by Win Blevins
She would give him a son. Then, surely …
She sat beside him and ate, looking at him surreptitiously. She had thought to make a marriage of admiration, respect, and affection. She hadn’t expected to feel such a gush when he held her, when he told stories, when they walked together. Nor had she expected to feel so frustrated when he hid in the corners of his mind.
He put his bowl down empty. When she reached to pick it up, he covered her hand with his. He looked into her eyes and smiled. When he smiled, he was beautiful. He said, “Will you come to the Shining Mountains with me?”
He had painted his face and his pony. He had left his sandy hair unbraided, flowing below his waist. He was going into a fight, and he wanted the people to know it. Your Strange Man is going into a fight, and taking his wife.
He looked at Black Shawl tying belongings onto a pack mule behind him, her fingers fumbling. He smiled at her with his eyes only. She would be fine. He looked at the pony he was leading, one of Little Hawk’s warhorses, bearing an empty rawhide sack and a handsome blanket, red, a warrior’s color. The back of that pony still looked empty to him. He hoped he would feel his brother along, sooner or later.
The warriors stood well off, some of them affecting not to notice. They didn’t yet know how to treat him, a stranger man than ever, first honored above all, now humiliated before all. Idiots, Black Shawl had called them angrily, but they weren’t. Just men, just uncertain. I will rise from my failures, he said in his mind. I will trust my vision and thus rise from my failures.
The words felt empty to him. So far. Since No Water had shot him, he still had not felt Hawk move in his breast. He felt her presence, but she seemed numbed. That was how close No Water had come to killing him.
He saw Black Shawl rise into her woman’s saddle. He knew she didn’t understand why he was remote much of the time. She didn’t understand what he had lost. Hawk, his animal spirit, his lifetime companion, closer than his brother, than his father, than his brother by choice, even than his blood mother. He wondered whether he would ever feel Hawk again. Bleakness. Emptiness beyond emptiness.
At least Black Shawl would understand when he put his vision before everything.
The women stood closer and made keening sounds for his lost brother.
He touched his pony with his heel. He felt chilled by the keening sounds. He understood the sentiment, but…
Some woman, he didn’t know who, began to call his name as was done starting a strong-heart song. Other women joined in—“Crazy Horse, Crazy Horse.” Today, for a reason he didn’t know, this chant warmed his heart a little. Women understand better than men, he thought.
They lifted up the song, one voice leading, the other repeating:
“A-i-i-i! A-i-i-i!
A warrior rides out,
a warrior, strong.
Others sit in the lodges and are jealous.
Others sit in the lodges and whisper jealously.
A warrior rides out, strong.
A-i-i-i! A-i-i-i!”
He made no acknowledgment. He was surprised, though, how much the song touched him. He paid attention to his heart. No, he didn’t sense Hawk stirring, not yet. But she didn’t feel utterly dead. Maybe his heart was a place where Hawk would spread her wings again one day.
They found Little Hawk’s bones where his comrades said he had fallen. Crazy Horse sat down, Black Shawl next to him. He made himself look at the bones directly. He permitted himself no aversion of eyes, or of attention, or of feeling.
His brother had been so different from him. Little Hawk was an impulsive fellow, full of fun, not given to weighty thoughts or worries about the future. When his spirits were high, he played or hunted or found a woman or went out to fight. It was simple for him, and he always brimmed with confidence. Sometimes Hump or Crazy Horse, like others, urged him to be more cautious, but that wasn’t Little Hawk’s way. He never saw difficulties, only possibilities. He was a fine warrior and would have become a great war leader.
Now his easy courage had killed him.
Crazy Horse lost himself for a while. Later he realized he’d been seeing pictures of Little Hawk at different times. The little boy who’d slip into his brother’s robes sometimes for warmth. The kid who’d steal his brother’s favorite piece of meat and get really angry if Curly snatched it back. The boy who’d get frustrated trying to make an arrow shaft straight. The youngster who couldn’t find the patience to watch an elk a quarter-day.
