Vision Quest

by Judd Cole

  Both youths glanced toward the speaker, barely discernible in the faltering light.

  Arrow Keeper!

  “Listen to your chief, young Cheyenne bucks! I speak words I want you to carry away with you. I forbid this fighting. Have we not enough enemies outside the tribe trying to kill us? I am still the keeper of the sacred Medicine Arrows. Any Cheyenne blood shed by another Cheyenne stains the Arrows. I will not let you dirty the entire tribe!”

  “But, Father,” Wolf Who Hunts Smiling said, “he—”

  “Silence! Return to your clan circle.”

  After Wolf Who Hunts Smiling had departed, his face a mask of hatred for his enemy, Touch the Sky sheathed his knife and likewise started to leave. But Arrow Keeper called his name. He turned around.

  “Yes, Father?”

  “Return with me to my tipi, I would speak with you about urgent matters. I have had a medicine dream. The vision tells me you will die soon!”

  Chapter Two

  “You will die soon,” repeated Arrow Keeper, “unless you leave before the Councilors decide your fate.”

  They sat in the gathering darkness just outside the entrance of Arrow Keeper’s tipi. The acting chief struck fire from a piece of flint with his knife, igniting a small pile of bark-and-twig kindling. Flames leaped up, highlighting the seams and ridges of Arrow Keeper’s face and the youthful sculpting of Touch the Sky’s.

  “The chief-renewal finally draws near,” said Arrow Keeper. “The scattered bands of Cheyenne have nearly all returned to our valley for the ceremony. Soon there will be a time of dancing, feasting, and gift-giving. The tribe will name a successor now that our chief has been summoned.”

  Arrow Keeper automatically made the cut-off sign, as one did when speaking of the dead. Nor did he pronounce Yellow Bear’s name aloud—the dead might hear their name and speak back.

  “Soon I will no longer be chief. Then your only friend besides me will be Little Horse. And some in the tribe have already turned their hearts to stone against him for befriending you.

  “So what will you do, little brother? My power to protect you will be limited. True it is, I am the Keeper of the Arrows. For this important responsibility I am respected. But the younger warriors, those who gather about Wolf Who Hunts Smiling and Swift Canoe and some of the others, are speaking more openly against me. And against you.”

  Arrow Keeper nudged the end of a log into the growing fire. Then he said, “A medicine dream, two sleeps ago, told me that you must die if the Council is allowed to meet and vote with their stones. Many in the tribe have spoken. They will not feel safe if a Bluecoat spy is alive among us.”

  Touch the Sky’s mouth was a grim, determined slit in the flickering light. “Do you believe I am a Bluecoat spy, Father?”

  “How would you ask me this thing? Did I not watch you save our chief’s life by killing the Pawnee dog, War Thunder, with your battle ax? Did you not descend into the belly of the beast to save Honey Eater from the white devils who sold strong water? I have always talked only one way to you, and I say this. You are a true Cheyenne warrior, one worthy to wear the medicine hat in battle!”

  “Perhaps,” said Touch the Sky, his voice bitter with betrayal. “But my bravery did not prevent Honey Eater from accepting Black Elk’s bride-price.”

  “Little brother, she did not make this decision lightly. She came to me in agony, but what would you have me tell this good young woman who is now alone in the world? That she should forsake everything and wait for you, a suspected spy, and infuriate Black Elk and the rest of the tribe?

  “It may not always be fair, but our law does not permit our young women such choices. She is Cheyenne and must follow the Cheyenne way. Even a stone goes on being a stone.”

  Touch the Sky knew these words rang true. But still he could not crush the bitter sense of betrayal, the knife-edged doubts about his own ability to ever be a Cheyenne.

  Arrow Keeper, studying his face closely in the flickering light, read these thoughts.

  “It is not just the vote of the Headmen which I fear,” he told the younger Cheyenne. “It is your own misery and doubt about being a red man which must also be defeated. True death, for any Indian, is to be alone forever. This is why a red man would rather fall on his own knife than be hated by his tribe. In your heart you are alone, even when surrounded by others. You cannot go on this way, living in two worlds yet belonging to neither.”

  Touch the Sky nodded, knowing these words flew straight-arrow.

