Free Nakoa's Woman by Gayle Rogers

her head to the wall. She would die. She would hold her breath or starve until she died.
    “Oh, we all sad. Robe sad, walls sad, stew sad. All cry for baby white woman. I cry later when stomach full.”
    “Shut up!” Maria screamed.
    “Just tell big sadness of everything. You cry little self away, nothing left to wash at river! Nothing left to keep virgin!”
    The afternoon sun moved slowly. Flies buzzed against the lodge skins. Maria kept her head to the wall. In time the lodge skins darkened and the smell of food cooking upon the evening fires grew stronger. Her stomach began to cramp. With her soul still twisted in pain, the will of the flesh triumphed and Maria left the lodge for food.

Chapter Six
     
    Two days passed. Maria knew that the village was talking of the way she had scratched Nakoa’s face, and she was glad. No matter how much she had hurt herself, she had shamed Nakoa more.
    Toward Atsitsi she maintained a stony silence. The old woman raged at this. “Now why you no talk? You think sweet words too good for Indian tipi? You filled with yourself twice! Big mess! Why not Nakoa take you to his by-damn lodge? Why leave you here to eat up all my food?”
    Atsitsi in fact was trying to eat all of the stew herself. She had eaten four bowls of food and was going for another. “Man fool!” she said, sucking at the meat noisily. “What good it be for man to go through Sun Dance, kill for coups when just become crazy before titty of white woman?”
    Maria looked at her in contempt. Atsitsi belched loudly and scratched between her thighs.
    “You are like a dog,” Maria said furiously. “You draw every fly upon the prairie!”
    “At least I don’t wash self all time like body one big disease! Ha! Wash hands! Wash face! Wash hair! Fool!” She scratched again.
    “You don’t mind if I have a little food?” Maria asked wrathfully, filling her bowl. When she had filled it, Atsitsi kicked all of its contents upon the floor. “Well, that was nice!” Maria said.
    “You no need meat. Go and eat petal of prairie flower! Or no eat and go quick to white man’s sweet heaven!”
    But Maria did eat, and afterward they walked to the river for water and wood. “Now water in paunch for drink!” Atsitsi said “Not for sweet little hands and face! And stay close; Nakoa say you to stay in my sight.”
    “I’m walking out of smelling range. At least out on the prairie I can breathe fresh air!”
    When they came to the river, groups of women were already bathing in it. Maria found that with the unhappy exception of Atsitsi, the Blackfoot women were very clean. They washed in the river or the lake every day; their clothing, nails, and hair were always well groomed. Maria bathed and sunned herself as far from Atsitsi as she could get, lazily watching the many women around her. They laughed and talked softly as they swam and gathered their scrub wood and water paunches. Their faces glowed with good health and the recent touch of the cool water. They neatly slicked and braided their hair, some touching the part with vermilion. Most were tall and slender, moving with a lean muscular grace. Their dresses were of the soft skins of elk, deer, or antelope, their skirts coming about halfway down their legs, with leggings as high as the knee. Their blouses had short wide sleeves, fringed at the elbow, the hems and sleeves alike decorated with brightly colored quills. Beautiful pendants were worn as earrings, and shining white elk teeth as necklaces. All of the women wore knife cords that hung from their belt to the length of their thigh.
    Now none of them bothered to look at Maria. It seemed as if no one desired to interfere with what Nakoa had elected to do with a captured white woman.
    “Well, leave now!” Atsitsi shouted across the moving water to Maria. “Go back to lodge! Water like you, never shut up!” she finished in sarcasm. Maria reluctantly approached her, shaking her still wet hair in the sun. “Fires of evil in