Free Sacajawea by Anna Lee Waldo Page B

making a distasteful face.
    “The Arikaras’ lodges are heaped up like an anthill, made of wood and mud outside.” She made a face. “Ugh. But inside, like something from a medicine dream. Big, space to put many things, even a horse in cold weather. And warm, no wind could get in, even the smoke hole fixed so the wind would not go down. The sleeping places not on the ground, but up on logs and soft branches. And pots for cooking, not clay or willow, but black and hard, heavy; never break. Houses inside of the lodge made with skins. People in one house and people in another. No one to get in someone’s way. Tunics laid across branches to keep them clean. These houses are not moved. These people do not move. I worked hard sewing, cleaning, keeping out of the way of those two women. My man sometimes smiled on me, and sometimes I was too tired to do as he asked and he beat me. That was proper for him. Inside, I felt myself fading. Once I fell against the ground and stayed there quiet, feeling the strength of Mother Earth before I pushed and pulled on more weeds in his garden. But the fading never stopped. I was starving to death, even though I was eating. I didn’t know what to do. Then one day I was cutting a tunic and something came to me: I could find my way to the People. It was simple. I could remember every step of the way. From that time on, I smiled a little more and stopped fading.
    “I could feel my thoughts racing toward the People. In the spring when the land was green, I put some seeds in a pouch and hid jerky inside my tunic on a string around my waist. I went out to push the weeds down. I never stopped walking—I went through the saplings across the ditch that surrounded that village and, with one foot ahead of the other, headed in the direction of the People. It was not long before the seeds and jerky were gone, but I found roots and berries and skinned a rabbit with a sharp stone. I found the People. But they did not celebrate my coming home. They did not know who I was for a long time. I could not talk to tell them. I was sick and tired and only wanted to sleep for manysuns. I could not remember my name. Then I found that my family had been killed in a raid and I had no close relatives to look after me. No one to hunt meat or get hides for me. I took what was left over or what was thrown my way. I closed my heart and mind to the People. In my mind I lived with
him.
And I do not even remember
his
name. Now I am old, and I am going back near
his
village. I do not fight it; I do not look forward to it. They will not know that I was there among them once. So now it is time for me to wake up and use my knowledge to help my friends. This is my work.”
    She looked at her friends with blazing eyes. Her hands reached out to them as a benediction.
    “Oh, Moon Woman,” cried Fish Woman, jumping to her feet and reaching out toward her friend. “If we’d only known. But you never said a thing. I can’t remember any stories about you. Only that you were always so shy and quiet and never laughed with the others. You made your own tepee, and I never wondered much why, I was always so busy with my own man and my work.” Fish Woman babbled on and on quietly beside Moon Woman. Moon Woman smiled kindly at her.
    Willow Bud edged over beside Grass Child. “I’m going to get back to the People.” She whispered so no one might hear. “Eat and become strong and you go with with me, maybe tonight.”
    “Ai,
but I cannot make it,” whispered Grass Child. Still, she began to nibble slowly at a heat-dried rib with stringy meat.
    “That is a horse that would no longer walk,” said Willow Bud. “It will give you strength.”
    “Aaagch,”
replied Grass Child, but she continued to gnaw.
    “We will wait until the skunks sleep. We will take two horses and ride back to our village.”
    Grass Child felt calmer. This was a good decision. If Moon Woman could walk back, surely they could ride faster. And even nonrecognition