Conquering Horse (35 page)

Dancing Sun screamed. A whipping he had never had before. He lowered his head and bolted straight ahead.

Slops of mud and drifts of gray-green hail still lay everywhere on the hogback. It made heavy going. Yet Dancing Sun sped over the ground as if it were hard and dry. He ran as sure-footed as a bighorn. He paced so smoothly, so swiftly, No Name had a vision of himself riding a white bird flying low along the ground in a gray-green dream. It was the same as having a nightmare while wide awake.

The smoothness of the flight enraged No Name still more. He whipped the stallion again.

Dancing Sun shivered, shuddered, let go a deep rasping roar, broke into a gallop.

“He-han!” No Name cried. “I have won! I have broken you. You have galloped at last. You are now as all other mortal horses. Run, run, run! Ah, that my father could see this great thing! I feel like a man. I can feel the power of it with me all the time.”

They leaped about on the hogback. They went in circles. The stallion was a great white crane trying to get rid of a weasel on its back.

Between jumps, catching sight of the land below the three bluffs, No Name was startled to see that the whole valley had filled with a racing sheet of yellow water. Uprooted trees, ripped up bushes, dead bodies of half-burned deer, scuds of loose leaves and sticks, floated swiftly east.

“Ei-ye! another Great Smoky Water has entered the valley.”

Then he recalled something. When just thirteen, he had once helped his father tame a balky pinto. They had driven it into the River of The Double Bend at flood time. In deep water the pinto was suddenly helpless. The pinto hated getting its ears wet, had to swim for its life, had no time for fancy curvetting. By the time the pinto reached shore, it was docile. No Name remembered the time very well. What great sport it had been to sit on
the pinto’s back in the racing water. He had thrilled to the warm feeling of the horse’s body between his legs, bunching and humping its big muscles under him, desperate, vigorous, yet always easy to control.

No Name jerked on the bridle rope, pulling the white stallion around. Then, by slapping him over the eyes, first one side, then the other, smartingly, he headed him for the trail.

In his frenzy the wild one did not seem to mind. He galloped in long mud-slopping strides straight for the river. Pellmell they went over the edge of the bluff and down the ravine past the green cedar, and then, with a spring, jumped into the roaring flood. They went completely under. After a moment they popped up, spilling water. And still the stallion wanted to gallop. He humped along in the water like a stumbler in a sticky dream, up and under, down and up. Like the balky pinto, the white stallion also hated getting his ears wet. All the while he humped and galloped in the flood, he somehow managed to keep them above water.

The mad bobbing, the driving current, gradually made No Name lose his grip. Feeling himself sliding off, he decided to take to the water. To keep from getting kicked by Dancing Sun’s stroking hooves, No Name grabbed hold of the horse’s tail and swam along behind. Dancing Sun took the full shove of the current while No Name swam in gentled waters.

Yet still Dancing Sun wanted to gallop in the water. He could not break out of it.

“Helper!” No Name cried, gulping in the moiling waters, “what must I do? He is as one gone crazy. They of the underworld are stirring his brains with a stick.”

Dancing Sun seemed to have heard. He let out a great sigh; sank; came up sputtering. Then, calmer, he began to swim in a horse’s usual manner.

No Name let go a great sigh, too. Taking a firm hold of the horse’s tail, he began to steer him through the sliding sudsing water. They turned in a slow circle and headed for shore.

They drifted a long way down river before the stallion touched solid ground. It was at a place where the prairies sloped gently into the valley. As they emerged, No Name quickly slipped up on Dancing Sun’s back again. Both dripped muddy water. Froth hung from the corners of their mouths. The stallion’s dazzling white coat was now a soppy placked-down gray, almost the white- gray look of death; the red flame in his mane and tail was dowsed.

They went slowly up the greasy rise. Standing water had by now mostly run off the plateau. Only irregular drifts of hail still lay over the ground.

No Name guided Dancing Sun toward the bluffs. The horse went meekly, seemingly subdued at last.

When they reached the middle bluff again, where the footing was fairly firm, Dancing Sun groaned and suddenly lay down. No Name had just time to jump to one side to keep from being crushed.

