Work Text:
The Peacemaker
&dwd&
The swell of her belly terrifies her. She has started to feel flutters; murmurings of the life she now can’t ignore inside her. When they’d first been married they holed away for days, weeks, trying to conceive a child (in both productive and unproductive ways, but always enjoyable). She conceived a child with her first husband, but it died before it had half grown, and now this pregnancy has surpassed the length of that one and she thinks it will last to the end. (They hadn’t been trying before leaving the winter camp, but she had suspected.)
It has happened, and the timing is terrible, their future uncertain, and so the growing swell of her belly and the tiny little flutters inside terrify her.
John (he is John again, and she is Christine, because they have stopped in a small town of white settlers and they warily uphold the pretence of being prairie folk) is thrilled about the baby, but she can tell he is equally fearful. Their child will be white – not only in skin but in culture too – because they cannot raise it Sioux and remain safe. The threat of being found by the army still hangs over them, and the prejudice against their adopted people runs deep across the land. They cannot be who they truly are, except in private, and already the language is getting harder and harder to maintain, and so they speak Lakota to one another and hope it will be enough. They camp in a makeshift tipi of buffalo hide and keep a small fire lit, and they try to remember the laughter of Pretty Shield and the smell of Kicking Bird’s smoking pipe and the beat of a drum when the tribe was celebrating and they were making love.
(There isn’t much to celebrate these days, except that they are still alive and they are together.
It’s not much, but it’s more than enough.)
They move quickly at first, wanting to cover as much ground as they can before she gets too big to ride, and they get too tired to keep going. They have no map, but they also have no destination; just an easterly direction and the will to do some good before it’s too late.
&dwd&
They travel almost directly East, hoping – praying – to convert hearts and minds one small town at a time; to ease the pain if not the effect of a whole people being run from their homes. They are heading East because John says it’s more ‘liberal’; more ‘understanding’, though she fails to see how it could possibly be less of those things in any direction, and so the Wild West seems even scarier than before. (What creatures walk the mountains, if going back the way they came is the safest option? What horrors do the white men wish to inflict if murder and scorched earth is all they’ve seen on their slow travels?)
This small town is made up of farmers who speak German; someone in the last town had noticed her slight accent and asked if she was Dutch. Yes, she had said, many years ago. (It could be true; she doesn’t remember where her white parents had come from; doesn’t even remember their last name. They were just Mama and Pop and Willie.) It’s the story they stick to if anyone asks, though few do – everyone here has come from somewhere else, so there is little judgement for a white woman speaking with an accent, married to a Scottish man born on the border of North Carolina and Tennessee.
Most frustrating of all, though, is there is little sympathy for the Sioux (surprisingly there is also little open hostility, at least in the day to day running of the town). These people have escaped persecution themselves (You’d think they would understand more than anyone, she says late at night, curled against him with her growing bump nestled between them); the Germans tolerate the existence of Indians, provided they stay away from their farms and families. Everyone is too busy trying to make a new life to worry about the thousands they have displaced along the way; the policies of a government still half unrecognised this far away. Those that do have any strong opinions have suffered, the way young Christine’s family suffered, and their hatred runs deep.
She can understand that, in her heart. For the longest time she hated the Pawnee too.
But how to explain to people that the Sioux are different – that every nation is different, with their own language, their own customs, their own views of integration and assimilation. The white people don’t see, and most importantly they don’t care, that the Sioux would open their homes and their lands in return for the respect and understanding that would be afforded any European nation in their place.
(Dances tells her of white wars, and when they stop in any town large enough he takes books from the library and together they learn that it’s the same everywhere; that it was the same when the Romans expanded, and when the Austrian Empire took hold; the Irish suffer, and the Australian native people are detested, and at the end of the day – no matter the country – nothing is different. All these places, she says, and all these ages; the wheel turns but it does not change, and now the spokes have trodden on her people. One night they sit and read – him teaching her more and more the printed language of her parents the way she taught him the spoken language of her people – and they both cry over the futility of fighting against human history.)
Everyone is just trying to survive; John and Christine’s plea for mercy and coexistence fall on deaf ears. They can see how it will eventually end, and they want no part of it.
