by James Welch
“Besides my mother, I had three near-mothers and four sisters and a brother. Now they are gone from me. I do not know where they have gone—they did not have time to prepare themselves.”
As Fools Crow stared out at the smoking ruins, he began to notice what was missing. The mention of Bear Head’s mothers and sisters made him realize that he had seen only the bodies of old men and young boys among the women.
“Where are the men?” he said. He turned back to Bear Head. “Where are the warriors?”
One of the old women lifted her head. She had been watching the red puppy, who had followed Fools Crow and now lay with his head between his paws.
“Off hunting,” she said. “There was no meat in camp, and a Pikuni does not live without meat.” She said this fiercely.
“Those who weren’t dead or sick with the white-scabs,” said Bear Head. He looked uncomfortable. “I myself was leaving for the hunt this morning.”
“A Pikuni does not live without meat,” muttered the old woman.
Bear Head looked down at her. “Curlew Woman’s two sons were to go with me. Now they are burned up.”
Fools Crow could envision the hunters’ return. Whether laden with meat or empty-handed, they would see something they would mourn for the rest of their lives.
“Where are the seizers now?” Fools Crow’s voice was sharp. Anger welled up within him, an anger that was directed at the futility of attempting to make the seizers pay. He had always thought that the Pikunis could fight these hairy-faces. He had prepared himself for this fight, he was ready to die a good death to defend this country. Now he knew that his father had been right all along—the Pikunis were no match for the seizers and their weapons. That the camps were laid low with the white-scabs disease did not even matter. The disease, this massacre—Sun Chief favored the Napikwans. The Pikunis would never possess the power to make them cry.
He listened to Bear Head’s weary voice recount the details of the massacre. “Curlew Woman says Heavy Runner was among the first to fall. He had a piece of paper that was signed by a seizer chief. It said that he and his people were friends to the Napikwans. But they shot him many times. By the time I could see the camp, there were only a few running, trying to escape. They were all cut down by the greased shooters. There were several lodges already on fire. Some of the seizers were aiming at the lodge bindings. Many of the lodge covers fell into the fires within and started burning. Then there was no more movement and I heard a seizer chief shout and the shooting stopped. By that time there was too much smoke in the air, dark smoke from the burning lodges, blue smoke from the shooting. The seizers waited awhile, then they came down from the ridge and out of the trees. I felt naked and exposed beside the river, so I crawled into some brush here behind us. The seizers walked among the lodges, at first quietly; then they became bolder and began to talk and laugh. Whenever they saw a movement from under one of the lodge covers they shot at it until it moved no more. They rounded up the bodies and threw them onto the fires. Those lodges that stood untouched by fire were ragged with bullet holes. The seizers cut the bindings and set these lodges on fire. They took what they valued and threw all the rest onto the fires. They drove off all our horses.”
“Did any others get away?”
“I saw three women and their children. The seizers did not shoot them even though they stood beside these trees and watched the burning. I searched for them after the seizers left but I did not find them. Perhaps they left for Mountain Chief’s camp. The Many Chiefs are camped just downriver.”
Fools Crow suddenly remembered the rumor he had heard in his own camp. Owl Child had supposedly returned to Mountain Chief’s village and was down with the white-scabs. He wondered if Fast Horse was there too, if he was sick—or dead. He knew that the Many Chiefs would be gone as soon as they learned of this disaster.
“Which way did the seizers go?”
Curlew Woman looked up again. She pointed to the hills behind the ridge from which the seizers slaughtered the camp. “Up there. Black Prairie Runner and Good Kill here”—she indicated the other old woman—“we ran up a draw over there. The seizers rode right by us—they saw us but they didn’t shoot. Oh, how I wish they had! I cursed them, I stole their honor, but they only laughed.”
“They will probably make camp at Dry Fork. Perhaps we could recover the horses if the hunters return.” Fools Crow felt his spirit rise slightly. He turned to Curlew Woman. “It is good that you are alive. You will have much to teach the young ones about the Napikwans. Many of them will come into this world and grow up thinking that the Napikwans are their friends because they will be given a blanket or a tin of the white man’s water. But here, you see, this is the Napikwan’s real gift.”
Black Prairie Runner, as though he had just come out of a trance, started, then spoke. “What you say is true, young man. But these women and I are old. We have seen much, we have seen the winter counts add up—some years were good, some were bad, but each design on the skin was something we could understand. Now they are all bad and we do not understand why. This world has changed and we do not belong to it. We would be better off to join our before-people in the Sand Hills. It is as Curlew Woman says. We would rather be killed by the Napikwans than live in their world.”
