by Janette Oke
“That is why I have come here—to live with your people. I want to tell you all about this Book. About the God of all”—he flung one long arm in a big arc—”this.”
Running Fawn did not know whether to listen further or to dash for the safety of the camp.
“Your mother will be waiting for the water,” he said gently. “We can talk more later.”
Quickly Running Fawn knelt to swish aside small intruders on the pond surface and scoop her bucket full of water.
Without even a backward glance she ran down the path that led back to the village. The whole encounter had unsettled her—but she wasn’t sure just why. At least she now knew why the man had come to stay with them. He came to talk about the Black Book. Running Fawn had never seen a book before. She had no idea what it was all about, but she felt a strange stirring of curiosity. She wished she were brave enough to take the Book in her own hands.
In spite of their white visitor, they all quickly settled back into camp life. The young man was seen talking with this warrior or that, and often with the chief. On several occasions, Running Fawn even saw him chat with the young boys. She wondered if he was showing them the Black Book. She longed to take a peek at it herself but stayed at a distance, quickly dipping into the bush or dashing behind a tent if she saw the white man coming her way.
She now dreaded the trips to the stream and always made sure she went in the company of other young girls. She felt cheated. Like she had given up a part of her own self.
And then one night the chief announced that there would be a meeting around the open fire. The white man had something he wished to say and they all would be there to listen. Running Fawn felt both curiosity and panic. What could the white man say that would be of interest to her people—to her?
When the last chores of the day had been completed, the open fire was built in the middle of the camp. Running Fawn followed closely behind her mother, who led little Bright Star by the hand. The baby had now outgrown the cradle board and wished to toddle along with the family, but he still needed a hand, as his little feet were prone to trip over small roots or uneven ground. Moon Over Trees smiled good-naturedly and patiently helped her little son to his feet again.
They settled close to the circle, blanket shawls wrapped around their shoulders to keep away the chill of the mountain night.
When the chief was assured that all were present, he stood to his feet. He was a commanding presence in spite of the ravages of time and a nomadic life.
“We have come,” he began, “to listen to our white friend who has something important to tell us. I have listened for many nights. I have heard his words and they speak to my heart. Now I wish you to hear his words. What he says is a new sound. He calls it Truth. He speaks of a god we do not know. A god who he says made all things. The rivers, the mountains, the trees, the buffalo. What he says is strange. If it is a right way, I do not know. Listen. We will listen together and then we will decide if it is right.” He sat down and folded his blanket closely about his shriveled frame.
The white man now stood. In the light of the fire and the glow of the rising moon, his face looked pale and glistening. If she had met him along a wooded trail, Running Fawn was sure she would have run away in fright.
He lifted the Black Book that he always seemed to have in his hand and began to talk to the people. His voice was quiet but powerful as he slowly and carefully chose his words.
“Long, long ago, before the sun was in the day sky or the moon lighted the night, before man walked on earth or the deer fed in the forest, there was God. A great God. He had always been. Had never been born to the tepee. Had never grown in the cradle board. He had never had mother or father—for He is God. Without Him, nothing would be—for He is the maker of all things. He planted the forests and placed the mountains and the valleys. He started the streams and rivers flowing and formed the lakes at the foot of the hills. He put the buffalo on the plains and the bear in the woodlands. He showed the geese how to fly and the loon how to swim.
“Then He said, ‘I will make man—in my likeness’—and He did. Man, and woman, his helpmate, were the greatest of His creation. Mankind was made good. God loved His creation.
“But mankind did not stay good. They did wrong. They went against the command of God. They spoiled the good world He had made. God said, ‘Because you have disobeyed my word, you will die.’
“For many years the world got worse and worse, but God still loved His people. He still longed to have them obey Him. So He had a plan. He gave them laws to follow—laws that would honor Him. Instead of facing death for their wrongs, He let them offer an animal to die in their place. But they could not keep the laws. They kept making bad choices and doing wrong. Their hearts were selfish—wishing to have their brothers’ land and horses, cheating and killing one another. But God had another part to His plan. This part showed God’s great love. Doing wrong still meant death. But God loved His people. He did not wish for them to die. So He sent His Son—His only Son. ‘My Son will die in their place,’ said God. ‘He will pay the penalty of death for them.’
“And He did. His Son Jesus died for wicked mankind. He paid the death penalty. He wants to give His people new hearts—to love Him and to love each other. We must be sorry for our evil hearts and ask Him for a new one. This Book—the Bible—tells us how we are to live. I have come here to tell you of its message. It has been given for all people. The white, the Blackfoot, the Cree, the Stoney, the Sarcee. All people. All people were made by the one true God. All people have done wrong. But Jesus, the Son of the only true God, has died for all people of the earth. God wants them to be brothers.”
Running Fawn was sure that the white man had more words to speak, but the chief now stood shakily to his feet. The young man lowered his upraised hand that held the Black Book. Courteously he stepped back into the shadows.
“We will hear more on another night,” announced the chief, his tone giving hint of what he thought about these strange new ideas.
