The Missionary and the Half-Breed

Slowly, the hunters rode through the mass of animals until they had surrounded over a hundred. Then she heard a yell and then more yells as the hunters rose up, fitted arrows to their bows and began riding closer to the now running buffalo. She watched in fear as each man rode within a few feet of a galloping buffalo, shot one or two arrows, and then moved on to another animal. The youngest boys did the same but were shooting their arrows at the buffalo calves. Most of the animals stopped shortly after they were shot and stood wheezing their last breaths. A few that were only wounded kept trying catch up with the rest of the herd until they too collapsed.

It was over before Rebecca realized it. As she looked out over the grassland, she counted over fifty buffalo laying there dead or dying. Here and there, a hunter approached a buffalo still struggling to walk and shot another arrow to end its life. The rest were walking to each dead buffalo. Rebecca knew they were looking for arrows marked with each hunter's unique marking. She knew Running Elk's marking because he had shown it to her and said any buffalo with his arrow in it was theirs.

The women of the village had been waiting with their travois hitched to their horses, and as soon as the hunters stopped the hunt, they started to the killing ground. Soon, hunters and women were skinning and cutting up the buffalo and piling the meat on their travois. The older men and women, too old to do much, were in the process of setting up the tipi's, each in the place the women had shown them.

Rebecca found a huge buffalo with one of Running Elk's arrows in its side and began skinning the animal like she had been taught to skin deer, but this was a monumental task. A deer was about the same size as Rebecca so it was fairly easy to move it. The buffalo was so heavy it was impossible to move.

She had skinned out the half she could reach and was trying to roll the animal over when four other women came up. They each grabbed a leg of the buffalo and pointed at Rebecca and then to the massive horned head. Together, they rolled the dead buffalo onto its other side. The women waved as each went back to the buffalo she was in the process of butchering.

Rebecca was about half way through the process of skinning out the other side of the buffalo when she heard a shriek. She looked up to see another massive bull buffalo with two arrows in its side running toward her. Apparently the women who screamed believed the buffalo was dead, but at the first prick from her knife it had jumped up and started to run away.

Rebecca was frozen on the spot in fear. She knew she should run, but her body wouldn't obey her mind. Instead, she watched and trembled as the huge animal bore down upon her.

It was close enough she could see the shine of its eyes when she was thrown to the ground beside the buffalo she had been skinning and then pressed up tight against the still warm carcass and flat to the ground. The buffalo jumped over the carcass and then collapsed a few feet further on. Rebecca pushed back against whatever was holding her against the carcass, and then heard a whispered, "Rebecca, are you all right?"

The voice was Running Elk's and he was pressing her against the buffalo carcass. She felt his chest muscles against her back as he breathed, and he had one leg draped over her legs to hold her down. It was the first time he'd ever touched her and once she knew she was safe, feeling his body almost on top of her set her body to tingling in a way she'd never before felt.

Running Elk stood and helped Rebecca to her feet.

"I am sorry if I hurt you, but it was the only way. Sometimes, a buffalo is wounded badly enough it falls, but not so badly it can't get up and run again. I had to get you against the one you were skinning or you'd have been killed."

He still hadn't moved his hands from her shoulders and Rebecca was still having the same tingling feelings because of his touch. Without thinking, Rebecca put her arms around Running Elk's neck and pulled herself tight against him.

"I am not hurt. Thank you for saving me."

Running Elk gently pulled her arms from his neck.

"Lakota wives do not hold their husbands like this in front of others, and we have many buffalo to skin and cut up. We should be doing that now."

The first night, every fire had fresh buffalo meat roasting over the coals and the people ate their fill, then went to sleep except for some of the men who stood guard to keep away scavenging animals. They were up before the sun the next day, back at the killing field skinning and cutting up the carcasses.

The work of processing the buffalo took almost two whole days. Men and women alike butchered the animals and piled the meat and hides on travois. Young boys took the meat back to the village where the women too old to do the butchering and young girls sliced it into thin slices, then hung it on drying racks the men too old to hunt had built. Boys too young to hunt waved leafed branches over the drying racks to keep the flies away.

