Free Winter's Child by Margaret Coel

could feel the excitement building in his niece as she shifted sideways toward the housekeeper. He could almost read the questions popping in her eyes. He stared so hard at her that finally she glanced his way, and in her glance he saw that she had some comprehension of what he was trying to convey. Be patient. Wait. Elena was still making up her mind about Shannon’s heart.
    â€œI wonder if it was hard for her to leave her own family and culture behind and live in a completely different world. Oh, I know she was practically a baby when she was captured, but still, a part of her must have known she was different from the people she thought of as her family. Like a blood memory that stayed with her, shadowed her. I can’t help but think there were times when it was hard for her.”
    This seemed to do it. A young white woman’s sympathy for an Arapaho captive. Father John watched the lines in Elena’s face soften into a smile. She reached over and touched Shannon’s hand. “My grandmother was a friend of hers.”
    Shannon sat upright, questions jumping in her eyes, and Father John shot her another look. Elena had offered a small gift of information. She would offer more if she wished, and all the questions Shannon might come up with wouldn’t pry another piece of information out of the housekeeper if she didn’t want to provide it.
    â€œMy grandfather’s ranch was next to Brokenhorn’s,” Elena said after a moment. “They had been scouts for General Crook when he was chasing the Sioux around, so they went back a long ways.” Elena nodded as if to punctuate the friendship. “Only natural the women were friends, too. Grandmother tended to Lizzie when she gave birth, and Lizzie did the same for her. Giving birth was women’s work. The men went down to the river, smoked pipes, and waited. Grandmother and Lizzie raised their kids together. Kids went back and forth from house to house. Felt at home wherever they went. Always a mother to feed them, put them to bed when they were tired, make sure they were doing okay.”
    Elena lifted her head and stared at the ceiling as though an old black-and-white movie were playing there. “It was a hard time when the people first came to the reservation,” she said, still watching the ceiling. “Government had already sent the Shoshones here, and they weren’t looking to share the rez with Arapahos. We had no place to live. All our lands gone. The hunting grounds, the villages, all gone. Everywhere we went, the people were hunted down. Soldiers, white posses, ranchers, homesteaders. Open season on Indians back then. Shoshones say Chief Washakie’s heart was so big he couldn’t turn us away.”
    Elena lowered her eyes and turned toward Shannon. “Hope you’ll get it right when you tell your story.”
    â€œI want to very much. I’ll do my best.”
    Elena patted Shannon’s hand again. “Remember that Lizzie was Arapaho. She lived Arapaho. Grandmother said Lizzie hated the way she looked. She rubbed dirt on her face and arms to make them dark. She washed her hair in mud to turn it black, but she still had light skin and hair as golden red as wild grass in August. But no one thought of her as anything but Arapaho.”
    The bishop had finished eating. He stacked his soup bowl on top of the empty sandwich plate. “I’m thinking she must have been a remarkable woman to make the best of what life had dealt her.”
    â€œOh, more than that.” Elena shook her head at the obstinacy of the white people at her table. Her table, Father John knew. Her kitchen, her house to keep, and her white priests to marshal about. “Grandmother said Lizzie loved her husband, and he loved her. He got scared the government agents would take her away after it dawned on them she was white, so he found a place in the mountains that was real hard to get to. No roads. You had to go