Buffalo Medicine

by Don Coldsmith

  “You will travel far, and see strong medicines,” the hypnotic, droning voice continued. “You will find the tribe of your father.”

  Owl was startled. Did the medicine man know that he only yesterday had formed that ambition?

  “You can become a great medicine man,” White Buffalo went on, “but the trail is steep and rocky.” He paused a long time. “Are you ready for the hard work that is needed?”

  Owl nodded eagerly. “Yes, Uncle, I have thought much of this through the night. I am ready.”

  By evening, the entire village was aware that Owl had apprenticed himself to the medicine man. His parents were pleased and encouraging. Owl had decided not to mention his quest for his father’s tribe, or White Buffalo’s strange vision concerning it.

  Eagle was interested, but primarily curious, as an older brother inquiring about the activities of the younger.

  Coyote found occasion to draw his grandson aside to congratulate him.

  “You have chosen well, my son. There are few men who could teach you as much as White Buffalo. He would not take you as his helper unless he saw your strength and wisdom. But it will be hard!”

  The boys of Owl’s own age were overawed at the step he had taken. Most were congratulatory, but some were true to form.

  “Owl still thinks he is better than others,” scoffed Two Dogs. His envy now seemed to be more biting than ever. He attempted to start trouble repeatedly, but Owl resisted all taunts. Somehow, it would not seem appropriate for the medicine man’s assistant to be brawling in the dirt like other youths.

  Besides, Owl found immediately, he had very little time for frivolous pursuits. He was kept busy helping White Buffalo with the implements of his profession. Owl carried and fetched, helped to dig roots, pick leaves, flowers, and seeds of various herbs, and prepare them for storage. At the same time he was required to learn identification and use, and how to look for likely spots where the desired plants might grow.

  Sometimes, for no apparent reason, White Buffalo would rouse his young assistant at odd hours. The two would climb the hills, Owl laboring under the load of the medicine man’s pack. He would sit and doze while the old man would dance and chant to the rising moon.

  Eventually, Owl moved into the medicine man’s lodge, to be more readily available. The cooking of Crow Woman, he decided, was not up to the standards of his mother. However, she was a pleasant, kindly old woman, who now gave to Owl the affection she had never been able to bestow on a child of her own. Owl came to love the old couple as family. He still spent much of his infrequent spare time in the lodge of his parents, however.

  When the grass began to green the following year, White Buffalo carefully instructed his assistant in the burning of the prairie. It was necessary, he pointed out, to watch, almost daily, the growth of certain of the grasses. When they became so tall, he indicated on a gnarled forefinger, it was time to burn. Too early, there would be no proper greening. Too late, it would burn poorly and destroy much new growth. Then the buffalo would not come.

  Owl was impressed by the awesome responsibility for the decision. He had always regarded the annual event as something that just happened.

  Apparently the decision was right, for the prairie did green, and the buffalo did come.

  Now, announced White Buffalo, it was time for Owl to learn to work within the herd. First there was an impressive dance ceremony in the lodge. The old man put on the white buffalo headdress of his office and began his dance, while Crow Woman beat a rhythm on a small drum.

  The white headdress, with horns attached and the skin of the hump falling down around the old man’s shoulders, was very strong medicine. It had been among the People for many generations, Owl knew, handed down with the name from one medicine man to the next. The young man could still hardly comprehend that some day he might be the one to wear that scared cape.

  Owl tried to watch carefully as the medicine man performed the dance. He sat in awe as the old man leaned stiffly over, the massive head swaying in mimicry of the buffalo’s movements. The feet pawed at the floor in perfect imitation of a buffalo bull with the herd. This rendition, Owl realized, had taken a lifetime to learn.

  At the end of the dance, White Buffalo took a tanned calfskin and spread it around the head and shoulders of his student. In this way, he stated, would the boy begin to learn.

  They began by approaching an undisturbed herd of buffalo. From the hilltop, White Buffalo pointed out things about the herd … the old cow who was probably the leader, standing on the far side … the largest old bull, but probably not the most dangerous … a young cow with a small calf, unpredictable and quite likely to attack if provoked.

  “You must learn how the buffalo feels,” the old man advised. “You must look at an animal and put yourself inside his head. How would you move if you were that calf, there?” He pointed with a crooked finger at a yellow calf, playfully trotting near its mother.

  For days, Owl was permitted only to watch the animals. Then, with the calfskin over his shoulders, he mimicked the gaits of the live animals, under his teacher’s inspection. The medicine man was noncommittal.

  “Not good, not bad,” he shrugged.

  Next day, however, he suggested that Owl begin approaching the herd.

  “If an animal threatens you,” he advised, “remember how the calf does. He moves just enough, not too far. To run would give away your secret.”

  At first it was the hardest thing Owl had ever done. With the calfskin over his shoulder, he moved among the big animals, pretending to be one of them, although a small one. Owl was sure he would be discovered, and at very least send the herd flying over the hill. At worst, he imagined himself trampled or gored.

