The Far Side of Lonesome Read Free

bear his attention, I welcomed it. He was my
husband in eveyr way. More so than my white husband, I might add.”
She raised her eyes to Jeb, and he finally saw the tears there. But
she didn’t let them fall. “I grew…to care about him. Maybe I
shouldn’t have, but when you live with a man, it’s hard not
to.”
    Jeb’s heart nearly stopped when he
looked into those sky blue eyes, she spoke with her heart and he
sensed she meant every word. He’d never met a white woman who could
adjust her thinking like that. This woman was stronger than she
knew.
    However, if she spoke it aloud, she’d
be in great danger.
    His eyes slid over her slowly now,
digesting her. She wasn’t the prettiest woman he’d ever seen, but
there was something about her that tore into his heart and made him
aware of her as a woman. Not that he’d dare act upon his feelings,
for he was a God fearing man, but it was there nonetheless. The
feeling was sure strange to Jeb. He’d have to pray on those
feelings to God, for some kind of understanding of it. But what she
said…startled him. He stared at her now, his mouth open, his eyes
crinkling into some sort of twisted emotion. He'd never met a white
woman who spoke with such honestly, such an open heart.
    “Yes, ma’am. The Shawnee are a right
fair bunch of Indians. I’ve tangled with a few and they fight as
fair as any white man.” Jeb nodded. “But ma’am, well…you can’t go
saying such in front of your own people, like that. There is no
tellin’ what they might do to you. They hate the Indian as much as
they do the Negroes. It’s unheard of a white woman loving an
Indian.”
    Again she was silent, but after a bit,
she spoke.“You are right about that. I understand, but no…you’re
wrong too. There were others...that grew to feel the same as I.
Maybe it was because we were captives for so long. Or maybe it was
because we appreciated their kindnesses. I don’t know. But there
were women who refused to go back to their people—for more reasons
than one. We talked of many things as time went by, the resignation
you feel when no one comes immediately to rescue you—the
hopelessness of the life before. A few white men came to our camps
a couple of years later, and all of them—you could see it in their
faces—the disgust for us. The fact that we preferred to live
instead of die made them hate us. Some of them were family too. But
that didn’t matter…the feelings were there and we could see it in
their faces. It is hard to image going back now.”
    “And you…why didn’t you refuse to go
with us, you had to know there would be more trouble? If the chief
cared for you and your son, why would he send you away?”
    “I did refuse at first…but the chief
said it would help make peace for his people, if I went. I had
grown so used to it there. I felt I was safe. Now the uncertainty
stares at me again. And you are right, I did not want to leave,
because I loved the old man and his son. They wanted me to leave
the baby with them…so he would have a chance, but I could not leave
my child. I could not. They were right…but I could not leave
him.”
    “He didn’t understand…that old chief.
Hoot and I…we’re black men. There ain’t a town alive that would
tolerate a black man bringin’ a white woman back to civilization
from an Indian camp where she had birthed an Indian baby. Don’t you
see? Not in Texas, not anywhere.”
    “Yes, I see…but what am I to do? I’m
going with you now, I know not where, or what I will face. But do I
really have a choice? I can't go back now, I am dead to them now.
And I am dead to the white people too. But I go
nonetheless.”
    Jeb grew quiet. He had no answers
either.
    “Crowfoot was not a handsome man,” she
said, changing the subject some time later, as though Jeb were
interested in her Indian husband. “But he was a proud man, a good
man, and I was proud to bear his child. No man could have been
prouder of his child, than he. He was