Ah, the Great Mystery, he sighed to himself. I always try to see it coming, but I never do.
She was sitting in the lodge when he came in.
“Stands With A Fist,” he snapped, bringing her to attention. “You are no longer a widow.”
With that, he retreated back through the lodge flap and went to find his favorite pony. He needed a long, solitary ride.
four
Dances With Wolves hadn’t been waiting long when Wind In His Hair and Stone Calf appeared outside his door. He could see them peeking inside.
“What are you doing in there?” Wind In His Hair asked.
“Kicking Bird told me to wait.”
Stone Calf smiled knowingly.
“You might have to wait awhile.” He chuckled. “Kicking Bird rode out onto the prairie a few minutes ago. It looked like he was taking his time.”
Dances With Wolves didn’t know what to do or say. He noticed a smirk on Wind In His Hair’s face.
“Can we come in?” the big warrior asked slyly.
“Yes, please . . . please, sit down.”
The two visitors took seats in front of Dances With Wolves. They were smug as schoolboys.
“I’m waiting for Kicking Bird,” he said curtly. “What do you want?”
Wind In His Hair leaned forward a little. He was still smirking.
“There is talk that you want to get married.”
Dances With Wolves’s face began to change color. In the span of a few seconds, it went from a light rosy hue to the deepest, richest red.
Both his guests laughed out loud.
“To whom?” he croaked feebly.
The warriors shared expressions of doubt.
“To Stands With A Fist,” Wind In His Hair said. “That’s what we heard. Isn’t that the one?”
“She is in mourning,” he blubbered. “She is a—”
“Not today,” Stone Calf interrupted. “Today she has been released. Kicking Bird did it.”
Dances With Wolves swallowed the frog in his throat.
“He did?”
Both men nodded, more serious now, and Dances With Wolves realized that there was a legitimate move afoot to go forward with this marriage. His marriage.
“What must I do?”
His visitors glanced around the nearly empty lodge with dour expressions. They ended their brief inspection with a pair of sad head shakes.
“You are pretty poor, my friend,” said Wind In His Hair. “I don’t know if you can get married. You must give some things up, and I don’t see much in here.”
Dances With Wolves looked around, too, his expression growing sadder by the second.
“No, I don’t have much,” he admitted.
There was a brief silence
“Can you help me?” he asked.
The two men played out the scene for all it was worth. Stone Calf’s mouth twitched noncommittally. Wind In His Hair dropped his head and stroked his brow.
After a silence that was long and agonizing for Dances With Wolves, Stone Calf sighed deeply and looked him square in the eye.
“It might be possible,” he said.
five
Wind In His Hair and Stone Calf had a good day. They joked a lot about Dances With Wolves, especially the funny expressions on his face, as they walked through the village making deals for horses.
Weddings were normally quiet occasions, but the uniqueness of the bride and groom, uniting so close to the great victory over the Pawnee, had everyone bubbling over with goodwill and anticipation.
The people were eager to participate in the novelty of taking up a collection for Dances With Wolves. In fact, the whole village wanted to be part of it.
Those with plenty of horses were happy to make a contribution. Even the poorer families wanted to give up animals they could not afford. It was hard to turn these people down, but they did.
As part of a prearranged plan, contributors from all over camp began bringing horses at twilight, and by the time the evening star had appeared, more than twenty good ponies were standing in front of Dances With Wolves’s lodge.
With Stone Calf and Wind In His Hair acting as tutors, the groom-to-be took the string of ponies to Kicking Bird’s lodge and tied them outside.
The outpouring from his fellow villagers was deeply flattering. But wanting to give something dear of his own, he unstrapped the big Navy revolver and left it outside the door.
Then he returned to his own home, sent his tutors on their way, and passed a fitful night of waiting.
At dawn, he slipped outside for a look at Kicking Bird’s lodge. Wind In His Hair had said that if the proposal had been accepted, the horses would be gone. If not, they would still be standing outside the lodge.
The horses were gone.
For the next hour, he made himself presentable. He shaved carefully, polished his boots, cleaned the breastplate, and oiled his hair.
He had just finished these preparations when he heard Kicking Bird’s voice call from outside.
“Dances With Wolves.”
Wishing he were not quite so alone, the groom bent through the doorway of his home and stepped out.
Kicking Bird was waiting there, looking extraordinarily handsome in his finery. A few paces behind him was Stands With A Fist. Behind them the whole village had assembled and was watching solemnly.
He exchanged formal greetings with the medicine man and listened attentively as Kicking Bird launched into a speech about what was expected of a Comanche husband.
Dances With Wolves could not take his eyes off the tiny figure of his bride. She stood unmoving, her head bowed slightly. She was wearing the good doeskin dress with the elk teeth on the bodice. The special moccasins were on her feet again, and around her neck was the little pipe-bone choker.
Once, as Kicking Bird spoke, she looked up, and when he saw the whole of her striking face, Dances With Wolves was reassured. He would never tire of looking at her.
