The Wind God

By Mary Jo Birrell

Abandonment, bigamy, crib deaths, single mothers struggling to raise families - these are not new age phenomena. Mollie Tidwell knew them all as well as she knew her own family. But how well was that?
In the late 1800s these truths were swept under the parlor rug.
Mollie Tidwell was born near Springfield, Illinois, an only child. When she was four her mother died and she was given away to the Indians.
In summary this sounds a fearful thing but in reality it was Mollies rebirth. Surrounded by love she became a young women of promise whose only goal was to marry and find security and love in her own home.
She came the full circle in adjusting to her different lives: from the white society; to Indian; to quarter-blood; to white. But, the Cherokee Indian teachings were the lasting influences for her.
The story finally had to be written when a relative shared a memory that Mollie had told of her Grandfather who would ride a tall white horse to the edge of the Tidwell property for a secret visit. He would bring her an apple for a treat.
The theme of this story? Mollies family became her possessions. When death tried to take them away she would not let them go. What she had to learn was that your children were a gift to be returned to God. Before she died she realized that she must forgive them for dying and release their earth bound spirits. It was a race against time for her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Jul 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781452577852

Mary Jo Birrell

Mary Jo Birrell -B.A. Born in Oklahoma, educated at OU. Mary Jo married a Canadian and moved to live in Canada. She is the former editor, publisher of her own, Horse magazine, “ Canada Rides”. This first novel, “The Wind God”, is written from her personal historical era. Now living in the Calgary area, she continues to write and loves to paint in her retirement.

Book preview

The

Wind God

MARY JO BIRRELL

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Copyright © 2013 Mary Jo Birrell.

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The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

ISBN: 978-1-4525-7785-2 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-7784-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-7786-9 (hc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013912690

Balboa Press rev. date: 7/29/2013

CONTENTS

Prologue Georgia 1839

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Dedicated to my parents, Walter and Alice Liegerot. They raised my brother Charles and myself through the depression, from a farm in Oklahoma and encouraged us to follow our dreams.

They taught us that this journey on Earth required a contribution for being here.

I hope that those of you that become acquainted with The Wind God will be inspired by the family stories in this period of American history.

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Lo the poor Indian! Whose untutor’d mind

sees God in clouds

or hears Him in the wind.

Essay on Man – Pope

The Wind God

was the best. There were the clan gods, the turtle; the wolf; the eagle – they were

Mortal and could be killed, even the sun god could be hidden from view, but

nothing could stop

THE WIND GOD.

He was the best…

He could gather his strength and uproot trees, destroy dwellings and stir the waters.

He could freeze your crops or burn them with his very breath…

He could also catch snatches of your words and then fling them back to you

when you would least suspect.

He could be everywhere and nothing could capture or kill him.

He was THE WIND GOD.

PROLOGUE

GEORGIA 1839

S ilence engulfed Esther. She had known solitude before. Today’s silence was different. The forest had always welcomed her while she was alone or gathering plants, herbs and crops with White Owl. Today was different. It was as if time were suspended. It was as if the life Esther had known was to be no more. It was not unlike the way she pictured death. But she must not speak of death although it was death that had brought her here. To speak of death was to invite death to come for you. No, this was not death it was a rebirth. She was here on her spirit search.

Green, the color of healing and life, reflected layers of green into the mountain pool, filling every comer around her letting in only shafts from the mid-day sun. These shafts, blinding silver shafts, became the soft, yellow-green of new com silks by the time they reached the pool.

This was Esther’s third day, the day her spirit search was to be completed, when she hoped to receive her sign. Today she was striving to become the warrior she would be. In doing so she was shedding the name Esther, the name she had received at a baptism; the name she had been given in a Christian world. Today, when her search was finished she would receive a new name, a new life and perhaps a sign.

She would still have her secret name, the name she had been given at birth. This name only those who had helped with the birthing knew. Then she had been called Night Bird. Her Mother was of the Ani-Tsi’- skua, the Bird Clan, so she was expected to have a name suitable to her Clan-kin. She had been born at twilight after a hot, sunny day had caused the hatching of a sky full of insects. The night birds were darting and feeding and making the sound with their wings that gave them their nickname, the Who Who birds. No one would ever learn her name, Esther vowed, for she could imagine how the children would have teased her when she was young, the Who Who girl!

