Madeline

I

Before James Larkin White, there was the Great Ná'áshó̜'iitsoh.

In the deep and mysterious places of the world, lay secrets that have gone undiscovered by very few for exceeding lengths of time.

And to this day, some have remained, and will remain secrets until the end of time, their own sentient and sapient wills commanding it so. One very powerful secret, however, is a gift for a trusted few, to fancy and cherish as a great responsibility.

I was among those very few. Not even my husband, or my children know. I, who's very eyes had been allowed to gaze upon a certain secret that would put even those with religious beliefs, at a total loss for words.

I don't believe in God—at least, not in the way that others perceive him. What I do believe in, are the good, and especially, the evil things done to me, to those I love, by those whom I'd thought had loved me.

I believe in great power, and the magic my own eyes were allowed to see. I had been chosen to see it, I had been chosen to wield it, and I had been chosen to carry the hope that it granted as my task. Hope that I needed, because of what they did to me. However, regardless of what I have seen and what I have touched and been told, there is much that I do not understand, and probably never will. Characterized by perception and possibility, I was made to trust a hope as true as the awe and wonder it filled me. Hope, that is as powerful as it is secretive. But I have no faith, and I envy those who do.

I am Madeline Conner. I was born on the 13th of the fifth month in 1848. To quote Sani—who came to be one among the very few whom I trust; "You are a May Child. And May Children, are very important and special."

It began for me, in 1876, on a cold December night, and it went on for two years, until we left Nolan County three years before its government's organization—and the placing of their seat at what is now the Sweetwater Railway Station—fleeing, and leaving the rest of the settlers to deal with the relentless gang activity, as much as it pained me.

I was pregnant with my forth child. In the throws of labor, the contractions were five minutes apart, and the pain in my abdomen and the pressure in my pelvic area, were excruciating. Fortunately for me however, this was my easiest delivery. It had almost killed me, when I'd first brought Seth into the world, Terry was a bit less unpleasant, and Ginger had only made me stronger. Still, there is no such thing as an easy childbirth.

I would love this one as fiercely as I love all my children.

Sani had delivered all of my children, and this time was no different. He was an old, kindly, and very energetic Navajo man of sixty three, his serene and hazel eyes having seen many things of both life and death, peace and suffering, even before he'd fled from Southwestern New Mexico to join a disagreeable gang while still in his forties. Despite his experience and healing skills, his father had banished him in secret to avoid dire consequences, due to certain practices that were strictly forbidden. He told to me that he'd been accused of taking the role of medicine man to the point of witchcraft. He'd honored the burden of confession, claiming curiosity had gotten the better of him, that it had been a dark time in his life, that he would never again associate himself with such blasphemy.

In my hearing, he claimed that the yee naaldlooshii—witches that could turn into animals—were very real things of nightmares.

I didn't believe in their superstitions, but I trusted him because of the women who knew him before me, and my oldest son who spent the most time with him, because of how they'd described the tender and caring qualities of his character. He'd long abandoned his gang, and had settled two miles southwest of our home, in a large tepee on a rise.