by Win Blevins
Behind Rider a thunderstorm erupted. Dark clouds boiled, lightning flashed and gave birth to sound. A zigzag of lightning marred Rider’s cheek like a wound. Hail spots welted his body.
Into clouds and shadows rode the rider, forever and forever into clouds and shadows.
The storm cleared, the hail spots faded, the day shone bright as polished metal. Horse and man flew forward. A hubbub of people rose up around him like a storm, his own people, talking and murmuring and grabbing at him. Over his head flew a hawk—a red-tailed hawk—and she cawed forth her warning to the world, KEE-ur, KEE-ur, KEE-ur, harsh and atavistic.
On flew Horse and Rider into the shadows, hooves floating above the earth, forever and ever on, as the hawk cried KEE-ur, KEE-ur above Rider’s head.
In his chest Curly felt Hawk lift her wings and turn into the wind. She merged with the red-tailed hawk, and they were one. The weight within his ribs eased. In the whip of the wind, reckless and free, his heart ringed up the sky.
LOOKING AT THE SACRED DREAM
He lay there limp, his body profoundly stilled, his mind filled with a wonderful clarity, sweet and cool, like floating underwater in a crystalline stream.
It had not been a dream. He saw it all with his eyes open. He didn’t see it obscurely, as if looking through a shard of creek ice, as he did some dreams. On the contrary, it was more vivid, brighter, more colorful than the world. More real than the world.
He lay there seeing it again in memory, savoring the details. He didn’t try to decipher it yet, to sort out whatever meaning it might have for his life. He looked at it, over and over, feeling its textures and nuances, getting to know it.
He noticed Hawk in his heart. For once she was not aquiver, not restless, but at ease. But now he knew: Hawk did not have a song. Hawk was a predator, a creature wild and rapacious. Her cry was not music, but a war shriek.
It reminded him of once when they were going without food and water for a day. His hunka Buffalo Hump wet a stone in the creek and gave it to Curly to suck on. It was a smooth, flat rock, red as pipestone. Curly held it in his mouth and felt it with his tongue, sucked at its small shapes and curves and nuances. Later, when he took it out and looked at it, he realized that he knew much more about the stone than his eye could tell him. His tongue knew. And did not know about the stone. Knew the stone.
Buffalo Hump smiled at Curly, holding the stone in his fingers, and said it would make his mouth feel wet long after it had lost the film of moisture that came with it.
Remembering, Curly felt warm toward his hunka. That’s what an older brother by choice did, guide his younger hunka toward becoming a man.
It was a grand way of being related, this custom of relative by choice, brother, uncle, aunt, father, son, daughter, any kind of relative.
Curly stretched, the feeling of his body and of the earth coming back to him.
Curly wanted to tell Buffalo Hump his vision; he wanted to share everything with his hunka.
He didn’t know whether he should.
Again he blamed himself. If he hadn’t gone onto the mountain without guidance, he would know what to do.
Now the feeling of clarity altered subtly. He had another feeling, shame. It was seeping into him like muddy water onto a fallen leaf.
He had come crying without preparation, without understanding. For three days he had been punished—the world and the powers that move it had turned their backs on him utterly. Then, abruptly, a vision had been thrown at his feet like rotten meat to a dog.
It was a difficult vision. He didn’t know what it might mean. But he knew it was a curse, a well-deserved curse.
For the first time since his vision he stirred a little. It was as though his spirit was beginning to inhabit his body again. He shifted, wiggled, half-turned. Hawk was more or less calm on her perch in his heart.
“E-i-i-i,” he said to himself, a murmur of regretful acceptance.
He recognized himself even in his curse. This was his way, to go alone, to do things his own way, which was often the wrong way.
A rueful smile glinted in his eyes.
RETURNING TO THE WORLD
The clappety-clap of horses’ feet. Two horses, walking. Not far from the camp, not sneaking. Friends.
Curly saw no reason to rise. He felt, somehow, that if he didn’t get his body all the way up, Hawk would sit easier. He wanted to feel tranquil a while yet. He wanted this freedom a little while longer.
