Echoes of the Flute

Chapter 1

Chapter 1Yanube City, Dakota Territory, one year earlier

The anvil clanged like the Main Street Methodist Church’s Sunday bell, spitting red-orange sparks with each blow of Timo Bowers’s hammer. Made me think of a chorus of angels with fiery wings. When the blacksmith thrust tongs gripping a glowing ingot of iron into the fire pit, he nodded, and I applied bellows until the metal glowed to his satisfaction. Then he placed it on the anvil and began conducting his choir all over again.

The smith’s name was really Timothy, but he’d held onto Timo ever since my great uncle Cut Hand slapped it on him when his family wintered at Teacher’s Mead after the Sioux killed the rest of their small wagon train. Ten-year-old Timo and his little sister were terrified of Cut Hand, a pure-blood Yanube Indian, so he spent the long snowbound months easing the children’s fears and becoming their best friend. My grandpa, Billy Strobaw, had advantaged the winter to teach Timo and his sister to read and write and calculate.

All this Timo had told me many times, usually starting with, “John, you’re the spittin’ image of Cut Hand. It’s like he was standing here in front of me after all these years.”

Better’n forty of them. The smith had to be a mite past fifty now. In the three weeks I’d been apprenticing at the forge with Timo, I’d heard the story until it was boresome. He’d always end up by saying how much I looked like Cut. Not my grandpa, but Cut Hand.

“Well, he was my grandmother’s brother,” I’d say. “So I guess I come by it naturally.”

“Finest-looking man I ever seen,” Timo always came back at me.

I already knew a good deal about smithing. Crow Johnson, the Absaroka Pa’d hired to handle our forge at Teacher’s Mead fifty miles to the east, had taught me a lot. But he’d left us for Crow Indian country after his father, a retired army scout, had fallen ill. So here I was, trying to learn all I could from the best blacksmith and farrier in the territory.

“That’s enough for today, John,” he said. “Let’s go in and clean up. I got a pepper stew on the stove to pad our breadbaskets. Something special for your last night here. You glad to be going home tomorrow?”

“Yes, sir. I miss it. But I sure learned a lot from you.”

He waved away my claim as he closed the doors to the shop and turned toward his home a hippity-hop off to the east. “Wasn’t much for me to do. That Crow Indian taught you pretty good.”

“He and my pa gave me the basics, but you let me know the why, not just the what. And Otter always says knowing why the what is…that’s what’s important.”

“That Otter’s about the smartest Indian I ever knowed.” Timo unlatched the door to the house, and I followed him inside. This morning, he’d banked coals in the kitchen stove to take the chill off the pots of water left on top. It was high summer, so the water didn’t need much warming.

Stripping in front of other men didn’t bother me any. My pa and my brother Alex and Matthew Brandt—who might as well be my brother—and me were always showing some flesh between skinny dipping in the river or spending time in the sweat lodge, a holdover from Pa’s heritage. He was born half Yanube—a cousin of the Sioux—and it still showed up in his blood now and then.

Timo, on the other hand, didn’t have brothers and was shy about shucking his clothes in front of others. So we usually cleaned up at different times to preserve his modesty. Today, after visiting the necessary, I walked into the back room he used for bathing and found two tubs of water.

“Hope it don’t bother you none, but since it’s your last night here, I thought we’d sit and jaw a spell.”

“Fine by me.” I slipped braces off my shoulders and tugged down my trousers. In half a minute, I was buff and heading for the tub. Timo was still gawking when I stuck a toe in the water and backed away.

“Sorry if it’s too hot.”

“That’s okay. It’ll cool off in a minute.” I turned away when I saw what he was looking at.

He gulped out loud. “You look just like him.”

I shook my head at the familiar refrain. “Can’t. He was full-blood, I’m quarter.”

“He was like that too.”

“Like what?”

“Didn’t mind me looking at him. You know…nekked.”

I hadn’t minded, but I was beginning to now. “That’s the thing about Indians. They figure the body’s natural. Only needs enough clothing to keep it warm.”

Beginning to go all goose pimply, I stuck a foot in the tub and tried not to howl. Despite fixing to roast my acorns, I sat down quickly.

“For somebody so young, you’re…you’re built like a grown man.”

“Uh, thanks. Hard work, I guess.”

He finished undressing and walked to the other tub. He’d had a good look at me, so I took one at him. Smithing had kept him fit as a fiddle, putting meat on his arms and torso and keeping it off everywhere else. He had more hair than I did. I favored Pa’s side of the family more than Ma’s. Pa didn’t have hair anywhere except right around his privates. And his head, of course. Like me.

