"It is an old custom amongst the Pikuni, as well as the Lakota. If it is decided all the facts are true by the Pikuni All Friends Society, they can take action against a woman who has strayed away from her husband, and, since your custom about love with another is different from ours, there very well might come a time when you could be found in the arms of another besides your 'husband,' as you have already told me."
"I understand, but what is this custom?"
"It is an ancient practice, and one I think should be put aside forever."
"All right. But, please tell me what this gruesome tradition is you seem to be unwilling to tell me."
He sighed. "Amongst my people there are several women whose noses are cut here." He put a finger to the end of his nose and made motions of slicing through it. "These women strayed from their husband's side and had 'love affairs'—as you call them—with another."
Czanna gasped aloud. "How cruel! If true, this is worse than being merely horrible or grim."
"I fear it is true."
"And, is the man subjected to the same?"
"Saa,he is not. He is free to marry another."
"How utterly barbaric! How inhuman!"
"It is, indeed. Still, it happens. And, so it is that I can never have this affair with you, nor can I engage in an act my people consider is marriage, knowing you feel it is your right to simply be with me in body, but to marry another."
"But…but, there would be little danger of any of this happening to me now, since we are at this moment not married, nor are we lovers. Would they do the same to a woman, like me, who merely asked to have an affair with you, but who has not yet done it?"
"Questions of the heart are never punished," he answered. "Only the act."
"Oh. And so, if you agree to the pact I have suggested and we have an affair only—no marriage—would they try to find me and cut off the end of my nose?"
"Saa."
"Again, that word means what?"
"No. It means no, they would not seek you out to commit the deed, but you would be in danger were you to come into my camp after having made love to me and then marrying another."
She sat for a moment in thought. At length, she said, "Then, really, I don't see the problem, since I do not intend to ever go into your camp."
"And yet, it is in my camp where you might likely find your cousin. Do you think others would not see, would not know what we do or have done if we make this pact between us? Think you that we might fool even the wise men? If we love each other and have this affair, they will know."
"Mr. Stands Strong, I think I might safely say this to you: I do not think I will ever be required to go into your camp. I am asking you to take me to where my cousin lives in the mountains, not into the encampment of your people. I think your fear of this is for naught. Indeed, you have only to agree to the pact, and I will uphold my end of the bargain without ever putting forward a single toe into your camp."
"But, you forget, I cannot agree to it, nor will I."
"So, does this mean you will walk away from me, never to help me to find my cousin? Or do you simply mean you will never agree to the conditions of ,my offer to you?"
"I will not agree to the treaty you seek with me," he answered.
"But, Mr. Stands Strong, if you love me as you say you do, and if I am determined to never go into your camp, why can you not agree? Please understand, I fear that if you do not look more favorably upon my offer, I…well, I don't know what I will do. I must find my cousin somehow. So much depends on me finding him. My entire family relies on my—" She broke off.
He squeezed her hand. "There is more to this than I am telling you. And now, as you have been honest with me, I must be so with you."
"Oh? There is even more you haven't said to me?"
"I fear there is," he responded. "Tell me, beautiful woman, does your God sanction your stepping outside your marriage to make love to another? Or, if you were to meet my people, as I think you will surely do even if I take you into the mountains, will your God look the other way if you are only pretending to be my woman and have no intention of marrying me?"
She paused and cleared her throat before saying, "All my life, I have been told He will forgive."
"This may be so for you, but I will tell you this: Sun, the Creator, who is my God, does not look the other way, and it is hard for me to understand your God is so different from mine. But, perhaps He is. And, now I must say to you what I have withheld from you: what you ask of me is impossible for me, since I am one of Sun's children. If I were to stray away from Him and make love to you, I would be severing my ties with Sun, and since I do not believe it is good or right for a woman to make love to a man other than her husband, I, too, would pay a penalty, though perhaps not the physical one you might have to face.
"But, maybe the fault is mine," he continued, "since I have been reluctant to discuss this with you, so let me tell you this in another way. If I make love to you, I would ruin you for another, and since you do not believe you could ever become my woman, it would taint me in a spiritual way, since I would be engaging in anact I know is harmful to you. My God does not look favorably on this."