It seemed that Kicking Bird would never stop talking, but at last he did.
“Have you heard all that I have said?” questioned the medicine man.
“Yes.”
“Good,” Kicking Bird mumbled. He turned to Stands With A Fist and called her forward.
She came with her head still bowed, and Kicking Bird took her hand. He passed it to Dances With Wolves and told him to take her inside.
The marriage was made as they passed through the doorway. After it was done the villagers broke up quietly and drifted back to their homes.
All afternoon, the people of Ten Bears’s camp came in little groups to lay presents on the newlyweds’ doorstep, staying only long enough to drop off the gifts. By sunset, an impressive array of offerings was piled outside the lodge.
It was like a white man’s Christmas.
For the time being, this beautiful community gesture went unnoticed by the new couple. On the day of their wedding, they saw neither people nor their offerings. On the day of their wedding, they stayed home. And the lodge flap stayed closed.
CHAPTER XXVIII
one
Two days after the wedding, a high council was held. The recent heavy rains, coming late in the season, had renewed the withering grass, and it was decided to delay the winter move in favor of the pony herd. By staying a little longer, the horses would be able to put on a few extra pounds, which might prove crucial in getting through the winter. The band would dally another two weeks in their summer camp.
No one was more pleased with this development than Dances With Wolves and Stands With A Fist. They were floating carelessly through the first days of their marriage and didn’t want that special rhythm interrupted. Leaving the bed was hard enough. Packing up and marching hundreds of miles in a long, noisy column was, at the moment, unthinkable.
They had decided to try to make her pregnant, and people passing by rarely saw the lodge flap open.
When Dances With Wolves did emerge, he was relentlessly ribbed by his peers. Wind In His Hair w
as particularly merciless in this teasing. If Dances With Wolves dropped by for a smoke, he would invariably be greeted with some salutation inquiring about the health of his manhood or with mock shock at seeing him out of bed. Wind In His Hair even tried to saddle him with the nickname One Bee, an allusion to his never-ending pollination of a single flower, but fortunately for the new husband, the name didn’t stick.
Dances With Wolves let the kidding slide off his back. Having the woman he wanted made him feel invincible, and nothing could harm him.
What there was of life outside the lodge was deeply satisfying. He went hunting every day, almost always with Wind In His Hair and Stone Calf. The three had become great pals, and it was rare to see one going out without the others.
The talks with Kicking Bird continued. They were fluent now and the subjects unlimited. Dances With Wolves’s appetite for learning far exceeded that of Kicking Bird’s, and the medicine man discoursed widely on everything from tribal history to herbal healing. He was greatly encouraged by the keen interest his pupil showed for spiritualism, and indulged that appetite gladly.
The Comanche religion was simple, based as it was on the natural environment of the animals and elements that surrounded them. The practice of the religion was complex, however. It was rife with ritual and taboo, and covering this subject alone kept the men busy.
His new life was richer than ever, and it showed in the way Dances With Wolves carried himself. Without dramatics he was losing his naïveté but not surrendering his charm. He was becoming more manly without abandoning his spark, and he was settling smoothly into his role as a cog without losing the stamp of his distinct personality.
Kicking Bird, always attuned to the soul of things, was immensely proud of his protege, and one evening, at the end of an after-dinner stroll, he placed a hand on Dances With Wolves’s shoulder and said:
“There are many trails in this life, but the one that matters most, few men are able to walk . . . even Comanche men. It is the trail of a true human being. I think you are on this trail. It is a good thing for me to see. It is good for my heart.”
Dances With Wolves memorized these words as they were said and treasured them always. But he told no one, not even Stands With A Fist. He made them part of his private medicine.
two
They were only a few days away from the big move when Kicking Bird came by one morning and said he was going to take a ride to a special place. The round trip would take all day and perhaps part of the night, but if Dances With Wolves wanted to go, he would be welcome.
They cut through the heart of the prairie, riding in a southeasterly direction for several hours. The enormity of the space they’d invaded was humbling, and neither man did much talking.
Close to midday, they turned due south, and in an hour’s time, the ponies were standing at the top of a long slope which fell away for a mile until it reached the river.
They could see the color and shape of the water far to the east and west. But in front of them, the river had disappeared.
It was screened by a mammoth forest.
Dances With Wolves blinked several times, as if trying to solve a mirage. From this distance, it was hard to judge exact heights, but he knew that the trees were high. Some of them must be sixty or seventy feet.
The grove extended downriver for the better part of a mile, the hugeness of it contrasting wildly with the flat, empty country on all sides. It was like the fanciful creation of some mysterious spirit.
“Is this place real?” he said, half joking.
Kicking Bird smiled.
“Perhaps not. It is a sacred place to us . . . even to some of our enemies. It is said that from here the game renews itself. The trees shelter every animal the Great Spirit has made. It is said they hatched here when life began and constantly return to the place of their birth. I have not been here for a long time. We will water the horses and have a look.”
