Ghost Dance (19 page)

No rations had been distributed at the ration point.

Yet it had been, yesterday, the second Saturday, and every second Saturday was ration day.

Like several of the other women, Winona had even stayed the night at the ration point, but it had been to no avail. This morning they had been told to go away.

There had been rations, but the soldiers and the Indian police had not permitted them to be distributed.

Winona recalled the abundance of sides of beef, lying in the dirt, spotted, stinking, but meat; and the piles of bulging flour sacks, and the bolts of cloth; some blankets; but nothing had been given to them, though they were the children of the Great White Father, and he had promised them these things made holy by being written on paper and signed by men in white collars and black coats, who were subchiefs of the Great White Father himself.

Winona wished she could speak to the Great White Father. She would tell him what his people had done, and he would be angry.

But he was far away, like Wakan-Tonka, the Great Mystery, and Winona wondered if there was a Great White Father, or if the white men were only lying again.

Perhaps there was a Great White Father and he was like the other white men, and would laugh at her and not give her the rations.

No rations unless your men come! That had been what the half-breed interpreters in their plaid shirts and white-man hats had said, with their hair cut short.

This was to stop the Ghost Dancing.

Near the ration point the soldiers from Fort Yates had been practicing with their big guns, running about them, and shouting, but not shooting them. If the men had come the soldiers would have shot the big guns, off into the prairie, so the men would remember that they had the big guns. But the men had not forgotten, and did not need to be reminded. But only the women, with their ponies and travois, came to the ration point, so the soldiers only ran about the guns, and shouted and pretended to shoot them.

The soldiers were to protect the Indians, she had been told. Suppose bad Indians came to kill them and steal their rations and take their scalps. Then the soldiers would drive the bad Indians away.

The pony Winona was leading snorted uneasily, but Winona did not notice.

Warriors should not come to gather rations.

That was woman's work.

If you had to hunt something, that was different. But why should a warrior come to the ration point, just to pick up a piece of meat and put it on a travois? A squaw could do that. But you will not get your rations, had said the half-breeds, unless your men come.

The men would be angry when the squaws came back without rations. They might beat them with sticks or they might bring out the little clay bowls hidden in the cabins, with paint, and their hidden feathers, and come for the rations themselves, on their ponies with knives and guns.

Maybe that was what the soldiers wanted.

In the past few months, in an effort to make the Sioux more independent, the amount of rations distributed to them had been steadily decreased; now there were no rations distributed at all; and supplies were low in the Standing Rock camps. Although the decrease in the supplies distributed was apparently a violation of treaty arrangements, the rationale of the action was apparently to make the Sioux more independent.

The Sioux themselves, of course, took the words of treaties seriously, and furthermore regarded the diminishment of supplies as a deliberate attempt on the part of the white men responsible to starve them into submission, to make them be what the white men wanted them to be, for example, to be good Indians and stop the Ghost Dancing, but the Ghost Dancing was the wish of Wakan-Tonka, Who was greater by far even than the Great White Father himself, who was only as dust beneath the feet of Wakan-Tonka, or little noises in the trees when the wind blew. The dancing was holy, and must not stop. White men did not know the prayer of the dance. What would they do if the Indians told them to take down their churches and stop singing their own holy songs? They would not like it. They would be angry.

One Indian woman at the ration point had tried to steal a piece of meat and one of the soldiers had thrust a bayonet into her hand. She had stood in the dirt, her feet planted wide, sucking her hand, making obscene gestures at the soldier with her other hand.

How could the Sioux grow their crops when the white farmers could not do so themselves, and that was their way of life, as buffalo had been to the Indians?

The Sioux had asked for their own cattle and horses, like the white ranchers, but this had been refused. Indian cattle would overload the market and white men, for some reason, were unwilling to give the Sioux horses.

How could the Sioux be farmers?

They were hunters, and warriors, not farmers.

And it did not rain, nothing grew. The white farmers could leave the land, get on wagons and iron trains, and go away. But the Indians could not leave.