Tasunke Witko looked down at his older son. The boy lay there limp, his body oddly loose and pliant, his eyes on his father, with a faraway look. The boy so often had a faraway look.
The father’s first impulse was to vault off the pony and touch his son and make sure he was whole, still breathing, not bleeding. But he wasn’t the boy’s mother. Also, his older son kept his distance, wary, blaming.
He sat his pony and looked down. Buffalo Hump, his son’s hunka, sat on the mount next to him. He didn’t look into Buffalo Hump’s face.
Tasunke Witko shuddered. “We’ve been looking for you for two days,” he said. It sounded gruff even to him. He thought of adding that for two days his throat had clutched tight with fear. “There are Psatoka war parties everywhere.” The Psatoka, Crows, their bitter enemies. He couldn’t help making it sound like an accusation. No, they hadn’t worried the first night Curly didn’t come home. A youth might do that. But when he didn’t show up the next day, they rode all over the countryside, looking not for the boy but for his body.
“I didn’t realize,” Curly said softly.
“You didn’t realize.” He nodded in exasperation. Didn’t you know that Bear-Scattering is dying? That there’s no telling what the wasicu soldiers will do now? I was looking for your corpse.
Tasunke Witko repeated, “You didn’t realize.”
Curly looked up at the face of his father and saw the anger. Hawk beat her wings nervously. His father was a holy man, a diviner. Did he know that Curly had seen beyond? Curly wanted to clasp his vision to his chest and turn his back, shield it from alien eyes.
You didn’t realize. He heard not the words his father spoke, but the spirit, the hostility. Curly knew Tasunke Witko treated his sons with respect. That was why a small rebuke cracked like a whip. Curly felt the sting.
As for Buffalo Hump, no, his hunka would never let his anger toward Curly show. So the careful neutrality of his face was eloquent. He must agree with Tasunke Witko that Curly had acted badly.
“I’m sorry,” Curly muttered. He let his voice show no emotion. He kept his face down. Were his secrets, his personal life, safe against his father’s divination?
Curly got to his feet. He walked to his pony weakly, almost staggering. He knelt for steadiness while he took off the hobbles. He mounted without a word or a glance at the people closest in the world to him and looked at them, waiting.
“Let’s go home,” Tasunke Witko said.
Curly ignored his placating tone. He did not bother to say, “Yes,” but he meant it. Yes, he would attend to the everyday world now. Yes, he had to, for now.
He would remember, every moment, the feeling of being Hawk in flight. He would hold her close, cherish that feeling.
He forbade his head to swivel back and look at the man he called ate, father. Curly would not tell that harsh man his vision. Or even that he had tried to see beyond. Certainly not what he had seen. He had never felt close to his father. Now he was furious at this man who kicked him with words, like kicking a camp dog.
He trembled. Can I hide from a man who is a wicasa wakan, a seer? he wondered.
In fact, he would not tell anyone about his vision. Not even his brother by choice. He would tell no one on earth.
His shame wouldn’t let him. His pride wouldn’t let him. His sense of sanctity wouldn’t let him.
A LITTLE DEATH
Everyone was glad to let him have his privacy. Bear-Scattering was near death. The two bands were grieving, the entire Sicangu camp and the entire Oglala camp. Some were
also politicking, trying to fix the blame.
Curly paid as little attention as possible. With Buffalo Hump he slept in a brush shelter and spent his visiting time at the lodge of Sinte Gleska, Spotted Tail, his uncle, the brother of his two mothers. Mostly he stayed to himself, so he could be still and peaceful inside and turn what had happened to him over and over, like a stone in his mouth.
Spotted Tail’s lodge was full of grumbling. The people of both camps were divided. Everyone knew it was trouble. The soldiers had come into camp and the people killed all twenty-nine of them. Whatever the justification, that was the fact. The other soldiers would take revenge, that was the way it was.
The Sicangu had killed the soldiers. The Oglala had stood by and hadn’t fought. That caused hard feelings between the peoples.
The soldiers would come after both bands, you could count on that.
