by Win Blevins
The energies of killing, once aroused fully, subside slowly.
I avoided looking into the hearts of the soldiers. I knew what was there, and it made me ashamed to be a human being.
A fleeing woman tried to protect two children not her own. A mounted trooper caught her and shot the two children out of her arms. Then he reloaded and shot the woman. While she pretended to be dead, he lifted her skirt with his saber, looked, and rode on.
Again: A woman sat rocking a baby. A soldier tore it from her arms and shot it. The woman leaped for the baby. The soldier clubbed her in the back of the head with his pistol, put his boot on her throat, and shot her four times.
I moved back to the village, to where the community once was, where the people once made a circle of life. Fires still smoldered. Bodies were flung everywhere, as by a malicious god-giant. They lay on their backs, on their faces, and in great piles. They were hacked, contorted, mangled. Their mouths opened to the sky, arms and legs fixed in excruciating gestures of protest. Dead mothers held the corpses of infants. Old men and women reached forth, their hands as empty as their eyes. The smell of burned flesh twisted my guts.
Later Sidney Bird, one of our elders, said, “The hearts of the white men who executed the deed were full of evil. What else would compel them to behave so outrageously?”
Yes, evil.
Iya, the ancient Evil One, Wind Storm—he blew the evil in their hearts from embers to conflagration.
Which does not balm my grief.
Which did not ease my hatred.
All my relations.
Those words felt like gall to me. Yes, all creatures are my relations—all two-leggeds, four-leggeds, wingeds, swimmers, crawlers, and the rooted, all sentient beings, even the flowing waters and the stones and the star people. But that day I could not bear to say it, not about white people.
I hated them. I hated you.
I flailed for Sallee’s hand. Plez clasped mine in one of his and snapped the tape player off with the other.
Up through the tunnel in the altar I came. I gasped my way into this world like a fish flopping onto the bank.
His face looked grave. “Are you okay?”
I breathed. Then I whispered, “I’m in a rage.”
Sallee sat up in her sleeping bag, rubbing her eyes.
Plez took that in for a moment. “Tell us,” he said.
I kept my eyes closed tight and hard against the evils of the world and there in the darkness, in the nether regions of the small Catholic church that could absolve nothing, I told Plez and Sallee what I saw on these grounds a hundred years ago. So as not to wake Emile and Chup, and so as not to agitate myself, I murmured low. The words alone, half-whispered, were dreadful enough.
“You must go back again!” he said softly.
“No!” I cried.
“Better for you,” he said.
He reached out his hand. I put mine up to block it. His eyes smiled at me. He clicked the cassette player on.
A Search for Miracles
I floated into a sky, perfectly clear, perfectly blue. An empty sky far, far away, cleansed by interstellar winds.
I’m lost. I’ve never seen this place.
Desperately I looked around for Raven. I had not seen him, he had not been beside me for a long time.
At that moment Raven filled the sky. He was huge, he made a mountain look petite, he dominated the sky and took up maybe half the range of my vision. He appeared as Thunderbird often does, breast to the front, wings opened to the side, head turned to the left beak and eye seen in profile.
He was black. Blacker than tar, blacker than pitch, blacker than black-black—he was a vibrant, pulsating, eternal black.
A thrill of darkness ran through me.
Raven turned white. Utterly white. Glistening, gleaming white, whiter than the snows of unclimbed Himalayas, vaster, softer, more radiant, more inviting.
Nothing changed but his color.
And in a blink there was nothing but the sky.
I floated lightly to the ground in the valley of the Mniconjou dead. A few flakes of snow drifted light and feathery beside me. The night was dark, the clouds low and threatening. Earlier tonight, the night of the killing, new snow fell heavily, and froze everything in place, as though preserving it for posterity.
I was shocked that no one was there to bury the bodies. Then I remembered what the books said. The contract for burying was given to civilians. They didn’t come for five days because they were haggling over the price per corpse. When at last the detail showed up, they dug a mass grave on the Hotchkiss cannon’s knoll, thereafter known as Cemetery Hill, and interred 146 bodies: eighty-four men and boys, forty-four women, and eighteen children.