No, she smiled softly, remembering her name, Night Bird; "I’ll always be ‘Auntie’.

Esther had been blessed with many nieces and nephews at the time of her birth and now the whole village called her Auntie.

The faint echo of an owl disturbed her revelry. Was it an early hunting call or a cry of warning? It was too faint to determine. Small birds clustered on the branches around Esther had been quiet long before the Owl had spoken. They had been alert for two days, ever since the women and children of the village had invaded the forest with their woven traps. There was no way for the birds to know that if they flew into these baskets their capture would be short-lived.

No brier would be built. No fire would be lit for White Owl’s body and possessions to be burned so that her soul could follow the smoke to her spirit world. Not now. White Owl’s body would be cleansed and she would be dressed in new buckskins. Her moccasins, as well, would be new and beads would be sewn on the soles of the leather to show that she would no longer walk on the earth. No, there would be no smoke to guide her soul, instead the birds would be freed and their flight would start her on her journey, fitting escorts for White Owl was of the Bird Clan and had been named Raven’s Wing at birth. White Owl would understand that she could not have the bed of fire and she would approve for the village was in hiding and the pillar of smoke from a funeral pyre might lead their enemies to them.

From deep within the safety of his mossy home, a frog, his voice almost hypnotic in its regularity, delivered his message.

Hush, little brother; Esther admonished, but the frog continued his hoarse melody.

Esther turned from the sound and looked through the branches towards the mountains that rimmed the valley around her. Strange how you mountains can look so blue with so much green surrounding you.

The mountains, even a short distance from Esther’s chosen spot, appeared blue in a multitude of shades, wrapped in what seemed to be the purest strands of woven cotton which broke, at intervals then threaded themselves among the indigo trees in the distance.

"The mountains that smoke. We have always called you that even when we viewed you from the other side, the east. And now, we can see the west from here. The west…

The east, that is our source of light, where the morning sun brings a promise of renewal. The west? That is where every day hope and promise die. It is eternal nighttime there. It is the land of death. So you old ones taught me, you who traded your beliefs, your very souls, for Christian names and foreign ways and in doing so lost your will to live.

Father, Esther called aloud, "they gave you the name of Adam, the first man, but you were not the first man they converted. These men claimed purity of spirit but their weakness of flesh has been revealed in hair of red and eyes of blue in many children of The Nation.

But it was not just you, I too was a believer. I basked in the name of Esther and strove to live as our new Book proclaimed. But now…

Shadows moved as the sun rose, warning Esther that her private time was drawing short. She stood, shaking pine needles from her homespun skirt and smoothed the creases of the fabric. She felt the bulky fold of paper deep inside her pocket, where she had placed it this morning. It was one she had carried continually in different garments for five long months now. Hesitantly she drew it out. The sound the paper made as she smoothed it sounded like a leaf crinkled by the fall wind.

‘Talking leaves’, she spoke the words aloud and remembered, he called the pages that. Our little crippled dreamer, Sequoyah, who gave us our alphabet, who wrote our newspaper called them that. How would you look upon these leaves?

She looked again at words she had once written so faithfully, knowing she was again opening old wounds.

For a moment she admired it. The script was even and lovingly formed. It was the words that pierced her heart like arrows. She had kept this, the original, as a warning and a proof of the deceit her people had suffered.

A request had come, from the President of the country, for an inventory of their village. Adam had thought it would be a means to prove that The People were able to cope with civilization. It would show that they were Christians when the President knew of their churches and their tithing. It would show him that they were productive citizens when he learned of their mills, their crops, their livestock and their possessions.

Esther had been involved from the first. She had listened at the council door as the elders talked, argued and pleaded in their smoke-filled room until they finally agreed to send the inventory. Attached to this would be a petition with a list of accomplishments.

As the only child of the Chief of the Turtle Clan, and one who had perfected a flowing, elegant script in the English language, she had been asked to put this agreement into words. Her first effort she had kept and had made a second copy for the eyes of their President.

