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Only the exploits and victories of a husband were painted on the inside walls of a lodge, a woman’s victories did not compare with a man’s since she mainly bore the children and cared for the family.
Although women considered their accomplishments just as important, still it was only the man’s doings that were painted inside their lodges.
Pure Heart, aging and ill, sat with her son of twenty-five winters, Chief Brave Wolf. They were of the Whistling Water Clan of the Crow tribe. Brave Wolf had been given the title of chief upon the death of his beloved chieftain father.
Her moon-white hair was braided and coiled atop her head, her cheeks and eyes sunken by age, Pure Heart sat with a blanket wrapped warmly around her frail shoulders. It was the time of the Moon of the Falling Leaves, when the days became cool and the nights cold.
“Micinksi, my son, you must do this one thing for me before I die,” Pure Heart said as she gazed over the low flames of the fire at Brave Wolf.
In him she saw a replica of her late husband. His face was sculpted and handsome, and his bare, copper shoulders were as muscular as his father’s had once been. He wore only a breechcloth and moccasins.
In his midnight-black eyes she saw wisdom, much of which he had learned from his father. There was also warmth and caring in his gaze as he looked back at her.
She also saw how her words had brought trouble into those eyes.
She had two sons. She realized that one was good, and one bad.
One had chosen the good road of life, the other wandered far from it.
It was for the son who had gone astray that she was so concerned today, a son whom she had not seen for too many moons.
“Ina, my mother, you know that I always try to do all that you ask of me, but this?” Brave Wolf responded, his voice drawn.
He lifted a piece of wood and placed it with the other burning logs in the fire pit, watching as the flames caught hold.
“Micinksi, I understand your hesitation, but remember that we are not talking about just any warrior who chose to ally himself with whites,” Pure Heart said, her voice breaking. “Son, this is your brother. This is Night Horse, the brother who was born only one winter after you took your own first breaths of life. Think of the good times you had with your brother, how you each defended the other when anyone offered too many challenges for only one young brave to deal with. Brave Wolf, it was you who protected your brother that time when you were hunting and a bear threatened Night Horse. You even now carry that bear’s claw in your medicine bundle. Do you not realize the meaning of that? It is a reminder, always, of a brother who loved a brother.”
“I did love him with all my heart, Ina, but he went away from us and chose to be someone I no longer know,” Brave Wolf said thickly.
In frustration, he wove his powerful fingers through his long black hair, which hung loose and flowing to his waist.
He brushed a strand back from his face, then sighed heavily and nodded. “But, hecitu-yelo, yes, I do understand your enduring love for your youngest. I also see that he has brought sadness into eyes that were at one time always filled with sunshine and laughter.”
He leaned forward, his eyes now peering intently into hers. “Ina, he does not deserve such love and devotion,” he said tightly. “He deserves no loyalty from me.”
“But, Brave Wolf, he is still my son, just as you are my son,” she said, then swallowed back a sob. “He . . . is . . . your brother. He is and he always will be. Brothers, no matter what shame one might have brought into a family, are . . . still . . . brothers.”
Brave Wolf sighed heavily, lowered his eyes, then rose to his feet and walked around the fire to sit down beside his mother.
He drew her into his arms. “Does this truly mean so much to you?” he asked, as she clung to him and he slowly caressed her back through the soft blanket. “Is it this important to you?”
“I would not ask it of you if it were not,” she said, this time unable to hold back the tears. She sobbed and clung, then inched away from Brave Wolf so that she could again peer deeply into his midnight-dark eyes. “As long as Night Horse holds breath within his lungs, he is my son and he is your brother. How can you not want to know whether he is alive or dead? He was not found among the dead on the battlefield where yellow-haired Custer died.”
She swallowed hard, then said, “As far as we know, Night Horse did not die,” she said softly. She reached a hand to Brave Wolf’s cheek. “When we received word of this battle, and that it was over, a battle where none of our own Whistling Water Clan fought, I sent you to look for Night Horse. You did not find him among the dead, and we both know that he was one of Yellow Hair’s favored scouts and would have gone into battle with him. He was so enthralled by the evil white leader, he would have died alongside Yellow Hair.”
“Night Horse is probably alive and well and planning to join another group of white pony soldiers riding against his own people,” Brave Wolf said, his voice a low growl. “When he chose the life of a scout, he ceased to be my brother.”
“But by blood, he is and he always will be,” Pure Heart said, lowering her hand away from his face. She wiped tears from her eyes with hands so bony, Brave Wolf shivered and knew that she was surely not long for this earth.
He made himself look away from her hands. Such reminders of his mother’s condition caused great pain inside his heart.
“You know that when Night Horse left our village to ally himself with the cavalry, I did not ever want to see him again, whether or not he was my brother by blood,” he said.
He gazed deep into his mother’s eyes and took her hands in his. “Yet still I went to claim his body for your sake, for proper burial. I did not find him anywhere among the dead on the battlefield,” he said. “I cannot help concluding that Night Horse did not die, but instead had sneaked away like a coward, who must now be hiding. That was many sleeps ago, Mother. If he wanted to be with his people again, with you, he would have found his way home by now.”
“He might be terribly injured and . . . and . . . slowly dying,” Pure Heart said, her voice catching. Tears streamed from her old and faded eyes. “Does it truly matter who he was with when it happened? The fact that he might be dying should be all that matters. He should be with family for his last moments on this earth.”
“Ina, what he did with his life goes against everything Ahte ever taught his two sons,” Brave Wolf replied. “You know that I walk in my father’s shadow and, like him, I am known as a peace chief who deals wisely with the United States Government. I have tried to win every advantage for our people, whereas my brother joined the whites and worked against our people for what he could gain personally. My father, your chieftain husband, represented our tribe at the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. What would he have thought of a son who plotted and planned with whites to try to wipe from the face of the earth red men and women . . . even innocent children.”
