One strong woman's views on family.
Something like incest; first time; cuckold; serial-fucking; wedding night.
Author's note:
This story concerns a family bound loosely by the culture of the Choctaw of the American Southwest. It by no means purports to describe current Choctaw attitudes and beliefs! The characters in this story are individuals, each with their own take on culture and family, each a unique American living in the context of their upbringing and personal idiosyncrasies.
It can be frustrating to represent different cultures in fiction. On one hand, the only authentic voices are from members of those cultures, describing themselves. But some groups become under-represented, effectively erased from the landscape of fiction through a dearth of voices.
Here I took the stance, Choctaw are ordinary humans who can occur in a story like any other, like a king or an inner-city youth or a privileged aristocrat or a flawed heroine. To be treated as real people and not the usual 'wooden Indian', not a pale blank person used as a prop, rather as humans with all the urges and fears and strengths present in many of us.
All errors and omissions are my own (and there will surely be some). I did what research I could from the available resources and present it in the most favorable light I can, intending to communicate respect and admiration.
Of course, in a story with this audience, licenses were taken to advance the plot. The usual personal excesses and casual attitudes toward interpersonal relationships (sex) are here as in most stories of this nature. By no means is this intended as any kind of critique of a people or community. It reflects my personal attitudes about healthy human interactions, laid onto a story featuring a fascinating, breathtakingly durable and admirable social system.
No person in this story is intended to represent any real person, living or dead. The family history is entirely fictitious, borrowed from other instances in Oklahoma.
Weddings make people feel things, like love and loss and loyalty and nostalgia. And horniness, lots of that.
Bitty Stonehaven is having her wedding on a hilltop ranch east of Albuquerque, and her entire extended family is invited. From seven states and five foreign countries, Bitty means to make that six today.
From a moneyed branch of the Stonehavens, she's splashing out for the cousins who aren't. So very like Bitty, taking care of her own. Like Papa used to do. That thought always brings a catch to her throat! If only Papa could be here, today, seeing how she'd grown, and how she'd taken up his work.
Gathering today at Blame-Him Ranch, south of Santa Fe and ninety miles east of Sandia Park. The little Santa Fe airport didn't have flights from all the myriad locations the Clan was scattered to, so she told them all Albuquerque! and hired busses, bringing them down highway 40 and up 3 to the venue, a hundred at a time. Three hundred cousins! And their families. The diaspora of six Choctaw women two hundred years ago, all they could find anyway, all who still claimed kinship.
Preparations here had been going on for days. Bottles of fine wine by the case, beer by the keg, food by the truckload. Sixteen tents set up across the broad lawns! A thousand chairs! A big to-do.
Sitting with her mom in the lodge, taking a moment. Out a window they could see the swimming pool, occupied by raucous children. They were both smiling, her mother from memories and Bitty, because her fiancé wanted children. Hers would be part of that gang some day soon!
"So the caterers have everything in hand. The ice issue is resolved, a refrigerated truck coming down from Santa Fe with another half ton."
Bitty nodded, paying attention but her thoughts were drifting to other matters.
"The Velasquez's got here in good shape, the connection was iffy but Donny called somebody, got that sorted."
Uncle Don knew folks in important places. Not captains of industry; rather foremen and shift bosses, stewards and shop managers, the people that got things done. He'd called a buddy who called a buddy, and somehow it took an extra forty minutes for that connecting flight to get all the baggage loaded. Have to give him a hug and a kiss later, the dear! And do something for those baggage handlers. Had to show proper gratitude, balance one kindness with another. A case of beer? Not enough, maybe a donation to the union widow's fund.
"The Idaho gang had to divert, wildfires and with Sasha expecting nobody wanted to take any risks so they went west, caught a commuter south, anyway they'll be on a helicopter, land at the Gozales' and a limo waiting. Should make it by two thirty."
That was Mom's own doing, she knew how to get things done too. A lifetime with Papa, arranging and soothing feathers, he'd make the deals and she'd make the deals work. A perfect couple! Until the damned aneurysm. Papa! Oh she missed him.
On the outside Bitty seemed misplaced in a family of high rollers, movers and shakers. Gentle, inoffensive, a quiet musical voice and graceful manners. New Mexico royalty, pampered and educated, never wanted for a thing. Riding lessons and music, tutors and languages. Everything a southwestern lass could want, for a life of leisure.
