Scarlet Plume, Second Edition

by Frederick Manfred

  A snake was discovered underfoot. It raised its head and hissed its red tongue at them all. It was a big one, some seven feet long. There were cries of fright from the children. Scarlet Plume made sure it was not a deadly rattler, only a bull snake, and then sat back to let it find its own way out of the resting place.

  The bull snake’s flickering red tongue put Whitebone in a reflective mood. Eyes wimmering, elbows on knees, he mused aloud. “I am here by the will of Wakantanka. He has made me a chief. Because I listen to the will of Wakantanka, my heart is red and sweet. I know it is red and sweet because it seems that whatever passes near me puts out its red tongue to me.”

  Smoky Day’s old she-dog Long Claws smelled something. Long Claws sniffed and sniffed. Suddenly she jumped up, burden and all, and nose to the ground, headed straight for a clump of bluejoint. A cottontail popped up. Instantly Long Claws took up the chase. Other dogs and many puppies came alert too and took off after the bouncing cottontail.

  Smoky Day and Tinkling, and all the other squaws, immediately bounded to their feet. They shouted and cursed at the dogs, trying to call them back. “Come here, you bad dog you! Come here. Here! here! here!” A chase could be disastrous. In the heat of a good run dogs were known to scatter precious cargo all over the prairie. The squaws ran heavily after the dogs. The children joined them, hooting and hollering.

  The men sat back and smiled. This was a trouble the squaws for once could handle alone.

  Soon the bobbing cottontail vanished down a badger hole. The dogs piled up around the hole in a howling rage. Some of the dogs tried to dig the hole wider, some snapped at each other. They had a snarling good time.

  The squaws caught up with the dogs and belabored them with sticks. Several bundles had fallen apart, and various articles—buffalo-horn spoons, wooden chip plates, sticks for firewood—lay scattered in the thick grass. Painstakingly the women gathered them up and retied the bundles to the dogs. Then they all came trooping back, laughing, sweating, all out of breath.

  Long Claws lay down in the middle of Whitebone’s family circle in a sheepish manner. She had received the worst beating.

  Mavis, feeling sorry for the old she-dog, reached out to pet her. “Poor doggie.”

  Long Claws showed her teeth. The muscles of her old legs still quivered from all the blows.

  “I’d be careful,” Judith said. “Indian dogs make poor pets. They’re always being chased out of the tepee, kicked and hollered at, all day long. They don’t understand kindness.”

  There were a few nose flies about and the horses kept shaking their heads up and down, rattling their reins. A few of the nose flies flew orbits around the older men. When one of them began to pester Whitebone and his big bold nose, Smoky Day dug out a homemade fly swatter, a buffalo bull’s tail. Whitebone took it and laid about him. But he missed.

  Scarlet Plume, sitting near, snapped out a cupped hand, and the nose fly was gone.

  Sweat bees with their striped yellow bellies appeared too. They hovered in front of the eyes like motes. One of them buzzed but a finger’s length from Smoky Day’s forehead. After a moment Smoky Day retrieved the bull’s tail from Whitebone and whacked about as if at phantoms. This time it was Two Two’s hand which flicked out and extinguished the pest.

  “Look,” Mavis said, “ah, look what I see.”

  Judith followed her glance. Something golden gleamed in the grass at the edge of the hackberry’s shadow. “Yes.” Judith leaned over and parted the hair-thick grass. “Why, it’s a dandelion.”

  “Seems so queer to see a lonesome dandelion way out here,” Mavis said, “when the lawns in St. Paul were always full of them.”

  Judith’s clublike braids hung heavy against the sides of her face. The grease in the braids had begun to have a rancid smell. “I thought at first it might be a gold coin somebody lost here. That some white settler had gone by here.”

  Whitebone heard her. “Gold!” he snorted. “The whites always think of the gold.” Whitebone stuck out his gray, coarse tongue, and lifting a ham, let go a noble fart. “A good Yankton considers gold to be the dung of the gods. Goddung.”

  “Houw, houw!” cried some braves sitting near.

  Judith threw the old man an angry look. The gassy old brute.

