A Whisper of Peace

Chapter Six





The native woman wouldn’t have surprised Vivian more if she’d smacked her over the head with the cookie pan. For a moment, Vivian wondered if she had been whacked, because her world seemed to spin. She caught the edge of the table’s rough top and tried to calm her galloping heart.

Did this woman truly want to learn to be white? Although Vivian had come to Alaska to be of service, she had few skills—she couldn’t cook, and she couldn’t construct buildings. It might be weeks before she had the opportunity to begin teaching the Gwich’in children the English language and then to read and write. But thanks to her attendance in Miss Roberts’ finishing school, she knew etiquette.

The opportunity to be of use—to prove herself capable—stood before her dressed in a buckskin tunic, leggings, and beaded moccasins. It wouldn’t be easy to transform this native woman into a proper lady, but she could do it. She squared her shoulders and opened her mouth to voice her agreement.

Clay cleared his throat. “Viv? Let’s have a cookie, and then you and . . .” He sent a sheepish look toward the Athabascan woman. “Lizzie, is that right?” He waited until the woman gave a curt nod. “You and Lizzie can discuss exactly what she’d like to learn.” Leaning sideways slightly on the stool, he added in a low tone, “Maybe you could swap lessons. Manners for cooking and trapping and so forth.”

The woman stood staring at the pair of them with a stoic expression. Heat filled Vivian’s face. She and Clay talking to each other as if Lizzie wasn’t in the room was hardly proper protocol. What kind of a teacher modeled such a poor example? She indicated the open chair across the table with a graceful flick of her wrist. “Please, Lizzie. Sit and join us. While we partake of your gracious hospitality, we can discuss your specific needs.”

Lizzie slid into the chair and stared across the table at Vivian. “My need is simple. I must be white.” She lifted a cookie and took a bite.

Vivian examined Lizzie. Although she did everything abruptly, as if time was in danger of disappearing before her tasks were complete, she held an innate elegance of movement that Vivian couldn’t help but admire. With her dusky skin, glistening hair, and vivid blue eyes, she was a striking woman.

“But you’re a lovely native woman,” Clay said, reaching for a cookie. “Why do you want to be white?”

Lizzie shot Clay a stern look. “You came to teach white man’s ways to the children of Gwichyaa Saa. Will you withhold the same teachings from me?”

Vivian snatched up a cookie and nibbled it to hide her smile. Vivian often exhibited spunk, but hers was manufactured to mask her insecurities. This Gwich’in woman had genuine spunk. Perhaps she would learn a great deal from Lizzie.

Clay offered Lizzie one of his disarming grins. Mother had laughingly said Clay could charm the stripes from a skunk, but Vivian sensed he’d met his match in this feisty Gwich’in woman. “Of course you’re welcome to learn the same things we came to teach the children.” Clay brushed crumbs from his shirt front and picked up a second cookie. “But I think you’ve misunderstood our purpose here. We don’t intend to teach the children white man’s ways—we’ve come to teach them God’s ways.”

Lizzie’s fine eyebrows lowered. Her lips puckered, as if she found the flavor of her cookie unpleasant. “The ways of the white man’s God are for white men. You’ve come to change the children. But the children are happy as Athabascans. They have no desire to change.” She aimed her thumb at her chest. “I desire to change. Teach me instead. Leave the children alone.”

Clay shook his head, his jaw jutting into a stubborn angle Vivian recognized all too well. “We’ve come to teach the children, and to preach God’s Word to the entire village. We’re happy to invite you to join us, but—”

The scent of scorched sugar filled the cabin. Lizzie jumped up and dashed to the stove. She whisked the tray from the heat chamber and smacked the pan onto the iron top. A tinny clang assaulted their ears. She shook her fingers, hissing through her teeth.

Vivian jumped up. “Did you burn your hand? Shall I fetch some cold water?” She spotted a water bucket on a low bench right inside the cabin’s back door and moved in that direction.

“I’m fine.” Lizzie’s sharp retort brought Vivian to a halt in the middle of the floor. She stood, uncertain, while Lizzie glared at the burnt, broken cookies in the pan. Suddenly, Lizzie balled her hands on her hips and whirled, turning the seething look on Clay. “You will teach me here.”

Clay chuckled softly. “But we’re teaching in the mission, which is in the village.”

“The village isn’t open to me.”

Clay rose and crossed the brief expanse of floor to reach Lizzie’s side. “Why not?”

Vivian leaned forward slightly, eager to hear Lizzie’s response. Over the past weeks of working in the village, she’d often pondered why Lizzie lived separate from the village. Now her curiosity would be satisfied.

Lizzie turned her back and began scraping bits of cookie from the tray. “That isn’t your concern. But I can’t go there. You’ll have to come here.” She looked past Clay, locking eyes with Vivian. “You’ll come here . . . won’t you?”

