Scarlet Plume, Second Edition (24 page)

She found a blackberry bush. She picked a few of its drier leaves. Chewing one of them, she found it tasted exactly like a tea leaf. Ah, these would do. Too bad it wasn’t spring. Young leaves, dried, steeped best.

She parted her way through a clump of fruited red haw. She spotted some wild sorrel underfoot and sat down to eat a few of its lush green leaves. Its sourish taste was pleasant. She dug out one of the roots, a bronze bulb. The bronze root had the flavor of a roasted acorn.

Nausea caught her in the belly. She retched. A trickle of white curdles slid into the grass. “Oh, Lord,” she wept aloud, “let there be no half-breed child conceived in me.” It would be a miracle if she wasn’t pregnant.

What one glad thing ahead could she look forward to, fasten her mind on, to save her sanity?

A flock of passenger pigeons flashed by overhead. Then another. The skies were sometimes darkened by them. Sometimes the pigeons flew over so thick it was as if bluish-slate hail clouds were driving over. The wings of the pigeons clattered on the rising swoop. Their calls were hoarse. “
Klek-kluk. Klek-kluk.
”

As she wandered on, meadowlarks rose out of the grass like the spontaneous whimsies of a carefree child. They sang, “I am the bird of fidelity. I love the Yanktons.” Redwings dove through butterflies defting back and forth. There were white butterflies, and blue butterflies, and butterflies resembling flying clots of blood.

She found a single purple aven, prairie smoke. Again she sat on her heels to take comfort of a kind from its solitary beauty. She cupped her hand just under it, not quite touching its crumble of smoky styles. Yes. God’s handiwork could be lovely at times.

She came upon a patch of small asters, blue petals with gold centers. She considered it miraculous that there were so many kinds of asters on the wild prairies while in the cities flower lovers spent hours and hours trying to raise the domestic variety.

A new day and a new garden. There were as many glowing flowers in the day as there were gleaming stars at night. Clouds of perfume by day and pillars of fire by night. It was comforting to read God’s handiwork, more so than to read God’s revealed Word. The simple psalms of life did more to keep reason from being dethroned than all the impassioned gospels of the Bible.

The wind is my shepherd. I shall not want. Perfumes make me to lie down in green prairies. Butterflies lead me beside still waters. Singing birds restore my soul. The bird of fidelity leads me in paths of righteousness for its name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of savages, I fear nothing but their kindness. The birds and the flowers comfort me.

She looked back at the camp. It gave her a start to see how far she had wandered.

She was alone at last. If she wanted to she could actually escape. Whitebone probably figured that by now the white settlements had been left so far behind she’d given up all thought of making it back alone.

All she had to do now was to get down on her hands and knees and crawl behind some dried bluejoint and then, bending low, run down a gully. Should the Yanktons begin to look for her before she could get completely out of sight, she could hide in the grass like a partridge. Her buckskins made a perfect camouflage.

She had kneed along a dozen feet or so, when abruptly two stern armed Yanktons rose out of the dried bluejoint, blocking her path.

Caught. Still a prisoner. She instantly realized that that wily old Whitebone had ordered the two guards to watch her all along. One of the guards was Plenty Lice. He had been elected to take the place of Bullhead in the warrior society which only the day before had been designated to police the village for the next moon.

Plenty Lice motioned for her to hustle back to the village. He menaced her with a globe-ended club.

Meekly she got to her feet and headed back for camp. As she trudged along she let the blackberry leaves slip through her fingers. The dried leaves fluttered on heat waves rising out of the grass. The wafting leaves reminded her of wool moths.

It was sundown. Supper was over. They were all out on the grass around the cooking fire, enjoying the evening. Judith, having washed her feet, was trying to trim her toenails with the sharp edge of a clamshell. Two Two sat with one foot in his hand, sucking his big toe while he stroked the lobe of his left ear with a thumb and forefinger. Judith remembered that Angela had sometimes sucked her thumb. Humpneck Tinkling was busy repairing moccasins. Smoky Day sat on a red rock combing out her old hair with her fingers. Smoky Day’s hair was very long and coarse, smoke-white at the roots and as black as a horse’s tail at the ends. Whitebone sat apart on a pile of folded green hides, a piece of buckskin caught over his old shoulders, wrinkled turtle eyes almost closed. Whitebone was brooding and thinking on his people.

