For the rest of the morning she told him about herself, holding the lieutenant’s eager attention with the stories of her time as a white girl, her capture, and her long life as a Comanche.
When she tried to end a story he would ask another question. Much as she might have wanted, she could not get off the subject of herself. He asked how she came to be named, and she told the story of her arrival in camp so many years ago. Memories of her first months were hazy, but she well remembered the day she got her name.
She had not been officially adopted by anyone, nor had she been made a member of the band. She was only working. As she carried out her assignments successfully the work became less menial and she was given more instruction in the various ways of living off the prairie. But the longer she worked, the more resentful she became of her lowly status. And some of the women picked on her unmercifully.
Outside a lodge one morning she took a swing at the worst of these women. Being young and unskilled, she had no hope of winning a fight. But the punch she threw was hard and perfectly timed. It cracked against the point of the woman’s chin and knocked her cold. She kicked her unconscious tormentor for good measure and stood facing the other women with her fists balled, a tiny white girl ready to take on all comers.
No one challenged her. They only watched. In moments everyone had returned to what they were doing, leaving the mean woman lying where she had dropped.
No one picked on the little white girl after that. The family that had been taking care of her became open with their kindnesses, and the road to becoming a Comanche was smoothed for her. She was Stands With A Fist from then on.
A special kind of warmth filled the arbor as she told the story. Lieutenant Dunbar wanted to know the exact spot where her fist struck the woman’s chin, and Stands With A Fist unhesitatingly grazed his jaw with her knuckles.
The lieutenant stared at her after this was done.
His eyes slowly rolled under his lids and he keeled over.
It was a good joke and she extended it, bringing him to by gently jiggling his arm.
This little exchange produced a new ease between them, but good as it was, the sudden familiarity also caused Stands With A Fist some worry. She didn’t want him to ask her personal questions, questions about her status as a woman. She could feel the questions coming, and the specter of this broke her concentration. It made her nervous and less communicative.
The lieutenant sensed her pulling back. It made him nervous and less communicative as well.
Before they knew it, silence had fallen between them once again.
The lieutenant said it anyway. He didn’t know precisely why, but it was something he had to ask. If he let it pass now, he might never ask. So he did.
Casually as he could, he stretched out a leg and yawned.
“Are you married?” he asked.
Stands With A Fist dropped her head and fixed her eyes on her lap. She shook her head in a short, uncomfortable way and said, “No.”
The lieutenant was on the verge of asking why when he noticed that her head was falling slowly into her hands. He waited a moment, wondering if something was wrong.
She was perfectly still.
Just as he was about to speak again she suddenly clambered to her feet and left the arbor.
She was gone before Dunbar could call after her. Devastated, he sat numbly in the arbor, damning himself for having asked the question and hoping against hope that whatever had gone wrong could be put right again. But there was nothing he could do on that account. He couldn’t ask Kicking Bird’s advice. He couldn’t even talk to Kicking Bird.
For ten frustrating minutes he sat alone in the arbor. Then he started for the pony herd. He needed a walk and a ride.
Stands With A Fist went for a ride, too. She crossed the river and meandered down a trail though the breaks, trying to sort her thoughts.
She didn’t have much luck.
Her feelings about Dances With Wolves were in a terrible jumble. Not so long ago she hated the thought of him. For the last several days, she hadn’t thought of anything but him. And there were so many other contradictions.
With a start she realized she had given no thought to her dead husband. He had been the center of her life so recently, and now she had forgotten him. Guilt bore down on her.
She turned her pony about and started back, forcing Dances With Wolves out of her head with a long string of prayers for her dead husband.
She was still out of sight of the village when her pony lifted his head and snorted in the way horses do when they’re afraid.
Something large crashed in the brush behind her, and knowing the sound was too large to be anything but a bear, Stands With A Fist hurried her pony home.
She was recrossing the river when the idle thought hit her.
I wonder if Dances With Wolves has ever seen a bear, she said to herself.
Stands With A Fist stopped herself then. She could not let this happen, this constant thinking of him. It was intolerable.
By the time she reached the opposite bank the woman who was two people had resolved that her role as a translator would from now on be a thing of business, like trading. It would go no further, not even in her mind.
She would stop it.
CHAPTER XXIII
Lieutenant Dunbar’s solo ride carried him along the river, too. But while Stands With A Fist rode south, he went north.
Despite the day’s intense heat, he swung away from the river after a mile or two. He broke into open country with the idea that, surrounded by space, he might start to feel better.
The lieutenant’s spirits were very low.
He ran the picture of her leaving the arbor over and over in his mind, trying to find something in it to hang on to. But there was a finality about their departure, and it gave him that dreadful feeling of having let something wonderful slip from his hand just as he was picking it up.
The lieutenant chastised himself mercilessly for not having gone after her. If he had, they might be talking happily at this moment, the tender issue, whatever it was, settled and behind them.
He’d wanted to tell her something of himself. Now it might never happen. He wanted to be back in the arbor with her. Instead he was stumbling around out here, wandering like a lost soul under a broiling sun.
He’d never been this far north of the camp and was surprised at how radically the country was changing. These were rear hilts rising in front of him, not mere bumps on the grassland. Running out of the hills were deep, jagged canyons.
The heat, coupled with his constant self-criticism, had set his mind to simmering, and feeling suddenly dizzy, he gave Cisco a little squeeze with his knees. A half mile ahead he had spotted the shady mouth of a dark canyon spilling onto the prairie.
The walls on either side climbed a hundred feet or more and the darkness that fell over horse and rider was instantly refreshing. But as they picked their way carefully over the canyon’s rock-strewn floor, the place grew ominous. Its walls were pressing tighter against them. He could feel Cisco’s muscles bunching nervously, and in the
