The Owl Hunt

by Richard S. Wheeler

  “Well, they have lots of stories, Dirk. Lots of owl stories, moon stories, all sorts of stories. That’s how they explain mysteries.”

  “The boy went home to his people. They’re a family of shamans and agitators. The rest of my class took Waiting Wolf’s words very seriously. I haven’t a student left.”

  “My oh my,” said Van Horne, and he smiled.

  “I thought you should know.”

  “Thank you, Mister Skye. I think you should go fishing.”

  “These people have been waiting for a sign.”

  “Sign? Good lord, Dirk, my boy, all of the world waits for a sign.”

  “The boy said the darkened sun signified the death of his people—and the returning sun signified the triumph of his people. Over others.”

  Van Horne sighed. “It’ll pass. Superstition, my boy.”

  “Belief, Major,” he said. Major was the honorary rank of Indian agents.

  “And tomorrow it will just be another legend, the day the sun hid and then whipped the moon.”

  “Dreaming, Major. They dream. I dream.”

  “Ah, yes, your mixed blood.” He smiled cheerfully. “Which are you?”

  “The eclipse was the passage of the moon in front of the sun,” Dirk said.

  “There you go. Teach ‘em that and there’ll be no more dreaming.”

  Outside, in the quietness of a summer’s morning, Dirk wondered if the agent had fathomed anything Dirk had offered him, including the warning. The Wind River Reservation seethed with dreaming, and visions, and the glistening hope that the People would soon be free forever.

  This day there was no one to teach. But maybe he had nothing to teach the Shoshone boys. Maybe those boys should be teaching him.

  His father, Barnaby Skye, lay nearby in the Wind River Agency cemetery, his mother Mary, or Blue Dawn, beside him. Only Victoria lived on, and he was glad to have her with him. Dirk had been schooled by the Jesuits, who ignored nothing that would help him master their European world and view and faith. That was the world he brought to the Shoshone boys at the Wind River Agency. He was schooled in St. Louis until age fifteen, but after that he schooled himself, with books brought horrendous distances. And then he had tried to school the reservation boys and girls and any adult who wished to learn, too, but little had come of it. And worse, he could not see that it had done any of his young people any good.

  He stood in the sun, absorbing his aloneness. He had few friends, mostly because he didn’t fit. He was too white for the Shoshones, too Indian for the whites. His mother and father lay in their graves. His anger hung about him, and wouldn’t leave, and soured his life. He had no woman. Once he had eyes for Chief Washakie’s daughter Mona, but his sourness drove her off, and now she was married to a full-blood Lemhi, Tissidimit.

  The sun burned its peace upon the day, but that peace didn’t quiet Dirk’s heart. He hiked the half-mile to Chief Washakie’s frame house. The old chief of the Shoshones had led his people into reservation life, saying they had little choice but to accept the new world and the ways of the white man. Dirk wondered whether the chief regretted that now the reservation starved and its people lived in despair. He had seen his people sink into misery and slow death within the prison of the reservation.

  Dirk paused for a moment on the veranda of the chief’s house, enjoying the shade, and then knocked softly.

  The chief materialized, and motioned toward the porch chairs.

  “I’ve been expecting you,” he said.

  “The boys left you?”

  “They are filled with dreams, Dirk. And so are all of your students. I have heard all about Waiting Wolf.”

  “There was no one to teach today.”

  “It was the message from the sky,” Washakie said. “It was a big message. I was very frightened, and then when Sun returned, very heartened.”

  “The seers are making something of it,” Dirk said.

  “Yes, and you should take heed.”

  “But there is nothing there. No magic. No sign. The moon passed between the earth and the sun. There’s no more to it.”

  “You don’t know your mother’s people, Dirk.” Washakie eyed him gravely. “And you don’t know what is happening in hidden valleys, in moonlit fields. You don’t know how many Dreamers there are and what they are saying. You hear the voice of the agent—a good man but blind, and eager to pass through his life without boldness—but not the voices, a hundred voices, singing ancient stories, winning new hearts every night. And now this. The great sign, signifying that all the songs are heard. Heed me, young man. The Dreamers are like a flood that washes away all things.”