After he settled into his tub, I grabbed the bar of soap he’d laid out and started scrubbing. It didn’t bother me getting sweaty and grubby, but it sure was a pleasure washing it away. The bathing room at the Mead was better because Grandpa had used gravity to bring spring water from the hill behind us right into the stone house he’d built. It felt fresher standing beneath a stream of water than sitting in your own washed-off sweat and dirt. That’s why I always used a jug of fresh water to sluice over me after tub-bathing.

That done, I wrapped myself in the big towel he’d left for me and sat on a stool while he kept on soaking. Didn’t seem friendly to run out when he’d said he hoped to do some talking, so I sat and listened to him reminisce about the old days. Inevitably he ended up comparing me to my great uncle.

“You got his build. He was graceful like you are. Them eyes. Never seen none like them until you came around. Black as pure carbon with little flecks of gold.”

“My pa’s got eyes like that too.” Good to have something to contribute.

“You’re the spitting image of him. Except…”

“Except my hair.”

“That’s it. First time I saw your head, I thought somebody’d took a paintbrush to it. Never seen black hair like that.”

I was across the room, or he’d have reached out and touched it. My mop was a glossy Indian black with little dots of my ma’s yellow hair sprinkled throughout it. I wore it short in the white man’s way, and Ma said it looked like the night sky with stars popping out in it. When Alexander and I went hunting in the daytime, he’d make me go bareheaded. A gold-speckled head got antelope so curious they forgot to run away. At night, Matthew’d make me wear a cap because the yellow caught the moonlight and scared deer away. I’d taken some teasing about it in my day, so hair was a halfway touchy subject with me. Timo didn’t seem to notice; he kept on talking about how pretty it was. Not strange, like everybody else called it, but pretty.

Figuring we’d been sociable enough, I got up, excused myself, and threw on some fresh duds before going out to the stable to check on Arrow Wind. My pony was the third or fourth horse in the family to be labeled that way over the generations. Cut Hand had ridden the original. He’d died astride the first Arrow’s back too.

After working our way through the pot of pepper stew and playing our usual game of draughts—he called it checkers—we said good night. I went to my room and shucked down to the short linen breechcloth that was my underwear. I couldn’t abide long johns like a lot of fellas wore.

The house was dark. Timo didn’t spend much on candle wax or coal oil, so reading like I usually did before taking to bed wasn’t possible. Teacher’s Mead was always bright with yellow light strong enough to make out the dimmest print in my grandfather’s well-thumbed collection of books. He’d managed to corral works by Poe and Hawthorne and Fennimore Cooper, not to mention Shakespeare and the Holy Bible. Although nothing but a toddler when he died, seemed like I could remember him holding Alex and me on his knees, reading to us right up until the day a canker in his chest spirited him away. Of course, that was most likely remembering from hearing my father telling it over the years.

Billy Strobaw was responsible for the education in my family. He’d taught Cut Hand and Otter and Dog Fox—that was Pa’s Indian name—and others in the band to read and write in English when Cut Hand first brought him to Yanube country back in ‘32. And Otter kept it up with us kids after Grandpa died.

I blew out the candle and crawled onto the feather tick mattress. The bedding was meant for winter sleeping—and this was June—so it was hot even when the night turned cooler. Other than collecting heat, it was comfortable, though. When I sank down into the feathers, they snuggled me close and safe.

I came awake when Timo entered the darkened room, expecting to be warned of skullduggery or mischief going on outside. Instead, the puffy mattress lifted me as his weight dropped to the other side.

Lying nearly naked on the flat of my back, I froze when a calloused hand touched my arm. I probably should have got huffy, but I didn’t. I remained quiet as his broad palm swept my chest, puckering my n*****s and testing my flesh. The caress moved to my belly. The horny hand had a curiously gentle feel to it. When his fingers came to rest on my manhood, heat flooded my viscera like syrupy lava. When he massaged my staff through the thin under shift, there wasn’t anything I could do to keep from getting hard.

I almost rebelled when he pulled down my loincloth, but the barehanded embrace of my genitals killed the impulse. In all my eighteen summers, no one had ever touched me like that.

A fist closed around me, but I wasn’t sure what he was about until his tongue joined his fist. My legs scissored. A goosey, creepy, sensual feeling rode chill bumps sweeping down my back.

My toes curled as he fell into an increasingly hypnotic rhythm. I panted into the darkness in soft puffs as my time neared. I wanted to put my hand on him, throw my legs around him but was unable to move beyond the involuntary things. I got hotter, harder. The magma boiling inside me thickened and pulsed, seeking release. Then my body arched. I threw my hips into him as orgasm struck. The lava broke loose and spewed liquid heat. My muscles spasmed, convulsing until I danced on the mattress like bacon over hot flames. My seed spewed out of me so hard I grew swimmy headed.

