Lakota (17 page)

"And one with a pleasing face as well," Waawanyanka added. "As for fat, she seems well fed herself."

"There's more to love that way," Tacante declared, refusing to share the news that there was a child growing within Hehaka. They would learn soon enough.

The greenleaf moon of late spring brought a strange stirring in the wasicun forts. Few wagons now rolled along the stolen road, and for the first time soldiers began to leave the forts and ride south before others arrived to take their place. Finally a band of Sahiyelas brought word the wasicuns were leaving the fort on Big Horn River.

"Hau!" a party of Minikowojus cried. "These forts will make good fires!"

"It may be a trick," Mahpiya Luta warned. "We'll send watchers."

Now was a time for caution, Tacante thought. Since the day the hundred were slain, the wasicuns had shown themselves to be clever. Hadn't they fought well from behind the wagon boxes? And Wamanon had paid the price for thinking the soldiers wouldn't guard their ponies.

As summer passed, though, the wasicuns marched out of each fort in turn. The words of the treaty were good, after all, many said. Tacante was among the warriors who rode down to look at the middle fort after the last bluecoats left it. The high log walls were deserted, and only scraps of corn and flour remained in the warehouses. They were ghost forts now, for the strange forest of crosses remained to mark the burials of the dead.

Strange that the wasicuns place their dead in the cold ground, Tacante thought. How can their spirits soar into the heavens and cross over to the other side?

"Maybe they're not there at all," Waawanyanka said. "We could dig and find out."

"Leave them," Tacante said, sensing a strangeness to the air. "Maybe their ghosts have not been given up. This is a good time for the Lakotas. We need no bad medicine."

So it was that the graveyard was left, but every other trace of the fort was erased by ax and flame. Mahpiya Luta stood on the watching hill as smoke climbed skyward. The Oglalas howled with pleasure as the walls collapsed in flaming heaps.

"It's a good day to be alive!" Sunka Sapa called, and Tacante echoed the shout. Others took it up until the hills resounded with the cry.

Most of the Sahiyelas broke their camps and moved toward Fort Laramie then. Talk of presents drew many of the others, as well. Mahpiya Luta and many of the Oglalas remained in the Big Horn country until the third fort was burned and the soldiers had returned to Platte River.

"Now we can touch the pen to the white man's paper," Mahpiya Luta declared. "Now I can believe he will leave us to live as we have before, on our own land in our own way."

The wasicuns at Fort Laramie welcomed Mahpiya Luta and the last of the Oglalas warmly. Many word writers gathered around to speak to the Cloud, and plenty of presents were distributed. Tacante translated the wasicun talk for many of the chiefs, but he longed to escape and see Hinkpila, his brother-friend. Soon enough Louis appeared, though he was surprised to find Tacante.

"I came to read the treaty to Red Cloud," Louis explained. "Ah, I'm glad to see you, brother. Your family is nearby. And I have news."

"First the treaty," Tacante said, noticing the impatient chiefs. "Then we'll share our news."

Louis then undertook the laborious task of explaining the meaning of the wasicun text to men who relied more on what was in a man's heart. Red Cloud didn't understand the need for another treaty, for, after all, the old one had promised the Lakotas that they would keep the land. This new paper said strange things. The Lakotas might keep the buffalo range north of Platte River and south in Kansas so long as the buffalo grazed there. So long as the buffalo remained? Who would outlive Tatanka?

There was talk of reservations, too. Already Sinte Gleska, the Spotted Tail, had picked out a good place to make his winter camps. The wasicuns promised a giveaway every summer at that place. Now Mahpiya Luta might have one as well.

Not everyone liked the treaty paper. Sunkawakan Witkotkoke argued against making camp at these agencies.

"The wasicuns will feed us like a pet horse," the strange Oglala complained. "Who rides with me to Tongue River? Which Lakota will be free?"

Many chose to go, but most stayed and accepted presents. There were good blankets to stave off winter chills, and many fine beads, looking glasses, kettles, and tools. Powder and shot for hunting was provided, and many new guns could be obtained in trade for buffalo hides.

