“I cannot, Uncle. I do not know what draws me to her. It is as if the spirits led me to the river where she was bathing that day. I have never seen a woman so beautiful. One look at that magnificent hair and golden eyes, and I saw a wildcat; a she-cat; a lioness. I had to have her. She is the mirror of my soul; my soulmate. My heart recognized her immediately.”
“That is fine, Panther, but must she be your only wife? First take a Cheyenne bride, and let the white girl become your second wife. In many ways you fit your namesake. You are swift and silent on the attack, and move with the peculiar grace of a great cat. Like the panther, you stalk your prey, and he rarely eludes you. You emerge from battle victorious over your foes, and many fear just the mention of your name. The panther mates with many she-cats. He does not limit himself to one.”
“That is where the big cat and I differ, then. I have chosen my mate, and want no other. It is Little Wildcat I wish for the mother of my children, and I want no bastards. Even now she could be carrying my child.”
“How would she feel about this if she does bear you a child, Panther? You have told me how she is adjusting, but you’ve said nothing of what she feels. Has she told you of her thoughts and emotions?”
“We have spoken of this, Uncle. She wishes to stay among our people and with me. She has told me of her love for me. When I brought her to my tipi, she was untouched. She has known no man but me. She is not a whore.”
“I have seen her with the children of the tribe. She is good with them, and they adore her. She would make a good mother for my children, and she will love them because they are a product of our love.”
“Would she not wish to raise them in the white man’s way, as your mother did?” Black Kettle questioned.
Panther shook his head. “She would raise them to be good Cheyenne because I ask it. Her pride is great, but above all else she is obedient to my every wish. Her dignity and courage are remarkable, and these traits would be strong in our children.”
Black Kettle contemplated Panther’s words. At last he spoke again. “There is but one way I would sanction the marriage. Little Wildcat must first prove herself to be worthy of being called Cheyenne. I would then adopt her as my own daughter, but first she must pass certain tests of loyalty, skill, and courage, much as our young braves do. Only then will I bless your marriage. When she has proven herself, and I am satisfied, she will become a daughter of the tribe and you will have your Cheyenne bride. It is the only way our tribe will accept it.”
Panther nodded in agreement. “I accept your edict as my chief. Little Wildcat will not fail you.”
“One more thing,” the old chief added. “As her first test, I require her presence at my side during the final day of the Sun Dance. It will interest me to see her reaction. Most whites who have ever viewed it, your mother included, have thought it cruel and inhuman.” Panther clenched his teeth at his uncle’s craftiness. “If it is explained to her properly, I am sure she will understand its significance. She may not like it, but she will not shame any of us by discrediting its meaning to our people,” he assured Black Kettle. “Neither will she flee from it, for my woman is brave of spirit. She is not cowardly or faint-hearted.”
“You are very sure,” Black Kettle commented.
“I know her as well as I know the lines of my own hand.”
“For both your sakes, I hope you are right,” Black Kettle relented. “I know I am being hard on you both, but I must be assured. I do not wish to see history repeat itself. I only wish to save you the pain your father endured. If she is truly the woman you claim, it will be proven, and I will proudly proclaim her as my daughter.”
Much later, Panther entered his own tipi to find Tanya waiting for him. He had said nothing to her about approaching Chief Black Kettle on the subject of marriage. Hesitant over his uncle’s reaction, Panther had not wanted to build Tanya’s hopes, only to have them cruelly crushed.
The tests his uncle had laid out were difficult, but a woman of Wildcat’s courage and defiance stood a strong chance of passing them. At least Black Kettle had not dismissed the idea entirely. Now Panther had the chore of outlining the plan to Tanya, and convincing her that she had the strength, with his guidance, to see it through.
“IT’S IMPOSSIBLE!” Tanya exclaimed. “Panther, the list of tests you just reeled off are as long as your arm! There is no way I could pass them all!”
Panther eyed her calmly. “Do you wish to be my wife or not?”
“Of course I do!” Tanya was pacing the floor of the tipi. “I love you more than life itself!”
