In the Shadow of the Hills

by Madeline Baker

  It was late afternoon on the fourth day when my vision came. The afternoon had turned cold. A stiff wind blew across the pinnacle of the mountain. Shivering with the cold, tormented by hunger and thirst and doubts I could no longer ignore, I huddled against the damp earth, listlessly watching the sun stain the horizon with broad slashes of crimson and ocher as it slowly dropped from sight. Overhead, angry black clouds raced by, driven by the fierce hand of a relentless wind.

  I was about to put an end to my quest and head for home in defeat when a large black wolf materialized out of the dusky shadows. On silent feet, he padded toward me, his magnificent blue-black coat gleaming like a raven’s wing, his bright amber eyes glowing like molten ore.

  “I am Mo’ohta’vo’nehe,” the wolf said, and his voice echoed like thunder rolling over the plains. “I am strong and brave and there is none other like me. I have watched you since the day of your birth, and because your heart is brave and true, I have chosen to be your guide during your stay on Mother Earth. Like me, you will hunt and kill for your family. Like me, you will be faithful to your woman, merciless to your enemies, gentle with your young. Men may hunt your flesh, but your spirit will always be free.

  “From this day on, the wolf will be your brother. Whenever you kill hotovaa, the buffalo, you will always remember to leave the tongue for your brother, the wolf. Do this, and your medicine will always be strong.”

  Throwing back his great head, Mo’ohta’vo’nehe loosed a long plaintiff howl. Then, with a wave of his tail, he vanished into the twilight.

  I stared after the spirit wolf for a long time, too stunned to move. The gods had blessed me with a vision. It was a moment I would never forget. Sometimes, deep in my heart, I had wondered if warriors and shamans truly saw visions and spoke to spirits, but now I doubted no more, for I could not deny that I had experienced a wondrous vision of my own.

  Filled with new life, I hurried down the mountain and returned to my father’s lodge.

  The following night, there was a feast in my behalf. Quiet Antelope and her closest friends prepared great quantities of food - buffalo tongue and hump and juicy ribs. Vegetables and wild plums, fry bread and chokecherry pudding. My father gave away his best horses and blankets to those in need, and this was done to honor the gods who had so generously blessed his only son with a medicine dream.

  Later, when the food was gone, my father rose to speak to the people, and I felt a thrill of pride course through me. There were many brave men in our tribe, but none braver or more respected than the man standing before us now. Like most of our people, my father was tall. His long black hair fell to his waist; his skin was the color of old copper. His chest bore the marks of the Sun Dance; there was a long scar across his back and another along his right shoulder. Each mark was a badge of honor, of courage.

  “It is a good day for my lodge,” Sun Seeker began in a voice filled with quiet pride. “My son has returned from his vision quest and he has brought powerful medicine with him. No more shall he be known by his cradle name. Henceforth, he shall be known as Black Wolf, the warrior.”

  A great cheer went up from the people, for it was a good day when a new warrior was added to the ranks of the Cheyenne Nation.

  It was a good day for me, as well. No longer would I hunt with the children, or be forced to stay behind with the women when the warriors rode out to hunt, or to battle.

  At last, I was a man.

  * * *

  It was about a week later that Soaring Eagle and I left the village, bound for the land of our enemies, the Crow. We took no horses, and no provisions. Food would be hunted along the way, and if our mission were successful, we would return home mounted on stolen Crow ponies.

  The sun was turning the sky to flame when we dogtrotted out of camp. The merest whisper of a breeze danced through the leaves of the trees. Birds twittered in the treetops, their songs greeting the birth of a new day. Nearing the river, we saw several young does grazing near the water’s edge. Some miles further on, we saw a gray wolf worrying its kill. Scenting our presence, the wolf looked up, its amber eyes meeting mine. And then, with a flick of its tail, it dismissed us and went back to its kill. It was a good omen, I thought.

  As the sun climbed higher in the sky, we increased our pace, and now the long years of training to be warriors paid off, for we ran effortlessly, mile after mile, matching each other stride for stride.

