He sat on his heels, very still, wondering what to do next. It was almost midnight. The Pawnees were all asleep. He had left it to chance and a dark night to get himself, somehow, into the presence of Sounds The Ground without being seen by the other Pawnees. He saw now how foolish this was, since a sleepy Sounds The Ground was as apt as any of the guards to kill him. Yet if he waited until morning some rambling nightwalker might spot him outside the high vestibule. Even the dogs, waking as they usually did twice a night to serenade the stars with their strange wild howling, might rove around a bit before settling down and so get wind of him.
Finally he decided to risk entering the lodge anyway. With guards out, and dogs to bark, the tall Pawnee chief would probably be as sound asleep as a beetle in milkweed down.
He was halfway down the dark vestibule, nose and eyes and ears alert, slow knee following cautious hand, when a large dog slowly raised its head and growled at him. He stopped dead in his tracks. With a great effort of will he refrained from gulping, then, after a moment, collecting his wits, he quietly backed out again.
Outside once more, looking up at the wildcat tail fluffing softly in the night breeze, he all of a sudden knew what to do. He scrambled up the roof of the dirt lodge, picking his way carefully through a cover of sparse grass and prickly bushes.
He found the square smokehole at the top and, sliding on his belly, looked in. Embers still glowed weakly below him in the dark interior. He could just make out the forms of Pawnees sleeping on rush mats: a long gaunt naked man whom he took to be Sounds The Ground, an old woman whom he guessed to be Shifting Wind, a middle-aged woman, and seven naked youngsters. Their heads clustered together resembled a bunch of fat purple grapes.
Again on impulse, boldly, drawing his knife, he slipped over the edge of the smokehole and dropped lightly to the floor below. His feet hit earth so softly beside the firepit that not a single sleeper stirred. He looked at each dusky face carefully, especially the stern sleeping face of Sounds The Ground, toyed with the thought of killing them all in their sleep, in revenge for all they had done to Leaf as well as for a hundred other evil things done to the Yanktons, but then, remembering what he had come for, put the thought away. Instead, seeing some meat curing above him he cut himself a piece and settled down beside the fireplace. Some of the meat wasn’t done to suit him, so quite soberly he held it over the embers on a stick a while. Then, having eaten his fill, and taking a long drink from an earthen crock, he stretched himself out on the floor beside Sounds The Ground and calmly fell asleep.
He was the first to stir when dawn began to lighten the smokehole above. He sat up and had a look around at his strange new surroundings. His quick dark eyes took in everything; fire-pit scooped out of the earth a span wide and a hand deep, stake to one side serving as a crane for cooking, beaten floor dug out below ground level, narrow earth bench all around the wall. Narrowing his eyes, he also made out certain of the objects standing well back in the dusk: a drum, fur robes hung over a wooden frame, strings of red and blue and calico corn hanging from the ceiling, a warclub and spear and bow and quiver and decorated shield dangling from a tripod, pots of food, pestle and mortar, two saddles, fish nets, a bundle of eagle feathers. His roving eye next made out the family altar, an earthen bench projecting out a span or more from the wall directly across from the entrance. On it lay a sun-bleached buffalo skull, a painted ceremonial drum, four dance rattles, a triangular rush mat painted for ceremony, a sacred pipe. Above the altar on a wall of woven willow branches hung a sacred bundle. Sniffing, he noted that the dirt floor smelled different from the dirt floor at home. The Pawnee earth was richer, not unlike the smell of an open blister.
The left side of his face began to tingle. Turning, he found Sounds The Ground awake beside him and looking at him.
They stared at one another. And stared. They looked into each other’s eyes so long that wondering inquiry gradually became a contest of will power to see who would give way first. Black hypnotic eye burned into black hypnotic eye.
All the while No Name quietly noted the other’s various features: the high noble forehead, the shaven head, the roach running back from the scalp lock, the strong chin, the wide mobile mouth, the handsome broad shoulders and long arms, the sun dance scars across the chest, and the marvelous phallus rivaling even that of a pony stallion. The tall Pawnee’s physique reminded No Name of his father’s well-preserved body. It came to some men, one here, one there, to keep their youth well into old age.