Great head lying stretched out in the mud, worn out, covered with blood-tinged sweat, sobbing convulsively, the stallion lay as if about to die. Drops of blood gathering in the corners of his delicate bluish eyes ran down his long white face. A trickle of blood also ran out of his pink nostrils and stained the hail- studded sod.

No Name’s heart melted within him. He let go of the bridle rein and knelt beside him. He caressed him, shushed him tenderly. He ran his hands gently over his ears and nose. He marveled to see the breadth of the great white forehead, that part where the horse knows all, marveled to see the deep arch of the neck, that part which shows the horse to be of noble birth.

He massaged Dancing Sun’s neck and shoulders and back, working slowly. He grunted to him in gruff friendly tones. “Hroh. Hroh. Hroh.” He stroked the horse’s flanks, his legs. There was not one part of the horse’s body he did not touch. He worked into the horse his man smell, his touch, his spirit.

He took the stallion’s head in his arms and exchanged breaths
with each nostril. He took some of the blood dripping from his own nose and mingled it with the blood in the stallion’s nose. He also took some of the stallion’s blood and mingled it with the blood in his own nose.

“Horse, now you have my breath and blood and I have yours. We belong to each other. You are now my brother and I am your brother. We are brothers forever. We have lived through a great thing. We will return known to all as great ones. Let us have peace between us.”

Dancing Sun suddenly snorted, shooting a spray of blood and froth all over No Name. His eyes blazed red hate. With a last supreme effort, his head came off the ground, then his forefeet.

“Ho, what is this? What does my brother wish now?”

Quickly, just as the horse got up on all fours, No Name leaped aboard again.

Dancing Sun shuddered. Then a mad spirit seized him, and sobbing he ran in a pacing gait west down off the slope of the bluffs. Straight across a meadow he flew, then up to the top of the cliff. No Name hung on, grimly.

A dozen leaps and they passed where the cottonwood lay fallen across the ravine. Looking over the horse’s scarlet mane, No Name saw the valley ahead and below approaching with sudden swiftness. No Name’s eyes bugged out in horror. He barely had time to realize that the flash flood had subsided some, that should the horse leap off the cliff there would not be enough water to break their long fall. Instead they would splatter onto the hard rock where the spring flowed past Leaf’s cave. With each rolling throw of his hooves, Dancing Sun gathered speed. No Name reached ahead and slapped the horse across the eyes, on the right side, again and again, trying to head him off to the left. Dancing Sun ignored the slapping. Obsessed, he drove on.

Seeing it hopeless, that in the next couple of jumps they would both sail over the precipice, No Name let go of the
scarlet mane and, sliding, bouncing, fell to the ground. He just had time to look up to see Dancing Sun take a final jump and then go soaring off, noble head up, neck arched, long scarlet mane snapping, lifted tail fluttering. Then, descending like a statue, Dancing Sun passed from view. A moment later there was a shrill scream, triumphant, derisive, and then came the crash of bulk and bones on rock.

No Name hurried down. He arrived in time to see the great mystery slowly die out of the white one’s soft delicate bluish eyes.

He looked down at the broken white king, and then, impulsively, knelt beside him and threw his arms around his neck. “I love you, my brother,” he cried. “Why must you leave me? You are scarred on my heart forever. I shall never forget you.”

He stood up and sang the stallion’s death song. His voice, lamenting, echoed clearly, word for word, off the cliff. “My brother, you are gone. Go then. Depart. Tell them of the other world that I loved you. You were my god. But now you are dead. Why did you die? You have broken my dream. You have destroyed my vision. You have confounded my helper. Now I am nothing. I have said.”

He wept.

After he had wept a sufficient time, he arose and took his knife and cut off part of the scarlet mane between the ears as the white mare of his vision had commanded him to do. As he cut, he noted that under the coat of white hair a strip of black skin ran down the stallion’s back. It reached all the way to his tail.

“Ae, the sign of the First One. Now I see. Now I know. It tells why he was the father of so many spotted ones, perhaps even of brave Black One.”

Next he slit open the belly of the stallion and took away the
heart. It was still filled with blood and he drank therefrom. Then he cut a few slices off the heart and ate them.