  It was a good day to be alive. I was young and healthy and strong, secure in my ability to provide for myself, arrogant in my belief that I would live forever. Once I laughed out loud for the sheer joy of being alive. Soaring Eagle threw me a curious glance and then, somehow knowing what I was feeling, he, too, began to laugh.

  We laughed until our sides ached and we flopped down on a thick carpet of pine needles to catch our breath. We talked softly for a few minutes, kidding each other about who was the fastest and who was the strongest, and who would capture the best horse. It was all in good-natured fun until Soaring Eagle began to tease me about Snow Flower. My feelings for her ran too deep to endure much kidding, and I suggested we move on.

  At noon, we killed a rabbit. Soaring Eagle found some berries and we ate them while the rabbit cooked over a small, smokeless fire. When the meat was done, we split the carcass in half and quickly wolfed it down. A drink from a small stone basin eased our thirst and we were off again, running effortlessly.

  Two days later, we were in the land of the Crow. We traveled cautiously now, rarely speaking except in sign, our eyes and ears attuned for the slightest hint of danger.

  By nightfall, we were within a half-mile of a large Crow encampment. We slept until midnight. Then, as silent as drifting shadows, we ghosted toward the village. Chunks of raw rabbit silenced the camp dogs as we penetrated deeper into the heart of the enemy village. Like the Cheyenne, the Crow warriors kept their best war horses tethered just outside their lodges.

  These were the horses we sought.

  We had agreed beforehand to look over these choice mounts and then each pick the one he thought the best. During the ride back to our village, we would see who had chosen the horse with the most speed and bottom.

  I passed by several fine looking animals before I made my choice, a rangy gray stallion with black points.

  Drawing my knife, I was about to cut the gray’s tether when the stallion’s owner stepped out of his lodge to relieve himself.

  Standing in the shadows, I held my breath while the stocky Crow warrior emptied his bladder. My blood ran hot and then cold as I made ready to drive my knife into the man’s heart should he detect my presence.

  A few minutes later, the Crow warrior returned to his lodge and I felt the tension drain out of me. I remained motionless for quite some time after the warrior entered his lodge, waiting for my heart to stop pounding, giving him more than enough time to go back to sleep before I cut the stallion’s tether and led the horse out of the village.

  Soaring Eagle was waiting for me at a pre-arranged location. He was mounted on a flashy, long-legged calico mare. Grinning at each other, we rode hard for home, not stopping until we had crossed the river that was the recognized boundary between the land of the Crow and the land of the Cheyenne.

  I was in for a lot of good-natured kidding when the sun came up and Soaring Eagle got a clear look at Heyoka, for thus had I named the gray.

  “Heyoka is the perfect name!” Soaring Eagle exclaimed with a laugh. “Rarely have I seen such an ugly beast. He is truly a clown!”

  I could only nod in agreement. If Heyoka was not the ugliest horse Heammawihio had ever created, he was certainly in the top two. He had a big Roman nose, a thick neck, a scraggly mane and tail, and ears big enough to make a donkey green with envy. In spite of his unbecoming appearance, he had the look of eagles in his wide-set black eyes, and I knew somehow that he possessed great endurance. And he proved it in the long ride back home. And again at the annual Sun Dance festival later that year.

  The Hestosenestotse, or
Sun Dance, was the high point of the Cheyenne year. It was a time of feasting, a time when old friendships were renewed when our brothers, the Lakota, joined with us to supplicate the gods for a bountiful year.

  The first four days were set aside for merrymaking, and it was during that time that Heyoka proved to be everything I had hoped for and more. Fast as the wind, he was, sure-footed as a mountain goat. He was easily the best horse I had ever owned. We defeated all comers in race after race that year, defeating even my father’s powerful black stallion. It was a good year for me. The spirit of the wolf was strong within me and I won every contest I entered. Wrestling, running, swimming, I could not be beat.

  During the second four days of the feast, those who had volunteered to take an active part in the dancing were taken aside by the tribal shamans and instructed in what was to come. I had no intention of taking part in the dance. There were no hard and fast rules about how old a man had to be to participate, and I figured I had plenty of time. Any male was eligible to participate, and you often saw older warriors taking part in the ritual to renew their spiritual strength.

