CHAPTER FIVE
"Red Fox, why have you felt you should not marry me? I remember what you said, you see. Why did you tell me you believed you are not the man whose woman I should be?"
"It is because of my experience with the Lakota and Cheyenne."
"The Lakota? The Cheyenne? Our enemies?"
"áa, I had to journey into their country to find one of their camps where I could learn the truth or lies your father spoke to me, telling me why he did not favor me as a husband for you."
"And, what did he say to you?" she asked. "Please tell me everything he said so I can understand why you did not wish to marry me."
"It is a long story. Are you certain you wish to hear it, especially now, since we have taken the matter of our union into our own hands?"
"Of course I want to hear it all…everything."
"And, so you shall, but before I begin, let me say this about these men the Lakota call the Long Knives.
They are a breed of man our people have never seen, nor understand.
They are cowards at fighting hand-to-hand, bringing with them their booming cannons to maim and to kill a camp of not more than a hundred fighting men.
My time with the Lakota caused me to learn a lesson I will not likely forget. But, let me start at the beginning.
"After I left you two snows ago, I went into the hills and prayed to the Creator.
I was lucky then because the Creator answered me almost at once showing me what skills I might use to convince your father that we two should become one.
And so, early the next morning, without sleep of any kind, I approached your father again to offer him what I thought was a plan he could not deny. "
"Oh, what was it?" Poka'aki asked as she scooted her body up even more closely to his own. And, though Red Fox felt his body responding to hers, he damped down the feeling, knowing there would be time for more lovemaking in their future.
"Well, as you know," he said, "I am skilled in healing both horses and dogs, even other animals who come to me. And so, I offered to heal your mother's pony, who was then very ill and dying."
"Oh, how I wish I hadn't been whisked away from here," moaned Poka'aki. "My father would have accepted you. I know he would have."
"He did say he, too, wished you were still there, because he might have accepted my offer.
But, he had other matters in mind concerning you that may not have allowed him to give you to me.
But, you were already gone by then. However, before I left the land of the Pikuni, your father talked to me about the white man's soldiers coming onto our lands.
This is when I learned of a danger far greater than any of our people have faced.
But, I did not, I would not believe your father, since he seemed to me to have turned cold to me.
It was then when I decided to learn the truth or lies of what your father had told me.
And so, I went on a journey to seek out a camp of the Lakota. "
"My goodness! The Lakota. And, what did you learn? And, had my father been truthful?" she asked.
"áa, he had been truthful, but still I was hard to convince because I did not believe what was happening to the Lakota might come to occur to my people. Thus, I saw no reason why you and I should not marry.
"And so, after talking to your father, I left my people's camp to journey alone to the Lakota or to the Cheyenne in peace. I took a sacred medicine pipe with me, and when I approached a village at last, I held the pipe closely to me, clearly in view.
"Scouts from the encampment met me, and as is custom in all tribes, they took me at once to the chief's lodge.
It was there where I met Yellow Sun, medicine man of the Hunkpapa Lakota.
We liked each other at once, and he offered me the comfort of his own lodge for as long as I remained with the tribe.
"I was warmly welcomed by Yellow Sun's wife, Pretty Moon, also, and by his son, Running Bear. And so, although the Lakota people had been leery of me at first, I soon found many friends there amongst those people, becoming particularly close to Yellow Sun.
"The encampment I had encountered was then a mixture of Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho people, but I soon learned this man Yellow Sun displayed abilities to heal others far beyond what I had ever seen, and I have been witness to much amongst our own tribe.
"It wasn't long before I discovered that the strange stories your father had told me were true.
The white man had lied to these Lakota people, and, more rapidly than seemed possible, these soldiers were seizing Lakota land where the Lakota people had lived for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
And, the Long Knives, as the Lakota call these men, were doing this despite the Fort Laramie Treaty that had ceded a part of the Lakota Territory, including the Black Hills—and these are sacred to the Lakota—to be theirs forever.
The land was to be free of any presence of the Long Knives and was not to be opened up for settlement, nor were any roads to be built through their territory.
"I learned the Lakota had kept their part of the treaty, allowing travelers to pass through their land without harassment. But, with the coming of the railroad, the Long Knives now wanted back the land they had promised would remain under the control of the Lakota people forever.
"To the Lakota people, these Long Knives were worse than thieves; they were murderers and liars, and they were aggressively stealing the land so solemnly pledged to remain under Lakota reign.
But, worse, they killed the innocent, the women and children, as well as men, in their rage to gain what was not theirs.
"Many was the evening, while sitting around the lodge fire, one warrior after another recounted to me their personal experiences concerning the railroads coming through their land, and, in particular, the threat from those people who shot buffalo from the windows of the train without reason and for no purpose.
Additionally, these railroads were disrupting the herds so that even the once plentiful buffalo and antelope were disappearing from the Lakota Territory.
"Because of this, the people were beginning to go hungry.
And, as fast as the railroads were built, the American hunters were coming into Lakota country carrying their long-range rifles and shooting buffalo after buffalo.
They did not use the animals for food, but rather took only their tongues and skins.
"Then soon, following the invasion of the railroads and the buffalo hunters, came the Long Knives into their country.
These young mostly unmarried men had been taught somewhere to hate the Indians, and, in their rage, they killed the Indian—the warrior, the woman, the child, the baby and the old—regardless of their innocence.
"But, even these stories, though fearsome, were not enough to convince me that a marriage between us would be anything but good. After all, the white men who live in our country also depend upon the game for their own health and nourishment. If this game were to disappear, they would suffer, too."
"Yes," said Poka'aki. "I would have thought the same as you."
Red Fox nodded. "But then," he said, continuing, "came the battle with the Long Knives when they attacked the encampment where I was staying, and they did this in the very early hours of the morning…like they did at the Marias Massacre.
"Being bullies, the Long Knives chased down the defenseless—the old, the children and the women—killing them if they could, just as they had done at the Marias. This they did without regard or empathy for the innocent.
"It was this, and only this, lack of empathy that had at last convinced me that by marrying me, not only you, but any children that would result from our marriage, could come to harm. This, I feared, not for myself but for you.
"Even to this day, I hear the screams of the innocent and feel the horror of what this new cavalry man is causing in this country of the Lakota and Cheyenne.
Often, my dreams are filled with the cries and the pain of the dying women and children.
So, you see, my change of mind was not without cause.
I had not changed because of being told of the destruction and war being waged against the Indian people. I experienced it myself.
"I have since often wondered what kind of men are these. Where have they learned to hate?
"And so, it was not that I loved you less, causing me to feel as if we must not marry.
I was convinced it would be best if you were to become the woman of a good white man.
I felt in this way that you would stand a better chance of surviving through the war coming into this country.
I will fight these men if they come here, but I would not have you killed because you are my woman. "
"But, Red Fox," Poka'aki spoke up, "do you not understand that I would rather stand and die with you than never to know your love? I am not afraid of dying."
"Nor I," he said. "But, I fear none of this matters now. Whether I hear the screams of the innocent most every night or not, we have settled this between us. You are now my woman and are not to be married to a man of your own kind."
Her own kind? Briella could hardly believe what her ears were telling her. Was this really what Red Fox had believed?
Did he not know the truth? The Pikuni were her own people. For as long as she could remember, she had been embraced by these people as being one of them.
In truth, this was all she had known in this life…
at least since she had been three years in age.
It was here in Pikuni country where she had grown up.
This was her land, her home; these were her people.
Yes, she had also been given a European-style education few of the Pikuni possessed.
But, these Blackfoot people knew more about life and about the nature of life than she might ever know.