  There had never been much squaw-stealing in Whitebone’s camp. But this hardly kept Bullhead from trying. Bullhead needed a wife to run his tepee and during the noon rest he began to make overtures to Squirts Milk, wife of Plenty Lice. The big smile he gave both the baby and the hairy pup as Squirts Milk breast-fed them wrinkled up his usual black countenance grotesquely.

  Squirts Milk was onto him and, suffering him, gave him a bland moon smile even as her eye roved over to where her husband, Plenty Lice, stood guard.

  Bullhead took her smile to mean encouragement. He sidled up to her. And finally he gave her a good firm pinch.

  Squirts Milk had enough. She withdrew her breast from the suckling mouth of her baby, and taking it full in her chubby hand, squirted him in the face.

  Bullhead reared back, sputtering, wiping milk out of his eyes. Blacker in the face than ever, he retreated to his pony and goods.

  Two Two and his friends laughed in derision. “Ha, ha,” they cried, “the great Bullhead’s heart has been wiped out.”

  When all was quiet again, Whitebone turned around. He turned so far, a web of wrinkles appeared along the side of his neck. He bent kindly, inquiring eyes on Scarlet Plume. “My son, you will make the divination for the pa-pa? You will learn where the buffalo will be roaming?”

  “I will, my father.”

  “It is good.” Whitebone poked up his head and beckoned for Walking Voice to come near. “Ho hechetu! Old one, tell the people we will remove to the next resting place. It will be the place of the evening camp. Where there has been made up a man of stone.”

  It was almost sundown when a fringe of willows and ash trees appeared in a wide valley ahead.

  Walking Voice went crying through the line of weary marchers. “You see the running water with the little trees. It is the River Of The Rock. It is still a young river at this place.”

  The gently meandering stream was gorged with beaver dams and swimming holes. Beyond, the plains lifted abruptly into the flank of a long hill.

  Judith’s eye ran along the brow of the long hill, from north to south. There was no cairn of stones that she could see, nor the odd chance that the Indians had a stone statue of some sort.

  Two Two saw Judith’s wondering look. “My mother with the sunned hair, do you look for something? What is it?”

  “The man of stone.”

  Two Two’s face turned solemn. “It is wakan, my mother.”

  “I would like to see it.”

  “It is not for a woman to see.”

  “What is it like?”

  “It is wakan. It was made by the old ancient ones. These ancient ones were of another old time, beyond even the time of the grandfather of the grandfather of my father, beyond even those who were given the seven sacred fires of the Dakotas. They lived beyond the count of many grandfathers. We do not remember.” Two Two pointed. In the bloody sunset a single bronze horseman mounted the high hill. The horseman stopped to look for sign in all directions. After a moment the horseman slid off his spotted pony, and walking over, kneeling reverently, seemed to be scattering something on the evening wind. “You see? It is Traveling Hail. He brings a small sacrifice of tobacco to appease the gods of the old ancients. He drops it at the foot of a stone effigy in the grass. The effigy of the man is made of sacred white stones. If the man of white stones could stand up, he would wear moccasins the size of my father’s tepee.”

  The red solemnity of the lonesome scene moved Judith to moist eyes.

  “I have spoken. My father calls me to unburden the horses.”

  Around them all was business. Lodgepoles were raised, leather coverings were shaped into cone dwellings, stakes were driven into the ground to hold down the tepee against storms, coo
king and smudge fires were kindled, horses were watered and put out to grass, dogs went for a sopping swim, and certain of the stern-eyed camp soldiers were set out as guards. Soon the living of one night solely for itself was begun again.

  Judith did her share. She removed Whitebone’s moccasins and bathed his feet. She changed the baby with fresh cattail fluff, then fed him, letting soup trickle into his puckered mouth drop by drop from a little wooden spoon. She scurried about for sticks under the ash trees.

  Last she picked up a pair of bladders and went to get a supply of fresh water. The River Of The Rock was but a half-dozen steps wide but it ran full to the brim, pinkish clear over clean red stones. She rinsed out each bladder thoroughly and then filled them.

  She knelt down and with a cupped hand gave herself a drink. The water was cool. It was good.

  She was about to rise, when she heard an awful groan in a clump of swamp willows behind her. Scared almost out of her wits, she dropped in the grass, face down, hiding herself as flat as she could.

