Stone Song

by Win Blevins

  “They are proud of you,” said Tasunke Witko. He put a hand on his son’s shoulder lightly, and took it back. “Two scalps. I am proud of you. Not accepting praise is hard, I know.”

  Curly nodded without looking at his father.

  The women raised the trilling to a new intensity as the mothers brought the dance to a finish. Curly looked at the Bad Faces and knew they were not pleased. Only one Bad Face had been invited on the raid—they would remember that slight. The twins would remember, and Pretty Fellow of the smashed nose, and No Water the clumsy.

  A flash from his vision came to him, Lakota hands pulling from behind.

  He promised himself he would remember every bit of his vision every day and never again violate it. He would go to war at every chance. He would ride ahead of his comrades, unafraid. He would know his own invincibility. He would take nothing for himself, not property, not glory, and especially not scalps.

  Black Buffalo Woman watched Curly without seeming to. Two scalps. Two scalps! And two enemies killed. Her lover was strange, very strange, but he was bold, and blessed in war.

  She wanted him. It made her tremble with want, looking at him and seeing those scalps dance on the end of pole.

  It would only take a little time—they would do it fast and hard, the way she wanted it. It would only take the time of one dance. No one would notice. Her flow was just finished, and she would not take on life within her. She wanted it.

  Just as she started to slip out, she glanced at No Water. He was glaring at her. Openly and antagonistically.

  The memory made her shiver. “I will kill you,” No Water had said. “Not him. You.”

  Her loins went cold. She cast her eyes down and did not let herself look at either man. Though the drum still beat, she was frozen still.

  Curly lay sleepless on his blankets in his parents’ lodge. It wasn’t his leg keeping him awake, for the wound felt good enough under his father’s poultice. It wasn’t even the loud, raspy breathing of Little Hawk next to him, though that was irksome. He did fret more about forgetting his vision and taking the scalps. And about Black Buffalo Woman—tonight of all nights he would have liked to sneak away into the willows with her—his body sometimes raged with wanting.

  But even that didn’t seem right, he told himself. Why should he and his woman have to sneak into the bushes? He was a man of twenty-one winters now and much respected, even if neither he nor anyone else could say so out loud. Black Buffalo Woman was the right age for marriage. Why didn’t they go ahead?

  A thousand reasons, he reminded himself. As a heyoka he was called to a life of silence and contemplation, not to family life or conviviality. As a warrior he was pledged to do desperate deeds. Surely his medicine would protect him, but if he made a mistake, or misunderstood his medicine … Family life did not seem right as long as his spirit was flung completely into the maw of war. Also, he had promised to become an Inyan dreamer, as revealed in his vision. He didn’t know what hardships that might mean. And he was committed to gaining nothing for himself, not horses, not good clothes, not an abundance of food, not a lodge with fine furnishings. Could he ask a woman to share such a life with him?

  Could he not ask Black Buffalo Woman?

  He would talk to Hump about all this. Tasunke Witko, too. Now that he thought about it, Horn Chips, too.

  He turned over, restless.

  He fingered Inyan underneath his left arm, next to his heart. He and Chips would pray over it sometimes and ask for its aid and guidance. Inyan creatures were the oldest people on earth. From time to time in Curly’s life he would beg Inyan to speak, to advise him at crossroads. He would wear it next to his heart, always, so that he might hear what it said.

  He turned over, restless and more restless.

  Why hadn’t he been able to speak to Black Buffalo Woman tonight? He had stayed up all through the dance, until the sky began to get light. She was always dancing or standing close to her mother, very close, as though under her mother’s protection. When he tried to catch her eye, she wouldn’t look—he was sure that was deliberate. At dawn she and her mother skipped back to their lodge hand in hand, like children without a care. He watched them sullenly from afar.

  His father and mothers and brother got up and started on their day. Curly pretended to be asleep. He’d had no rest at all. Now he couldn’t even fidget or flop from side to side. Finally they all went out, and he drifted off.

  He ate a little, feeling better. He didn’t know why he’d fretted so all night. Cooking in your own juices, Tasunke Witko called it. He put his horn out and accepted a little more soup from Red Grass. He would sit for a while, waiting. Hawk was easy within him. He would sit and think and ponder his vision. This afternoon he would go into the sweat lodge and pledge himself to it anew. He would go forth into the world as a warrior, trusting his feet to find the path, trusting Hawk to guide him. Trust was all.

  His father came in without a word and got something out of a parfleche. His beaded ceremonial blanket, Curly saw. The one Curly’s birth mother had made him, showing what this wicasa wakan beheld when he looked beyond. Tasunke Witko put the blanket around his shoulders and went out. Curly pondered—what was his father doing?

  Curly was putting his mind back to his own concerns, his own duties on his own way, when he heard his father begin an honor song:

  “My son rode forth

  against the people of the unknown tongue.

  Against the people of the unknown tongue

  my son rode forth.”

  The voice of His Crazy Horse rose bold and quavering at once toward Wi, Father Sun, on the opening words, “My son.” Through the rest of the line it fell in a caress. The second time Tasunke Witko made the words “my son rode forth” clamor heroically.

