“When will you catch the stallion, my husband?”
He swallowed back a sharp word.
“My husband?”
“It is for the gods to decide.”
“This cave is a dark place even in the day. Well, I am afraid for our child. The cave will cast a shadow over its life.”
He put his pipe away. “Now you speak as one touched by the moon being.” He sat staring at the graying embers along the edge of the fire.
She waited an interval, then said again, “You have not told of today, my husband.”
Suddenly he said it all in a rush. “Today I saw Dancing Sun walk along the horizon. I became afraid. He walked, yet he looked like a ghost horse going very swiftly. He walked, yet his mares and colts had to run very swiftly to keep up with him. Ai, sometimes I think it is the same horse that Holy Horse saw. One day this white stallion will take me to the middle-of-the-earth too where the demons will overcome me and I will not be heard of again.”
“What does your helper say?”
He started. How had she known it had fallen silent? “Ai, woman, I am still waiting for him to speak.”
“Have you offended him that he does not speak?”
“I have thought of this. Yet I can not remember anything.”
Again, after a silence, she asked, “My husband, this Dancing Sun, is he as all male horses?”
“I do not understand, my wife.”
“Does he torment his sons?”
He fell silent. After a moment he shuddered. He remembered what Dancing Sun had done to the slow brown stud.
Leaf persisted. “What do the mothers say to this?”
“They submit,” he said shortly.
She sighed. “Ae, so it is with the Yanktons also. The fathers permit us to hold the sons for a short time. After that they take them away and send them to a high hill where they must seek a vision.”
“I love my father very much and do not wish to hurt him. He has always been very tender with me his son.”
“Thus it seems,” she said quietly, eyes downcast, hand on her swollen belly. “Yet did not your father require that you torment yourself?”
“My father wished for me to show my bravery that I might be ready to replace him as chief when the time came for him to join those of the other world.”
“A mother’s heart is always large for her son. She will always weep when it is time for him to leave on his trail.”
“It is not the way of all Yankton mothers,” he said patiently. “My mother told me a great thing when I was about to depart. ‘Son, the thing you seek lives in a far place. It is good. Go to it. Do not turn around after you have gone part way, but go as far as you were going and then come back.’ ”
Leaf sighed from the depths of her belly. Her breasts stirred under her leather dress. At last she said, “When I am old, may it be given me to say such a great thing to my son.”
He had been careful to keep their horses, the sorrel gelding and the dun mare, well hidden from the white stallion, either in the brush under the cottonwoods when the wind was north, or in the back of the cave when it was south.
But one evening the white stallion surprised him by coming alone to the meadow just west of the cliff. The white stallion walked out to where a patch of blue-eyed grass grew deep and lush. After sniffing around at it some, the white one began eating with relish.
“Haho!” No Name exclaimed softly to himself, watching from behind a thick cottonwood. “It is as Sounds The Ground said. He likes to go into the low places and eat the flowering grass. I well remember him saying this.”
No Name stole softly out of the brush to get the mare and the sorrel before Dancing Sun got wind of them. The mare, whom they had named Black Stripe because of a thin band of dark hair running down her spine, was in heat. She stalled frequently. Dancing Sun was certain to scent her before very long and come and steal her.
But as luck would have it, the wind changed before he could get Black Stripe into the cave, and in a few moments Dancing Sun’s shrill inquiring neigh cut through the evening silence. No Name tried to hurry the mare inside, but the stallion’s call had roused her and she hung back on the rope.
Dancing Sun shrilled another high piercing call of desire. This time Black Stripe let up on the rope long enough to whinny loudly in answer.
There was a sudden crashing in the brush and the next moment the green leaves parted and out paced Dancing Sun, noble head high, long mane flowing in two scarlet waves. He came on swiftly, smoothly.
He spotted No Name pulling at the rawhide rope. Instantly his whole demeanor as a lover changed. He became the warrior. His head came down, his teeth flashed, his ears shot forward. His tail pointed straight back like a cat’s, jerking spasmodically. Then, with a resounding snort, he made straight for No Name as if he no longer saw the mare, but saw only the man.
