Free Where the Broken Heart Still Beats by Carolyn Meyer Page A

buffalo. Other thing we like is honey. Like you."
    It always seemed to please Lucy when Sinty-ann could find something similar in their lives, like honey. But not much was.
    "But you didn't have a garden," Lucy would say, almost sadly.
    "No garden," Sinty-ann agreed. How could she explain how foolish it seemed to her to spend so much time digging and planting and waiting for things to grow when you could go out and find food wherever you happened to be?
    "And what about fish?" Lucy's hands made a swimming motion. "We really enjoy good fish right out of the creek."
    Sinty-ann shook her head. "No fish. Bad to eat fish. Bad to eat chickens. And big bird like a chicken, very bad."
    "Big bird?" Lucy wondered. "You mean the turkey?"
    "Yes, turkey. Men eat turkey and become cowards and run away from their enemy."
    "And you don't like pork. Meat from the pig."
    "No pig."
    "But that's mostly the kind of meat we eat," Lucy said. "They're so easy to raise. And we can preserve the meat by smoking. I think it's a lot easier than making jerky."
    "Pig lives in mud and water," Sinty-ann said firmly. "My People do not eat animals that live in mud and water. Not good."
    "And you actually ate the buffalo's liver raw?" Lucy asked, shuddering. "It makes me sick to think of it."
    "Very good," Sinty-ann told her. "You don't like it because you are not Nermernuh."
    "Nermernuh?"
    "Our word for the People."
    "Not Comanche? You don't call yourselves Comanches?"
    "White man call us Comanche. They learn it from other Indians, our enemies. Not our word. I am Nerm," she said proudly. "We are Nermernuh."
    Later she heard Lucy explaining this to Isaac and Anna and Ben and Martha.
    "Doesn't matter much what she calls them, does it?" Ben asked angrily. "They're still just dirty Indians."
    Lucy hushed him. "She'll hear you! She understands!"
    It was true. She understood more and more.
    These conversations about her life with the People had a mixed effect on Sinty-ann. The memories they brought back were both pleasant and painful. It seemed that she would not be going to see the People now because something had happened, a battle among white men, that prevented Uncle from keeping his promise. When she talked to Lucy about the People, it helped her not to forget.
    But she would say nothing about Peta Nocona. Lucy asked shyly, "Will you tell me about your husband? About Peta Nocona? What was he like? Was he good to you?"
    "I do not speak of him," Sinty-ann said.
    "I'm sorry," Lucy said hurriedly. "I wasn't trying to pry. I was just curious."
    "I do not speak of him."
    Their lessons had become more formal. Lucy wanted her to learn the names of the months and the days of the week. Sinty-ann had never thought of time being divided up like this, or if she had once known it, she had forgotten.
    "When I came here?" Sinty-ann asked.
    "January," Lucy said. "But Captain Ross and the other Rangers found you last December. Around Christmastide."
    "And now?" Sinty-ann asked. "What is it now?"
    "July. You've been here with us for six months. Half a year."
    Year? That had to be explained, too, along with how many days there were in each month. To help her remember, Lucy taught her a little spoken song, a poem: "Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November...."
    But before any of this made sense, she had to learn numbers and counting. Lucy showed her how to use her fingers, and then showed her signs on paper that stood for numbers.
    Next Lucy wanted her to learn to read a clock. She called it "telling time." This seemed pointless to Sinty-ann. Why did anyone need numbers for this? Surely you knew when the sky was brightening before sunrise, and you could watch as the sun moved across the sky, and you could see when it was setting and when night had come. What else did anyone need?
    She paid little attention to the lessons on the clock that Uncle wound each night with a key or to the name of each day. This was important to the white people in order to remember a day they