Many more Mniconjou dragged themselves away from Wounded Knee and died elsewhere. The bodies of others were taken away by their relatives. My people believe that as many as three hundred perished in the massacre.
Suddenly I felt revolted by myself. I knew I was floating to avoid being on the Earth, truly seeing the death spread before me, smelling it, knowing it. Immediately I forced myself to the council ground.
The scene of carnage looked like a field where men have been felling dead trees; bodies like logs scattered everywhere, with bare limbs sticking up at grotesque angles. Big Foot sat half-reclining, his trunk sticking above the white snow.
No, don’t punish yourself. It was no use to look at one after another of these contorted bodies and grimacing faces, to wallow in horror. But I didn’t know what I did want, why I had come.
I wandered. I stumbled through the ruined village. I stood at the edge of the ravine. The merciful snow spared me the details of the vast tapestry of death woven by Iya, Demon, and other gods who bring evil to Earth. I could feel the abyss, and it was in the pit of my stomach.
I wandered to the ravine. I had last seen Elk Medicine staggering down the ravine to the east. I eased into the ravine and followed her. The scores of bodies near the overhang, I had no need to check these—she’d been further along. Through the dark I walked. I felt glad that I was a spirit, and could move among these bodies, this rampaging death, without touching them, without corporeal intimacy. And I felt ashamed of that feeling.
I wandered. When I saw human-shaped lumps, I made sure the clothing was not Elk Medicine’s. I avoided faces.
I wandered through the vasty night, not knowing where I was going or why. Any sign of her passage would have been covered by the snow. I checked every body I saw. I listened for the cry of a baby, the cry that would be my grandmother, Unchee, Janey Running. I felt like a man rummaging for treasure in a garbage dump.
In the morning the carrion feeders would be here, the ravens, the vultures, the eagles.
I heard Raven call across a great distance. First I thought, You were not with me today, you did not guide me through the horror.
Raven was away, was somewhere else, and did not reply. But quietly and clearly, without words, he said, You will not find Elk Medicine there.
I knew where Raven was and what I would find. I climbed out of the ravine and strode back to the village. It was a charred forest of lodge poles holding up nothing, half-fallen, or splintered on the ground. In the devastation I could not remember where the body would be. I looked around the village, getting oriented in the dark. I felt a sharp fear—I will never be able to find Blue Crow.
Raven called without words, Over here.
I saw his black shape perched on the shards of a wagon, wheels splayed from a fractured axle.
When I stepped behind the wagon, I saw myself.
I caught myself in the mistake, and shuddered.
I saw Blue Crow.
I wondered how, in my spirit form, I could get the snow off his face. I had a thought. I blew gently, and the snow swirled away. His countenance did not look serene, or angry, or surprised. It had no expression, was simply blank.
I looked at his chest, near the spot I did not want to see ever again. He wore a plain deerskin shirt,
having thrown his blanket off somewhere. His Winchester, loose in his grip, propped itself against one hip. Someone would steal it tomorrow.
I looked at his features, which were mine. At his shoulders and chest, which were mine. I wanted to hold him. Thank you. My heart flowed with love for him, where it has often been dry for myself. Thank you for being born of woman. Thank you for bringing your spirit into flesh and bearing its afflictions. Thank you for loving your children. Thank you for giving me life.
A memory came to me, and it jolted. Way back in Seattle, Delphine, Daniel, and Li Ming took me to a movie I didn’t want to see, called Virgin Spring. It was a story set in medieval Europe, about the virgin daughter of a local squire. She rides her horse some miles toward the church, bearing an offering. But some goatherds, ruffians, rape her and kill her. When her father discovers the deed, he takes revenge on the herders. Then he rides out to find his daughter’s body. She’s laying there in her white dress, with her pale face framed beautifully by her golden hair. He lifts her bloodied head, and a miracle springs forth. Water gushes from the place it laid. Miracle and the promise of redemption.