“This I do to bring our spirits together. Now I can die a brave one.”

Again he looked down at the broken white one. Slowly a glittering white-gray look of death stole up the horse’s muzzle. Watching it, a feeling of revulsion passed over No Name. He shuddered.

“Horse, I give you to Wakantanka. I shall let you lie upon the rocks. I do this that the elements may take you back: the spirits your white coat, the air your lungs, the earth your blood, the rocks your bones, the worms your flesh. It was from all these that you were formed and it is to all these that you must return. Life is a circle. The power of the world works always in circles. All things try to be round. Life is all one. It begins in one place, it flows for a time, it returns to one place. The earth is all that lasts. I have said. Yelo.”

PART FOUR

THE FATHERS

1

He stood up, listening in the evening air.

A new voice spoke to him. It seemed to come from the piece of scarlet mane he held in his hand. The voice spoke in the manner of his father Redbird, quietly, with a sweet gentle air. “Where is your wife Leaf?”

“I have lost the white horse that was promised me. My heart is on the ground.”

“Find your wife Leaf and it will be given you.”

“The white mare of my vision said I was to catch the great stallion. Yet he is dead.”

“Obey the voice.”

“The white mare of the silver tail has tricked me. Perhaps she means to trick me again in the second part of the vision. Perhaps my father need not die at last.”

“Live inward. Grow inward. Pass into that place where there is nothing but joy which makes life good. Do this and it will be given you.”

“I love my father dearly and do not wish to kill him. What shall I do?”

“Obey the voice. Where is your wife Leaf?”

“It is fated. I cannot weep. I must do that which is asked of me. Yelo.”

He made a circlet of the piece of scarlet mane and thrust it under the belt of his clout. Then, rolling up his war bridle, he crossed the sticky ground and went in under the fallen cottonwood and entered their cave.

The cave was empty. He stood stunned for a time.

At last his eyes moved and he began to see. The dirt floor underfoot was slimy with mud. The fire was out. The store of dried meat was gone. Only the new clothes which Leaf had made were left, hanging from a peg driven high into the wall.

“The flood has driven her out.”

He looked for footprints in the entrance. There were none. The waters had washed them away.

He stepped outside. “Surely she would not have gone down into the flood. She would have gone in the other direction.” He got down on hands and knees and crawled further under the cottonwood and worked his way up the ravine. In a few moments he climbed above the high-water mark. Searching, eyes glittering, he found her footprints. He followed them to where they led to a sheer wall. Glancing up, he saw where she had scrabbled to the top. Bushes hung down, half-torn out by the roots. A swallow hole had been ruptured open by a handhold. A snake hole had been widened raw by a toe.

He hurried back down the ravine, and going around, climbed to the top of the cliff. He found the place where she had gained the precipice. It was almost the same place from where the stallion had taken his final leap. Rain had nearly obscured her moccasin prints in the wet ashy soil. “Ah, the flood forced her out before the storm was over.”

He followed the footprints down through the meadow and
up over the tops of the three bluffs. They ended in a cut where the fire had missed some green grass.

He was about to part the leaves of a gooseberry bush, when he heard the cry of a baby. It was a cry strong with protest.

“It is a man child,” he whispered. “Already he knows there is much to overcome.”

He peered through the three-eared leaves.

Leaf was handling a pink infant in a loving manner, washing it with the palm of one hand while holding it with the other. The baby had fat arms and legs, and it wriggled and kicked rhythmically as it cried. Its black hair lay slicked back, and where she had not yet washed its body the skin had a glazed shine. Its navel cord had been neatly tied back with a buckskin thong. Plainly to be seen too was the spot of the Ancient Ones, a purple darkening in the skin at the base of the spine which always denoted the true Yankton. Beside Leaf on the grass lay the afterbirth, a puddle of silken flesh. The baby had just been born.

With delicate regard for her privacy, he withdrew a few paces. Then, to let her know someone had come, he coughed lightly.

The crying of the baby was instantly shut off.

Afraid that she might harm the baby, he quickly cried out, “It is your husband. I am coming.”