  Occasionally, a woman took part in the dance. Though they were forbidden to hang suspended from the Sun Dance pole or make any severe sacrifices, they were allowed to offer pieces of their flesh, their blood, and their pain, to the Great Spirit.

  Like I said before, I had no intention of taking part in the ceremony that year, but the next thing I knew, Crooked Horn was asking for volunteers and I found myself stepping forward, together with a dozen other men all about my age.

  Crooked Horn, the Cheyenne medicine man, took us aside. Stripping off his shirt, he showed us his scars, explaining that our sacrifice to the sun would insure a bountiful year for the tribes. The Great Spirit would smile on us, he said. The buffalo would come in great numbers. Our people would be blessed with good health. Our women would be fertile, our children healthy, our warriors strong and brave.

  “And if you are worthy,” the shaman went on, “you may be blessed with a vision. It may be a personal vision, meaningful only to yourself, or it may be a vision for your tribe.”

  I slid a glance at the Lakota boy beside me and knew he was wondering the same things I was: Would I be blessed with a vision? Was I brave enough to endure the pain, or would I shame my people and myself by weeping?

  The last four days were sacred. Children ceased running through the camp. The women stilled their merry laughter. The warriors set aside their games of chance and skill. Even the dogs grew quiet, as if they sensed the sacred nature of what was to come.

  During this time, the Sun Dance pole was painted and decorated with sacred colors and objects. When that was done, the warriors did a war dance around the pole.

  On the last of these four sacred days, the tribes gathered around the Sun Dance pole in a great circle while those who had volunteered to take part in the dance were prepared for their ordeal. Some participants had elected to dance around the pole as long as they were physically able. Others would cut pieces of their skin from their arms and legs, sacrificing their blood and their pain to the Great Spirit.

  Three of us would have skewers inserted into the flesh above our breasts. Rawhide thongs would run from the skewers to the Sun Dance pole, and we would dance until our flesh gave way, freeing us from the pole.

  The rest of the dancers had skewers inserted into their backs. Rawhide thongs fastened the skewers to buffalo skulls, and it was up to these dancers to dance around the pole, dragging the heavy skulls, until their flesh yielded to the constant pressure, freeing them of their burdens.

  I was the last one in line, and I studied the faces of my companions as Crooked Horn pierced their flesh. To a man, they stood stolid and impassive, their faces devoid of pain or fear.

  The Sun Dance was an ordeal all warriors were expected to endure, but we never talked much about it. We spent hours boasting of the great visions we would have, the battles we would win, the scalps we would take. But we never talked of being afraid, and I wondered if perhaps I was the only one who was shaking inside; the only one who was afraid the pain would be more than he could bear. What if I fainted when the medicine man slit my skin, or whimpered like a woman in the throes of childbirth when the skewers were implanted in my flesh? How would I bear the shame?

  And then Crooked Horn was standing before me, his copper-hued face as unyielding as a canyon wall, his ebony eyes fathomless. I had the feeling that he could see into my soul, that he knew my fears and my doubts - that once, long ago, he had experienced the very same emotions himself.

  I took a deep breath as he raised his knife and made the first cut. Pain, waves of pain coursing through me. Pain, as white and hot as lightning, so hot that the blood trickling down my chest felt cold in comparison. And before I could recover, the same thing again on the other side.

  Sound pierced the agony gripping my body. The heavy beat of a drum. Crooked Horn’s resonant voice as he chanted one of the sacred songs. The distant screech of an eagle.

  I winced as a long rawhide thong was attached to the skewers embedded in the muscles of my chest. Crooked Horn placed an eagle bone whistle between my lips, instructing me to blow on the whistle when the pain became more than I could bear. The notes, he said, would carry my pain to the Great Spirit.

  My companions and I began to pull back against our tethers, constantly rocking back and forth on our heels, our faces turned up toward the sun as we implored the Great Spirit to bless His children,

  The other dancers danced around the pole, the heavy skulls bouncing along behind them, churning up little puffs of yellow dust.

