Savage Bunny

"Special"

She sat on the grass using the washboard to scrub the clothes, as I leaned against a cedar watching. It took so many moons to get to the place where we were at, and my mind couldn't help but replay the moment I first saw her. I couldn't speak to her then even if I wanted too, and everyone despised her for trying, learning, and succeeding in talking my language. "Aahrak, I'm done, so we can go back home now," smiled the brunette. I gazed at her with tenderness in my eyes as I walked towards her, shoulders back in a stretch. I made Penny my woman almost a month ago, and unlike many people, she was the only one I had fallen for, and my only wife. "Carry for you?" I asked her in my broken English. Penny smiled and shook her head no as she kissed my cheek as the white people did their parents. I could understand most of her people's sentences, but talking still pondered me, and yet, she just kept teaching me everyday. We made it to my people's village as she entered the mud hut we called home and put down the clothes with a sigh. We looked at each other when my brother walked in with his bow and stared at me, talking in my native tongue. "I'm going to hunt now," I said blankly to Penny natively as she grabbed a basket of corn for shucking. Talia walked in as we left with her infant strapped to her back, and I felt good knowing Penny would have the company and help for dinner, but for now it was time for my part of the job to be done, something I was very skilled at.

Penny smiled tenderly as the woman walked in with her child and sat down. Talia assisted with dinner on Thursday nights as trade with Penny for her lessons on her special book, and her language; Penny always told her she didn't need anything in return, and that their company was more than enough. In reality, the cooking had become a coverup for the two women since understanding the American language wasn't something every man in the village could do, in fact only three women spoke the language in their whole tribe. Penny, Talia, and Lee Luanna, were the females among the Indians who could speak, and the men were Aahrak, Chief Shascomoal, and three others, but Karacan couldn't speak English, and Penny could tell it hurt his pride. Pride would be today's lesson in Penny's special book, and today's word would be "special", so she and Talia placed the baby on the ground and started their duties.

A doe and her fawn walked in the woods, barely making as a sound on the leaves as they moved. I stayed still in the tree, as did my brother who looked over to me with a sad glint in his eyes. At the end of the hunt we came back with a small buck and a fowl, "What's wrong?" I asked him in the language of our boyhood. "Aahrak, why can't I speak your wife's talk?" he lifted up his head from the words he knew all his life. I questioned how to answer, and thought of something my dearest Penny had said when I asked her a similar question, but instead I needed to apply it to something Karacan would understand.