Ghost Dance (10 page)

Chance assumed he must have taken the meat from the old woman.

Kicking Bear began to sing and dance, carrying the meat over his head in both hands. His eyes not seeming to see this world, he danced into the circle, facing and stirring the numbed dancers.

"What is he doing?" asked Chance.

"He is singing," said Running Horse, "that the old woman has been to the spirit world, where the Indians and the buffalo and horses still live. He sings that is true, for he sings he has in his hands fresh buffalo meat, brought by the old woman to prove that she has been in the spirit world."

Kicking Bear, inside the circle, holding the meat over his head, danced in place and the great wheel continued to turn, carrying its rim of dancers past him one by one.

It seemed to Chance that as the dancers passed him, that strange, slow, vast dance somehow changed, perhaps becoming more profound or keen or intense, something almost intangible taking place, something subtle but significant, suggested in little more than the way a hand or head might move, or a moccasin strike the earth. Then it seemed to Chance that the wailing of the dance was rising and falling like a howling wind.

The circle seemed alive now, eternal, no beginning or end. The ring of eternity, thought Chance, moving through the dust of an Indian reservation, turning, unchanging at a place called Standing Rock, and I am here.

"Running Horse," said Chance.

"Yes," said Running Horse.

"Where did he get the meat?" asked Chance.

"Maybe from the spirit world," said Running Horse.

"Do you believe that?" asked Chance.

"My eyes tell me it is true," said Running Horse, "but the Sun Dance tells me that it is not so, that it is not true."

"What do you believe?" asked Chance.

"The Sun Dance," said Joseph Running Horse.

The two Indians who had been with Kicking Bear, putting their flags in their belts, picked up the old woman who lay in the dust and carried her away from the turning circle of the dance, toward a log cabin in the background.

Running Horse motioned to Chance to follow them, and together they did.

At the door of the cabin, smoking, wrapped in a heavy blanket, cross-legged, sat an old Indian, a stocky, heavy man, with a wide mouth, a leathery face, rather deeply lined, a large nose, and an expression as calm as burnt, wrinkled wood. He sat wrapped in his blanket, smoking, calm as a rock.

Before this man in the blanket the two Indians placed the old white-haired squaw, who had fallen out of the Ghost Dance.

Seeing Chance and Running Horse, the man gestured for them to sit down on the ground across from him.

Then, putting aside his pipe, the man leaned forward and lifted the old woman gently in his arms.

She opened her eyes, and looked at the man, and Chance saw pleasure transfigure the dried, wrinkled apple of her face, and through toothless gums she began to mumble disjointedly in Sioux, half to the man, half to herself.

"What does she say?" Chance asked Running Horse.

"She says," said Running Horse, "she has been with her husband and her children, and has cooked berries and meat for her grandson, who has not been feeling well. He likes berries and meat."

"Where is her family?" asked Chance.

"They have been dead for many years," said Running Horse.

The stocky man in the blanket began to speak to the old woman, and his voice, deep and strong for an old man, seemed to Chance surprisingly gentle.

The old woman smiled and lay in his arms, nodding her head.

"What does he say?" asked Chance.

"He says," said Running Horse, "that he will soon ask to ride with her husband on the hunt, for there is no greater hunter among all the Sioux than her husband."

The old woman happily closed her eyes, and the stocky man, with a look, summoned the two Indians who had brought her to him, and they gently picked her up and carried her from the vicinity of the cabin, crooning softly to herself, a lullaby, Chance surmised, the sort of thing one might sing to quiet a child.

The man had now retrieved his pipe and was once more placidly smoking.

He didn't look at Chance or Running Horse.

"Who is he?" asked Chance.

Running Horse said nothing.

The man looked at Chance. "I am Sitting Bull," he said.

Before Chance had an opportunity to respond he became aware of a man standing near them, or rather of a shadow that was suddenly there that had not been there before, then two shadows, long shadows in the late afternoon sun.

Chance looked up and saw Kicking Bear, scowling down at him, so sweating from the dance that even the dust on his leggings was black with water.

He no longer held the meat which he had shown to the Ghost Dancers, but he carried a Winchester rifle.

