Reason To Believe (47 page)

The next day was deadly cold. It was too cold to talk. Too cold either to make or to take a joke. Definitely too cold to piss, which was why nobody drank much at breakfast. It was too cold to ride, but they had to ride. They were almost there. It was too cold to do anything but think. In fact, it was the kind of bitter cold that turned thoughts into prayers.

Please, God, turn off the wind.

Okay, Tunkasila, I can stand the wind, as long as you keep it to my back.

Please, God, let my toes stop aching.

Okay, Tunkasila, I don't mind if my toes ache, just don't let them fall off.

Please, God, make my nose stop running.

Okay, Tunkasila, I don't care if my nose runs, just don't let my bladder explode.

The eerie moonscape of the Badlands offered windbreak. Barren hills eroded into wondrous gray formations. The serpentine trail wound amid castle battlements and Gothic spires, topping a cold day with visual frosting.

That night it was too cold to sleep, but after making a prayer that the world might become a less frigid environment for the next seven generations, they were too tired to do anything else.

All the world was white the following day. Bitterly cold and blindingly white. Doggedly the riders pushed past their misery toward their destination. Bullet-ridden signs marked the road, including the one that said, "Site of Wounded Knee Massacre 4 Miles."

Four miles, and the curious would view the place of carnage.

Four miles, and the pilgrims would reach the site of martyrdom.

Four miles to the little church that had been the scene of the American Indian Movement's protest occupation in more recent times.

Four miles to the friends waiting, the families waiting, the eyes of the world waiting.

Four miles and the ride would be over.

Four miles didn't seem like much now that they'd come so far together. They'd skipped the planned mid- day stop and pressed on, realizing that if they stopped, it would be hard to move again. Skipping lunch would mean an earlier arrival, a change in the schedule, but such things were flexible in Indian country. Darkness came early this deep in December, and a cold sun was better than no sun at all.

The feathered hoop finally topped the rise overlooking Wounded Knee Creek. Ben looked down and gave
a
deep mental sigh. Physical deep breathing wasn't wise in this kind of cold. But the sight of the monument, the little white stones and crosses accosted by blowing and drifting snow, the winding road, the pickups and horse trailers, all of it was welcome. Even though he couldn't see them, he knew that all eyes were turned toward the hill.

It was Grand Entry time, he thought with a warm, deeply interior smile. He'd been chosen more than once to lead the Grand Entry at a rodeo, and he'd galloped around the arena, holding the flag high and lapping up the applause. Hero for a day, he thought. And why the hell not? He lifted the hoop aloft and gave out a piercing victory whoop as he dug his heel into his gelding's flanks and took off down the hill, fairly flying.

Why the hell not?

The riders behind him took the signal and sounded the cry as they crested the hill, bounding over the rise and plunging into the valley. The sacrifice was not made in vain. This day they rode for the ancestors. The men honored them with high-spirited whoops of victory, and the women chimed in with vivacious high-pitched trilling. This was the answer to the spent bullets and the guns of the past.

We
have survived. We dwell in this land, and we know who we are, and we remember those who have gone before.

Hoka hey'.
The Lakota live!

Over two hundred riders poured over the ridge. Clara lingered at the crest, drinking in the rare, timeless beauty of the moment. Tufts of red grass poked through the snow. Sun dogs, winter's rainbows, put on a cheerful display in the pale blue sky. On the windswept flat beyond the two-lane highway that was lined today with motorized vehicles, trailers, and spectators, there had once been an encampment. The women and children had outnumbered the men, and among the men were those who were too old and tired to fight anymore. They were all hungry. Most were poorly clothed, and their weapons were few. So many feet bled from the cold and from the long, desperate push southward. Some of the people were sick. They were all exhausted. And they were fearful of what the day might bring.

They were surrounded by another encampment, this one housing no women, no children, only men who were young and fit for duty, well equipped and armed to the teeth. Sitanka had surrendered, even though his people had not been fighting. Dancing and praying were their only crimes. Neither were they looking for a fight. They were looking for peace and succor, hoping to find refuge with their relatives.

Still they surrendered. They gave up their weapons, their knives, even their tools. But when one young man tried to conceal the rifle he said he'd paid dearly for, then objected to turning it over, a shot was fired, and the slaughter ensued.

From her vantage point Clara could see the draws and ravines, like wrinkles stretching away from the campsite, pockets and folds into which Mother Earth had tucked those she could reach and sheltered them as best she could from the hailstorm of bullets. Among those sheltered perhaps was Maziyapa, Iron Hammer, her own daughter's great-great-grandfather.

Clara watched, pulse pounding, as her husband led the riders, galloping in a circle around the little cemetery on the knoll below. He carried the hoop, eagle feathers fluttering, the heat of his triumphant outcry misting the air.

"Hey, Mom! We made it!"

Anna trotted up the hill on her frost-bellied paint. She caught up to her mother, shared a shivery hug, and together they plowed down the hill and into the valley below, trilling in the woman's way as they went.

The cameras clicked and whirred, recording the exultant arrival. They had to get all their pictures now, Alec Red Horse announced over a loudspeaker from the cab of a pickup. No photographs would be allowed during the graveside ceremony, which would be held "pretty soon, when the riders are ready."

But first they had the circle. One last circle for themselves and the spirit that had brought them this far. They were kinsmen in this venture. The ride had changed them both individually and as one. By becoming a circle they had accomplished a remarkable feat. They had carried one another to this place. Ben gave thanks for all this in a brief song. Then the riders and their friends and supporters saw to the horses' needs before they made their way to the fenced monument marking the century-old mass grave.

"We need to hurry right along," Alec said, his voice carrying across the sea of hats and blanketed heads. "It's pretty cold. If you have a camera, we'd like you to put it away now. Otherwise you might be asked to surrender it to our, uh, security people. Lately I been thinkin' about gettin' myself a new camera. Heh-heh-heh."

