Man on Two Ponies

by Don Worcester

  Clarence Three Stars, another Oglala, admitted that he also intended to stay. “It’s not bad here once you get used to it,” he explained. That was true, Billy had to admit, for he’d gotten accustomed to the school routine, and keeping busy had made him forget to be unhappy. Seeing Mollie Deer-in-Timber every day helped him even more.

  “The reason I’m staying,” Clarence confessed, “is that Maggie Stands-Looking wants to become a teacher. If she stays, I stay.”

  Billy pondered that. He’d never thought he’d consider for a moment staying one day longer than necessary, but he understood Clarence’s predicament. Would I stay if Mollie Deer-in-Timber stayed? He shook his head, glad he didn’t have to make that decision.

  With hands trembling from joy, Billy bundled up his possessions after breakfast the next morning. He’d waited for this moment longer than he cared to remember. Now it had come! Soon he’d put Carlisle out of his mind, and with his father’s help become a Brulé warrior. It seemed too good to be true. He felt a sudden chill on the back of his neck and looked around. Campbell stood in the doorway, frowning down at Billy.

  “You can unpack,” he said gruffly. “The agent wrote that your father stays with other hostiles and is considered a trouble-maker. Captain Pratt says you’re not to go back to him and waste all the good training he’s given you. You’re to remain two more years.” He turned and left.

  Billy’s numb fingers dropped his bundle. He couldn’t believe it. Two more years! By then it will be too late. He thought of the two boys who had died at Carlisle and almost envied them. He considered hiding on the train, then remembered the beating he’d gotten the first time he tried that. Feeling sick, he hid in the stables, not wanting to see the others leave. He heard Mollie and Julian both calling his name, but he didn’t reply.

  Once the others were gone, Billy resigned himself to remaining two more years. People in the community had given books to the school library, and he spent most of his free time reading books like Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans and Scott’s Ivanhoe. He soon discovered that reading helped make the time pass quickly.

  Most of all he missed seeing Mollie Deer-in-Timber. I should have said goodbye to her instead of acting crazy. Tomorrow I’ll write her and tell her I miss her. “Dear Mollie,” he wrote, “I wish you were still here.” No, I wish I was at Rosebud. He scratched out the line and tried again. Finally he crumpled up the paper and gave up.

  He was in the library reading as usual when Long Chin looked in.

  “Always got your nose in a book, don’t you? You’re more of a Wasicun than I am,” Long Chin told him. “You could probably teach at one of the reservation schools if you wanted to.”

  Shocked, Billy thought about that, and realized that what Long Chin said was true. Wearing Wasicun clothes, having his hair short, and reading regularly now seemed natural to him. He’d even forgotten the Brulé way of doing things. He knew the Wasicun words for the days and months, but he had trouble recalling the Teton names of the moons. It had happened so gradually he hadn’t been fully aware of the change in him. Now it was too late. Even though he longed to be a real Brulé, he was comfortable living like a Wasicun.

  At sixteen Billy was a few inches under six feet, but not heavy-set like many Brulés. His face was handsome, but after the years at Carlisle the comers of his mouth were usually turned down, giving him a slightly sullen look. He could speak and read English as well as most interpreters, but he’d foxgotten many Lakota words. It had been nine years since he’d watched his father ride away; he still remembered that day vividly, but most memories of Rosebud had become hazy.

  With his clothes in the cheap suitcase he’d been given, and the carpenter’s tool box he’d made that contained a saw, hammer, ruler, and a few chisels the carpenter had donated, he set out on the long train ride to Valentine, Nebraska, thirty miles from the Rosebud Agency. On the way he thought of the day two years earlier when the others had been sent home. If I’d returned then, I might still be a Brulé. Now I’m more Wasicun than Indian. I wonder if my father even knows I’m alive.

  When the train puffed to a stop in Valentine, he picked up his suitcase and toolbox, left the car, and walked toward the little station. This is what I’ve wanted for years. I should be excited and eager to get to Rosebud, but I’m not.