Pictures, sounds, feelings: His brother’s arm around his shoulder. The funny quack of his laughter. His eyes rolling in mockery. The comical way he bragged and told every detail about the first woman he had. When they wrestled, the contagion of his excitement and the ferocity of his effort. The way he sneaked blueberries while their mothers were pounding them for pemmican and got his hands slapped and stuck out his tongue merrily and stole more and ran off.
Finally Crazy Horse put the bones into the sack, tied the sack on his brother’s fine warhorse, and covered it with the red blanket. They rode back to the lodge like a procession.
It was not over.
He made it as easy for Black Shawl as he could. They moved the lodge constantly so no one would find it. He came back every night. He ate and slept with her, even if he wasn’t really there in his mind. All day long, every day, he hunted the Bighorners, as they called themselves, the white miners who came into the Shining Mountains, which they called the Bighorns. They came regardless of the peace paper. He killed them regardless of whether they had hurt his brother. Implacably, silently, he killed them.
He didn’t know how many he would have to kill. When the rage in his heart eased, when Hawk came back to life, he would quit.
He found them alone and in pairs, scooping up the creek water with their pans and hammering at rock. He used arrows when he could, to avoid warning their companions, so he could kill them, too. He littered the mountains with bodies like a man throwing away corn husks.
Whether he killed with arrow, bullet, spear, or knife, he drove an additional arrow through the body and into the earth beneath, the earth of his people and not theirs. He left them unscalped. The whites might not know who had punished the Big Horners, but the Lakota would know.
After about one moon he and Black Shawl went back to camp. Crazy Horse said nothing about what he had done, and the people danced no victory. He held a dance to give away Little Hawk’s horses. His uncle Long Face ceremonially took a new name. Originally known as Little Hawk, he had given that name to his nephew. Now, in honor of the dead youth, he would call himself Little Hawk again.
All this changed the people in one way. They saw that whatever had happened to Crazy Horse as a leader of the people, his war medicine was strong. They wanted to follow him into some fights.
Crazy Horse’s spirit did not lift. His war medicine was only his skill, because he couldn’t sense Hawk living in his heart. Days sometimes seemed as black as nights. Black Shawl kept the nights from being truly intolerable.
Before long Black Shawl told him she was making life within her.
He held her and murmured into her ear how happy he was. They held each other in their robes, awake and occasionally talking, for half the night. They talked about their coming son, about his being born near the time of the sun dance, an auspicious time, about who they would choose to name him. Crazy Horse told Black Shawl that he would be as glad for a daughter as a son, though they both knew that wasn’t quite true. They did not make love, of course, because a decent Lakota man didn’t come to his wife when she was growing life within her or when she was giving suck.
After Black Shawl fell asleep next to him, dark thoughts seeped into his mind. Was he fit to be a father? He had made plenty of mistakes. His son would bear the burden of the loss of the shirt. Was it right to bring a Lakota child into a world where Lakota had no way to live? Or merely selfish? The shadow of Black Buffalo Woman’s complaint flitted across his mind. Yes, he would not live long enough to raise his son to ma
nhood.
By long habit he fell still within himself—no words or thoughts—and waited. Waited for Hawk.
He felt a hot flush of shame. He didn’t have his companion, his guide, anymore. And if he had lost that gift, he was truly unfit to be a father.
DESOLATION
“Brother,” said Hump, “let’s go fight the Snakes.”
Crazy Horse smiled at his hunka, feeling shy and pleased. So much was hidden in the simple words: “Your spirits are sour—let’s do something that’s fun.” Or, “You’ve been sitting around too much—you need some action.” Or, “Stop moping and do something.” Or, “Sure, a lot has happened, but you’ve got your strength back—let’s go.” Or, “I’ve missed you—let’s do something.”
