We stayed with Kuna for a week, and I attended to the goats, finding several lost kids. I’ve learned several valuable skills from Kuna: cooking corn cakes and beans, slaughtering and cooking goats, making goat cheese, and spinning thread from goat’s wool. Her work never ceases, even after dark she teaches me to weave blankets from goat’s wool by the light of the one oil lamp.
Wana is constructing the adobe hut for Broken Knife and his wife; it is the woman’s job to build, as is every other job requiring hard labor. Her brothers, Yellow Hand and Running Snake, have been pressed into service in the construction. The two men do their work and don’t complain, but if there is any slack time they are apt to disappear. Wana knows what she is doing, and the hut rises fast.
I enjoy it here; the women who come to visit are friendly; I tell them my stories and enjoy theirs. They don’t understand why I stayed with the girl’s gang for so long, and are horrified by the letter K branded on the back of my neck; they are horrified more that I haven’t married. They gossip about Bear Two Feathers and suggest several young women to marry him, even me.
I receive a little respect from the men, at least those who are not Half Hand’s friends. I am given an arrow by Walking Snake, a young brave. I think he has fallen for me; he’s sweet but too young to marry, besides I don’t intend to marry. I give him no encouragement, but keep the arrow. The other braves now call him Broken Heart.
Broken Knife’s hut is finished and we are making ready to leave. Sunset arrives and I hand Wana my extra uniform. She begins to remove her skirt, but Kuna stops her, saying, “You are starting a new life, you must wash your old life away.” She leads us to the pond, undresses, and dives in. The elegant dive surprises me, but not as much as her other tattoos; she wears vertical blue lines down her back and chest, wavy lines between the straight ones, and blue dots in the spaces between the lines. Wana dives in next, but she carries no tattoos on her back or chest. I drop my clothes to dive in, and we giggle. Kuna the Serious for the first time is playing, splashing water, and laughing.
The fun ends too soon; the air is turning cold, threatening to freeze, so we step out of the warm water to dry off. Through shivering teeth, I ask Kuna, “What are your marks for?”
“They remind us of the brave women who have given their lives to protect their children. The straight lines are our lives, the crooked lines are the path we must travel around, and the dots, which are the those things which would hurt you. They are only for your family to see.”
“Do women who have no children bear these marks?”
“Sometimes, it is very painful to receive them. It is said the pain is to teach us what a woman must endure to have a child.”
I have nothing to say; I cannot bear children. It is time. Wana and I dress into my uniforms; she has to roll up her sleeves and cuffs. I call for Bear to bring the horses around the hut. While we swam, he dug up and cleaned off my saddlebags. From my seat on the horse I pull Wana up on the warm animal to sit behind me and we start north at a canter. I look back to see Kuna has retreated to her hut, but I feel she is watching us.
Bear puts me in the lead and tells me to find the watering holes. Wana helps some; she doesn’t know the way, but she can find the watering holes even in the dim light. The moon sets halfway through the night and Bear relieves me of the lead.
Arriving at the Keeper’s hut just before sunup, we hide behind the top of a hill to check the situation, and it’s a good thing we did. I am shocked back into the modern world; two jeeps are parked next to our truck and four men are talking to the Keeper, and they don’t look friendly. They get into their jeeps taking the Keeper with them and head south towards the Mojave, passing close by our hiding position under the ridgeline. I ask Bear, “Won’t this mean trouble?”
“He answers, “They won’t find the Mojave, and the Keeper is in no danger; he will escape. This is what I thought would happen when we left Los Angeles. The bank clerk is a lookout for easy marks when they leave the bank.”
We descend down to the hut to take care of the weary horses, and fill the truck with the gasoline we buried when we first arrived. Bear takes one bundle of my hundred dollar bills from the saddlebag and places it on the table, saying, “This is for the hospitality the tribe has given us.”
I choke on the cup of water I’m drinking, but say nothing. He is right of course; I learned a lot about men, good and bad, and started my vision quest. But, I paid for it in other ways, my chin tattoo being my receipt.