Armed with only this letter listing their accomplishments, net worth and pledge of continued loyalty, Adam set off for Washington. He did not travel alone. With him were Frank Walking Stick, Leo Longhorn, Becker Naked Head, Nathaniel Muskrat and Esther.

The group was eleven days traveling for Leo Longhorn and Becker Naked Head were old, and felt the cold mornings in their bones as they began each day’s journey. The delegation took two canoes for portages. Esther and Frank Walking Stick carried one, while Nathaniel Muskrat and Adam supported the other. Both canoes were left at their last land fall and the Cherokees took a barge crossing a large river before they finally reached the Capitol.

Adam and Esther had wrapped their ‘civilized clothes’ in greased hides for the journey. The others had not taken such precautions. Their white leather garments with elaborate traditional embroidery of beads, shells and porcupine quills were streaked and stained with the dyes of their clan patterns when water from the river’s current rolled over the shallow boards of the barge.

The six Cherokees changed from their traveling clothes at the edge of the town site. Adam and Esther had been presentable enough. Adam was dressed in his dark blue Wool suit, fashioned in the manner of those worn in the Capitol. Esther wore a high necked white, cotton blouse, and a long black skirt. A loose-knit, black, woolen shawl, fell softly from her shoulders.

The streaked and wrinkled ceremonial garments of Frank Walking Stick and the rest of the men, was an affront to their pride and dignity but they had no choice but to carry on.

The muddy outskirts of the Capitol were home to a jumble of shacks. A myriad of conflicting smells swirled around the six visitors. Scores of people on foot, horseback and in wagons closed in upon them. Some seemed curious but most of those who approached took no notice of the delegation.

Although there was nothing to indicate alarm, Adam was alert for any official looking building flying a flag so their documents could be delivered quickly. He was directed to a dingy office where he presented their carefully prepared document to a clerk, a scruffy man who sat at a desk in his shirtsleeves. The man’s jacket was carelessly draped over his chair. He raised his head slightly and looked at Adam over the top of small, gold-rimmed glasses. With a combination of indolence and disdain his gaze slid down to the document. Then he crumpled the bundle of papers into a dusty pigeon-hole compartment in the roll top desk which, with the chair, comprised the entire furnishings of the office.

All right, I’ll see he gets it.

The President?

Who else? the man replied indifferently.

Out on the board walk in front of the building, Adam addressed a man, asking directions to the Union Public Hotel. Startled, the stranger looked at Adam and his group and answered hesitantly, I’m sure they have no rooms available. Perhaps ‘Sadie’s’, you passed it when you came in… it has rooms and meals..:

Adam had inquired of the Union Public Hotel for a reason. In Councils, the name of the hotel had been mentioned as a gathering place for discussions between the President and visiting Chiefs and dignitaries of many clans. It was where he had envisioned his group would be meeting with the President. He had not asked if the earlier delegates had been given rooms there. Perhaps, Adam thought, "they were too proud to say. Perhaps they had been herded in front of the stately hotel in the dusty or muddy street to listen before, they too, had trudged back to Sadie’s.

Now, with but these few words from a stranger, an inner feeling came to Adam, discussions with the President took on a new aspect, one chilled with the winds of winter. This insight wasn’t lost on Adam. He had no wish to inflict distress on Esther and his men. Esther’s bond with him was so strong she could tell his thoughts, feel his anguish. It was her burden.

He would not persist with inquiries about this grand hotel. He thanked the stranger quietly. They did not shake hands as was the white man’s custom, but their eyes communicated a mutual understanding. Without sharing his thoughts and feelings, Adam led his group to Sadie’s retracing their steps to the river’s landing. There they were rented two unfurnished rooms in an add-on to the recommended boarding house. Too proud to complain, or ask for anything else, Adam assigned one of the rooms to Esther and the men unrolled their traveling packs in the second room.

When his delegation was settled, Adam wearily backtracked to the office where he had left his tribe’s document. There he solemnly informed the clerk where they had located themselves so they could be reached when the President was ready to discuss their petition.

