Lakota (19 page)

When Tacante was called to dance, he did so readily. At the end of the dance, though, he stretched back so that the thongs pulled at the pegs and opened the flesh of his chest. So long as a man could, he danced in this manner, giving up his blood and enduring the pain so that the people might be purified. Only when a man grew weak was he to stretch the thongs to where flesh could no longer resist the force placed on the pegs. Then the dancer painfully ripped himself loose.

The first dancers blew their shrill whisties and danced through the morning. Then the first broke himself loose. Another followed, and three more freed themselves a bit later. Tacante screamed his pain through the whisde and went on, determine to endure. Hokala broke himself loose around midday and collapsed in a heap. Two other dancers tried, but only managed to collapse. Relatives arrived and helped break the bonds.

Tacante continued. As blood deepened the red color of his chest and dripped across the ground, he grew light-headed. He saw many strange beasts galloping along. Finally he beheld Tatanka.

"Brave up, Tacante," Bull Buffalo urged. "See what danger awaits us."

A vision of a smoking mountain appeared, thundering along the banks of Yellowstone River. Great flashes of lightning reached out of the mountain to strike down elk, deer, buffalo, and finally even Tatanka.

The vision faded, and Tacante felt his legs grow numb. He blinked his eyes and tried to see his companions. There were none. He was alone.

"Ayyy!" he screamed through the whisde as he suddenly flung himself back. The left-hand peg broke through his skin, but the right-hand peg remained. Pain tore at Tacante's chest, and he swallowed hard. He screamed again, then used his final ounce of strength to stretch the thong. The skin ripped apart, and Tacante fell backward against the ground. He stared up at a pair of painted faces and grinned. Then he lost consciousness.

Four summers came and went, and Tacante thought little of the thunder mountain roaring along the Yellowstone. He'd been too feverish, after all. If He Hopa had been there to question the dream, perhaps its warning might have been seen.

As it was, Tacante found himself an honored warrior and medicine man. His dreams led the hunters to game and warned of winter blizzards. He spent spring and summer on the plain, hunting and living the old free way. In autumn he visited his family, who were camped with Sinte Gleska at the agency the wasicuns had set up for the Sicangus. Afterward Tacante wintered on Platte River near Fort Laramie or headed into the Big Horns.

Those years brought much personal happiness. Twice more Hehaka's belly swelled, and two more sons came to walk the earth beside Tacante. Cetan Kinyan, Flying Hawk, came first. His was a name well given, for that boy was upon a horse before he could walk, and his keen eyes noted everything. Hinhancika, the younger boy, was Itunkala reborn. The Little Owl was forever in mischief, vexing father and mother, but old Wanbli Cannunpa took over the child's raising, and the Owl soon learned to temper his exploring with a bit of caution.

The first word of wasicuns on Yellowstone River arrived that spring. A young Hunkpapa brought news that peace speakers had come asking that mapmakers be allowed to ride along the river. It soon became clear that they weren't there to make a map, though. Wagons full of men set poles in the ground and marked the way for a road.

"It's like Platte River," Waawanyanka then announced. "Such men came after the Powder River fighting. Soon the iron horse followed."

"Hau!" Tacante shouted. The dream came back to him. The wasicuns were bringing another iron horse road into the Lakota country.

"No!" Wanbli Cannunpa cried when Tacante explained. "This won't be. We'll keep the mapmakers out."

It wasn't so easy, though. When the peace speakers couldn't persuade the Lakotas to let the mapmakers peacefully cross the country, soldiers were sent along. Many soldiers. And leading them was the very same bluecoat chief Custer, called Long Hair, who had killed old Black Kettle on treaty land down south.

"Hau, we'll show this Long Hair how Lakotas fight!" Hokala cried.

"Hau!" the young men shouted. "It's a good day to die."

Tacante assembled forty warriors, but they soon saw that the soldiers had learned many lessons since the hundred were slain. All the blue-coats carried the new lay-down-and-load guns, and whenever the map-makers made camp, a thunder gun was sure to be nearby. Scouts combed the countryside for ambushes, and there were fifteen hundred soldiers and many wagon people.