When all the animals had been butchered and most of the meat was draped over the drying frames, the women began the process of tanning the buffalo hides into leather. Some of the hides would be made into robes to keep them warm during the winter and were tanned with the hair still on. Other hides, and all but two of the eight buffalo Running Elk had killed were soaked in a stream to loosen the hair and then scraped to remove all hair and flesh. These hides would be used to make the tipi Rebecca could finally call their home.

Making that tipi would wait until the spring buffalo hunt though. Rebecca needed at least six hides to make a proper tipi and she only had six. She tanned two of her six hides with hair into robes for her and Running Elk because they would soon need them. The nights were becoming colder and soon after the buffalo hunt, mornings would often reveal the white coating of frost on the grass.

As she worked at scraping, stretching, and tanning the buffalo hides, Rebecca often thought about how it had felt to have Running Elk so close to her. She couldn't remember ever feeling that way with Fredrick. It was as if her whole body had become warm and very alive.

Her mother had never spoken to her about having such a feeling, and she didn't remember any woman in her family ever talking about anything like that. It was different with the Lakota women. They said that feeling was Wankan Tanka telling the woman it was her time to make a child, and that every woman felt that feeling often when she was beside her husband in bed.

Was that what she was feeling? Did she want to have a child with Running Elk? Of course that was an unchristian thought. They weren't really married, and having sex with Running Elk would be a sin.

Yet, she kept having that feeling when Running Elk woke every morning. He took off his leather trousers to sleep and he wore nothing underneath. It was easy not to look at him at night because the tipi was dark once she had put out the fire. It was mornings when Running Elk threw back his sleeping furs and stretched that the feeling came again. He would be naked and his manhood was often stiff and erect. As she watched him through half-closed eyelids, that sight tightened something in Rebecca's core.

As winter approached, Rebecca spent her time learning quillwork from the women of the village. Quillwork used the quills of the porcupine to decorate clothing and carrying bags. Each woman had her favorite designs, and Rebecca learned to make those designs. She also developed a design of her own, a design she was planning to use to decorate a new deer skin dress she was making.

One afternoon after she finished sewing the dress together, she tried it on to make sure she'd gotten the size right. She was satisfied that she had and was pulling the dress over her head when she felt a slight rush of cooler air. When she turned, she saw Running Elk standing just inside the tipi and watching her.

Rebecca shrieked and quickly covered her naked body. Running Elk had never seen her without clothing and she was embarrassed that he had now. Though she'd been wearing deerskin dresses for months, she kept her old dresses to sleep in at night. She'd always changed after she'd put out the fire specifically so Running Elk wouldn't see her. In the mornings, she waited until Running Elk left the tipi to relieve himself for the same reason.

When she looked back at him, he was smiling, but he didn't come closer. All he said was, "a Lakota wife would not be so shamed when her husband sees her. You should not either. You have nothing to cause you shame." With that, he turned around and closed the tipi flap behind him.

Rebecca stood there holding the deerskin dress over her body and her mind was racing. Did Running Elk really believe what he said? She'd never known him to lie except about them being man and wife, so he must. If he did, why didn't he come closer? Maybe he thought she was appealing but just didn't like her enough. Maybe he thought she didn't want to be with him that way. He'd said it was the women who determined what happened when they lay with their husbands. Was he waiting for her to ask him to make love to her?

Rebecca shook her head to clear her thoughts, but new thoughts filled the space in her mind.

Did she want him to touch her that way? The women of the village said the feelings she had meant that she did. They said the feeling only came to a woman when she saw or thought about a certain, special man. If she did, how would she tell him that wouldn't make him think she was not a good woman? If she had asked Fredrick to make love with her, he'd have called her a hussy or even a whore. She'd never heard a Lakota man say anything like that about any woman, but the Lakota were still savages, weren't they? They had to be if they hadn't yet learned about God and didn't understand that sex was something a man only did to his wife to satisfy himself and create children.