  “But it’s only dreams,” Dirk said.

  “Ah, the white man talks. No, Dirk, dreams are true. Believe a dream, and the rest is false or blind.” He had a way of staring, unblinking. “Do you see? Have you vision?”

  Dirk felt the old loneliness flood him. Why was he so different from others?

  The chief eyed the young man and subsided. “You are made from red clay and white clay,” he said. “It goes hard for you.”

  The chief’s gentleness had its effect on Dirk. “Grandfather,” he said. “If the People weren’t so hungry, they wouldn’t be dreaming. The Dreamers meeting in the shadows want the old life to return, want buffalo to eat, want to roam wherever they want, with no invisible lines around them, want hides for their clothing and lodges. But those things are gone.”

  “There are no fat Shoshones,” the chief said. “No buffalo. The deer and elk and bear are shot away. And when we go hunting away from our land, the Territory of Wyoming tells us we must not. The white men tell us to plow the fields and plant grains, but we are so hungry we eat the horses and mules. They white men tell us to keep a herd of their cattle, but we are so hungry we have eaten the herd. And when we have a few cows, the white herders from other places slip in and take them from us. The white men tell us to build cabins and farm the land, so our bellies will be full. But that is death for boys and men who live to hunt, whose dream is to be a great warrior, just as our men and boys have always dreamed. Now there is nothing to eat, and nothing to dream. What can a Shoshone man dream now? Will he spend his days scraping the earth with a hoe? Chopping wood for the stove? Digging potatoes? It is not a life for a Shoshone man. There is no dream in it. When the man of our people kills his horse to eat it, he dreams of hunting buffalo.”

  “So they dream of other times,” Dirk said.

  “I have chosen the way of peace,” Washakie said. “We have clasped hands with the white men, and now we live with the bluecoats beside us, keeping us from going where we will. Sometimes they protect us. Sometimes they drive away white people who want our land or our grass or our water. I do not regret that decision, mostly because we had no choice, and what was coming to the People was going to fall upon us, no matter what.”

  “And now the Dreamers dream,” Dirk added.

  “And the People are hungry. They eat turtles and fish and badgers and eggs and lizards and snakes and weasels and gophers. They eat anything that crawls.”

  Some of it was Indian Bureau policy. The rations doled out to enrolled Shoshones fed them only two days a week, and much of the meat or flour was bad. There was intent in this: force the Indians to start farming and ranching. Make them take up agriculture and become less and less dependent on white men for their survival. But the idea ran into walls and barriers, for there was no honor in stoop labor. That was for women. A man fought wars and hunted, and took care of his people, and won honor with his skills. Now the white men were turning Shoshone men into drunks and bums, and sometimes Shoshone women sold themselves to the soldiers to get enough food for their lodges.

  Both Dirk and the chief knew all that.

  “You have lost Waiting Wolf,” the chief said in a voice so quiet that Dirk strained to hear. “And his kin, too. They own the dreams. My voice is no longer heard. There was a time when I could say no and they would honor me. Now they will not hear me. They will
not hear the words of our Indian agent. Once they listened to your father and honored him. The People listen only to dreams. There is no way you or Major Van Horne or the bluecoats can stop what is coming, or keep the sacred ground beneath our feet from soaking up our tears.”

  three

  The dream came to Waiting Wolf in the middle of the darkness, when the moon had eaten the sun. He stared into the heavens, and it came to him just then, so ice-clear that he knew he had been changed for all time. Owl stared at the boy with big eyes and spread his wings across the entire heaven. Then Owl glided away. Waiting Wolf was transfixed, for in that moment he was burdened with the salvation of his people. Now he would wear that which had been given to him. Even as a bead of light burst on the other side of the dark moon, Owl glided away into the stars.

  Waiting Wolf only dimly fathomed what his mission would be, how he would do this thing, and how the People might receive him. An Owl vision? The most dreaded of all the creatures, the harbinger of evil, the omen of doom had come to a fifteen-year-old youth. Waiting Wolf knew that there would be some who would respond sharply; this could not be. But it would be. And no one of the People could ever disdain a vision.