Light from above opened still more. Then, in the tight silence, a crumble of earth broke off the edge of the smokehole and fell into the firepit in front of them, raising a little puff of white ashes and gray smoke.
Both instantly glanced up at the smokehole, then down at the rising whitish gray puff, then at each other. And looking, both smiled. They understood each other. Sounds The Ground smiled because No Name had been so bold as to enter by way of the smokehole; No Name smiled because he knew Sounds The Ground admired him for it.
Sounds The Ground rose from his sleeping mat. Motioning for No Name to follow, Sounds The Ground crawled over to the firepit and sat down. He got out pipe and tobacco and lighted up with a coal. Again, as they paid their respects to the great directions and as they smoked together, pipe glowing in the gloom, they silently inspected each other, though this time in a more friendly manner.
No Name was privately very much pleased with himself. He had passed a certain test. He could at last look a tough grown man in the eye and hold up to him.
Smoke finished, Sounds The Ground next reached up and cut off two pieces of cured meat. He gave his guest the largest piece, motioned for him to eat up. His manners were exquisite. Only after he made certain his guest had a good start did he begin to eat himself. Solemnly they chewed together, each still with a quiet wondering eye on the other. Halfway through both found the meat not quite to their taste, and both, quite soberly, got a stick and held it over the warm embers for more broiling. Then, having finished their portions exactly at the same time, Sounds The Ground reached in back of him and picked up a small earthen crock of water and held it out to his guest to help himself. No Name was still thirsty, but with fine delicacy took only four swallows, then poured a little over his hands and refreshed his fingers and face and passed the water back.
At last Sounds The Ground spoke up, in Sioux. “My son, what brings you here at this time? Who are you?”
“I am No Name, the son of Redbird, a Yankton Dakotah. I have come to pipe-dance the Pawnees.”
The moment they spoke, all the other sleepers in the lodge popped up from their mats, wide awake. The old woman, Shifting Wind, gave a loud gasp of astonishment when she saw No Name. She quickly put a hand to her old wrinkled mouth.
Sounds The Ground looked around mildly at her, said quietly, “Woman, where is my water for the morning washing? Neither my guest nor I have had sufficient with which to start the day. The crock was almost empty.”
Eyes wild, Shifting Wind turned to leave by way of the funnel door into the vestibule.
“Hold, woman!” Sounds The Ground said sternly. “There is enough water in the jars under the wall. We will announce that we have a stranger in our midst after we have had some warm soup.”
Shifting Wind did as she was told. She gestured for the other wife, somewhat younger and not as withered, to help her. Together the two women brought up more water, then some wood for the fire. They threw some meat in the pot and put out a loaf of cornbread.
The naked children, meanwhile, like a nestful of wildcat kittens, stared at the intruder, their eyes alternately glowing and glittering from under mops of bushy tangled hair.
The meat soup was soon ready and the cornbread heated. “Here is something warm for you to eat,” Sounds The Ground said, giving No Name a horn spoon. “Eat this and may it give you great strength. Loa-ah.”
Again, after they had washed themselves, Sounds The Ground asked him, “My son, tell me, what brings you here at this time?”
“I have been told that you know of a great wild stallion who lives on the wide prairies. I have come to catch the stallion.”
The eyes of Sounds The Ground opened with astonishment. “How could a Yankton know of the white stallion?”
“Leaf, my wife, told me you knew where he lived.”
Sounds The Ground stiffened slowly. “Leaf is your wife?” “Ho. These many days she has been heavy with my child.” “Leaf is still alive?”
“Ae. I found her buried in the sand beside a stream. She lies now hidden in a certain place waiting for me.”
“Ahh,” Sounds The Ground said low, “ah.”
Again Shifting Wind edged for the door. And once more Sounds The Ground stopped her with a stern word. “Hold, woman, where do you go?”
“But, my husband, he is a Sioux. I will run and tell Rough Arm. Perhaps this Sioux is an advance scout and many more are coming.”
“Stay beside me and attend to my wants. He is the son of Redbird who befriended me when I lived with them. I remember this youth well, though he does not remember me. He was a child playing with his father’s toes at the time.”