It was all so confusing to Rebecca because she was torn between what she'd been taught from birth and what she'd learned over the past few months. No, the Lakota weren't savages because they held much the same beliefs as she did. One difference in those beliefs was that women could choose when to be intimate with their husbands rather than the husband...using was the only word that Rebecca could think of...using their wives at their own convenience. So which was right?

It took a freeze one night for Rebecca to truly understand. The day had been very cold, cold enough that she was thankful for the buffalo robe she'd tanned after the fall hunt. The thick hair on the robe kept her warm as she gathered firewood. Inside the tipi, the fire made the temperature bearable, but still cooler than she would have liked.

That night after their evening meal, Running Elk asked if she'd be warm enough without the fire. Rebecca said she thought she would if she put the buffalo robe over her blanket.

Running Elk shrugged.

"You should sleep without your dress. Lakota women sleep without their dresses. The dress stops the flow of blood that keeps you warm. If you get too cold, two under a blanket are warmer than one. I will not touch you if you join me."

Rebecca put out the fire, then took off her deerskin dress. She was starting to put on her cloth sleeping dress when she paused. Often when she woke of a morning, she would feel her dress wrapped tightly around her legs and her feet would be cold. Maybe Running Elk was right. It wouldn't hurt to find out. The next morning she would just stay covered until he left the tipi to relieve himself. By the time he came back, she would be up, dressed, and making their morning meal. She dropped the sleeping dress and slipped under the blanket and buffalo robe naked.

After half an hour of trying to go to sleep, Rebecca was shivering with the cold. The buffalo robe helped some, but she still felt like she was freezing to death.

Running Elk had promised not to touch her. Maybe just this once...

Rebecca quietly rose and stepped across the tipi floor to where Running Elk lay. He was breathing the slow, deep breaths of sleep. Rebecca carefully lifted the furs and slipped in beside him.

At once, she felt warmer, warm and safe from the cold. Running Elk had been right. Two were warmer than one. Rebecca was careful to not touch Running Elk, but she needn't have worried. He didn't stir. Neither did Rebecca. In a few minutes, she was asleep.

When Rebecca woke the next morning, she was a little shocked at what she'd done. Here she was lying naked beside a man who wasn't her husband. Thankfully, he seemed to be still asleep. She rolled over slowly to make certain he was, and gasped when she saw him resting on one elbow and looking at her.

He grinned.

"The night was too cold and you decided warm and ashamed was better than cold. It was a good decision and you should not be ashamed. I was warmer as well. It is time for us to get up though. Will you go first or should I?"

Rebecca felt his warmth. She saw his bare chest rising and falling as he breathed. She knew that under the blanket, his manhood would be stiff and erect and ready to do what wives and their husbands do. Those sights and that thought caused that same feeling in her core, a tightening that filled her with sensations that threatened to take away her will, a will that she found she was becoming willing to yield to the sensations that were sweeping her. When Running Elk smiled, Rebecca let the sensations have their way.

She reached out and stroked Running Elk's chest.

"We could stay here a little longer. I have nothing to do this morning except bring more firewood."

Running Elk raised his eyebrows.

"Are you saying you want to be my real wife for the first time?"

Rebecca stroked down his hard belly and felt the tightening in her belly grow stronger.

"Yes, I am."

Rebecca had thought it would be like her only experience with Fredrick on her wedding night. He had hardly touched her before he parted her legs and inserted his manhood and pumped away for a minute or so. Once Fredrick had shuddered twice, he rolled off her and went to sleep. Other than some pain, Rebecca had felt nothing.

She wasn't prepared to feel Running Elk's hand on her breast, and she wasn't prepared for the sensation that caused. There was a ripple of sensation that raced from her breast to her core and made her catch her breath. When his fingertips stroked her nipple, that sensation became more intense.

She also was not prepared for Running Elk to press his lips gently to hers in a kiss. Other than a quick kiss at her wedding, Fredrick had never done anything like that. Running Elk's tongue slipping over her lips made her gasp and when she opened her mouth, he slipped his tongue in until it touched hers. Rebecca felt another sensation, different than the sensations from her breasts and nipples, but just as intense and with the same result.