For the next three days the Cherokees took turns leaving the rooms and foraging for food and information. They did not want everyone to be away should word come to summon them to the President. On the evening of the third day a messenger came, not from the President, but from the church. They were requested to appear at the services the next morning, a Sunday, and were told that the President would be there.

Filled with hope and joy, the delegation went to the services but their anticipation quickly changed to shame and embarrassment when they were paraded to the front and introduced as our savage brethren.

The President was there, sitting in a special section to the side of the minister and away from view of the worshippers. At the end of the services, a man came from the President’s section to tell them that Adam and his delegation were free to return home and that their petition would be reviewed.

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Esther looked again at the document in her hands and overcame an urge to crush it and throw it in the pool so its contents would sink and be forever lost. But she knew she couldn’t do this. She must keep it as a constant reminder, lest she weaken and be deceived once more.

The document had been a mistake, a dreadful mistake. Many who had not yet realized the extent of the holdings of the Cherokee Nation had been handed a detailed list of but one village.

What must the others hold?

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Shortly after their heartsick journey home, settlements began to be overrun, the Government, in its wisdom had decided that the savages must be moved to more suitable lands. General Jackson was given the task of finding savages who had not been coerced, or bribed into signing papers - those who were now called rebels. Once searched out they were to be put into holding pens until all could be gathered for a planned western exodus.

Immediately upon the delegation’s return, Adam resumed active leadership of the Bird Clan. Under his guidance, 180 people, his village, had left in darkness, carrying bundles of clothing, rolls of tanned skins, gourds filled with grain, tools, spinning wheels, and pieces of equipment which could be reassembled for grinding their grains and reestablishing some semblance of their present lives. Travois were constructed to transport their aged, cripples and babies. Young children led and herded as many horses, mules and cattle as they could handle. The rest were turned loose either to follow or to find their way to other villages still intact.

They traveled for days, the weary feet of the villagers lost count of how many, but Adam and the band of leaders knew. They led The People until they were encircled by the mountains. Not satisfied with the distance they had put between them and the white hunters, they went even farther until there were no worn paths where men had followed animal trails. There they stopped in this smoky mountain wilderness, to set up a new life.

It had been a good move. None of the elderly had suffered. None of the animals had pulled back. The gourds had remained intact. The prized possessions had not been damaged. A festive attitude had prevailed long enough for them to set up lean-to’s and begin the serious job of starting life anew.

Men of The Nation were designated jobs. Some were hunters, foraging for game which the women sun dried or smoked. Others made a Gearing around the lean-to’s and began the task of building a village. A longhouse for gatherings was made first. Then different houses, according to rank or need, were constructed. A church was built by Adam’s decree.

Herbs and roots were searched out by White Owl, the Medicine Woman, and Esther, Auntie. Youngsters raced each other to carry these to the women in the village to sort and store. Other women inventoried the supplies of food and determined how much was to be used over the winter and how much was to be saved for planting and use before the crops were ready to harvest again.

And then, White Owl had died, almost without warning.

It is my time, was all she had said. No one in the village was surprised for wise men and wise women of The People had always known when it was time to depart. They would choose their time and then they would go to the beyond. They were said to be the lucky ones. It was up to the individual to decide if they would go on an anniversary or perhaps on the eve of a special happening - no one but the wise ones knew. Often others in the village could remember an event that related to their leaving, but White Owl was older than anyone in the village and everyone agreed that whatever the event, it must have happened in White Owl’s youth. Even Esther did not know the event and she was the closest to being White Owl’s kin.

So, the three day spirit search had begun for Esther. No one had to tell her, she had long ago been ordained as White Owl’s successor. She had gathered the sea shells and turtle shell rattles. Then in a bundle wrapped in a tanned deer hide she found Auntie’s ceremonial garments. Fine white leather leggings were found and a jacket. Magnificent embroidery of morning glories were climbing on both sides of the jacket, framing the Raven emblem and other symbols whose significance were known now only to Esther.

