by Win
Bell Rock said, “Then these young men with strong bow arms will join in the hunt next week, and bring back meat for the needy.”
“Very good,” said Plays with His Face. “The old ones, they always need meat.”
Everyone smiled.
The chief said, “Thank you very much for the coffee. Bitter and sweet, like life.” He stood and made his way through the door flap.
Sam spoke to Bell Rock. “When are we going to do the pipe ceremony?”
“After the hunt,” said the medicine man.
“Don’t rush off,” said Flat Dog. “You’re safe now.”
Sam said, “I don’t feel that way.”
38
Rising over the ocher buttes and cedared ridges of the Wolf Mountains, the sun burned excitement into Sam’s eyes. The earth etched itself crystalline. He loved the world this morning.
The herd scattered itself in dark clots across the broken plains.
On the ridge next to Sam some young men peered through the sagebrush at this winter’s sustenance. They were select Kit Foxes, assigned to creep as close to a cluster of buffalo as they could from down wind and slay fat cows with their silent bows. For a few minutes, while arrows whisked quiet death through the air, the buffalo would keep grazing. They were smug beasts, the lords of the plains, afraid of nothing, disturbed by little.
Which was their weakness. Until one saw a movement that violated his sense of propriety, they would stand and die.
The young hunters on the ridge draped their bodies with the skins of coyotes and wolves as disguises. They stuck big branches of sagebrush in front of themselves as cover. The chase was a thrill, but these men could feed a lot of people before some bull raised his snout into the air, sniffed something he didn’t like, chuffed a warning, and thousands of buffalo rumbled toward the horizon and safety.
Elsewhere at the head of this valley, as far as the eye could see, bunches of animals fed on grass, and other select young men crept forward, ready to do the same job. Behind them, out of sight, the rest of the hunters stood with their mounts, ready for the chase.
Sam slipped off the ridge and padded back to Paladin. He grinned at Flat Dog, Bell Rock, Peanut Head, and Beckwourth, who stood holding the reins of their horses in one hand, their rifles loaded and primed in the other. Their assignment was easier and more fun. Nothing was as exciting, to Sam, as running with a herd of buffalo, and he hadn’t ridden in one of these huge, tribal hunts since he was a porkeater.
Now Peanut Head was the porkeater. He’d never been near a big hunt like this.
Sam spoke quietly, his breath making huffs of steam in the dawn chill. “It’s dangerous as hell, don’t forget that for a second. You go down, you get trampled.
“Trust your horse—drop the reins and let him run. He’ll take care of himself and that way take care of you. When you’re ready to close in for a shot, guide him with your knees. He’ll understand.”
He looked Peanut Head in the eye. “You’re a good horseman. You’ll do fine.”
Then he had another thought. “Buffalo may charge your horse. Mostly they just run like hell, but sometimes one charges. Don’t do anything but keep your seat. Your gelding won’t let himself be gored. The dodge he makes may be a tad sudden. Just stay in the saddle.”
“When you get close, shoot low behind the front leg,” add Flat Dog. “The brisket. Only shot that does it.”
Flat Dog’s eyes gleamed at Sam. Some things never got old.
Geysers of dust. Clods of dirt and dung flying. A thousand of the great beasts—hell, ten thousand or a million!, who knew?—stampeded forward like the biggest, wildest river in the world.
The buffalo were a million bellowing voices and four million clattering hooves of thunder. Next to them a steam engine would have sounded like a tinkle, and Niagara Falls like the bleat of a lamb. It was as loud as having your head inside ten exploding kegs of gunpowder.
The roar, that above all exhilarated Sam.
Still, if a hoof hit you, it would feel like getting struck by lightning.
Paladin caught up with the tag end of the herd. Now she was edging herself close to a running animal—she knew this game and loved it. Coy sprinted alongside. Somehow, Sam had never understood how, the little coyote darted around in the midst of the herds and never got stepped on.
Sam was losing his mind. He had lost track of his fellow hunters. Though he was shouting, he couldn’t hear himself. Safety, sanity, good sense, all were blown way like leaves in a tornado. The chase wasn’t just all that mattered—this rampage was the whole of the world.
