Song Of The Warrior Read online

  “Bear,” Raven protested, “don’t talk to her like that.”

  “She called me a savage after I came into this fight to save you both.” He glared from one to the other.

  “I-I’m sorry.” Willow bent her head. “I thought you might kill the scout and it would have meant trouble.”

  He gave a disdainful snort. “You dare to lecture a warrior? Go back East, fake white girl, we don’t need you!” Hefting his brother in his powerful arms, Bear headed toward the big Appaloosa stallion.

  He was the very thing she was trying to change. “I will not go back East,” she yelled after him. “I come to teach the children the white man’s ways, teach them to read—”

  “Perhaps that is good,” Bear shouted over his shoulder as he helped his brother up on his horse, “Amitiz, we go now,” he said in his own language. “Maybe you can teach us the trickery of the whites so we can hold our own when they cheat us! Taz alago.”

  She didn’t return his “goodbye.” There was no dealing with men like this one, Willow thought as with annoyance she watched them ride out. The Indian culture must be replaced with the superior one of the whites, so the Nez Perce could survive; that had been drummed into her. Men like Bear could never be changed. She stared after him, angry at his obstinate rudeness as she dusted the sidewalk dirt from her skirt. Yet, if he hadn’t come along, she and Raven would have had more trouble than they could have handled.

  A buggy rounded the corner, and she recognized the elderly driver from the old daguerreotype. Willow smiled as he reined in. “Reverend Harlow?”

  “Ah, Willow, my dear girl.” He looked to be at least seventy, maybe older; white-haired and dressed in rusty black. The smile was out of place in his thin, grim face. “I’m sorry I was late, but there was a meeting; trouble with the Indians, you know.” He climbed down and held her out at arm’s length. “I don’t remember you being so pretty; too bad dear Charity didn’t live to see you all grown up; she would have been so proud of the ragged child we took in when no one else wanted you.”

  “I’m sorry I don’t remember much about anything, but I do appreciate all your trouble,” Willow apologized as she got into the buggy and Reverend Harlow picked up her valise, put it in back.

  “I’m glad you remember how obligated you ought to be, young lady. Cast your bread upon the waters, my Charity used to say. I’ve been attempting to teach these heathen about Ahkinkene kia, the Happy Hereafter, but their idea of heaven is their Wallowa Valley.”

  The Wallowa. Land of the Winding Waters. In her vague memory, it was as lovely as heaven ever dared to be.

  The old man must have taken her silence for dismay. “You won’t find it easy, I’m afraid; there’s so much of the Lord’s work to be done among these savages.”

  She winced at the word, remembering Bear’s accusation. “I’m eager to begin teaching the children.”

  He climbed into the buggy. “This is going to be as I always dreamed it would be when I convinced the missionary board to send you back East to school and prevailed on Miss Priddy to lower the tuition. You know I have wealthy relatives in Boston, the Van Schuylers, who are patrons of the school, or you would not have been accepted.”

  “I am grateful,” Willow said automatically and tried not to clench her teeth. In truth, she had not been all that happy at Miss Priddy’s snobby school. The patronizing, condescending attitude of the rich girls toward the charity case had been difficult to deal with.

  “Good. We must all do our part to change these heathens.” He picked up the reins and clucked to the old bay gelding. “I have a little parsonage on the edge of the settlement; not much, but then, I’ve filed on some good land that I hope to build a house on later.”

  “Nez Perce land?” Willow asked.

  “Of course. Oh, they don’t know or care anything about owning land; idea’s foreign to them. The sooner we get them corraled on reservations, teach them the white man’s way so they’ll be peaceable, the sooner we’ll be able to bring in more settlers. This fine land is too good to waste on roaming savages.”

  Willow felt a trifle uneasy as they drove away. “There’s so many settlers here now; so much different than I remember as a child.”

  “Oh, not nearly as many as there’s going to be,” the black-suited missionary assured her with satisfaction. “It’s the Lord’s will that we teach these brown heathens so they’ll stop their warlike ways and settle down.”