Panther sat on the mat watching her. “Then set your mind to the task before you, Wildcat. You are a strong, stubborn woman. You can meet the challenge. I will help you, as will Shy Deer, Walks-Like-A-Duck, and Winter Bear. We will get one of the elders to instruct you in our religion, our history, customs and ceremonies. The old medicine woman will help you learn the herbs and ways of healing. Already you know the language and nearly all the work required of a woman.”
Tanya gave a rueful laugh. “That is not the part that bothers me. I admit, with practice I may be able to shoot an animal and clean it myself. I can tan the hide and sew it into clothing. Erecting and dismantling the tipi will be easy, as will preparing a meal for the chief, but how on earth can I be expected to learn the religion and history, and the customs and rites that took you years to absorb? I’ll be an old woman before we can marry!”
“You don’t give your intelligence enough credit,” Panther said. “Learning our language was the hardest part, and you picked it up easily. The Cheyenne tongue is one of the most difficult of the Indian languages, and you have mastered it in weeks.”
“Fine,” she acknowledged, “but what about the rest of it? According to Black Kettle, I must learn to ride and shoot and hunt as well as one of your braves. What about the part where I must learn to track an animal or man, and avoid being tracked in turn? That must take months to learn, at least!”
“I will teach you the ways of the forest and plains, Wildcat, and you could ask for no better teacher,” he told her.
“It is not your abilities I question, Panther,” she conceded. “It is my own. If I succeed in learning all this, I still have to learn to fight as a brave would. How can a woman fight a man and win?”
“I will see that you are matched with a young brave of your own size so the contest will be evenly matched,” he assured her, “and I will teach you how to defeat him. We will practice until you can throw me on my back and keep me there, and you will be able to defeat your opponent with ease. It is not so much a matter of size and strength as how you use your weight to your best advantage, and use moves your foe does not expect.”
“That’s just great,” she grumbled, “but I still have to count coup on an enemy and survive a full week in the wilds on my own. Isn’t that a bit much to ask of a mere woman?”
“You are no mere woman,” he reminded her, his dark eyes glowing as they traced her slim form. “You are
my
woman, and you will be my wife.”
Tanya stopped pacing and went to kneel before him. Taking his face gently between her two small hands, she said earnestly, “You have such great faith in me, Panther. How can I ever hope to live up to what you and your uncle expect of me?”
Panther enfolded her in his arms, her head in the hollow beneath his chin. “You need the same faith in yourself, Little Wildcat. We will work hard, and you will surprise even yourself. Is the prize not worth the effort?”
She raised her face to his. “You are right, my love, as always. I will succeed in this if it kills me, for I want nothing so much as to call you husband.”
Tanya sat stiffly next to the old chief on the last and most important day of the Sun Dance ceremony. She had made herself a new outfit for the occasion, for she refused to sit next to the proud chief in a less than perfectly sewn doeskin dress and moccasins. Her hair hung in two long, tawny braids across her shoulders, and about her head was the beautifully beaded headband Panther had given her.
Stoically she watched as the skewers were driven through the young men’s chests and attached to the ropes of the central pole. She willed herself not to wince as they were hoisted off the ground to dangle like macabre puppets. Feeling Black Kettle’s eyes on her, she purposefully kept her face blank of all emotion.
“What do you think of it so far?” the chief asked her.
“It is unusual and impressive,” she replied evenly, thankful that her voice did not waver. Panther and Shy Deer had both explained the ceremony to her in great detail, and while she still didn’t like it, she at least understood and accepted its importance to these people.
“Do you not find it cruel and inhuman?” Black Kettle persisted.
“Many things in this life seem harsh and cruel, but we must endure them,” she answered. “I would not criticize something I do not fully comprehend. I know this is an important part of Cheyenne tradition, and I accept it as such.”
Black Kettle nodded and declined further comment.
For hours Tanya sat with him in the hot sun and waited for the ceremony to end. The sun and the chanting were giving her a headache, and her back ached from her efforts to keep it straight. As she watched the Sun Dancers in their tormented agony, she sympathized with their pain, deliberately willing away the nausea that threatened her.