The tepees of the camp stood around them in their neat and appointed circle. A booming dance drum filled the air with even knots of sound. Young maidens came out to adjust the ears of the tepee so they might catch the love glances of a favored boyfriend. Little boys were practicing their shooting beside a small prairie pond. With grass stalks for arrows, they fired away at frogs. When they hit the mark they laughed with glee to see the white-bellied danglelegs turn somersaults in the air.

After Bullhead’s banishment, Scarlet Plume had taken to sleeping in Whitebone’s tepee again. Scarlet Plume lay on his back, on a robe, playing with Born By The Way. He was holding Born By The Way up by the arms. Born By The Way took a chubby step on Scarlet Plume’s groin, wobbled; took another step onto Scarlet Plume’s narrow, hard belly, slipped off; took yet another step onto the mound of Scarlet Plume’s huge chest, stood solid for a moment.

“See”—Scarlet Plume laughed, white teeth flashing—“already he walks up a hill. He will be a very brave warrior.”

“Aiii,” Smoky Day cackled. “He will be bad medicine for the enemy when he grows to be a man.”

Judith looked up from trimming her toenails. It was the first time she had seen Scarlet Plume so relaxed and pleasant. For once he seemed to be enjoying his role as second father to Born By The Way. Judith couldn’t help but steal a glance now and then at his handsome face, broad and compassionate. His rich, wide lips were those of a lover, graven upon weathered copper. He was all man. A god among men. He made her think of the old Greek heroes: Achilles and Ajax and Odysseus. She found it difficult to think him a deadly enemy, a Cuthead Sioux.

Born By The Way soon tired of his baby walks and Scarlet Plume placed him on the ground to let him crawl around in the grass.

Scarlet Plume stretched. “It is a good thing to rest. I am glad that another warrior society guards the camp tonight.” He sighed, full of content. His eyes closed as he nuzzled the back of his head into the robe. “It is a good thing to lie down with the people of one’s own mother.”

The cutting edge of the clamshell was rough and Judith had to make sure she didn’t cut too close. “Lord, yes,” she thought. “I’d give anything, anything, to be lying beside my husband Vince right now, with Angela asleep in the next room. Disgusting as Vince sometimes was.”

Of a sudden Two Two, sucking his big toe, leaped up off the ground with a strange choked cry. He fell back and lay rigid in the grass. Little rhythmic quivers rippled through his groin; at last ebbed away. His face was flushed, purplish, his eyes turned under.

The family took it in stride. But Judith was astounded.

Smoky Day parted her hair into two tails and began to braid them up. She explained to Judith. “Two Two has done this thing since he was a child. Sometimes Born By The Way also takes his toe for ma-ma. It is a thing their mother did when she was a child. I remember it well. This is true. Aiii.”

Normal color gradually returned to Two Two’s face. Presently his eyes came into focus. He sat up. He sat back relaxed, even limp, smiling vacantly at the cooking fire. The lobe of his left ear appeared to be longer and more swollen than the lobe of his right ear. Presently he picked up a puzzle made of human finger bones and began to play with it.

Then it was Born By The Way’s turn to make an outcry. Everyone turned. Born By The Way had crawled too close to the cooking fire. He had jerked back, and tumbled up into a sitting position. Holding up his finger, he was bawling his head off, eyes shut, tongue ululating, his mouth as wide as he could stretch it.

Judith hurried to comfort him. “Now, now,” she murmured, “so our little boy burned his fingers, uhnn?”

Scarlet Plume smiled at Born By The Way. “So the fire has bit thee, little warrior, eh? Well, it is a good thing. Today you are wiser. And tomorrow the pain will have gone away.”

“It was my fault,” Judith said. “I should have been watching to keep him away.” She gave Born By The Way an affectionate shake. “Bad fire. Stay away. No, no. Do not come near the fire.”

Scarlet Plume regarded Judith with amused eyes. Finally he sat up. “Hear me. The Yanktons do not use the white man’s no-no. The Yanktons let the children discover for themselves that sometimes there are sharp teeth about. The Yankton child thus by himself grows up watchful for the enemy and he never comes to hate his father or mother because they have said no-no to him.”

Judith threw him an appreciative glance.

Tinkling gave Born By The Way a rattle made out of a bull’s scrotum to play with.

