The Year the Cloud Fell

by Kurt R A Giambastiani

  “I made this myself,” he said. “To sing to her from the hills. She should have it now, that she can sing to me from the sky.” He placed it with her, and both men descended.

  They tied white feathers and blue shells and strips of copper to the frame. Storm Arriving lifted up his youngest sister and let her add the decorations she had made; woven ropes of grass and prairie flowers.

  As the sun rose, Picking Bones Woman took out her drumskin and began to sing a farewell song. The first rays of day caught the Little Teeth that soared overhead. The light was so strong that it turned them into insubstantial spirits against the fading night. Their skrees and mews added shrill descant to the song, for they knew that with the drum, their feast was near.

  Storm Arriving sang with his mother. Standing Elk and Mouse Road burned white grandfather-sage and juniper. When the song was done, they packed up their few tools, dropped the travois poles, and headed back toward the People. Before the bluff was lost to the course of the land, Storm Arriving looked back over his shoulder. He pulled up to watch the spectacle.

  The Little Teeth had already descended and the platform was a mass of flapping wings and scrabbling talons. They would rip open the shroud and rip open his sister’s body, freeing her spirit for its journey to Séáno. The sight filled him with peace.

  “I am glad that she did not die in winter like my father did.”

  “Yes,” his mother said. “He had to wait for the thaw before he could travel to his rest. My daughter goes to Séáno this very day. It will be more pleasant for her.”

  They turned and tapped their mounts into step. Home was several hands away and there was much work there to be done.

  The table was littered with scraps of paper and the air was rank with the stale smoke of too many cigars. Dawn toyed with the curtains and around the room men sat in poses of dejection.

  “We’re getting nowhere,” Custer growled. “We have to get better information as to their losses.”

  “I’m not disagreeing with you, sir,” said Meriwether. He rubbed eyes red from too little sleep and too much smoke. “But we have no way of getting the information. Stant says his troops are still being harried by the enemy and his Indian scouts have all been scared away. He cannot spare enough men to mount an expedition just to find out if the field officers’ reports were accurate.”

  “You’re missing the point,” Custer said. “We’ve got to keep an eye on them. They are together in one place and we know where that is. When has that ever happened before?”

  “Stant will surely be able to find new scouts in a day or two—”

  “They could be halfway to New Spain in two days. They could scatter and disappear into a million square miles of territory.”

  “Then let them.” The general’s vehemence caught all by surprise. He threw his sheaf of papers onto the table and slapped the map’s empty territory. “Let them disappear, for God’s sake. And let us forget about them.”

  Custer felt his heart pound and his hands begin to shake with a rage that threatened to burn out of control. “What…are you saying, General?”

  Meriwether slapped the map again. “Have you looked at this? Have you really looked at it? Do you realize what you’re fighting for? It’s a handful of land. It’s nothing.” He traced lines with his finger.

  “They’re hemmed in on three sides by the greatest powers on Earth. To the west, Spain. Britain, to the north. To their east, us, and nothing but water to the south.”

  “And if we don’t take the land—” Custer started.

  “Then what? Britain will take it? Or Spain? I know it’s your greatest fear, but don’t you think they’ve tried? The Cheyenne Alliance has kept us all out—Spanish, British, French, and American—for hundreds of years. We’ve squeezed and chipped away but we’ve all gone as far as we can go. Our artillery is superior, but it’s useless in the open country. It only makes us immobile and that’s the one thing we cannot be. They are waging a running war against us, the kind of which we’ve never seen, and we are unable to wage it.”

  “Really, Meriwether,” said the Secretary of War. “Let us not lose our perspective. After all, they’re just savages.”

  Meriwether slammed his fist on the table. “Those savages just cut our strike force down by a third, Mister Secretary. Three hundred men. Three hundred. And those ‘savages’ were unprepared and at half strength.” He turned back to Custer. “This isn’t worth a war, sir.”

  “It is our land,” Custer said.

  “And you’ve taken most of it.” The general pointed to each conquest on the map. “Missouri, Kansa, Yankton, Santee. You’ve taken most of it. You, personally, are responsible for a great deal of these territories. But now, sir, it is time to stop.”

  “You expect me to just give up? What kind of president do you think I am?”

  Meriwether looked him right in the eye. “The worst kind, Mister President. You have forgotten that you are a president and not a general. You have forgotten that life is better than land. And you have forgotten that diplomacy can win wars more easily than armies.”

  The two men stared at each other. Custer felt his rage winning the fight against his will. He felt his fingernails pressing into his own palms, he heard the trembling of the muscles in his jaw, and he tasted blood.

  “Get out,” he said. “All of you.”

  They did not argue. They left. Meriwether matched his stare until the last, then turned and left the room.

  When they were gone and he heard their footsteps descend the stairs, he gave in to it. He cleared the table with a straight-armed sweep that sent maps, tokens, books, and cups flying. China shattered against the wainscoting. His anger spewed forth in a roar. Words, even curses, were beyond his capacity. He strode the length of the room, wading through papers and kicking books into the corners. He kicked at the chairs until he missed and barked his shin on the table’s heavy, claw-footed leg. He roared again with frustration and hopelessness and then the strength left him. He thudded to his knees and stretched his arms and torso across the table. His breath seethed in and out between teeth clenched and bared. He stared at the grain in the oak, but saw nothing but his own fate.

