Just an Ordinary Morning

It is middle spring and the camp is busy. In a few days they will move from their winter grounds and follow the buffalo north. Women are busy packing and the men and boys are testing their ponies out, choosing the best ones for the hunting to come. Ehawee's grandmother has sent her to the river with a large load of wash. She is not to touch the ponies, or do anything else, until the laundry of skins and furs has been rinsed, dried and oiled.

Ehawee nods in response to her grandmother's instructions, and obediently brings the wash down to the river. Once she's washed everything and set it out to dry, however, she begins to grow impatient. Surely it wouldn't hurt to take a peak at the ponies now, she thinks. After all, until the wash is dry, she can't begin oiling any of it, right?

As she begins to creep away, she hears, "Ehawee!" from behind her. It is Maka, recently married and much too haughty for Ehawee's tastes. "You should not leave those skins unattended," Maka says sternly. "Get back to watching them and comb the fur so that it does not mat. Now!"

Ehawee makes a face while her back is still to Maka, then sighs and turns back to the wash. Under her breath, she mutters, "I wish I'd been born a boy. They get to have all the fun." She hopes Maka is going to do her own wash further away, but somehow she doubts it.

"You were born stupid if you think such things," Maka snaps. "No man will ever want you. You can't even rinse skins right!" And she does sit right down next to Ehawee to begin her own work.

Thinking dark thoughts about Maka, Ehawee works hard on her own wash, wanting to show Maka up, if she can. But part of her is still thinking about the ponies, and how much fun the boys are having. At least she should be done before Maka, she thinks, so she won't have to endure her company on the way back to the camp.

Maka, sadly, is much better at this than she is. Her nimble fingers easily have all of the knots worked out of her furs. She has also brought dried grass with her to rub them with, and alternates that with standing up and shaking them out vigorously. "See, look how clumsy and worthless you are!" she says.

Ehawee ignores her, but in the process of vigorously shaking one of her hides, she "accidentally" manages to shake the water all over Maka. "So sorry," she claims. "I guess you were right. I am clumsy. Perhaps you should move further away, lest my clumsiness dampen you again."

Maka waits until Ehawee ignores her again, then shoves Ehawee into the river. Ehawee reaches over and attempts to grab hold of Maka and her drying wash as she falls, since at least that way the both of them will get wet. She manages to snag Maka, but not the furs. And Maka comes up swinging. She gets one good slap in because Ehawee was overextended in trying to get Maka's wash, and looks to follow that slap up with several more, regaling Ehawee with a never-ending chant of "Worthless Girl!"

Unfortunately for Maka, Ehawee grew up with brothers to wrestle with. She grabs Maka's hand with her right when she tries to slap her again and moves behind her, twisting the arm up behind her back, enough to hurt but not enough to do any lasting damage. Then she dunks Maka while she's in mid-rant, saying as she lets her up, "Now who's worthless, eh?"

Maka sputters and screams bloody murder. Others of the tribe begin to make their way down to the river to see what the commotion is. It's mostly women and children right now, but it looks like some of the men are noticing the noise now too.

Ehawee pushes Maka away from her in disgust, back towards shore. "Worthless coward. You cry like an infant. You should not start fights that you cannot finish."

Kohana, Maka's new husband, has arrived because of her cries. "Oh Kohana!" Maka wails as she runs to him. "Ehawee attacked me! She was jealous of my work on the furs, because her hands are so clumsy. She is evil!"

Kohana gives Ehawee a hard look.

Ehawee glares at Maka. "It's not bad enough that you are a coward, but now you are a liar as well? You pushed me into the river!"

"Ehawee tried to ruin my work, your fine furs," Maka says to Kohana.

"Pick up the furs, Maka," Kohana says to Maka. Then he turns to Ehawee. "Ehawee, you are worse than a barking dog." He gathers Maka and his other belongings up, and leaves. There are some snickers in the assembled crowd. Ehawee's brother Takoda rolls his eyes at her.

"Better a barking dog than a viper, which is what you have in your bed," Ehawee retorts to Kohana. Then she returns to working on her furs, trying to pretend that nothing happened and hoping the crowd will disperse.

She is suddenly jerked to her feet and slapped. "You will not speak to me so, Ehawee!" Kohana shouts at her. He then pushes her to the ground. Her brother steps a bit forward from the crowd.