  Owl realized finally that he must be doing it right. He had not frightened the herd, and had not been trampled or gored. The incident which really convinced him was an accident. While watching a possibly dangerous young cow, he backed accidentally into the flank of a large bull. The massive head swung irritably, a polished black horn brushed his shoulder, and Owl jumped quickly aside. Just as a calf would jump, he realized later. Maybe, he thought that night, I really am getting inside the head of the buffalo.

  However, Owl was beginning to resent this constant preoccupation with buffalo. He could see that when the old man had learned his profession, this had been an important part. It had been necessary to work among the buffalo, to learn how to move the herd without alarming the animals. They could be maneuvered into a narrow confine or stampeded over a cliff to assist the hunters. White Buffalo had told him endless tales of such hunts.

  But now, with the hunting done on horseback, what was the use? The hunt was fast, open, and moving rapidly. There was no place for a medicine man on foot among the animals.

  Owl ventured to raise this question one evening. White Buffalo became irritated.

  “You will learn these things because I say so,” he snapped. “All things begin at the beginning. And you have a long way before you begin to be a medicine man!”

  Owl still had his doubts, but was wise enough to keep them to himself.

  3

  It was in his sixteenth summer that Owl was pronounced qualified to assume the duties of his office. White Buffalo had allowed Owl to make the decision on the spring burning time this season, although he himself had made the announcement. Now, he advised his young assistant, there remained only one thing. His vision.

  The old man explained in some detail the procedure required, although Owl knew it well. White Buffalo was becoming more forgetful, and repeated himself often.

  “You must go out into the hills alone. You must eat nothing and talk to no one for three days, or until your vision comes. It may be in a dream or awake, that your medicine animal comes to you. You must tell no one his name when you return to the People.”

  Owl nodded. He embraced Crow Woman, picked up his weapons and his robe, and stepped out into the sunlight of a crisp day in the Ripening Moon. He stopped briefly at his parents’ l
odge and then strode rapidly up the slope and out of sight.

  He knew exactly where he was going. A day’s journey to the southwest was a high, flat-topped mesa. Owl had been there before. From its crest one could see in all directions to the edge of the world. What better place, he thought, to fast and wait for one’s vision? He filled a water skin at a spring, and climbed the hill just as Sun Boy carried his torch below the western rim.

  Owl spread his robe and lay down, watching the stars come out. He wondered what to do next, and felt a little foolish. It had been many moons since he had had absolutely nothing to do. Then he felt guilty for having almost felt that his vision seeking was a waste of time. He mentally apologized to his yet-unknown medicine animal as he drifted off to sleep.

  Owl awoke with the sun in his face and the prairie alive with the morning. He was hungry. He wondered if it were permissible to admit to hunger, and decided that it was. He passed the day watching the distant herds of buffalo and antelope, and singing to himself some of the chants of the medicine man. He drank a little from his water skin, and slept. The following day was a repeat of the last.

  When he returned to the village, he would be recognized as a medicine man. He wondered idly when he would assume the title “White Buffalo.” Immediately, or at some future time? The name must be given away by the old man before his death. It would be up to him, when and how it would be accomplished, Owl supposed. He was still hungry as he drifted to sleep again.

  The next day the hunger was gone. He felt exhilarated, light-headed, yet strong. He felt that he could see things clearly, no matter how far. He could almost step off the mesa and fly, like the buzzards circling below him. This alarming thought brought him back to reality, and he spent the day in thought, sometimes sleeping for a short while. That night came the dreams.

  It began as he dozed off, with the sound of a distant coyote’s chuckling song in his ears. The young man drifted in and out of consciousness. Part of the time the chortling cry was that of an actual animal beyond the hill. Then it became a segment of a confused dream, in which his grandfather, the Coyote, chuckled at his confusion. In one of his half-awake moments, Owl realized that this was the reason for his grandfather’s name. His chuckling giggle sounded exactly like the call of the animal on the hill. He smiled and drifted deeper.

  In his dreams, various animals came past the spot where he sat. Some spoke to him, others only looked curiously. But he found that either way, he could see “inside the head” as he had learned to do with the buffalo. He felt the constant anxiety of the rabbit, and the searching of the red-tailed hawk as he circled the meadow. The deer, cautious and ready to retreat, looked at him a long moment

  “You are one of us,” came the thought of a gigantic buffalo bull as he grazed past without looking up.

  A coyote came and sat next to him, chuckling quietly. Then suddenly it was his grandfather, who reminded him again, “White Buffalo would not take you as his helper, unless he saw your strength and wisdom. But it will be hard—”

  The coyote, now an animal again, rose and trotted out of sight. This, thought Owl, though he was still dreaming, must be my medicine animal. He drifted to sleep again.

  He was roused this time by a group of bears who ambled into his dreams. They stood over him, talking in their own language. He was puzzled for a moment. Why had he seen so easily inside the heads of all the other animals, but could not understand the language of these bears?

  One of the bears stepped close and rose on its hind legs, outlined against the rising sun. The other bears stepped close, also, and rose to full height. Alarmed, Owl opened his eyes to escape this disagreeable vision.

  The sun was rising. The bears were still there, not in a dream. But they were not bears now, either. They were men. Owl had never seen any of them before, but he could tell by their garments and weapons that they were not of the People. They were the enemy, the dreaded Head Splitters.