  “My son rode forth

  against the people of the unknown tongue.

  Against the people of the unknown tongue

  my son rode forth.”

  Curly got up and stepped outside in nothing but his breechcloth. His father was making a circle within the lodges, intoning this honor song. People were falling in behind him in a double line to show their esteem for Curly.

  “For his courage

  I give him a new name,

  the name of his father.”

  Tears rose in Curly’s eyes.

  “For his courage

  I give him a new name,

  the name of many fathers before him.”

  The line behind the man known until now as Tasunke Witko was long. The people were smiling broadly, the old men and women and the leaders and the young warriors and the children. They walked in a stately manner, ceremonially, but the children were laughing.

  “I give my son a great name.

  I call him Tasunke Witko.”

  The tears were flowing freely now. Curly could see his mothers immediately behind his father—what would be his father’s name now?—and his brother and sister behind them, and Buffalo Hump. He noticed that all the great ones were there: Man-Whose-Enemies-Are-Afraid-of-His-Horses, Bad Face, Red Cloud, and most of the young warriors. He looked briefly for No Water and Pretty Fellow but didn’t see them. Maybe they were in the column—what did it matter today?

  “I give my son a great name.

  I call him Tasunke Witko.

  I give my son a great name.

  I call him Tasunke Witko.”

  Curly’s father made the circle of the lodges again, singing the song in honor of his son, and this time the people joined their voices to his, a mighty chorus of praise, the people as one spirit.

  “My son rode forth

  against the people of the unknown tongue.

  Against the people of the unknown tongue

  my son rode forth.

  “For his courage I give him a new name,

  the name of his father.

  For his courage I give him a new name,

  the name of many fathers before him.

  “I give my son a great name.

&
nbsp; I call him Tasunke Witko.

  I give my son a great name.

  I call him Tasunke Witko.”

  They finished the circle the second time, all the people raising up the naming song mightily together.

  When Curly’s father stopped singing, he left the head of the line and walked ceremonially toward Curly. His face full of feeling, he said, “I greet you by the name Tasunke Witko.”

  Curly hesitated and started to stammer.

  His father smiled lightly. “From today the people will know me as Worm,” he said.

  PART THREE

  LOSS

  THE WINTER MANY CHILDREN DIED (1860)

  In the center of the sundance ground

  he sits beside a small fire.

  He picks up some needles of the cedar tree

  and throws them onto the fire.

  Then he makes gestures of washing himself

  with the smoke.

  When he has finished the ceremonial cleansing,

  he slaps the ground with an open hand.

  “I, His Crazy Horse,” he says,

  “from the Hunkpatila Oglala of the Titunwan Lakota,

  I look, and I tell you truly what I see.”

  The drum throbs.

  TEMPTATION

  It was driving him mad.

  He waited near the three other young men, his blanket wrapped up to his eyes. As though anyone would not know who he was, with his hair the color of a sage hen chick sticking out at the top. At least the right side, once shaven, had grown out until he could braid it now. Or let it hang long and flash the color of the sun when he and Hawk rode into battle.

  The four young men did not look at each other, for this was a kind of fakery. Each was apparently waiting for a chance to stand wrapped close with Black Buffalo Woman for a short while. His Crazy Horse, once called Light Curly Hair, now honored with his father’s name, stood farthest from the lodge and so by convention claimed the most time with her. Since he had more war honors than almost any man twice his age, no one would deny him this privilege. Not even He Dog, who stood next to him. She would come to him first and stay with him longest.

  Actually, she would spend almost no time with anyone else, for they had no interest in courting her. He Dog was here because Crazy Horse had asked him. Next to He Dog was Lone Bear, up to his chin in a good blanket. Next to He Dog was Hump. If all four stood in line, they knew, no other men would come courting tonight. Crazy Horse was sick of seeing others lined up to court his woman, especially Bad Faces.

  Not that this trick would cure anything. He couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Black Buffalo Woman wasn’t wearing his ring, again using the excuse that he didn’t wear hers. He also thought she was avoiding him. All this made him feel like a lunatic.

  Half of him was saying. How foolish! How silly to imagine such things! And reminded him of the signs of preference Black Buffalo Woman had given him. She had slipped away with him exactly seven times. He remembered them all in detail that was exquisite and excruciating all at once. He drove himself mad with remembering them. Also, and most important, she sometimes wore his ring openly. Sometimes.

  He also tortured himself with thoughts of the signs of preference she didn’t give him. She hadn’t gone into the willows with him since he got his new name. And she could be stubborn. He imagined the dialogue.

  She: “You don’t wear my ring.”

  He: “But I can’t—you should understand that!”

  She, mockingly: “But I can’t—you should understand that!”

  He: “You dance with others and not me.”

  She: “You won’t dance.”

  He: “You don’t slip away with me anymore.”

  She: “An invitation to disgrace.”

  He: “You let others court you.”

  She: “I’m obliged to.”

  He: “But No Water!”

  She: “No Water is a fine young Lakota. And he doesn’t dress like a beggar.”

  He: “You pretend we aren’t betrothed.”