Furious now, Ehawee jumps up and pushes back hard at Kohana. "Do not touch me, Kohana," she shouts. "It is your wife who is at fault here, not me."

She narrowly avoids the backhand Kohana aims at her head. She wants to backhand Kohana in return, but tells herself that she cannot. Instead, she determines to settle for avoiding his blows, watching to see if he overextends himself enough at any point that she can trip him, or better yet, duck out of the way and let his momentum carry him into the river. Then she sees an opening and instinct takes over. Without planning it, her fist flies in a neat arc and contacts Kohana's cheek hard. But instead of a satisfying slap, there is a ripping, tearing sound and blood flies from Kohana's face. He goes down hard, tries to regain his feet and fails. Maka screams as she sees the four deep gashes across Kohana's face. Bright red blood is oozing out of them at a rapid pace. The gathered crowd seems to be in shock, and shock is on Takoda's face.

Ehawee looks stunned as she stares at Kohana's face, like she doesn't quite understand how that happened. Then she stares down at her fist in confusion. It is drenched in blood, but nothing more.

"Evil! Evil!" Maka screams, as she falls to her knees beside her husband. She puts her hand to his face to try to stop the bleeding.

Takoda rushes forward and grabs Ehawee by the arm, leading her quickly away from the river and back towards their teepee. She offers no resistance, following numbly wherever he leads her, still staring at her bloody hand. Takoda gets her inside and sits her down in front of the fire. He then quickly explains what happened to her father and grandfather. To Ehawee, it's nothing more than distant noise in the faraway background. Her hand is sticky with blood, and she sees over and over again Kohana's head snap back and the blood fly everywhere. She stares fixedly at her hand for a time as if it were something horrible, then abruptly, she plunges it into the fire. She feels a searing pain and then nothing, nothing at all.

"Ehawee!" Takoda yells, and tackles her, knocking her away from the fire. The teepee is filled with the smell of singed hair and burned blood.

"Angeni*," her grandmother says. "Ehawee Angeni."

Takoda lifts himself off of her very carefully.

"Ehawee!" her father says sternly. "Tell me yourself what happened."

Ehawee sits up and looks at the ground. "I hurt Kohana," she says quietly. "I didn't want to, I swear. But he was hitting and pushing me, and I was so angry because I hadn't done anything wrong, and... I just wanted to hit him the way he'd hit me. And then there was that horrible sound, and he was bleeding." She looks at her hand again. "Maka was right, I am evil."

Her father looks at her hand, and she sees something in his eyes she has never seen before. He is afraid. She looks more closely at her hand, trying to see what it is that has disturbed him, and realizes that beneath the charred blood her flesh is smooth and perfect. She stares at this in shock, trying to comprehend how this is possible. She, too, looks afraid and rather lost at the same time.

"I will speak to the elders of this," her father says. "Takoda, watch her while I am gone. Ehawee, stay here. Please," he adds, seemingly as an afterthought.

Ehawee's grandmother starts chanting softly in the language of the Blackfeet, her birth tribe. Takoda watches her with frightened eyes. Ehawee just sits there numbly, her hand resting in her lap like it was something foreign and not a part of her. Finally, she manages to ask, "Takoda, what did you see down by the river? What did I do?"

"I... I don't know. Somehow you cut him when you hit him. I don't know how," he answers after a moment.

"I don't know how either." She keeps looking over her hand, as if somehow by greater study it will suddenly become obvious what happened, and how she did it.

After about 15 minutes, Ehawee can hear a great commotion in the camp. Kohana's family is displeased. Although Kohana will live, she overhears, he will be badly scarred. They are seeking damages against Ehawee and her family before the elders. Ehawee is relieved that Kohana will live, but also troubled. She doesn't want her family to suffer for her action, unintentional though it was. She starts picking at the dried blood on her hand, suddenly unable to bear the sight of it any longer. It flakes off easily as the talk continues outside. It is decided that Ehawee will be confined to her teepee until the elders meet at sunset. Ehawee accepts this without protest.

*spirit

"Deadwood"
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All text on this page is © 2000 by Kris Fazzari.

Last modified on November 7, 2000 by Kris Fazzari.