Tacante paid little heed to it all. Louis had much news, and there were Hinhan Hota and little Itunkala to see, not to mention a mother and sister to visit, even if he would be restrained from speaking openly to either. As it turned out, Wicatankala was not with their mother.

"Has she gone to the women's lodge?" Tacante asked Hinhan Hota.

"She's gone to Hinkpila's lodge," the Owl explained. "She's his wife."

"Hau!" Tacante shouted, turning toward his grinning companion. "You've told me much, but you left out the best."

"I only wish you would have been here for the wedding feast, Brother," Louis answered. "Many were, though. I fear my father's poorer, and he laments that he's got so many sons yet to marry off."

"Ah, I have news, too," Tacante announced. "Hehaka carries our child. Winter will bring another Oglala to walk the earth."

Now it was Louis's turn to howl with delight. Hinhan Hota clasped his son's hands and shouted even louder. Even Itunkala seemed pleased. Until now the Mouse had remained quietly beside his father. Now the boy jumped onto Tacante's back and pounded the Heart unmercifully.

"It will be a son," Itunkala declared. "Perhaps he'll be bigger, though, than you and I. He should have a brave heart name, Ciye."

Tacante warmed at the sound of that word. Too long he had been among Hehaka's sisters. "Brother" sounded so very good. He grinned as he pried Itunkala loose. Then he set off to help make camp.

Tacante erected his lodge beside that of his father-in-law in the large circle that merged Wanbli Cannunpa's Oglalas with Hinhan Hota's Sicangus. Even as the Lakotas erected smoking racks for meat or stretched buffalo hides on willow frames, Mahpiya Luta led many of the people eastward toward his new agency at Camp Robinson. Sahiyelas journeyed south to Republican River, and the Dakotas went north into Paha Sapa.

"We should go, too," Hinhan Hota said. "Too long we've left the sacred circle of the stars. Winter should find us on White River, where there is good grass for the horses."

"Yes, Ate," Tacante said. "You should go. It is too long a journey for Hehaka. We'll stay here until the child is born."

"Too many bluecoats," Hinhan Hota warned. "We fought these men. They will remember."

"Hinkpila is here," Tacante argued. "He'll see we're not harmed."

"He is only part wasicun," the Owl pointed out. "Better you come with your people."

"White River is a hard place to be born, and winter is a starving time, Ate. I wish my son to live. I'll stay."

"Then you won't be alone," Hinhan Hota promised. "I, too, will stay."

As it turned out, most of the big camp stayed. With the war over, the young men rode out in desperate search for buffalo. There was little meat put by for winter, and much was needed, especially in the lodge of Wanbli Cannunpa. For Hehaka was not the only daughter married that winter.

It was little surprise to Tacante when Sunka Sapa lost his heart to pretty little Pehan, the Crane. Waawanyanka, though, had seldom even played his flute by the water walk, and he had come but once to invite Wakinyela, the Dove, to share his blanket. The Watcher was always the quiet one, though, and he brought two fine horses to Eagle Pipe and spoke his affection for Hehaka's older sister.

Last to be wedded was Hokala Huste. The Badger had grown serious now that he was a lance bearer, and often he'd spoken of how a man with such a short life ahead of him should never take a wife.

"I have no brother to look after my sons," Hokala said sadly.

"You have brothers," Tacante argued. "Haven't we spoken the words? You are kola."

"It's a hard thing to take a second woman into your lodge, and maybe little ones, too."

"Wouldn't Hehaka take her sister's child to her heart?" Tacante asked. "Go ask Wanbli Cannunpa to wed Sunlata."

"You knew?" Badger cried.

"She watches you whenever you pass," Tacante said, laughing. "As you watch her. Besides, the Pipe has no more daughters."

"It could have been someone else," Hokala said, glancing at the other lodges.

"Who? Only Iesni, the Silent One, is old enough, and she barely. Blue Creek emptied many Sicangu lodges."

"Yes," Hokala admitted. "So now we four will truly be brothers. Hau! And you soon will be a father, Tacante."