Rebecca thought she was experiencing more than she could possibly bear until Running Elk slowly moved his hand down her belly to her mound. Unconsciously, Rebecca spread her legs, and then moaned when his fingers touched the lips between her thighs. She was lost in all the feelings Running Elk was causing until he parted those lips with a fingertip and gently stroked.

The sensation was so intense Rebecca stopped breathing for a second and her hips rose off the sleeping mat all by themselves. That caused Running Elk's finger to slip inside her a short distance and that made her lift her hips up again.

As Running Elk continued to stroke his finger in and out, Rebecca felt a tension growing in her core, a tension she also felt in the hand she had on Running Elk's shoulder. As that tension increased, she squeezed the firm muscles and without knowing why, began to pull Running Elk on top of her body. Had she opened her eyes, she would have seen him smiling as he gently parted her thighs and raised her knees.

His first thrust was so gentle his manhood only parted her lips, but Rebecca still moaned. She had felt Fredrick's manhood entering her, but it hadn't been like this. He had plunged his manhood into her in one quick push. Running Elk only pushed a little and then withdrew. His second thrust was deeper, and though Rebecca expected to feel pain, what she felt was indescribable. Her hips lifted again without her willing it, and she moved her hands to Running Elk's back.

Running Elk withdrew again, then pushed in until his body was cradled between Rebecca's raised thighs. Only then did he begin the steady rhythm she had expected. Instead of pain, Rebecca felt that same tightening in her core, a tension she'd thought was already unbearable, and that tension continued to build inside her.

She was lifting her hips to meet Running Elk's thrust then, lifting herself to let him plunge his manhood into her deeper and feeling his hard shaft exciting her more with each and every stroke. She began moaning at every stroke, then gasping as the sensations took away all her conscious thought.

The tension built to a level that caused Rebecca to hold her breath and lift her hips high until suddenly that tension exploded inside her, filling her mind with a blinding blitz of feelings and the sound of her own voice crying out as her entire body shook. A second later, Running Elk plunged his manhood deep inside her and his body jerked four times.

Running Elk began stroking his manhood in and out again, and Rebecca felt the tension inside her slowly dying away. Finally, she felt only little twinges that reminded her of the sensation that had made her cry out. She stroked Running Elk's back and whispered, "The women of the village told me they liked being with their husband like this, but I didn't know what they meant until now. Is it always like this?"

Running Elk kissed Rebecca on the forehead.

"No, it will get better as we learn about each other."

Apparently, it did get better. Over the next six years, according to the history I was able to uncover, Rebecca bore Running Elk two sons and two daughters. They lived as the Lakota had lived for generations before them until gold was discovered in California. The inrush of whites heading to the gold fields initiated the Lakota and other Sioux tribes into dealing with the US Government. From then on, little by little, the US Government kept taking land promised to the Lakota and changing the law to avoid paying them what had been agreed to in the Laramie Treaty of 1851.

By the time the Lakota decided to begin concerted attacks on the US Army, Running Elk was sixty-three and too old to join the fight. He and Rebecca lived with their children just as had all elderly Lakotas in the past. There is no record of their sons fighting in the Powder River War in 1867, though it is likely they did. Once the war was over and a new treaty signed, Running Elk, Rebecca and their son's families moved to what is now part of the Cheyenne River Reservation.

Running Elk went to live with Wankan Tanka two years later after a bout with pneumonia. Rebecca did not remarry. Instead, she lived with one of her daughters and began writing down the story of her life. It is from her writing I take this story.

Why did I undertake this task? It was a fluke, really. My own daughter gave me one of those at-home DNA test kits for my sixtieth birthday. I followed the directions and then sent the swab off for my evaluation. I was certain it would show what I had always known. For at least five generations back, my ancestors have all been of German and English descent.

The results that came back indicated I was mostly of German and English stock, but I also was about six percent Native American. The explanation of that six percent was accompanied by a caution that the particular tribe can not be determined by DNA alone. Intrigued by that result, and also knowing my family has always lived in South Dakota, it seemed logical that my six percent was probably Sioux.