Lakota (9 page)

"All of them?" Tacante asked.

"There are forty, maybe more. Many are small and won't fight much," Watcher explained.

Hinhan Hota frowned. Tacante knew it wasn't in the Owl's heart to kill the helpless ones. There could be no refusing, though. Unkcekiha was He Hopa's granddaughter and a cousin to many of the young men. Hokala spoke of courting her if the bands reassembled to make their winter camp.

Word of Red Lance's trouble spread swiftly through the lodges of Gray Owl's camp, and the warriors made ready to ride. The Owl insisted some remain to guard the women and the horse herd. He chose Tacante, Hokala, and three others to go with him on the raid.

He Hopa would have gone if the Owl hadn't forbidden it.

"She's my blood," the medicine man argued.

"Ah, but your heart will be with us, just as your medicine charms will be," Hinhan Hota replied. "This is a young man's hunt, Leksi. See how I take only the swiftest riders?"

He Hopa grumbled some, but he accepted the decision. He did make prayers and assemble charms for the young warriors.

"Carry your shield high," the old man warned Hokala. "The wasicun rifles will seek your heart."

"Leave that pale horse behind," He Hopa told Tacante. "You must always wear dark paint and ride a black horse to battle, Tonska. Ah, four feathers are now in your hair."

He Hopa then did a strange thing. He drew a knife and cut Tacante's shoulder.

"Old man, leave my death to the wasicuns," Tacante barked.

"Ah, I have seen your blood in my dream," the medicine man explained. "Only one wound will you receive in this fight, and I have given it to you. No bullet will find you, Heart of the People. Ride with a brave heart, Tonska."

"I will do as you say, Leksi," Tacante said, referring to Four Horns as Uncle in the way Hinhan Hota and the elder Tacante before him had done.

He Hopa built a fire and made medicine. The warriors smoked the pipe and pledged their courage. Then they tied up the tails of their horses and set out after the wasicuns.

Two days Hinhan Hota kept them riding. They paused hardly long enough to eat, and certainly not long enough to sleep much. Often Tacante and the other young men dozed while their horses trotted onward. Each of the riders brought along a spare pony, and they shifted from one to the other so as to give the animals a rest. Gray Owl and Watcher had none.

The wasicun wagons had passed up the trail northward, but Wapaha Luta, wounded hip and all, kept up his pursuit. One wasicun had been captured while guarding the horse herd. Tacante saw what remained of him resting in a fire pit a half day's ride from the wagons.

"It was a boy," Tacante remarked as he stared at the blackened flesh.

"So, now there can be no talking," Hinhan Hota added. "Only fighting.

Often Tacante had imagined his first big fight. All boys do, he supposed. But he never envisioned charging wagons and battling wasicuns. The Crows, perhaps, or the Pawnees. He had little chance to consider it, though, for Hinhan Hota wasted no time in picking up the wasicun trail. Soon after midday they spotted the wagons. Red Lance arrived then, and a brief plan was made.

Warfare for the Lakotas was simple. Whenever a warrior felt the brave heart, he started a charge. If his medicine was strong, or he was respected, others would follow. The battle continued so long as there were brave hearts present, or until the enemy was driven off. Warriors preferred to count a coup, touch their bows to the enemy's shoulder, or slap him with the hand. White men who fired rifles were more often greeted with a deadly arrow fired from close range.

Most wagon trains formed squares or circles to defend themselves, thus blunting the charges and offering little chance for a horseman to close the range. But that day the wagons rumbled along their way in ignorance of the menace at hand, and there would be few opportunities to resist. Wapaha Luta, in spite of his broken hip and much loss of blood, led the first charge. He raced toward the middle of the wagon train, followed by Watcher and Black Dog. The three warriors swept past a startled outrider, who was promptly unhorsed by the Dog, and turned three wagons aside. A terrified young girl ran in front of a second wagon and was trampled by oxen. A boy no older than Itunkala stared up in surprise as a lance struck him down.