  “But what can I do, Father? As you say, I am alone. Honey Eater is Black Elk’s squaw. I have already asked too much of Little Horse.”

  “You are alone, yes. And for this very reason, I am sending you on an important mission in the name of the entire tribe.”

  Sudden curiosity muted the misery in Touch the Sky’s face.

  “A mission?”

  “Yes. A vision quest. There will be no fatal council because you will be on a sojourn to sacred Medicine Lake, seeking a medicine dream of great consequence to the Cheyenne people. As acting chief, I have the power to order this thing.”

  “A vision quest,” repeated Touch the Sky.

  The old shaman nodded. “Yes. A journey to the center of the red man’s world. You remember when I spoke words about the mark hidden in your hair?”

  Touch the Sky nodded. In the hair over his left temple, buried past the hairline, was a mulberry-colored birthmark shaped like an arrowhead—the mark of the warrior.

  “I have already spoken to you about the powerful vision I experienced at Medicine Lake. But now I understand that you too must seek the same vision. If the hand of Maiyun, the Supernatural, is truly in this thing, then He will send the vision to you too.”

  Touch the Sky was silent, listening to the wood hiss and spit as the flames devoured it. He recalled well the vision Arrow Keeper had once described to him.

  The elder had spent three grueling days in the Black Hills, standing in cold lake water up to his neck while he stared into the sun. On the third day the vision came.

  It was a powerful dream, much of its meaning revealed in symbols, yet much of it also painfully clear. The vision had shown, in awful detail, the suffering that was in store for the Cheyenne people at the hands of paleface intruders. Soon, during cold moons yet to come, the Cheyenne would be forced to flee north to the Land of the Grandmother, which the whites called Canada.

  The wind would howl like mating wolves, the temperature would fall so low the trees would split open with sounds like gunshots. There would be no wood for fires. The only way to save some of the infants would be to slaughter ponies and remove some of the warm guts, stuffing the little ones inside to keep them from freezing. The elders would freeze with the Death Song still on their lips.

  But the vision also prophesized the rise of the long-lost son of the great chief Running Antelope—a son who had been reported killed along with his father and mother many winters ago. This young warrior would gather his people from all their far-flung hiding places and lead them in one last, great victory for the Cheyennes.

  “I believe this vision was a true vision,” said Arrow Keeper. “Not strong medicine placed over my eyes by my enemies. I believe you are Running Antelope’s son—the arrowhead mark proves this.

  “But it is not enough that I have seen this vision. Just as one man cannot eat or drink or hold a girl in his blanket for another, he cannot inspire another with his private visions. You must experience the vision in all of its force at Medicine Lake. Only then can you resolve this terrible battle in your heart. Only then will you accept who you are and what must be done.”

  Touch the Sky thought about all of this for a long while. Arrow Keeper was right about the terrible battle in his heart. But though he trusted and respected the old warrior greatly, Touch the Sky could not believe that he was the young war leader of Arrow Keeper’s vision. Surely it was Black Elk.

  Touch the Sky finally nodded. “When must I leave?”

  “Immediately.
Before the sun begins her next journey across the sky. You must purify yourself in the sweat lodge before you leave and again when you arrive. I will announce at the Council that I have sent you on this mission to seek spiritual guidance for the tribe. Many will not be happy, but I have ordered the sentries to let you ride out.”

  “But Father, what if I fail in seeking this medicine dream?”

  Arrow Keeper stared long into the fire. When he finally answered, his voice was surprisingly sad and gentle.

  “Before you entered the whiskey traders’ camp, did you not experience a powerful vision? What man has done, man can do. But I will not coat the truth with honey. You will either experience this medicine vision, young Cheyenne warrior, or I fear you will be killed in the attempt.”

  ~*~

  Darkness settled like a heavy quilt over the Powder River village. The night sentries were posted, ready to raise the wolf howl if danger approached. Fires blazed throughout camp, and the young braves began gathering to gamble and bet on the pony races.

  Touch the Sky heard the noise recede behind him as he descended the long grassy slope to the bank of the river. He veered toward the dark mass of an isolated hut built right next to the flowing water. It was made of buffalo hides stretched tight over a willow-branch frame.