Tacante's band seldom got within shooting range of the bluecoats. Once or twice they pulled up stakes or ran off some horses, but they had little luck against the soldiers. Brave young men appeared as decoys, but the bluecoats didn't follow. A few soldiers were killed by the Hunk-papas, and Sunkawakan Witkotkoke trapped some once. But Long Hair didn't come out and fight. The mapmakers finished their map and went home.

Tacante's heart filled with despair, for already the Sahiyelas complained that the iron horse was chasing all the game from Platte River. Then Tatanka appeared in the Heart's dreams. Bull Buffalo stood atop the thunder mountain, pounding it flat with his mighty hoofs.

"Things've gone sour for the railroad," Louis explained when Tacante erected his winter lodge near Fort Laramie. "Seems the iron horse is stopping in the Dakotas."

Tacante might have warmed with that news, but he couldn't. The Dakotas, the wasicuns called that land. The name attested to the fact that it belonged to the Lakotas' cousins. The iron horse had stopped, but for how long? Those who had seen Long Hair said he was a man with hungry eyes. Hungry for a fight. And who was there to fight but the Lakota people?

Long Hair Custer wasn't long idle. He and his bluecoat horse soldiers were on the march again that next summer. This time they struck deep into the heart of Lakota country, into Paha Sapa itself. Here was a place forbidden to wasicuns by both the Fort Laramie treaties, but this wasicun chief cared nothing for the sacred word of the treaty makers. Just as the eagle chief Harney had killed the innocents at Blue Creek, this Custer now violated the Black Hills.

Only a few scattered Lakotas saw the soldiers. Hunters seeking game or boys on vision quests stood scant chance of stopping a bluecoat army. All the Lakotas could do was stare angrily as these thieves came into the sacred country, shooting down the animals and felling the trees. Some dug in the ground or scratched at the streambeds, searching for the yellow powder which turned wasicuns into crazy men. In time the blue-coats turned from the sacred lands.

"Hau!" the Lakotas cried. "Wakan Tanka has driven the wasicuns from our home."

The soldiers had wounded the people deeply, though. Soon enough the true danger came.

Tacante was visiting Hinhan Hota's band at Spotted Tail when word came of wasicun miners stealing yellow rocks in Paha Sapa.

"Surely this can't be!" Tacante exclaimed. "Tell your soldier friends to drive the thieves out, Ate!"

Hinhan Hota frowned gravely.

"We have fought our war, Tacante," the Owl said wearily. "We've suffered and we've died. Haven't you seen the power of the wasicuns? They come along the Platte like summer locusts. You can kill a thousand, and a thousand more will follow. It's for them to do, for them to say, my son. Ask Sinte Gleska of the power he's seen in the great wasicun villages. Ask Mahpiya Luta if he has heart to fight again."

"Paha Sapa is our heart," Tacante argued. "Ate, where will we hunt? Where will our children be born? Here, where there are no trees, where there is only dry grass to eat?"

"It's for the young men to fight," Hinhan Hota muttered soberly. "But think hard, my son. You have a wife and little ones to care for. Remember Blue Creek."

"I remember," Tacante said angrily. "It's because of that I could never live off the wasicuns' presents, turning away from the sacred way."

"It's a hard road you set your feet upon."

"Ah, what's hard, Ate? I can't cut myself off from Wakan Tanka. I am a Tokala, aren't I? It's the difficult thing I am supposed to do."

"Living here will be difficult, too," the Owl declared. "Knowing my son won't come to share the autumn moons in my lodge will be hard. As is growing used to the taste of cow meat."

Tacante bowed his head. He understood. Hinhan Hota also faced a difficult trail. Perhaps, after all, it was easier to fight. Tacante spent little time wondering, for he knew there was but one direction he could take.

He gathered the little ones that afternoon and spoke of making a winter camp in Paha Sapa.

"Ate, we won't go to Hinkpila's fort?" Tahca Wanbli asked. The boy had not yet celebrated his sixth winter on the earth, but he recalled the fine times spent with his aunt and uncle on Platte River.

"No, little one," Tacante said gravely. "We must drive the thieves from our sacred places."

"I, too, will fight," the child vowed, drawing the small knife Itunkala had given him.

