Prologue
Paha
Sapa, the Black Hills in the land of the Lakota
1819
ONE BY ONE the sharp-edged figures
dissolved as hideous, high- pitched laughter tailed off. Kezawin forced her
eyes open wide and covered her ears against the staccato hoofbeat that marked
the dream’s final retreat.
Too late. Your two ears have heard. Your
two eyes have seen. You have chosen two forms.
She turned her head slowly, pressed her
cheek into matted curls of buffalo hair, and stole a peek at her sleeping
husband. Iron Shell was a beautiful young man with a stalwart body and a strong
heart. For three years he had protected and provided for her, never complaining
as he waited day after day for his wife to speak of new life stirring in her
belly. But on this day, in the gray light of morning, a terrible truth seized
Kezawin’s whole being. She was barren. No life would quicken in the womb of a
woman to whom such a dreaded dream appeared. Now her very presence in Iron
Shell’s bed threatened his life.
Kezawin flexed her trembling fingers as
she eased herself from the sleeping robes. The morning chill touched her
backside. She balanced herself on feet and hands, shielding her breasts behind
her knees as she backed away. She must not wake him, certainly not tempt him,
never let him see her crouching and shivering in shame.
She slipped a robe over her shoulders
and uncoiled her body as she located her moccasins with her toes. Rather than
risk the sound of elk’s teeth clicking against each other or the soft swish of
fringe—for Iron Shell had the keen senses of a warrior—Kezawin tucked her
buckskin dress under her arm and headed outside. Her fingers might have been
greased with tallow, so awkward were they in untying the thong that secured the
tipi’s rawhide door. But she was a daughter of the Lakota, and she knew how to
move quietly. She drew a silent breath, glanced back at her sleeping husband,
and told herself that no one else need know of the dream. She could hold it
inside where it could do no harm. Surely a strong Lakota woman could wrestle
such a dream to the ground, make it powerless. She rubbed her fingertips
against her thumb, settled her mind on the simple task of loosening the knot
with a steady hand.
The autumn air was chilly and thin. A
shallow breath of it pinched her nostrils. A full breath startled the depths of
her chest. But even as the air refreshed her, the dream’s piercing horns hung
on. She adjusted the robe closely around her
shoulders and cast a hasty glance at the pine-green and autumn-brown
valley. Tipis rose from the ground-hugging mist in miniature imitation of the
peaks of the Paha Sapa that surrounded the village. The golden glow of
the coming sun glistened in the mist and lent an illusion of luster to the
tall, tan, soot-tipped cones. Picketed near their owners’ doors, the war ponies
stood with necks drooping and hindquarters cocked to rest a leg. A big gray
dog was about his business early, scavenging around the ashes of a dead cooking
fire. The camp rested peacefully.
Kezawin hurried to the river and dressed
in the shelter of a thick stand of pines. The soft skin of the elk blocked out
the light as she slipped it over her head, but the light and dark of the dream
swirled within the confines of her dress and warred round and round her head.
She stretched her arms, dove into the sleeves, and popped her head through the
neck, gasping for air. She sought the light. She chose the light.
She knelt in the tall slough grass that
lined the low earthen wall the river had cut for its bed. Stretching out on her
belly, Kezawin dipped cupped hands into the icy flow and splashed handfuls over
her face and neck. The water trickled between her breasts, and she shivered,
laughed, and reached for more. It tingled and tightened her skin over prominent
cheekbones like the deer hide fixed over a willow frame in the making of a
drum.
She closed her eyes and swiped the
droplets from her face, struggling to shake another unwelcome picture from her
mind. Her skin did not compare to that of the deer. Perhaps she could still
drive the creature away. Its image flew in the face of the destiny she wanted
for herself—the roles of mother, wife, woman respected by the people for her
impeccable virtue, industry, and skills. She had lived her eighteen years to
that end, and she would not, could not see it all blown away on a night
wind.
Her father would tell her the dream had
deceived her. Lone Bear was a holy man, a man of wisdom. Surely the daughter of
such a man could not be touched by unnatural visions. Kezawin pushed herself up
from the ground and reached for her robe. Her father would interpret the dream.
She would tell him every detail, omit nothing in her recounting. There were
signs she could not read, but Lone Bear would know them. He would tell her it
was not as she feared. She had not been touched by the Deer Woman.
She stood near the covered door of the
tipi adorned with brightly colored paintings that proclaimed Lone Bear’s
triumphs.
"Father?” With any luck, her brother,
Walks His Horse, would sleep through this disturbance if she spoke with a small
voice. "Forgive me for troubling your sleep, Ate, but I must speak with
you.”
"Now?” The voice she knew better than
her own rattled with early-morning dampness.
"It’s an important matter, Father. It
frightens me.”
A head of graying hair emerged from the
tipi. Lone Bear hitched his striped trade blanket around his waist and
straightened to a height that surpassed his daughter’s by a head. He squinted
against the sun’s early rays and drew his face into a well-established pattern
of protective folds. "Where is your husband, Kezawin? He’s the one to be shaken
from his blankets when something frightens you.”