Vivian glimpsed a deep longing—almost a desperation—in the woman’s unusual blue eyes. She knew she would be subjected to a reprimand from Clay later, but she couldn’t refuse. “Of course I will.” She sent a warning look at Clay, daring him to contradict her. He set his lips in a grim line and remained silent. Turning back to Lizzie, Vivian added, “And while I’m here, you can teach me, too.”

Lizzie’s eyebrows flew high. “What could I teach you?”

“Athabascan customs, so I don’t offend the villagers.” She chose not to mention cooking in front of Clay. She’d talk to Lizzie privately at another time.

Lizzie shook her head. “I am not the one to teach you how not to offend the villagers. I offend them with my presence.”

Although her tone was harsh, Vivian believed pain underscored the fierce statement. How well she understood feeling unwanted. She’d been cast from her home, too. But what sin had this lovely, lonely Athabascan woman committed to earn the village’s scorn?

Clay intervened. “I’m sure you’d be allowed to come to the mission. I’ll speak to the village leaders and—”

“No!” Lizzie’s face blazed red. She pointed to the open door. “You’ve eaten some cookies. Go.”

Clay gulped. “But I didn’t mean to—”

“Leave.” Lizzie yanked up the crusty pan and pushed past Clay. She charged through the door and whirled around the corner, disappearing from view.

Clay and Vivian stood staring at each other in the quiet cabin. Vivian cocked her head and offered a sardonic look. “That went well.”

Clay held out his arms. “I was only trying to help. Something’s happened between Lizzie and the villagers. Perhaps God brought us here to reunite them. Look at where she lives, away from everyone . . .” His gaze roved the rustic yet neat cabin. “She must be lonely here.” He curled his hand through Vivian’s elbow. “We’ll go because she asked us to, but I want you to come back, as often as possible. I think she needs companionship, and I believe you’re the perfect one to reach her.”

Vivian gaped at Clay. He saw her as capable of reaching Lizzie? Her heart gave a happy skip.

“You seem to be near the same age, and you’re a woman, therefore not a threat.” Clay led Vivian through the woods. Leaves crunched beneath their feet and slender, leaf-dotted branches waved in the light breeze, catching Vivian’s hair. She crowded closer to Clay as he continued. “She asked for your help. If you abide by her request to come to her, then eventually you should be able to convince her to come to the mission school. That will be your goal.”

Vivian dug in her heels, drawing Clay to a stumbling halt. He sent her a puzzled look, and she offered her sternest frown. “Clay Selby, I will not befriend that woman simply to persuade her to come to the village. It’s dishonest.”

“But—”

“I intend to help her, just as she asked. Hopefully she’ll be willing to help me in return. But I’ll not pressure her to enter the village.” Vivian recalled the expression that crossed Lizzie’s face when she’d said she offended the villagers with her presence. The woman carried a deep hurt, and Vivian would not rub salt in the wound by insisting she visit the place of her pain. Memories from her own personal place of pain tried to rise, but she pushed them aside. Hadn’t she come to Alaska to forget?

“Then how will she hear the good news we’ve come to share?” Clay sounded more concerned than irritated, which removed Vivian’s defensiveness. However, his question pricked.

“Can I not be trusted to speak of God to her without your assistance? I know Him, too, Clay.” Vivian’s heart panged. She didn’t know God as intimately as her mother, stepfather, or stepbrother, but she’d been exposed to His teachings her entire life. She could share her faith even if a part of her questioned the reality of God’s unconditional love and grace.

Clay hung his head. “Of course you can. I’m sorry if I sound as if I don’t trust you. I need to remember . . . this ministry is ours rather than mine alone.”

His comment was exactly the confirmation Vivian had been seeking since they’d set out on this journey together. Yet as he ushered her toward the village and the mission school, a weight seemed to press down upon her. Did she have the right to be an equal partner in a ministry when she held so many doubts herself?





Clay left Vivian at her little hut with the promise he’d wake her from her nap an hour before suppertime. He headed for his own hut, but before he reached it, he turned around and walked through the center of the village instead. Perhaps one of the village leaders would be willing to talk to him about Lizzie.

She hadn’t expressed a desire to join the village, but he sensed her loneliness. An image of her flicked through his mind—proudly angled shoulders and raised chin, blue eyes alight with passion. His heart rolled over his chest. Such a lovely woman. And so secluded. Bringing her into the village would give her an opportunity for companionship as well as protection. How did she survive out there all by herself? Couldn’t whatever had transpired to separate her from the tribe be forgotten for compassion’s sake?

