The Seer And The Stetson

My Mothers Savage Daughter

Ellie strolled barefoot through a meadow covered in thick grass and colorful wildflowers. A restless breeze ruffled her unbound chestnut curls. The midday sun shone merciless, forcing Ellie to cover her eyes with the flat of her hand, that she might peer ahead. She could hear her mother's complaining about her bare feet, over the song she softly hummed. She stopped to pluck flowers as she meandered aimlessly through the picturesque clearing. 

The horses whined in the distance behind her. Her father unhitched the team from the wagon to water and feed them near the creek. With her fist full of flowers, Ellie ran to her mother, Abigail, leaped up the wagon step to press a kiss to her cheek. 

Abigail laughed at her daughter's playfulness, "You ain't got not an ounce of the sense the good Lord gave you Ellie. Takes after you, Hershal." 

Hershal Sweeten's baritone laugh echoed in the distance, "She takes after yo' crazy mama. She had the sight people say, same as our girl. Ellie and her granny just see the world different from the rest of us."

"You damn right about that, Hershal,"  Abigail offered sassily. Hershal's laughed faded to a chuckle as he squatted to fill their canisters at the stream. 

The Sweeten family had been working their way west since the ending of the civil war. Her mother was enslaved to a sugar baron in Mississipi. Her father, previously a run-away from the same man, joined the Union Army to become a buffalo soldier. He returned some years after the war to find his family, only to depart again to secure land in the Oklahoma Territories. In the year of our Lord 1889, a twenty-year-old Ellie Sweeten made her way with her parents across the plains to settle on their new farmland. 

Still humming her little tune, Ellie stood at the stream next to her father. Singing was her way of drowning out the voices. When she wanted to hear them, all she needed to was be still and images, sounds, sometimes even tastes would flood her senses. She looped her arm around her father's and lay her head on his shoulder. His warmth and soft cyan glow never failed to comfort her on days like this, when the 'shine' was harder to ignore. Hershal was the type of person to always be truthful. Such clarity of spirit exuded a type of easy serenity he could lend to others. 

Ellie tilted her head. Her mother's color was always green. Not the deep green of a thriving forest but a light green nearly jade. Abigail was always full of love. A natural healer with an untouched innocence. Ellie had never seen her own color. She supposed that was all par for the course with this so-called gift. 

Her grandmother once told her that they were the spawn of a Seminole Shaman who had the ability to see the future. She had laughed long and hard at the old woman. Until her Granny died, then bit by bit she found herself with the shine. Suffice it to say, she did find it funny no more.

Ellie focused on the clearness of the running water, the rounded stones, and earth within its depths. She continued her song this time singing softly, clutching her father's hand. 

'I am my mother's savage daughter, The one who runs barefoot, cursing sharp stones. I am my mother's savage daughter, I will not cut my hair, I will not lower my voice. My mother's child is a savage. She looks for her omens in the colors of stones, In the faces of cats, In the fall of feathers, In the dancing of fire and the curve of old bones.'

Ellie couldn't be certain where she heard the song. She recalled only briefly hearing the Baron's wife singing it to her children. She found the tune pleasing and sung it ever since. She turned to see her mother had joined them at the stream. Standing between her parents, she fitted her mother's hand in her own. She could feel her mother's sadness and watched her color mesh into yellow, red, brown, and green. Becoming murky thicker than pea soupy. 

Ellie understood her pain. Here she was on the precipice of a new life but she could only carry her other children in her heart. Ellie's four brothers and two sisters were lost to slavery and war. She was all that was left. She was the last. Ellie turned and pulled her mother in a comforting embrace. 

"You always know what I need and just when I need it, Ellie. Thank you, darling." Abigail said, lightly patting Ellie's back then releasing her to return to the wagon. 

"We almost done, Ellie, don't take too long now. I'm ready to get back on the trail," Hershal placed his large palm on her shoulder before walking back to the wagon. 

"Yes, Papi." Ellie returned with a smile. 

Ellie looked out again at the stream and resumed her song. But the longer she watched, the stranger the color of the water seemed. The red clay beneath mixed with the water, forcing it to take on a cloudy, rusty hue. But, bit by bit it became a river of blood. 

No amount of singing could drown out the screams and cries for help that sounded as clear to Ellie as if they were dying all around her. She clasped hands over her ears, pinched her eyes shut. The tormented look on her face alerted the Sweetens that their daughter was in pain. 

Hershal rushed to her side, "Ellie-girl, what's the matter?" He put his arm around her protectively.

"She's having a seeing, Hershal. Ain't nothing we can do till it passes." Abigail sat before her daughter pressing a damp cloth to her forehead. 

Ellie's tear-filled brown eyes fixed on her mother, "It was so-so awful, Ma. So many people. So many."

"It's alright, Ellie. Your Pa's gotcha." Hershal helped the women to their feet. 

"Papi, we gonna come to a village soon. Don't go through it," Ellie wiped the tears from her eyes and focused herself to stand. She did not want her parents to see her shoulder this burden.

"Did you see anything else, Ellie?"Her father asked worriedly.

"No," She lied.

But she saw him, plain as day. Dirty brown hair stuffed under a weathered hat, sun-beaten ruddy cheeks. Hazel eyes that didn't know if they wanted to be brown or green most days. A scruffy beard the same color as his hair covering his chin and cheeks. 

Twin guns, with black handles, belted at his hips. He had a half-chewed cigar bitin' between his thin lips. They were all curled up into a smile. Grinnin' like a weasel in a henhouse. The type of man that could swallow nails and spit out corkscrews, so damn crooked. She'd tell nothing of this to her parents. She figure sometimes not known is better. She'd take care of this stranger herself.