The moment she removed her hand from the baby’s mouth it began to bellow again. “Wait, my husband.”

Over the baby’s howling he heard rustling behind the gooseberry bush, then heavy breathing.

“I am ready, my husband. Come see your son. Our firstborn has arrived.”

He stepped into the enclosure. The afterbirth had vanished, buried in the earth. The infant was covered with a robe and lay in her arms. The moment No Name loomed over it, a shadow, the infant fell silent. It stared up blinking, unseeing, its bluish-black eyes slowly sliding off to one side. Leaf looked down at it, then smiled a wide white smile up at No Name.
The skin over her high cheekbones shone a healthy rose-brown. Her eyes were milky with mother love.

He examined the infant point for point. “The skin of the child is like the inside of a lip. Pink.”

“The skin will darken in a few days in the proper manner. It is the way of all fresh-born.”

“Its hair also has some red in it.”

“Have you forgotten, my husband, that we are related to the buffalo? They also are born red into the world and then turn brown after a certain time.”

“His nose seems fallen.”

She glanced down at the nubbin nose with its two small holes. Smiling, she gave it a tug. “All Yankton mothers know that a child’s nose must be given a pull every morning until it has passed four winters. By then it will begin to rise.”

“Its eyes have a strange color.”

She pretended to be dismayed at his remarks. “Does he not please you, my husband?”

“Have you presented him to the great directions?”

“Even unto the earth and the sky.”

“Remove the robe. I wish to see if he is perfectly formed.”

She slipped the robe aside, shyly. The baby lay a moment with its fat arms and fat legs outspread. Its tiny phallus stood up like the opening curl of a wild turnip. She saw the risen flesh and after a moment modestly covered it. “Is he not a whole child?”

“He will make a fine son.” No Name toyed with his rolled up war bridle. “I am glad he has come. You are well?”

“When I finish clothing the child I shall be ready to leave for our home beside Falling Water.” She gave him a most winning look, her face flushed with love and trust. “Does he not please you, my husband?”

He reached down and touched the child’s plump belly with a forefinger. “When we return to our home I will bring a horse
to my uncle Moon Dreamer and ask him to give our firstborn his name.”

Her face filled with joy. “I am glad, my husband. Thank you, thank you.”

Then shyly, quietly, she began to dress the baby. She laid him in a soft calfskin clout, hair against the skin, and poured fresh sand under his feet to catch the excess urine. Next she wrapped the fur robe tightly around him, placed him on a cradle board, and, pulling the halves of the quilled cover snugly together, laced up the thongs. When she finished, all that could be seen of him were his luminous liquid-blue eyes and a shiny ruddy face. The baby remained quiet. He seemed to like the touch of soft fur on his skin.

No Name watched in pride. There was nothing his mother Star could have found to criticize. Leaf had learned her lessons well from Full Kettle.

Her eyes were on him. “Is the white horse ready to ride?”

His face clouded over. “I have a sad thing to tell.” He dropped his rolled up war bridle to the ground to show he had no further use for it. “The white one did not want to live with his red brother. His spirit soul would not let him wear the Yankton war bridle.” No Name told her all that had happened. “Thus we have no horses. We will have to go on foot. It will be a long and weary journey. Will you be strong enough to carry both the papoose and the parfleches?”

“Do not worry, my husband. I am not one to complain.”

“It is not manly for a husband to bear burdens. A man must lead the way with his weapons and be ready to defend his family at all times.”

She laughed merrily at him. “How strangely you talk, my husband. Even after I have given our baby suck, neither he nor I will be any heavier than when I climbed the cliff to come here. Even with all the parfleches on my back.” She stood up and bound a wide leather belt tightly around her middle. “I am ready.”

“On foot we shall be at the mercy of those who have horses.”

“My husband, look behind you. Is that not our sorrel feeding on tree leaves?”

He turned slowly.

Looking down at them from the rim of the cut stood One Who Follows. A spray of hackberry leaves was in his mouth, while the cut lariat, still tied to his pad saddle, hung to the ground. The sorrel was so sharply outlined against the clear blue evening sky that No Name could see big humps over his back and shoulders where hailstones had struck him. The sorrel nickered at them. The nicker had in it quiet mild protest at being neglected so long.