As they came closer, the specter of the woods became more powerful, and on starting into the forest, Dances With Wolves felt small. He thought of the Garden of Eden.
But as the trees closed around them, both men sensed that something was wrong.
There was no sound.
“It’s quiet,” Dances With Wolves observed.
Kicking Bird didn’t reply. He was listening and watching with the single-mindedness of a cat.
The silence was suffocating as they pressed deeper into the woods, and Dances With Wolves realized with a shiver that only one thing could make this vacuum of sound. He was smelling its aroma. The taste of it was on the tip of his tongue.
Death was in the air.
Kicking Bird pulled up suddenly. The path had widened, and as Dances With Wolves looked over his mentor’s shoulder, he was staggered by the beauty of what he saw.
There was open ground ahead of them. The trees were spaced at intervals, allowing enough room between to house all the lodges and people and horses of Ten Bears’s camp. Sunlight poured onto the forest’s floor in great, warming splotches.
He could envision a fantastic utopia, peopled with a holy race leading tranquil lives in concert with all living things.
The hand of man could make nothing to rival the scope and beauty of this open-air cathedral.
The hand of man, however, could destroy it. The proof was already here.
The place had been horribly desecrated.
Trees of all sizes lay where they had been felled, some of them lying one over the other, like toothpicks scattered upon a tabletop. Most of them had not been shorn of their branches, and he could not imagine for what purpose they had been cut.
They started their ponies forward, and as they did, Dances With Wolves was aware of an eerie buzzing sound.
At first, thinking that bees or wasps were swarming, he scanned the branches overhead, trying to locate the insects’ nest.
But as they moved toward the center of the cathedral, he realized the noise was not coming from above. It was coming from below. And it was being made by the wing beats of uncounted thousands of feasting flies.
Everywhere he looked the ground held bodies, or pieces of bodies. There were small animals, badgers and skunks and squirrels. Most of these were intact. Some were missing their tails. They lay rotting where they had been shot, for no apparent reason other than target practice.
The primary objects of the genocide were deer that sprawled all around him. A few of the bodies were whole, minus only the prime cuts. Most were mutilated.
Dull, dead eyes stared up at him from the exquisite heads that had been chopped off raggedly at the neck. Some of them sat singly on the floor of the forest. Others had been tossed together haphazardly in piles as big as half a dozen.
In one spot, the severed heads had been arranged nose to nose, as if they were having a conversation. It was supposed to be humorous.
The legs were even more grotesque. They, too, had been chopped clear of the bodies they once transported. Slow to decay, they looked bright and beautiful, as if they were still in good working order.
But it was sad: the delicate, cloven hooves and the graceful, fur-coated legs . . . leading to nowhere. The limbs were stacked in little bunches, like firewood, and if he had bothered, the count would have exceeded one hundred.
The men were tired from the long ride, but neither made any move to get off his horse. They continued to ride.
A low spot in the great clearing revealed four decrepit shanties sitting side by side, four ugly sores festering on the forest floor.
The men who had cut down so many trees had apparently seen their ambition as builders run out. But even if they had applied themselves, the result would likely have been the same. The dwellings they’d managed to put up were squalid even in their conception.
By any standard, it was not a fit place to live.
Whiskey bottles, dropped as they were drained, lay in profusion around the awful huts. There was a multitude of other useless items, a broken cup, a half-repaired belt, the shat
tered stock of a rifle, all left where they were dropped.
A brace of wild turkeys, tied together at the feet but otherwise untouched, were discovered on the ground between two huts.
Behind the buildings, they found a wide pit, filled to overflowing with the putrid torsos of slaughtered deer, skinless, legless, and headless.
The buzzing of flies was so loud that Dances With Wolves had to shout to be heard.
“We wait for these men?”
Kicking Bird didn’t want to shout. He sidled his pony next to Dances With Wolves.
“They have been gone a week, maybe more. We will water the horses and go home.”
three
For the first hour of the return trip, neither man uttered a word. Kicking Bird stared ahead sorrowfully while Dances With Wolves watched the ground, shamed for the white race to which he belonged and thinking hard about the dream he’d had in the ancient canyon.
He’d told no one about it, but now he felt he had to. Now it didn’t seem so much a dream after all. It might be a vision.
When they stopped to give the horses a blow, he told Kicking Bird of the dream that was still fresh in his mind, sparing none of the details.
The medicine man listened to Dances With Wolves’s long recounting without interruption. When it was finished he stared somberly at his feet.
“All of us were dead?”
“Everyone that was present,” Dances With Wolves said, “but I didn’t see everyone. I didn’t see you.”
“Ten Bears should hear the dream,” Kicking Bird said.
They jumped back on the horses and made quick time across the prairie, arriving back in camp shortly after sunset.
four
The two men made their report on the desecration of the sacred grove, a deed that could only have been the work of a large, white hunting party. The dead animals in the forest were undoubtedly a sideline. The hunters were probably after buffalo and would be decimating them on a much bigger scale.
Dances With Wolves dww-1 Page 25