  “The Nez Perce were never warlike,” Willow protested. “They’ve lived at peace with the whites since Lewis and Clark explored this area almost seventy years ago.”

  His stern face frowned even more. “You’ve been gone all these years, my dear child, so you don’t know what trouble we’ve had. The ingrates seem to resent whites coming in, trying to put this land to good use, and of course, there’s the gold prospectors. I’ve done what I can, but they’re just such stubborn, ignorant savages.”

  “I met two of them,” she blurted, “one called Bear—”

  “He’s one of the worst,” the reverend snapped. “The nontreaty Nez Perce are insisting that they signed no treaty and won’t move to the new reservation.”

  “So what will happen?”

  He smiled. “Now, Willow, don’t fret yourself. I think if the army just lets them know the whites mean business, they’ll back down.”

  She thought about Bear. He didn’t seem the type to back down if he had to face the whole U.S. Army. “I met Bear’s brother, too.”

  “Raven?” Reverend Harlow sniffed. “Irresponsible young scamp about your age, I’d say. If it weren’t for his big brother, he’d be in a lot more trouble. Some of the things the young bucks have learned from our civilization are sloth and the love of liquor.”

  “Maybe they’re that way because the whites have run the game off and fished out the streams and there’s not much for them to do anymore.”

  “We can change all that,” the old man said with enthusiasm, “if we can ever teach them to farm, we can put them to labor for white farmers. You know the devil finds work for idle hands.”

  “The Nez Perce aren’t farmers and never were,” Willow protested, “they hunt and fish.”

  “Now, my dear, how would you remember any of that? After all, you’ve been away to school all these years. It’s lucky I was around when that drunken squaw deserted you; to say nothing of that worthless trapper who fathered you.”

  Willow felt guilty and ashamed. “I-I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m just not sure what success the Nez Perce would have at farming.”

  Well, it’s high time they learned,” Reverend Harlow snapped. “I could use some good hands on the piece I’ve got. Anyway, if they aren’t going to farm it, why do they need all that land?”

  “Just to roam on? No, of course you’re right.”

  He nodded in approval. “None of us have done much good with them, but you’re one of them, Willow, my dear, and you know what the Good Book says about ‘raise up a child in the way he should go.’ ”

  “You’re right; I might be able to change the children anyway.” In her own mind, she wondered suddenly if the white preacher saw her as just some noble experiment.

  “Peace and prosperity for the whole Northwest.” He smiled at her. “I have prayed for a way to do God’s work, and now between us, we’ll do much to save the Nez Perce from themselves. That Chief Joseph and his stubborn ilk like Bear won’t listen to reason.”

  Bear. She remembered the way he had looked at her and the way it had sent an unaccustomed feeling running through her when his hard hand closed over her small one. He was a man, arrogant and sure of himself when she had been accustomed to dealing with mere boys her own age. “I presume this Bear has a lot of influence among his people?”

  Reverend Harlow nodded. “His father was a chief and he’s one of Joseph’s confidants.”

  “Then it’s settled,” Willow said with satisfaction, “I’ll get on his good side somehow; maybe through his brother, who is much friendlier.
Just as I’ve been taught, I intend to civilize and educate the children for their own good.”

  “Willow, my dear child, I just know you are going to make me proud of you; meeting this challenge.”

  “When do I start?”

  He drew up before the small house. “Tomorrow, my dear; maybe one of their own can do something to cool all this tension that’s been building lately.”

  Willow smiled to herself. She liked children and looked forward to teaching them. Bear wouldn’t like that. Willow didn’t want to admit even to herself that she looked forward to besting that arrogant warrior who had glared at her so disdainfully!

  Two

  Old Reverend Harlow lived alone since his wife had died, with only a part-time Indian housekeeper coming in. As he said, now that Willow had come to stay, she could keep up the house when she wasn’t teaching the Nez Perce children and save him paying that housekeeper’s salary. Of course, just because he and his wife had scrimped, saved, and prayed to get Willow a fine education, he wouldn’t want the girl to feel obligated.

