The Comanche Way

Towahwi did well as a horse breeder, and built an actual house and a ranch on the plot he was granted by the Dawes Act of 1887. When he told Melody about his plan, she said she could be happy living in a tipi but if he wanted a house, he should build a house. Towahwi stroked Melody's swollen belly and smiled.

"One grandmother and one child in a tipi with us is fine. Two children are bearable. The baby inside you will be too many. My wife needs a house for our children and their grandmother."

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Together, Towahwi and Melody had four children, two boys and two girls. Towahwi taught his sons to be strong, brave men their father and grandfathers would be proud of. Melody taught her daughters to be good wives and mothers that both her white mother and her Comanche mother, Running Fawn, would be proud of.

At that point in their lives when girls become women, both Melody's daughters asked her how they would know when they loved a man, and Melody did what any good Comanche mother would do. She told them the same thing Running Fawn had told her many years before.

"A woman takes a husband to help her do things she can not do by herself and to give her children. A woman can always attract a man, but she will look for a man who will do those things because he cares for her. She will do the things he can not do because she cares for him. It is the Comanche way."