Beneath the Stars Ch. 01

Maybe it was the sound of wind rustling the tall grass. Or perhaps the heat of a late morning sun. It burned so warm and bright that Elaine could no longer will herself back into that strange, deep dreamless sleep. Soon, all these elements combined to draw her back to the world of the waking. It was then that she suddenly jolted with alarm and the realization that she was far from the bed she had laid in mere hours before. No, instead she was outdoors, laying in a field of high grass.

Had she been sleepwalking again only to find herself in her neighbor's pasture? She stood on shaking legs and despite the warmth of the day, a chill shot through her as she surveyed the land and saw she was in the middle of a vast, rolling prairie. This clearly wasn't Georgia.

She looked down and scanned her body for signs of injury or struggle, wondering if perhaps she had been kidnapped, raped, then carried and dumped far from home. But her thin silk slip showed no damage, her was skin pristine, and her was body free of pain or injury. The relief was short-lived as she registered that she was far from home with no cell phone, no shoes, no money, and no sign of humanity in sight. Until suddenly, it appeared there was.

In the distance Elaine could just make out what appeared to be a group of people on horseback drawing nearer by the moment. As they came within sight, she saw they were men, six or so in number, trailing 3 riderless horses behind them. Salvation.

She shouted and flailed her arms and in the distance she could see as one of the men raised his hand to the others before riding ahead to meet her. As he came closer Elaine saw that the man was dressed as an American Indian might have 140 years prior – nay, the man WAS an Indian and his face bore something akin to confusion or concern as Elaine came more clearly into sight.

Why,Red Grouse mused, would a near-naked wasicun winyan call to him? Was she holy or simply mad? She was certainly unusual. She stood and looked at him directly as he approached, showing no fear. Her skin was glowing white in the sun but her hair was long, straight, and night black. She looked young and her finely sculpted face bore the broad plains of cheekbones and a jawline he would expect to find among his own women. She was unusually beautiful for a wasicu. And unusually bold.

Elaine couldn't have been more perplexed, was she on the set of a film? In the midst of a reenactment? When she greeted the man in English he responded in a tongue that sounded like the languages she had heard in films and documentaries about Indian peoples, a field she had studied with rapt fascination since childhood and later delved into more extensively in college. She had always wondered about these people the history books had simplified, maligned, or neglected and whose blood she had been rumored to share along with her motley European ancestry.

Listening more carefully, she realized that the words he spoke were Lakota Sioux, for she recognized them from her short-lived pursuit of learning a little of the melodic tongue herself. The more he spoke, the more it became clear to her, however unlikely it seemed in this day and age, that the man didn't understand a lick of English. She was at a loss, she knew so few words and most were useless in this situation. "Han," she said. "Yes." She didn't know how to ask for help so instead she gestured with her fingers to her open mouth, indicating hunger, hoping the man might bring her back to civilization where she might find someone who understood her and could get her home.

It worked. Extending a deep bronze arm, the man hoisted Elaine onto the back of his paint. As soon as she settled behind him and clasped her hands to his waist she was hit with the overwhelming odor of smoke, sweat, and animal grease. It wasn't altogether horrible, but it was strong. Moreover, it wasn't a smell she had ever encountered. She was reminded of a passage she had once read in a book regarding the clash of the invaders and the Lakota – something about how the Indians had a smell that when the wind was blowing right, whites could detect a mile off. The smell was repugnant to them. It was of grease and buffalo chip fire.

No modern person, Indian or otherwise, she had ever met had that smell, and suddenly, Elaine was gripped with the unthinkable. As they trotted toward the other men her eyes frantically scanned her savior for anything modern – plastic parts, synthetic materials, bright artificial dyes. But she found none. His waist-length braids were entwined with ermine and tied off with sinew. The feathers in his hair were natural and undyed. The leather clout he wore had rough patches and irregular color and it appeared to have been tanned by hand. His arrows, his bow, and his Winchester rifle all looked like museum artifacts.

At last, when they reached the other men, they called to each other fluently in Lakota and none let on it was a ruse. No one broke into a smile and told her in English it was all a joke. Elaine then realized that she wasn't in the 21st Century at all, and for the first time in her life she swooned and swayed back, caught just before she slid off the paint and her world went black.