No Name laughed, showing glittering white teeth. “Well, well, One Who Follows. I see your name still fits you. It is good. My wife and I were speaking of a horse we might use.” No Name whistled low, coaxingly. “Come.”

Lowering his head, pebbles rattling at his heels, the sorrel slid down the side of the cut and walked obediently toward him.

No Name removed the sorrel’s pad saddle and scratched his hide. He also stroked him under the flowing yellow mane. With tender fingers he soothed the lumps over his back. No Name said over his shoulder, “Wife, never have I had a more faithful friend in trouble or battle. Neither fire nor flood could tear him from me. He is a true Yankton.”

Leaf smiled a slow side smile. “Perhaps it is as my father Owl Above has said. A castrated horse is no longer loved by either the female or the male fourlegged and thus seeks the companionship of the twolegged.”

No Name sobered. He petted the sorrel some more. “Horse, when we arrive at my father’s lodge I will tell him about you. He will have an extra eagle feather to put in your mane.”

A low pathetic nicker sounded behind them.

No Name snapped around. So did Leaf. There above them, on the rim of the cut, exactly where the sorrel had appeared a moment before, stood Black Stripe, Leaf’s dun mare. Black
Stripe stood with her head down, ears flopped forward, nose turned slightly to one side, as if trying to understand what was going on between the sorrel and the man. She was gaunt from the long ordeal of running.

The sorrel lifted his head with a jerk. He whinnied, loud and joyful, then broke away from No Name and ran for the mare. The mare in turn, at last sure she had seen right, that the sorrel was her lost chum, whinnied loud in reply. She slid down the embankment on all fours. The two met with a rough butting of bluff chests. They crossed their necks in affectionate greeting, began to nip at each other in love.

Tears came into No Name’s eyes as he watched them.

But Leaf laughed. “Ha-ha! so the silly one has returned, has she? See how she nearly falls down from thirst and hunger. It it good. It is what the old fool mare deserves. A maid of good sense never elopes. I have said.”

No Name then had a different thought. “Hi-e, perhaps the mare already carries the great white one’s child. Perhaps that will be the horse the white mare told of.” He cupped his hand to his left braid and set himself to listen to his charm.

Leaf broke in on his musing. “We will have to let the mare graze a few days before we can use her. Also, let us hope she will not have a white colt with a scarlet mane when she foals. We have had enough of the wild wakan one.”

“Ha!” No Name cried. “I have forgotten.” Quickly he got out the circlet of scarlet mane that he had hidden under his belt. He held it to his ear. “I have a new helper. It is from the wakan one himself. It will tell me if she carries a colt by him.” He listened closely.

Practical Leaf, however, picked up the war bridle from the ground where No Name had dropped it and quietly went over and secured the joyful sorrel and mare. She tied both of them to a sapling hackberry. Some tufts of green grass grew at the foot of it.

No Name continued to listen closely.

A heavy groan of a female in labor came from below them in the cut. The groan was profound, dolorous, sounding as if coming out of the last extremity of flesh.

No Name looked at Leaf, black eyes opening in big wondering circles.

Leaf also stood as one transfixed.

“Woman, it was not you?” he finally asked.

“Foolish man, our child has already come.” Then she added, her willow-leaf eyes narrowing in scorn, “Unless there is to be twins.”

His eyes wicked from side to side. “Perhaps it is someone caught by those of the underworld and calling for help.”

Leaf clapped hand to mouth. “I have forgotten. Only now I remember. When our son was about to break into the world, and I lay calling for help from the moon being, I heard a sad groan behind me. I thought it was my guardian spirit who had come to help me groan. But now I know.”

“What do you know?”

“My husband, I know it now as the groan of a mare giving birth.”

“Where do you see such a mare?” he demanded, looking around.

She flashed him a mischievous smile. “Has my husband suddenly become bashful that he cannot look upon a female giving birth alone? Look in the plum bushes below.”

He gave her a fierce look; then, head proud, started for the brush below. He moved on tiptoe, soundlessly, choosing the larger stones to step on.