Behind him there stood, in a scarlet Ghost Shirt, a young Indian, very strong and, in a cruel fashion, handsome, at whose belt there hung a long-handled hatchet.

Chance did not know this second man but Running Horse knew him.

He was Drum, the son of Kills-His-Horse.

Kicking Bear looked down at Chance, and then he looked to Sitting Bull and said something swiftly in Sioux.

Sitting Bull continued to smoke, his expression not changing.

"What did he say?" asked Chance.

"He said you must die," said Running Horse.

 

 

 

 

Chapter Seven

 

Running Horse uncrossed his legs and rose lightly to his feet, standing to face Kicking Bear, who scowled at him in anger.

"No," said Running Horse.

"Short hair," said Kicking Bear, speaking in Sioux.

This time Running Horse did not flinch, and his eyes did not drop before those of his accuser. There was not even a tremor in his prominently boned face, not even a shadow that moved for an instant through his dark, clear eyes.

Never again would the epithet of Short Hair disconcert the boy, the young man, named Running Horse, for he had learned three days ago, at the stake of the Sun Dance, who he was, and now knew himself in his own eyes, honestly, not through the words that others might try to fasten upon him.

"I am Hunkpapa," said Running Horse, speaking in Sioux. "You are not Hunkpapa. You are Minneconjou. Why are you here?"

Kicking Bear stepped back, angered. He turned to look at Sitting Bull, but the chief was smoking imperturbably, staring at the ground a few feet from him, seemingly lost in thought.

Kicking Bear turned to face Running Horse. "I bring the Ghost Dance," he said. "I bring the word of Wakan-Tonka. I am a prophet, big medicine."

Running Horse did not respond.

"Why do you not dance the Ghost Dance?" challenged Kicking Bear.

"How do I know you bring the word of Wakan-Tonka?" asked Running Horse.

Behind Kicking Bear, Drum tensed. He loosened the long-handled hatchet from his belt.

"Because," said Kicking Bear, simply, "the Son of the Mystery, the Christ, the Messiah, told me so Himself."

"How do I know you speak the truth?" asked Running Horse.

"You have seen buffalo meat from the spirit world," said Kicking Bear. "You have seen shirts that will turn bullets." He snarled at Running Horse, "What signs will satisfy you that I speak the truth? I show you miracles to prove the truth of my sayings."

"Like white men," said Running Horse.

For a moment Kicking Bear seemed paralyzed in the rigidity of his anger.

"My miracles," he said at last, "are true miracles."

"How do I know this?" asked Running Horse.

"You have seen them," said Kicking Bear.

"I know what I have seen," said Running Horse, "but I do not know if what I have seen are miracles."

Kicking Bear, infuriated, turned again to Sitting Bull, but still the old chief seemed oblivious of what was passing.

The drift of this conversation, partly theological, was at the time lost on Chance, for it was conducted largely in Sioux, but the practical matter involved was nonetheless quite clear to him. There were two men present who wished him to die, and there was a confrontation taking place between them and Running Horse.

In his mind, not moving a muscle, Chance rehearsed the swift movement of his right hand to the butt of the Colt in his holster.

Suddenly Chance was aware that Kicking Bear was speaking in English, undoubtedly for his benefit.

The large Indian, in his Ghost Shirt, carrying the Winchester, turned to the young Indian with the hatchet who stood behind him. "Drum," he said, "Running Horse brings a white man to watch the dance."

Drum's eyes clouded for a minute as he tried to make out Kicking Bear's English.

Irritably Kicking Bear repeated what he had said in Sioux, and a look of pleasure crossed Drum's face. Then, haltingly, the English sounds unfamiliar and not coming easily to him, Drum said, Chance thought with creditable pronunciation and grammar, "I will kill him."

An instant after he had spoken, the handle of the hatchet had been turned in his hand and the hatchet, underhanded, was swinging backward, reached the tip of its backward arc, and then, blade foremost, began to swing smoothly forward.

The head of the hatchet would catch Chance under the chin as he sat cross-legged on the ground.

It would split his skull from the jaw to the hairline.

Chance threw himself backward, pushing against the dirt with the heels of his boots, at the same time moving the Colt from the greased, black leather of its holster. Before Chance had hit the ground on his back the weapon was in position and his finger had nearly closed on the trigger, but Chance did not press the trigger.

