Ghost Dance (18 page)

Chance carefully backed from the tiny, grass-covered rise and slipped back among the trees. Then, under cover, changing his position, he emerged from the grove, standing at the edge of the grove in full view. If any of the Indians reached for their carbines, he would have time to retreat into the trees. He wanted to see if they would fire. And he did not want to betray the position on the small rise. It was too good to reveal until he was reasonably sure of a hit.

Chance was now out of the grove about fifteen yards. The young men watched him. When he was about thirty yards out, they began to separate and move their ponies toward him, walking.

As they approached, he turned and, slowly, walked back into the trees. He had judged this matter fairly carefully, taking into consideration the time it would take to withdraw the carbines from the buckskin sheaths, the difficulties of firing from a moving platform at the distance and in the wind, and the time it would take to dismount and fire. Even so he knew they would have time for at least one shot apiece. And, as he walked away, and neared the grove, three shots rang out, cracks and whines in the air, passing through the trees, but he did not hurry. Then he was back among the trees and turned to face them, and they fired no more, though he was clearly visible–and they were moving back again, out of the range of a reliable shot. So Chance learned that they had ammunition, that they would fire only on him when he was out of the grove–probably because they did not wish him to die in the place of the scaffolds, did not want him to die in a place holy to the Sioux. And he had taught them, as Running Horse would have liked–that he did not fear them, that his medicine was so strong that he could walk slowly and alone before them, not fearing their bullets. That would give them much to think about. Also it might anger them, and that would be good. It had been a risk, but Chance hoped, not as great as it had seemed, and the advantages to be accrued were considerable.

Among the trees Chance saw that one of the young Indians, Drum, no longer carrying his carbine, had advanced several yards. There, at the edge of carbine range, he sat down cross-legged, and took out a pipe and tobacco. Chance smiled as he watched the young Indian deliberately light the pipe, and begin to smoke. The other two braves remained at least fifty yards farther back. It was Drum's answer to his own act of courage. He let the young Indian finish his pipe, and did not fire. It was doubtful that he could have struck him at that range, and it would be a loss of face to have attempted to hit him and miss.

Drum, after a time, stood up and, carrying the pipe, returned to his pony, and his two companions.

Then the four of them, the Indians and Chance, sat down to wait.

Chance knew that he did not feel like waiting too long. He was hungry.

But he would wait until after dark. That would be the best time. In spite of the moon.

Chance might have stayed for some time in the place of scaffolds, living off the offerings on the platforms, but he did not care to do this, and more importantly, Grawson and Totter would be somewhere, and they would, presumably, eventually, find him if he remained here.

He would move out at night and see what happened.

An hour went by and then another hour and Chance sat in the grove, keeping his eyes on the distant trio of Indians, waiting for dark.

He was hungry, damn hungry.

He supposed they were, too. Why not? Maybe they had the practical sense to bring something with them. But most likely not. They had expected to be finished yesterday. They would learn war, as Chance was. He should have stuffed bread in his pocket in the Turner soddy, should have eaten at any rate.

Chance noted, with begrudging approval, that the Indians had taken up a good position several hundred yards away. They were sitting on the slope of a rise that bulged up out of the rolling prairie about them like a bear's shoulder. They were out of carbine range, of course. Most importantly, they were high enough to see the cottonwood grove as an isolated feature of the landscape. They could see if he left the grove, without splitting their forces, without getting out of earshot of one another. He would be spotted by all of them, together, within half a mile of leaving the trees, no matter what direction he took.

They might be young but that sort of thing was in their bones. They were Sioux.

Next time they would know enough to bring more food.

They had tobacco at any rate.

Chance didn't.

For Chance there might not be a next time.

Chance shifted his position and sat with his back against the trunk of a cottonwood, some yards back from the edge of the trees.

Tobacco.

He wished he had the clay pipe now that Running Horse had given him, and a handful of his own weed. It made him angry to think of the young men on that bear's shoulder of ground, talking and smoking, mostly smoking.

He wished Grawson hadn't killed his horse. He'd liked the animal.