When she came to, her savior had propped her up against a cottonwood by a stream and was thrusting something that smelled of meat and dried fruit beneath her nose. Pemmican. She took the proffered bite, said thanks in Lakota, and looked around at her hosts as they watered the horses.

The group of men were, for the most part, tall and lean. A few wore leggings, but most were clad only in a clout. Some had long loose hair, the others wore braids. Some had feathers tied in their hair, others had none. They appeared lightly armed, though two carried coup sticks. Too small for a war party, perhaps a raid? That would explain the excess ponies and lack of bodies.

The leader, her rescuer, was an attractive man. Perhaps 6 feet tall with a dark, finely boned face. He was lean like the rest, but clearly sinewy and strong. Likely in his mid-40's, though it was hard to tell. He seemed friendly, sitting back on his haunches he smiled broadly as she ate, revealing a row of unexpectedly healthy, if somewhat imperfect, teeth. Elaine was educated enough to know that the Lakota took hospitality as seriously as they did warfare, and clearly she was being treated as a guest and not a captive, for her hands were unbound and the words the man spoke were gentle and inquisitive. She couldn't understand him, but she liked his manner and she smiled in turn.

The others soon gathered about her and began asking many curious things she could not understand. She only shrugged her shoulders and shook her head, smiling. The men offered water from buffalo bladders and some reached out to touch her hair and the fabric of her slip. Only one man did not approach her. He stood away from the rest, at least 20 paces down by the river, watering his horse and watching her with suspicion.

He was smaller than the leader, though still taller than her 5'5" by several inches. He had a slight but fit build and his hair hung loose to his waist. His eyes tilted slightly upward at the corners like a cat and like the other Lakota, his cheekbones and jawline were well-defined and his lips lush and full. He was somewhere between handsome and pretty, with red-brown skin marred only by a few scars. Warrior's scars, but others, too. Scars like lash marks across the lean muscles of his back. And, unlike the others, his face was serious and hard to read. He frightened her.

Looks Far had seen enough wasicus and had learned enough of their treachery to last a lifetime. As a child just on the verge of manhood his family had been massacred and he had been taken prisoner, forced into a frontier mission school where his hair was cut and his language forbidden, beaten with a cane every time he uttered the words or resisted their instruction which sought to rub out the Lakota he was. At 16 winters he fled in the night and rode for days to seek out his people, the Oglala, in their summer place by the river that turned like a snake. Red Grouse, one of their great men, had taken the boy in as a son to replace the one he lost to the white man's sickness the autumn before. He dubbed the young man Looks Far because his eyes were always searching the distance, wary of what lie beyond the horizon.

Now, 12 years on, he watched as this strange wasicun winyan ate their food, smiled to their faces, and mounted one of their fine ponies to ride beside Red Grouse. No wasicu, man or woman, would have behaved as she. They came in two varieties he had seen: fearful or cruel. Her manner was surely a ruse, a trick he had not seen before. Red Grouse was too trusting, too kind, and Looks Far feared that for all his wisdom, he did not understand the ways of the wasicu.

As Elaine rode, gripping the pony with sweating thighs long removed from her childhood dressage instruction, she turned back slightly to see the strange, wary man trailing back from the rest, his thousand-yard stare fixed just part her. Facing forward once more she saw a haze of smoke in the distance and could make out the outlines of the tall lodges of the people. Once more, the realization struck anew that she was out of time entirely, though she did not know how it came to be.

But Elaine didn't waste time fretting; she was acutely aware of the alien environment and was running in pure survival mode. Be friendly, be calm, be courageous and stay alive. Past the discarded heaps of bone and animal skin they rode into camp where women and children rushed to greet the party, shouting words and trilling their calls. Within a few moments, Elaine had become the star attraction. Women and children crushed around her, touching every part of her hair and dress. At the leader's behest, an older woman pushed forward and gently led Elaine into a lodge where she was implored to sit. The woman gestured quickly that Elaine remove her dress. Unsure, she obeyed nevertheless and seeing this, the woman appeared pleased and left the lodge.

Just as Elaine was beginning to grow nervous, the woman reemerged with a dress and moccasins and offered them to Elaine who was grateful to accept. Clearly, her thin nightdress had been too indecent for the conservative Lakota.

