Dances With Wolves dww-1

by Michael Blake

  Ten Bears nodded a few times as the report was made. But he asked no questions.

  Then Dances With Wolves recited his grisly dream a second time.

  The old man still said nothing, his expression inscrutable as ever. When Dances With Wolves had finished, he made no comment. Instead, he picked up his pipe and said, “Let us have a smoke on this.”

  Dances With Wolves had the notion that Ten Bears was thinking all of it through, but as they passed the pipe around, he became impatient, anxious to get something off his chest.

  At last he said, “I would speak some more.”

  The old man nodded.

  “When Kicking Bird and I first began to talk,” Dances With Wolves started, “a question was asked of me for which I had no answer. Kicking Bird would ask, ‘How many white people are coming?’ and I would say, ‘I don’t know.’ That is true. I do not know how many will come. But I can tell you this. I believe there will be a lot.

  “The white people are many, more than any of us could ever count. If they want to make war on you, they will do it with thousands of hair-mouth soldiers. The soldiers will have big war guns that can shoot into a camp like ours and destroy everything in it.

  “It makes me afraid. I’m even afraid of my dream, because I know it could come true. I cannot say what must be done. But I come from the white race and I know them. I know them now in ways I did not know them before. I’m afraid for all the Comanches.”

  Ten Bears had been nodding through the speech, but Dances With Wolves couldn’t tell how the old man was taking it.

  The headman tottered to his feet and took a few steps across the lodge, stopping next to his bed. He reached into the rigging above it, pulled down a melon-sized bundle, and retraced his steps to the fire.

  He sat down with a grunt.

  “I think you are right,” he said to Dances With Wolves. “It is hard to know what to do. I’m an old man of many winters, and even I’m unsure of what to do when it comes to the question of the white people and their hair-mouth soldiers. But let me show you something.”

  His gnarled fingers tugged at the bundle’s rawhide drawstring, and in a moment it was undone. He pushed down the sides of the sack, gradually revealing a hunk of rusted metal about the size of a man’s head.

  Kicking Bird had never seen the object before and had no idea what it could be.

  Dances With Wolves hadn’t seen it either. But he knew what it was. He had seen a drawing of something similar in a text on military history. It was the helmet of a Spanish conquistador.

  “These people were the first to come into our country. They came on horses . . . we didn’t have horses then . . . and shot at us with big thunder guns that we had never seen. They were looking for shiny metal and we were afraid of them. This was in the time of my grandfather’s grandfather.

  “Eventually, we drove these people out.”

  The old man sucked long and hard on his pipe, taking several puffs.

  “Then the Mexicans began to come. We had to make war on them and we have been successful. They fear us greatly and do not come here.

  “In my own time, white people began to come. The Texans. They have been like all the other people who find something to want in our country. They take it without asking. They get angry when they see us sitting in our own country, and when we do not do as they want, they try to kill us. They kill women and children as if they were warriors.

  “When I was a young man, I fought the Texans. We killed many of them and stole some of their women and children. One of these children is Dances With Wolves’s wife.

  “After a time, there was talk of peace. We met the Texans and made agreements with them. These agreements always get broken. As soon as the white people wanted something new from us, the words on the paper were no more. It has always been like that.

  “I got tired of this and many years ago, I brought the people of our band out here, far away from the whites. We have lived in peace here for a long time.

  “But this is the last of our country. We have no place else to go. When I think of white people coming into our country now, it is as I said. It is hard to know what to do.

  “I have always been a peaceful man, happy to be in my own country and wanting nothing from the white people. Nothing at all. But I think you are right. I think they will keep on coming.

  “When I think of that, I look at this bundle, knowing what’s inside, and I’m certain we will fight to keep our country and all that it contains. Our country is all that we have. It is all that we want.

  “We will fight to keep it.

  “But I do not think we will have to fight this winter, and after all that you have told me, I think the time to go is now.

  “Tomorrow morning, we will strike the village and go to the winter camp.”

  CHAPTER XXIX

  one

  As he fell asleep that night, Dances With Wolves realized that something had begun to gnaw at the back of his mind. When he woke the next morning, it was still there, and though he knew it had something to do with the presence of white hunters a half-day’s ride from camp and with his dream and with Ten Bears’s talk, he could not put his finger on it.

  An hour after dawn, when the camp was being dismantled, he started thinking about how relieved he was to be going. The winter camp would be even more remote a place than this. Stands With A Fist thought she was pregnant and he was looking forward to the protection a faraway camp would give his new family.

  No one would be able to reach them there. They would be anonymous. He himself would no longer exist, except in the eyes of his adopted people.

  Then it hit him, hit him hard enough to set his heart into a sudden, crazy fluttering.

  He did exist.

  And he had stupidly left the proof behind. The full record of Lieutenant John J. Dunbar was written down for everyone to see. It was lying on the bunk in the sod hut, secure between the pages of his journal.

  Since they had little to do, Stands With A Fist had gone off to help some of the other families. It would take a while to find her in the confusion of the move, and he didn’t want to lose time with explanations. Every minute of the journal’s existence was now a threat.

