Katia had put the reddish-blond lock of Custer’s hair into her medicine pouch. Her husband had given her and Rowland two horses each and food enough for four days. They would run out of their provisions before they reached their destination; they would have to hunt and gather more food. Perhaps Touch-the-Clouds thought that hunger would aid in bringing her another vision.
She turned in her saddle and looked back. White Cow Sees was still standing by her lodge, her baby in a cradle near her feet. She had not looked pleased to hear that Katia was being sent away by their husband, but had said nothing.
Rowland was ahead of her. His horse slowed as he waited for her to catch up to him. They rode for a while, not speaking, until at last she said, “You didn’t have to come with me.”
“I did have to come with you.”
“Because you think we’ll find what my husband wants us to find?”
“That, and other reasons.”
“For a while,” she said, “I wondered why I had no more visions, why the spirits no longer revealed anything to me. I longed for visions. Now I wish that I had never been given the power to see them.”
Among the pine-covered Black Hills, there were valleys of bright flowers and lush green grass. They had soon left them behind for the flatter, more desolate land of the Plains, yellow with buffalo grass and empty of trees. Katia supposed that, as a child, she and her family had wandered over this land, but had no recollection of that. The first time that she had seen it as the wife of Touch-the-Clouds, the emptiness and the big empty sky had frightened her.
Rowland scanned the horizon. He cupped one hand over his eyes, and she wondered if he had learned to see this land the way a Lakota man did, full of wakan beings and spirits living in healing plants and buffalo and all of the life of the world, or if he saw it more as the white man did, as ground to be tilled and surveyed and parceled out and scavenged for nuggets of gold.
He turned toward her as his mount began to nibble at the grass. “When you saw Custer’s men, and heard them singing, were they as real to you as anything in this world?”
“Yes.” His question puzzled her. “Of course they were. That was what made me feel that our battle with the Blue Coats had not happened.”
“I felt the same way,” he said, “but now—I have more doubts. Perhaps it was only a dream after all.”
“The spirits can speak to us through dreams.”
“And sometimes a dream is only that, Katia—a dream.” He tugged at the brim of his hat. “I saw what won that battle. It wasn’t any vision that came to Touch-the-Clouds or Sitting Bull or to the other chiefs. It wasn’t just that the Lakota and their allies have learned something more about tactics and fighting together. It was the Chen brothers and their rocket-arrows, it was the guns and ammunition the Lakota have stolen and bought and are learning how to make.”
She rested her hands on her pommel. “Are you saying that you don’t trust your vision?”
“I suppose I am.”
“Then why did you decide to come with me?” she asked.
“Because you would have had no chance to survive if I hadn’t.” He looked away quickly, as though he had said too much.
Touch-the-Clouds had given them dried buffalo meat and some of the hardtack from the provisions of the dead soldiers. They ate the food sparingly, trying to make it last, but had eaten almost all of it by the time they came to the Powder River. A small herd of buffalo were crossing the winding river to the north. Katia stared after them as they moved over the yellow land, their legs disappearing in clouds of dirt and dust.
Their horses had to swim the river. After crossing, Katia and Rowland filled their waterskins and canteens while their horses rested. The ridge of the Wolf Mountains lay ahead, and Goose Creek, and then the Greasy Grass River, a journey of three or four days, and she was already feeling lightheaded. They would still have to cross the mountain divide. She told herself that crossing the Wolf Mountains would be easier this time, with only four horses, than it had been when her husband’s entire camp was on the move.
Rowland had said almost nothing during the past days. They rode, stopped at intervals to rest, graze, and water the horses, and then moved on. At night, they slept under blankets, nested next to each other against the cold. Twice they had come to trails that would have led them to the camps of Lakota or Cheyenne, and she had found herself longing for the sound of another voice, but did not dare to go against her husband’s wishes. Touch-the-Clouds had told them not to stop in any camp; he would be certain to find out if they had. She forced herself to put aside thoughts of talk, of food, of a warm space inside a tepee.
