CHAPTER EIGHT
"My son, do you need me to tell you that I and your mother would like to see you happy?"
"I am happy, Father," said Red Fox.
"But, no man is truly contented without a woman by his side," observed Weasel Plume. "And, your mother believes Little Elk Woman would be a good woman for you. She is a good-looking woman and a hard worker. You could not do better."
"I am certain she is all a man might like, but I am not interested, Father."
"Not interested in a woman?"
"I did not say I am not interested in women, Father. I like women well enough."
"It is the white girl, is it not?"
"Of course it is, Father. I have loved her for many years, and now she is grown up, I may at last make her mine."
His father hesitated a few moments before he replied, "You must do as you must. But, remember this: our family still mourns for my sister and her children, who are no longer with us because of the white man's desire to kill all life, there on the Marias."
"I, too, mourn the loss of my auntie and her children. But, Poka'aki and her family had no part in what happened. This you know."
"Áa,what you say is true. But, this I would say to you, my son. The whites are different from us. They kill without regard of ensuring they attack the right village. And, it was a familyquarrel that killed the husband of Cocothima. Do the whites now interfere in family matters?"
"What you say is true, Father. But, this is not only a problem for the whites, but for all men."
"All men?"
"Do not all tribes go to war for even less? Even our own men have made war on a people of an enemy tribe who had nothing to do with a killing. How are the whites so very different from us? I believe they love and they hate as much as our own people. If I were to bring a Crow woman home, would you object?"
"Áa,I would speak up if you wished to make her your sits-beside-him-wife, though I would be silent on the matter to you if you disregarded my caution and brought her home as your woman."
"My father, listen to me. Poka'aki and her people did not commit this crime against us. The Long Knives, alone, are responsible. Are you not committing the same offense as the Long Knives? Attacking all whites and not those responsible, like Poka'aki and her family?"
Red Fox's father sat silently for several moments. But, at last, he said, "You speak wisely, but without experience in these matters, I think. Blood will win out. And, I believe she would disrupt the smooth running of our family."
"How so?" asked Red Fox. "People are people, regardless of being white or Pikuni. Poka'aki is a brave woman; she is kind, and she will bring honor to our family and our people. Besides, you are forgetting our family is already tied to hers. My sister is married to the one we call Otahko'sstss, Yellow Fire, or as the Americans call him, George. He is Poka'aki's brother."
"This is different. Otahko'sstss is an honorable man and has been a Pikuni warrior and hunter. He has gone on raids with us. He is one of us. But, Poka'aki…she does not know howto do a woman's work. She does not seek to work as a woman. Instead, she hunts like a man; she rides a man's horse—"
"I gave her the horse she now rides."
"But, she is more like a man than she is a woman."
"Do you insult me, Father? Do you believe I am less a man because I love Poka'aki and wish to make her my woman?"
"I say to you now: she will be a burden to you. Being white and unused to women's work, she could not and will not make you a proper sits-beside-him-woman. Why, you would have to take several other women as wives to do little more than keep the white woman. And then, what will you do when you find yourself burdened because of having to hunt for so many women?"
"She will make me a proper wife, Father. Tell this to my mother and my almost-mother, your second wife, because I fear my anger might seep into my words and I do not wish to say bad words to my mother and my almost-mother."
"But, my son, do you not see Poka'aki might bring the wrath of the white men down upon us?"
"No, Father, I do not. I think it would be the opposite. You insult her, this woman I love, and I will speak of this to you no more." And so saying, Red Fox came up to his feet, and, pacing toward the lodge's entrance, he bent over to step out of the lodge, leaving behind the home of his mother and his father.
Niitá'p,he could stay not a moment longer in the lodge of his parents. Unlike most unmarried Pikuni men, Red Fox at least owned his own lodge, it having been given to him by his mother and his sister. He would go there now to ponder what he must do to make the woman he loved his own. And, he also must decide where he might find a camp of people more friendly to himself and his new wife. It might very well be the only way they could be together.
Indeed, he had much to consider.
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