From the rim of the camp he heard the conversations of whistlers, the flute song of a lonely lover, the chuff and growl of walkers, and, from the ridge, the heartsick howl of a coyote as he sang to the stars and the souls in Séáno, the place of the dead. Beneath it all, like the stitching that holds the cloth together, he heard the voice of the river and the shimmer of crickets.
These were the sounds of home, the sounds of his life from his birth. A Tsétsêhéstâhese was born in song and died in song. The drum was a circle, as was life; all a sacred hoop.
But the rhythm of the camp had already begun to alter as word of the vé’ho’e spread.
Doorflaps opened as the news traveled from lodge to lodge, family to family, and people stood near their lodges and searched the darkness for a glimpse. Reflected firelight turned faces into dark moons of curiosity and eyes into winking stars.
“Is he the one?” someone asked.
“Did he truly fall from the clouds?” asked another.
Storm Arriving did not answer them. Their questions disturbed him, for they were questions he himself had been avoiding.
Was he the one foretold by the vision given to Speaks While Leaving twelve winters past? Did he really fall from the clouds, carried to earth by the thunder beings? He looked at the vé’ho’e who rode silently, eyes taking in all. He searched for evidence of a silken thread that tied him to the Horse Nations. He saw none, but the blue wool of the coat he wore represented a different kind of thread that bound him, perhaps more firmly, than any single thread ever could.
“Is something wrong?” One Who Flies asked, aware of being scrutinized.
Storm Arriving shook his head. “Stay close,” was all he said. Could this scrawny bluecoat really be the key to the People’s future? Speaks While Leaving’s visions had never proved wrong, seen through the fullness of time, but this man seemed an unlikely hero.
He decided that Big Nose had been right. It was something for the Council to decide. He had been wrong to want to kill him at the cloud-that-fell.
They passed through the camp of the Hair Rope band and into the lodges of his own band, the Tree People. People who had come out to welcome him home stood silently, staring guardedly at the stranger he had brought into their midst.
Finally, he spied his family’s lodge. Like the others it was alight with a welcoming glow, but his lodge was a bit larger and was decorated on one side with blue stars and a white moon, and on the other with dark handprints over hail and bolts of lightning.
They stopped before it.
“This man is called One Who Flies,” he said to his family and the gathered neighbors. “He was found trespassing on our land near where the White Water meets the Big Greasy. He has told me that he fell from the clouds. I did not see this happen, but he says that it is so. Tomorrow I will take him before the Great Council of Chiefs. That is all I have to say about it until then. Hámêstoo’e.”
The four whistlers crouched to the ground at his command. He stepped off and greeted his mother. Then he turned to his sisters. “Blue Shell Woman. I am glad to find you here.” His eldest sister blushed and his younger sister smiled at his half-teasing. Storm Arriving hesitated. He wished for a quieter welcome, but the man who had ridden in with him denied him that. Looking at the solemn faces all around him, Storm Arriving felt that the world had changed while he had blinked his eyes.
“There is food,” his mother said. “Are you hungry?”
He smiled. That, at least, had not changed. “Yes, Mother. Some food would be very good.”
“Come,” the tall Indian said. “Come with me.”
George slid off his whistler. The three women—kin to Storm Arriving it seemed—went through the oval door in the side of the skin lodge. Storm Arriving motioned for George to follow. With a backward glance at the crowd of stern faces, he complied.
The lodge seemed larger on the inside than the outside would allow. The large oval floor was perhaps fifteen feet across the width, nearly twenty front to back. A score of bark-stripped saplings supported the skin sides of the lodge, rising from the edge up to through the central smokehole. Additional skins, pale and supple, lined the inside of the walls from the floor to the height of a man. In the middle had been dug a rectangular firepit in which a low fire burned. It was warm, cozy, and filled with the comforting scents of dressed hides and fragrant wood.
The women settled in on the left side of the lodge. George moved to follow but a strong hand pulled him back and pushed him towards the right.