  The sun climbed higher in the sky, warming the earth, blinding my eyes. Sweat poured down my face and ran in salty rivers down my chest and back. My blood dripped to the ground, nourishing Mother Earth.

  I blew on the whistle clamped between my teeth, and the sound of other whistles being blown echoed inside my head. I heard the voices of the singers, their voices wrapping around me as they chanted to the steady beat of the drum. Gradually, my heart began beating in time with the drum, and all thinking ceased.

  I pulled against my tether, stifling the urge to cry out as shards of pain lanced through my chest. Pulled and pulled and pulled again in an effort to free my spirit from its house of pain.

  Through a red haze I saw my father’s face, proud and darkly handsome, as he watched his only son participate in the most sacred ceremony of our people.

  I saw Quiet Antelope, her soft brown eyes sparkling with unshed tears of pride and compassion, her lips moving in a silent prayer to Heammawihio in my behalf.

  I saw my mother, her pale face twisted with revulsion. Saw her turn away. Saw her leave the sacred circle and return to my father’s lodge.

  I wrenched my gaze from my mother’s back and saw Snow Flower sitting with her sisters, her great dark eyes mirroring my pain. Her sweet red lips curved in a shy smile of encouragement, and I jerked against my tether with renewed vigor. After what seemed like an eternity, my flesh gave way to the constant pressure and I fell to the ground, exhausted and bleeding.

  It was then, as I lay panting in the dirt on the brink of unconsciousness, that my vision came, and in that vision I saw the Cheyenne warrior, Black Wolf, die, and in his place rose a new man - a man clad in the cumbersome attire of a vehoe. It was a vision that filled me with a cold, cold dread, one that haunted my sleep for many nights to come.

  * * *

  In the days that followed the Sun Dance, I often saw my father watching me, an unspoken question in his eyes, and I knew he was waiting for me to tell him what was bothering me, but I could not bring myself to speak of my vision, afraid that, by sharing what I had seen, it would come to pass, and so I kept it locked deep inside.

  Some days later, after my wounds had healed, I went hunting in the hills. Armed with a good strong bow made of mulberry wood and a quiver of arrows fletched with the feathers of a red-tailed hawk, I made my way through the sun-dappled forest. The murmur of the wind sp
oke peace to my soul. I felt the reassuring heartbeat of Mother Earth beneath the soles of my moccasins, and I knew I would not take the life of any of my four-footed brothers that day. I walked for hours, bypassing whatever animal life I saw.

  By late afternoon, I was far from home. Near a small stream, I paused to rest. I watched a fat beaver strip the bark from a tree while I ate a handful of parched corn. I was about to move on when an abrupt silence fell over the forest.

  Instantly, the beaver disappeared into the water, the warning slap of his flat tail echoing like a gunshot in the ensuing stillness.

  Catching a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye, I turned on silent feet in time to see a tall Pawnee warrior with a roached scalp lock step into the clearing.

  The Pawnee saw me at the same instant, and for the space of single heartbeat, we stared at each other. Then we were both moving, hands quickly putting arrow to bow, eyes sighting down the shaft as we let our arrows fly.

  My arrow flew quicker and straighter, penetrating my enemy’s paint-daubed chest, and he fell to the earth without a sound.

  I quickly put another arrow to my bow, searching the nearby trees and brush for other warriors who might be lurking nearby; but apparently the Pawnee, too, had been hunting alone.

  Feeling suddenly sick inside and more than a little shaky in the knees now that it was over, I sank down on my haunches, staring soberly at the dead brave.

  I had killed a man. It was my first close encounter with violent death, the first time I had realized how quickly a human life could be snuffed out.

  A life that could easily have been mine.

  I wondered if my father had felt like this, all sick and shaky inside, the first time he had killed a man. Warriors boasted of killing the enemy, of bravery in battle, of counting coup, but I could not remember ever hearing anyone admit he had felt sick to his stomach the way I was feeling now.