They must stay, and now there were no rations.

Did the Great White Father wish his children to die?

Maybe the buffalo will come back in the spring, thought Winona to herself, as Kicking Bear has said, if the dancing does not stop.

Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, had said the woman with a nose and head like a chicken at the ration point, with bright eyes and scrawny hands, bear your crosses, blessed are the poor in spirit, live not by bread alone. And then the woman, with her black hat wrapped about her face, in her black dress, had pressed a little book into her hands, telling her to love all men.

I am hungry, thought Winona.

She had dropped the little book at the ration point, leaving it behind in the dust under the hoofs of the ponies, the poles of the travois, the milling feet of the angry squaws.

The pony snorted, and shied a bit, this time lifting his head and looking about, jerking on the nose rope, but Winona paid the animal no attention.

I am hungry, she thought.

Then she was angry. How could she have Old Bear come to the ration point? How could she ask him to stand beside the travois, an old man, scarcely able to see, a warrior, while she dragged the white man's beef, meat from the spotted buffalo, to the travois?

Winona was in no hurry to reach home.

She was alone on the prairie. The other women, even those who had stayed overnight at the ration point, had by now hurried on ahead to tell their men that the white men and the bad Indians at the ration point would not give them their rations.

How could she tell Old Bear? What would she say to him?

He might take up his bow and call for his pony, and ride away, saying only, "I will hunt buffalo," and she might never see him again.

Winona wondered if the men would come in war to claim their supplies. It would not be good. The Sioux no longer told their children that courage was enough, and medicine. In these days Wakan-Tonka seemed to decide the fortunes of war like a common merchant, adding the weight of guns and men and giving victory to the heaviest side.

It was strange that Wakan-Tonka should act so. Perhaps He was testing His children and, in the spring, as Kicking Bear and the others said, His Son would come to slay the white men and live among them, bringing back the old Indians and the antelope and the buffalo as His gifts.

But, Winona asked herself, how will the Hunkpapa live through the winter?

This time the pony stopped, shook its head, and snorted explosively, and nearly pulled the nose rope from Winona's hand. She cried out angrily in Sioux, jerking back on the nose rope and then, startled, cried out as Corporal Jack Totter's hand closed on her arm.

"She's got a horse," Totter told Grawson.

Already Grawson was cutting the quilted rope of the travois from the pony's body.

"My horse!" cried Winona.

"You stole it," said Grawson.

Winona struggled but could not pull away from his grip, and Totter now held her by both arms, facing him, looking into her face with pleasure.

"My horse," said Winona.

Totter's face was thrust close to hers and she saw the rough yellow stubble on the heavy jaw, the pale blue eyes, the swollen, cut bruise that was the right side of his face. He had been kicked by a horse or struck in the face by a gun butt. He was grinning at her, holding her tight.

"Where's your man?" asked Totter.

Grawson slipped his knife back in his belt. The travois poles lay in the dust. His hand tore the nose rope from Winona's hand.

"She's alone," said Grawson.

He leaped to the back of the pony and it reared, and he retained his seat on the animal's back without a saddle, and jerked savagely back on the nose rope, and then rode the animal back to its haunches, and tore its head from one side to the other until it bled and stood still, trembling beneath him.

"What camp you from?" asked Totter.

Winona said nothing, her arms numb, her fingers numb. She shook her head.

"What camp?" repeated Totter.

"No comprendo," said Winona, using the common Spanish phrase. There had been a time when many Indians had been familiar with Spanish, more so than English. She had heard the phrase from some of the old Indians. Old Bear had used it sometimes when he did not wish to speak with a white man.

"Girl," said Grawson, from the pony's back, "did a white man come this way?"

"No comprendo," said Winona.

"When did you see a white man last?" asked Grawson.

Winona shook her head. "No comprendo," she said.

Totter shook her savagely, and her head flew back and forth on her shoulders and her teeth struck together and the world seemed to jerk back and forth and the sky turned red and then black.

"No comprendo," she said.