  Now, on a night filled with misty darkness, Dreamers gathered far from the eyes of white men. No moon offered a lantern to this place, and everyone had found it almost by instinct, there being only the faintest of starlight. There were twelve present, all older men save for himself. Many had war honors from times past. Younger ones dreamed of them. All of them had become Dreamers, ritually bathing in sweet grass smoke, crying for a vision. All had received a dream. All were quietly recruiting others who were open to the dream.

  Now they bathed their bodies in the smoke of the sweet grass, which took away corruption of heart and body and made them clean. The smouldering fire lay in the bottom of a gully that emptied into the Wind River, unseen even by someone nearby.

  Waiting Wolf let the fragrant smoke drift over his flesh until he was purified, and then he climbed to the top of the bluff, a signal to the rest that he would give them his words.

  The rest collected below, attentive to the youth, and silent.

  “I dreamed my dream,” he said. “It came upon me at the moment when Moon ate the Sun and the People were crushed by darkness. Hear me now. For this is a mighty dream. And it truly came upon me. In that moment, when all seemed lost, Owl spread his wings across the entire sky, from horizon to horizon. Owl was a terrible presence, and my heart quaked in me. Owl stared at me until I felt small and then I knew all things. Owl told me to take heart; in a moment Sun would return and with Sun, a new-made People. Hear me, and believe me. Owl told me what I must do, and then glided away, even as Sun burned a bead of light on the edge of Moon.”

  Waiting Wolf stared calmly at the rapt faces below. None of the Dreamers had missed one word.

  “I am taking a new name, as was given me. My name is Owl.”

  That brought sharp gasps. No Shoshone could imagine such a thing. Owl was the harbinger of evil, dreaded more than any creature. Still, no one objected.

  “I am Owl. And Owl will spread his wings over the soldiers and they will be taken sick and fall down. Owl will float over the agency, and the agent and his staff will tumble down and go away. Owl will float over the white man’s school, and all who are in it will fall to the ground. Owl will float over the lines that imprison the People, and the lines will go away and the People can go anyplace. Owl will glide over the mountains and plains, and drive the buffalo to us, and the elk and deer to us, and the People will have meat and be well fed.”

  Some of the Dreamers were frowning, but Owl knew they would come around.

  “I have been chosen to be this one; I have dreamed it,” he said.

  His oration met with silence. How could any Shoshone be named Owl? It was a sort of sacrilege. It turned the world upside down. Yet no one among them challenged him. A dream was sacrosanct.

  The fire flared a moment. He saw warriors with long scars upon their arms and backs, the victims of lance and arrow and clubs and knives and axes and bullets.

  It was Owl’s own father, Buffalo Horn, who finally asked the only question: “Will Owl glide over Chief Washakie?”

  “The Owl will do whatever the Owl will do,” the youth replied.

  That evoked a stir. This was something unthinkable.

  He sensed anger among those who listened. But none dared protest. A dream carried its own weight, and that weight could not be questioned.

  “The time of the white man is over,” he said. “You will see with your own eyes.”

  “I am with the Owl, then,” said a voice from the darkness.

  The young man newly named Owl felt a chill but set it aside. Men twice and thrice his age listened raptly and he marveled at it. He was yet a youth. He had never counted coup or gone to war. He had barely killed anything in a hunt because there had been no game. But there he was, a prophet and Dreamer.

  “There will be more signs,” he said. “The Owl, my spirit helper, will glide through the nights, and the hearts of the white men will grow cold. The Owl will visit their hearts and make them sick. The Owl will fill their minds with regrets. The Owl will turn their faces east and they will yearn to return to the lands they came from.”

  “Who are you to say these things?” an old headman asked.

  “I had a dream.”

  “So have we. But we know nothing of this.”

  “I can only tell you what was given to me, Grandfather.”

  That one didn’t like it. Owl, as he now called himself, knew who it was. This one, old Runner, was a petty chief, a friend of Washakie, and a brother of Blue Dawn, the woman who had mated with Barnaby Skye. And therefore, a man to be wary of.