“Sit there,” Storm Arriving said. The right-hand side of the tent was relatively empty. The ground near the lodgepoles was covered with dry grass and hides. There were a few packets and bundles arranged neatly in the low corners near the edge, but absent was any sort of furnishings such as filled the left of the hearthpit.
“There,” Storm Arriving said, pointing to the empty area. “Sit.” George did so.
The eldest of the women moved to the fire. She picked up several rocks from the rim of the hearth and set them within the coals. The youngest girl brought an armful of sticks to feed the flames.
The left side of the lodge was obviously the living and sleeping area. Atop the grass-and-hide flooring lay willow twig screens, mats filled with rushes from the river, and more hides. Storm Arriving sat on the bed furthest from the door. Behind him was a backrest made of woven willow twigs and covered with another pelt. It creaked as he leaned back against it. The Indian sighed. He and the older woman spoke quietly as the girls brought a piece of leather and a waterskin to the hearth. They fashioned a bowl in the dirt and ashes and lined it with the leather. They filled it with water and, using two sticks as tongs, picked up the rocks that the older woman had placed in the coals. Gently, they lowered the rocks into the bowl where they made the water hiss and steam. The water was quickly heated and George’s stomach grumbled as they then added dark pieces of dried meat and slices from a round, white tuber. The girls said nothing, but their eyes were eloquent with surreptitious looks at him and anxious glances exchanged with one another.
The younger of the two was perhaps sixteen years old, very pretty, with the raven-black hair of her kind, and the eyes of a week-old fawn. The other girl was just a few years older. Her face was broad of brow and cheek, yet with a narrow chin. Her eyes, when she stole a look at George, seemed like abyssal depths of darkness. Her skin was like burnished wood; too fine to be living flesh, she seemed instead to have been carved by a master artisan—a wooden Galatea come to life. From her ears hung several pairs of earrings made of shells and feathers and porcupine quills, and bands of gold and silver metal adorned her wrists and fingers.
The girls worked with modest grace. When they sat, it was not cross-legged as George and Storm Arriving sat, but always with knees together and feet to their left. When they stood or moved about the lodge fetching implements or supplies, it was with a silent fluidity and poise that George had rarely seen in the young women of society, much less in girls on the Frontier.
Storm Arriving sat forward as the aromas of the stewing food crept beyond the firepit. He, too, was a fine-looking creature, and George noticed a strong resemblance between him and the older girl.
“This is your sister?” George asked, opening the conversation with the safest of many possible assumptions.
“Yes. She is called Blue Shell Woman. This woman is my mother, called Picking Bones Woman. And this one—” He poked the younger girl in the side with a teasing finger. She twisted and smiled but neither laughed aloud nor spoke. “This one is called Mouse Road. She is my youngest sister.”
“Mouse Road? What does that mean?”
“Mouse Road? It means…the road a mouse travels. The tiny tunnels through the ground and grass.”
George nodded. “You have no wife?”
“No,” Storm Arriving said. “Not yet.”
“Still, it is a fine family.”
The mother spoke to them. From within another of the tall wicker backrests she produce
d a pair of shallow wooden bowls and a horn spoon. She lifted a small slice of meat from the pot. It was still dark, but now was plump from its stewing. She handed the spoon with its morsel of food to Storm Arriving. The tall man took it and from his position near the fire, held out the spoon to each of the four directions in turn, then upward to the rising smoke. Finally he lay the strip of meat close to the edge of the fire and handed the spoon back to his mother. She then ladled meat and slices of boiled white root into the bowls. The aroma was overwhelming but George did not immediately fall upon the meal when it was handed to him. Life as the son of a man of politics had taught him the art of diplomacy. His stomach, however, had never taken to the many lessons at long banquet tables, and it let out a long, feral squeal. Mortification set fire to his cheeks. The girls hid their smiles, adding fuel to his embarrassment.
“Your tapeworm is talking to you,” Storm Arriving said. “You should feed him.”