"Waste," the woman declared before leaving once more. Alone Elaine sat within the lodge, though outside she could hear male voices rising in anger.

Red Grouse burst through the opening of the lodge, looking somewhat ruffled but his friendly smile came quickly as he took his place on the robes. Behind him trailed two women. Red Grouse lit a pipe and they all sat, waiting in awkward silence. Then, after a short time, the wary man who had been in the party entered the tent and took his place at the elder's side between Elaine and Red Grouse. Her eyes widened in shock as the young man with the catlike eyes spoke the words:

"My father welcomes you to his lodge."

His voice was emotionless but he spoke in perfect, albeit accented, English. He never looked at her directly, for he sat some distance to her side, keeping his profile to her as he spoke. Red Grouse began to speak and Looks Far begrudgingly translated:

"Red Grouse, my father, wishes to know how you came to be alone in the tall grass?"

"I don't know, I cannot remember, I fear I am lost and have no relations anywhere near," she responded.

"What about the soldier fort – Robinson, they call it? Is that where you have come from?"

"No, I mean I don't believe so. One moment I was sleeping in my bed and the next I awoke outside. That was how your party found me."

Looks Far nearly scoffed, and he had to force himself not to turn and look at her in disbelief. Surely she could think of better lies than this feigned ignorance.

Red Grouse spoke with concern now and Looks Far translated:

"My father wishes to know if you would like to be taken to the soldier fort."

"No, please don't. I know no one there and I fear for my safety among strangers."

Looks Far was shocked. A wasicu fearful of her own kind? It was unthinkable. Then his mind began to reel, what if she had been cast out? What wickedness was so great for those at the fort that they cast this woman to spread her poison among the plains?

From the corner of his eye he regarded her. She was nothing like any wasicu he had seen before. Her body appeared strong and healthy, ripe for bearing children. Her skin was so white as to resemble a cloud and it stood in sharp contrast to her black hair and murky green eyes. He might have guessed her to be one of the whores he had seen among the wasicu, but she had none of the filth, none of the disgrace. Those women appeared to him as beaten dogs. This one held her head high and looked directly at those around her. She seemed proud and bold. It wasn't her place; she ought to be more modest, though wisely, unlike so many wasicu, she chose not to fill the silence with meaningless words.

Red Grouse sat back and puffed his pipe, regarding her, thinking. When at last he spoke, Looks Far raised a small protest, but ever the dutiful son, he translated his father's words:

"Is it your wish to stay among the Lakota?"

"What must I do to stay?" She inquired.

Red Grouse puffed some more then spoke via Looks Far:

"There is a woman, Calls to the Them, who lost a daughter. Her lodge is empty and her husband has thrown her away. She might find you of use. She would treat you well, but you must perform your duty as any daughter would. Tan skins, prepare food, gather turnips, repair the lodge – these are not difficult things. You will learn. It is the only way."

Then, Looks Far turned his head ever so slightly and added: "If you are discovered lacking, or you seek to create trouble, you will be cast out with nothing. I will make certain of this. Let Wakan Tanka decide your fate."

For the first time Elaine's voice cracked with emotion at the harshness of what he had said.

"I would never seek to bring harm to those who have treated me so well. It is not my way."

Looks Far said nothing, but was surprised at her choice of words. It was like nothing he would expect a wasicu to say. He grew more intrigued by her but tempered his curiosity with caution. She was simply unknown and he would have to learn of her in his own way, not through words which wasicus so often used to mask deceit.

Looks Far stood abruptly and motioned with a tilt of his chin. "Come," he ordered.

Elaine followed him through the camp as children trailed in their wake. She regarded Looks Far from behind as he walked. He had confidence in his stride and his clout would flap in the wind revealing the rounded, muscular curve of his buttocks as he moved. His hair was long enough to tickle his waist and in the sun it appeared shot through with deep cherry tones. It was a shame he hated her so, for he was easily one of the more alluring men she had ever met – haughty and beautiful, but also seemingly thoughtful and intelligent. He was also the only one who appeared to know any English, though how he came to speak it so well was an intriguing mystery.

