Polish, Dust and Sparkle

by Brian S. Wheeler

  Chapter 7 – Hunting the White Buffalo

  The foundations of those tall spires moaned as the mighty buffalo herd rampaged through the city, shaking clouds of dust into the air to suffocate any reflection the glass might offer. The buffalos’ numbers multiplied, no matter how many trophies the hunters claimed for their magic dancer. The herd streamed through the city streets, congesting traffic and bringing the civilization overseen by the men in the tight suits and narrow ties to its knees. Those overseers perched atop their glass towers worried that the herd would soon erode the world’s faith that their glimmer held value.

  Doug Stewart, who had counted those polishers who jumped to their destruction before the herd’s arrival, understood that he sought to cleanse the land of the inspiration that motivated those polishers to transform into hunters, that he strove to destroy the miracle that had set ablaze so many hearts. He couldn’t guess how he was to find a white buffalo amid such a dense herd. Yet Doug couldn’t imagine a world where the glass tower his great-grandfather erected held no value, and so he knew he had to have faith that some kind of magic, or miracle, would see him to the completion of the duty those men in the tight suits and narrow ties had assigned him.

  When, and how, had his world turned so strange?

  How could he possibly wield that long, feathered spear Satinka had told him must be used for the killing of that white buffalo? Doug was not an athletic man. When younger, he had never played sports with his friends. Doug’s family had never encouraged him to exercise. Time was always better served in managing the enterprise of their family’s tower, and Doug had never come to wonder if their might be a pursuit more nobler than the cultivation of glass reflection and value. Doug’s knuckles turned white as he clutched that spear in the backseat of the luxury sedan, his heart thumping as his driver cursed behind the wheel, tugging the car to the left and to the right, slamming on the brake, pressing against the gas pedal to guide the vehicle along the edges of the herd while buffalo jarred against the bumpers and covered the windshield in dust.

  “Do you see anything white?” Doug asked as his eyes darted back and forth across the car’s cracked windows.

  The driver grunted as the windshield wipers made another vain pass through the gathering dust. Gunfire echoed over the roof, more bullets fired into the herd by other frustrated, rival hunters.

  “I can’t see much of anything for all this dirt. I don’t know how anything could be white in all of this mess. Maybe we should be looking for a buffalo that’s just a bit lighter brown than the others.”

  “She told me it would be white as snow.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  Doug choked on a laugh. “Of all of this, that’s what you find hard to believe?”

  “Point taken,” and the driver wrestled against the wheel and roared the engine to keep up with the thundering herd no more than several feet beyond the passenger-side window. “ Maybe the white buffalo is in the center of that herd.”

  Doug grimaced as he felt the wheels bump over the curb. “Any idea how I’m supposed to get closer to the heart of that mass?”

  “Oh, I’ve never been much of an idea man, Mr. Stewart. Afraid I’m only a driver.”

  Doug frowned. He recognized the satisfaction in the driver’s voice. The world believed that those men of the tight suits and narrow ties sat so high upon their towers of glass reflection because of their unrivalled minds. The driver, no doubt, took a great amount of satisfaction from knowing that Doug Stewart stammered in the backseat to think of any idea he might employ in his absurd hunt. Doug knew that the driver’s heart laughed to see the fear in his face. He doubted the driver would much care if that herd should trample him. Doug doubted his peers perched upon those glass spires would much miss him if he should be lost beneath so many stampeding hooves.

  “Pull the car over.”

  The driver’s face turned white. “You want me to do what, Mr. Stewart?”

  “I said pull over.”

  Doug’s stomach rose into his throat as he stepped out of the car and felt the way the ground rumbled beneath his feet. He must’ve looked absurd as he gripped Satinka’s spear while dressed in his tight suit and his narrow tie, with the dust already gathering upon his shoulders. He must’ve looked very odd to the hunters who roared passed him as they raced their motorcycles and pickup trucks after the herd. He must’ve looked like a fool as he stood upon that sidewalk, choking in dust and holding a primitive weapon to wield against the powerful buffalo.

  “Get out of here.” Doug shouted back at the sedan, and the driver didn’t hesitate to roar the engine and speed away from the billowing cloud of the herd.

  Doug’s eyes widened as the herd double-backed upon itself at the end of the street, like some strange wave of fur and hides, and turned to stomp back in Doug’s direction. The hunters scrambled to steer their cars and motorcycles away from the mass, and Doug gasped as he watched a pair of men topple off of their bicycle and fall beneath the herd, whose hoofs and hides gave no indication in the least of noticing the men trampled beneath so much weight and dust.