"Not this time," Tacante said, hoisting his eldest onto one shoulder and placing a hand on the heads of the two younger boys. "You're small yet. The time may come."

Indeed, Tacante feared it would.

He was dismanding the lodge when Itunkala appeared. The boy was fourteen now, but still short and frightfully thin. His small size was deceptive, though, for there was iron in his grip, and he rode like a whirlwind.

"Brother, you aren't leaving?" the Mouse called.

"Yes," Tacante confessed. "There's much that needs doing."

"You go to fight the wasicun thieves, then?"

"Yes. To guard Paha Sapa for the people."

"The soldiers go to chase the thieves from the sacred land," Itunkala explained. "They take many of the young men of the agency with them to scout. I thought to join them."

"Ah, and who was it who first scratched the streams, who spoke of the yellow powder? Long Hair Custer. Everyone knows now how he rode into Paha Sapa, how he hungers to steal our country."

"I won't scout for them," Mouse vowed.

"It's good, little brother. I wouldn't like to think you put on the blue coat and rode with our enemies."

"Are the wasicuns our enemies again? I've made friends among the trader's sons. There is our brother, Hinkpila, too."

"His heart is turned toward us by his grandmother's blood."

"There are good men among the soldiers."

"Ah, I've seen many brave bluecoats, Itunkala. One I killed. But their chiefs have bad hearts and hungry eyes. We'll fight them again soon."

"Then it's for me to come with you," Itunkala said solemnly. "I've ridden to the buffalo hunt with you, Tacante. I can shoot the bow, and I know hard living."

"You're young."

"Yes, and small," Itunkala admitted, staring at his twiglike legs. "But you said you, too, were small, and I will grow."

"Then go and speak of it to our father," Tacante advised as he stripped the buffalo-hide covering from the lodge. "Know that you're welcome to come, but I find no dishonor in a man who chooses to stay."

"Yes," the Mouse said, knowing Tacante spoke of Hinhan Hota.

By the time Tacante had arranged the poles into a pony drag for the children and collected his horses, Itunkala had returned.

"Ate says I leave his heart cold and empty," the Mouse said. "I'm old enough to choose my path. I go with my brother."

Tacante gazed back at the gap in the camp circle left by his dismantled lodge. Tasiyagnunpa stood there, gazing sorrowfully at her departing sons. And grandsons. For a moment Tacante thought to leave Hehaka and the boys in his mother's care, but who would strike his lodge to follow a warrior who left his own children behind? And what safety was an agency camp? Black Kettle was on treaty land, after all.

Tacante wasn't the only Lakota who journeyed to Paha Sapa that autumn. As he erected his lodge in an ancient camp on the southern edge of the hills, he saw a band of black-faced warriors in the streambed below.

"Hau, Lakotas!" Tacante cried.

"Hau!" a light-skinned warrior answered. Even now there was a red-tailed hawk tied in his hair.

"Sunkawakan Witkotkoke, you, too, have come to fight the wasicuns," Tacante called as he hurried down the hillside.

"Hau, it's Tacante!" Waawanyankahowled. Hokala and Sunka Sapa were there as well, together with twenty young Oglalas.

"Now we'll punish these thieves!" the Horse promised as he greeted Tacante warmly. "Already we've killed three. Come, bring your lodge to the camp."

"Yes," Hokala urged."Sunlata grows anxious to show you our son."

Tacante howled loudly, for a birthing was always a good omen for any undertaking. Hokala and Sunka Sapa helped break down the lodge, and soon Tacante was following Sunkawakan Witkotkoke again. The little ones rode along behind one of their uncles, and Hehaka slapped her buckskin mare into a fast trot. Soon she'd be among her sisters.

One surprise remained for Tacante. He expected a small circle of lodges. Instead Wanbli Cannunpa's entire band was there, together with many young Oglalas and Sicangus from Red Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies. Boys of fifteen and sixteen could scarcely remember the desperate fighting at Powder River. Their hearts were full of warrior songs, and they were eager to follow Hokala, the Tokala lance bearer, of Sunkawakan Witkotkoke, the Oglala strange one. Now that Tacante was there, too, they sang brave heart songs. Strong medicine would ride at their side.