  Reflex flung the young man into action. His weapons were out of reach, but his hand closed on a fist-sized rock and flung it at the face of the closest warrior. The man fell backward, blood streaming from his broken nose. Owl flung himself with a rush on another man, and was accrediting himself quite well when he was grasped from behind by several pairs of hands. His captors threw him roughly to the ground and tied hands and feet behind him.

  The man with the broken nose approached, furious, with a heavy club to end the matter, but was restrained by the others. There was laughter at his appearance, blood smeared over face and hands.

  A man who was apparently the leader of the party stepped forward to question the prisoner. Owl understood not one word of the language used, but the other accompanied his questions with the hand gestures of the universal sign language.

  “How are you called? What are you doing here?”

  The ludicrous situation struck Owl, even under the circumstances. They could not understand his spoken answer, and he could not use sign language with his hands tied. He motioned with his head toward his bound hands. The young chief who was the leader stepped forward to cut the thongs, brushing aside the protests of Broken Nose.

  “You have no right to treat me in this way,” signed Owl. “I am the son of a chief!”

  General laughter followed. Then one of the men stepped forward with a sudden exclamation. He pulled sharply at the fringe of new hair along Owl’s upper lip, and murmured excitedly. The others murmured too. The leader motioned them to silence, and rapidly signed a new question.

  “Your father is the Hairface, chief of the Elk-dog band of the People?”

  Owl did not answer, but it was too late. He knew he had made a grave mistake in revealing his identity. His captors were talking among themselves, pleased and excited. Aiee, not every day does one capture the son of an enemy chief!

  4

  For the first few days, Owl fought the idea of captivity constantly. The first night, he spent most of the time of darkness chewing at his bonds. The rawhide thongs became slippery and elastic in his mouth, and he was actually beginning to feel some loosening in the tension on his wrists. Then, when the sky was beginning to pale with the false dawn, his efforts were discovered by the sentry.

  The man cuffed the fettered Owl around the head and ears, and calmly retied his hands. Behind his back, this time. From the confident way that the guard laughed and joked about the incident, Owl believed that he had been perfectly aware of the prisoner’s efforts for most of the night. The young man sank into depression.

  He would spend the uncomfortable time of darkness, hands tied tightly behind him, in wakeful unrest. After three nights, he began to recover from his gloom and spend the time in more productive thought. His training under the old medicine man began to manifest itself.

  “You look, but you do not see,” White Buffalo had once scolded in his early training. “You must look behind the things that show, for the meaning beyond.”

  In another culture and time, it might have been called analytic observation. To Owl, the process was only that of summing up all the available information and then acting on it. Never too hastily, the old man had constantly warned him. Gain all possible facts first In the stress of the present situation, Owl had reverted to emotional reaction. Now, with time to reason and think, he became the shrewd, trained observer that White Buffalo had attempted to create.

  Then, too, there was the visit from his medicine animal. Owl had just slipped into a fitful slumber one night. His hands were uncomfortably tied behind him as he lay, partially on his side. In his half-sleep, the young man heard the distant call of a coyote, and the answer of the animal’s mate. Then, in the strange dream-state, a coyote came and sat beside him as before. This time, nothing was said, but he felt a warm confidence and a change in his entire attitude. It was somehow reassuring that his medicine animal could still visit him and possibly help him, even in captivity. Next morning Owl was almost cheerful.

  His more cooperative attitude began to be productive immediately. He receiv
ed more and better food, and his bonds were not drawn so uncomfortably tight. He was able to pay more attention to such things as direction of travel. He found that the war party was moving in a generally southwest direction. This he observed by the path of Sun Boy during the day. By night, this observation was verified by the position of the Seven Hunters and their relation to the constant real-star in the north.

  He would need to know which way led back to his own people after his escape. Owl had no doubts as to whether he could escape. Only when. In his mind, escape was inevitable, unless he were killed first. And it seemed reasonable to assume that if he appeared cooperative, they would be less likely to kill him.

  True, one of the warriors seemed determined to accomplish that end. The man Owl now thought of as Broken Nose constantly harassed the captive. He would sit directly in front of the young man, fondling his knife and making suggestive gestures. He would slowly draw the blade across the front of his own throat. His motions clearly suggested what he intended ultimately for the prisoner. On other occasions Broken Nose would use the universal hand sign language, accompanied by obscene gestures. His leer would rove to the area of Owl’s genitals, as he suggestively handled the knife.

  Perhaps most nerve-wracking of all was the game the man played with a war club. He would creep quietly behind where Owl lay. Then suddenly, with a shout, he would smash the club’s heavy stone to the ground just a finger’s breadth from portions of the prisoner’s anatomy.

  Owl soon observed that the leader of the war party was considerably annoyed by these antics. Several times he spoke curtly to Broken Nose. The young man began to regard this man as his protector. In any case, he was sure that without the restraining influence he would have long since been killed or mutilated or both. And, he was afraid, not necessarily in that order. His skin crawled with terror at the obscene threats of Broken Nose, though he attempted to conceal it. He would show them that a chief’s son could greet death with dignity.