Woman of the People

13. The Winter of Living in Graves

~ 13. THE WINTER OF LIVING IN GRAVES ~ THE NEW MEXICO traders had been there and gone. They had been nervous about something, had been unwilling to name a time and place for another trading session. The Mutsani men took their extra hides and dried meat to trade at the other Indian villages downstream. They received for them five more precious rifles and a small quantity of ammunition. The men also brought back speculation about white soldiers . Rumor had it that they were out of their forts and traveling over the countryside. None of the Mutsani believed in the possibility of white soldiers coming to Palo Duro; the distance was too great and the country too rough for them to bring their supply wagons. Tehanita felt security in the surroundings of their camp site, also serenity. The great broken canyon walls that towered over them promised protection from winter winds. Their vivid burnt-red color contrasted with the deep-green color of the cedars and drew her eyes frequently to them. Up and down the reaches of the gorge a blue mist hung, giving a sense of distance. It gave one an understanding of the size and power of the Earth Mother and her ability to surprise and awe. She needed consolation, assurance against the idea that was 207 A WOMAN OF THE PEOPLE 208 always there trying to come in and dwell in her mind: that time was passing and the child growing toward the age when he could ride well. Then there was the peculiar message the strange Indians had brought back in the summer. They had pointed in every direction, naming the names of white soldiers. Did it mean that whatever direction she went she would find white people? She found some relief for her uneasiness and confusion in her natural surroundings and also in the things around her that belonged to her husband and herself: the good winter food supply, the tight tipi, the strong lodgepoles. She knew these things in the way a person knows a thing made by his own hands and proved useful. The first chill of winter was in the air. The men planned a one-day hunt to test their guns and ammunition. They would use one round each of their ammunition up on the high plains to the southwest, where antelope could be found around the shallow lakes. They rode away upstream at dawn on a clear day. The children came and asked her to tell stories, but she told them she would not as long as the weather was good; they must play games. She straightened up the lodge, put the child on her back, and started out to gather wood. She had crossed the shallow graveled stream and was heading toward a dead, whitened cedar tree when the sound began. It was a faint crackling, like fire burning through dead twigs. It came from far down the canyon. It was gunfire. She turned and went immediately back toward her lodge. Women were standing still, telling their children to be quiet, asking, "What's that?" She did not stand with them to listen and speculate, but went in and made a bundle of a small box of pemmican, her husband's shield, a bag of water, a good knife, and two robes. The security of the great canyon retreat was shaken by the possibilities in the faint continuing sounds. She took up the bundle and ran to the lodge of Lance Returner . 209 THE WINTER OF LIVING IN GRAVES Old Woman and Blessed were out in front. Old Woman said, "It's those strange Indians down there. They're shooting, wasting ammunition." But some of the women, having seen Tehanita, were gathering belongings frantically, screaming for their children, peering down the canyon toward the source of the sound. She asked, "Is Lance Returner here ?" Old Woman said, "No, he's gone with the hunters. I don't think it's fighting down there." "Why did they go hunting when we have plenty of meat?" Blessed said. "We don't have a horse in camp." "We must climb out," she said. Old Woman frowned and considered the matter. Blessed exclaimed, "Climb out?" as if it were impossible. At that moment Come Home Early started pushing an enormous bundle out through the door opening of the tipi. Tehanita told Old Woman, "We'd better go. If it were the bluecoats...