Totter's arms let her go and she fell at his feet, her hands reaching out for the ground, stumbling like drunken feet, and she found the ground and then her hands would not hold her and she fell between Totter's boots, lying on her side, her eyes closed, 

With one boot Totter turned her over on her back.

She tried to rise, but Totter put his boot on her stomach and pressed her back, and she lay still, keeping her eyes closed, her head back with her glistening braids in the dust, trying to come to her senses, sick, knowing she could not move until the white man would be pleased to permit her to do so.

"From out here now," Totter was saying to the other man, "most likely she's from Sitting Bull's camp on the Grand River."

"Let's go there," said Grawson. "Maybe he went that way."

"There's trouble there," said Totter. "Our best bet is to light out for Fort Yates, get some men, then go there."

"Take too much time," said the other man.

"You'd better take that time," said Totter. "You'll get shot up at Grand River."

"Hell," said Grawson.

"They got the Ghost Dance there now," said Totter.

"I'm not going to lose him," said Grawson.

"He probably ain't even there," said Totter.

"He was," said Grawson. "We heard plenty about the white medicine man–and that's him."

"He probably ain't there now," Totter said.

"You scared, Corporal?" asked Grawson.

"I don't aim to get myself killed being stupid," said Totter.

"I'll go alone," said Grawson.

"Tomorrow is plenty of time," said Totter, and he winked at Grawson. "Take my word for it, tomorrow is plenty of time."

"How's that?" asked Grawson.

"The Indian police got some business tomorrow in certain places," said Totter.

Grawson was silent for a while. Then he said, "All right, I'm going to Fort Yates now, and tomorrow Grand River."

"That's smart," said Totter.

Sick, frightened, in pain, Winona heard only blurred snatches of this conversation, not following the English as well as she might have, if it had mattered to her to listen. It seemed only noise to her. She was clearly aware only of her misery, her fear, the ground beneath her back, Totter standing over her.

She heard the hoofs of the horse and Totter yelled and stepped over her, running after the horse.

"What the hell!" Totter was yelling.

The horse stopped.

"Wait up!" yelled Totter. "Let me ride behind you!"

The man on the horse, heavy in a fur-collared civilian's mackinaw coat, wearing a fur cap, his gloved hands cruel on the nose rope, made a noise, almost like a bear might laugh.

"Report to me at Fort Yates, Corporal," said Grawson, and then the pony snorted in pain and the hoofbeats took their way into the distance, and several yards away Totter stood cursing, shaking his fist after the retreating Grawson.

Winona rolled to her stomach, and climbed to her hands and knees, shaking her head, then struggled unsteadily to her feet.

The horse was gone, the travois poles lay nearby in the dust with the cut quilted ropes of the harness still tied to them. She was alone. Totter's back was to her.

Winona, stumbling, began to run across the prairie, toward the Grand River camp.

She had not gone more than a dozen steps when she heard Totter's yell behind her, ordering her to stop.

Then she heard him laugh.

And heard the sound of running boots and the breaking of brush behind her.

Blindly, no place to hide, nowhere to go, Winona ran, stumbling, fighting for breath, scrambling between cactus and sage, her feet slipping in the dust, a wild thing, hunted.

She could hear the breathing of Totter behind her, the heavy fall of his boots, the long stride.

More swiftly she ran than ever she had but the sounds of Totter's relentless pursuit, the thunder of his boots, the rasping of his breath, grew even nearer.

She cried out as she sensed him lunge for her and leaped to one side and Totter sprawled in the dust and her heart leaped and she cried out in terror as she fell, her right ankle locked in the manacle of his heavy grip and together they rolled in the dust, she biting and striking at him, screaming, and then with his fist he struck her on the side of the head and night and its stars exploded in her head and her arms and legs could not move, and then, taking his time, he hit her again, hard, this time in the stomach, and she threw up and lay still, wanting only to be able to breathe, and was only dimly aware of him rolling her onto her stomach, taking off his yellow neckerchief and tying her hands behind her back.