Running Horse had leaped between Chance and Drum and had seized the hatchet on the upswing and now the two young Indians, locked in struggle, rocked back and forth, almost over the spot where Chance had been sitting.

Chance scrambled to his feet.

Sitting Bull continued to smoke.

Chance stood with the Colt ready.

He saw Kicking Bear raise the Winchester and put the muzzle behind Running Horse's ear.

Chance's Colt chopped once and Kicking Bear's trigger hand, blown open, smashed against the splattered trigger housing of the Winchester. The weapon leaped from his hands as though it were hot and he had thrown it from him. Kicking Bear, howling, reeled about, thrusting his injured hand in his mouth.

The sound of the gunshot and the howls of Kicking Bear brought several Indians running, those who had been watching the Ghost Dance, or resting.

The wheel of the Ghost Dance itself, incredibly, continued to turn to the left, as always, with the same unbroken rhythm of foot and chant.

Chance, looking about himself, uneasily, but feeling it the safest thing to do, holstered the Colt.

Drum and Running Horse still grappled before Sitting Bull's cabin, grunting, their feet slipping and scraping in the dust.

Chance noticed that Kicking Bear, to his surprise, was now sitting down quietly, cross-legged, not far from Sitting Bull, philosophically wrapping a strip of scarlet cloth with his left hand and his teeth about his injured hand.

He did not seem particularly disturbed.

Chance saw that Sitting Bull, still smoking, was watching the young Indians fight before the cabin, no expression in his broad, wrinkled face.

Going to the chief's side Chance hunkered down.

"Can you stop this?" asked Chance.

"Yes," said Sitting Bull, puffing on his pipe.

"Why don't you stop it?" asked Chance.

"It would shame the young men to stop them," said Sitting Bull.

"Somebody can get killed," said Chance.

"Yes," said Sitting Bull.

Drum, natively, being a larger man, was undoubtedly stronger than the younger, more slightly built Running Horse, but the latter's desperation and tenacity had made the match seem fairly even.

Then Drum, at last, managed to twist free from Running Horse's grip and Chance leaped to his feet but before he could interfere the long-handled steel hatchet rose, flashed once in the cold, autumn sun, and slashed downward.

Running Horse twisted backward but the blade of the hatchet tore through his shirt from the neck to the belt, leaving a sharp, broken bright line of blood where it grazed the body in two or three places.

Running Horse's shirt fell open.

The hatchet fell from Drum's hand, to lie unnoticed in the dust, and the young Indian, only a moment before so intent upon war, slipped stumbling, shaken, back into the Indians who crowded about, leaving the circle of conflict uncontested beneath the moccasins of Running Horse.

Running Horse tore the useless shirt from his shoulders and threw it to the dust.

On his chest were the twin wounds of the Sun Dance.

Kicking Bear said it, from the side of the cabin. "He has looked at the sun."

Sitting Bull now stood.

All eyes turned toward the chief, and as he stood, not speaking, he let his heavy, dark blanket, thick with smoke and grease, slip from his shoulders.

Large on the broad chest of the old chief, but white and old, were the twin scars of the Sun Dance.

He went to Running Horse and put his arm about the shoulders of the young man. Standing in this way he faced the Indians, and Drum and Kicking Bear.

"He has looked at the sun," said Sitting Bull. "I am proud."

The face of Running Horse in this moment seemed the most magnificent thing that Chance had ever seen.

"The white man must die," said Kicking Bear, sitting on the ground, finishing the knot of scarlet cloth that bound his hand. "He has seen the dance."

Running Horse spoke to Sitting Bull. "The white man is my friend," he said.

"Then," said Sitting Bull, "he will not die–because he is your friend."

Sitting Bull took his arm from Running Horse's shoulders and stood before Chance.

He put his right hand on Chance's shoulder, holding the pipe cradled in his left hand.

"The lodge of the Hunkpapa is your lodge," he said. "The fire of the Hunkpapa is your fire. The kettle of the Hunkpapa is your kettle."

"Thank you," said Chance.

Sitting Bull looked at him. "Let us go inside," he said. "Let us smoke."