She had needed his help to travel here, to make this happen. Another protector would have done just as well. She didn’t specifically need Sam.
That fact reached a nearly forgotten, well-guarded portion of his heart and carved a fresh slice. He closed his eyes against the shimmer of her hair in the firelight. The interior of this lodge was surprisingly warm, the skins beneath him soft. He dozed and dreamed of summer during his childhood.
* * *
Marlys slept lightly, checking on Little Deer and finding her sleeping more restfully. Before dawn she woke to sounds of the community outside the tipi and went to find the child’s fever gone. “Thank You, Lord.”
She woke Blue Water by gently touching her shoulder. The woman’s dark eyes opened in fear, and she sat, her terrified gaze darting to her child.
“No, she’s better,” Marlys told her. “Come see. Ho’eohe.”
The woman scrambled from her bed and leaned over Little Deer. She touched her face and neck, rolled back her covering and examined her arms and legs. Tears of joy formed in her eyes, and when she looked at Marlys, they fell unheeded. “Néá’ee. Éévaéše’tovóho.”
She touched her breast with the tips of her fingers and then touched Marlys’s chest.
Marlys smiled. She didn’t need a translator to understand Blue Water’s mother’s heart was grateful. She was no different than any other mother of any other people or skin color. Her heart was no different. Love knew no boundaries. Love translated into any language.
Sam and the other Cheyenne in the lodge woke and came near to see what was happening for themselves. She Knows shuffled forward in her fur boots, and Blue Water helped her lower herself to sit beside the child. She listened to her heart. Listened to her breathing, looked in her mouth, examined the bottom of her feet. She turned and spoke to one of the older children.
He pulled on a robe and darted from the tipi. Several minutes later he returned with Little Deer’s father and the chief. Woodrow Black Snake held a conversation with She Knows and Blue Water. They all nodded and gestured. He exited as suddenly as he’d arrived. Sam left the lodge while the Cheyenne mothers washed and groomed themselves and their children.
Blue Water brought Marlys fragrant mint water and twigs and indicated she should brush her teeth. She and another woman they called Neha brushed Marlys’s hair, while coating the strands with an unknown substance they lathered on their hands. They spoke in hushed tones, and Marlys guessed they wondered why her hair was cut so short. The process was disconcerting. Marlys’s mother had died when she was very young, and she’d taken care of her own needs for as long as she could remember. With persistent focus, however, they managed to secure short braids and fasten them with beaded leather strips.
They brought her coat and led her from the lodge across the encampment in the crisp morning air. The aromatic smell of cooking meat made her mouth water. Together they entered the chief’s tent, where Sam already waited. He raised his eyebrows in surprise at her appearance.
“I have no idea what’s going on,” she said. “I wish James would arrive.”
“I have a feeling it’s a celebration of some sort, and you’re the guest of honor.”
His assumption made sense after the women’s ministrations. “It’s a whole lot better than what I was imagining last night.”
He brought his gaze to hers. “You never let on that you had any doubts.”
She nodded. “No. I never let on.” She turned her gaze back to the gathering of Cheyenne before looking to Sam once more. “Thank you. For bringing me.”
He made a noncommittal sound.
They were seated across from the chief at the fire, and others crowded around them. The women served them roasted meat on a wooden platter, which they shared. Marlys tasted it and found it unlike anything she’d eaten, but tasty and tender.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Maybe elk or antelope,” he replied.
“Do you think sharing this food is a sacrifice for them? I mean, are we taking away from their winter supply?”
“They have meat hung in trees. If there’s no big game on the land where they’re allowed to hunt, the Army probably brought it to them.”
“They’re buffalo hunters, aren’t they?”
He nodded. “This tribe seems to have been left on their own and not relocated. The Army knows they’re here, so the Army is in a difficult situation, protecting the tribe while safeguarding settlers, as well. When the Indians are unable to hunt, they have to travel or starve. So if the Army is delivering supplies, they’re hoping to keep them here so they know where they are.”
Their discussion continued until James arrived and was given food.
“Red Bird told me the little girl is better today.”
“Our prayers worked,” she replied.
“And your Chinese remedy,” James added.
Sam nodded, surprising her.