  “Autie!”

  He recoiled. He had never allowed himself to be seen in such a state. He tried to collect his legs beneath him but only fell back against the bookcases.

  “Autie!”

  Footsteps ran toward him. He held up his hands to hide his weakness and distress. Libbie knelt and held him, submerging him in silk and the fragrance of orange blossoms. She was so fine and the concern in her eyes was so genuine, he could not bear it. He hugged her, held her, and the words came out.

  “It’s all coming apart,” he said. “I can feel it. And I don’t know what to do. We’ve come so far; I wanted you to have everything. We’ve come so far but now it just makes the fall that much longer. I thought we could do both.” He waved at the strewn clutter of maps and messages. “I thought we could get him back and strike a decisive blow at the same time. I should have known better, but damn me…you always say I try to do too much at once. I’m sorry, Libbie. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  He let the tears come and held her tightly, but rather than words of comfort, she was silent. Her body was taut beneath his hand, and her gentle caresses ceased. Her hands left him.

  “What has happened?” she asked him, voice even and calm.

  Custer leaned back against the shelves. He could not look her in the eye; he knew what disapproval he would find there, so he looked at her hands that lay still and lifeless in her lap.

  “Our son is still in enemy hands,” he said. “Still captive, only we have attacked them as well, and attacked them in such a way as to do great damage and create much anger. I fear that they will kill him in retaliation. I fear it may already have been done, and we have simply not heard of it. I have failed us all, miserably. But I need you, Libbie. I need you to forgive me. My generals are insubordinate, and the public is ready to pull it all down
. Even Samuel—faithful Prendergast—even he questions my motives. I need you, Libbie. Please. Don’t you abandon me, too.” He looked up into her eyes just as she struck him across the face.

  She glared at him, naked anguish disfiguring her smooth features. Her lips moved soundlessly, a whispered question of one word. “Why? Why?”

  “Libbie. Please—”

  She slapped him again, then collected her skirts and stalked away.

  “Libbie—” he said, following her.

  “No!” She whirled on him with a fist held high. “Not this time. Not for our son. I have forgiven you everything before this day. The years of deprivation. The rush into politics. I’ve forgiven everything, but not this. I will not absolve you of this.”

  Tears spilled from her eyes and she fled, ushered out by the whisperings of silk and organdy.

  “No,” Two Roads said. “We must attack. To flee will teach the vé’hó’e nothing. There must be retribution for their cowardly attack.”

  Speaks While Leaving did not like the chief’s words. One Who Flies sat beside her, cross-legged and respectfully silent, waiting for her to translate. He leaned close as she gave him the words of Two Roads. When she finished, he nodded that he understood.

  The debate had gone back and forth for four hands of time and no progress had been made. The Council was split. The sides were just as far apart now as they had been when they walked in the lodge. The four soldier societies, the Broken Jaw band, the Hair Rope band, and the Suhtai had all stood and called for an attack on the vé’hó’e. The Closed Windpipe band, the Tree People band, the Eaters, the Flexed-Leg band, and the Scabby band held that moving the People to safety was the primary concern. Even the allied tribes were divided on the issue, with the Cloud People and the Sage People calling for attack, while the Inviters and the Little Star People advised removal of the camp. The rest of the bands were undecided, but the arguments of other chiefs had not swayed them in either direction.

  Two Roads continued in his statement.

  “The Kit Fox lost many soldiers to the vé’hó’e, but many of the enemy were killed in return. We must finish the task and engage their forces. We must go to the bluecoat forts and burn each one of them until the sky is black with smoke.” The chief of the Kit Foxes sat down.

  Before another chief could rise to speak, Three Trees Together held up his hand. The old man conferred in whispered tones first with Stands Tall In Timber—the keeper of Maahótse, the Sacred Arrows of the People—and then with the two other principal chiefs who sat to either side. Then he spoke.

  “Do any of the chiefs have anything to say that another has not already said?” He scanned the room, but no man rose. “Good. We have heard all the arguments. Now it is time to hear from a new voice.

  “One Who Flies, you have said that now you wish to help the People. Tell us then. How do you think we should proceed?”

  Speaks While Leaving translated the words. Now, she prayed, now will come an end to the slaughters.

  One Who Flies stood. He looked around the lodge at the chiefs, and every one of them looked to him with hope.

  “You must flee,” he said. Speaks While Leaving felt her heart strike hard in her breast with joy for his words. There was reaction from the chiefs who understood his simple words in the Trader’s Tongue. There was no need for translation.

  “And,” One Who Flies continued, “you must attack.”

  Again those who understood him told those who did not. Chiefs stood to refute him.

  “We cannot do both.”

  “He is a crazy vé’ho’e.”

  “We must protect the People.”

  “We cannot divide our forces.”

  “This is not help.”

  One Who Flies held out his hands for silence. The chiefs realized their rudeness and quickly subsided. The pale-haired man looked to Three Trees Together. The old chief waved a withered hand, permission to proceed.