Katia moved her arms, waiting for her clothing to dry. The sun was high and hot today, but the air would soon grow cooler.
“Katia.” For a moment, she did not recognize Rowland’s voice. “We need food. I saw deer tracks along this side of the river, going south. You’ll be safe here for now. I’ll take one of the horses and ride back to you before dark.”
“If you have luck,” she said.
“Even if I don’t have any luck. Better not to waste what strength I still have, and I won’t leave you to face the night alone.”
He mounted his bay horse and rode away. She gazed after him, thinking of when she had first met Rowland, how he had looked at her as if wanting to shield her from the world. She had known that he would try to help her when she went to him in St. Louis. He had not known what she had truly wanted then, what she had refused to admit even to herself.
She had wanted Grisha to come after her. She had hoped that he would finally see what was inside her and would come to her, that what she felt for him was more than gratitude. He would tell her that she no longer had to be the wife of Touch-the-Clouds. She had gone no further than that in her thoughts, vaguely imagining that she might live among the Lakota and that Grisha would make a life there with her, and if they had gone back to the Wasichu world, she could have borne that, too. Now she saw how little she meant to him. If she died out here, he would find someone else who could serve his aims.
She walked along the river, searching for edible roots. There were berry bushes up ahead, near a bend. I will not die, she told herself. Her visions at the Mountain Goat and the Greasy Grass had been true visions, even if she was not sure of what they meant. The wakan spirits would come to her with another vision.
Rowland returned at dusk, as he had promised to do, with a small young deer slung over his saddle. Katia had dug a hollow in the ground with a long stick and gathered enough grass and dry twigs for a fire. They butchered the carcass together, cutting the meat into long strips and spreading them on a few of the flat stones along the riverbank to dry, then cooked some of the meat for their supper along with the wild onions and turnips she had found.
Katia slept uneasily. During one dream, a voice whispered to her in Lakota, but she could not make out the words, even whether the voice belonged to a man or a woman. At dawn, she woke and saw that Rowland was already awake, sitting by the dying fire.
He looked back at her and said, “Someone spoke to me in a dream. I couldn’t sleep after that.”
“What were you told?” she asked.
“I can’t remember.”
“A voice spoke to me, too.” She took a breath; already the air was growing warm. “It’s going to be hot today,” she said.
“I know. We’ll stay here, wait for the meat to dry some more, and ride out in the evening.”
They gathered more twigs and grass, fed the fire, and cooked some more meat. They would not be here long enough for her to tan and finish the deerhide. Katia rested by the fire as the horses drank; the weakness and unsteadiness she had felt were gone. She was not used to such idleness, to having so little to do. Idleness gave her too much time to worry about what might happen to her, and to think about Grisha. Maybe he would come to care for her more if she could bring back a vision that would prove her worth. That was not a thought to have; a vision was not something to use as love medicine,
a way of binding Grisha to her.
From a high place in the Wolf Mountains, Katia and Rowland could see the valley of the Greasy Grass River. The grass, green when Katia had last camped here, was turning yellow and tan. To the southwest lay more mountains that bordered the Greasy Grass. Keeping the mountains at their left, they followed the well-traveled trail to Goose Creek and then toward the Greasy Grass River. They rode at night and rested during the day, since the days remained hot and sunny, the air still. It might almost have been the Moon of Red Cherries, Katia thought, instead of late in the summer.
Rowland rarely spoke. She heard his voice more often when he slept than when he was awake. When he was sleeping, she would hear his whispers, sometimes in English and sometimes in words she did not know, and wondered what his dreams were telling him.
They came to the twists and turns of the Greasy Grass River and followed it north, toward the place where Katia had seen her vision of Custer’s soldiers. Shallow gullies and ravines ran down to the river from the undulating line of a ridge. The only trees on this land were willows and cottonwood trees along the river’s course; the rest of the brown rolling land was sparsely dotted with bushes and lay open under the vast sky.