Paladin brought Sam alongside a charging buffalo. He tried to see whether it was a bull or a cow, but in the torrents of dust he could barely tell front leg from back. The mare pulled half a length ahead, giving Sam a perfect angle on the brisket.
Sam lifted his rifle, held as steady as could be in this tumult, and fired. The geyser of white smoke was lost in the clouds of dust. The buffalo staggered, and Sam hoped the critter was mortally hit. Coy skittered to the beast for a sniff.
As the men ran with the herd, the women came behind and butchered out the meat. By tomorrow morning hundreds of meat racks would hold slabs of meat up to the sun to dry. The camp dogs would feast on the scraps too small to bother with. The tribe would rejoice in having food for another Rocky Mountain winter.
At full speed, surging up and down with the galloping mare, Sam poured powder from his horn into the barrel of the Celt. He plucked a cloth patch out of his belt, where he had tucked half a dozen for a quick grab. He spit one of the lead balls out his mouth, set it on the patch in the muzzle, and used his ram rod to send the ball home and seat it against the powder.
He looked around. Paladin was bringing him up on another target. Quickly, he poured priming powder into the pan. The Celt was ready.
He urged a little more speed from Paladin. She brought him alongside, and he aimed. Just as he was about to pull the trigger, the world flipped upside down.
Paladin staggered, fell, and got instantly to her feet.
Sam went flying. The earth slammed the breath out of him. His eyes were filled with bobbing snouts and pounding hoofs. His nose was rank with the odors of buffalo and dung. Dimly, as much as he could do anything, Sam embraced these sights and smells, his last.
Coy planted himself next to Sam and barked ferociously.
Paladin took a place just upstream of Sam in the mighty, four-footed river. She whickered, she neighed, she screamed. She reared and flashed her hoofs. The river parted and flowed around the three of them.
Sam tried to sit up and couldn’t. He would have laid down to die, mashed into the grass and dust by a thousand hoofs, except it wasn’t right. Paladin and Coy were trying to save his life.
Suddenly, Peanut Head loomed over him on a mount that was terrified and jumping every direction. The rider leaned down and extended a hand. Sam grabbed it.
Peanut Head tried to pull Sam up behind him on the saddle. When Sam was on his feet, though, he lunged for Paladin’s reins and grabbed them. He weaved a little—he was still woozy—but somehow he got into the saddle.
He looked around. It was like when he crossed the raging Siskadee—dangers everywhere and no choice but desperate action.
Sam spurred Paladin to follow with the flow of the herd. Peanut Head trailed them.
Sam let out a shriek, part triumph, part exhilaration, part terror.
When they had worked their way out of the herd and let it go past, Sam said to Peanut Head, “You saved my life.”
“Paladin saved your life,” said Peanut Head. “I picked up what was left.” His face darkened. “Besides, it was all my fault.”
Sam looked at him questioningly.
“I knocked you off.”
Sam waited.
“I was riding just behind you, thought I’d watch you and learn. A buffalo turned—God, they turn fast and sudden—lowered his horns and came at me hard. My horse did a crow hop sideways, a huge one, twenty or t
hirty feet. His front quarters bumped Paladin and knocked you off.”
Sam’s feelings raged. You son of a bitch, you almost killed me. But he made himself think. He could see how that might happen. He said carefully, “Let’s go look for my rifle.”
They found the Celt mashed into the earth. The stock was cracked. When Sam picked her up, a piece the size of a forearm bone came off in his hand. It had splintered off right beneath the engraved plate that Jacob Hawken had made for Sam in St. Louis ten years ago. CELT, the plate said in fancy letters. Coy sniffed the dirt that stuck to the barrel.
Sam held the rifle to his shoulder. “Guess I can fire it, more or less,” he said. “Glue it for now and have it fixed when I get to Taos.” He lowered the rifle, and Coy sniffed at the dirt on the barrel.
He looked after the herd. “We’ve missed most of the fun,” he told Peanut Head, “but let’s see if we can get a straggler or two.”