  Touch the Sky stooped, ducked inside, and started a fire to heat a circle of rocks. When they glowed hot, he stepped back outside and quickly stripped. Then he filled a wooden bowl with cold river water and poured it on the rocks.

  The hot steam was difficult to breathe, at first. But soon, as rivulets of sweat began to pour from him, he felt his muscles relaxing. The confused stampede of his thoughts settled down to focus on one goal: the vision quest Arrow Keeper was sending him on. The old shaman insisted this vision would convince him of his place and purpose. Therefore, Touch the Sky desired it more than anything else.

  Still, Arrow Keepers words lingered in his memory like an echo: You will either experience the medicine vision or be killed in the attempt.

  He finally emerged, rested and glistening with sweat in the moonlight, and rubbed his body down thoroughly with clumps of sage. Now it was time to make his preparations for the journey to Medicine Lake.

  First he walked down river to the huge corral marked off by buffalo-hair ropes. He spotted his spirited dun grazing in the moonlight. But Touch the Sky knew she needed to rest and graze, to heal her scarred hocks and recover from the hard service she had given him lately.

  Instead, he slipped his hackamore onto a spotted gray with a beautiful white mane. She was his trophy after counting first coup on a Crow warrior during a practice raid when Black Elk was training him. The pony was well trained, yet like all Cheyenne-trained horses had not been spirit-broken nor water-starved and beaten, as whites did to their horses. He led the gray back to his tipi and tethered her with a long strip of rawhide.

  He slipped inside and gathered his few possessions. Black Elk had taken his rifle, leaving him with his knife, his stone-headed throwing-ax, his bow, and a fox skin quiver full of fire-hardened arrows.

  He gathered extra moccasins, and stuffed his legging sash with pemmican and dried plums and jerked buffalo meat.

  He skirted the activity in the middle of camp, sticking close to the river as he rode out. Not once did he look back. But his heart felt like a cold fist of stone in his chest, and he had never felt more alone in his life.

  Thus distracted, his mind set fully on his purpose, he rounded a dense river thicket.

  A lone figure glided out of the thick growth and into the pale-as-ice moonlight, startling him and making the gray shy in fright.

  In a moment his knife was in his hand. He was about to slide from his pony and meet the attacker when he realized his “enemy” was Honey Eater!

  Ever since Touch the Sky’s return from the fight in Bighorn Falls, Honey Eater had been distraught with worry and remorse. In her heart she had never stopped loving him, and she had secretly been watching him since his return.

  She knew he did not understand—in order to marry Black Elk, she had convinced herself that Touch the Sky had deserted her and the tribe. River of Winds’ report had confirmed this, including the information that Touch the Sky was making love talk to a paleface girl with hair like spun-gold sunlight.

  Only then had she finally married the importunate Black Elk. And now Touch the Sky was back, and Honey Eater knew she could love only him. Seeing him make preparations to leave, and at great risk of discovery, she had slipped off to meet him as he left.

  Touch the Sky, however, could know none of this. His first thought, when he spotted Honey Eater, was that she had taken her nightly walk to gather fresh white columbine for her hair. He assumed the meeting was accidental, and his foremost desire was to get away—get away quickly before his own love and sense of betrayal forced him to break down in front of her.

  “Touch the Sky!” she cried out behind him as he dug his knees into his pony and sprinted off into the blue-black darkness. But a moment later he was gone, disappearing like a wraith.

  Honey Eater did not realize, as she stood weeping beside the bubbling river, that her brief meeting had been witnessed.

  Wolf Who Hunts Smiling and Swift Canoe too had been watching Touch the Sky, aware that he was departing camp with Arrow Keeper’s permission. But they rounded the thicket only in time to see their enemy bolt away, as if suddenly discovered. They were not soon enough to see that his meeting with Black Elk’s bride was accidental.

  “Brother,” whispered Swift Canoe, who was crouched behind a hawthorn bush, “do you credit what your eyes behold? Your cousin’s wife meeting secretly with Woman Face!”