Calls to Them was already standing in wait outside her lodge. She was perhaps in her 50s and she had a fan of lines near her eyes so deep it was clear she was a woman who had smiled much once in her life. But her face now appeared worried, tired. Even so, she nodded her head and tried a smile as Looks Far made introductions. Just as he turned to leave them, Elaine reached out and caught his arm.

"Wait!" she started.

He looked down at the stark white hand against his much darker skin. At this his gut reaction was to feel disdain, for the last time a wasicu had ever laid a hand to him it was to rap his fingers with a switch for using his own tongue to comfort to a younger boy who was inconsolable with fear. Yet when he looked up to the woman's face her eyes gently probed into his and he felt uncomfortably naked, as though she had seen into him.

"I still don't know your name," she implored.

"Tehanl Wanyanke," he replied, intentionally using the Lakota.

"But what does it mean?" she pressed.

He was slightly offended by her boldness but also appreciated that she seemed to care far more than most wasicus ever had about his true name. He had fought so hard to defend his birth name when he was captured and forced to take what they called a "Christian" name. None had cared to hear it spoken, much less know its meaning. Elaine never got her answer, but he met her with a small expression that appeared to be a half-smile. It was the first time she had seen his face soften, the eyes grow less hard, and suddenly and surprisingly she felt the gravity of another begin to tug at her.

"Tehanl Wanyanke." She repeated the name as he turned to walk away. It was a name she was determined to learn the meaning of.

Looks Far was shaken. Who was this woman? What was she? He was certain now she couldn't have come from the fort. It was as though she were not of the world entirely. The way she looked, moved, spoke, behaved -- like no people he had encountered before. Sometimes she seemed more Lakota than wasicu, but she was far too immodest. Maybe she wasn't a wasicu at all, but some other race or being entirely. She was wakan. A mystery, and unlike most of his people who were content with the unknown wonders of the world and creation, mysteries did not sit well for Looks Far.

As the days and weeks came to pass, Elaine became completely engrossed in learning the hard work of being one of the people from Calls to Them. Tanning hides was the worst of it, scraping the fat from the skins alone was back breaking work, especially under the unmerciful sun. Elaine had fashioned a hat to protect her scalp and face from the rays, and the long sleeves of her dress did the rest, though her hands were turning a faint gold color and it distressed her. Between the heat, the risk of sunburn, and the constant curious stream of onlookers who marveled at her odd hat and glowing white skin, Elaine decided she would do most of her labors under cover of night and what she couldn't do at night, she would carry out under the shade of the cottonwood stand near the village. Calls to Them thought it odd, but Elaine was dutiful and polite, so she did not worry herself.

"Woman Beneath the Stars." Calls to Them thought it was a good name for the odd wasicu.

Though it was while alone under that cover of stars that Elaine had time to think and grow homesick. Time to worry. How would she ever return? What did her family think? Was she dead and this the afterlife? If she thought too much on it the weight of unknowing would crush her. But even when it was just a passing thought, she would weep into the night, her tears dried by the breeze that blew across the plains.

Looks Far watched her work into the night, the faint light of her small fire casting a brilliant gold light on her skin. She appeared up to no malice, but why did she work into the night and weep without cause? Why did she hide far from the village during the day? For a woman so bold, he was puzzled. It had been long since he thought on a woman so frequently, if he ever had. Since his return to the Oglala Lakota he had labored to reclaim who he was by living the seven virtues, making himself spiritually strong, observing and learning when and how to negotiate and when to stand and fight. He wanted to be prepared for when the day came that he might have to defend his people against the wasicu. For he knew that in their greed and great numbers they would surely extend their grasp one day to the roots of the Paha Sapa and seek to rub the Lakota out, if not in body then at least in spirit. No, in preparing for this there had been no time for a woman.

But that night, as he slept alone in his lodge, a specter came to him. It caressed the scars on his back with soft hands and trailed around his sides. When he looked down he saw small white hands slipping to the cord which tied his clout and he awoke with such a start that his brow poured sweat and his heart pounded. Beneath the robes his erection rose and pulsed, willing control over himself, he splashed water over his heated flesh, gritting his teeth. In his mind he could see her eyes on him again, imploring, curious. For a moment he wondered how those same eyes might look gazing up at him from below, but then he cursed his lust and cursed the woman more who might provoke him to betray all he held dear.