Stone Song (3 page)

He had been foolish to go unprepared, to try without the guidance of his elders.

Unprepared?
His mind threw the word back at him in echoes.
What arrogance! To assume preparation would make a difference. It’s not preparation. It’s just you
.

As he neared the river, he limped toward his hobbled horse. He was aching all over and dizzy. After three days without food or water, he felt giddy and weak. He took the pony by the bridle, but he felt too woozy to mount. Besides, his belly hurt. He sat against the sunpole tree. He would be stronger in a moment, clearer-headed in a moment.

He leaned back. He let his body flop against the tree and on the ground. He gave up. He shuddered with surrender. He had hurled himself into the maw, and he had failed. He gave up.

His eyes fluttered.

Gently, he felt a release of some kind, a loosening of grip, a lightening of heart.

Suddenly he … was it dreaming? Or seeing? He was wide awake. His eyes were open, and he felt intensely aware, and he saw …

The horse trotted lightly, appearing to float, seeming not to touch the earth.

Now Curly saw it was his hobbled pony running free, trotting toward him, legs prancing, neck held high.

On its back a rider sat leaning forward, perfectly motionless on the moving mount, except that the fringe on the heels of his moccasins trembled.

What Curly saw seemed more real than real. The colors were brighter, edges sharper, motions more vivid, sounds clearer, the air somehow brilliant, the world radiant. Sight, hearing, and touch were keener, consciousness itself more vibrant.

Curly knew: This earth, this horse and rider, these grasses and trees, this sky and clouds were not the ordinary ones of every day, but the ones that live …

He was seeing beyond, seeing in a sacred way.

As though to offer proof, the pony changed from his pinto, the one hobbled by the sunpole tree, into a bay. And then into an appaloosa, a slate-blue grulla, a strawberry roan, and other colors in succession. Like a statement: “I am not
a
horse, but Horse. And luminous—aglow—for you who have eyes to see.”

Curly looked closely at the rider, bright as a shining stone you held in your hand, one you turned to study its every facet. His hair was the color of light sand, and he wore it long and loose far below his waist. His hair was ornamented by a few beads and only one eagle feather, a feather hung upside down, in the position of the war eagle when it is about to kill. The rider’s face and body bore no paint. He had on a shirt of pale deerskin and blue leggings, both unadorned. Yes, unadorned, though he seemed to be a man in the fullness of maturity.

He did have medicine. Behind his left ear was tied a small stone, Inyan. Beneath his left shoulder, slung over a thong from the opposite shoulder, one eagle feather adorned another stone creature, Inyan.

Into shadows rode the rider, forever and forever into shadows.

From the velvety blue-gray of these shadows came enemy fire, streaks flashing toward the rider, fast and dangerous, maybe arrows, maybe bullets. They flashed toward him, ominous in the air. But before touching his flesh they disappeared. Like raindrops from a high thundercloud over desert, they evaporated before striking the earth’s flesh. None tore his skin, none broke his bones, none shed his blood.

A man of great power, bullet-proof. Then why unadorned?

Now the rider—Rider—was stripped to nothing but a breechcloth and rode harder, faster, in a martial vigor. But hands flailed at him, clutched at him from behind, slowed him down. He tossed his arms backward like a man slinging off a tangling shirt. The hands kept pulling at him, holding him back, the hands of his own people. He felt threat in them. He shook them off and shook them off and rode on and rode on, but the hands did not relent. Rider shook and shook and shook at them. He feared the hands behind more than the bullets before.

Behind Rider a thunderstorm erupted. Dark clouds boiled, lightning flashed and gave birth to sound. A zigzag of lightning marred Rider’s cheek like a wound. Hail spots welted his body.

Into clouds and shadows rode the rider, forever and forever into clouds and shadows.

The storm cleared, the hail spots faded, the day shone bright as polished metal. Horse and man flew forward. A hubbub of people rose up around him like a storm, his own people, talking and murmuring and grabbing at him. Over his head flew a hawk—a red-tailed hawk—and she cawed forth her warning to the world, KEE-ur, KEE-ur, KEE-ur, harsh and atavistic.