One by one the dancers dropped, sometimes breaking bones as they fell. Finally it was over.
“You did well, Little Wildcat.” Black Kettle complimented her.
“Your respect and approval are important to me,” she replied. “I will work hard to earn and deserve your esteem.”
“The road ahead is hard. Make sure you choose the right path,” he advised.
Tanya responded simply and sincerely, “All my paths lead to Panther.”
The plains were a familiar, if unwelcome, sight to Tanya. She recalled the long, difficult trek with the wagon train. She much preferred the cool, green mountains, but wherever Panther decided to go, she would follow. The tall, thick buffalo grass was not as difficult to travel through on horseback as it had been by wagon, at least.
In the next months, they moved every few days, following the buffalo herds. Whenever the scouts reported a herd had been sighted, the men would form a hunting party and go after them on their specially trained buffalo ponies.
The women would follow at a distance and set up camp nearby. Then they would take their hatchets, knives, and scrapers, and start butchering the slain beasts. As in everything else, every part of the buffalo was put to use; nothing wasted. It was grueling work, and Tanya’s respect for the Indian women grew even more.
Tanya was amazed at the size of the beasts. Personally, she thought them ugly creatures, but she was delighted at the thought of the warm robes their hides would make for the cold winter to come. The number of animals needed to provide meat and hides for the tribes astounded her, but she had heard the Cheyenne tell of long, cold winters with little to eat toward the end. February was known as ‘the month the babies cry for food.’
For long hours under a merciless sun, Tanya toiled with the other women. After butchering and skinning the buffalo, the women spent days drying the meat and cutting it into strips. Sinew, bone and fat were processed. The hides were salted and scraped, wet, and stretched out to dry, rubbed with brains and oil, scraped again, and on and on until they were finally fit for use. Then another herd would be located, and the whole process would begin again.
Much of the time, Tanya would perform her tasks while listening to the elder whom Panther had enlisted to instruct her in Cheyenne theology. It was the only way she could fit her lessons into her busy day. When she was not learning from the elder, she was trying to absorb the information the medicine woman, wise in the arts of healing, imparted to her.
“If learning by absorption is possible,” she thought wearily, “this just may work.”
Whenever possible, she practiced with her bow and arrows. Panther was relentless about this, and she improved if only from constant repetition. He managed to take her hunting a few times, and the day Tanya killed her first rabbit was the proudest moment she could recall. A week later, she killed a doe. Winter Bear was along to confirm the kill, and using its soft, pale hide, she began to sew the outfit she would wear when adopted into the tribe. A few weeks later she had enough skins to complete the dress and soft moccasins.
Panther was an equally hard taskmaster when it came to her riding skills. “It is not enough merely to sit astride the animal and guide him with your knees,” he told her.
Much to her dismay, she learned this was true. Tanya, like any young Cheyenne brave, was expected to become a living extension of her mount. She nearly broke her neck the first time she attempted to swing to the side of her horse, clinging only by her legs and feet, with one arm about the horse’s neck.
“In this manner,” Panther explained, “you can hide your entire body along the unexposed side of your horse, and shoot at your enemy from under the horse’s neck.”
“Easy for you to say,” Tanya complained as she rubbed her bruised posterior.
Not only that, Panther insisted she learn to crouch on the horse’s back and to stand as the animal galloped over the rough terrain. “You need to know this in order to leap onto an enemy’s back or onto another horse, or to catch hold of an overhead tree limb and swing yourself onto it.”
“A skill I’ll need every day, I’m sure,” she grumbled, shooting him a nasty look.
Panther merely grinned and made her try again.
If Tanya thought she was bruised and battered from this, it was nothing compared to the beating she received when Panther decided it was time she learned the fine art of fighting.
“You tricked me!” she howled, glowering at him as she picked herself up and dusted herself off for what seemed like the thousandth time.
“That’s the general idea,” he retorted calmly. “When you are fighting for your life, you don’t stop to consider what is fair and what is not. You defeat your enemy in any way you can, and as swiftly as possible. You don’t announce your intentions or give him a plan of your every move.”