  She waited.

  Nothing happened.

  She wondered what it was. Someone had to be in great pain to moan so.

  There was another groan, not of this earth, as if coming from a womb about to give birth.

  Judith ticked off in her mind all the squaws in the band. None seemed to have been pregnant that she could remember, at least not far enough along to notice.

  Cautious, Judith raised her head a couple of inches and peered through an undergrowth of ground cherries.

  Scarlet Plume.

  What? Judith stared and stared.

  Scarlet Plume was sitting on his heels inside the clump of willows, in a tiny clearing. He was alone. He was wearing his single scarlet feather, and had repainted his left cheek with a yellow dot inside a blue circle.

  He had also made a rough contour map in sand: there was a meandering river, then a long, bold outcrop of cliffs, then a flat plain beyond. Off to one side stood what looked like a toy buffalo, an effigy. It had been carved out of a piece of wood, then painted and properly tufted with bits of brown hair.

  Great beads of sweat stood out on Scarlet Plume’s brow. His penny-skin features, otherwise warm, were tinged with a sickish gray. His cheeks were fearfully indrawn. His lips were quivering and pulled down at the corners as if in extreme penitence. His eyeballs, staring and enlarged, arteries pulsing, were fixed on the buffalo effigy.

  He spoke in a low murmur. Though his eyes remained fixed on the effigy, he actually seemed to be talking into an open pouch at his belt. He was communing with his secret helper.

  Judith had to quick clap a hand over her mouth to keep from crying out at what she saw next.

  The effigy began to jump around on the sand. And it jumped without any help from Scarlet Plume. Scarlet Plume’s hands were folded over his belly, his feet were firmly planted on the sand. There were no puppet strings attached to it. Nothing. Yet the wooden effigy was jumping around as lively as any real buffalo. Not only that; the effigy buffalo was gradually advancing toward the line of cliffs Scarlet Plume had shaped in the sand. Finally, with a little higher jump than usual, the effigy buffalo leaped over the edge of the cliff, and tumbling in the air, fell below.

  Stars and saints alive. What devil’s doings were these? Judith sat frozen, sat as one hypnotized.

  So this was what Whitebone had meant when he asked Scarlet Plume to make the divination for the pa-pa.

  Scarlet Plume was wakan. Truly. No wonder Whitebone wanted him to become a medicine man.

  The effigy lay very still where it had fallen.

  Gradually Scarlet Plume’s face gentled over and the old warm liberal expression returned to his large carven lips. His eyes half closed in a musing smile.

  Scarlet Plume spoke low to himself, satisfied. “The Yanktons will see plenty pa-pa at the Buffalo Jump two days hence.”

  Scarlet Plume picked up his effigy reverently and stood up, stretching to his full height, and in the waning red sunset made his way out of the clump of willows.

  Judith sucked in a long, slow breath. A mild shock set in from what she had seen.

  A divination. Truly.

  4

  The next day the Yanktons removed to a place where much cold water flowed out of blue mounds. The leather village was set just above the springs and inside a thin loop of scrub oak. Across from the running springs, on a small plateau, lay sign of what once had been an ancient village: broken potsherds, a grassed-over kitchen midden, loose piles of chipping stones, animal bones so old they collapsed at a touch, and many strange-shaped arrowheads.

  There were dozens of springs, and they all came together to form a small stream that flowed east into the River Of The Rock. The River Of The Rock itself flowed south, to the left of a red rock ridge. The red ridge kept lifting out of black earth until it became a considerable frowning escarpment. Two miles south of the springs, the red rimrock curved around to the west. Here the highest outcroppings were colored over with greenish-gray lichen, giving them a blue look from a distance. The curving escarpment made a perfect setting for a buffalo surround or buffalo jump. This was the place the Indians called the Buffalo Jump At The Blue Mounds.

  At dark all flares and fires were extinguished. A cold supper was served. Camp soldiers patrolled the village and kept close watch. No one was allowed to go wandering off alone to leave scent about and scare off any chance buffaloes grazing nearby.