  Willow stayed up very late studying. She must be able to speak her language fluently and to translate English words for the children if she was to succeed. The next morning, Willow washed and dressed, putting on a pale green cotton calico over a corset, corset cover, three petticoats, long dark stockings, and pantalets. She combed her shiny black hair up in a demure bun on the back of her neck and went down to cook breakfast. At Miss Priddy’s school, Willow had worked in the kitchen and laundry to pay part of her tuition.

  Reverend Harlow coughed, but nodded his approval as he came into the kitchen, taking a deep breath of the scent of frying bacon and coffee.

  “Taz meimi,” she greeted him brightly, deciding she might as well practice her Nez Perce language skills. Her hard work had paid off; she could converse in either language.

  “Good morning,” he returned her greeting, but his tone sounded grumpy. “My dear, you look just like any civilized schoolteacher on the frontier. If you didn’t tell anyone, they might not know you were Injun at all.”

  He had evidently meant that as a compliment and Willow nodded, but inside, she felt stung. “Funny, but that’s just what they told me at school. In fact, Miss Priddy discouraged me from telling anyone; she said I might as well let well enough alone and besides, if I didn’t tell, I might make a good marriage.”

  “I’ve even given that some thought.” He beamed at her as he sat down at the table and motioned her to sit. Then he bowed his head and in a sonorous voice intoned, “Dear Lord, we give thanks for this food and this teacher who has come to save the savages from themselves. May she civilize them as I have tried to do and failed. Amen. Pass the jelly.” He picked up a biscuit.

  Willow got up to get the coffeepot, feeling a bit annoyed. She really didn’t remember much about the Harlows except what she had been told that because of them, she had been rescued from a drunken mother who had later died. Reverend Harlow sounded like a sanctimonious prig. “Perhaps you are expecting too much of me,” she said, as she poured coffee, “I’m just going to teach the children to read and write.”

  “Well, it’s a start.” The old man gobbled the biscuit. “The sooner we get all these Indians to forget their heathen ways, behave like whites, talk like whites, the sooner all these cultural problems will be solved.”

  Willow tried to remember how much she owed him. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “It’s God’s will,” he assured her as he wiped butter from his wrinkled lips. “As a missionary, for my entire career, I’ve been assigned all over the West, beginning with Arkansas. If it wasn’t God’s will to subjugate the savages, why would I be here?”

  It seemed so perfectly logical to him that Willow was taken aback as she sipped her coffee. “You don’t really like Indians, do you?”

  “I am attempting to save their souls and they are too primitive to appreciate my efforts as were most of the others at the posts to which I’ve been assigned.”

  “But you don’t really like them,” she said again, surprised at her own boldness.

  He glared at her over the tops of his bifocals and reached for his handkerchief as he coughed again. “I hope you haven’t been mixing with those female suffragists,” he said, “I don’t think God approves of them at all; just like the savages. After what happened only last summer to the gallant General Custer up at the Little Big Horn, we probably should wipe out all Indians, but that doesn’t keep me from praying for their worthless souls and hoping to civilize them.”

  She knew she shouldn’t, but Willow couldn’t seem to help herself. “Don’t you see a conflict in what you just said?”

  He put down his cup with a clatter and glared at her. “A rebellious spirit is an abomination to the Lord, Willow. I think we need to pray about this and your task here in general.”

  Perhaps he was right. Willow bent her head and tried to think humble thoughts while Reverend Harlow bowed his head and began beseeching God to teach the errant Willow humility and also to help save the souls of the redskin devils whose obstinacy and savagery were creating economic havoc in the Northwest by not bending to the white man’s superior will that was surely as God had planned it.

  “Amen!” He cleared his throat and returned to his bacon and biscuits in a manner that belied his scrawny frame. “Do you remember any of your native language at all?”

  “Some, and I’ve been studying, so it’s coming back to me,” Willow admitted, staring at her plate so she wouldn’t glare at the old man. “I speak enough so that I feel the children will be able to understand me.”