No Name dropped the mare’s rope and leaped to one side just as Dancing Sun, dazzling and white and huge, lunged for him. Dancing Sun missed him by no more than a hair.
Then, as Dancing Sun stopped short to wheel around for another charge, No Name, on a sudden impulse, born as much out of fear as out of inspiration, leaped astride the great stallion’s back. No Name grabbed hold of the flashing scarlet mane with both hands, gripped the horse’s belly hard with both legs.
Dancing Sun reacted volcanically. He went straight up on all fours. No name felt him rising under him like a wave on the Great Smoky Water. At the top of his jump, Dancing Sun broke four ways, and when he came down, as each leg hit ground one after another, there were four separate jolts. Then, shrieking outrage at finding something still latched to his back, Dancing Sun began a strange twisting run on the meadow. No Name felt the great muscles of the horse squirming and bulging and undulating powerfully under him. It was like riding an enormous snake which had just had its head chopped off.
Dancing Sun stopped dead. He seemed to reflect to himself a moment. Then, snorting, he turned his head and snapped at No Name. His face was so close, No Name could see red inflamed arteries pulsing furiously in the backs of his blazing eyes. No Name ducked to one side to avoid the terrible snapping teeth. Again Dancing Sun rose wonderfully under him, very high. And at the top of the jump, because of the awkward way he sat on the stallion, No Name lost his hold. He arched into the air in a tumbling somersault and landed on his back.
It took a moment for No Name to collect his wits. Then he sprang to his feet, fully expecting to find the mad stallion on top of him. But to his surprise, the stallion did not come on. The stallion was still snorting and shrilling with rage, but he was being held at bay by Leaf. Leaf had fire and smoke in her hand and was waving it in the stallion’s face.
No Name stared. Then he understood. Leaf had heard, then seen, the stallion come for the mare Black Stripe too. When No Name dropped the lead rope, Leaf had quickly secured the mare with the gelding, who was already in the cave, and then had seized a burning brand from the fire and had rushed out to help her man. Instinctively she had known what to do. Fight fire with fire. In the rust-tinted dusk the smoke from the burning brand was almost exactly the color of the stallion’s coat.
No Name saw how Leaf strained to be quick despite her heavy oblong belly, saw how ferocious her eyes were. He leaped to help her and took the burning brand from her.
Dancing Sun seemed to understand that the hot brand had changed hands, from female to male, and once again charged, mouth and head down like a raging predator lizard. No Name thrust the burning brand into his face. Dancing Sun shrieked, reared, struck out with both forefeet, almost knocking the brand from No Name’s hand.
Again Dancing Sun charged. Again No Name jabbed the brand into his face.
The furious action roused No Name, and fear in him changed to anger. He too suddenly became enraged, completely forgetting that he had ever thought the horse wakan. He began to roar. “Back, you white devil! Hehan, so you wish to make my heart hot this day? Good, eat this! Fire you are and fire you shall have!”
Behind him Leaf had become infuriated too. “Kill him, my husband!” she cried. “Burn his eyes! Do not be afraid. Rush him, he is afraid of fire!”
Still the white fury came on. Dancing Sun reared and struck out at them with his glittering gray hooves. He whistled piercingly.
Then, from behind No Name and Leaf, the mare Black Stripe in the back of the cave whinnied, high, wonderingly.
The stallion seemed to go blind at that. He drove so fiercely at No Name and Leaf that both had to retreat under the fallen cottonwood. Teeth bared, froth flying in flakes, Dancing Sun made a final snap at No Name. He caught the burning brand with the side of his mouth and knocked it sailing into the stream at their feet. The brand went out with a quick whistling sizzle.
No Name jumped back, so hard, he knocked himself and Leaf backwards into the cave, falling past the embers of the fire in the entrance. No Name was sure the stallion, gone crazy, was coming into the cave with them.
There was a loud cry behind them, and suddenly the mare in the dark back of the cave lunged and tore loose her rope and made a break for it. She shot past them both, rawhide rope trailing for a second through the fire, and joined the stallion outside.