We drive back to Las Vegas, but instead of going to the big airport we turn off into a suburb and find a road going south. An hour later we arrive at a small private airport where Bear negotiates with a pilot to fly us east. We have trouble with Wana as she has no identification, but Bear convinces the pilot with a few hundred dollar bills to take her. It is an endless flight to Amarillo Texas where we land, and taxi to the small plane hangars, a black car pulls up and two rough men step out. One shows his ID card saying he is an FBI agent, the other has his hand in his jacket holding something. Bear holds a hand behind his back with two fingers pointed to the side, the Mojave signal for trouble. The man with the ID card asks for the saddlebags, to keep them safe. Bear takes them from me and holds them out to the agent. The man reaches out to touch the bags, Bear drops them to the ground and the man’s attention follows. Bear has his staff off of its shoulder sling, and in a tight swing hits the man in the side of his head.
I don’t see what he does next; without thinking my staff hits the other agent’s hand as it comes out of his pocket, sending his gun flying. As he cries out in pain, Wana’s staff crashes into the side of his head, and he drops hard. Mojave men aren’t the only ones to receive staff training. The man Bear hit is also flat on the tarmac.
The pilot emits a curse as Bear kneels down to search the men. “Who are you? That was the FBI; are you crazy?”
“The better question is who are these guys? They aren’t FBI.” Bear shows the pilot the fake id’s. “We won’t bother you anymore. We’ll take a car from here.” He hogties the men and we carry them behind a dumpster. Bear puts on his gloves, unloads their guns, and tosses the clips into a waste barrel, as we walk away.
At the main terminal Bear hires a taxi to a small car dealership where he negotiates to buy a car. Wana and I wait in the showroom and see men and women walking past the door at the rear of the room, that leads to the shop. As they pass by, they stare at us, walk past the door once more, smirking. I hear laughter coming from the garage. It makes me angry, but I look at Wana, who is withering under the scrutiny, and whisper, “White people are stupid. Be brave; be proud; you are Mojave.” She stiffens to stand a little taller.
Bear returns with a set of keys and a bill of sale and we escape outside to pick up the worst car on the lot. We drive on side streets, with me at the wheel, and Wana sitting beside me. Suddenly she shouts, “Stop, stop.”
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I put on the breaks and ask, “What is it, sister?”
“Tattoo, you said it is called a tattoo, look.” We are indeed next to a shop with the sign, ‘Black Art Tattoos.’
“No way are we going in there,” says Bear.”
Wana glares at her older brother, and growls, “That artist was dumb, Wachinga’s mark is plain, and no one will marry her. We must fix it.”
Marry? I stare between the mirror and Wana; Broken Knife did give my chin an ugly mark. “He said he wouldn’t embarrass me.”
Bear studies my chin and says, “It could be better. You are stuck with it; perhaps it can be made to look better.”
“It is agreed?” asks Wana.
I stew a minute remembering the pain and look in the mirror again. I rub the mark, it has already healed, and I know it is forever. I suck it up and say, “I’ll do it.”
We enter the shop and a woman with tattooed arms looks up from the drawing of a dragon she is working on. Her look of boredom disappears as her eyes go wide. “Oh my, you two are certainly brave, I’ve never seen a woman with a tattooed face. May I help you?” She asks.
Wana pushes me forward, pointing at my chin. “We must make this better. Can you help me?”
The tattooist examines my chin from several angles, takes a few pictures, makes some lines on the prints, and says, “I can do it.” She points to a vivid blue flower on her chest, “But the blue inks I have won’t match,”
I agree that the blue lines on my chin are too deep in color. Wana takes a small stone from her bag and drops it into the woman’s hand. She examines it, “This is Lapis Lazuli, it’s very valuable, and very permanent, it can never be removed, even with a laser.”
I hear nothing else; my stomach ties itself in a knot, and I run for the bathroom to throw up. As I clean myself, I understand how much my tattoo binds me to the Mojave. Broken Knife let me leave the land; but I am now and forevermore a Mojave; I cannot escape it. He didn’t let me leave, not really. I may not be married to Half Hand, which I bargained for like a fool, but I am married to the tribe. I know I will return to the people who accepted me with open arms. I leave the bathroom and say, “Let’s do it, I am Mojave.”
Wana grinds a chip from the stone and prepares the ink, but the artist insists on doing the actual work. Her electrically powered needle is less painful and more precise than the cactus needles the Mojave use. The lines straighten up and the mark looks much cleaner. The Bear pays the woman, with my money no doubt. As we leave, I see her drawing designs for chin tattoos, and I shudder, thinking about other girls getting tattooed.
The rest of the drive to Virginia is uneventful, taking two days because we avoid the big highways. We arrive at the Knight Riding School in the Shenandoah Valley. Passing through the town of Wakefield it is a short drive to the school, where we turn right through the arched gate saying, “Knight Riding School.” It is a twisty drive, before we see the Palace, a huge wide building made from white stone blocks, with round turrets at each corner.
