Sundance 10
Page 13
Chapter Nine
From far away, he heard the voice. “Just keep him quiet. If you can do that, he’ll be all right.”
Jim Sundance opened his eyes. He stared into the coppery, handsome face of Charles Eastman, the Yanktonais Sioux doctor. “Easy,” Eastman said, and then he stepped back. “Take it easy, Sundance. You’re home.”
“Home,” Sundance said. He had had a dream. He had dreamed that he was in the Shadow Land, and while he was there the earth had changed. It had become carpeted with sweet grass, and there were great herds of buffalo—Then he saw Barbara. She leaned down over him. “Jim—”
“Home,” he said again.
“Yes.” She smiled. “On Thunderbird. They brought you here, the Cheyennes from the Pine Ridge Agency. After Wounded Knee.”
“Wounded Knee,” he said, and then he remembered.
He tried to rise. But his wife, still smiling, pushed him gently back.
“That’s right,” she said.
Sundance said, “I want to know what happened.”
Barbara’s smile went away. “Now, rest—”
“I want to know,” Sundance insisted.
“All right,” Eastman said. “You’re entitled to. And you’ll have to, if you’re going to rest. The battle’s over. The Indians from Pine Ridge came up, encircled the battlefield at Wounded Knee. The Army withdrew. There was a storm, but ... three days later we went out there.”
“Yes,” Sundance whispered. “And—?”
“It is hard to talk about,” Eastman said. “There was snow, plenty snow. And the bodies were frozen. Big Foot, in his shabby clothes, and the warriors, and—” he swallowed hard. “The women,” he said. “And the children. We ... found some children alive, beside mothers who were dead.”
Sundance closed his eyes.
“All the women,” Eastman went on. “The young ones. They had their robes pulled over their faces, as if they could not face death when the soldiers killed them ...” He sucked in a shuddering breath. “They dug a big hole, a mass grave, and they put them all in it—naked. The little children and the women and the men. And then covered it over,” he said. “Maybe eighty men or ninety, including young boys, and about forty-five women and at least fifteen infants ...”
Sundance kept his eyes closed. “Has it ended? Just tell me, has it ended?”
“There were some skirmishes later. But it’s ended.” Barbara’s voice was soft. “Yes, Jim, it’s all ended. The people in the Stronghold have surrendered. All the tribes have made their peace. The whole country is appalled by what’s happened, and Miles is in Washington, forcing Congress to increase rations to the Sioux. Our herd’s already been driven in to Pine Ridge by Cheyenne Scouts ...”
Sundance let out a long breath.
“Maybe it wasn’t all wasted then,’’ he said.
“No. Not all of it.” Barbara sat down on the bed and took his hand. “It’s over, Jim. There will be no more Indian wars. The country won’t let there be, after this. And you’ll get strong again—”
“Two bullets?” Sundance asked. “Hoffman? He hit me with two and they didn’t kill me?”
Dr. Eastman grinned. “The Ghost Shirt,” he said. “Eh? But maybe that war shield helped a little. The Thunderbird shield with the scalps on it? Both bullets went through that. And it slowed them down just enough to keep them from doing fatal damage.” He laughed softly. “Big Medicine, eh?”
“Big Medicine,” Sundance said.
“I’ll go now,” Eastman said. He went out.
Barbara leaned forward, kissed him lightly on the lips. “Jim. You need to rest. I love you. We won’t give up, you hear? There’s still a lot of work for us ... and for our son.”
Sundance looked at her. “Our son?”
“I didn’t tell you before...” She smiled. “A son ... or daughter.”
Sundance grasped her hand, held it. Finally, she pulled it free. “Now I’m going out. You rest. We’ll talk later, when you’re stronger. Meanwhile, I’ve sent small herds to all the other reservations ... They’ll see the tribes in Dakota through the winter. So you can rest easy, my darling.”
Sundance said, “Yeah, I’ll rest.” Barbara got up, moved away. Then he said, “Look. The curtains on the windows. They’re closed. Open them, will you?”
“Of course,” she said, and did. Then she went out.
Sundance lay there, staring through the window. Above, in the gray Dakota sky, storm clouds raced from north to south.
He smiled.
From where he lay, they looked like running buffalo.
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