Wapaha Luta shouted a war cry, and the rest of the Lakotas charged. The wasicuns at the end of the wagon train had no chance to defend their wagons. Most abandoned everything and fled as fast as their feet would carry them. One man managed to load his rifle and fire at young Hokala, but while the blast gashed the tough hump hide of the shield, it left the warrior unharmed. Hinhan Hota struck the rifleman across the head, and he fell.

Unkcekiha, the Magpie, was found in the back of a wagon. Frightened and bewildered, but unhurt, she rejoiced at the sight of her people.

Hers was the only glad voice that day. The killing was great, with six white men slain and two women rubbed out, too. There was the trampled girl, too, and the boy killed by Wapaha Luta's lance. Already flames devoured several wagons, and the lumbering oxen were shot full of arrows. Then a line of wasicuns arrived from the front of the train, and they filled the air with their lead balls.

Sunkcincala Najin, Standing Colt, whose sister was Red Lance's wife, fell first, pierced by five bullets. Then Sunka Sapa howled as a ball penetrated the neck of his horse and lodged in the fleshy part of his right thigh.

Wapaha Luta, who did not know of his daughter's rescue, cried loudly as he hurled himself at the wasicuns. Bullets struck down the Lance's horse, then shattered his knee, broke his jaw, and severed three fingers from his left hand. Even so, the fiery-eyed warrior freed himself from his horse and struggled on. The whites drew back, but they managed to give the Lance two more wounds before breaking into flight. Only then did Wapaha Luta give up his life.

"Look there," Hokala called then, and Tacante spied a pair of wasicuns sneaking toward Hinhan Hota from behind. Tacante shouted a cry, notched an arrow, and rode swiftly toward the ambushers. Hokala was only a hair behind him, and the two young men ran down the wasicuns. Hokala jumped down and fired an arrow through the first wasicun's chest, killing him instantly.

Tacante took a bit longer dismounting. When his feet hit the ground, he found himself eyeing a thin-faced young man little older than himself. The wasicun fumbled with his pistol, and Tacante slapped it away. He then struck his enemy with the flat of the hand, and the young wasicun collapsed. His eyes were wild with fear, for he could see his companion lying dead a few feet away.

"Don't come again onto our land!" Tacante shouted as he took the pistol and stripped the wasicun of his cartridge belt. "You understand?"

The young enemy nodded. He attempted a smile, seeing that some miracle was allowing him to be spared.

"Go!" Tacante shouted, and the wasicun scrambled to his feet and fled for his life.

Now the fight was over. Warriors passed among the dead, counting coup or taking scalps. Only the hair of the trampled girl wasn't taken, for it seemed that Wakan Tanka had struck her down. In the distance the surviving wasicuns wailed as they watched their possessions burned and their companions marked with knives in the Lakota fashion.

Finally the dead were tied atop horses, and Hinhan Hota led the Lakotas from the bloody scene.

Moons rose and fell, and Tacante found himself a warrior of eighteen summers. Much had happened since Wapaha Luta's fight against the wasicun wagon train. The bluecoats had won their war in the faraway land, and once more the red man had become his enemy. Old Black Kettle's band of Southern Sahiyelas, known also as Cheyennes, had been cut down at Sand Creek, slain by bluecoats of the Colorado Territory's army. Worse, a peaceful Arapaho village had been razed in the Powder River country by a new bluecoat star chief. For days after word of the attacks reached Hinhan Hota's camp, Tacante's dreams filled with recollections of Blue Creek.

Great anger swelled inside the Lakotas. No longer did they ride out to scold the foolish wasicuns for trespassing onto land owned by the people. Bands of Sicangu and Oglala warriors painted their faces and tied up the tails of their horses. Sahiyela and Arapaho, too, joined the fight to keep the wasicun wagons from Powder River. Soon blood flowed freely.

Those were hard days for all, but more so for Tacante. He felt tall and proud, a man in all important ways, but he looked upon a world torn by change. Each summer the buffalo herds dwindled. The roads were full of wasicuns. The singing wires that followed Platte River westward foretold the death of die free life.

Once a young man of eighteen summers would only have concerned himself with hunting and perhaps searching for a wife. Tacante had fifteen horses, and there were girls among the Sicangus and Oglalas both who had ears for his flute and eyes for his shy grin.