On flew Horse and Rider into the shadows, hooves floating above the earth, forever and ever on, as the hawk cried KEE-ur, KEE-ur above Rider’s head.

In his chest Curly felt Hawk lift her wings and turn into the wind. She merged with the red-tailed hawk, and they were one. The weight within his ribs eased. In the whip of the wind, reckless and free, his heart ringed up the sky.

He lay there limp, his body profoundly stilled, his mind filled with a wonderful clarity, sweet and cool, like floating underwater in a crystalline stream.

It had not been a dream. He saw it all with his eyes open. He didn’t see it obscurely, as if looking through a shard of creek ice, as he did some dreams. On the contrary, it was more vivid, brighter, more colorful than the world. More real than the world.

He lay there seeing it again in memory, savoring the details. He didn’t try to decipher it yet, to sort out whatever meaning it might have for his life. He looked at it, over and over, feeling its textures and nuances, getting to know it.

He noticed Hawk in his heart. For once she was not aquiver, not restless, but at ease. But now he knew: Hawk did not have a song. Hawk was a predator, a creature wild and rapacious. Her cry was not music, but a war shriek.

It reminded him of once when they were going without food and water for a day. His
hunka
Buffalo Hump wet a stone in the creek and gave it to Curly to suck on. It was a smooth, flat rock, red as pipestone. Curly held it in his mouth and felt it with his tongue, sucked at its small shapes and curves and nuances. Later, when he took it out and looked at
it, he realized that he knew much more about the stone than his eye could tell him. His tongue knew. And did not know
about
the stone. Knew the stone.

Buffalo Hump smiled at Curly, holding the stone in his fingers, and said it would make his mouth feel wet long after it had lost the film of moisture that came with it.

Remembering, Curly felt warm toward his
hunka
. That’s what an older brother by choice did, guide his younger
hunka
toward becoming a man.

It was a grand way of being related, this custom of relative by choice, brother, uncle, aunt, father, son, daughter, any kind of relative.

Curly stretched, the feeling of his body and of the earth coming back to him.

Curly wanted to tell Buffalo Hump his vision; he wanted to share everything with his
hunka
.

He didn’t know whether he should.

Again he blamed himself. If he hadn’t gone onto the mountain without guidance, he would know what to do.

Now the feeling of clarity altered subtly. He had another feeling, shame. It was seeping into him like muddy water onto a fallen leaf.

He had come crying without preparation, without understanding. For three days he had been punished—the world and the powers that move it had turned their backs on him utterly. Then, abruptly, a vision had been thrown at his feet like rotten meat to a dog.

It was a difficult vision. He didn’t know what it might mean. But he knew it was a curse, a well-deserved curse.

For the first time since his vision he stirred a little. It was as though his spirit was beginning to inhabit his body again. He shifted, wiggled, half-turned. Hawk was more or less calm on her perch in his heart.

“
E-i-i-i
,” he said to himself, a murmur of regretful acceptance.

He recognized himself even in his curse. This was his way, to go alone, to do things his own way, which was often the wrong way.

A rueful smile glinted in his eyes.

The clappety-clap of horses’ feet. Two horses, walking. Not far from the camp, not sneaking. Friends.

Curly saw no reason to rise. He felt, somehow, that if he didn’t get his body all the way up, Hawk would sit easier. He wanted to feel tranquil a while yet. He wanted this freedom a little while longer.

Tasunke Witko looked down at his older son. The boy lay there limp, his body oddly loose and pliant, his eyes on his father, with a faraway look. The boy so often had a faraway look.

The father’s first impulse was to vault off the pony and touch his son and make sure he was whole, still breathing, not bleeding. But he wasn’t the boy’s mother. Also, his older son kept his distance, wary, blaming.

He sat his pony and looked down. Buffalo Hump, his son’s
hunka
, sat on the mount next to him. He didn’t look into Buffalo Hump’s face.

Tasunke Witko shuddered. “We’ve been looking for you for two days,” he said. It sounded gruff even to him. He thought of adding that for two days his throat had clutched tight with fear. “There are Psatoka war parties everywhere.” The Psatoka, Crows, their bitter enemies. He couldn’t help making it sound like an accusation. No, they hadn’t worried the first night Curly didn’t come home. A youth might do that. But when he didn’t show up the next day, they rode all over the countryside, looking not for the boy but for his body.

