Free Blackbird by Nancy Henderson

took a small knife from a basket and placed it gently in his palm.  “Your father gave this to me long ago before you or your brothers came into this world.  You may give it to the white woman, but do not let her use it on you.”
     
    Adahya turned over the knife.  It was a woman’s knife, used for domestic tasks, never for warfare.  He had never seen it before, but the bone handle was carved with tiny human figures which he immediately recognized as his father’s work.  He smiled.  His father’s carvings had been cherished by the Ganeagaono.  Sometimes, during times alone, especially right before raids and battles when he wondered if he would live to the next dawn, he felt as if his father had left the Sky World to watch over him.  He wondered what he would have thought of him, if he would have been proud.
     
    “Thank you.”
     
    His mother nodded.  “Star is about the white woman’s size.  She must have something for her to wear.  She cannot stay dressed like a white eye.”
     
    Adahya nodded.  He gripped his mother in a quick embrace, grateful to have her blessing such as it was.  “Katherine will be good for Adahya.  You will see.”
     
    “Who will be good for you?” Grandfather asked.
     
    She-who-commands ignored him.  “How much do you know about this woman?”
     
    “Enough.”
     
    “Enough to begin a life with her?  When you left here last moon you had no intention of ever taking another woman, and now you bring home a white eye.”  She shook her head.  “It is not right.”
     
    Grandfather looked to the both of them, utterly confused.  “What is not right?”
     
    Adahya patted the old man’s shoulder.  “I will make it right,” he spoke to his mother.  “You will see.”
     
    * * *
     
    KATHERINE woke to find herself alone in Adahya’s lodge.  Seeing an opportunity to escape, she hurried to the small door and slid back the bark panel.  Her captor was nowhere in sight.
     
    She had no more than stepped outside, when she was pelted in the spine with a large rock.
     
    “Ow!”
     
    Laughter was followed by a firing squad of rocks and pebbles. Five children peered out from behind a longhouse.  They giggled hysterically.
     
    Fighting for control had fallen beyond her already.  She’d had it with these people, and she’d be damned if she was going to take anymore abuse--especially from children!  Gathering the rocks they had thrown at her, she slung them at the children, sending them laughing and shouting in all directions.  She hit one boy in the side of his neck, and he let out a hideous yowl.
     
    “Serves you right, you little heathen!”
     
    The boy was down, and she lunged for him.  She caught him by the ankle, and not sure what to do with him but too angry to let him go, she dragged him toward Adahya’s lodge.  The boy screamed and shouted something, but she could not understand a thing he said, nor did she care.  Enraged, violent thoughts filled her mind.  She had never fantasized about hurting anyone, especially a child, but now the idea gave her great pleasure.
     
    Adahya rounded the corner to find Katherine attacking his eight-year-old nephew, Swift Runner.  She had the boy by his left leg and was dragging him on his stomach.  Swift Runner sobbed hysterically.  Adahya’s six-year-old niece, Little Jay, was screaming for her mother as if Heno himself were after them.
     
    He ran toward them.  “Katherine, no!”
     
    She stopped dragging the boy but refused to let go of his leg.  Her face was filthy, and her right eye was black and almost swollen shut.  Her hair was tangled with sticks and leaves. But she stood straight and proud and defiantly raised her chin.  Like a warrior.
     
    He took her by the elbow.  “Katherine, let him go.”
     
    “No!  He was throwing rocks at me.”  She glared at the other children who were peeking around a longhouse, too frightened to come out.  “They all were!”
     
    “Katherine, let him go.