The stallion reared, suddenly whickered in a very low gutteral voice, and then, the fierce heat of desire coming over him again, forgot about the man enemy and his wife. With a great frolicsome leap, and a snort, he ran off with the mare into the dusk over the meadow.
The next afternoon, sitting high in his lookout cottonwood on the north side of the river, No Name watched the horses come down to drink again. The white one and his sister sentinels stood guard as usual on the bluffs.
He spotted the dun mare Black Stripe with the first bunch, submissive, no different from the other wild ones except for what was left of her lead rope trailing in the dust. Dancing Sun paid her no more attention when she went past than he did any of the other mares.
Later, when the second bunch came down, No Name once more saw Dancing Sun run over and nip his favorite, the light-gray mare with the twinkling feet, in love and play. She was leading the second bunch with slow heavy dignity and as before accepted his show of affection placidly.
It was while he was looking at the pregnant mare, and also thinking of his heavy Leaf, that his helper finally told him something. “Take the sorrel gelding and ride slowly after the light-gray mare with the twinkling feet. Go mostly at a walking pace. Twinkling Feet cannot run very fast very long. Pretend to chase no one but her, not the white one. The white one loves Twinkling Feet and will always stay near her. Keep chasing her. The stallion will give the commands to the old buckskin his mother where they are to go. He will keep them circling and have them come back to this watering place. When they return to this place, do not let him or the mares drink, but keep them moving. Chase him until he is very thirsty and very tired. Even four days and four nights. Otherwise he will kill you. After he is very tired, make a loop in your rope and throw it and catch him.”
No Name thought to himself, “Four days and four nights without sleep? That is a very long time. Well, I must be brave. The time has come for me to be valiant.”
That night he made himself a short heavy whip from a leg bone and some extra thick bullhide. He added a thin piece of buckskin at the tip for the popper. The white one would never again catch him unarmed.
7
In the morning he told her.
“Today it begins. Listen carefully. The stallion drives his band slowly because the one he loves will soon have a colt. I will trail after them on our sorrel. Because of the one he loves, he will not run very far ahead of me. Well, after a time he will get used to me. Then it will be given me how to catch him.”
“But, my husband—”
“Woman, listen carefully. Each day he will try to come to his watering place under the bluffs. But I will not let him. I will chase him on. After he has gone by, I will come quickly to water the sorrel. Woman, have a parfleche of food and a heart-skin of fresh water ready for me at that time. I will eat and drink quickly and then go on.”
“But, my husband—”
“Today it begins.”
“My husband, I am afraid. My time is very near. Perhaps I cannot always have the food ready.”
“The birth of our son must wait. The fulfillment of the vision comes first.” His black eyes glittered.
She bowed her head. Her hands strayed over her belly. “I hear you, my husband.”
“Haho! In four days I will return in triumph with a painted face.”
“I will wait.”
“Hang the provisions each day in a certain tree that I will show you. Do it before the stallion comes. Do not try to meet me. The stallion will get used to my smell after a time and accept it. But the smell of another will scare him off. Do as I command and it will go well with us. This I know.”
“I hear you, my husband.”
He ate heartily and drank long and deep. He readied his lariat, his whip, his war bridle with its long rein, his parfleche of dried meat, and his new white buffalo robe. He filled a heart- skin with fresh water from their stream. He placed a skin pad stuffed with hair on the sorrel for a saddle. He showed Leaf the tree, a green cedar growing on the near side of the west bluff, where he wanted her to hang fresh provisions each day. He gathered driftwood from the river and piled it on the horse trail where it emerged out of the ravine on top of the bluffs. He scattered sacrificial pinches of tobacco along the trail in the ravine and across the tops of the bluffs. Then, ready, he waited on the middle bluff, sitting on the hard ground, holding the long rein of his sorrel in hand as it grazed.
It was well past noon before he saw them coming. He waited until he could make out individual horses, then went over and set fire to a pile of driftwood. Soon white smoke rose in a high billowing plume, straight up, like an enormous ghost tree. The fire made such a crackling noise he had trouble keeping the sorrel quiet. He jumped on his horse and waited in the shadow of the cedar tree, whip dangling from his wrist. He watched the band come on.