“I didn’t realize,” Curly said softly.

“You didn’t realize.” He nodded in exasperation.
Didn’t you know that Bear-Scattering is dying? That there’s no telling what the
wasicu
soldiers will do now? I was looking for your corpse
.

Tasunke Witko repeated, “You didn’t realize.”

Curly looked up at the face of his father and saw the anger. Hawk beat her wings nervously. His father was a holy man, a diviner. Did he know that Curly had seen beyond? Curly wanted to clasp his vision to his chest and turn his back, shield it from alien eyes.

You didn’t realize
. He heard not the words his father spoke, but the spirit, the hostility. Curly knew Tasunke Witko treated his sons with respect. That was why a small rebuke cracked like a whip. Curly felt the sting.

As for Buffalo Hump, no, his
hunka
would never let his anger toward Curly show. So the careful neutrality of his face was eloquent. He must agree with Tasunke Witko that Curly had acted badly.

“I’m sorry,” Curly muttered. He let his voice show no emotion. He kept his face down. Were his secrets, his personal life, safe against his father’s divination?

Curly got to his feet. He walked to his pony weakly, almost staggering. He knelt for steadiness while he took off the hobbles. He mounted without a word or a glance at the people closest in the world to him and looked at them, waiting.

“Let’s go home,” Tasunke Witko said.

Curly ignored his placating tone. He did not bother to say, “Yes,” but
he meant it. Yes, he would attend to the everyday world now. Yes, he had to, for now.

He would remember, every moment, the feeling of being Hawk in flight. He would hold her close, cherish that feeling.

He forbade his head to swivel back and look at the man he called
ate
, father. Curly would not tell that harsh man his vision. Or even that he had tried to see beyond. Certainly not what he had seen. He had never felt close to his father. Now he was furious at this man who kicked him with words, like kicking a camp dog.

He trembled.
Can I hide from a man who is a
wicasa wakan,
a seer?
he wondered.

In fact, he would not tell anyone about his vision. Not even his brother by choice. He would tell no one on earth.

His shame wouldn’t let him. His pride wouldn’t let him. His sense of sanctity wouldn’t let him.

Everyone was glad to let him have his privacy. Bear-Scattering was near death. The two bands were grieving, the entire Sicangu camp and the entire Oglala camp. Some were also politicking, trying to fix the blame.

Curly paid as little attention as possible. With Buffalo Hump he slept in a brush shelter and spent his visiting time at the lodge of Sinte Gleska, Spotted Tail, his uncle, the brother of his two mothers. Mostly he stayed to himself, so he could be still and peaceful inside and turn what had happened to him over and over, like a stone in his mouth.

Spotted Tail’s lodge was full of grumbling. The people of both camps were divided. Everyone knew it was trouble. The soldiers had come into camp and the people killed all twenty-nine of them. Whatever the justification, that was the fact. The other soldiers would take revenge, that was the way it was.

The Sicangu had killed the soldiers. The Oglala had stood by and hadn’t fought. That caused hard feelings between the peoples.

The soldiers would come after both bands, you could count on that.

Blame flew like blood during butchering. “This is what comes of making yourself a big, big man,” Bear-Scattering’s enemies said. At the big council three winters ago at Fort Laramie, he had let the Indian Superintendent appoint him big chief of all the Titunwan Lakota.

“You know he didn’t want it,” his relatives answered. “He tried to tell the
wasicu
it wouldn’t work, the people didn’t want a chief of chiefs. He said over and over that if he was chief of chiefs, someone jealous would kill him.”

Everybody did know. In his short acceptance speech, they remembered, Bear-Scattering mentioned his impending death seven times. Funny thing was, he did what the
wasicu
wanted and kept trying to do it, and they were the ones who killed him.

Remembering was inconvenient for Bear-Scattering’s enemies, though. They were stirring people up to drive his relatives out of the Sicangu camp. “The Bear-Scattering family has brought grief on our heads,” they said. “Let them live with the Oglala. Those Oglala who didn’t fight.”