I knelt by Blue Crow’s head. I pictured the father in the movie lifting the mortal skull and opening the way for the miraculous waters to gush forth.
As a spirit I had no hands to lift Blue Crow.
Besides, I knew there were no miracles, no redemption. Not here, not yet. Not for Wounded Knee.
This time I grabbed for Sallee like a man surfacing desperately from deep water.
She clasped my arm, and Plez clicked off the recorder.
“What did you see?” he asked softly.
I told them about Blue Crow, everything.
He said to me seriously, “Black Elk said the hoop will be broken and the tree will not flower until the seventh generation. The seventh generation. That’s now. The time for miracles is now.”
My faith in miracles felt shaken.
Finally I said, “I don’t know what happened to Elk Medicine.”
He pondered and hmmmed. “That can wait. For now, get some sleep. We have ceremonies to perform in the morning, and miracles to work.”
Sitanka Wokiksuye
They woke us up before dawn in the church basement, the women. Upstairs, there was a mass to celebrate. Down here, there was coffee to make, Styrofoam cups and packets of white sugar and nondairy creamer to set out, packages of donuts to put on the tables in their plastic bags. The women were quiet, and I think they were surprised to see us, though they didn’t let their faces show it, out of politeness.
Plez sat up and looked around cheerfully. “Room service!” he exclaimed.
Chup made grumbling noises from the depths of his sleeping bag.
I sat up next to Sallee and met her eyes. “Today is the day!” I said. I felt … everything on the color wheel of feeling.
Sallee walked up the stairs and saw that mass was being conducted in the sanctuary behind us. I wanted no part of that, even if most of the worshipers were Lakota. I don’t associate with Christian churches whatsoever.
We stepped outside, and I gasped. The cold felt like a whack in the face. Somehow I’d thought, when the ride was over … We scurried right back in. Later Ian got the Porcupine radio station, KILI, in his truck and said they were reporting the high today would be thirty below.
The five of us consumed coffee and donuts like we’d ridden twenty miles in that weather. We went outside. We jumped back in and ate more coffee and donuts. Finally, somewhere after ten, we had to face it.
Emile, Plez, and I headed out. As I walked around the fenced gravesite, I couldn’t help looking down at where the village stood, and seeing what the gunners saw as they sighted. The distance was incredibly short, maybe forty steps to the nearest tipis, and the elevation of about twenty-five feet gave every advantage. I shuddered.
We found our man with the trailered horses below the hill, right where the cavalry pitched their tents a hundred years ago. In a few moments we were bridled, saddled, and ready.
“Where is everybody?” said Plez irritably. We’d had two hundred or so riders. Less than half were here now.
“Pisser,” I said.
“Maybe they’re up there on foot,” said Emile. “Not torturing the horses any more.”
The leaders angled slowly up the hill behind the staff, which had led us all the way, and the rest of us filed behind them. As we came, Bill Horn Cloud gave an invocation over a bullhorn.
When we topped the hill, the harsh wind strengthened. What skin it struck hurt instantly, hurt sharply. We made a complete circle around the gravesite clockwise (sunwise). I was snuffling, I was gasping every time a breath hit my lungs. It’s going to kill me.
In anguish I let a tear go. It felt cold, and I reached up to brush it away. It was already ice.
When the riders were in place, the Feeding of the Spirits ceremony began. Four spiritual leaders stood facing the monument. One lifted a Pipe while praying. I could hear his voice but couldn’t understand the words. Just staying in the saddle seemed hard.
Finally the man with the Pipe signaled, and we rode back down the hill. I tumbled out of the saddle and let the man from Wambli have the horse. One thing I knew—that horse would never let me near him again.
I felt like tearing the flesh off my face to stop it from hurting. Emile and Plez were a step ahead of me getting into the pickup that hauled the trailer. The cab was actually half-warm.