Shifting Wind turned on him with the fury of a wildcat. She snarled, “Arrh! I see that my husband has forgotten how the Sioux treated him, how the throat-cutters from the north regarded him as a miserable captive and made him do the work of a slave.”
“For a short time only.” Sounds The Ground looked at her with firm unbending eye. “Redbird was gentle with me and I have not forgotten it. On a buffalo hunt once, when I was gored by a bull, my shadow soul almost parted from my body soul. But Redbird and his friends stood around me and prayed to their gods, and passed their hands over me, and at length I again breathed regularly.”
Shifting Wind’s eyes blazed. She raged, “You are a soft-hearted woman to welcome this snake of a Sioux into your lodge. That is what comes of smelling pretty flowers when alone, like some silly goose of a girl.”
All through the tirade both Sounds The Ground and No Name sat in grave dignity, their faces expressionless. A proud man considered it disgraceful to fight with a woman. Smoke slowly lifted off the firepit and lazily sought the hole in the roof.
Finally, seeing that everything she said to the two men was like rain off a well-greased tepee, Shifting Wind went over and spat No Name in the face. And to make sure she was thoroughly understood, she next spat her husband in the face.
Sounds The Ground jerked back volcanically. His eyes popped open, so wide for a moment he resembled a great gray owl of the north. Then, his eyes snapping down to fierce slits again, he leaped to his feet and grabbed his warclub and gave her a resounding whack over the backbone. He hit her so hard she fell in a heap on the ground.
While she lay groaning, Sounds The Ground quietly lit his pipe again and had another leisurely smoke with No Name.
Sounds The Ground said, “What you have done is a brave thing. I honor you for it. Loa-ah. It is not often that an enemy has crept through the Pawnee village secretly at night and entered the lodge of the head chief without anyone knowing. Also, you could easily have killed us all in our sleep. But you did not. I thank you. Well, my son, now I must tell you a thing. If the others find you here they will ask for your life.”
“I have a helper. He is with me and works for me at all times. Therefore I do not fear any thing or any person. Also it is fated that I will catch a certain wild stallion. A white horse of great fierceness.”
“Then no one saw you creep through the village?”
“One did. He called to another as an owl. I had to strike him.”
“Ai, now there will be much weeping and wailing by his mother. Rough Arm will be like a mad one.” Sounds The Ground shook his head. His plume waggled back and forth like the heavy mane of an old stud. “My son, this wild stallion you wish to catch, did you know of him before you found Leaf?”
“A white mare came to me in a vision. She told me to visit the Pawnees. She said there it would be given to me.”
“Were you not late in receiving the vision?”
“Yes, my uncle, it came to me only after the fourth time. The gods were testing me.” No Name then told of his various vigils, how the vision finally came to him in two parts, the first half on the Butte of Thunders, the second half in the torment of the sun dance.
“It is a true vision. It is a great vision. Loa-ah.” Sounds The Ground nodded. “I see now that you had to come. I am glad. I honor you for it. I will tell you where I have seen the wild stallion. He is white. As you Sioux say, he is wakan. He is very swift and very fierce. He is a killer and will try to destroy you. But I see your vision is also wakan. Therefore I shall show you where he is.”
Sounds The Ground put his pipe aside. A green fly came to life at the base of the support pole next to him, and seeing it flex its wings, Sounds The Ground quietly cupped his hand, then snatched at it and caught it. He pinched it so that it popped lightly, dropped it into the firepit. Then he turned and looked at his groaning prostrate wife. “Old woman, get up. There is much work to be done. Prepare more food. Get wood. We shall soon have many visitors.” He next fixed his eyes on his oldest son, a lad of ten. “Stiff Twig, my son, call Rough Arm. Tell him a visitor is here from a far place. Tell him we wish to hold a feast for this visitor. Will you do this?”
Stiff Twig nodded and darted out through the door. He went with such reckless speed he woke up all the sleeping dogs in the vestibule. They followed him out and barked after him as he went the rounds.