She had folded White Owl’s clothing with those of her husband’s, Jacob-Deer-In-The-Water, and her daughter Corn Silk. On top of her bundle she had placed the sacred gourds filled with white sand from the ocean to the private retreat, the retreat White Owl had chosen for Esther’s instructions. She carefully sifted the sand on dampened clothing and removed any stains from the leather.

Sitting beside the mountain pool Esther had taken strong needles and thread and had restored the garments to their original splendor. Now they were drying on the nearby bushes awaiting the time they would be taken back to the village for the ceremony.

A gust of wind, accompanied by a sound made by strong wings, passed by Esther, so close that she could feel the coolness on her face. An owl, nearly white, as if bidding winter welcome, had come from its hidden spot to give form to the calls Esther had heard earlier.

The owl’s wings were powerful, capable of taking it to the uppermost part of the sky, but it flew instead to the spike of a scraggly pine which overhung the deep mountain pool where she sat. There it settled, its golden orbs piercing Esther’s soul.

Esther, who had come to this spot for her vision, her sign, now knew with certainty that White Owl’s legacy was hers. She was to be White Owl. Had the vision not been made in such a dramatic way, she may have doubted. Names, sacred names, could never be bestowed until the person bearing that name had died.

It was rare that such name givings were done so soon after a person’s death, but these were dangerous times, perhaps desperate times. There needed to be a continuation of power.

What is it white men say? The King is dead, long live the King! Well, so be it.

Esther refolded the petition she had been holding and returned it to her pocket then bent to gather the ceremonial garments. As she moved a familiar pain formed in the small of her back, this time followed by a fluttering which turned into sharp thuds on the side of her now taut stomach. The secret life inside, conceived when Esther had returned from the Capitol, had taken on a personality. She knew it would be a boy, a son for Jacob and a brother for Corn Silk. He would grow tall and strong and be a teacher for Corn Silk’s sons.

After the ceremony, late tonight, I will tell Deer-In-The-Water about his son, she gave a tender stroke to her stomach, you shall be called ‘Deer-in-The-Forest’, for that is where your father is today when you first talked to me from my womb.

The People would not have been safe in their former settlement. Now, deep in the forest with no riches to plunder, no one would seek to deprive them of their buildings dripping in pitch, with warped walls where mud daubers built their paper-thin nests and flies walked through the gaps in the logs leaving trails of eggs to ensure their immortality.

Surely they were safe here. And yet, Esther had not been able to forget the visit, weeks ago now, when the itinerant preacher, cold and half frozen, had stumbled into their village.

Esther’s throat had tightened and she had been unable to speak although she had wanted to shout out, Beware! She had never felt that way about anyone, even those who had deceived them in the past. But this man who spoke with the voice of silver, seemed to be surrounded by a blackness. She could not understand her feelings and when she started to explain them to her father… well, she had to admit that she had never seen Adam so animated, not since he had served as an elder in the church.

So animated! He and the visitor spoke of the Gospel and Adam’s eyes glowed while those of the stranger’s seemed to narrow as he made sweeping glances around the lodge and the village.

In her own mind, Esther could hear the stranger listing their possessions, even the villagers themselves.

Eighteen bucks, Indians; three slaves, bucks, Negroes; thirty-two female squaws, Indians; five slaves, female, Negroes; eighteen or twenty old females, squaws, Indians; fifty or filly-five assorted kids, Indians and Negroes; some cripples and about twenty old bucks, Indians who think they’re in charge.

The Gospel man, as Esther had begun to think of him, did not know that Jacob Deer-In-The-Water and two small hunting parties were away searching for game. But still, a few more men absent from the village did not make an army and Esther felt he knew this as well.

Never before had she felt she could see inside a man and know his thoughts, but it had happened. Had she understood him or had she been jealous that this man was able to influence her father so much - to give him life again?

Esther shook away the thought. This was not the time to dwell on her suspicions. Besides, she admitted to herself that was weeks ago and no one had come looking for them. Perhaps the Gospel Man had told the soldiers the truth and it was decided Adam’s group was not worth the pillaging. Perhaps…

Striding from the shelter of the pines, she was unaware of the strength and beauty she radiated as the morning sun touched strands of her chestnut hair, turning them into sparks of fire. She would have blushed, bowed her head and retreated had anyone put this vision to words.