The journalists looked at one another, some conferring on the matter, others putting their gear away feverishly, just in case.

The loudspeaker came on again. "Okay, they want the family members, the descendants of those we mourn today, anyone who's a family member can go inside the fence. So, you know who you are."

The words echoed on the plain below, but movement of bundled bodies was slow.

"We need to hurry every chance we get," Alec intoned from inside the pickup. "It's pretty cold. There's gonna be a feed over in the Manderson school gym after we're finished here. That
papa
soup is gonna taste mighty good on a day like this."

People were still milling around, some seeking a good viewing spot outside the fence, some simply greeting one another with a gloved handshake. The holes of face masks and the edges of mouth-shielding mufflers were crusted with frost. At fifty below, only the eyes were visible on most of the walking bundles. It was hard to tell who was who. Most of the riders knew one another by the color of a jacket or a hat, but when TJ ran into Clara, she pulled the wool scarf off her nose and laughed. "Oh, of course. It's my
wasicun
sister. I'm goin' around exposing noses so I can tell who I'm looking at. You know you've got frosty eyelashes?"

"So do you." Clara adjusted her scarf, regretting the escape of a pool of her own warm breath. "TJ, we made it."

"I kinda thought so, the way you've been looking at each other."

"No, I mean—"

An impish spark danced in Tara Jean's eyes, made brighter by the blue cap and scarf closely framing them.

Clara stared, then burst out laughing. "We made it, and then we made it, and now, look here, we
made
it!
All
the
way,"
she crooned gleefully.

"All the way," TJ echoed.

"Where's Ben? They want you guys inside the fence. And Anna and Billie..." Clara did a little rubbernecking, but it was useless in the meandering crowd.

"Ben's probably getting the stuff together," TJ said. "Don't worry, they can't start without the pipe keeper."

"Do you think he knows what to do? He's pretty new at this."

"No, he's not." TJ patted Clara's shoulder, her own sisterly pride beaming in her eyes. "Believe it or not, my brother was born to it. Whatever he does, it'll be the right thing."

And it was, for it was done, as their father would have had it, in a sacred way. While the drummer thumped a throbbing beat, Ben burned sweet grass in a simple coffee can and used an eagle feather to direct the fragrant smoke toward the mourners. He prayed quietly in Lakota, but when he lifted his voice in traditional song, timeless tears flowed freely all around him. Many heads were draped with star quilts, others with blankets, some colorfully striped, others emblazoned with a bird or a wolf. In the valley below a horse whinnied. The wind carried the echo of the pipe keeper's voice into the hills, while a crying baby spoke for the generations to come.

Clara's family was inside the fence. It felt a little strange, being on the outside looking in. It was a rare occurrence for one of her race, although not for one of her gender. And so she understood. She shared the sadness, and she wept for all the broken hoops and the shattered promises. For all the breaches in all the circles in all the universe, she wept.

And, for a moment in time, warm tears melted the frost that glazed the world's eternal pain.

The brief ceremony ended. The mourners began filing under the arch spanning the brick pillars to form the gateway to the concrete-edged mass grave. Clara turned away from the fence and found herself standing face-to-face with a woman draped Madonna-fashion in an old army blanket. Wisps of red-gold hair framed the blue-eyed face, ruddy from the cold. The angelic countenance seemed only vaguely familiar.

"Wasn't that somethin'?"

The voice, to Clara's amazement, was Tanya Beale's.

Clara nodded. "It certainly was."

The two women looked at one another for a moment, then shared a spontaneous embrace, both blubbering unintelligibly but communicating perfectly.

Tanya drew back and laughed. "Your mascara has made complete circles around both your eyes."

"Really?"

"Never seen anything like it. Must have something to do with how cold it is. We got circles everywhere." She looked around in absolute wonder. "It surely has been somethin', hasn't it, Clara?"

"Something very special, Tanya." Despite the cold, Clara's smile came easily. "I'm glad you came."

"Me, too." Tanya laughed as she pointed to herself, then Clara. "Me, too, you." Then something behind Clara's back caught Tanya's eye. "Looks like your husband's waitin' on ya."

Clara turned, barely hearing Tanya's soft "See ya" in her eagerness to join her husband and find some shelter from the cold.

But he had other plans. "TJ's gonna take you and Annie over to Manderson. I'll be there later. There's something I've gotta do."

"But they might need you for—"

"There will be people lined up from one side of the gym to the other to get at the microphone." He grinned as he backed away. "It's speech-makin' time. You know I'm no good at that."

"I don't know any such thing."
A
sudden flash of panic seized her. Instinctively she sought to stop him with a motherly "Besides, you haven't eaten anything."

"Save me a piece of fry bread, okay? Two pieces." Backpedaling, he showed her two heavy-gloved fingers. "I'll be back by eight at the latest."

"Tonight?"

"Tonight." Then he understood the real question, and he came back, took her shoulders in his hands, and told her solemnly, "I'll show you how good I am at keeping my word nowadays."

The word had gotten out. People were gathering for "the doings" at the Little Wound School gym.
A
set of bleachers had been pulled out on the side opposite a stage hung with blue curtains. The aroma of a feast in the making drifted through the kitchen doors into the center of the floor, where long tables and chairs covered basketball court lines. Painted geometric designs brightened the walls.

There was a lot of hand-shaking and shoulder-slapping going on as the riders were greeted by community members. The proceedings began with announcements. Somebody had left a gate open on one of the pens and some of the horses had gotten out. Most of them had already been rounded up, but horse owners might want to check. Riders who had borrowed equipment were to pile it in the corner of the gym so that the owners could claim it.