Before he touched his spurs to Paladin, he said, “I oughta have told you. When you run buffalo, stay way clear of the other hunters. Because of just what happened.”
His nerves were still popping like corn in a hot pan.
39
The coals glowed fiercely in the fire pit, and by their glow Sam could see the knees of other men in the sweat lodge, Flat Dog, and next to the fire pit Bell Rock. Their bodies and faces were lost in the darkness. Though he went into the sweat lodge at every rendezvous, Sam had not sat in the darkness of the womb of Mother Earth with Bell Rock since he got his pipe, seven years ago.
Sam’s new pipe lay in front of Bell Rock’s knees, wrapped in a deer hide. Bell Rock had insisted on making it himself, as a gift.
The medicine man dipped his gourd in the bucket of water, lifted it over the red-hot coals, and began to pour the sweat.
Steam and heat sprang like genies from the lava rocks and swirled around Sam. He felt as though he couldn’t breathe. He told himself to relax, and as had happened many times before, his lungs found air in the moist, hot steam. Bell Rock apparently intended to pour this ceremony very hot.
He began with a ritual prayer, asking blessing for the unborn, for all children, for all mothers, for the elderly, for young men who might go on the mountain seeking a vision, for all sun dancers, and for all the people. Three times during this prayer, he poured more water on the coals. The steam was blistering. Sometimes Sam wanted to lie flat, where it was cooler. But this ceremony is for me, he reminded himself, and I must be strong. He sat straight up into the heat, made himself breathe, and in his mind echoed the words of Bell Rock’s prayer, sending them up to Father Sky.
Bell Rock poured again and then sang, “Sun, we are doing this for you! May we live until next winter!”
“Aho!” exclaimed the other men in the lodge and the helper outside—thank you. “May we live until next winter!”
Then he called for the helper outside to open the door. Cool, crisp night air, flooded the lodge. Sam lay down and relaxed. Round one was over.
When the door was closed and Bell Rock began to pour round two, he said words that broke the power of the pipe originally given to Joins with Buffalo. He condemned the Blackfeet who stole that pipe, and asked that whoever now claimed possession of it walk on the black road of conflict and strife.
This second round, with seven pours of water, wasn’t as aggressively hot as the first.
With the door open before the third round, Bell Rock unwrapped the new pipe. It was surprisingly simple, but beautiful. The bowl of red pipestone was intricately carved as the shaggy head of a buffalo, “to remind you who you are.” The stem was short and plain.
“To be plain is good,” said Bell Rock. Many Crow pipe stems were long and decorated flamboyantly with brass tacks or feathers. “I have modeled this pipe after my father’s. He always said he carried a short pipe to remind himself that only a few things matter in a man—that he exhibit the true virtues. A man need not think of doing more than that.”
Bell Rock looked pointedly at Sam. “I want to bring up a difficult topic. I think you worry about who you are, a white man or a Crow. My advice to you is, Throw away such foolish thoughts. You are a man. Like the pipe stem, you come from the earth. Like the red bowl, you are the blood of the buffalo. You walk the earth, you want what a man wants. This pipe will help you. Through it the powers will listen to you. Through it your heart will be true, your thinking simple and clear. The pipe will help you walk the red road. You are neither white nor red—you are a man seeking to keep your feet on a good path.”
Now Bell Rock called for a few embers from the big fire outside. Then he took off the sage leaves that capped the pipe and lit it with an ember. He drew deeply from the mouthpiece, and the ember glowed. He blew a cloud of smoke out, and brushed the smoke across his head and shoulders. He held the pipe high over his head, then handed it to Flat Dog.
When Sam held the pipe and smoked, he thanked the powers for this pipe; for the events in his life that had brought him to the pipe; for his friends the Crows; for his relatives among the Crows; and for the love that had brought him a daughter who was a Crow. He uttered several other prayers for family and friends, and then asked for something that was peculiarly on his mind: “I feel uneasy here at this great gathering. I sense that my life is in danger. I ask for awareness, readiness, and courage. I ask for my days here to be safe.”
Then Bell Rock handed the pipe to the attendant outside and asked for the door to be closed. The last two rounds were hot and intense. Nothing existed for Sam except the eloquent songs and fervent prayers.