Smoke from the longhouse trickled up, forming a cloud cover over the settlement. Wonderful smells assaulted the young woman as she dropped off the ceremonial clothing in her dwelling and went to join the women.

Esther, Auntie, knew that her position would change once she received the duties of White Owl and she was duly aware that she needed to keep her relationship with the women of The People. She knew some would remember that her mother’s mother had not been Cherokee but had been captured and raised from a child with The People. This might be stirred in some memories though it was common practice among The People. It was a certainty that one or more of the women would be jealous of her new duties though none would want to take them on. Auntie also knew the value of politics and that the older women could control those who might resent her powers.

Voices and laughter from the old women came from somewhere inside the longhouse, where they were stirring pots, making corn cakes, slicing meat for stews and caring for small babies when they cried.

In a glance, Auntie saw Adam and other old men of the village napping, smoking or dreaming in the late morning sun. Thus they awaited the return of the older boys and young men who had joined Jacob in the hunt for a deer whose strength, soul and heart was to be dedicated to the feast and festivities. The hunting party would be back soon, long before the sun had settled.

A shot rang out, a single shot, too dose to camp to be that of the hunters. Auntie froze in mid-stride and listened. Georgia of 1839, her Georgia, had suddenly become a fearful place.

A stillness fell over the forest. Old women came from the longhouse and stood in uneven bunches, their heads tilted, listening for the second and third shot that a hunter would fire when he was lost or in danger. No shots came. A single shot could mean danger of a different kind. From time immemorial women of The People had stoically prepared themselves for danger. But nothing could have prepared them for the actual danger that was to come

CHAPTER ONE

"L isten! Mollie called out to the surrounding darkness. It’s a bird - caught in a trap. Help me! Someone help me get it out!"

Mollie struggled to get up - to get out of bed. Her arms would only raise inches from the mattress but her head was free to move. She turned it and waited for her eyes to get accustomed to the darkness. From the corner of her eyes she could see something to the left of her head. Slowly, slowly, a coil hanging from somewhere above her head came into focus. She fixed her eyes on this coil and followed it down. It was attached to her arm.

She was trapped like that bird.

Struggle was useless, Mollie realized. She was alone. No one had answered her call.

She commanded herself to relax, to wait for her brain to respond to the barrage of questions needing answers. The answers began to come.

Of course, I’m here, in Extended Care. That’s where I wanted to come. No one ever bothers you here.

Somewhat relieved, Mollie let images flash through her mind. A flush began spreading across her cheeks. She felt her cheeks becoming hot. It was because of the charade.

It had all begun when Mollie’s roommate, Leola Summers, had been moved to EC. The women who had come in to clean Leola’s room were talking and Mollie had listened.

She’ll be lucky if someone looks in on her on’ct a day as short staffed as they are back there.

Miz Summers, as they called her, Mollie’s long-time friend and neighbor on Spring Street, had coincidentally become Mollie’s roommate in the nursing home.

When Leola’s heart had become arrhythmic, bouncin’ all ‘round, the casual help had called it, she’d been moved back there, the ominous name for the Extended Care Facility.

This had put Mollie to thinking. That was exactly the kind of place I want to be, Mollie realized. She knew her heart wouldn’t get her there. Her heart was as steady as the metranome her girls used to set on the piano top. No, the best way she could get back there was to do nothing.

And, that’s what she did - nothing.

For three days she didn’t touch any food that was brought to her room. She had sipped water, secretly, from the bathroom tap when they thought she was asleep. Her debilitation program had gone almost too well before the staff had called in the resident doctor and that was when Mollie’s charade had started.

Her room had filled with people and lights.

Stars had mingled in a pool of red under Mollies eyelids. Hands pushed open her lids and she was blinded by light. Starched fabric of uniforms rubbed against the sides of her bed but she could not, did not want to, focus on anyone or anything around her.

Comatose, the young doctor warned. I think she’s becoming comatose.