Finally, the night was still and quiet, except for my labored panting. I licked dry lips and smelled my own sated lust and a hint of his tobacco and alcohol. I grew aware of the rough texture of bed linens against my damp skin and the weight of the man who lay without moving on my groin. Time stretched out. Tarnation, had Timo gone to sleep with my che in his mouth? As I wrestled with that thought, he rose and left the room without uttering a word, leaving me to study on what had happened.

I knew one thing for sure. It wasn’t me he’d done that for…it had been for Cut Hand. His wanting of my dead uncle was so powerful, I could almost feel his presence in the room. And I’d never believed in wah-nah-gee…ghosts.

* * * *

The next morning, Timo said nothing about last night, so I didn’t either. I kept looking at him, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes. He acted like something was wrong. His goodbyes were pleasant enough, but our handshake was brief.

Bamboozled by the whole thing, I turned north upon leaving Yanube City instead of heading home. Arrow hadn’t been ridden much during my stay at the Bowers place, so he was frisky and ready for a workout. It didn’t take us long to cover the seven miles to Turtle Crick Farm.

Joseph Strobaw Otter—who was known as River Otter to the few surviving Yanube and had always been and always would be Otter to my family—walked out of the cabin as I crossed the bridge and rode into the yard. He gave the open-handed greeting.

“Hah-ue, dah-koh-zjah.”

Otter had called all Cuthan Strobaw’s kids “grandchild” for as long as I could remember. Cuthan was Pa’s American name. I greeted Otter fondly with an Indian handshake, grasping forearms instead of palms.

He looked me over and nodded. “You are becoming a man, War Eagle.” He usually used my natural name when nobody was around.

According to you and Pa, I did that last year when I turned seventeen.”

“What brings you all the way out here? Is anything wrong?”

I regarded the handsome man who’d been my grandfather’s constant companion for the last two decades of his life. He had to be on the high side of fifty, but his back was straight, his hair black and lustrous, and his teeth good. He would probably die working Major Morrow’s fields. The retired army officer had some sort of connection to Teacher’s Mead I didn’t fully understand.

After that situation with Timo Bowers last night, I’d immediately thought of Otter. He’d been a strong, constant guardian all my life, and I’d trusted him with my darkest secrets. Dang, I would trust him with my life. It had always been that way.

“No, there is nothing wrong. At least, that I know about. I’ve been the last three weeks in Yanube City learning about blacksmithing.”

“Good. A man can’t know too much.”

I laughed. “They called Grandpa Billy the Teacher, but that should have been your name. You’re the one who taught all of us.”

“He was the one who taught me. I only passed on what he’d given me. There are some schools scattered around the countryside now, but back then, there wasn’t one within a hundred miles. And we were the fortunate ones. In other places, the white men sent all our children away to schools where they were forbidden to speak their own tongue. It was a lonely, miserable time for youngsters who had always known the love of family.”

I’d been ignorant of my narrow escape.

He walked with me while I watered Arrow in the crick before ground tethering him on the shady side of the house to graze. Then we went to the covered porch where we shared drinks from a keg of passably cool water.

We passed the time catching up on events, but even after enough polite talk had gone by, I was still at a loss how to bring up the question I’d come to pose. Things of the flesh were best kept personal, but what had happened last night preyed on my mind enough so I had to root out some answers. Eventually, he saw through me and asked straight out what the problem was.

“Don’t know if it is a problem.” I charged straight into the thing and told him what went on in that dark room. My face grew hot during the telling, but I kept on going.

Otter was courteous enough to keep his eyes centered over my right shoulder, but he saw and examined each expression that crossed my features. After I finished, he got up without a word and went inside the house. Just when I was about to follow him, he came back out and handed over an old tome roughly bound in buffalo hide.

“It is time you read this.”

He’d switched to Lakota, so this book was something of importance. I opened the cover. There was no title, but I recognized my grandpa’s neat, precise hand from letters I’d seen. I turned to the back and read the final words written in a shaky scrawl.

William Joseph Strobaw, also known as Teacher and the

Red Win-tay to the People of the Yanube,

This final day of October

Year of our lord 1861, at Teacher’s Mead on the Upper Yanube

“Grandpa’s?”

“The story of his life written in his own hand. He was brutally honest, so you will learn secrets that may surprise you. It could also open your eyes in this matter that bothers you so much. Billy was a white man, but he came to view his world with the eyes of a red man. You have both white eyes and red eyes. Now it is time for you to decide which to use.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You can view what happened last night with shame or not. Read the pages, Eagle. Then come back and talk so we can see how it will be for you.”