  Late in the night, Judith awoke to find herself sleeping alone. Whitebone was not beside her. She listened. She heard Smoky Day and Tinkling snoring lightly on the women’s side. She raised her head. In the dim pink light of the fallen embers she saw that Two Two was also gone.

  She heard drums, faintly. Ah, the men were holding a secret meeting of some sort.

  Her sleeping robe had slid off a little, and Judith felt cold along her hip. The touch of chilly air had awakened in her a call to nature.

  She decided to repress the night call, make it go away. She covered herself again and nuzzled her head in the fur. She crossed her naked legs to help them warm each other.

  She listened to the steady drumming. The drumbeat was urgent, alive. She wondered what was going on. Probably the men were holding a ritual dance of some kind, full of smoky ancient mystery.

  After a while the night call became stronger than ever. She saw there was no use to fight it. Sighing, stiffish, she got up. She threw the sleeping robe around her shoulders and stepped outside. She found a place behind the circle of tepees. There was a gentle hissing in the grass under her. A soft sigh broke from her.

  The beat of the drums came down wind, from the north. She could just make out a weak orange reflection on red rock across the stream. The dance was being held around a fire in a hollow to keep down the sound as well as the light.

  She couldn’t resist one little peek. She had to look. She had seen a few ritual Indian dances at Skywater, but the trouble with them was that they had been held for the benefit of the whites. She wanted to know what a real Dakota dance was like out in the wilds.

  Cautiously she stepped through the soft, deep grass. She walked soundlessly. She pushed through a cluster of grazing ponies. She passed unheard within a dozen steps of a camp guard. She had to part some prickling gooseberries. At last she stood on the rimrock. To the left, and below, there it was. A dance. Some twenty men and boys were slowly winding around a small stick fire, around and around on beaten grass, toe down first and then the heel, a bird step, drums striking tuk-tak tuk-tak, mouths lifted up and bellowing. Each brave had tied a buffalo tail to his buttocks and fetlocks to his heels. A few braves wore black horns to represent buffalo heads. And one of the braves actually had put on a huge dressed-out buffalo head with horns and hair and whiskers. Otherwise they were stark naked. Around and around they pranced. Tuk-tak tuk-tak. They bellowed. They crouched on all fours. They pawed the earth. They butted each other. Some mounted each other. Tuk-tak tuk-tak.

  A little closing of the eyes, Judith thought
, and one could see them as actual buffalo bulls. They were truly dancing up the buffalo.

  Judith spotted Two Two, Bullhead, Traveling Hail, and Whitebone. Walking Voice and another old man were at the drums, both of them crying their hearts out. At their feet lay a white buffalo skull, fired sweet grass smoldering in front of its bony nostrils. It was heathenish, pagan, savage, barbaric, all these things, and yet at the same time Judith couldn’t help but admit it was more profoundly moving, soul-rousing, than any Christian rite or ceremony she had ever witnessed in her life. Only the Roman Catholics and the Episcopalians had anything like it. In their own minds the Yankton men had been transformed into buffalo. They were the buffalo. It went beyond mere belief.

  It struck her that the white man had things backward. The white man, both her brother-in-law Claude and her sister Theodosia, believed that all things spiritual were heaven-sent. They weren’t. The real truth was they were earth-born. Stone was not just stone, dust was not just dust, grass was not just grass, savages were not just savages, but all of them were manifestations of something profound, utterances dark and from far out of the deeps of time. They related back to some ultimate seat of truth. A truth was emanating out of dreaming stone rather than out of indifferent pan-Spirit. The dancing and the crying, the butting and the bellowing, the drumming and the singing, were voices out of the heart of Matter.

  Then she recognized Scarlet Plume. He was the dancer wearing the huge dressed-out buffalo head.

  His dancing was magnificent. A true re-creation. His movements were truly the motions of a real butting buffalo bull. His horns hooked up on the left, gutting a rival bull, then his horns hooked up on the right, gutting another rival bull. His bellowing, resounding out of the huge hollow skull he wore, was tremendous, deafening. He kept butting away the rival bulls. Slowly he made his way to his favorite buffalo cow. Already he was prepared for her. His phallus was erect, resembling the head of a bull snake straining to lift itself off the ground. He was buffalo.