Scarlet Plume got out his gossip pipe and filled it. He reached over and plucked a coneflower. He shredded it of its narrow leaves and crushed them between thumb and forefinger until juice appeared. He rubbed his thumb and forefinger carefully in the juice, then reached over and took a hot coal from the cooking fire. Unhurriedly he lighted his pipe, and unhurriedly put the coal back.

Born By The Way continued to cry.

Whitebone stirred nervously on his pile of hides. The child’s cries were distracting his deep thoughts. He bent his black eyes on Judith. “This crying of the child, it is not the way of a good Yankton. Cannot my sit-beside woman give him some ma-ma?”

Smoky Day interposed. “There is another way.” She took the child from Judith and lightly pinched Born By The Way’s nose and mouth shut. The baby’s face slowly darkened. Just when it seemed he would suffocate, Smoky Day let up and let him breathe again. She repeated the treatment until the baby quit. Smoky Day said, “It is the old way as done by the ancients. The child must learn never to cry or the enemy will know where the Yankton lies hidden.”

It burned Judith a little that Whitebone was always so ready for her to give the baby ma-ma. She had never been able to resist giving Vince the needle and she couldn’t resist giving it to Whitebone now. “The Yanktons consider themselves the Shining People, yes? A people who refuse to count coup on a woman the white-man way? Yet our great chief was slow to punish a certain Yankton who outraged my sister, the Good Book Woman. This I cannot understand.”

Whitebone’s head came up a little.

“Our great chief next permitted this certain crazy Yankton to remain until he had raped the wife of Traveling Hail with the handle of his war club. This also I cannot understand.”

Whitebone slowly turned his head around as if looking for someone. “Where is this Yankton?” he inquired mildly. “I do not see this crazed one that my sit-beside woman speaks of.” Whitebone then nodded once, emphatic. “You saw him banished.”

Judith snorted. “There is already another such Yankton to take his place.”

“Where is he? I do not see him.”

“It is Plenty Lice.”

Whitebone blinked. “Ha. It is true then. There is but little difference between a white wife and a red wife. Both can be crabby at times.”

Scarlet Plume put his pipe away. He threw a small twig on the fire. He spoke in a grave voice. It was plain that he was much affected by what Judith had said, that he could see there was justice in her biting words. “The Yankton brave is taught even as he suckles his mother’s breast that the body of a woman is a precious thing. He is born from her belly and he is given milk from her ma-ma. The place from which he is born and the place from which he feeds cannot help but be a sacred place. The Shining People cannot be born from a foul place. They can only be born from a good place. And a good place is a sacred place. We worship all sacred things. We worship the buffalo. We pray to the Buffalo Woman and we receive her permission to take some of her flesh to eat and some of her skin to have shelter. She is our mother and our god. This is also true of the maidens. We worship the virgins. We pray to them. We cannot mistreat a sacred thing. The gods will punish us if we do. Thus it is that as long as our maidens remain virgins, the Buffalo Woman sends us much meat. This is true. I have said.”

Silence.

Judith stole a look at Scarlet Plume. It was just dusk enough to give his skin a bronzy glow. For the first time Judith noted he had a pair of gray scars on his chest. Ah, medicine-lodge scars. Scarlet Plume had had his vision in youth then, had danced his sundance ordeal. She looked over at Whitebone, saw that he too had a pair of old scars on his chest. She threw a look at Two Two. He had none. Two Two still had not cried on a high hill in lonely vigil to discover what his mission in life was to be.

Scarlet Plume threw a few more twigs on the fire. Little flames leaped up after a moment. Highlights came out so clearly on every face that the faces appeared to be translucent.

The firelight made Whitebone’s big nose more prominent than ever. Looking closely, Judith saw something she had not noticed before—a big blackhead on the very point of it. The blackhead reminded her of the eye of a potato. She stared at it. She had always had a penchant for pinching blackheads. Her father had had a lot of them in his neck and she used to squeeze them out regularly. Vince, her husband, had such soft baby skin that he never had any. She had to repress an impulse to go over and take hold of Whitebone’s old nose and give it a hard squeeze.

Whitebone turned his old eyes on Scarlet Plume. “My son, I have spoken of a certain thing before. It has been much in my thoughts that you should become our medicine man. We do not have one. This is bad. What does your new vision say of this?”