Presently Dancing Sun came pacing from behind, where he usually ran, and took over the lead from the old buckskin mare. Dancing Sun called up his white sister sentinels. It was only then, as he wheeled them all for the bluffs, that he spotted the bonfire and its high floating plume of smoke. He let go a warning snort. Instantly the band stopped dead in its tracks. All stood with raised heads, ears shot forward, wild and roused, looking more like alert deer than horses. Dancing Sun whistled again and they quickly bunched into a tight knot. He approached alone. He came up to within a hundred yards of the fire before he saw No Name on his sorrel under the green cedar. Again Dancing Sun trumpeted a command. The knot of mares and colts tightened even more. Dancing Sun looked from the fire to No Name and back again. He moved around to his left, then around to his right, trying to get No Name’s scent. But the wind was northeast and he couldn’t quite get around far enough to pick it up. He snuffed. He clapped his tail in irritation. He stamped. The band behind waited in a close profusion of raised heads and whistling tails.
No Name watched him. He sang a song of self-encouragement in a low private voice:
“Friend, you are like the sun.
You are a begetter of many fine children.
The white mare said you would be fierce.
Friend, a Yankton has come to get you.
Friend, it has been said. Epelo.”
Then, strong in the knowledge that the gods had nothing but good in mind for him, No Name touched heel to flank and he and the sorrel moved out of the shadow of the green cedar.
Dancing Sun snorted. Haughty head up, snuffing loudly, he ran forward a few steps. He sniffed. He pawed the earth like a bull. He took a few more steps. Then, at last getting wind of the man enemy’s scent, with a scream of rage, he charged.
No Name waited until Dancing Sun was almost on top of him, until the sorrel under him tried to double away, then suddenly he sat up very straight and with a quick hard sweep of his arm
snapped his new whip in the stallion’s face. The buckskin popper at the end cracked, loud, directly in front of the stallion’s eyes. Astonished, Dancing Sun skated to a stop on all four legs. He reared, staggered backwards. Then, before Dancing Sun could collect himself, No Name raised his big white robe and snapped it vigorously around and around, yelling “Oh-ow-ow-ow!” at the top of his voice. He dug his heels hard into the sorrel’s flanks, forcing him toward the stallion. The sorrel bucked, again tried to shy off. No Name brought his whip hard across the sorrel’s flanks, both sides, again reined him toward the stallion. Dancing Sun staggered back some more. Then of a sudden, abruptly, he spooked. He raced off toward his band. With a blood-curdling yell, No Name followed them.
Dancing Sun bugled piercingly. Instantly the whole bunch ahead of him wheeled and broke into a wild thundering run, stampeding west. Up front, galloping as wild as the wildest of them, ran Black Stripe, Leaf’s dun mare, her dragging line raising a little snake of racing yellow dust.
No Name went after them furiously for a short way, still howling, still snapping his white robe around and around. The white one and his bunch and their following dust were soon out of sight. No Name reined in his sorrel and let them run, content to go along at a slower pace, certain that the stallion would not let Twinkling Feet run very far.
No Name found it easy to track the bunch. Dancing Sun ran his band from the rear, and as a pacer, not as a galloper, left a characteristic track that was always easy to pick out. No Name followed the fresh tracks for an hour, then headed his horse almost straight south, quartering across the stallion’s run.
He rode naked except for a clout. The sun sank down a brassy sky. In its raw light his body glowed a blackish brown. The air on the high barrens was so dry it made the nostrils crack. To keep breathing he sometimes had to lick the inside of his mouth. The sorrel’s hooves kicked up minute dust storms. The little puffs of light-gray lingered in the air behind them for a long time. Every now and then he checked to see that the long rein of his war bridle was securely tucked in folds under his belt. He had long ago learned that, somehow thrown from his horse, he could always catch hold of the rope as it payed out along the ground. On the prairies a man was no man at all unless he had four feet.
Conquering Horse Page 26