In fact, Hump surely had in mind a pack-mule load of other things he meant and didn’t have to say. When Red Cloud got back from Washington a moon ago, he said everyone should go onto a reservation and this Shifting Sands River country, which the whites called Powder River country, wasn’t in it. This so outraged the young men that one of them dropped his breechcloth in Red Cloud’s face, right in council. Still, some people went in to get presents—they were hungry and needed rations, even bad white-man food, and needed powder. Later the whites claimed that Red Cloud had promised them an agency far to the north of the Holy Road, right in the heart of Lakota country. But no one would stand for this.
So Hump was saying, “Let’s forget all this political foolishness and do what warriors do: fight.”
Crazy Horse thought so, too.
Something nibbled at his mind that Hump didn’t know. Maybe Hawk would come fight with him.
The Wind River country was miserable. The sky crowded in low and drizzled on them for several days. The ground froze at night, and during the day it turned into a greasy mess. The horses slipped around in it, or it stuck to their hooves and they stumbled. If a man so much as dismounted to make water, he felt like he was skating on river ice and was lucky not to sit down in his own urine.
The wolves pushed ahead and came back with report of a huge camp of Snakes in a country of clay soil, at least as bad as this. The Snakes had repeating rifles, plenty of them.
Some of the men muttered. Their bowstrings were soaked. The powder for the only three guns was wet just from the rain sitting on the outside of their horns. Everyone’s spirits were soggy.
Hump said flatly, “We’re going on.”
Crazy Horse wondered why his hunka was so determined about this raid that had started out as a lark. But he would say nothing to disagree with his hunka in front of the others.
The two leaders split their men and approached the Snakes from far left and right. Soon the horses were slipping and sliding and their hooves were gobbed with clay. They would be worthless in a fight. Crazy Horse sent his wife’s younger brother, Red Feather, to tell Hump this.
Hump came back riding fast to answer in person, maybe meaning the way he rode as an answer. He glared at Crazy Horse. “We turned back here once before.” Crazy Horse remembered. They had come out for Snake horses and gone back empty-handed. Afterward Hump thought the people were laughing at them.
“I came to fight,” said Hump. “You go on home. I’m going to fight.”
Crazy Horse couldn’t remember when either of them had spoken so sharply to the other. He wasn’t going anywhere, of course, not if Hump needed him. “Hoye,” he said, “let’s fight. There are worse things than getting whipped.” He needed Hawk now, but he felt alone.
It went badly. Before long the Oglala were quirting their horses to get away. Hump and Crazy Horse took turns charging back toward the pursuing Snakes with their rifles, to keep the enemy slowed down. Crazy Horse was half-sick with worry. He didn’t feel Hawk at all. And the horses were skating all over the place. If either man ended up dismounted, he was dead.
Hump hollered out in alarm. His pony limped hard and went down, probably shot in the leg.
The Snakes were hard upon him.
Crazy Horse dismounted and tried to keep them off. But the Snakes were eager now, blood in their nostrils. After a few moments he couldn’t even see Hump among the pony’s legs and heads and rumps, and the arms lifting spears and clubs.
Rage spewed up.
Crazy Horse mounted and charged, not like his old charges, protected by Rider, but a ride of mere fury. Clumsy, too, his pony slipping and sliding.
He got close enough to see Hump on the ground, but the fire drove him off. Then he turned back hard, the pony like a clown slipping and sliding around while his hunka died. He whipped the pony furiously.
Suddenly Red Feather had hold of his reins. “Isn’t one enough?” shouted the young warrior. Meaning one good man dead. “If we don’t go now, the others will have to come for us.” Meaning the other warriors would die, too, trying to get bodies away.
So Crazy Horse let his pony be pulled the wrong direction and keep going all night. Snow fell on him.
His heart lay still under cold grief and an icy guilt. He kept thinking that he and his hunka had never spoken to each other roughly until that. This was a miserable way to die, with a sour spirit. And it was all his fault. When No Water shot him, he lost Hawk. When he lost Hawk, he killed Buffalo Hump.