Put at ease by their gentle humor, George took his host’s suggestion.
The meat was thick, flavorful, and easy to eat. The tubers lent a mild spice of their own to the stew and helped to fill his squeaking belly.
While the two men ate, Blue Shell Woman and her mother prepared the sleeping areas. They laid out heavy buffalo pelts and blankets in the three areas between the wicker backrests. Blue Shell Woman brought another pelt and blanket and made a sleeping pad for George. He watched her as she did these things, fascinated by her every move.
Her hair was done up in two braids that, though pinned up behind her head in long loops, still fell to her waist. Her dress, like the one her mother and sister wore, was made of two panels of supple hide—front and back—that were tied together at the sides. Elbow-length sleeves were attached also with ties rather than stitches. Her blouse-front was decorated with the kind of blue shells George had often seen on the sandy Missouri beaches. The wide neckline was tied closed at the right shoulder, but the left side of the neckline was held by only a loose strap. The top seam of the left sleeve had been left unfinished, leaving it to fall open at her side, revealing the curve of her collarbone, the swell of her shoulder, and the bare length of her arm.
Belted at the waist with a thick leather sash with brass discs sewn to it, the dress fell past her knees; longer on the right than on the left. Beneath her dress she wore fringed leggings and, on her feet, moccasins of leather and hide.
George had only known two types of women. The women of society whose garments covered every inch of their forms from neck to wrist and toe, and the tawdry women of the frontier saloons who left little to a man’s imagination. This young woman, however, was an extraordinary combination.
She moved with the confidence and grace of a well-bred dilettante. She was modestly clothed in all ways except for the bareness of her bow arm, a nakedness that only served to accentuate that which was hidden.
He tried to view her as a primitive, as a barbaric heathen, and to feel the pity and revulsion that should come from proximity to such a creature, but he could not. Her quiet manner forbade it, as did her steady regard of him. The shape of her neck and the curve of her shoulder—instead of instilling repugnance or lust—set within him a fierce appreciation of her beauty.
The bed laid, she retreated around the far side of the fire, never crossing between anyone and its light. She settled with her sister on the bed they would share near the door.
George noticed that Storm Arriving and his mother were both looking at him with no little interest. The family sat for a time without speaking. Outside, far off in the darkness beyond the glowing skin of the lodge, George heard a flute playing in a minor key. Storm Arriving said something in his own language. Blue Shell Woman stared at her hands in her lap. She blushed, a cloudy sunset along her cheekbones.
“Do you hear the music?” Storm Arriving asked George.
“Yes. It seems a sad little tune.”
“It is Standing Elk, a young warrior with a good future. He is a suitor to Blue Shell Woman.”
George understood at once: his appreciation of Blue Shell Woman’s beauty had been too frank. “I see,” he said, and then, “I am very tired and my head begins to ache. May I lie down?”
Storm Arriving waved a hand in gruff permission. George lay down on the thick pelt, faced the wall, and put the blanket over him. The blanket was of heavy wool and carried the broad striped design of the Cabot’s Bay Company.
George thought of the situation that would bring this about. The Indians had only allowed a few French-speaking traders to settle in the Unorganized Territory. The French traded with them, and with the British to the north. Thus, through this strange set of circumstances, George lay on a buffalo skin in a lodge in the middle of an uncharted land, and was kept warm by the wool of Shropshire ewes from a land a world away. He wondered for a moment how his mother and sisters were faring. It had had been over a year since he had seen them, and now he might not ever again. He recoiled from this line of thought, and listened instead to the quiet whispers between Storm Arriving and his mother. Eventually, the shadow of sleep washed over him.
He woke once in the night. The fire was low but still burning with a flame that waltzed across the pulsing coals. Blue Shell Woman and Mouse Road lay asleep together near the door. Picking Bones Woman slumbered noisily in the bed next to them. The place for Storm Arriving was empty. Instead, the Indian sat cross-legged near the fire, his eyes full of borrowed light, watching George.