While the women bustled around the firepit, Sounds The Ground casually prepared himself for company. He combed his roach. He waxed his scalp lock with fresh bear fat and formed it into a neat horn. He put on a deerskin clout, a pair of black leggings fringed with human hair from ankle to thigh, a pair of moccasins, and a buffalo robe thrown casually over the shoulder. He placed a board between his knees and chopped up some fresh tobacco. He got out his best pipe and set it up on a small forked stick before the firepit.
Presently a glittering eye peered in through the dark funnel opening. There was a polite cough. Then the funnel filled with a line of stooping bronze men, all heavily painted, with closely shaven heads, and all wearing the plumage of birds. They filed in in an orderly manner and, sitting, formed a circle around the fire. Each newcomer threw a quick burning look at the guest, then looked at the fire with iron gravity. Behind them poured in a motley array of children and old men and young girls and wondering dogs, all of them looking at No Name with unwavering gaze from the dark part of the lodge.
The men sitting in the council circle were all given to eat, fat ribs roasted, and something to drink, water from the River That Sinks, and then the pipe was lighted and passed, solemnly, in ceremony, moving from right to left around the circle. The ceiling was soon lost in eddying clouds of smoke, both from the firepit and the pipe.
At last Sounds The Ground lifted his eyes. “My children, I have called you here because the son of a benefactor has come to visit me. Redbird his father helped me when the others in his band treated me as a slave. Redbird saved my life. Also, Redbird gave me his best horse and helped me to escape so that I might return alive to my people. Now his son has come and it is my turn to help.” Sounds The Ground told of No Name’s vision, how he had come specifically to him to ask where the great white stallion of the plains lived. “His dream is wakan and we must honor it. If we do not, we will invite the wrath of our god, Tirawa, The One Above, the supreme power.”
Rough Arm’s savage eyes fixed in hate on No Name. Rough Arm had painted his face and the shaven portion of his head with vermilion and the whole of it looked like a large red potato with a fat sprout still attached to it. In youth he had been dragged by a horse across stony ground, bruising his right arm so badly that it left a long scar resembling the rough skin of a muskrat from the elbow to the wrist.
Rough Arm said to Sounds The Ground, “It has been told me that this dog of a Sioux is the husband of the maiden we thought was a virgin.”
Sounds The Ground glared at his wife. “I should have struck thee twice. Once on the back and once on the mouth.”
Shifting Wind’s old eyes rolled around wildly. Luckily for her, some dogs just then began to nose through her cases of food by the door. Spotting them, she picked up a club, the same one used on her by her husband, and began beating and cursing the dogs with all her might. She made them howl so loud as they shot out through the door that some of the men had to cover their ears with their hands. She followed the dogs out.
When the commotion died down, Sounds The Ground said to Rough Arm, “The Sioux is my guest.” His nostrils dilated. “No one shall touch him.”
At that very moment the wild cry of someone singing the death song sounded in the doorway, and then an old woman rushed into the lodge, tearing her hair, ripping her leather clothes. “My son has been murdered!” she cried. “Aii! my son has been murdered.” It was an old mother known as Woman Who Walks Ahead Of Her Man.
Sounds The Ground flashed a swift look in No Name’s direction. The look did not quite reach No Name, as if at the last moment Sounds The Ground just barely managed to check himself.
Rough Arm caught the look. He rose to his feet in trembling rage, warclub in hand.
Before he could speak, Woman Who Walks Ahead Of Her Man let out another piercing shriek. For all her wild crying, she had been quick to spot a Sioux warrior sitting beside Sounds The Ground. She fell upon No Name, old claws working. She gave his wolf cap such a jerk it came off and his two braids tumbled down his shoulders. “It is this Sioux, this cutter of throats, who has killed him!” She gave No Name’s braids a ferocious pull. “Where is the scalp of my son Sharp Horn? His spirit cannot depart for the other world until we find his scalp! Where is it?”
No Name gave her a dignified shove with his elbow, finally managed to shake off her clawing fingers. He got to his feet and with a look at Rough Arm quietly drew his knife. The scalp of Sharp Horn, which he had secreted in his shirt, began to burn against his skin.
Conquering Horse Page 22