“I listen to you with a good heart and I hear the truth in your voice. Many of our people feel this way. As we stand here, I see this tragedy that Sun Chief permits. I am tempted to wish that all the Pikuni people could go to that other world where there are no Napikwans. There the hunting is good and the people live according to the old ways. But this is the land of the Pikunis. This is where the long-ago people were born and lived and died. They would be angry with us if we just gave it up. They would say the Pikunis had become puny, that we would not fight for this land that they left us.”
“But how can we fight?” Bear Head’s voice was tense, as though a fire had begun to burn within him. “You see what they do to us. There are too many of them and their weapons are more powerful than ours. More Pikunis died this one day than in all the days since I have been alive. They kill our women and children. They kill our old ones!” Then, just as suddenly as it began, the fire went out. “They kill my mother, my sisters, my near-mothers. They kill us all. I, who have no family left, welcome it.”
“This is bad talk,” said Fools Crow, but he felt young and powerless, as though he talked into a strong wind. Listening to Curlew Woman and Black Prairie Runner, and now Bear Head, he felt his small hope fading and he wished for the presence of his father. Rides-at-the-door would say some words that would make them all see a reason to go on. He could talk with the wind’s strength. Even Black Prairie Runner and Curlew Woman, who had lived so long and now wished to die, would feel that strength and they would know it was important to think of the children.
Fools Crow thought of the final design on the yellow skin in Feather Woman’s lodge. He saw the Napikwan children playing and laughing in a world that they possessed. And he saw the Pikuni children, quiet and huddled together, alone and foreign in their own country.
“We must think of our children,” he said. He lowered his eyes to the red puppy and it was quiet all around. The few survivors stared at the red puppy, who had rolled onto his back, his front legs tucked against his chest. They had no children.
36
IT WAS THE MOON of the first thunder and Mik-api sat in his lodge alone and prayed. He wore only a breechcloth and a pair of winter moccasins. He sat cross-legged, his back hunched and narrow. His hair was gathered in a lump just above his forehead. He prayed out loud, but his words were scarcely a whisper in the gray light of the lodge. As he prayed his mind wandered and he remembered the day he had acquired the Thunder Pipe bundle. Forty winters had passed since that day; yet Mik-api remembered it well, for it was the day before his Black Paint wife had died of the white-scabs. The man who transferred the bundle had taught Mik-api the many songs and prayers and dances that went with the bundle. After seven days of such cer
emony, Mik-api, who had paid with all his possessions, was the owner of the sacred bundle. He had vowed to acquire it because his wife was sick and he had thought the power of the ceremony would restore her health. She died the next day, but Mik-api did not doubt the power of the bundle. He doubted only his own.
In the years since then, he had become a heavy-singer-for-the-sick and his medicine was strong enough to instill faith and respect and even awe in his people. Those times his medicine didn’t work, the people said the bad spirits had already claimed the body of the sick one. When the medicine succeeded, they said Mik-api had the greatest power of all the many-faces. For many winters he did possess a great healing power. He could cure anything from a broken leg to a broken spirit. Rare was the affliction that Mik-api couldn’t ease. But now he felt the weight of his years and knew that he would not see the snow of the next winter. His dreams brought him closer and closer to the Sand Hills. He had been ready for some time and he welcomed each dream, for it was his Black Paint wife who appeared most often and filled him with a shyness that he had not felt for some time. They had spent only two years as man and wife before she died. Although he had grown old and had experienced many things, he did not find a woman to take her place. And so he dreamed of this reunion, dreamed with the shy pleasure of a young man who had much to look forward to.
He felt it more than he heard it when it happened. His prayers and thoughts had taken him from his lodge, but now he felt the long slow rumble of the many drums enter his body and his heart beat faster. The camp crier stuck his head into the entrance and said, “It is time.”
Mik-api murmured his assent and the camp crier left to get the others. Mik-api said a prayer of thanks to Thunder Chief for coming once more to the country of the Pikunis. Then he untied the bundle. It was wrapped in the skin of the real-bear and decorated with eagle feathers and ermine skins.