  He grunted. “Better you should make all the little savages learn English.”

  “I intend to do that, too, but, sir, if I can’t communicate with them, how can I teach them anything?”

  “Quite so; quite so.” He lifted his cup with a feeble hand. “My dear child, you’ll have your work cut out for you with those nontreaty Nez Perce of Chief Joseph’s. The ones who have taken our religion have mostly signed the treaty, but those that belong to the Dreamers are backsliders who refuse to budge an inch; say they never signed that latest paper giving up their land.”

  “Well, did they?” Willow peered at him over her cup.

  “What difference does it make?” His voice rose. “Somebody signed it, that’s all that matters and now they have to get off the land. The army will enforce that, but I think Chief Joseph is a reasonable man; he won’t want to get his people killed.”

  “I would think, as a missionary, you would be preaching about ‘blessed are the peacemakers.’ ”

  He looked at her a long moment, blinked rheumy eyes as if trying to decide if she were being sarcastic, - seemed to decide that as a woman, she couldn’t possibly be that smart. “The whites are trying to keep the peace; but we may have to use the sword if those ignorant Indians won’t obey.”

  “Just how big is the new reservation?”

  The reverend shrugged. “About one-tenth the size they’ve got now, I think.”

  “One-tenth?”

  “It’s not as if they are using any of it except to roam around on.” He looked defensive. “If they aren’t going to farm it, why do they want it?”

  “Well, maybe because it’s theirs,” Willow said.

  “You indeed have a rebellious spirit,” the minister said, “that is bad in a woman. You remind me of my niece, Summer; except she was blond.”

  “The girls at Miss Priddy’s still talk about her,” Willow said, “but no one knows much.”

  The old man sighed. “Rebellious, Summer was. She was being sent to stay with me while I was assigned to a parsonage in Fort Smith because she had been in some kind of scandal and her father wanted to get her out of Boston.”

  Willow didn’t mean to ask, but she couldn’t contain her curiosity. “What kind of scandal?”

  “Believe it or not, she wanted to allow women to vote! ”

  Willow decided maybe this wasn’t the time to tell the reverend that she was i
n favor of women suffrage herself. “My, my, imagine that!”

  “The ungrateful little twit ran away on a stagecoach, got carried off by some big savage. What a family scandal.”

  A big savage. In her mind, Willow saw Bear in his buckskin shirt and riding that Appaloosa stallion. “So you don’t really like Indians, do you?”

  “I love all God’s children,” the old man said piously and sipped his coffee. “I pray for these poor savages that they will see how much they need to learn to deal with civilization.”

  That was something she could agree with, Willow thought as she got up from the table. Maybe the wild ways were better off forgotten; it was inevitable anyhow. “I’m going out to the Indian camp this morning and looking forward to meeting some of the children.” She didn’t want to ask, but her curiosity got the better of her. “I hope that hostile one, Bear, won’t be around.”

  He looked at her over the rims of his bifocals. “I doubt you need to fear running into that brave. He and his brother are usually off hunting or breaking or racing those Appaloosa horses.”

  “That’s all the Nez Perce have done for generations.”

  “Then, bless God, it’s about time they changed; the wild, free ways should give way to sensible civilization.”

  “Yes, I know,” Willow said dutifully and wondered if she felt relief or disappointment that she would not have to have a confrontation with those two brothers again. Raven seemed adaptable enough, Bear was the stubborn, primitive one. “Are there any school supplies?”

  Reverend Harlow shook his head. “Not yet. A few slates, a Bible or two. The ladies’ prayer group back in Boston is supposed to help gather up some supplies. Did you bring any of your own books?”

  “Just my favorite novel, A Tale of Two Cities.”

  “A novel?” The elderly preacher drew himself up stiffly. “Really, my dear, I don’t think—”

  “It has some godly thoughts,” Willow hastened to say, “and civilization triumphs over disorder and violence. I thought I might use it for spelling words and such until we got some textbooks.”