Blame flew like blood during butchering. “This is what comes of making yourself a big, big man,” Bear-Scattering’s enemies said. At the big council three winters ago at Fort Laramie, he had let the Indian Superintendent appoint him big chief of all the Titunwan Lakota.
“You know he didn’t want it,” his relatives answered. “He tried to tell the wasicu it wouldn’t work, the people didn’t want a chief of chiefs. He said over and over that if he was chief of chiefs, someone jealous would kill him.”
Everybody did know. In his short acceptance speech, they remembered, Bear-Scattering mentioned his impending death seven times. Funny thing was, he did what the wasicu wanted and kept trying to do it, and they were the ones who killed him.
Remembering was inconvenient for Bear-Scattering’s enemies, though. They were stirring people up to drive his relatives out of the Sicangu camp. “The Bear-Scattering family has brought grief on our heads,” they said. “Let them live with the Oglala. Those Oglala who didn’t fight.”
Bear-Scattering’s male relatives answered that Bear-Scattering had been trying to make peace. That was why he was out in front, why he got shot.
But the women knew they were going to be kicked out of their own circle of lodges now.
Some people wanted to go back to Fort Laramie. Curly had heard the conversation a dozen times in a dozen forms:
“We’ve been around there for twenty winters.”
“Sure, and it was trouble from the start.”
“We need to trade.”
“Blankets, pots.”
“Guns, powder, and ball.”
“Cloth and awls.” No one said so, but some women would hardly be able to sew with bone awls anymore.
“Whiskey,” said the opposition.
“Bull Bear.” The head of all the Oglala had been killed in a drunken fight. Oglala killing each other, a terrible business. Most said that the one who shot him was Red Cloud, Mahpiya Luta, and that the old Bad Face chief Smoke was behind it. Regardless, Oglala killing the Oglala leader—many people still resented and distrusted the Bad Faces because of it.
“Maybe now the akicita will come back.” The warrior societies.
“All the old ways.”
“And we can fight again against the Psatoka,” Crow enemies.
In the twenty winters the old ways had weakened. Ceremonies seemed half-hearted. Because the people had made an absurd bargain with the wasicu not to fight the Psatoka or the Susuni or anyone else, the akicita had lost members.
“A-i-i-i. How can a man make his way now?” Without combat as a field, a man would have no way to gain honors. A leader would have no way to harden and temper. The tribe would have no way to discover which men had strength of spirit.
The people who wanted to revive the old ways even said the bands should go far away from the Holy Road, to the old hunting grounds, and stay there. “Out of reach of the soldiers,” they added ominously.
Curly brought himself back to now. Here was grief. Weeping, the women of Bear-Scattering’s family packed their belongings in silence. When Bear-Scattering died, they would strike their lodges and go to the Oglala. It was terrible, the animosity of your neighbors in your time of heartache.
“Let’s go help Black Twin,” said Buffalo Hump.
Curly was sitting out along Snake Creek alone, worrying. He was pretending to straighten a shaft for an arrow. Work like that kept Hawk quiet and let Curly think. But actually he was worrying about Wakinyan Tanka, the fact that he’d dreamed of thunder and was too scared to say anything about it. He’d rubbed dust on his face and his clothes this morning, the way a wakinyan dreamer did to make himself look poor. Curly wondered if anyone would notice.
“Up!” said Hump. “Go!”
Hump was always full of enthusiasm. He also didn’t mind those Bad Face youths. For some reason that band had a group of ambitious young men—glory hunters, Tasunke Witko called them—youths in their mid- and late teens who considered themselves destined to be leaders. Curly avoided them, all except He Dog, whom he liked. He Dog lived with Curly’s band so much he seemed like a Hunkpatila anyway.
The truth was, Curly felt rivalry with the Bad Face youths. He thought they would compete with him for every honor, deprecate his achievements, and try to hold him back. Now that he’d seen Lakota hands hindering him in his vision, he suspected that the hands belonged to these Bad Face young men, Black Twin, White Twin, their brother No Water, and the brothers Pretty Fellow and Standing Bear, sons of Chief Bad Face.