  Doug’s knees knocked, and he worried his bowels would revolt. He feared he would soon join many a lost hunter, that at the end of that day’s hunt his name would be proclaimed among the list of those lost in pursuit of the buffalo. He reached behind his back, hoping to feel the walls of a tower, against which he might press himself before closing his eyes and praying for the herd to thunder by him. But he felt nothing and realized what scant shelter was provided by that spot where he had demanded the driver stop the vehicle.

  He could hardly stand for the way the ground shook. The buffalo were nearly on him. It wouldn’t’ be long until the dust swallowed him, until he felt the first beast crash against him. Doug closed his eyes and held that spear’s point towards the oncoming beasts.

  And a moment later, Doug Stewart didn’t die.

  A strange calm settled upon his environs. The ground no longer shook. The sound of pounding hooves silenced and was replaced by the rhythm of thousands of massive beasts breathing as their heartbeats calmed. A pungent smell filled his nostrils.

  Dust didn’t sting his sight as Doug slowly opened his eyes. The herd surrounded him, staring upon him through thousands of dark orbs. He could see nothing but buffalo, for the brown and tan hides crowded him in every direction. A bubble of clean air enveloped him, but dark dust and soot obscured the sky beyond a few meters overhead, concealing any indication of the tall, glass towers that rose in the city. He heard the buffalo sniff at the air as the creatures moved slowly, languidly, about him, working to take a measure of Doug’s quality through his body’s scent. He heard no roar from a racing pickup truck or motorcycle. He failed to see any other hunter. Doug stood alone among the herd, his only protection the heavy spear Satinka had given him.

  That spear taxed the muscles in his forearms, and Doug lowered the weapon as the effort of lifting the weapon’s point cramped his fingers. The buffalo closest to Doug snorted and shuffled closer. Several of the beasts bellowed, and an impulse of fear supplied Doug with new strength to again raise that spear towards those animals’ ranks. The buffalo retreated from the spear’s point as Doug swept it around him. He took a tentative step forward, clueless of his direction, and the buffalo shifted slowly aside of the point.

  “Let’s see if you all can make some room for me,” Doug spoke directly to the silent creatures to help center his thoughts before his mind was overwhelmed. “Perhaps all of you have a white brother hiding in the middle of your sea of fur and hide.”

  Doug pushed himself ahead, ignoring how his arm trembled in fatigue as he kept the spearhead elevated before him. None of the beasts snorted to indicate aggravation. None of those animals bellowed or stomped upon the ground to show agitation. The creatures shifted casually away from that spear, their dark eyes staring intently upon the weapon’s wielder. Doug couldn’t determine how far he travelled through that herd. His heart beat quickly for the adr
enaline rushing through his body, and Doug’s thoughts couldn’t hold on to any count of passing time. An instinct in his gut occasionally whispered to Doug’s feet whenever there needed to be a change in direction, but Doug had no idea where he might’ve stood in relation to his city of glass towers. The cloud of dust and soot beyond his clean and safe bubble shrouded anything but the buffalo from his vision.

  “The herd looks to be thinning.”

  Doug pushed ahead as the spaces between the buffalo grew wider. He held his breath when several dark, brown animals shuffled clear of the spear’s tip and revealed a pale, white and clean mass of fur ahead in Doug’s direction. The overhead cloud of dust and soot vanished suddenly as Doug approached the white creature, throwing him into a clearing of untainted air that warmed Doug’s chest. He paused and scanned his surroundings, but Doug saw not a single tower rising from his world. Instead, the sky took a dark, bluish hue, took an alien cast as two dim, copper suns, surrounded by bright, daylight stars, burned far above him. Far in the distance, just above the humps of the buffalo, rose a range of purple mountains, topped with glistening ice caps of silver. A great shrill screeched from the sky, and Doug saw the shadows of giant, beating wings float upon the backs of the gathered buffalo.

  “Where am I?”

  The herd again shifted. Doug winked, and a buffalo, much larger than any of the other creatures Doug had seen in the heard, stared upon him. Its hide was white and clean, pure despite all the dirt that herd had kicked into the air since summoned from the steps of Satinka’s magical dance. The buffalo regarded Doug through a pair of massive, brown globes, and Doug thought of those eyes that sparkled upon Satinka’s face. The white buffalo didn’t blink as it stared at Doug. The buffalo didn’t snort or grunt, nor did it shift its posture. The buffalo merely stared, undisturbed by the spear Doug’s shaking arm kept elevated at the animal’s horns.

