Grace

The fight had just begun, but would end quickly. They were so greatly outnumbered that killing them would be like swatting flies. Her hands shook as she stepped down from the chair with the loaded gun. The gun held four bullets. One had been in the chamber since she first came to this land with him and one had been added at the birth of each child. Protection, he called the bullets, protection for his wife and children when he could no longer protect--protection from that fate worse than death.

She knew the routine well. This was not the first time she had taken the gun from the top of the wall cabinets he had built for her dishes. This was not the first time she had gotten this far into the routine, but always before help had come before she needed to use the gun. Now she knew there was no time for help; and a great deal of help would have been needed. It sounded like the whole tribe was out there. She knew what she must do. The gun was for her protection and she was an honorable woman. He had told her that if the time ever came, he would take care of the children himself--if he had time--but, if she must, she must.

He would never allow her to stand at the gun slots with him. She was his wife and it was his duty to protect her and his children. He had met her back east and taken her from a father who protected her from life as he now tried to protect her from life. She was a delicate looking woman, small boned and blonde with soft, innocent eyes. He thought of her as frail.

Three children had been born in this cabin and all without the help of a doctor and one--the little blonde girl--without even his help. She was born before her due time and after he had left for the field and before he had returned. But the woman labored and brought forth. The man had never heard her scream during childbirth nor had never seen the fear. She carried wood, water and children and began work before he rose in the morning and continued after he had finally sat for the evening; but he loved her and thought of her as frail.

Sweat poured out all over her body. He was down. They knew he was down. No more arrows hit her cabin walls. It was quiet outside and his life was draining out of him onto her cabin floor. Three small children whimpered under her kitchen table.

The gun was in her hand. She was an honorable woman, a decent woman. She had heard tales of women who had been taken into captivity and then returned. She knew of the neighbor who had found his wife and brought her back, expecting decent women to talk to her. Talk to her--they couldn't even look at her. He found her the second time in the barn, the chair she had used knocked over by the swinging of her legs.

It was time. They would be inside soon and it was time. Fear froze her arm. She looked at him. “Do it,” he said. She didn’t move. “Give me the gun,” he pleaded. Still she didn’t move. He said again softly, “do it” and she knew he said it out of love, out of a desire to protect when he could no longer protect; but now, anger at him washed over her. She had had no grand desire for adventure. She had never wanted to come to this place. It was he who wanted to make a life in this foreign, savage land. She had only wanted to be with him, wanted to bake his bread and bear his children.

Until this minute, the gun had represented protection to her too--protection from that fate worse than death. Now it represented only death--instant and final. And she wanted life. She wanted one more minute of life for herself and her children, and years and years of life for herself and her children. She knew they might quickly be dead, but she could not stop the life she had labored to bring into the world and she could not let go of her own breath.

She dropped the gun onto the floor. He dropped his head onto his chest and cried. She had never loved him more than she loved him now, and would have spared him this last pain if she could have; but life was too precious.

A tomahawk found his head on its way through the door, and in a way, she was grateful for that. The tomahawk struck her too, for his wife, the vessel of young innocent love was dead, but still she lived.

They were inside now. They surveyed the woman and her children with the same scrutiny as the pots and quilts. One man screamed, raised his weapon into the air and started toward her children. Another voice spoke quickly, harshly--a voice of command, and the attacker stopped. In minutes she and her children were being bound and taken into captivity. She thought her heart would burst with thankful gladness.

Summer. Winter. Spring and Fall. The passing of seasons had turned the woman’s blonde hair to white and years of sun had made leather of her skin. Her back, like the backs of other old women in the tribe, was bent from hard work and poor nutrition and from a distance, you would not have distinguished her from any other.

She sat on a skin on the side of a hill and watched her grandson ride a horse for the first time. A soft, early summer sun warmed the grass, the air and the skin. The warmth soaked down from the sun and up from the skin and into her bones and eased the pain that lived there now.

As she sat watching her grandson, her youngest son came to sit beside her and offered her a small gift of jerky. She put the jerky into a mouth now void of any sound teeth. She smiled at her son in appreciation and he watched pleased, smiling as she sucked the strong meat flavor he knew she loved.

His three brothers and two half brothers were among the men who had left this morning in a hunting party. But this son, this youngest son, didn’t ride. The twisted legs that were a part of his birth made it difficult for him to move at all, and riding was just too painful. So, he sat soaking comfort and pleasure from the company of his mother and nephew.

The fever of the past winter had taken both his father and his half sister, the young horseman’s mother. But he could still see his sister in the slant of her son’s smile and when he most missed his father he always sought the company of his mother, and through her, was once again close to his father.

In all of the days of her life, the woman never forgot the young man who planted the fields or her love for him. But with this son’s father she had never felt anything missing. It was a different love--older and stronger. He had never tried to protect her from life--only death.

Through a door in the back of the old woman’s mind lived a small, blonde girl and a man who sat with the child on his lap after had come in from the fields for his evening rest. She would join them soon and her husband of so many years; but, today the company of her son and grandson warmed her heart and the sun warmed her bones. It was a good day to be alive.

Author: Lady Lou