  Waiting for him was Joe Smith, a slow-talking mixed blood with a broken front tooth, who he remembered as an agency employee. “Agent sent me to meet you,” he said leading the way to a buckboard with a pair of Indian ponies hitched to it. Billy put his gear in the back of the wagon, then climbed up and sat by Smith. In a way it reminded him of the wagon trip to the Missouri six years before. Then they’d all been scared witless, not knowing what awaited them. Now he was going among Brulés looking like a Wasicun, knowing what to expect, and he dreaded that as much as he had earlier feared the unknown.

  “You don’t look like no Brulé to me,” Smith said, “especially you don’t look like no son of ole Pawnee Killer. He’s what they call irreconcilable, and I reckon he always will be. Stays with others like him and avoids all whites. They still consider him a likely trouble-maker.”

  Most of the way they rode in silence, while the ponies trotted and the buckboard bumped along over the rough road. Billy gazed at the distant hills and the open stretches of prairie grass on every side. His pulse quickened when he caught sight of a buck antelope flashing its white rump in warning to others, then saw a dozen of them scamper away. The land seemed much vaster and the sky bluer than he remembered. I should never have left this land. Once I belonged here too, like the antelope. But it’s no place for an imitation Wasicun with the skin and heart of a Brulé. But where do I belong? Nowhere? The thought troubled him.

  As they traveled, Billy thought of his father. Pawnee Killer had been one of the most respected Brulé warriors, for he had led many successful raids and counted many coups. It didn’t matter what the whites thought of him; Billy wanted only to be with him again, so he could forget everything about Carlisle. Otherwise... Smith interrupted his thoughts.

  “You won’t know the place. It’s some changed since Wright took over as agent in ’83. He got lots of families to build cabins and grow some corn. Of course they ain’t farmers by a whole lot, and most still sleep in tipis, but more are tryin’ to farm. At least their wives are. Sure ain’t like the old days.” He paused. “Glad you’re finally comin’ home?”

  Billy looked down at his worn boots. “Now that I’m here I don’t know if I’m glad or not. It’s what I’ve wanted every day for six years, but now I’m not sure I belong here any more. I’m all mixed up. I don’t even know what I am.”

  “I’ll tell you,” Smith said slowly. “You’re kinda like us breeds. Whites hate you ’cause you’re too much Indian. Indians hate you ’cause you’re too much white. You’re a man on two ponies, that’s what you are.”

  Chapter Three

  They reached Rosebud after dark, and Billy spent an uncomfortable night on a thin mat in Smith’s cabin, wishing for a cot like the one he had at Carlisle. Wasicun! He forced the thought from his mind. In the morning Smith fed him a breakfast of greasy pan fried bread, fried salt pork, and bitter coffee. He forced himself to eat it, trying not to think of the ham and eggs, biscuits and honey, and coffee with cream that Mrs. Purvis had served.

  “Reckon you should let the agent know you’re back so he can put you on the ration roll. You don’t want to miss gettin’ all this good grub.” Smith grinned, showing his broken tooth while wiping his greasy hands on his pants. Billy nodded, then went outside to see Rosebud by daylight.

  The setting was as he remembered it. Bathed in early morning sunlight under a cloudless sky, the agency’s brown log buildings were nestled in a bowl of hills dotted with dark green pines against a background of yellowing grass. Just seeing it and breathing the pine-scented breeze made him proud to be a Brulé. In the old days it had been a favorite camping place of his people. That was why Spotted Tail had insisted on locating
the agency there, that and the fact little land near it was suitable for farming. Although he knew the old life was gone, Spotted Tail had resisted the government’s efforts to force the Brulés to take up farming.

  Now, however, most of the tipi camps that had clustered around the agency in all directions when Billy had last seen it were gone. The tipis that remained were of white canvas, not those of mellowed buffalo hide with paintings of warriors and soldiers on them. Somehow Agent James Wright had persuaded the families to move to areas where they could plant an acre or two of corn and build cabins. There were now many cabin settlements scattered over the land, some of them thirty miles or more from the agency.

