Ghost Dance (20 page)

"I won't hurt you," he said.

He rolled her over again, on her back, and looked her over. She was breathing heavily, covered with dust. She struggled a bit, twisting, trying to pull her wrists apart, but could not. She could see that Totter was pleased with her. He liked the look of her. And she was his now.

She put her head back, looking at the great, wide blue sky.

Totter lifted her by the shoulders into a half-sitting position.

"I won't hurt you, Nancy," he said.

Winona did not understand.

Her eyes fastened on his unshaven mouth, his thick, hard lips, the vicious bruise and cut on his cheek, on his eyes, wanting her.

He tried to press his mouth on hers and she turned her head savagely, drew back and like a striking snake spit in his face.

Totter laughed good-naturedly and pressed her back to the dust, then with his left thumb and forefinger opened her mouth, holding it open, and with his other hand scooped up a handful of prairie dust, pouring it into her mouth slowly, gagging and choking her.

"Now you ain't got so much spit to spare," said Totter.

Then it occurred to him that an Indian girl had spit on him and he slapped her twice, open handed then back handed, and then spit in her open face.

Tears burned in Winona's eyes and she struggled for breath, trying to cough the dirt out of her mouth.

Totter wiped his face with her hair and then, grinning, forcing her mouth open again, he scooped up another handful of dirt.

Winona shook her head, no. Please, no.

"You be a good girl and be quiet?" asked Totter.

Defeated, Winona nodded.

"Nice Nancy," said Totter. "That's a good Nancy."

Her hands tied behind her back, Winona suddenly shuddered and her shoulders left the ground but Totter pressed her back, and she twisted, but could not free herself from his grip, and her young brown body, now resisting by instinct, but unable to do so successfully, bound, shuddering, twisting in the dust, acknowledged its womanhood.

Clutched in the sweating palm of one of her brown hands, tied behind her, was a pair of yellow chevrons, which she had torn from Totter's sleeve in their struggle.

 

 

 

 

Chapter Eleven

 

His face black with rage Drum, carrying his lance and carbine, rode his pony to within a few feet of Old Bear's horse, suddenly reining in.

With his right hand he thrust his lance, feathered and tipped with the blade of a bowie knife, butt down in the soil beside his pony, like a flag.

Old Bear did not move.

The other two braves circled to cover Chance with their rifles, from both sides.

Chance licked his lips. It felt like running his tongue over dry rock. His eyes were narrow, sharp in their focus on Drum, watching mostly the young Indian's hands.

But Drum's carbine, though not in its buckskin sheath, was held on its side crossways over the pony's back. His right hand rested over the stock, his left, holding the nose rope of his pony, lay over the side of the barrel. Drum himself apparently had no immediate intention of firing in Old Bear's presence. But Chance wondered about the braves flanking him. Perhaps Drum would signal them, by a gesture, or a word he would speak like any other word. But perhaps the braves would fire only if Chance did. Perhaps none of them wished to fire in Old Bear's presence. Certainly Old Bear himself did not act as though he supposed anyone were going to fire.

Chance's grip was light on the Colt handle, but his arm was racing with blood, making his fingers tingle.

He wasn't sure what was going on, and there would be no time lost clearing leather.

A dozen times in his imagination he imagined the gun leaping from its holster.

He struggled, sensing a swift, possible victory, and freedom, against the temptation to throw himself from the horse jerking the Colt free and, from under the animal's belly, and shielded on the other side by Old Bear's pony, start firing, first, to the left, then the right, then Drum.

Then, deliberately, painfully, Chance took his hand from the butt of the pistol, letting its palm ride the pommel of his saddle.

This was Old Bear's game. He would play it his way.

"Ride away," said Drum to Old Bear, with an angry gesture. "Go! Leave the white man to us!"

Old Bear did not reply immediately, but waited until it was understood by everyone, even Chance, that Drum had not waited for the older man to speak first.

Drum scowled, and the two braves shifted uneasily on their ponies.

"Who is the owner of the loud tongue?" asked Old Bear.