He wondered what had happened to the medicine kit tied behind the saddle, and wondered if young Buckhorn was doing all right, and if the blond schoolteacher thought of him, if she might wonder what had happened to him.

He guessed Buckhorn would be all right; that was a tough youngster.

Probably the schoolteacher would give the medicine kit to Running Horse; and he would tie it to the rafters of his cabin, with his own medicine pouch and the hawk feathers, knotted together with twine, that hung there, so Chance could get it if he ever came back.

And the schoolteacher–she–she would, presumably, think no more of him, at least after giving Running Horse the medicine kit; he had been there and he had left; he was nothing, and was gone; he had drifted in and out of her life, a human weed not too unlike those rolling tumbleweeds that blew across the prairie ending up somewhere at the wind's end; he would not see her again; perhaps she had forgotten him already; he would not forget her; he would remember; he would not forget. Never.

Chance lifted his head sharply.

Carried on the wind, from a distance, he heard a man's voice, thin and frail, singing.

In the shadow of the trees, his carbine ready, Chance saw the man, an Indian, wearing the forgotten regalia of a Plains warrior, riding slowly toward the grove.

It was not Drum, nor either of his two braves.

It was an old man, unafraid, riding directly toward him. None of the young braves in the distance had tried to stop him.

Did they want him to be killed?

The old man wore a flimsy, ceremonial breastplate of dyed porcupine quills. Besides this, he wore only a breechclout, moccasins and a single eagle feather, which stood high in his white hair. He carried a bow and three long buffalo arrows.

Chance leveled the carbine, set for extra steadiness in the crotch of a tree, directly at the center of the old man's flimsy breastplate of porcupine quills.

But he did not pull the trigger.

Rather he let the old man ride almost to the muzzle of his weapon, and then withdrew it from the crotch of the tree.

Hearing the sound, Old Bear, the father of the girl Winona, stopped and listened, and leaning forward, made out the figure of Chance, one shadow among others, but one unmistakable, one bearing a weapon.

Chance lifted his arm in the sign of peace. "Hou," he said.

Old Bear sat still on the pony's back for a time, and then he, too, lifted his arm. "Hou," he said.

"You are a white man," said Old Bear.

"Yes," said Chance.

"Why are you here?" asked Old Bear.

"My horse strayed," said Chance.

"Go from this place," said Old Bear.

"If I go from this place," said Chance, "three braves will kill me."

"I saw no braves," said Old Bear, puzzled.

"They let you ride through them to come here," said Chance.

"Are they Crows?" asked Old Bear sternly.

"No," said Chance. "They are Hunkpapa Sioux, and their leader is named Drum."

Old Bear seemed to stiffen. "He wants my daughter for his lodge," said Old Bear.

"I won't hurt you," said Chance.

"He is bad," said Old Bear. "Bad." And the old Indian made a gesture as if throwing something from him into the dirt, and disgust showed on the wrinkled face. "He wants me to die," said Old Bear. "He wants you to kill me."

"I won't hurt you," said Chance.

"Who are you?" asked Old Bear.

Chance looked to make sure that the young Indians were still where he had seen them last. "I am called Chance," he said, "and among my own people I am a doctor."

"You were at the camp of Sitting Bull," said Old Bear.

"Yes," said Chance.

"The medicine of the white man is strong," said Old Bear. "It is their strong medicine which has defeated my people, not their bullets or their soldiers."

Chance stood by the old man's pony, not knowing what to answer, not completely understanding what he had meant.

"How long have you been here?" asked Old Bear.

"Since last night," said Chance.

"Have you food?" asked Old Bear.

"No," said Chance.

"Did you take food from the graves?" asked Old Bear.

"No," said Chance.

Old Bear reached to a sack that was tied in the mane of his pony. Out of this he drew a handful of corn which he placed in Chance's hands, which Chance gobbled down, and then two grease cakes, of which Chance made similarly short work.

"I will give no offering today," said Old Bear.

"Thank you," said Chance.

Old Bear turned on the pony's back, squinting toward the hill in the distance, probably seeing little, but knowing, or sensing, where the young men would be.