At the end of the fourth round the three men emerged into night air that felt like ambrosia.
Sam looked up and down the river. Hundreds of camp fires flickered in front of hundreds of lodges belonging to several villages. One of the villages was led by Rides Twice. Sam had enemies there, and certainly wouldn’t walk into the camp.
“Let’s go,” said Flat Dog.
They ran to the river and jumped in. As the hot steam had kept Sam’s breath in, the cold river snatched it out. They all laughed and dipped themselves, getting every inch wet. Coy stood on the bank and barked at them. Then they ran back to their clothes.
“You are the honored guest of Plays with His Face here,” said Bell Rock. “What are you afraid of?”
“Rides Twice has lots of relatives. If any one of them finds me alone, an arrow would be a great favor to the chief.”
“While you are here,” said Bell Rock, “we will make sure that someone is always with you. Myself, Flat Dog, or Peanut Head. You’ll never be alone.”
40
“What now?” asked Peanut Head. He, Sam, and Flat Rock were broiling buffalo steaks, while Julia nursed the baby and the other kids slept.
“The women of the camps will dry the meat on the racks,” Sam said, “and they’ll make some of it into pemmican.”
“How’s that done?” Peanut Head seemed like a man to solve problems more with his muscles than his brain, but he had plenty of questions. And for some reason he always seemed to be on edge.
“Short version—grind it, render the fat into liquid, throw in some berries, and put everything together in a hide casing.”
“How long we staying?”
“The camps will break up in a few days.”
“Then we’ll go trapping?”
Sam nodded. “Work the Big Horns, go to Taos for the winter.”
“Fitzpatrick has the Big Horns,” said Peanut Head.
“He doesn’t like Crow country as well as he used to.”
“You coming?”
“Yes,” said Flat Dog, “for the trapping part.”
Peanut Head nodded to himself.
“We’ll be sweating most nights,” Flat Dog told him, “if you’re interested.”
The youth flexed his muscles and thought. “Back in Georgia my ma gave me more religion than I have any use for.”
“Hell,” Flat Dog said with a chuckle, “I got twice as much as most people.”
Pea
nut Head cocked his head curiously.
Coy nosed up against Sam’s leg and simpered.
“Julia made me marry her in the church and get baptized,” Flat Dog said. “I say my Hail Mary’s in Spanish. She prays with her rosary every morning.”
“That would be a lot more religion than I have any use for,” said Peanut Head.
Flat Dog said, “You can put it in terms of languages. My religion in Spanish, my work in English, and my life in Crow.”
“What do you see in Catholicism?”
Sam supposed Peanut Head had been raised an anti-Catholic Protestant, like himself.
“Christianity is a lot of big stories, maybe true, maybe not. The churches actually remind me of some place special, like the sweat lodge does. Difference is, in the sweat we pray to the four winds, Mother Earth, and Father Sky. Those are real. The Trinity, maybe not.”
Peanut Head shrugged his big shoulders.
Sam said, “I’m going to the river for water.”
Flat Dog stood up. “You don’t go alone anywhere, especially at dusk or dawn, like this.”
“I’ll go with him,” said Peanut Head.
Peanut Head stopped twenty paces from the river, spread his feet wide, set the butt of his rifle on the ground, put his hands on the muzzle, and took a lookout stance. Sam smiled at him and trod on through the cottonwoods. Coy followed Sam but stopped half way to the water and looked back at Peanut Head.
At the bank Sam knelt. The sun hadn’t touched the river yet, and the mist made mushroom clouds over the water. He looked around before he dipped the kettle. He loved this time of morning. It seemed to him like the way the world ought to be, fresh and new. The way it was in the Garden of Eden, if that story was true. Sam’s father showed him a favorite glade at their home near Pittsburgh, and they called it Eden. When he came West, Sam thought he would be an Adam. He would leave the tired Old World behind and start a new life, a whole new way of being.
He was no longer so innocent.
He stood up, holding the kettle, and caught his balance on the bank. Just then his head exploded. He didn’t even know he pitched into the water.