When his assistants were seated, Mik-api unwrapped the Thunder Pipe stem and held it aloft. He said the prayers to the Above Ones, the Below Ones, the Underwater People. Then he fitted the sandstone bowl to the stem and filled it with tobacco. He smoked to the four directions, then placed new tobacco in the bundle. Perhaps Fools Crow will smoke this tobacco next thunder moon, he thought. The drumming and singing began. Mik-api stood and acted out the part of Real-bear, growling, thrusting his head this way and that, sniffing, making clawing gestures in the air. The assistants sang horse songs, owl songs and blackhorn songs, each time acting out the gestures of the animals. When they were finished with the long ceremony, Mik-api lit the pipe and offered the smoke again to the sacred beings, as well as the four directions. After his offering to Thunder Chief, the people smoked and prayed for good health, abundance and the ability to fulfill vows. They prayed for long summer grass, bushes thick with berries, all the things that grow in the ground-of-many-gifts. They prayed that the blackhorns would be thick all around them and nourish them as they had nourished the before-people.
The procession began, Mik-api in the lead, holding up the Thunder Pipe for all to see. As they paraded through the camp, others joined them, singing and drumming. There were fewer of them than in previous years, but the drumming and singing seemed louder, as though they sought to make up in enthusiasm what they lacked in numbers.
Fools Crow and Red Paint stood outside their lodge, waiting. He had painted his face and he carried a feathered shield and a bow. His braids were wrapped with ermine skins and tied with red yarn. Red Paint wore a dress of elkskin trimmed with several rows of elk teeth. Her cheeks were rouged and she stood shyly. The cradleboard was on her back. Not too many winters ago it had held Red Paint, then Good Young Man and One Spot. The blue, white and red quillwork designs were slightly faded, but the skin was as soft as ever. Butterfly had been sleeping, but as the procession approached and the drumming and singing got louder, he opened his eyes and looked at the pegs holding the front of the lodge skins together. His eyes were large and dark as he watched the butterfly fan his wings on a peg. Fools Crow stepped back and made a face at him, and Butterfly looked back with calm curiosity.
Then the procession was passing the lodge and Mik-api gave them a quick look. In his glance, Fools Crow saw a glint of almost youthful energy, a bright flame of pride that made the younger man smile. Mik-api’s assistants danced behind him, now reserved and tall, no longer the men and women who had acted the animal roles in the lodge. Next came the elders, Rides-at-the-door and Double Strike Woman among them. Several small children danced behind them, the quick steps of a scalp dance. One Spot, his face painted and an owl feather in his hair, danced with the fury of a strutting grouse. Fools Crow and Red Paint fell in with the younger people. A clown, dressed in the fur and headdress of a little-wolf, danced behind Red Paint, making faces and yipping at Butterfly.
The procession managed a grave dignity as it wound its way through the camp. Only the few old people whose frail bodies would not allow them to join watched without getting up. But they too sang, and they remembered many hopeful springs when they had danced through camp, and they prayed that, after the sad winter they had lived through, there would be hope and joy this spring.
Fools Crow listened to the faraway rumble of Thunder Chief and felt his step become lighter. He felt in his heart, in the rhythm of the drum, a peculiar kind of happiness—a happiness that sleeps with sadness. And the feeling made his head light and he was removed from the others, dancing alone, singing a song that had to do with his life in this world, and in that other world he had visited in his vision. And then he saw the white lodge and the pale blue light and the woman sitting across from him. He knew that she was here, someplace, watching him, watching the procession, and he saw her smile in the blue light and he smiled. For even though he was, like Feather Woman, burdened with the knowledge of his people, their lives and the lives of their children, he knew they would survive, for they were the chosen ones.
A drop of water stung his head and he saw the hard drops falling all around him. He heard the drops bounce off the taut skins of the lodges, and he saw the drops gathered on the bare earth that countless feet had trampled smooth over the winter. He felt Red Paint’s hand slip into his and he raised his face.
That night there was much feasting in all the Pikuni camps. Winter was over and the men talked of hunting, of moving the camps out of the valleys, of moving on. The women prepared their meager feast and fed their men, their children, their relatives and friends. They knew that soon the meat pots would be full and the hides would be drying in the sun. Outside, the children played in the rain, chasing each other, slipping and skidding in the mud. They were Pikunis and they played hard.
Far from the fires of the camps, out on the rain-dark prairies, in the swales and washes, on the rolling hills, the rivers of great animals moved. Their backs were dark with rain and the rain gathered and trickled down their shaggy heads. Some grazed, some slept. Some had begun to molt. Their dark horns glistened in the rain as they stood guard over the sleeping calves. The blackhorns had returned and, all around, it was as it should be.
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