  Wolf Who Hunts Smiling’s face, in the silvery moonlight, was furtive and calculating. “I have eyes to see, brother. And look now how she calls after him! She has sworn the squaw-taking vows with Black Elk, but now turns her stallion into a gelding!”

  “Black Elk will beat her and cut off her nose when he learns of this,” said Swift Canoe. “He may sing the Throw-away Song or even take her out on the plains.”

  Wolf Who Hunts Smiling nodded, though this last was rare and very extreme. The Throw-away Song was a public divorce. But taking a woman out on the plains was the worst punishment possible for an unfaithful Cheyenne woman: It meant that any warrior in the tribe who wanted to was free to lie with her. Afterward, polluted, she would be left to die alone and in shame.

  “Come,” said Wolf Who Hunts Smiling. “We must report this thing to my cousin. Black Elk’s pride will do more than punish Honey Eater—he will never allow Touch the Sky to live after this!”

  Chapter Three

  Wolf Who Hunts Smiling and Swift Canoe were unable to report their news to Black Elk immediately.

  On the previous day the hunters had run into exceptional luck near Sweet Medicine Creek, bringing down three full-grown elks and a fat mule deer. So much meat to butcher and pack in required help from camp. And friendly Sioux scouts had recently reported that Pawnee patrols had invaded Cheyenne country—meaning an armed war party would have to accompany the hunters back with their valuable haul.

  Black Elk had led the war party. They had not returned until their uncle, the moon, had journeyed well across the sky. Wolf Who Hunts Smiling and Swift Canoe lingered about impatiently the next morning, until Honey Eater finally emerged from Black Elk’s tipi and started the cooking fire.

  Soon after, Black Elk emerged and ate his morning meal. Afterward, he moved to the shade behind his tipi and sat to file arrow-points, which he had fastened onto a cottonwood stick to hold them. The two young warriors finally approached him.

  “Cousin!” said Wolf Who Hunts Smiling.

  Black Elk looked up. He was still tired, and his face still puffy and lopsided from sleep. Even so, the ear sewn back onto his skull with buckskin thread gave him a particularly fierce aspect.

  “I would speak with you,” said Wolf Who Hunts Smiling.

  “You have a tongue,” said Black Elk impatiently.
“Use it.”

  Knowing a storm was about to break, Wolf Who Hunts Smiling glanced toward the tipi and lowered his voice. Then he announced bluntly, “Honey Eater has been meeting with Touch the Sky. He holds her in his blanket. We saw them last night.”

  Black Elk had expected nothing like this. For a moment his face was blank, the words too impossible to believe. Then, abruptly, hot blood rushed to his face.

  “You speak in a wolf bark! Everyone knows you hate Touch the Sky. I care nothing for the trouble between you and your enemy, nor what lies you speak of each other. But now you claim that my bride has sullied the Medicine Arrows!

  “Cousin! A moment before, I told you that you have a tongue. Now, I swear by Maiyun, I will cut it from your head!”

  “I speak the straight word! Swift Canoe saw them too.”

  Swift Canoe bravely met Black Elk’s fierce dark eyes and nodded.

  “Both of you hate him!” said Black Elk. But desperation had crept into his tone. Adultery was a serious charge, as serious—and almost as rare among the Cheyenne—as the murder of a fellow Cheyenne. No one would make such a charge lightly.

  Abruptly, Black Elk threw down the arrow-points and stood up, hurrying into his tipi. The two youths expected a storm from within as Black Elk confronted his squaw. But instead he emerged a moment later, holding a curled piece of red willow bark.

  “Swear this thing you have told me,” he challenged them, thrusting forward the piece of bark. “Swear it on the Sacred Arrows!”

  They glanced down and saw a red-clay drawing of the four Medicine Arrows, two pointing vertically, the other pair crossing them horizontally. No Cheyenne would lie while swearing on the Arrows, even on a symbolic drawing of them. Without hesitating, both bucks placed their hands on the bark and swore their oath.

  Finally Black Elk believed them.

  The hot, jealous rage which consumed him almost caused him to rush inside and kill Honey Eater on the spot. But following hard upon his rage came another emotion: shame. How could he, a proud warrior whose bonnet was full of coup feathers, admit to the tribe that his squaw was secretly meeting the outcast spy?