Comatose my foot! I’m no more comatose than you are, young man. I’m just an old woman, a stubborn one at that, backing into my shell, trying to shut out all of you do-gooders. You pop into my room at all hours trying to take me away to Bingo, of all things, or to paint a flower pot or to squeeze a rubber ball - therapy, you call it! Therapy, humph. The only therapy I need is peace and quiet. I know how long I have and I know what I have to do and I can’t get it done here!

And there she lay, weak as a cup of coffee that had swum the crick, as the saying went. Her hands were gripped tightly over her stomach which grumbled angrily.

Comatose? No. Stubborn? Bull-headed? Yes. Or, my first love could have told you right off what my trouble was. ‘Mollie my dear,’ Bill would have said, ‘your Indian is showing, you look just like Auntie.’

Then he would have smiled, that teasing smile and watched me, laying there with my arms folded tightly across my chest, my head bent down, refusing to look anyone in the eyes. That was my silent treatment, a perfectly acceptable Indian way to reprimand. But now, thinking back and seeing myself laying there, poker straight with my arms gripped tight, I would have agreed with Bill. I did look like my old Cherokee Auntie when she was mad at the world. I felt like smiling. I wish I had smiled at Bill then… l wish… A flurry of activity interrupted Mollie’s reflections and her fanciful wishes immediately turned to stark reality.

Though Mollie’s eyes were merely slitted, she could see a blur of white surrounding her, fussing over her, slapping her wrists, lifting her eyelids, poking things in her arms. And the smell! It was August, hot and late in the day. Sweat and body odors of those surrounding her were beginning to overcome any soap or talcum powder they had applied at six that morning. Mollie pushed the offending air from her nose and carefully let a breath slip through her slightly parted lips. She thought she might faint. Maybe, she reasoned, fainting would be the answer: Voices flowed around her like choppy waves on a stormy lake.

I never noticed that before! Look at that thumb. The top joint’s missin’.

You see a lot of that out on the Reserve. When one of The People dies, relatives tend to lop off a finger or two, or maybe an ear. It’s an expression of sorrow and respect. The old ones used to do it often. Don’t see it so much these days.

She don’t look full blood.

Few of them around anymore.

Yeah, but she’s an old one.

Can’t tell how old with these squaws, somewhere between sixty and a’hunnerd. They get to a certain age and then just shrivel. Don’t change much:

Mollie could feel her muscles tighten in indignation but she refused to flinch or acknowledge their remarks. Even if she had told them why her joint had been amputated, would they care? Hardly. And, as for her age …She’d never tell them her age. The Spirit Horse might hear and say, I did not know you had lived so long. It is past time for you to die and he would take her away. Mollie wasn’t afraid of death. Not today. Not tomorrow. But she would say when. She would know when.

They were still talking, still asking.

All right now dearie, what day is it?

August 14, 1954, Mollie could have replied, but they didn’t need her to tell them.

What is your name? one asked.

Can you tell me your name? another shouted.

Whoo-eee, Mollie silently fumed, wishing she could shake her head and tell them what fools they were making of themselves. Name? A name is yours, your possession. You have one you can tell and one that is secret. You don’t spew it out to every Tom, Dick or Harry. That takes your power away! Mollie’s thoughts came flooding into her mind. There was so much they didn’t understand.

Really, doctor! A new voice, clipped and grating, had joined the chorus. Mollie know it from reputation - that woman from overseas who had married one of the Osage Grove soldiers - her!

The questions ceased, the voices became muted and the fainting sensation returned and …and, Mollie was floating. Not just floating but looking down from the ceiling. The pebbled tiles of the ceiling became her inverted mattress. She could see everything, everyone - not just the tops of their heads - their faces and expressions as well. She could also see a wizened old woman laying on a bed. Her arms were crossed and each hand clasped the elbow of its opposite arm. Her eyes were squeezed shut and her lips were slightly parted. Her hair was short, curly, white and parted in the middle.

Mollie realized with alarm that she was that woman!

The doctor was making jabbing motions at the woman’s arm, at the veins that seemed to lay on top of the skin, her skin. When he seemed satisfied he stepped back and let the English woman put strips of tape across the needle where it lay submerged in her arm.