  Later, not knowing what to expect, Billy set out for the agent’s office next to the council room, carrying suitcase and toolbox. Some of the Brulé men he saw wore government issue shirts and pants along with moccasins. A few had cut the seats out of their pants and wore what was left as leggings; they also wore breechcloths and had trade blankets or worn buffalo robes over their bare shoulders. Even the ones who dress like whites still keep their hair long. But it’s clear some have changed and some have not.

  Feeling self-conscious in his outgrown blue uniform, Billy knocked on Wright’s door and was told to come in. The office contained only a few chairs, a deerskin on the floor, a filing cabinet with a buffalo skull on it, and a scarred oak table Wright was using as a desk. A stocky, broad-shouldered man with a brown beard, Wright reminded him of Henry Purvis, and he felt at ease.

  “I’m Billy Pawnee Killer, just back from Carlisle.”

  “Been expectin’ you, Billy,” Wright said, holding out a gnarled hand. “Tackett wrote you’d be coming.” He glanced at the tool-box. “I see they trained you to be a carpenter.”

  Billy nodded. “Summers I worked on a farm.”

  “Good. I’m a farmer, you know. There isn’t likely to be much carpenter work here, outside what the staff does, but when you’re eighteen we’ll set you up on a farm. What will you do in the meantime?”

  “I haven’t seen my mother for six years, my father for longer than that, and I’m anxious to get acquainted with them again.” Wright stroked his beard.

  “I think you should know that few of those men who were with Sitting Bull or Crazy Horse have adjusted to reservation life, and some of them likely never will. They’re like caged tigers tom from the jungle. They camp as far from here as they can and still draw rations every ten days. They hate white men and avoid them, but they hate even worse any Sioux who looks or acts like a white. I doubt that they’d let you, with your short hair and uniform, even spend a night in their camp.”

  Billy frowned. “But surely, if my father wants me there...?”

  “You should let him know you’re back, of course, but it would be better for me to send him word and see what he says.” Billy’s frown deepened.

  “I want to see him. I must see him.”

  “Well, in that case, don’t expect him to ask you to stay. You’ll take some gettin’ used to, Billy. Not only by the others, but by your own parents, especially your father. There are some pretty wild warriors in that camp, and if they didn’t run you off, they’d make life miserable for you. I don’t even send the police to those camps if I can help it.”

  “They couldn’t make it much worse than it was when I went away. I must see my father. Seeing him again is what I’ve lived for.” Billy shuffled his feet. Wright stroked his beard again.

  “I understand,” he said softly, leaning forward on his elbows. “I hope it works out for you.” He pointed to a map of the reservation tacked to the log wall, and circled his stubby finger. “They’re usually somewhere in this area, but they move whenever they need fresh grass for their ponies. The trader, John Culver, can find out where they are through his wife’s kinfolk. She’s Brulé.”

  On his way to the trading post Billy saw a familiar-looking youth approaching, but at first he didn’t recognize him. Then he knew it was his friend Julian Whistler. He’d let his hair grow into two short, pathetic-looking braids that dangled to just below his ears on each side of his round face, and he wore a red and white striped blanket uncomfortably over his bare shoulder. His expression was solemn, but he still didn’t look like a typical young Brulé fullblood. Even with blanket and braids he appeared different, like a Wasicun trying to pass for an Indian.

  “Billy!” Julian exclaimed. “You’re back. Pratt must have run out of excuses for keeping you.”

  “You were lucky, my friend. You left after four years.”

  “Four were too many. Nobody here has any use for us now, and if we do anything different, like shaking hands or sleeping in cabins, they jeer and call us Wasicuns. Even our own families,” he said, curling his lip. “They act like we changed because we wanted to become make-believe Wasicuns, not because we were forced to. Pratt always bragged that he’d kill the Indian in us and leave the man. He should have killed both instead of sending us home the misfits he made us.”

  “Have you done any carpenter work?”

  Julian laughed bitterly, toeing the dirt with his moccasin, the short braids skipping back and forth on each side of his unhappy face. “Not one of us has worked a single day at what they made us learn. Either there’s nothing for us to do or the Wasicuns say we’re trying to take their jobs. ’We don’t need Injun carpenters,’ they say. Those years were wasted—worse than wasted.” He waved his arms violently, and the blanket slipped from his shoulder. “Where will you live?” he asked, pulling the blanket around his waist with both hands.