Wana lets out a “Wah” of surprise and asks me, “What is that? What is this place?
I smirk because I asked the same question four years ago. “It is your new home. It is here you will become a warrior.”
She points to the equally large building, off to the right and asks, “What is that?”
“Oh, that is the stables where we keep the horses. The boys live on the upper floors.”
She says, “It took a lot of women to make this place.”
I don’t comment on that, we have more important things to do. Bear parks the ratty car in front of the Palace and we climb one of the two curved stairs to the big wooden door, and enter to walk down the hallway to the right turret and enter into an office where a short thin blond girl, in a squire’s uniform sits at the desk, studying a textbook. She looks at us open mouthed, but on seeing Bear she comes to attention, and says, “Sir Bear, welcome back.”
“Thank you Squire Sally. Is Sir Lion free?” he asks.
“Oh, Yes Sir. Go right in.”
Bear orders us to wait outside and enters into the office, closing the door behind him. Sally stands right in my face, pointing her finger hard into my chin, and says, “You better have a real good explanation for that.” She rubs the mark with her thumb and asks, Is that a real tattoo?”
“Oh yes, Sally, it’s real. Please don’t tell anybody about it, at least not yet. Please!”
Sally looks at Wana, with her chin tattoo. “Please, who are you?”
“I am Wana from the Mojave, and Wachinga’s sister.”
“Who is Wachinga?”
“I am,” I answer. “It’s my new name; I am also now Mojave.”
“Well, I’ll be. I won’t tell anyone, but you better tell me everything.” says Sally.
The door to the inner office opens and Bear signals us to come in. I stand in front of the large ornate wooden desk and Wana stands by me, shivering. The medium built man, with a gray goatee, standing behind the desk, says, “Wana, welcome to the Knight Riding School. I am Sir John Fitz Osborne, the Headmaster, but students usually call me Lion. He steps around the desk and with a gentle smile greets her, hands to forearms.
The door opens and a small woman with long black hair, almond shaped eyes, wearing a school uniform with skirt enters, performs a curtsy, and says, “Welcome, I am Lady Jane.”
“I am Wana,” says my sister with hesitation.
“What is your last name?” asks Lion.
“I am only Wana.” She says, looking down, red in the face.
“Then you may choose a last name.”
“I am now Wachinga’s sister, I will use her name.”
“Grace, what do you have to say?” asks Lion.
“My name was Grace Howard, but I have taken on the name Wachinga. I wish to be known as Grace Wachinga.”
“I will be Wana Wachinga, to honor my sister, who would give her life to save mine,” she says, smiling.
“Then you shall be known as Wana Wachinga. I will have the paperwork made up to make both of your names official. Lady Jane, please introduce Page Wana to the school.”
The woman escorts Wana from the office and closes the door. Lion tells me, “I expect a full report of your adventure on my desk in the morning. Dismissed.”
“Sir before I leave, I have another matter.”
“Go on.”
I place the heavy saddlebags on Lions desk and he stares at me a few seconds, not looking pleased. “What is this?”
I open the right bag and pull out bundle after bundle of hundred dollar bills, stacking them neatly on his desk. Finished, I open the left bag and unload the rest of the money. “If I stayed with the Mojave, I would have given all of this to Wana. If my scholarship still stands, I will still do it.”
The Lion places the money back in the saddlebags, saying, “Fortunately, the house of Bear Two Feather’s is able to pay for Wana’s tuition, and your scholarship still stands. Deposit this money with the Quartermaster and we will determine if it is legal gains. And, Grace, you are to ever warn your friends of the dangers of rash decisions. Dismissed.”
In a daze at still being a student, I walk past Sally into the hallway and she follows me, determined to hear my story first. The hall is crowded; word of my arrival must be big news. I hear music playing, the same tune I heard Kokopelli play in my vision. Is this another dream? No, spinning around, I see a boy, dressed in a page’s uniform, playing a penny whistle. “Who are you? Where did you learn that tune?”
“I’m Mike the Piper, I just got here, Squire Wolf brought me. The tune just came to me this morning.”
I hear Wolf say, “Grace, what happened to you? You're bleeding!”
I look up at my best friend, feel my chin and the wound on my arm, finding no blood.
Wolf points, “No there, Grace, down there,”
I look down and to my horror, I’m having a monthly.