"You, too, in time, brother."

"Hau!" Hokala shouted. "It's enough to fill my heart with song!"

And so the three young Sicangus shared a wedding feast. Fewer presents were given away, for Wanbli Cannunpa had little to spare. The new lodges were sewn slowly, and only then because Tatanka answered Tacante's prayers and led him to a large herd of grazing buffalo. In the end, the tipis were finished before the snows grew too deep, and as winter settled in on Fort Laramie, nights were often greeted with the shy laughter of the newlyweds or the knowing whispers of their elders.

"Who would have thought it possible?" Tacante asked Louis as they stood together on the narrow porch of the trading post. "Not so long ago I thought surely I'd greet winter fighting bluecoats on some death-covered hill. Now I wait to bring a son into the world. Surely Wakan Tanka is a mystery."

"Truly," Louis agreed. "I never question things, though."

"No?"

"It's best. This is a good time, and I'm thankful. If tomorrow bad news arrives, well, I'll worry about it then. Just now I have a pretty wife to keep me happy, a family close by, and the best man I've every known to take me hunting."

"Ah, soon the snows will be too deep," Tacante muttered.

"Snows melt, Tacante. Summer will come."

"Yes, Hinkpila, it will."

As Hehaka's belly swelled with the growing child, Tacante felt strangely different. Always before, his eyes had looked to the buffalo hunt and the warrior trail. Now more and more he recalled the words of old He Hopa. He pounded the curing herbs to quiet a sick child's cough, and he drove fevers from the brows of Hinkpila's spectacled brother Philip.

For most, that time after the warring was good. For once there was enough to eat. The wounds of the young men healed, and even in the north, where the Crows now resumed their horse raids, few lodges filled with the mourning cries of the women.

It was not so everywhere, though. Louis brought word of the bluecoat batties in Kansas and the treaty lands beyond. It was there that the long-haired soldier chief Custer had struck the winter camp of old Black Ketde's Sahiyelas. The chief and his wife were dead. Many others, too. The soldiers had taken many captives to their forts, so the suffering was certain to continue.

"Ayyy! It's Blue Creek again" Hokala cried when Tacante shared the news. "These were the people attacked at Sand Creek. Wakan Tanka makes their road hard."

"And short," Tacante added. "The Sahiyelas touched the pen so that their people might live. Ayyy! The wasicun words mean nothing."

But while the soldiers now battled hostile bands of Sahiyelas on the Platte, in Kansas, and in northern Colorado Territory, the Lakotas remained at peace. The wasicun chiefs wished no more fights with Mahpiya Luta!

Tacante turned his attentions to the approaching birth. Many times he walked alone in the cold, snow-covered hills, searching for a dreaming. He smoked the pipe and made prayers that Wakan Tanka might send a strong son to the lodge of Buffalo Heart. Finally, when Hehaka went to the women's lodge, Tacante rode high into the hills and began his starving. Even as he cut his flesh and pleaded for a dream, he searched the wind for some trace of a child's first cry.

The dream was a long time coming. Tacante sat beside a small fire and shivered as the wind slashed at his face with its icy claws. Even breathing was difficult, and his feet and legs grew numb. Then, at last, he closed his eyes, and Tatanka spoke to his spirit.

"Hear me, Heart of the People," the vision beast said as it thundered across the plains. "Once I was many. Now my sons are struck down in great numbers. Tonska, I and you will live only so long as we are strong."

Tacante felt a great sadness as the vision filled with slaughtered animals.

"Yours must be a son to learn the old ways," Tatanka called. "Teach him to hold the ash bow and to smoke the pipe, offering tobacco in the sacred way. Give him tall horses to ride, for his road will be a hard one."

I know, Tatanka,
Tacante silently answered.
And I will do as you say.

Tacante was then roused from his trance by the strong arms of Hokala. The Badger helped the Heart rise.

"Brother, you have a son," Hokala announced. "Strong like his father, Wanbli Cannunpa says."

Tacante grinned, then followed Badger to where their horses waited. Together they rode back to the fort.