  “I want to live with my father, but the agent thinks he’ll throw me away when he sees how I look.”

  “Even if he doesn’t, you’d be going straight from Carlisle to one of the wildest camps on the Reserve.” Julian shook his head, and his braids flew. “You’ve been away so long you can’t have any idea what that would be like. I know I couldn’t stand it, and I doubt that you could for long. After living like we did and being busy all the time, the hardest part is having nothing to do but feel sorry for yourself and wish you were dead. I’d gladly work as a carpenter just to have something to do.”

  “Living with my father is the only way I can become a Brulé again. I’ve got to, if he’ll let me.”

  “Hah! Look at me! Too late for that, my friend. I don’t know which is worse, an imitation Wasicun or an imitation Brulé, but those are your choices.” Shaking his head again, with his ridiculous braids gyrating, he turned to go.

  “Where does Mollie live?”

  “Deer-in-Timber? Her family has a cabin down the creek a couple miles. She helps the teacher at the school there, though I hear she’ll get married before long.”

  Billy picked up his suitcase and tool box and continued on his way. Mollie Deer-in-Timber getting married! I never thought of that happening. I should have talked to her before she left. I should have written and not let her forget me.

  John Culver, the trader, was a tall, round-shouldered man with twinkling blue eyes and a sandy colored mustache that hid his mouth. He was smoking a pipe, and like most whites and Indians at Rosebud he wore khaki shirt and pants and Brulé moccasins. Billy introduced himself and shook hands. “Mr. Wright said you probably can tell me where my father is camped,” he said. “But first I must see my grandfather, Two Buck Elk, and borrow a pony.”

  “You’re fresh back from Carlisle, I see,” Culver said. “I went to college in Pennsylvania for a couple of years before I got the wanderlust and headed west. Now I’m a squawman with a couple of mixed-blood sons. Come along way, ain’t!?” He smiled. “You know, if I had it to do over I wouldn’t change a thing.” Billy knew he’d like Culver.

  “Your father is Pawnee Killer, you say?” Billy nodded. “Not figurin’ on stayin’ with him, are you?” Wishing he hadn’t been asked that, Billy nodded again.

  “I must see him, and I don’t have anywhere else to go. I’ll stay with him if he wants me.” Culver’s mustache twitched.

  “If it doesn’t work out like you
want, come see me when you get back. “He took Billy outside and pointed out the trail to Two Buck Elk’s camp, about ten miles away.

  Leaving suitcase and tool box at the trading post, Billy set out on foot for the camp. When he was almost halfway there a family of Brulés in a buckboard drawn by a team of trotting ponies approached, going in the same direction and leaving a cloud of dust behind. Billy stopped, expecting them to offer him a ride. The driver was dressed like a white man, but his hair was long. He glanced at Billy, frowned, and drove on without slowing down. The woman looked straight ahead, but the two children in the back of the wagon turned their heads owl-like to stare at Billy through the dust.

  When he reached the little settlement Billy saw that a white canvas tipi stood by every cabin, and near each was a buckboard. In the distance he saw small patches of knee-high corn. His grandmother, in a long calico dress, was entering a cabin, and he knew that Two Buck Elk was probably in the nearby tipi. Remembering the Teton custom just in time, he struck the tipi with his hand to announce a visitor, then raised the flap and peered in. His grand father was sitting crosslegged on a green and white blanket, leaning against a willow backrest and smoking his pipe. He wore pants and moccasins, but no shirt. The flesh hung loosely on his arms.

  Two Buck Elk looked up at Billy with an expression of surprise, then of sorrow on his wrinkled face. With his left hand he touched his disfigured ear.

  “Grandfather, they finally let me come home,” Billy said, entering the tipi.

  Two Buck Elk looked him over sadly. “What have they done to you, grandson?” he asked hoarsely. Arising, he walked around Billy, inspecting him from all sides. “You’re as tall as I am,” he said. “But your hair! They promised to teach you to talk like a Wasicun, not to make you look like one. They lied.”

  “Do you think my father will know me?”