  He ran for the pony herd, unable to think of anything but retrieving the telltale record.

  He and Cisco were just coming into camp when he ran into Kicking Bird.

  The medicine man balked at what Dances With Wolves told him. They wanted to be under way by noon and would not be able to wait if the long round trip to the white soldier’s fort took longer than expected.

  But Dances With Wolves was adamant, and reluctantly, Kicking Bird told him to go ahead. Their trail would be easy enough to follow if he was delayed, but the medicine man urged him to make haste. He didn’t like this kind of last-minute surprise.

  two

  The little buckskin was happy to be racing across the prairie. During the last few days, the air had turned crisp, and this morning the breeze was up. Cisco loved having the wind in his face, and they breezed over the miles to the fort.

  The last familiar rise loomed ahead of them, and Dances With Wolves flattened down on his horse’s back, asking him to take the last half mile at a full run.

  They blew over the rise and shot down the slope to the old post.

  Dances With Wolves saw everything in one stupendous flash.

  Fort Sedgewick was alive with soldiers.

  They covered another hundred yards before he could pull Cisco up. The buckskin pitched and whirled madly, and Dances With Wolves was hard-pressed to calm him. He was struggling himself, trying to comprehend the unreal sight of a bustling army camp.

  A score of canvas tents had been thrown up around the old supply house and the sod hut. Two Hotchkiss cannons, mounted on caissons, were parked next to his old quarters. The tumbledown corral was jammed with horses. And the whole place was seething with men in uniform. They were walking and talking and working.

  A wagon was sitting fifty yards
in front of him, and in its bed, staring at him with startled faces, were four common soldiers.

  The outlines of their faces were not clear enough for him to see that they were boys.

  The teenage soldiers had never seen a wild Indian, but in the few weeks of training following their recruitment, they had been reminded repeatedly that soon they would be fighting a deceptive, cunning, and bloodthirsty foe. Now they were actually staring at a vision of the enemy.

  They panicked.

  Dances With Wolves saw the rise of their rifles just as Cisco reared. There was nothing he could do. The volley was poorly aimed and Dances With Wolves was thrown clear as they fired, landing on the ground unhurt.

  But one of the bullets caught Cisco square in the chest, and the slug tore through the center of his heart. He was dead before he hit the ground.

  Oblivious to the shouting soldiers rushing toward him, Dances With Wolves scrambled back to his downed horse. He grabbed at Cisco’s head and lifted his muzzle. But there was no life in it.

  Outrage took him over. It formed a sentence in his mind. Look what you’ve done. He turned to the sound of rushing feet, ready to shout out the words.

  As his face came around, the stock of a rifle slammed into it. Everything went black.

  three

  He could smell dirt. His face was pressed against an earthen floor. He could hear the sound of muffled voices, and a set of words came to him distinctly.

  “Sergeant Murphy . . . he’s coming to.”

  Dances With Wolves turned his face and grimaced in pain as his broken cheekbone made contact with the hard-packed floor.

  He touched his injured face with a finger and recoiled again as the hurt shot along the side of his head.

  He tried to open his eyes but could only manage one. The other was swollen shut. When the good eye cleared he recognized where he was. He was in the old supply house.

  Someone kicked him in the side.

  “Here, you, sit up.”

  The toe of a boot rolled him onto his back, and Dances With Wolves scooted away from the contact. The rear wall of the supply house stopped him.

  There he sat staring with his good eye, first at the face of the bearded sergeant standing over him, then at the curious faces of white soldiers clustered around the door.

  Someone behind them suddenly shouted, “Make way for Major Hatch, you men,” and the faces in the doorway fell away.

  Two officers entered the supply house, a young, clean-shaven lieutenant and a much older man wearing long, gray side whiskers and an ill-fitting uniform. The older man’s eyes were small. The gold bars on his shoulders carried the oak leaf insignia of major.

  Both officers were looking at him with expressions of repulsion.

  “What is he, Sergeant?” asked the major, his tone stiff and cautious.

  “Don’t know yet, sir.”

  “Does he speak English?”

  “Don’t know that either, sir . . . Hey, you . . . you speak English?”

  Dances With Wolves blinked his good eye.

  “Talk?” the sergeant queried again, putting his fingers to his lips. “Talk?”

  He kicked lightly at one of the captive’s black riding boots, and Dances With Wolves sat up straighter. It wasn’t a threatening move, but as he made it, he saw both officers jerk back.

  They were afraid of him.

  “You talk?” the sergeant asked once more.

  “I speak English,” Dances With Wolves said wearily. “It hurts to talk . . . One of your boys broke my cheek.”

  The soldiers were shocked to hear the words come out so perfectly, and for the moment, they faced him in dumb silence.

  Dances With Wolves looked white and he looked Indian. It had been impossible to tell which half was real. Now at least they knew he was white.

  During the silence, other soldiers had again crowded around the doorway, and Dances With Wolves spoke at them.

  “One of those stupid idiots shot my horse.”

  The major ignored this comment.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m First Lieutenant John J. Dunbar, United States Army.”

  “Why are you dressed like an Indian?”