  She, with a shrug: “You have tied no horses at my lodge.”

  It wore him out just to think so many words in a row. And thinking was as futile as saying them would be.

  His father and mothers hinted often that Crazy Horse should send a relative with horses. No Water was the favorite of Black Buffalo Woman’s family, they said, and he commanded more and more respect these days. Her father and mothers were inclined to No Water. The brother who owned the right to give her away in marriage also preferred the Bad Face. The Bad Face people wanted her to marry within the village, it was said, to tighten the bonds of kinship and give the band new children. They reminded everyone that a youthful betrothal didn’t mean much. They said Crazy Horse no longer seemed interested and would be relieved to see her marry another.

  Crazy Horse snorted at this foolishness. Black Buffalo Woman knew better.

  On other evenings his family would hint that it was all political. Red Cloud was making himself the first man of the Bad Faces, they said. They traded dark looks, not needing to say that most people thought Red Cloud was the one who had actually struck the fatal blow against Bull Bear twenty years ago, put up to it by Smoke. This was why he had never been made a shirtman. A-i-i-i, even though he was strong in war.

  Now he was drawing all the strong young Bad Face men to him, they said. He Dog mostly lived back with the Bad Faces now, probably to be near Red Cloud. Pretty Fellow was the war leader’s friend, always loitering around his lodge. Red Cloud was also drawing the promising three young brothers to him, the twins and No Water—he was maneuvering to get the family to give his niece Black Buffalo Woman to No Water in marriage.

  “Hunhunhe,” would mutter Crazy Horse’s father, Worm, in apprehension. Worm sought for himself the great Lakota virtue of being common as grass—that was what his new name suggested, for the worm was common. But Red Cloud was self-glorifying, seeking to make himself separate from others and above them. Or so many people said.

  Crazy Horse listened to all this talk and said nothing. He could be as he was, he could follow his vision, but he could do no more.

  He was all mixed up. Did he have the right to marry at all? Sometimes he didn’t think so. But wasn’t his path pure and clean, dangerous but glorious? And didn’t Black Buffalo Woman love that?

  She would belong to him, surely.

  She felt giddy. These days, torn between two men, she seemed to feel giddy all the time and even dizzy. This was a familiar giddiness, though. She eased closer to Crazy Horse, her shoulder and hips touching his.

  She felt his arms stiffen unpleasantly.

  She glimpsed No Water’s back going into her lodge.

  She smiled to herself. Oh, yes, that would make Crazy Horse angry, as it did every other young man interested in her. No Water walked straight into her lodge these days and courted her by the center of fire of her own home, with the blessings of her family. If No Water weren’t a rising man, important, this rudeness, this bypassing of other young men, would cause not only anger but fights.

  It was time for her to begin to speak nothings. “Where will your people camp this winter? Is your sister well? And her husband? How is your brother?”

  She felt Crazy Horse relent when asked about Little Hawk. “My brother will be the most daring of us all,” he said with naked pride. It touched her—his voice seldom showed nakedness, or his face. She felt a pang of regret. She loved him sometimes, maybe all the time, she truly did.

  Other than the words about his brother he said almost nothing. He held an arm around her shoulders, and his face and body said it all. No Water had disappeared from his mind. She filled his thinking, his feeling, his being. She felt it, and she knew it. He seemed unwilling to contaminate this feeling of his entire self with the commonplace currency of words.

  Regret. Unfortunately, she knew too much about the way he loved her. And she had made up her mind to speak tonight. To resolve something. Now. It would shock him.

  “You
don’t really want me,” she said. The words came out like a cough, and she repeated them. “You don’t really want me.” She looked at him hard, wondering what he would do.

  “What do you mean?” he said. The words came out flat, slowly, one at a time, like pebbles tossed onto ice. He felt relieved that he was able to talk at all.

  “Your mind is really somewhere else, all the time.”

  He shook his head gently. Some things he was sure of. He let himself be aware of her warm body against him. “Not at all.”

  She lay her cheek against his chest, and he felt her head nod. “It’s always on … whatever you see in your head. People talk about it, you know. You walk around camp, but you don’t see us. You’re looking at… something you think is better.”

  He had nothing to say.

  She raised her face to him, and now he saw the tears. “You don’t want a woman, you don’t want a family, you don’t want a warm lodge and lots of children. You want to be out with your friends, testing yourself against some …” She hesitated, and then threw the word away. “Ideal.”

  His throat almost strangled on the words. “Is that so bad?”

  Now her face got more serious, challenging. “I won’t be a second wife. Not to anything. Me second, the family third …”

  “Not second and third,” he protested.

  “You won’t even be alive to see them grow up,” she said softly. She bit her lip and shook her head no. “Very young men are in love with fantasies of battle,” she said. “Grown men take care of those they love first.”

  “I would always take care of you.”

  She nodded, and her tears flowed again. She hid her face in his chest. “I know,” she mewled.

  After a long moment she looked back up. “Why haven’t you staked horses at my lodge?”

  He hesitated. He couldn’t say why, it was complicated. He decided. “Tomorrow I go raiding,” he said. “I will bring lots of horses back.”