Drum struck himself on the chest with his fist. "Drum!" he said, almost shouting. "The son of Kills-His-Horse!"

Old Bear regarded Drum calmly.

"Is this how the son of Kills-His-Horse speaks to a chief of the Hunkpapa?" asked Old Bear.

The old man's voice had been quiet, as soft as the rolled leather of a rawhide whip.

Drum choked, and scowled at Chance, and the young Indian's hands clenched on the carbine.

But he could not now look at Old Bear, meet the silent question of those proud, dim eyes.

Drum stared at the dust beneath his pony's hoofs, at the brown grass, the stones, the dust.

When he lifted his head Chance saw tears of shame and rage in his eyes.

"Forgive me," said Drum.

"It is done," said Old Bear.

"My heart is angry," said Drum, "that the white man should live. He has killed two braves, and he has hurt another."

Old Bear looked at Chance.

"They were trying to kill me," said Chance.

"Why?" asked Old Bear.

"I don't know," said Chance.

Old Bear turned to Drum.

"Why?" he asked.

Drum was silent.

Old Bear repeated his question to the flanking braves, but, like Drum, they said nothing, and refused to meet his eyes.

Then Drum said, "I would wear the feather of an eagle."

Old Bear grunted.

"The white man is the brother of Running Horse," he said. "That is why you want him to die."

"No," said Drum, "to wear the feather of an eagle."

"You want to shame Running Horse," said Old Bear, "and take my daughter to your lodge."

"Running Horse is a short hair," said Drum.

"He has danced the Sun Dance," said Old Bear.

"I want only," said Drum, "to wear the feather of an eagle."

"Speak to me with a straight tongue," said Old Bear.

Drum looked down. "I want many things," he said.

"Now," said Old Bear, "you speak with a straight tongue."

Drum looked up at the old man, who sat so straight, gaunt and frail on his pony.

"But most," said Drum, "I want to wear the feather of the eagle."

For a long time Old Bear said nothing.

Chance thought that a look of great sadness touched the face of Old Bear, and in that moment for the first time, Chance began to understand the meaning of that single white, black-tipped feather that stood in the old man's hair.

At last Old Bear said, "The eagles are dead."

"No!" shouted Drum.

"They are dead," said the old Indian.

"I," said Drum, jerking the thumb of his closed fist to his chest, "will wear the feather."

"Then you will die," said Old Bear.

"I am not afraid," said Drum.

He snatched up the feathered lance from the dirt beside his pony and shook it.

"So, too, was Kills-His-Horse," said Old Bear.

"I am the son of Kills-His-Horse," said Drum.

"Yes," said Old Bear, "I see in you the son of Kills-His-Horse, with whom I rode the warpath many times, and I see that it is true that you will wear the feather of the eagle, and that you will die."

During this time, Chance had said nothing, though he had followed what was said.

Old Bear turned to him. "Do you understand these things?"

"I think so," said Chance.

"All men die," said Old Bear, "but few men die with the feather of an eagle in their hair."

Chance nodded. "I understand."

Old Bear pointed to Drum. "He is young," he said, "but he is such a man."

"Yes," said Chance. "He is such a man."

Old Bear turned to Drum. "It would be better to let this man go."

"I will not," said Drum.

"Then you must fight," said Old Bear.

A look of pleasure suffused Drum's face. "Yes," he said.

The two braves flanking Chance grunted their approval.

"It is sad," said Old Bear, "that two of the Hunkpapa must fight."

"He is a white man," said Drum.

"He is the brother of Running Horse," said Old Bear.

"He does not even have a name," said Drum.

Chance puzzled about that, for a moment, and then understood.

Old Bear was looking at him steadily. Then Old Bear looked at Drum and the two braves. "He killed two braves, and hurt one other," he said.

"Yes," said Drum.

"He has strong medicine," said Old Bear. "The medicine of two peoples."

"My medicine is stronger," said Drum.

"And he is a warrior," said Old Bear.

"I am a greater warrior," said Drum.

"His name," said Old Bear, "is Medicine Gun." The old man pointed his finger at Chance. "Medicine Gun!"