After a few days Crazy Horse and Red Feather went back for Hump’s body. For some reason, only the skull and a few bones were left to put on a scaffold. Crazy Horse held the skull in his hands. His head ran dizzy, but he refused to let himself remember. Not now, not yet. He wasn’t angry. He was desolate, desolate, desolate.
LULLABY
“Go to the river and bathe,” said Worm in a kindly way. Crazy Horse knew what his father meant: “Get some soapweed, wash yourself, and pray—purify yourself ceremonially in the flowing water of Mother Earth. Your child is being born.”
He could barely keep his mind on what he was doing. His mind was in the birthing lodge, with Black Shawl. He stood thigh-deep in the turbulent runoff and scarcely noticed the cold. He washed himself carefully, especially his genitals, trying to devote every motion to Wakan Tanka and failing. When he prayed aloud, he concentrated better: He asked for blessings on his new child and on his wife, health for them both.
“Let’s smoke,” said Worm.
They smoked Crazy Horse’s short canupa without talking, maybe for a day, maybe for a moment.
Crazy Horse pictured what was going on in the birthing lodge. Two women relatives chosen for their good temperaments were there to help. Black Shawl would be on her knees in front of two tall crossed sticks, stretched as high as she could get and holding on. One woman would be in front of the mother to receive the child, the other behind, maybe with her legs against the small of Black Shawl’s back. They would make her swallow warm root water to ease the passage. If she hurt terribly, one of the women would tickle her throat with a magpie feather to make her gag and spew the pain out.
When the child came, the woman in front would wipe its mouth out and start the breathing. In this caring act she would give the child her temperament and character, so they had chosen a good woman for that task. Then she would tie and cut the cord, which would fall off in four days, and give Black Shawl a taste of the afterbirth, so she would have many children.
The second woman would wash and wipe the baby with the inner bark of the chokecherry soaked in water. As she washed, she would tell the child how she had lived her life well and advise the baby to follow that example. Then she would rub the baby with a mixture of fat and red earth. Finally she would put powdered buffalo chips into a blanket to absorb the baby’s wetting, wrap the child well, and give Crazy Horse’s son to the mother.
Maybe Black Shawl would hold their son then, and maybe sing him a lullaby.
“Your father makes meat,
so you make sleep.”
Then, finally, she would come out of the birthing lodge and show him their son.
Finally.
“Let’s take a sweat,” said Worm with a hint of smile. “Suck the juices out of you and calm y
ou down.”
They sweated all through the afternoon. At mealtime they found a little soup at Worm’s lodge. Worm started making small talk of this and that.
After a while, he said, “Did you hear Black Buffalo Woman has borne a child?”
“Yes,” said the son, naming what his father was afraid to say, “a sandy-haired child.”
“Did you hear No Water has a new wife and Black Buffalo Woman lives in a small lodge by herself?”
“I heard,” he said definitely, eyeing his father. Did the man think he was going to claim the child? Or the woman? And cleave the people in two again?
Worm passed on to other things. “They moved the agency to Horse Creek.”
Crazy Horse snorted and murmured, “Yes.” A good place for it, Horse Creek, where the first lying peace paper had been signed twenty winters ago.
“Still, the people are hungry.”
Not only hungry, but coming to the wild camps to join in the hunts, thought Crazy Horse. The wild Oglala had no more to eat than the agency Lakota—there were not enough buffalo.
“They say that if the white men will give them powder, the loaf-around-the-forts will let them move the agency to the White Earth River,” said Worm. Far into Lakota country, where the whites had promised they’d never go.
Crazy Horse resisted flashing his father a look of exasperation. Did the man think he wanted to talk about such things while his son was being born?
When, oh, when would his son be born?
“Let’s sweat again,” he said.
It would take a long time to get the fire going and the rocks hot, until past dark, even here in the longest days of the year. He was glad for something to do.
He was sound asleep in his own robes when he felt Black Shawl’s feet padding beside him. She slipped in and touched his side. “Black Shawl?” he said.
