They had caught her as she rode away, Topsannah, her little flower, held high in her arms. They had acted differently when they saw the blue of her eyes, making a show of them. She insisted she was Naduah, wife of Peta Nocona, chief of the Noconi band of Comanche. They claimed she was Cynthia Ann Parker, a little girl lost long ago. She tried to tell them that her family was not the one she had left so many years ago, but the one that had adopted her into the warmth of its hearth. They acted as if her wishes meant nothing.
She began to mourn when they ransacked all her precious belongings and set fire to her lodge. Her mind ran backwards, to the day she was carried away for the first time....
The air was still and quiet, the grass wet with dew. She had been helping her mother with the washing. Her brother Johnny had been playing in the dirt, agitating a family of ants. The saccharine, yeasty smell of baking bread filled the square.
The gates to the fort had been left open and their approach was watched closely. They rode arrogantly forward, their mounts prancing. Tiny bells jingled in their manes and tails, dangled from the saddles. Papa walked toward them, gesturing angrily that they should leave. One of them laughed aloud. Papa pulled his gun from its holster.
When the dust had cleared he lay facedown in the dirt. A feathered shaft protruded from between his shoulderblades. The settlement erupted into chaos.
I herded Johnny away as quickly as I could. It was no use, we were almost there when we were scooped up.
It was hard, trying to please them. The buckskin chafed against my skin, but it was lighter and less confining than the cotton skirts I had worn in that other life. Maybe that’s why all the women seemed to move so gracefully. Sometimes she knew she looked like a clumsy, lumbering giant beside them. Her tongue stumbled to make the melodious sounds they used amongst themselves.
She made friends, slowly but surely. She grew taller and more graceful as the other girls in the camp did. She began to look forward to the visits of Wanderer, Peta Nocona as he was called. His eyes always laughed at her, but she felt something more in them, a tender regard and a growing appreciation of her transformation from girl to woman.
| Here's the follow-up discussion on this article: | View all related messages |
For a complete listing of article comments, questions, and other discussions related to Andrea Janel Kirk's Inspirational Biographies topic, please visit the Discussions page.