Hump hoisted Curly up by the armpits and got him going. They walked from the circle of the Hunkpatila to the circle of the Bad Faces, stepping around and through the bustling life of the village, small children and dogs underfoot, women working and calling to each other and yelling at the children, a benign pandemonium. Here was a woman scraping a buffalo hide stretched on a pole frame. There Bad Heart Bull painting an elk hide. Here a grandmother forcing an awl through thick buffalo hide to make winter moccasins. There a man lashing a stone point to a spearhead with sinew and glue. Here a girl whipping a cur away from the stew pot. There two women building a low, smoky fire under a high rack loaded with raw meat to be jerked.
Curly liked the smells of a village, the odor of wood smoke and lodge covers of buffalo skin, the pungency of green hides being scraped, de-haired, or tanned, the aromas of food being butchered and prepared, the strong scent of blood being let. Even the excrement smells of the dogs and horses and people were part of it, and as long as you didn’t camp too long in one place, not rank. He had never been more surprised than when a trader out of Laramie told him the worst thing about an Indian village was the stink. To Curly what stank was Laramie, with its outhouses.
He Dog stood next to the others, a thick, chunky fellow smiling at Curly. Tall and imposing, Black Twin held a piece of rawhide shaped for a shield and waited with a glower. Hump wouldn’t mind. Hump kept himself genial toward everyone. He was tall, good-looking, somehow glorious—everyone liked Hump.
“Why did you bring him?” said Pretty Fellow teasingly, inclining his head at Curly. “He can’t make anything beautiful.”
The young men all chuckled, but Hump said gruffly, “Enough.”
Though Curly had not heard any report, what was happening was obvious. Black Twin had seen beyond. Now he had made a shield and wanted to paint it with a picture he’d seen in his vision. Hump was good with paints and would mix fine, bright colors easy to apply to the rawhide.
Curly felt a pang. The Bad Face youths who had seen beyond hadn’t sneaked away to do it and so could proclaim it. Black Twin would be honored now, an honor Curly deserved but couldn’t claim. The twins were a couple of winters older than Curly, but still…
Hawk was quiet.
Hump set a hide on the ground and unfolded it. Pretty Fellow crowded close to watch—he liked to wear good-looking clothes and make handsomely decorated weapons and ceremonial objects. The wasicu at Laramie were always telling him how handsome he looked all decked out. They also treated him as important, the son of a chief. Pretty Fellow was one who probably would not want to leave the fort permanently for the o
ld hunting grounds.
In the bundle Hump had red, ocher, and white clay and bitterbrush, lichens, raspberries, and blueberries to make other shades. Plus fat to mix the pigments with, forming thick liquids you could brush on with the softened and pounded tip of a bird’s wing bone.
“There’s a trick to getting colors to take to rawhide right,” said Hump, and began to show them. All the young men watched keenly, except Curly. He was only half-interested. He had seen no shield in his vision. One day he would be painting black slashes of lightning and blue spots of hail on his face and body, but not yet. To do that would be to admit he was a wakinyan dreamer.
The young men were busy mixing paints under Hump’s instruction.
“Brother,” said Hump enthusiastically to Curly, “try it.”
Curly took some blueberries and fat and pretended to work. This would make the color of his hail spots one day. He didn’t want to think about it now. He was scared.
Lightning and thunder—called lightning-gives-birth-to-sound—were dangerous. If you dreamed of wakinyan, its power was in you. In ordinary life it was two-faced: It brought the rain, yes, but it struck people and killed them. In the life of a wakinyan dreamer, it could likewise be grandly benevolent and madly destructive. Dreaming of wakinyan was riding the whirlwind.
Curly remembered scrupulously what he saw:
Behind Rider a thunderstorm erupted. Dark clouds roiled, lightning flashed and gave birth to sound. A zigzag of lightning rose on Rider’s cheek like a wound. Hail spots welted his body.
Curly knew what a wakinyan dreamer had to do. He had to tame the terrible power a little. He had to make offerings to the Wakinyan, to win their benevolence.