He passed rows of sturdy log cabins with grass and wild flowers sprouting on the sod roofs. People nodded, offering lazy greetings that he returned in their native tongue. Although he hoped Vivian would eventually teach the villagers enough English for them to communicate in his language, for now he used his own mix of Kiowa and Athabascan as a means of developing relationships. Some people seemed amused by his attempts to master their tricky pronunciations. Others held their distance, as if uncertain of his trustworthiness. But none had openly ignored him. He viewed their hesitant reception as a positive step toward complete acceptance.

As he’d hoped, two of the band’s elders sat outside their cabin. Shruh puffed on a hand-carved pipe and his wife, Co’Ozhii, busily stitched flowers formed of tiny beads onto the shank of a buckskin boot. They both looked up and nodded as Clay approached.

The man held his leathery palm to the spot of ground beside him. “Sit, Clay Selby. Smoke?” He held out the pipe in invitation.

Clay sat but didn’t reach for the pipe. He’d tried smoking his uncle’s pipe once as a boy. Fifteen years later, he still remembered how his stomach had roiled afterward. He smiled and shook his head. “Ęhę’ę, dogidinh—thank you, but no.”

They sat in silence for several minutes. One of the things Clay had learned long ago about the natives was they had no urge to fill time with unnecessary words. The few social events he’d attended away from the reservation—necessary events to gain financial support for his undertakings here in Alaska—had worn him out with the ceaseless chatter for chatter’s sake. Even Vivian had a tendency to speak endlessly, as if she found silence distasteful. Although he had things he wanted to say to the man who contentedly puffed his pipe, he’d wait for his host to speak first rather than be considered discourteous.

Eventually, Shruh tapped out his pipe and fixed Clay with a steady look. “Your building nears completion. You have done well.”

“I have had help,” Clay replied in the man’s native language. “Many of the village men have assisted.”

Shruh nodded, as if approving Clay’s humility. “They have assisted. But you led them. You have made buildings of logs before?”

Clay had helped his father construct their home on the Kiowa reservation. While the Kiowans lived in homes of mud bricks, Clay’s father had used timbers as the foundation for the large building that served as both a home and church building. He nodded. “Once.” He tapped his temple with one finger, smiling. “But I remember well.”

Shruh chuckled, his eyes crinkling with humor. “You remember well.” Then he faced forward, seeming to drift away in thought.

Clay cleared his throat, garnering the man’s attention. “It is such a pretty day, Vivian and I went for a walk in the woods.”

“A walk?” Co’Ozhii shot Clay an interested look.

“Yes. Walk.” Clay searched for words to explain what he meant. “Not for the purpose of going anywhere. For enjoyment.”

The older couple exchanged amused glances. Clay understood the reason for Co’Ozhii’s interest in their activity. When a Gwich’in couple went walking, they were courting. He’d need to make it clear he and Vivian held no such affection for one another, but right now he had something more important to discuss. “We came upon a cabin and sat at the table of a woman named Lizzie. She is alone there, and I wondered if you might invite her to live in the village so she would have the protection of the band.”

The warm amusement disappeared in an instant. The man stiffened, and the woman sucked in a sharp breath. Anger flashed in both pairs of dark eyes, and Clay felt as though they skewered him with their disapproving glares.

Co’Ozhii stabbed the bone needle through the pliant leather with force. She muttered, “Ts’egid.”

Heat filled Clay’s face at the contemptuous tone. Co’Ozhii had called Lizzie trash. The younger woman must have done something horrible to deserve being discarded.

Shruh leaned toward Clay slightly, his demeanor challenging. “That woman is not welcome here.”

Clay held out his hands in supplication. “The mission . . . it should be open to all who—”

Co’Ozhii rose, her movements stiff. She scooped up her handiwork and stormed into the cabin, leaving the two men alone. Shruh shook his head, his brow pinched into furrows of displeasure. “It will be open to all of Gwichyaa Saa. Our council agrees learning the English language will benefit us. Many white men would cheat us with confusing talk. What we learn from you will protect us. But Lu’qul Gitth’ihgi does not live here. Her mother—our daughter—made her choice, and Lu’qul Gitth’ihgi must honor that choice. She is no longer of our band.”

Clay inwardly reeled. Lizzie was Shruh’s granddaughter? How could he disown his own flesh? “But—”

“We will speak of this no more!” The man lurched to his feet and stood glaring down at Clay. “You have come to teach. This you must learn—traitors are banished. And if you choose to befriend a traitor, you become one yourself.” He spun on his heel and entered his cabin, closing the door firmly behind him.

Clay recognized the action—he’d been dismissed. Trying to speak to Shruh or Co’Ozhii again today would only cause conflict—conflict he didn’t dare stir if he hoped to win the tribe’s trust.

His heart heavy, he scuffed his way to his own dwelling. Vivian had committed to teaching Lizzie. If she went back on her word, it would set a poor Christian example to the native woman, but if she honored her promise, the band might very well reject Vivian and him. He looked at the sky and held his arms outward, just as he had to Shruh. Father, what should we do?