The Sun Chief rose in the sky. As they rode toward the ridge where she had had her vision of Long Hair Custer and his Blue Coats, a buffalo came down to the river to drink. Rowland reined in his horse, signaling to Katia to wait, and then the buffalo lifted its head and gazed directly at them.
Katia met the animal’s eyes. “Pte,” she said, using the Lakota name of their buffalo brother. The buffalo turned and began to move up the river, passing a small grove of cottonwood trees. Somehow she knew that the buffalo wanted them to follow, and then realized that it was leading them toward the ridge. The animal quickened its pace, moving into a run and disappearing around a hill near a riverbend.
Katia pulled at her reins; her horse halted. She dismounted and handed the reins to Rowland. “I will walk there,” she said.
“I’ll come with you.”
She shook her head. “I have to go by myself.”
She walked toward the ridge. She could feel Rowland watching her. If any vision came to him, he would have to face it alone.
When she reached higher ground, she turned and looked back. Rowland had tied their four horses to the trunks of two cottonwood trees and was now sitting on a blanket.
The buffalo had disappeared. Katia could not even find his tracks. The lock of Custer’s hair her husband had given to her was in a small pouch at her waist, with her other medicine; she put her hand on the pouch and continued to climb until she came to the jutting point of the ridge.
A Lakota man sat there, a pipe in his hands, a bonnet of many eagle feathers on his head. In front of him, a few slender wooden wands, hung with small leather pouches and bits of bark, jutted from the ground, offerings to the spirits. Katia knew this man. She had seen him with her husband and the other chiefs during the war talks. All the Lakota and Cheyenne and their allies respected this man. There were a few among the older men who still considered him as great a man as Touch-the-Clouds, perhaps greater.
“Tatanka Wotanka,” she whispered, “Sitting Bull.” At first she thought that he must have followed her and Rowland here, that perhaps her husband had sent him after them, and then she saw the strange glow that suffused his face. Sitting Bull was here as part of her vision. The buffalo had led her to him.
“I saw many soldiers falling into our camp,’’ the chief said to her. “That was what the spirits showed me ten days ago, before the Sun Dance. The soldiers wore their blue coats and were falling toward us, but their heads pointed toward the earth. That was how I knew we would have a victory. In gratitude, I sacrificed part of myself to the Creator.” He held out his arms and she saw the marks of scars where pieces of flesh had been torn away.
“Is our victory at the Mountain Goat, in the Black Hills?” she asked.
The creases at the edges of his thin lips deepened. “No, child. Our victory will come here, at the Greasy Grass. Crazy Horse will bring us a victory. I see that now. Long Hair, the chief of the Blue Coats, will fall here. He and his men will come to attack us, hoping to surprise us, and then they will die.”
“No,” she whispered, “he cannot die here. He fell on the slopes of the Mountain Goat. I saw him there with his men, I saw his body.”
Sitting Bull held out his pipe and lifted his head to the sky. “Wakan Tanka, hear me! I ask you to save my people. We want to live, and to be protected from all danger and misfortune. Hear me!”
Katia sat down a few feet away from him. Sitting Bull prayed for a while longer, and smoked his pipe, then stood up and walked toward the edge of the ridge. She closed her eyes for only a moment, and when she opened them, he was gone.
She stood up and went to the ridge. Below, in the valley, soldiers were fighting hand-to-hand with Indians near a hill, while others were shooting at the massed warriors on horseback from higher up on the slope. She saw them all as if through a mist.
“We will have a great victory here,” the voice of Sitting Bull said behind her.
“My husband won a victory in the Black Hills,” she said, “but you say that Custer fell here. I must ask you— what will happen now?”
“I cannot see it clearly,’’ Sitting Bull murmured, “but the spirits show me a victory that will later turn into a defeat for our people. The Blue Coats will grow angry. They will seek vengeance for the death of their chief and send even more of their warriors against us. They will take our lands from us and kill all of the buffalo. They will force me and my Hunkpapas into exile in the north, in the country of the Great Mother.”
