Savage Beloved

Portraits are to daily faces

As an evening west

To a fine, pedantic sunshine

In a satin vest.

—Emily Dickinson

The sun streamed softly through the bedroom window as Candy Creighton sat on the floor in front of her travel trunk, neatly placing her folded clothes in it.

But she was only halfheartedly preparing herself for departure from Fort Hope with her colonel father. She just couldn’t get what she had witnessed these past few days off her mind.

It was the old Indian whose name she now knew was Short Robe whom she saw in her mind’s eye. She flinched even now as she remembered the snapping sound when the soldiers had taken turns lashing the old man’s bare back with a blacksnake whip, over and over again.

She cringed as she thought of the soldiers’ mocking laughter, proving how much they had enjoyed torturing the old Indian warrior. She couldn’t understand how anyone could enjoy raising the whip and bringing it down across another human being’s back.

And she knew the men had enjoyed it. They had tossed coins, gambling amongst themselves over who would be the next one to whip the old man held in bondage with chains.

It had taken all the willpower that Candy could muster up to keep herself from going out to the parade ground and grabbing the whip to give those who were beating the old Indian a lash or two. She longed to let them know just how it felt.

Instead, she had gone and asked her father why the elderly Indian was being treated so cruelly. Her father had given her an explanation that made her heart turn cold with horror.

She shivered as she again heard her father’s nonchalant reply: “To set an example.”

That seemed the worst reason of all, for it most certainly would be the beginning of trouble with the Wichita, and perhaps even before she and her father left the fort for Arizona. Her father was to be the colonel at a new fort built purposely for fighting the “redskin savages,” as most soldiers referred to the Indians.

Her father’s reason for whipping the old Indian made her skin crawl. Although her father would no longer be in charge of this area, he wanted to leave something behind for the Wichita to remember him by. He was angry that the Wichita had ignored all he had urged them to do. What irked him most was their refusal to agree to reservation life.

Her father had so badly wanted to achieve that goal as a way to win recognition in Washington, and another medal on his uniform.

So, since the Wichita had showed her father no respect, he had decided to make this old man suffer.

Actually, Candy knew that Short Robe was lucky to be alive. In a sense, he had unknowingly tricked her father. Her father had thought he had abducted the Wichita chief, Moon Thunder, that day the soldiers found the old Indian praying on a butte, away from his village. Only later did he discover that his men had captured the chief’s brother, a man who had no power, or voice, when it came to decision making among his people.

And when he learned that the true chief had died, her father felt even more foolish.

He had told Candy that the old man was lucky he didn’t kill him with his bare hands, and the only reason he hadn’t done so was because he wanted to use Short Robe as an example. For that, he needed him to be alive.

Candy trembled again at how horribly the old man had been treated. Would those at the village retaliate once Short Robe was returned there and they saw the condition he was in?

More than once, her father had enjoyed lifting the whip against Short Robe himself.

When Candy had begged him to stop and expressed her concerns about retaliation, he had said, “Nonsense. The Wichita are too busy mourning their chief to come and take revenge for what was done to one old man.”

Candy could hardly wait to leave this horrid place of bad memories. Surely when they arrived at the new, larger fort in Arizona, she could relax without fearing that an arrow might suddenly slice into her back at any moment.

Candy’s insecurity was not helped by the knowledge that her mother, Agnes, was gone now. She had finally had enough of the sort of life her husband offered and had fled to God only knew where.

Tears shone in Candy’s eyes at the memories of her mother. Oh, how she missed her, but she was glad that her mother had found the courage to follow her heart and go where she might find true happiness.

Candy pushed herself up from the floor and went to her dresser to stare into the mirror.

She gazed at her face as she slowly ran her fingers over it. She felt much older than eighteen after all she had seen at Fort Hope.

She was glad to be leaving.

Perhaps after she left Fort Hope and went to live at the new fort, she would find her white knight in shining armor, a man who would take her away from this military life that had been forced upon her from the day she was born.