"Toskala is a pretty one," Itunkala, his brother, said. "I have heard her say she admires your skill with the bow. Her father would not want so many ponies, for he has many daughters to feed."

Tacante gazed at his small brother's laughing face and pretended anger.

"It's for me to choose!" he barked. "It's not good for a warrior, risking death each day, to take a young wife, to bring little ones into a dark time."

"I, your brother, would look to them while you're gone," Itunkala offered, grinning mightily. Tacante gave his brother's scalp a yank in answer.

But as the prairie grasses greened, Tacante was more and more preoccupied with the courtship practices. Sometimes he would sit with Hokala on the ridge above the stream and wait for the maidens to pass on their way to fetch water. Sometimes Hokala, who was far bolder, might notch a bird arrow on his bowstring and shoot a hole in a water skin or perhaps drop willow leaves into a girl's hair. The maidens would cry out and pursue their tormentors. Sometimes Hokala was rewarded with a stone in the back or a thrashing with cottonwood limbs. Tacante preferred to tease the girls, though once he dug a bear pit to trap Pehan, the Crane Girl.

Mostly these games were for acquainting a young warrior with the maidens from whom he might choose a wife. After all, a girl changed greatly from the time she first entered the women's lodge. Once Tacante had thought nothing of splashing naked in the river with the girls of the tribe close by. Now the old women, who were forever watchful, would see such an act punished. Great care had to be taken with the hawk-eyed old crows about!

Formal courtship was another matter. In the evening, a young man might appear outside a maiden's lodge with a blanket. If her father agreed, a maiden might sit beside her caller while he pulled the blanket over them. Perhaps the two would tease each other or carry on talk of the future. If the blanket enclosed them too long, a mother or aunt would pull the two apart and scold them for their misdeed.

Tacante appeared with his blanket beside the lodge of Toskala, the Downy Woodpecker, but others were there, too, and her father hardly gave a glance to young Buffalo Heart. Once he did sit with Hetkala, the Squirrel, but she devoted their time to giggling and tracing her fingers along the old scar on Tacante's elbow.

"Ah, how is it girls can make a man so crazy!" Tacante cried to his father.

"There are mysteries never revealed," Hinhan Hota replied. "And this is a great one, indeed. Be patient, my son. There is always the hunt."

That was surely true. But no sooner did Hinhan Hota's reunited band set out upon the buffalo range than a youthful rider appeared.

"Hinkpila!" Tacante shouted as Louis Le Doux raised his hand in greeting. "Hau, kola!"

"Hau, kola," Louis answered. "Welcome, my brother. Ate," he added, turning to the Owl. "I bring word of a gathering of the people."

"What gathering is this?" Hinhan Hota asked, halting the hunters.

"Wasicun chiefs come to talk of peace," Louis explained. "Too many have died on Powder River. All the Lakotas are coining in. Already the Oglalas and Minikowojus, the Hunkpapas and Sihasapas are there. Cheyennes and Arapahos, even some Crows, are camping together. Never have so many lodges blackened the plain!"

"They talk of peace?" Hinhan Hota asked, shaking his head in confusion. "Already they send their wagons into our country. The star chief has built a fort beside Powder River. We know this wasicun way. He talks of peace while he sharpens the long knife to kill our children."

"Red Cloud comes," Louis told them. "He has sworn to fight the road. Maybe the wasicuns don't understand."

"A man with no ears to hear will never understand," Hinhan Hota replied. "But we will come and listen. And while we sit in council, the wasicuns will steal more of our country."

Other bands said much the same, but even so, they came to Fort Laramie in great numbers that summer the wasicuns called 1866. Tacante shared his father's feelings, but the peace speakers distributed many presents. And it was good to pass days again in the company of Hinkpila, his kola.

The brother-friends rode the far hills in search of game for the kettles, and they shared many stories. Louis told of traveling east to the big wasicun village called St. Louis. Much of this journey was made riding inside the iron horse. Ah, this horse was faster than the swiftest Lakota pony, and it could ride for days with scarcely a rest. It ate cottonwood logs and breathed smoke.