Get her down to 101 and start an IV immediately, he ordered.

Mollie’s fainting sensation returned. It was more than that, she realized. It must have been one of those stings she had felt, a needle - a sedative. A strange thing for that doctor to do if he thought she was becoming comatose. What kind of a doctor was he? No wonder that woman had said, ‘Really!’

Really, doctor, don’t you want your patient to wake up?

Mollie had left her vantage point and was no longer an observer. Had she been afraid of dying? Was she afraid of being left alone in that sterile room? What was happening? Had her soul left her body on the start of a journey only to be called back to her wasted shell once more?

A draft in the hall rippled the light sheet that had been thrown over Mollie’s body. The wobbling of wheels as she was pushed over worn tiles down the long hallway brought back distant memories of a small girl looking out a window and listening to a train clacking down the tracks.

CHAPTER TWO

T he Osage Grove Nursing Home and Extended Care Facility was located at the outskirts of Osage Grove, Oklahoma. A solid beige brick building was built in 1920, when the presiding Mayor’s family had owned the local brick factory. The home was surrounded by a four foot wooden fence which canted away from a jungle of undergrowth.

Townspeople still pridefully considered the area a point of interest. They drove visiting relatives and friends by the substantial structure, carefully keeping their distance so the sagging wooden fences, overlaid with vines and weeds, appeared merely picturesque.

Windows with rolled shades pulled down in military precision reflected a soft glow when the sun was coming up or going down. As thin as they were, these blinds managed to keep the specter of death from escaping to envelop the town.

Mollie had never seen the inside of the building until she was brought there. The Old Folks’ Home was a place where people were sent when they had no family to care for them. She had family.

Since she’d arrived, the horror of being dragged from her home had been blocked from her mind, much as it would have been if she had been thrown from a horse or fallen down some stairs. Indeed, since she’d arrived, she had become solely concerned with the problems at hand; her survival and her privacy.

Yesterday, had it been only yesterday when she was loaded onto a gurney and transferred to this wing? Yesterday she had been moved from the Lodge to EC.

Once her plan had been put into action she had been moved out swiftly, thanks to young Wesley. Oh, she knew the name all right. Doc Wesley, this young man’s grandfather had taken over her husband T.L’s practice when he left town.

Which time? She couldn’t recall. There had been so many leavings.

This boy wouldn’t know her, probably wouldn’t even remember about T.L. He hadn’t been born when T.L. had left town for good.

She’d managed a quick look at the young doctor while everyone was milling around. He looked a lot like his grandmother’s people. Old Doc had married a Cherokee.

But he’s so young! How could anyone that young call himself a doctor? A baby face no sideburns -no mustache. Humph! Real doctors, like T.L., have mustache cups.

In my day, young man, doctors knew how to look respectable, she heard her thoughts returning, not that she said it to him. If she had it would have spoiled her efforts to be alone.

On the day Leola Summers was moved, everything had changed. Mollie’s room had filled with visitors. Oh, she couldn’t see them. She had felt their presence. For a long time now, even before she had come in here, they had been coming to her in her dreams. Who? The girls, Bill, Auntie and she’d even suspected T.L. had been in the shadows but she hadn’t seen him. The others, they would talk to her and when she asked them to stay they would say they couldn’t but she could come with them if she wanted to. She wanted to but when she tried she would find herself awake, alone and not able to go back to sleep. But now, even though they didn’t say, she felt that if they could come during the day when she was awake they could visit and maybe they could stay or, she could see where they went and follow them. She felt this strongly. She knew she had to be alone to accomplish this.

But before she could be alone, the door to the semi-private room would open and there they were – the staff.

We must’n’t get lonely now.

Why couldn’t they leave her alone? The rules, that’s why. Rules were the gods of the Osage Grove Nursing Home.

Rules! All my life, Lord, I’ve lived by the rules — Fathers, Mama’s, Bill’s, TL’s, but lately… Lately she suspected that she was still playing the game but the Lord was the only one who knew the rules. That was what had decided her plan of action.

Young Wesley had managed her move, all right, to Room 101, she’d heard him say. She was finally going to