Each of us rubbed his face, unable to speak.
In a few minutes we ran for the warmth of the church and the comfort of hot coffee.
On the way Plez spotted something and led us through the gate to the monument. At its foot, below the names of some of my people who died here a century ago today, laid oranges, bananas, fry bread, apples, pemmican, and tobacco. I beheld these offerings to the spirits of my ancestors. “Be well,” I murmured. Then I fled into the church.
The coffee and donut folks were making a hubbub of talk about one subject. Russell Means had turned George Mickelson, the governor of South Dakota, away from the ceremony.
We got the story in pieces. Some said Mickelson had been invited, was even invited to speak later in the day. Others put in that he was making a gesture, this being his Year of Reconciliation (which most Indian people thought was a joke). Mickelson had arrived in an unmarked car, and walked up toward the gravesite alone. Means and some other AIM guys stepped in front of the governor, and Means said, “You aren’t welcome here.” The governor trudged back to his car.
Most Lakotas in the room were incensed at Means’s behavior. “He had no right!” “He ain’t from here anyway.” “Who the hell does he think he is?” “Don’t even speak Indian.” “This was a healing ceremony for everybody, people of all colors.” The controversy carried over into the newspapers the next week.
Myself, I didn’t want to talk about Russell Means, or the governor, or anything else. I felt overwhelmingly sleepy. My sleep had been spotty all week, and now I was incredibly drowsy. Tonight’s big ceremony, Wiping Away the Tears, was set for the gym at Little Wound School. “How about the custodial room again?” I asked Plez. “I gotta sleep.”
He grinned. “You got a journey to make.”
The Quest for Unchee
I slept in the back of Plez’s king cab on the way to Kyle, and by the time we got there, I was keen to go journeying. One idea throbbed in my mind. I have to find Unchee, I have to find Unchee.
We hurried to the custodial room. I wrapped myself in a blanket and laid down below the buffalo head, Sallee next to me. At Plez’s urging I stated my intention three times. “I seek to find my great-grandmother and my grandmother near Wounded Knee a hundred years ago today, and to know what happened to them.”
Plez reached out, the cassette player clicked. The drum ponged again, and again and again.
Holding fear cold in my throat, I descended once more.
I floated toward the killing ground, tumbling slow somersaults on the way. I landed fea
ther-light and saw that I was standing on the edge of the ravine. I was east of most of the fighting, and carefully did not look in that direction. When I last saw her, Elk Medicine was stumbling along this ravine further to the east, toward where Sun lives, bearing in her belly the infant Janey Running, my Unchee. My great-grandmother was darting everywhere and nowhere, crazed by pain, stunned by terror. Half by luck, she staggered away from the fighting, not back into the fray.
Some distance away, a man in uniform walked toward her, but they could not see each other. By my gift I knew his story. This man, Benjamin Running Hawk, broke ranks with his detachment of scouts five minutes before. He ran east to escape the shelling, which was far too close. There, out of sight of the commanding officer, Lieutenant Taylor, he got off his horse, slipped to the edge of the ravine, and looked around. Running Hawk hesitated, trying to understand where he was and what on earth he was doing. In the ravine was pandemonium—Hotchkiss shells exploding, cavalrymen shooting—all hell was busting loose down there.
Running Hawk hesitated. He was beyond the firefight, well to the east, out of danger.
Lakota men, women, and children were dying in that ravine.
Running Hawk was wearing the blue coat of the enemy. How could he go in and help? His own people might shoot him!
Benjamin Running Hawk clambered down into the ravine and walked toward the shooting. He called in Lakota, “I am Oglala, I come to help! I am Oglala, I come to help!”
Two or three Mniconjou women wandered by him, one at a time, looking dazed but not hurt. Running Hawk plunged on toward the fighting. The dust rose harsh in his nose, the smoke acrid. Then came a woman who looked stunned. She was staggering, zigzagging. Below the knee one leg, a foot, and its moccasin were drenched in blood.