  Even if he’d wanted to, Dances With Wolves couldn’t have begun to answer the question. But he didn’t want to.

  “This is my post,” he said. “I came out from Fort Hays in April, but there was no one here.”

  The major and the lieutenant held a brief conversation, whispering into one another’s ear.

  “You have proof of that?” questioned the lieutenant.

  “Under the bed in that other hut, there’s a folded sheet of paper with my orders on it. On top of the bed is my journal. It will tell you all you need to know.”

  It was all over for Dances With Wolves. He dropped the good side of his head into a hand. His heart was breaking. The band would leave him behind for sure. By the time he got clear of this mess, if he ever did, it would be too late to find them. Cisco was lying out there dead. He wanted to cry. But he didn’t dare. He just hung his head.

  People left the room, but he didn’t look up to see who it was. A few seconds ticked off and then he heard the sergeant whisper coarsely:

  “You turned Injin, didn’cha?”

  Dances With Wolves lifted his head. The sergeant was bending over him with a leer.

  “Didn’cha?”

  Dances With Wolves didn’t answer. He let his head fall back into his hand, refusing to look up until the major and lieutenant had appeared again.

  This time the lieutenant did the talking.

  “What is your name?”

  “Dunbar . . . D-u-n-b-a-r . . . John, J.”

  “Are these your orders?”

  He was holding up a yellowed sheet of paper. Dances With Wolves had to squint to make it out.

  “Yes.”

  “The name here is Rumbar,” the lieutenant said grimly. “The date is entered in pencil, but the rest is in ink. The signature of the issuing officer is smeared. It’s not legible. What do you have to say about that?”

  Dances With Wolves heard the suspicion in the lieutenant’s voice. It began to sink in that these people did not believe him.

  “Those are the orders I was given at Fort Hays,” he said flatly.

  The lieutenant’s face twisted. He looked dissatisfied.

  “Read the journal,” said Dances With Wolves.

  “There is no journal,” the young officer replied.

  Dances With Wolves watched him carefully, sure he was lying.

  But the lieutenant was telling the truth.

  A member of the advance party, the first to reach Fort Sedgewick, had found the journal. He was an illiterate private named Sheets and he had slipped the book into his tunic, thinking it would make good toilet paper. Sheets heard now that a certain journal was missing, one that the wild white man said was his. Maybe he ought to turn it in. He might be rewarded. But on second thought, Sheets worried that he might be reprimanded. Or worse. He’d done time in more than one guardhouse for petty theft. So the journal stayed hidden under his uniform coat.

  “We want you to tell us the meaning of your appearance,” the lieutenant continued. He sounded like an interrogator now. “If you are who you say you are, why are you out of uniform?”

  Dances With Wolves shifted against the supply house wall.

  “What is the army doing out here?”

  The major and the lieutenant whispered to one another again. And again the lieutenant spoke up.

  “We are charged with recovering stolen property, including white captives taken in hostile raiding.”

  “There has been no raiding and there are no white captives,” Dances With Wolves lied.

  “We will ascertain that for ourselves,” the lieutenant countered.

  The officers again fell to whispering, and this time the conversation went on a while before the lieutenant cleared his throat.

  “We will give you a chance to prove your loyalty to
your country. If you guide us to the hostile camps and serve as interpreter, your conduct will be reevaluated.”

  “What conduct?”

  “Your treasonable conduct?”

  Dances With Wolves smiled.

  “You think I’m a traitor?” he said.

  The lieutenant’s voice rose angrily.

  “Are you willing to cooperate or not?”

  “There is nothing for you to do out here. That’s all I have to say.”

  “Then we have no choice but to place you under arrest. You can sit here and think your situation over. If you decide to cooperate, tell Sergeant Murphy, and we will have a talk.”

  With that, the major and the lieutenant left the supply house. Sergeant Wilcox detailed two men to stand guard at the door, and Dances With Wolves was left alone.

  four

  Kicking Bird stalled for as long as he could, but by early afternoon, Ten Bears’s camp had started the long march, heading southwest across the plains.

  Stands With A Fist insisted on waiting for her husband and became hysterical when they forced her to go. Kicking Bird’s wives had to get rough with her before she finally composed herself.

  But Stands With A Fist wasn’t the only worried Comanche. Everyone was worried. A last-minute council was convened just before they pulled out, and three young men on fast ponies were sent to scout the white man’s fort for Dances With Wolves.

  five

  He’d been sitting for three hours, fighting back the pain in his battered face, when Dances With Wolves told the guard he needed to relieve himself.

  As he walked toward the bluff, sandwiched between two soldiers, he found himself repulsed by these men and their camp. He didn’t like the way they smelled. The sound of their voices seemed rough to his ears. Even the way they moved seemed crude and ungainly.

  He peed over the edge of the bluff, and the two soldiers started him back. He was thinking about escape when a wagon loaded with wood and three soldiers rumbled into camp and skidded to a stop close by.

  One of the men in the wagon bed called lightheartedly to a friend who had stayed in camp, and Dances With Wolves saw a tall soldier amble over to the wagon. The men in the bed were smiling at one another as the tall man came near.