Running Fawn was disappointed. The story had been interesting. She had never heard a tale around the fire that had so gripped her attention. She wished they could hear it all. She wanted to know more about this great God of whom the young white man spoke.
But Chief Calls Through The Night was already wrapping his blankets closely around his frail shoulders and moving off toward his own tent where the fire would take the chill from his elderly bones.
Night after night they gathered around the campfire and heard more stories from the Black Book. Still the chief was held back, not pushing his people for a decision. Some were ready to accept the words. Others had grave doubts. “That is the white man’s god,” they argued. “We have Mother Earth and the Sun God. They have always cared for our people.”
Running Fawn was torn between a desire to accept the words as truth and a fear that they might be wrong. What if she accepted them and the Sun God became angry? She shivered at the very thought.
For days a cloud of acrid smoke hung over the sheltered valley. The villagers did not need to be told the meaning. Somewhere there was a fire.
Scouts were sent out. Each time they returned with the same report. There seemed to be no fire near enough to them to threaten the camp.
But the dark, murky cloud persisted in drifting into the camp on every wind that blew their way.
At last one brave brought back a different story. It was the plain. The whole plain had been swept by fierce monster fires. Tribes had needed to flee to the north or to the mountains. Panicked into trying to outrun the flame, the buffalo had stampeded south. It was the most widespread destruction of the prairies by fire that any of the chiefs could remember. There would be no food, no game on the burned-out grasslands. Only the fish in the streams had survived the fiery onslaught. It would be a long, bleak winter until the coming again of spring. It struck fear in every heart.
“They will return. Come spring, the buffalo will return,” comforted Chief Calls Through T
he Night.
The words of their wise chief were enough to put their minds at ease.
Spring did come again, and preparation was made to leave the winter campground and go in the search of buffalo. Dried pemmican and fresh venison or rabbit had gotten them through the long winter, but now the camp was in need of buffalo. Buffalo roasts for cooking pots, buffalo meat for the pemmican strips, buffalo skins for robes and new tent skins, buffalo bones for utensils. So they once again set off on the trail of the mighty beast.
When they reached the plains after many days of hard travel, they were met by other nomadic bands. Always the word was the same. There were no buffalo in sight. All of the mighty beasts had vacated the plains before the fire. All had crossed the border into Montana. They were now being hunted by the brothers in the south.
Through the long, hot days of summer, the small band hunted for game. There was never enough to fill the empty bellies. Women and children grew weaker and weaker. Many died, among them the chief’s sickly daughter. It was enough. The chief announced that they would follow the Blood Nation into Montana Territory where the great beasts could still be found.
It was a long, arduous journey. Running Fawn had not known that the world was so big. It stretched mile after mile, and always when one climbed a hill there was another hill beyond. She was sure they would never make it. Her mother became ill and could no longer walk. Running Fawn and her sister Little Brook had to shoulder extra bundles as room was cleared on the travois to make a place for their sick mother and little brother. The heavier loads soon had shoulders drooping with fatigue, but no complaint was voiced. Running Fawn even managed a smile and a cheerful comment for Bright Star on occasion, as he waved to her from his perch beside their mother.
Day after day they tramped on. Surely they would all be dead before they could reach their destination.
The white man stayed with them. Daily he went out with the hunting parties. His original wearing apparel had become so tattered that he had long since thrown them away and dressed in buckskins—but even they were showing the wear of the trail. He was weak from malnutrition and browned from the burning sun, but still he refused to leave the staggering band and take refuge in one of the small settlements of other white people along the trail.
Around the campfire at night, he still pulled out his Black Book and shared stories of great men and women who had lived in the first beginnings. The stories were a diversion to tired bodies and weary minds. But the people seemed to see them as only that. Stories. Amusing tales to distract them from their grim circumstance. Running Fawn wasn’t sure, but she thought they were more than mere stories to him.
But eventually even the white man’s eyes reflected the same despair as in the faces of her people. Would they be able to endure? Would they all be lost? Did his fervent prayers really do any good?
Then one day, they struggled slowly up one more hill—and there they were. A small but very welcome herd of rangy buffalo, feeding on the brown prairie grass or lying contently and chewing their cud in the heat of the afternoon sun.
A cheer would have gone up—but throats were parched and muscles were aching and no one wanted to even whisper, lest the herd vanish like a mirage before their very eyes. Silently they withdrew to the shadows of the hills and wearily set up another camp.
The kill the next day brought great relief and rejoicing. Running Fawn was among the women who followed the hunters. They sang as they skinned the shaggy beasts, their sharp knives making quick work of the task before them. She was not yet strong enough for the initial skinning, but she helped cut up the meat.
That evening the smoke from the campfires was seasoned with the warm, rich odor of roasting flesh. Fresh skins hung over poles or lay in heaped bundles. People called good-naturedly to one another. Heavy shoulders lifted and aching muscles were forgotten.
Where there were buffalo, there was plenty. Soon too-lean bodies would be fleshed out again and strength would return to weakened arms and legs. Tent skins could be replaced, so that the harsh prairie wind could be kept beyond the entrance flap. Bone needles and coarse thread could be made for stitching tents and clothing and moccasins. Yes, the buffalo meant life and health and a future to Running Fawn’s people.