  “You must flee, because your greatest strength—one which has caused my father many sleepless nights—is your mobility. You can move quickly and without the need for roads. You must do this now, for as long as they know where you are, you are at risk, and I do not wish to see repeated the kind of horror I saw here yesterday.” One Who Flies waited for her translation to catch up with him.

  “At the same time,” he continued, “you must take the offensive.”

  Speaks While Leaving balked at translating this. “No, you cannot mean it,” she said, pleading with him. “Has there not been enough blood?”

  “What is it?” Three Trees Together asked.

  It was wrong of her to interrupt One Who Flies. She knew it. She was not here as a chief or a speaker, but she just could not believe what he was saying.

  “My daughter,” Three Trees Together said. “Why do you stop?”

  “Because what he is saying is wrong,” she told him. “It is wrong, One Who Flies is wrong. We and the vé’hó’e have been killing and warring since long before the star fell, and it has brought us nothing. To fight them now is wrong. There must be another way.” Passion tightened her throat and made her words come out in a harsh whisper. “My vision does not lead only to more killing. This is not what I foresaw.”

  The old chief leaned forward. “You question your own vision?”

  “No,” she said, desperate now. “I question what is happening. But if it means more lifetimes of death, then yes, I question my own vision.”

  Three Trees Together sat back and listened to the words of the three other chiefs next to him. “We agree that whatever path we choose, it should meet the approval of the vision. In this I believe we all agree.” Chiefs around the circle signaled their concurrence.

  Speaks While Leaving felt a wave of relief. “Thank you,” she said. “An attack is the last thing—”

  “But see, now,” Three Trees Together said. “One Who Flies still stands. We have been rude, my daughter, and have not let him finish. How can we know how poorly his words fit the vision if we have not heard them all?”

  Gentle laugher rolled around the room and she felt her cheeks burn at the admonishment. She bowed her head and turned to One Who Flies. “My apologies,” she said to him. “Please. Continue. I will give them your words.”

  “Thank you,” he said in the language of the People. Then he returned to the Trader’s tongue.

  “But just as you send your families to safety, you must also strike a blow against the…the vé’hó’e.” His use of the word took her by surprise, but he urged her on with a look.

  “This blow you must strike—it cannot be the kind of blow you are accustomed to. There are more vé’hó’e than you can imagine. If you try to kill them, they will overrun you a thousand to one. Speaks While Leaving has told me of other peoples who you knew and who are no more, all because of the vé’hó’e. If you try to kill them, this will happen to you as well.”

  He spoke at length, and Speaks While Leaving passed his words along. With each phrase, with each word, she felt her faith restored. He did not speak of death or of war. He spoke of power and presence and of something every chief of the Council understood: honor and coup.

  When he had finished, he sat, abruptly and without ceremony. Speaks While Leaving completed her translation and looked at Three Trees Together.

  “Does this still go against the vision?” he asked her.

  “No,” she said and smiled, for she felt in her heart how true it was. “No, it is precisely what I saw.”

  When Storm Arriving and his family returned to camp, everyone was talking and working. The People were buzzing with plans for another move, and when he rode up to his family lodge, there was a new lodge being raised. People stood in a long line that wound in between the existing lodges. One by one each person took a turn walking across the new lodgeskin—an old tradition to drive sickness out of the new home.

  “Storm Arriving!”

  Laughs like a Woman stepped out of the crowd and ran towards his friend. “Storm Arriving,
come. You must walk over my new lodgeskins. I am back among the Tree People today, though it seems only for a night.”

  Storm Arriving slipped down off his whistler and handed the halter rope to his sister.

  There was much laughter as people from the band trod across the pale skins. White Buffalo Woman stood nearby and sang a song of protection. Young boys held on to one another’s shoulders and hopped across the skins in a large, giggling group. Kills In The Morning stopped in the middle and counted his many coup, striking the skins with a stick for each man he had killed.

  “Quickly,” Laughs like a Woman said. “We are wanted. All the soldier societies are gathering near the Lodge of the Sacred Arrows.”

  Storm Arriving was ushered to the edge of the skins. He stepped onto the supple hide and strode across the length of them.

  “Good. Thank you,” Laughs like a Woman said. “Now, we must go.”

  A huge crowd had already gathered around the large red and black Lodge of the Sacred Arrows, the Maahótse. A thousand men sat in silence on the short grass as the bundle with the sacred arrows was brought out. Stands Tall In Timber, one of the principal chiefs and keeper of the Maahótse, held the bundle out to the east, the south, the west, and the north. The scars of his keeper’s skin sacrifice shone like roads along his arms and down his legs. The scars on his chest—sun with crescent moon above—stood out against his dark skin. He held the bundle up to the sky, and down toward the earth. Then he held it close to his chest and faced the gathered soldiers. He spoke, and his voice carried across them all.

  “When Sweet Medicine brought the Maahótse down from the Teaching Mountain, he told us to be wary of the vé’hó’e. He warned us away from them, and we heeded the warning. Because of that, we have kept our lands where other peoples have lost. Many of those who did not join with us are gone now: the Wolf People, and most of the Greasy Wood People and the Cut-Hair People.