And soon they will have to stop their travels altogether and settle in a safe town; build themselves a house and prepare for their child where they know they will be safe for a while. He will not see her give birth alone on a dusty road somewhere while campaigning against a newly minted government. He will not risk them like that, no matter the risk to his own safety if they are caught being idle.
He worries for his family, and knows that Stands is scared too, for the child inside her and for the journey she will go on to bring it to the world.
But a part of him remains light; hopeful that they can make their small corner of the world as copacetic as possible, and if not that, then at least emulate a fraction of the joy he felt being among the Sioux people.
&dwd&
The night they decide that they cannot ride any further, they make love on a bison fur under the stars, in a field where Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota meet. It’s almost the summer, and she grows bigger by the day; he lies behind her and enters her from behind, careful not to push too deep. When she comes it’s on a long sigh, and when he catches his breath he laughs as the baby moves and begins kicking his hand in the wake of her release.
They shift and shuffle under the covers, facing each other with their legs entwined, the moon bright above in a sea of stars. (The tipi is set up and awaiting them, frost tending to settle on even the warmest spring nights, but when he’d pulled their furs outside she couldn’t deny him.)
Hush, she whispers to her stomach, rubbing circles over what she thinks is a foot.
He’s feisty, he whispers with amusement, softly pushing her hand aside so he can feel the limb too, in awe at the thought their child is growing in there.
You want a son, she asks, peering at him with bemusement. A strong boy with your chin, she adds, grinning and stroking his face, tracing the line of his jaw with her thumb and forefinger. She kisses him, just because she can.
I don’t think any child of yours could be anything but strong, be it a boy or girl, he responds, and kisses her again. And I love it already, whatever it is.
And that’s all they say about that.
They lie under the stars and hold each other, and before they fall asleep they move inside the tipi. The next morning they cross the river, and almost immediately encounter people heading in each direction, and he knows he will never see the open frontier again. (It no longer exists.)
&dwd&
They settle next to the river that marks the Iowa border, half way between the growing town of Sioux City and an area dubbed Sioux County. From stories and the little recorded history of the area, she knows they are right on the edge of the ancestral homelands of her people, in territory long since abandoned to the encroaching white invaders.
It seems fitting.
Iowa was spared much of the fighting in the war, has bountiful farmlands, and is sympathetic to returning Union soldiers. (It’s not a lie, he says to her. It’s not a lie to say I was a soldier and I was injured. It is only a lie to say whose side I was fighting.
And whose side were you fighting for, she asks him, running a hand through his hair as he lays his ear against her stomach.
Ours, he says.)
They make tentative friends with some of the farms around them, theirs being the smallest and more like a large garden than any decent property (abandoned by a family who lost all its sons in the fighting). It’s nestled between the water and a clump of trees, demarcated by a dirt track and natural borders; isolated and private, but only a few hours’ ride to the nearest town. John helps adjacent neighbours with repairs and fencing, and he wrangles two-hundred head of cattle so efficiently that he is rewarded with a young bull. They trade it for a dairy cow and a goat, and a handful of corn seeds because the season is just right for it. She thinks she will be able to make them grow, and she knows how to cook corn into all kinds of things. (A little taste of home.)
The goat is wily; John chases it around the outer paddock when it breaks free of its ties.
They’ll be calling me Dances With Goats soon, he calls, when he finally catches it and walks it back to their small garden yard. But it was good of the man to throw it in for free.
Christine laughs, remembering when he had nothing to his name and still asked for her hand; recalling the way a whole people came together to give him worthwhile offerings so that he might marry her. (Kicking Bird had ended up giving half of it back to their original owner one piece at a time, and another handful to her for their wedding gift, but it was the gesture that counts.)
These people are not so different after all, she says in their native tongue, watching the goat graze the grass next to the shack they have erected. Her belly protrudes over her feet, her hands supporting her back as she leans to accommodate the shift in her centre of gravity.
(Not long now, he thinks, and tries not to think of all the things that could go wrong.)
I don’t think anybody is very different from one another. All anyone wants is to belong, he replies, securing the rope to the yard stick with plenty of length so the goat won’t run off again but can roam around. He walks up to the doorway she’s standing in (temporary, until he can build them a proper home, though it’s far more secure than their trusty tipi).