"My husband is not a holy man, Father.”
Without lifting her gaze from the toes of his quilled moccasins she felt her
father’s gaze upon her. "I believe I have seen something wakan. Something
holy.”
Lone Bear turned back toward the door.
"This is not for my brother’s ears,”
Kezawin said quickly. "And I need to feel the sun on my head.”
They went to the river and sat upon
Kezawin’s robe in a grassy clearing, where crystal beads of dew twinkled in
the morning sun. The long dry summer had diminished the river’s power. It
sloshed lazily in the confines of its banks while Lone Bear waited without
speaking.
"It came to me while I slept.”
Lone Bear nodded, acknowledging the
weight of his daughter’s concern. She had not sought this vision. She had not
fasted and prayed for it. It had simply come to her.
"We were walking, searching for a rare
plant. I was young, just learning, and you told me I would know even if I could
not see its roots, which would be red. We came to a river, but it was not like
this. The water ran high, and we could not find a fording place. We walked.
Then we saw a deer.” Even though he sat more than an arm’s length away, she
could feel her father’s back stiffen at the word.
She described the deer’s motions with
her hand.
"It crossed the river, and the water
only came up to its hocks. It—he had
a beautiful mossy rack. I’m sure I saw all that made the creature a buck.”
She looked at her father in the hope
that this piece of information was significant, but there was no change in his
grave expression. And so she continued.
"The deer began to scrape his antlers in
a scraggly chokecherry tree. But the tree grew bigger, and soon he was
entangled in its branches. I could see his eyes. He didn’t panic. He entreated
me to cross the river and free him.”
"Did he speak?”
"No. Not yet. I asked you to go with me,
but you said that only a woman could use this ford. If I chose to cross, I
would have to go alone. I asked you whether the red root plant might grow on
the other side. You said it was likely.
"I followed the trail the deer had taken
across the river. He was deeply ensnared, and my arms and face were soon
bleeding from scratches.” She held her arms out in front of her, turning them
over to examine them. The dream burned so vividly in her mind that her
unscathed arms puzzled her.
"I freed him,” she said. "And then he
spoke. He sounded... much like a woman.” That part she knew
to be significant, and she paused in fear. But her father’s calm face called
for courage. "He said he would give me the red root plant if I would stay with
him. I refused, and he became angry and began chasing his tail like a dog.
Round and round, round and round. My head was soon spinning. I heard the sound
of a whirlwind, and I felt drawn into the vortex of the deer’s wild dance. I
had no thought of walking, but I was moving closer. Even as he spun, he watched
me through flat black eyes. His lips curled back over his teeth, and the wind
shrieked in my ears.
"Something white caught my eye. Another
buck was grazing nearby, but this one was white. All white. I wanted to touch
him. He raised his head, and I saw the red roots of the plants in his mouth. I
walked away from the spinning deer. The white stag stood quietly until I
reached him. He let me touch his face. He dropped the red root plants in my
hands. He licked the blood from my arms and face with his cooling tongue.
"We walked to the riverbank and found a
wild-haired woman, strangely beautiful, powerfully so. She sat with her feet in
the water, and she seemed to be watching something below the surface, maybe a
fish. Across the river I could see the village, and I told the white stag that
I would take the red root plants to my father. The woman laughed, and when she
looked up, I saw the flat black eyes and the curling lips of the spinning deer.
She pulled her legs out of the water and put her moccasins over cloven hooves,
and then she sat cross-legged, unbefitting a woman. The village looked close,
but it felt distant. I asked the woman how far it was, and she said, ‘They are
beyond your reach now. You are a fool if you stay within theirs.’ And then she
went to the chokecherry bush and began rubbing her head on it, tangling her
hair even more in its branches. My scalp itched, and I wanted to imitate her
actions.”
"Did you?” Lone Bear asked.
"No. The white stag stepped into the
water, and I knew he was not a woman and could not ford the river there. He
floundered in deep water. At my back I heard the woman’s laughter, but I
followed the stag into the deep water. I followed him because he knew the
secret of the red root plant and because he was beautiful, and I didn’t want
him to drown.”
"Did he drown?”
"I don’t know,” she said. "The gray
light woke me.”
"Did the white one speak?”
"Not a word.”
Lone Bear nodded. He looked across the
river and into the trees. "And the spinning deer,” he said. "What color was the
tail?”
"It was a white-tailed deer.”
Lone Bear nodded again. The white tail
came as no surprise. Father and daughter both knew it was can tarca winyela,the female woods deer, a vision no woman sought.
Kezawin’s father
was a holy man. He would pray about his daughter’s dream and consider the meaning of each
detail, but there was no question in either heart about one thing. "You have
dreamed of Deer Woman.”
Kezawin shivered and hugged herself
against a cold that was not caused by morning air.
"You are Double Woman Dreamer,” Lone
Bear proclaimed.