He was speaking of having to flee into Canada. “And then?” Katia said.
“I cannot see further than that, child. I do not want to see further than that, because I know that what I see will only bring sorrow. Our medicine has grown weaker. Once, before the white man came, our medicine was strong, and the spirits spoke to us, but they have become much weaker. Now they grow silent. As we took our land from the Crow and the Arikara, the Wasichu will take our land from us.”
“But we are at peace with the Arikara and the Crow,” Katia said. “There are a few who have gone over to the Wasichu, but most have smoked the pipe with the Lakota.”
“The Crow are our enemies. They have always been our enemies.”
Katia blinked, and when she could see again, the battle was over, the ground covered with dead soldiers. The wind lifted her and carried her over the battlefield, away from Sitting Bull. She spread her arms, soaring, climbing on the wind, then plummeted to the ground.
She had alighted amid bloating horse carcasses and the naked bodies of dead soldiers. There was no sound in this world, only silence; the hot air, reeking of death, was so thick that she could hardly breathe. Above her, on the ridge, the pale body of a man lay amid a circle of dead horses. Two women and a boy with pale reddish and blond streaks in his long hair sat with the body. The boy lifted an arm and beckoned to Katia.
She walked toward them, making her way around the fly-covered carcasses. The boy was Yellow Hair, and next to him was his mother, Young Spring Grass, Katia did not know the third woman, who seemed as ghostly and insubstantial as mist.
“You did not listen, Long Hair,” Young Spring Grass chanted. “You did not listen.”
“Monahseetah,” Katia whispered, “Young Spring Grass.”
The other woman looked up. “I do not know you,” Young Spring Grass said.
“You know me as Graceful Swan, the wife of Touch-the-Clouds.”
“I do not know you.” Young Spring Grass made signs with her hands. “I have seen the wife of Touch-the-Clouds, and you are not that wife.”
“What of him?” Katia asked. “What can you tell me about him?”
“He rides with Crazy Horse,” the second woman replied. “Have they not been friends since the time Touch-the-Clouds saved his life?”
Katia had never heard suc
h a story. “When did he save the life of Crazy Horse?”
“When the husband of Black Buffalo Woman grew jealous,” the woman said, “and rode after Crazy Horse to demand that his wife be returned to him. It was Touch-the-Clouds who stood between them and kept them from coming to blows.”
Katia did not understand. The wife of Crazy Horse was named Black Shawl, not Black Buffalo Woman.
“You did not listen, Long Hair,” Young Spring Grass said, “you did not listen. You came into our lands when your people had promised to keep away. You came to Paha Sapa, and thousands of the Wasichu followed you there. Now you have died here, at the place you call the Litde Bighorn.”
“They can tell you no more,” a voice said behind her.
The voice was that of Sitting Bull, but when Katia turned around, the buffalo that had led her to the ridge was standing near her.
“Why did you come here?” the buffalo asked.
“To seek a vision.”
“A vision has come to you. It has shown you what you must see.”
“But I don’t understand what it means.”
“You are not a medicine man,” the buffalo said. “You have the power to see, but someone with stronger medicine will have to tell you the meaning of your vision.”
She held out her arms. The buffalo vanished; the air abruptly grew cold. The ground was covered with snow and the mutilated bodies of many people, and as she moved among them, she glimpsed Blue Coats fanning out around them, their rifles aimed at them. She sank to the ground and lay there as the snow sifted down, making a white blanket over her. She closed her eyes, surprised at how warm the blanket of snow felt.
“This is where the victory at the Greasy Grass will lead your people,” the buffalo’s voice murmured. “This is where the Lakota way will end. Our people will do the Ghost Dance, to summon the spirits of our dead and to sweep away the Wasichu, and the Wasichu will kill them for dancing the Ghost Dance at a place called Wounded Knee. The hoop will be broken, and the people scattered.”
Climb the Wind: A Journey Into Another Past Page 21