Do you think we’ll belong here, she asks, placing her hand on his chest, his heart still thrumming from all the running he did chasing the goat. He pulls her close, running a hand over her back, the other resting against their child.
We belong together. I go where you go. That’s enough for me, he replies, and then kisses the side of her head and walks inside.
&dwd&
Their daughter is born in the early afternoon on a warm Sunday at the very end of summer.
Agnes, the wife from a neighbouring farm, comes to assist and she misses church to ensure Christine is calm and cared for. John doesn’t leave, fetching water and cloth and anything else the woman needs, guilty that his beloved is in such agony and for so long.
She knows what to do, says Agnes, gesturing to Christine, confident that the generations of women that have come before them left the memory of what to do in their bones. Sure enough, when she needs to push she does, and when she needs to breathe she does that too, and though she is tired and in pain, John knows there is no stronger woman on the planet that could bring life to his child. (This is Stands With A Fist, the young girl who knocked a woman clean out, the woman who made a place for herself when she had nothing.) He has faith in her, and holds her hand and tells her so. Agnes is bemused that he stays, but they are all farmers here; birth is just another step in the circle of life.
He is terrified, and remains so until a hearty wail is heard through the small space of their home.
And the child that is born on the Sabbath day, recites Agnes, is bonny and blithe and good and gay.
He watches with wide eyes as the bloody babe is lifted onto his wife’s chest, and in a few short moments she roots for her breast. Christine’s exhausted arms come up and her hands cradle the back of her head and backside, as only instinct can. There are tears in her eyes and a smile on her face. The baby stops crying almost immediately.
A daughter, she whispers to him in Lakota.
Winona, he replies. It is the Lakota word meaning first born daughter, but in the English-speaking world it is also a given name (from the legend of an Indian Princess popular up north; the story is both false and ignorant, but it gives them a good cover story for giving their daughter a native name). She nods at him, tears falling; they will call her Winona, and when she earns her Sioux name they will share that with her too. There may not be a Medicine Man here to bestow the ceremony of naming, but the tradition can still be held close.
Everything after that happens in a blur; cleaning everything up, getting the baby to feed for the first time, letting Christine rest. John stays by her side while Agnes tells them what to look out for in the coming days to make sure mother and child stay healthy. (She bore three healthy children and a son who died young, and knows the best and worst of this journey.)
She warns them that being so far from town could be dangerous. (They try not to laugh at the irony.)
When she leaves, Dances tells Stands to sleep, whispering words of love and admiration in her ear, in a language nobody for miles can understand. He lies on the fur next to her, reclined against the wooden wall of their tiny shack, and cradles the baby on his chest. She is quiet, but her eyes are open. They look old, and full of wisdom, and he’s never really been this close to an infant before but he thinks he knows what to do to keep her safe.
He watches her – tiny eyes finally falling closed once she’s had her fill of this new world – and then he starts reciting the story of how her parents met. The words feel clumsy; there are still so many turns of phrase he doesn’t know in Lakota, but he does okay, and that’s not what’s important anyway.
The sun is getting low when Christine stirs next to him, and he shuffles down to lie beside her and settles the baby between them on the soft bison fur. They unwrap her blankets and count her toes, watching with fascination as her hands close around their fingers even in sleep. They laugh when her lips pucker and she seems to frown. Christine sings her a lullabye while she feeds her again at her breast.
He’s not sure what he did right in his life to end up here.
&dwd&
Winnie is nearly three years old when she earns her first Sioux name.
The farm is still small, but they make do with what they have, and sell what little extra corn they produce over the summer, and mostly they are a family who live off the earth rather than plunder it. Those in the area leave them alone and nobody questions their need for solitude. Many people changed after the war; if this is their way, and they aren’t hurting anybody, the folk in the area don’t much care that they remain insular. The children from the area sometimes come and play with Winnie if they stumble onto their property, now that they know she’s old enough, but she’s not allowed to go further than the second fence. (Perhaps when she’s older, thinks John, they won’t be so afraid of letting her out of their sight. Perhaps they won’t be so worried that she’ll slip into Lakota and be punished, though she’s perceptive enough to only speak English with others.)