  “Young people can be hotheaded.”

  Owl contained his irritation, but nodded. He would not let an old fool bleed this moment. What good was caution when the People were hungry?

  “I will tell you what I know,” Owl said. “Watch for the buffalo. They will drift here, and feed us. Watch for the elk. They will run through the mountains. Watch for the soldiers to leave. They will load their wagons and march out. Watch for the missionaries to go away. These missionaries with their books and rules, they will go away with the soldiers. Watch for other peoples, like ours, to rise up. Watch for the Bannocks to rise up. Watch for the Paiutes to rise up. These are all signs we can all watch for, and when you see these good things, you will know that the sun is rising on our People.”

  The youth sensed a grudging respect. Could the fate of the Shoshones really rest in the hands of one so young?

  He turned to his father. “See me, Buffalo Horn. The dream you wanted has come to your son. See me, and be proud.”

  But his father stood motionless in the night, barely visible, and Owl could not tell what was passing through his father’s heart. Owl waited for an acknowledgment that didn’t come. Ah, so his father was envious. Too bad for him. He wasn’t given the dream.

  “I am Owl, and I have a dream,” he said, directing the remark at his father, and his brothers, too.

  He felt light-headed. His voice was more powerful than all other voices. More powerful than Chief Washakie, who quaked before white men and served white men and surrendered to white men. Owl’s word would soon be the only word, and the old chief would fade away. Old Washakie, traitor to the People! Owl would take back everything that the old chief had surrendered, and then erase even the memory of Washakie.

  “Now is the time to spread the word. Go to every corner of our land and tell them that Owl, born of another name, will spread his wings against the white men, and soon they will fall sick and dead, and leave the land, and all will be healed.”

  “Grandfather,” came a voice out of the night. “Grandfather, when will this be?”

  Owl savored the moment. They were calling him grandfather, a term of utmost respect. “It will be when it will be,” he replied. In truth, he didn’t know and wouldn’t say. “Soon,” he added. “
Soon.”

  The Dreamers drifted into the night, and no sign of their meeting would exist save what lay in their memories. But soon the Dreamers would be gathering throughout the Shoshone lands, cloaked in darkness. For here was the salvation, voiced by a chosen one of the People, to lead the Shoshones to the sweetness of the life they knew.

  Soon this cruel and pointless existence would pass away. The starvation would pass. Eating bugs and snakes would pass. There would be buffalo meat to fill their bellies, buffalo hides for their lodges and winter coats, elk hide for moccasins and shirts. And the liberty of all of nature would return to them. Ah, quaking hearts, take courage from the Dreamers.

  He hiked the long trail upriver with his father and brothers, pitying them because their dreams were not the smallest part of his own dream. This was a good thing, for he was the eldest of three sons, and it was right that he would be honored. He did not scorn his brothers; they were simply boys, and without gifts.

  His parents kept a traditional lodge, scorning white men’s cabins. The Shoshone way was good; nothing else was good except for guns gotten from traders. He slipped inside, along with the rest, and lay restless in the blackness, his mind seething with plans. He would take his dream to the People. Let them see Owl, let them hear Owl. Let them heed Owl.

  But first there was one thing to do.

  In the morning he bathed at the creek, paid homage to the sky and earth spirits, and set out for the Wind River Agency and the schoolhouse. It would do no good at all to talk to the Indian agent, whose ears were full of wax. But it would be a joy to tell Skye, that two-blood traitor to his mother’s people, what he had dreamed, and what his name was now.

  He walked a long while before the white agency buildings hove into view. He hated them, these structures inhabited by the invaders. The military buildings at Camp Brown he didn’t mind so much as the agency itself, where a white man ruled over the whole tribe. That was almost more than he could bear. Buffalo Horn’s family had even despised Barnaby Skye, the second agent, who struggled to keep the tribe fed. But that old man was merely the agent of the Yankee masters. And even worse was his son Dirk, who chose that side. It was a pity he had not chosen his true name, North Star, and made himself one of the People.