"Once," said Old Bear, "the Hunkpapa would not kill a white man because it would shame them."

"Yesterday," said Chance, "I killed two of them, maybe three."

"Your medicine is strong," said Old Bear.

"I was lucky," said Chance.

"Strong medicine makes good luck," said Old Bear.

Old Bear turned again to face Chance. "It is said you are the brother of Joseph Running Horse."

"I am," said Chance.

"Then you are Hunkpapa," said Old Bear. "You are a white man but Hunkpapa. That is why you are strong. You have the medicine of two peoples."

He looked back to the jutting break in the prairie on which Drum and his braves waited.

"Yet," said Old Bear, "they would let me ride to your gun."

"It's my fight," said Chance. "Not yours."

"I was not always Old Bear," said the old man, not looking at Chance.

Chance said nothing.

The Indian turned to face Chance. "I was once War Bear," he said.

Chance was silent.

Old Bear sat astride his pony for a long time, not moving. Watching Chance.

His hands, with their thin, worn fingers, stiff and swollen at the knuckles, held the nose rope of his pony, and, lying across the pony's mane, his ash bow and three buffalo arrows. His body, Chance noted, had been smeared with grease. The white hair of his braids had been tied with leather strings, deerskin Chance guessed. In the mane of the pony, opposite where the sack of corn and grease cakes had hung, there was tied a medicine bag, formed from the skin of a beaver, still retaining the head of the animal.

"You did not kill me," said Old Bear, speaking as if noting something about the weather, or what day of the week it was.

"No," said Chance.

"When you leave," said Old Bear, "I will go with you."

Chance said nothing.

He watched the old Indian dismount. It was hard for the old man but Chance knew that he must do nothing to help, that he must not even appear to notice.

When the old man was afoot he turned to face Chance.

"Before I hunt the white buffalo," said Old Bear, "I sometimes come here to pray with the spirits of my people."

Again Chance said nothing.

Hearing of a white buffalo puzzled Chance. He had never seen one, certainly, but for that matter had seen only a handful of buffalo of any sort, thin, scraggy creatures, unsteady and afflicted by parasites, remnants of the great herds that had once covered territories, now curiosities in traveling circuses. A white buffalo, Chance supposed, would be an albino. But why should an old man hunt an albino buffalo?

But now the old man had forgotten about Chance and was lost among the cottonwoods of the place of scaffolds. Chance could hear him singing his prayers to the Mystery. Once Chance saw him with his hands against the trunk of a tree in whose branches there w

At last the old man returned to his pony.

"We will now leave," said Old Bear.

Chance did not help the old man mount.

He untied his own horse, slipped the carbine into the saddle boot, loosened the Colt in its holster.

At the edge of the grove, both mounted, Old Bear turned to Chance.

"Once," he said, "I was War Bear." His dim eyes seemed to blaze fiercely for a moment. "Do you believe that?" he asked.

"Yes," said Chance, speaking in Sioux, "your tongue is straight."

Suddenly the old man smiled, and then laughed, throwing back his head.

He leaned over his pony's neck, speaking in Sioux. "Once no young man of the Hunkpapa would do what Drum has done. They would not let me ride under the guns of an enemy. Do you understand what I am saying?"

"Yes," said Chance, also speaking in Sioux. "I hear the words of a father of the Hunkpapa."

Old Bear laughed again and he lifted his bow happily. "Come!" he shouted in Sioux, "Let us ride together!"

And so together Chance, a physician from New York, and Old Bear, once of Sitting Bull's White Horse Riders, left the place of scaffolds, on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in South Dakota, in the late afternoon of a Sunday in 1890, and rode together into the open prairie, toward Drum, the son of Kills-His-Horse, and two braves, who rode slowly to meet them.

 

 

 

 

Chapter Ten

 

Winona, the daughter of Old Bear, was making her way back to the Grand River encampment.

Head down, leading her pony by the nose rope, she was in no hurry to return home. The two travois poles dragging behind the pony left a double track in the prairie dust, but not a deep one, for the travois was empty.