“Sleep,” George whispered. “I won’t attempt anything.”
Storm Arriving made no motion, said no word. George closed his eyes again and let sleep once more have its way.
In his dreams, a dark-haired woman touched his cheek with a teakwood hand.
“Today is a no-hunting day. No one may go hunting today.” The deep voice of the crier lifted Storm Arriving from his half-sleep.
“Today Storm Arriving wishes to address the Council of Chiefs. Three Trees Together calls all chiefs to meet at the Council lodge when the sun is three hands high. Council meeting at three hands high.
“Today is a no-hunting day….”
The crier passed close to the lodge and continued on his rounds through the encampment.
Today the vé’ho’e would be believed or disbelieved; one way or the other, today would mark his life. Storm Arriving appreciated the importance of the situation, for it would mark his own life as well.
The vé’ho’e lay curled under his blanket like a squirrel under autumn leaves. He stirred and rubbed at his eyes a moment, then came awake with a jolt. He stared about him, unsure of his whereabouts until he saw Storm Arriving.
“Good morning,” One Who Flies said as if the day were like any other. “Where have the women gone?”
“For water,” he replied.
“Did you sleep well?”
The simple question—so ordinary—nettled Storm Arriving. He surged to his feet. “What kind of man are you?” he asked. The vé’ho’e sat back and blinked. “What are you? What kind of man? Today is not like any other day. You are my captive, and in a short time I will bring the Son of Long Hair before the Council of Chiefs and they will likely say that I should kill the Son of Long Hair.” He stepped closer to the man he had brought from the prairie into his home. “You will most likely die today, vé’ho’e. And yet you wake up and ask me how I slept. What kind of man are you that whines when captured but faces death with calm?”
One Who Flies blinked again through a puzzled expression. “I…was just…being polite.”
Storm Arriving stared at the man with hair as pale as summer grass. “I do not understand you, vé’ho’e.”
The other straightened and looked at him with cold confidence. “Ame’haooestse,” he said. “Do not call me by that other word. I do not know what it means but I can tell by the way you say it that it is not a good word. To you, my name is Ame’haooestse.”
The doorflap opened and Picking Bones Woman looked in. “What is it?” she asked. “Hiding Antelope said he heard l
oud voices.”
Storm Arriving clenched his teeth and took a deep breath. “It is nothing, Mother,” he said. “He just makes no sense.”
His mother laughed and entered the lodge. She carried several water skins in a variety of sizes. “Who can make sense of the men of the Horse Nations?” She hung the smaller skins on pegs and lay the large ones on the ground. “They have forgotten Grandmother Earth. They do not know Nevé-stanevóo’o. How can you expect them to make sense to a sane person?”
Storm Arriving sighed again. “You are right, my mother. I expect too much of him.” The girls entered the lodge carrying the rest of the day’s water. He caught Blue Shell Woman stealing a bold glance at One Who Flies. He scowled at her and she scurried over to her mother’s side.
“I hope the Council knows what to do with him,” he said to his mother. “I do not want him here another night.”
His mother gave Blue Shell Woman a long, meaningful glare. “I agree with you,” she said. “But he is your responsibility, and you must watch over him until the Council decides otherwise.”
The sun seemed to rise slowly through the morning sky. Storm Arriving checked on it several times and each time, though his mind told him a hand should have passed, it had not moved more than a finger’s breadth. His patience—usually a strength—was tight and worn thin like an old drumhead and he felt it likely to crack beneath the slightest pressure. He was able to last through the early morning only through occupation.
By the time the crier’s call for the Council meeting began to drift across the camp, Storm Arriving had cut and sharpened four arrowheads out of sheet iron traded from the Snake People of the southern deserts. The vé’ho’e had sat nearby as he worked; not speaking, only watching, always watching, his pale eyes taking in everything, his brow beneath the angry slash of his wound furrowing whenever Storm Arriving slipped and cut his finger or scraped his knuckle.
The Year the Cloud Fell Page 9