He and Christine are arguing out in the garden when Winnie makes herself known, the two of them fighting over what to buy from the store. The summer yielded a good crop of corn in their small field which led to a better return, and last year’s crop allowed them to buy enough lumber to improve their house. Next they want to save for a two wheel buggy to make trips into town easier. He wants to go to town now and buy a horse-pulled garden hoe and flour to make wheat bread rather than cornbread. She wants more seeds to expand their personal food garden since Winnie is eating more.
I know I don’t look like it, John Dunbar, she spits at him when he says she should just try the wheat flour before she says no to the idea of white food. But you married a Sioux woman.
That has nothing to do with it, he replies in English, frustrated and annoyed with her refusal. It’s not that he dislikes the meals they cook, or that he thinks she should do better, he just wants her to try a flour that will rise, for something new and to let Winnie taste it, and so maybe they can make a cake one day like he remembers from when he was a boy. (He wonders when he started craving change, instead of fighting against it. He wonders why he misses anything about his white upbringing, when it gave him little but sorrow.)
From out the front door Winnie’s little legs carry her over, and without hesitation she stands between them, planting her feet firmly with her hands on her hips.
No, she says in English, frowning at them both like she’s scolding them. Her chubby little hands go out, fingers extended wide, palms facing them like she’s breaking up a fist fight. She eyes them both equally, craning her neck to look up at them, a familiar look of reprimand on her face. Stop, she says in Lakota. No yelling. Stop.
It takes them a moment to get their bearings, but when they do they laugh; loud, full-bodied laughter that rings out over the field and John scoops Winnie into his arms and kisses her cheeks over and over until she giggles.
They taught her no yelling when she scared the goat last week with her boisterous shouts. Sioux children are given room to grow and make mistakes, unlike the childhood John remembers of being expected to behave like a small adult. The Sioux do not yell to prove their point; they teach and instruct, and Winnie is so fiercely intelligent that she takes it all in like a sponge, watching all the various duties on the farm like her life depends on it. (She’s yet to get the knack of milking the cow, her hands not dextrous enough, but she can pick up a chicken with care. She knows not to touch the fire pit if it’s been lit, and she can carry a small tinny of water to the kitchen from the well. Sometimes Christine looks at Winnie’s baby blonde curls – calls her strawberry with fondness – and hears the echo of her own mother calling the same nickname across the yard in her dreams.
The longer they live here the more vivid her meagre memories have become.
They don’t hurt the same way they used to.)
Mama help, says Winnie between giggles, reaching for her mother to take her. She does, and cuddles her close, kissing her hair; pride shining through her like the sun as her daughter wraps her arms and legs around her. She lets the moment settle in her bones, one more memory to add to their life here. The heat makes them irritable, the cold makes them miserable. She’s not sure she’ll ever get used to not migrating with the seasons (but maybe, she thinks, looking at her husband, she will enjoy it anyway because she has what she truly needs within reach of her outstretched arms.)
Glusta cikala, she mutters against Winnie’s golden curls. My little peacemaker.
You’re right my girl, says John, tugging playfully on her pinafore hem. No yelling.
He looks over her head to Christine, softly rocking on the spot as she holds their daughter close. I’m sorry, he mouths at her. She nods and gives him a small smile of forgiveness. He plants his hands in his pockets and stares at the two of them, lost somewhere in thought.
Buy the garden hoe in town tomorrow, she says, nodding when he meets her eye. They knew there would be compromise when they decided to stop running and build a life on the edge of this river, on land once wild now slowly tamed by each new generation of white settlers. Her people are long gone, the last of them being rounded up as they stand there in relative safety and peace. (Survivor’s guilt fills both their hearts with sorrow, and that’s one more thing they share here.)
He does buy the hoe in the end, but leaves the flour and instead buys more of the same seeds, and some extra corn for next year’s crop. He ends up having to borrow a four wheel buggy to get the hoe back to the property, and returns the buggy the next day, but it’s worth the effort to increase their food production. (Christine kisses him long and deep when he gets home that night, and they apologise to each other in all kinds of quiet ways.)
&dwd&