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spirit would contaminate her and TohTseeAhne, too, if it got the chance. She had to protect herself. She must stay pure in soul until she and TohTseeAh could get
out of here.
In the barnyard, Náudah saw a scissortail messenger of the Spirits.
Fly away, brave, bird. Fly away to the Comanchería. Tell all my relations where I am. Tell my family to come and get me and TohTseeAh. Tell them to come and kill
these Tejanos, and take me home.
She discovered a juniper bush in the corner of the Parker yard. It wasn't cedar, but it was a close substitute. She nipped small twigs and branches from it, made a
thatch of it, and lit it at the fireplace, then wafted the smoke over herself. She brushed the smoking thatch up and down, close to her legs, across her head and down
her back as far as she could reach. She felt cleansed. Then she smoked TohTseeAhne the same way.
She felt good, renewed. Pahayuka had taught her that the ritual was an affirmation of her place in the world. It asserted the individual's version of the partnership every
person has with the universe. It tells the hunter that he is never alone, no matter how far away he wanders from this relatives and friends. It guarantees the
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captive that a world of harmony and good fortune exists, no matter how many restraints prevent one from reaching it.
Náudah refused to wear anything but her deerskin sheath, rejecting all the clothes the white woman tried to force upon her. She put aside the polkadot and print
pinafores and smocks they had given TohTseeAh and dressed her in her antelope shift. It was a pitifully small gesture, but it was all she had to maintain their identity
and a fragment of their dignity.
That's all right, said Anna. She must feel a lot more natural in her own clothes. It won't hurt anything for her to wear them.
Well, it's all right, said Bess. For now.
Yes, said Isaac. We've got to be patient.
I just can't see why she wants to go back, said Anna.
Well, once she learns the conveniences of civilization, she'll forget all about going back, said Isaac.
Bess and Anna repeatedly came into Náudah's room or took her and TohTseeAh into the main room of the double cabin, with their sewing baskets and bowls of
vegetables to peel. It's better, we don't have to heat both rooms, Bess explained.
Náudah thought of hiding from them. But they would soon find her~ they knew all the hiding places, and then they would watch her even more closely. If she were going
to find a chance to get away, she would have to pretend to do what they wanted.
Another storm hit, this one with rain, sleet and wind. That moist wind just gets into a person's bones, declared Bess. And Náudah admitted it was cozy to sit by a
good fire and work. Anna was teaching her to embroider, which she enjoyed. She thought, at times, that maybe she would be happy in such a house. Or rather, that if
she could take this house with her to the Comanchería, she would be happy to accept it for her family.
She held the edge of the rug and asked ¿Cómo se heche? then made motions of weaving.
When Bess realized that Cynthia Ann was asking how the rug
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was made, she admitted she didn't know. Why, we bought that rug from Julian Feild over in Fort Worth. He had to order it from Dallas. We don't know how it's
made.
So Náudah lay on the floor and traced the strands of the braid, until she had figured out the method and the pattern. Bess and Anna showed her how to cut old socks
and underwear with a pair of scissors to make the strands, and she braided a small rug. She left the ends loose, so that she could add to it when she got more material.
Look at this! Bess said, showing the rug to Isaac. She's real industrious. She figured out how they make those rugs we buy.
That's wonderful, said Isaac. I knew it would all work out. She'll fit right in and learn English in no time. All the others of our family that were captured were
recovered from the merciless savages before they forgot English. We have to be patient.
But Náudah still felt soiled by life in the Parker house, and she gathered more juniper to smoke herself and TohTseeAh. Every time she realized the Parker's spirits
were crawling all over her, she had to cleanse herself.
Tio Isaac, she said. Tio mio. ¿Cuándo vamanos a la Comanchería? When will we go to the prairie? I'm so lonely here. My heart cries all the time for my husband
and sons. You said we would go and look for them. When can we start?
Soon, he answered. Soon.
But soon was slow in coming. Náudah began to see that, if she and TohTseeAh were going to get back to the prairie, she would have to devise the method and the
trip herself. Give me a horse and show me the way? she asked Isaac. TohTseeAh and I will be all right. I know how to travel and take care of myself on the trail.
But Isaac wouldn't hear of it. After we've saved you from that long night of suffering, we can't just let you go. Don't you realize those infidels out there would just
torture you, the way they do all white women? Those howling demons would beat you, force you to work, let you starve and freeze. And every crude buck that came
along would feel free to ravage you. I can't let you go back to that miserable plight.
Then I'll have to find a way on my own, Náudah said to herself.
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The first Sunday after church, many people followed the Parker clan back to Isaac's cabin in a parade of buggies and hacks. And people began arriving from other
places: women in long gowns whose sleeves were as white and round as mushrooms and whose dark skirts went down to the ground~ men came in black coats and
white shirts and stood around visiting, smoking cigarettes and sucking on grass stems.
Isaac Parker was clearly the chief. Standing on the porch, he called for attention, and everyone stood silently while he made a little speech. We are gathered here
today to welcome our Cynthia Ann back from perdition and into the fold of her rightful family. I want to thank you all, friends, neighbors, family, for coming here today
to wish her and us well. She has suffered long, unprotected and undefended, in ways that none of us can come close to imagining. She has lived in the most despicable
of conditions and participated in the most contemptible of practices, forced into diabolical perversities by those miserable, heathen wretches. But she is now praise be
unto the Lord! restored to those who love her. Let us thank the Lord, he said, breaking into prayer, and all those around obediently bowed their heads.
Thank thee, Father, for restoring Cynthia Ann to us. In Your wisdom, You looked down and saw what was right. You saw the lamb that was lost, and You restored it
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Odnośniki
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