Folks that didn't know her, underestimated her routinely. She had what Papa had, a sense of people and situations. She could read a room and know who was on board, who needed persuading, how to do the persuading. Who should bail right now before things got rough. And Bitty never bailed. Papa taught her all that.
In fact, she was arguably stronger than anyone in the entire extended family, Nevada mining barons included. They had money and connections, but they needed somebody convinced, needed the right pressure applied to the right artery, they called Bitty and asked very politely. She would do it, her and Momma, she always said Yes Darling! Of course! for family but then they owed her. And she never forgot. A kindness for a kindness. How the family got strong. And Bitty, the strongest.
Well, except for cousin Truly. Her strength came from within.
Bitty had Papa's money, daughters inherited everything in her clan, it was her money now that took care of Mom and the rest, Mom had insisted when Papa died. All that money made it easy for her. Well, easier.
Truly came from nothing. A shack on a cattle station in the middle of nowhere, cattle that somebody else owned. Brought up on squirrels and pine nuts, trout and deer. Educated at a wood fire in the cold months, she'd left all that and struck out for herself at sixteen. Come visiting Papa back then, just drifting through on her motorcycle and remembered her pokni had once said Go see the Stonehaven clan! We are kin!
Stayed all summer, Papa had recognized something in her. Paid Truly to babysit her cousin Bitty, he understood that she needed to earn what she got, no handouts. Only a year older but so much more mature, Bitty had worshipped her from the start.
As Bitty learned from her tutors and lessons, Truly absorbed some of that. Learned to read well, learned something of their tumultuous family history, Choctaw history from another point of view. Taught Bitty to ride the Choctaw way, hold a bow the right way, how to set a snare and how to carry herself like an ohoyo ile fehnʋchi, a woman of arrogant bearing, inspire respect or fear or jealousy as required.
This all struck a spark in Truly, she was of the Stonehaven clan, she was somebody too. Had something to learn from family, and something to offer as well. Gave her some roots over here, grounded in two places now, stronger for it.
And Truly was intended to be here today! Only a couple hours remaining and Bitty would promise the love of her life to honor and cherish. Truly had to be here, hear it said, hear her say it, it was really why Bitty arranged all this, so the family would all meet Truly and love her like Bitty did.
Sometimes she felt overwhelmed by it, by everyone here to watch her. I'm really just an actor in a play! Bitty found herself relaxing, thinking that. I'm just playing a part in a set-piece, a little show put on for family. A ceremony to bring everyone together, to help rebind our scattered people into one. Good to do that every couple of years, so nobody forgets.
Mama saw her unwinding, smiled.
"It's an emotional day! Enjoy yourself, you can do no wrong today honey. Everyone will laugh and cry with you, however it goes, it will be right."
Mom said the right things, part of the reason Bitty was so strong. Never doubted herself, Mother couldn't even conceive of such a thing in her only child, never let her doubt. It helped so much, once Papa left them and the money came, she had to make decisions every day and not second-guess herself. Had to show them all, she knew what she wanted and knew how to get it.
Not just the oil business, Papa had that running like a clock before he left, Bitty never had to lift a finger again and the money would keep piling up. No, it was family that needed constant tending.
Like Francine. Six teens and their father put away, some stock trading deal fell through and he was left the fall guy. Always had been too trusting and got in with the wrong crew.
A fatherless family with nothing, no future for the children. Until Bitty looked up some old languishing scholarship at the regional college, intended for Choctaw descendants, funded it to the max on condition these six would be taken care of. It helped that Papa had built three buildings on campus. The girls would never know, though Francine suspected. Got teary every time she hugged me.
Then there's little Donnie Junior. His Mom died and he spiraled down, nothing Uncle Don did seemed to make any difference. Put away for ten years after a botched armed robbery. Out on parole now, sponsored by Father Pito, a great guy and he'd have done it anyway but his alcohol support program getting a rent-free facility helped seal the deal.
Now Donnie was doing community service with the Tribal Police, translator for his dialect. Working out there on the res helped, seeing the pain, others suffering like he had suffered. Helped him understand his people, built empathy. He'll be at the Green Corn ceremony this summer, Bitty thought he'd be centered and whole after that. Would finally forgive himself, that was the last step in healing.