  “You’re not going to do anything? You must know why I’ve come for you.”

  Doug’s faith in that world of glass towers had never faltered. He had always believed that the tight suits and narrow ties best suited his frame. He had always assumed that a year would arrive when he took a place atop one of those rising spires, upon which the polishers toiled so that the glass would never lose its hypnotizing powers. Yet Doug strained to think of any justification for what he knew he must do. His soul ached as he returned that massive, white buffalo’s gaze. It was such an incredible creature, such a beautiful animal at the center of such an exotic world that was far beyond anything Doug had ever known within his dreams.

  Yet he knew that the white buffalo and its alien world were incompatible with his land of rising towers constructed of fragile and shining glass. Doug reminded himself that the white buffalo’s herd was responsible for the dust that marred the value of his world. He reminded himself that the white buffalo’s herd had distracted the polishers from their duty. He reminded himself of how dangerous those polishers had become since the white buffalo and its herd had tricked those workers into believing themselves to be hunters. Doug couldn’t deny that the white buffalo and its herd would too soon bring his delicate world crashing to the ground in the jingle of shattering, glass shards.

  His knuckles were white as they clutched the spear. Doug would never deny that the white buffalo was a beast more beautiful and captivating than any image ever offered by his city’s glass reflections.

  Though Doug had always been fearful of the danger, and though he had never underestimated the power of that herd that stampeded along the city and its adjacent, river shores, Doug failed to appreciate the difficulty of the duty Satinka had assigned to him until he aimed that spearhead upon the white buffalo.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Still, the white buffalo gave no indication of disturbance. It made not a sound. It didn’t move an inch.

  Doug was amazed at how easily the spear’s tip penetrated the white buffalo’s hide, surprised at how little strength the weapon demanded from his arms. Bright, red blood spewed from the creature to ruin the animal’s pure, white hide, to stain Doug’s trembling arm. Doug’s heart hated his judgment as he watched a sigh from the buffalo’s nostrils turn to vapor before the beast collapsed, all of its brown and tan brethren making no move to come to its rescue as they watched the blood drain upon the ground. He wished he could take back that spear. He wished that he might accept the terrible wound his spear inflicted upon the white animal. He wished he might trade places with the dying creature whose breathing heaved as its life emptied. The image of those glass towers no longer seemed to sparkle in Doug’s memory. All of the faith Doug’s soul had ever invested into those towers evaporated as he watched that mighty buffalo’s eyes close and saw the body turn deathly still.

  Vertigo twirled Doug’s thoughts as the stars in the dark, blue sky fell to the earth with long, trailing tales of white, silver and pearl. Dust rose from the ground and stung at the eyes before obscuring Doug’s vision and wracking his breath in fits of coughing. The herd howled and bellowed, filling Doug’s ears with the sound of their hooves striking upon the earth, sending a new round of vibration up through the soles of his feet, causing his knees to buckle and his legs to tremble. He felt the dust scrape at his face. He doubted it would not be long until that dust scraped him to a skeleton if the herd didn’t first trample him to take their vengeance for the murder he delivered to their white, pure friend.

  Doug closed his eyes and sobbed.

  A second later, he opened them to the sound of rumbling and roaring engines. A motorcyclist sped passed him, the pistol in the man’s hand recoiling as it hurled bullets into the thundering buffalo herd. A brown buffalo roared and fell at Doug’s feet. Doug ducked as the din of gunfire screamed over his shoulder. He scanned his surroundings and failed to locate the carcass of the white buffalo, and so knew he had returned to the city he loved far less than he had before.

  The herd rumbled beyond him, taking with it the roar of so many chasing vehicles and much of the dust that made Doug’s eyes water. The bodies of the buffalo lay still and broken everywhere he looked, and Doug sighed when he realized that new buffalo did not rise from the dust and the earth to replace those creatures claimed during the hunt. A car’s horn blared, and Doug turned around to see his driver pulling back towards him.

  “You must have gotten him, Mr. Stewart!” The driver grinned from a shattered and dirty driver’s side window.

  Doug slowly nodded. “I got him.”

  Doug shared no conversation with the driver during the drive back across the river to return to his tall, glass tower. Doug squinted through the dirty window to watch the buffalo fall before the hunters who killed in a last, desperate bloodlust. He wondered if those hunters would ever again accept the role played by the polishers. He wondered if he could ever again fit into a tight suit and a narrow tie. He wondered if he would ever again believe that he would see the value of his country if he only stared long enough into a reflection properly polished.

  * * * * *