Chapter Six
Loss
The Reverend Martin Forbes stretched comfortably before his own worn tent. His back ached, his arms felt weighted, but he smiled softly to himself as he remembered the feast and enjoyed the feeling of a satisfied stomach. God had answered prayer. The people had been saved from sure disaster. There was food for the body.
He bowed his head in deep gratitude to God who had provided—then added to his prayer a further petition.
“Lord, may they soon be as interested in food for their souls.”
During the summer that followed, they were forced to break camp often in order to follow the small herds, but they did not mind the travel. As long as they had buffalo, their world was secure. And so they stayed south of the border, even through the winter, the next spring, and another summer.
But many other small Indian bands had made the same arduous trek. And each one knew that beyond the hills were other hunters. The Peigans, the Bloods, and Sarcee from beyond the border had crossed to hunt, joining the tribes that already counted the Montana plains as their hunting grounds. Running Fawn heard the elders’ concerns that the buffalo were being depleted too quickly.
There were a few minor skirmishes as hunters contested the hunting rights, but no major confrontations took place. Each band knew that the herds were vanishing. That the few buffalo that remained would not last for long. It brought both anxiety and a strange generosity. Underlying the tensions of past wars and hatred for enemy tribes was a common bond of unity. They were of one skin. They were brothers. They must all live—or die—together.
So they eyed with mutual suspicion and distaste the wood-frame settlements and the scattered white dwellers who plowed under the prairie grasses and fenced the land with sharp barbed wire.
It was no wonder that the settlers’ steers disappeared from rangelands, even though beef, having less flavor than the wild meat, was not the Indians’ preference.
It was their land. Had always been their land. Theirs to hunt. Theirs to dispute. Theirs to fight over until the strong forced out the weak. It had always been so.
But now they were helpless to show their strength. Enemy guns, carried by blue-coated soldiers, outnumbered their own weapons. Striking out at the conquering would only bring deadly reprisal.
And so they moved in a daze through the heated months of summer, following the diminishing herds, pretending in their hearts that the buffalo would always be there, that the mother herd was just over the next rise of hills.
But it was not to be. By the time the autumn breezes were bending low the browned prairie grasses, the last of the buffalo had been slaughtered. The great herds were no more.
Around the campfires, impassioned discussions concluded that surely there were still buffalo to be hunted. They might be just beyond the camp, just beyond that row of hills. But hunting scouts returned from far afield bringing the disturbing news that no buffalo were to be seen.
Perhaps the animals had gone back north across the border. But eventually word came that no animals were seen across the vast Canadian plains either.
A few wise elders came to the conclusion that the Sun God, angry that the tribes had let in the white settlers to desecrate the land, had made a huge hole in the ground and had run the large herds into the bowels of the earth. Their source of food and clothing and livelihood had been totally consumed. The people were stunned. Lost. Bewildered. Had their gods forsaken them? The nightly ceremonies and dancing seemed to go unanswered. They were a people set adrift in an unknown, uncaring world.
There was nothing to do but to return home to familiar territory. Chief Calls Through The Night gave his order to break camp one crisp spring morning when the wind from the north still carried a hint of late skif
fs of snow.
It was not a wise time to be making such a long trek over open prairie, but there was no choice. Montana would not sustain them longer.
Wearily they dismantled their tents and packed their bundles for the long journey. But exactly where it might take them—and how many of their number would actually arrive at the destination—were questions no one asked aloud.
Running Fawn secretly feared for her mother. She had not really gained back her strength since the long trip south when she had become ill. Would the return trip be too much for her?
Moon Over Trees insisted on walking as the trek began. Running Fawn fell in step beside her, anxious but afraid to speak. By the end of the first day’s journey, she noticed that her mother’s usual firm step was already faltering. Day by day the wind became more bitter, the rations more scarce. Soon members of the small band were coughing, others were gasping for sufficient air, and the pace of the whole group slowed considerably.
By the end of the sixth day they buried the first body. From then on it seemed to be a somber part of each day’s march. As the numbers slowly dwindled, old folk, children, the weak, and the worn gradually disappeared from the evening campfires.
Running Fawn’s fear clamped her stomach in knots. Her mother had taken to riding the travois now. She barely had the strength to build the cooking fire at the end of the day. Fortunately, Bright Star seemed not to be suffering from the journey. For that Running Fawn was thankful. The small child would keep her mother fighting to live.
By the time they reached their old winter’s campsite in the sheltering arms of the Rockies, the band was half the size it had been when they had left it. Running Fawn, beginning her eleventh winter, was so glad to be back again. Surely now in these familiar, beloved surroundings things would return to normal. Surely now her mother, who was still clinging to life, would get completely well. There were no buffalo in their hills, but they could make do with the deer and elk and moose. The animals had always provided for their needs in the past, and they would continue to sustain the band now. There was no need to trek out to the plains each summer. There were no more buffalo to hunt. They could live in their hills—forever.