And it was as simple as this that Chance received the name by which he would be known from that day forward among the Hunkpapa, with the exception of Joseph Running Horse, who always spoke of him as "My Brother."

Without looking at Drum or the braves, Old Bear turned his pony back toward the Grand River settlement, and Chance followed him, and Drum, and the two braves.

 

* * *

 

As Chance rode with the Indians back to the settlement on the river he told himself how mad this was. He had run from Grawson–from the law–had not stood and fought, and now he must fight–for no reason that he understood–and kill or die.

There had been another duel, long ago, but with clean silken shirts, red sashes, seconds, a doctor in attendance, a measured set of rules to which gentlemen might be expected to adhere.

This time his opponent would be a young Indian man, swift, half-naked, fighting before his people, following what rituals or traditions Chance couldn't guess, and whose honor would not be satisfied with a wound, or a touch, but only by death and Chance's hair at his belt.

Chance wondered what the weapons would be.

They had seen him use his pistol.

Knives, Chance guessed, knives.

 

* * *

 

Behind the cabin of Sitting Bull there was a council fire, and about the fire, sitting in circles, were the hunched figures of Indian men, wrapped in blankets, some of them smoking.

Outside the rings of seated men there stood squaws and children.

Beyond them, when he came around the corner of Sitting Bull's cabin, accompanied by the chief himself, the subchief Old Bear, and Running Horse, his brother, Chance saw, vaguely in the darkness, the shadows of several ponies, picketed, at hand.

There had been tales of soldiers coming to the camp, to stop the Ghost Dancing, to capture Sitting Bull and return him to the stone houses of the days after the death of Long Hair.

Here and there, in the flickering light, Chance could see loaded travois, lodge skins and provisions bundled across the poles.

Chance sensed that many of the men seated about the fire carried their medicine bags tied to their belts.

Chance could see that some of them had rifles under their blankets.

At the fire itself Kicking Bear stood, and behind him Drum, and the two braves.

"I will fight for you," said Running Horse.

"No," said Chance.

"Drum is very fast," said Running Horse.

Chance had little doubt of it. "Thanks," he said.

"You must be very fast," said Running Horse.

Chance didn't quite follow why Running Horse was saying this. They both knew that Drum was dangerous, and that he would move swiftly. "All right," he said, "I'll try."

Chance did not feel, and was grateful, that there was particular hostility towards him in the camp, in spite of the fact that he was white, and that the women, as he had learned, had returned from the ration point empty-handed.

He had helped many of these same Indians in his stay in the camp.

And they knew that in some strange way he, too, was a stranger to the white world outside the boundaries of the reservation.

The Indians were bitter this night, but not towards him.

Chance found himself standing across the large fire from Kicking Bear, Drum, and the two braves.

Sitting Bull, Old Bear and Joseph Running Horse had all taken their seats, sitting cross-legged, in the forefront of the circle of men about the fire, some ten or twelve feet from the fire.

Without a word the two braves behind Drum took their places, seated, across the fire from Chance, they too leaving open the circle of earth about the fire, that track on which whatever was to take place would soon take place.

Kicking Bear wore a white muslin Ghost Shirt, deerskin leggings and beaded moccasins. There were three yellow lines drawn vertically on his face, one on each cheek, the other running from his upper lip over the nose to his hairline, like the rays of a rising sun. In his belt there were two wooden-handled, long, steel butcher knives.

Chance studied Drum carefully. Other than moccasins he wore only a breechclout and leggings. His hair had been greased and freshly braided, and was tied with two strips of red cloth. His chest and face had been painted with white, black and red lines, painted for war. He did not move but stood with his arms folded, watching Chance. At his belt there hung the steel hatchet Chance had seen him use when he had fought Running Horse.

Kicking Bear, saying nothing, jerked the hatchet from Drum's belt, who seemed not to notice. Then Kicking Bear circled the fire and paused before Chance; then his hand quickly reached for the handle of the Colt, and Chance's hand closed on his, and Kicking Bear looked at him. Chance released his hand and, quickly, Kicking Bear removed the Colt from its holster.