Stone Song (5 page)

Buffalo Hump looked at him strangely. Hump had been teaching Curly the advanced skills of the warpath and the hunt steadily for two winters. Curly looked at his
hunka
’s handsome face and his heroic physique and took confidence. Hump could do things.

“I mean a warrior beyond what any good man is, far beyond. I
mean …” He hesitated. “There’s something I cannot say here.” He looked into Hump’s eyes and saw only understanding and willingness. “Your
tunkasila
,” grandfather, “taught you secrets, you said, secrets of the warrior’s mind. Great secrets. Will you teach them to me?” He didn’t have to say that the men of his own family were
wicasa wakan
more than warriors.

Hump got to his feet. He grinned down at Curly. “You want to start now?”

“Stillness and watchfulness,” said Hump. “Breathing and awareness. Two ways of saying the same things.”

He got Curly to sit beside him on a rock in the sun. They made no effort at all to conceal themselves. “Pay attention to your own breathing,” said Hump.

They sat. Curly fidgeted. Curly paid attention to his breath, in and out, in and out, and sat more still. After a while he felt very, very still, like part of the rock.

Then he noticed the changes. The winged and the four-legged peoples began to stir again. Though at first they had fallen silent, now the birds were singing, the squirrels darting about, the chipmunks and rockchucks feeding nearby. It was like being part of a village of animals.

They sat. Breathed. Sat. Breathed. Kept very still. And from that stillness Curly began to see. He saw everything, even the slightest change in the world in front of his eyes. A hawk circling in the hunt. A deer slipping out of the trees to graze. A duck feeding quietly, undisturbed. Insects crawling. And he knew that when he saw the pattern of the life in front of himself, he would see the telling changes in it. A flight of ducks that had been scared up—by what? A silence of squirrels that meant they were wary—of what? And he began to know what he was not seeing.

That first day he didn’t get far. After several days, though, Curly was amazed at how keen his perceptions had become. Hump said that with daily practice they would become much, much more keen. Then Curly could use them in war. Become so still that no man could see him, so aware none could approach him, and learn to move as invisibly as the wind.

They worked every day on breathing and stillness and awareness, which Hump said were the greatest of the warrior secrets.

Curly already had the skills of making weapons. He could make a bow from the best bow wood. He could straighten the shafts of arrows and fletch them with feathers. He could flake arrowheads and the heads of spears. He knew how to lash a point onto an arrow or spear or a heavy stone onto the end of a war club.

So now they practiced fighting skills. Curly and Hump worked on
getting four arrows in flight before the first one hit and putting all four into a small circle. They threw the metal tomahawk at measured distances and then at random distances, putting on the right spin to make it strike blade first. They hurled the spear at trees. They swung the war club so that the strength of the arm truly went into its head at the moment the blow struck. They practiced a little with Hump’s rifle, but powder and lead were too precious to waste. Curly decided he would trade for a pistol as soon as he could.

Curly wanted to practice actual fighting, but since Hump and Curly were
hunka
, they couldn’t fight each other, even in play. So they got other young men to practice the kicking game and wrestling and other kinds of combat with them, sometimes the youths of their own Hunkpatila band, Young Man-Whose-Enemies-Are-Afraid-of-His-Horses, Black Elk, and Lone Bear, and sometimes the Bad Faces, the twins and their brother No Water, Pretty Fellow, and his brother Standing Bear, and He Dog.

Curly was the smallest. He was short, skinny, and stringy-muscled and envied the splendid body of his
hunka
. No Water was the biggest of the bunch, tall and thick like a tree, maybe a little slow.

The play fighting got rough sometimes, and Curly got the impression that Pretty Fellow wouldn’t have minded hurting him a little. Maybe none of the Bad Faces would have minded. But Hump urged Curly to understand that such hidden feelings hurt the warrior. The warrior’s love was not the damage he did to his opponent, but the qualities the combat brought forth in him—high courage, precise and rhythmic movement, the joy of risk.

Hump showed him how the honors of a warrior reflected these excellences. The highest honor was not to kill your enemy, but to strike him with your hand, which made you most vulnerable. The second highest, to strike him with your coup stick. Killing was honorable but might show a desperation to end the danger to yourself. All honors, Hump taught, reflected not what you did to your enemy, but the power, the medicine, the spirit you exhibited within.

Curly loved it all. When he practiced for war or for the hunt, Hawk was peaceful in his chest.

Sometimes Curly and Hump simply talked about the qualities a warrior cultivated. Hump emphasized the four virtues, courage, generosity, fortitude, and wisdom, and how each should be manifested by the warrior. The warrior’s concerns were more personal, more individual, than those of the
akicita
men and the Big Bellies, Hump said. The warrior fought and hunted to find exhilaration of spirit. The
akicita
, warrior societies made responsible for orderliness and the welfare of the band, sometimes had to control the impulses of the warriors. Likewise the Big Bellies,
the chiefs, thought not of the glory of the individual warrior, but of how that spirit could be used to benefit the band. When a young man had finished his years as a warrior, he might become a Big Belly and be obliged to think of these larger issues.

“I don’t think I will ever see the end of my warrior days.” He looked at his friend with mixed feelings. He didn’t want to tell even Hump about Rider and his seeing beyond. Yet … Curly said, “All my life I have known in my heart that my destiny is war.”

Hump nodded, waited, nodded again. Curly could see that he was wondering whether Curly had a spirit guide that instructed him, or had seen beyond. But Hump gave his
hunka
the respect of not asking questions.

Curly thought of all the maneuvering Bear-Scattering had done, consulting with his own people and with the
wasicu
agent and the soldier chiefs, persuading people, getting people to agree, planning—conniving, as it seemed to Curly. He thought, worse, of the maneuvering done by those who wanted to replace Bear-Scattering as leader when he died. “I don’t want ever to be a headman,” he said.

Hump just nodded again. “Some men are born for the rapture of the fight itself,” he said.

When Curly and Hump were riding back from a long day’s hunt with no meat, several Bad Face youths fell in with them.

“The deer are gone,” Pretty Fellow complained. He didn’t like to hunt anyway. At the fort he hung around the soldiers and their wives a lot. He was learning English. He was the son of the leader of the band, Bad Face. He said the new leaders of the band would need to know English.

“The deer are around,” said No Water. “Just spooky.”

Black Twin and White Twin nodded. The twins had a rivalry to see who was the best hunter. Those two had a rivalry for everything.

Curly didn’t like the way Pretty Fellow was looking at him. He was deliberately wearing poor clothing again and had rubbed dust on himself in the manner of a
wakinyan
dreamer. Pretty Fellow seemed to think Curly was comical.

Curly wished he and Hump could stay clear of these Bad Faces in general. He kept thinking of the hands of his own people in the dream, somehow bringing him harm. But he couldn’t tell Hump that.

The Bad Faces asked Buffalo Hump if things had really changed, and Hump said they had, for sure. The last five winters, since all the
wasicu
started charging through the country like madmen, headed for the country by the western water, everywhere to get the yellow metal, the game had been scarce and elusive. Without game, people were going to go
hungry this winter. Not only the Lakota, but their friends and allies the Sahiyela and Mahpiyato—whom the
wasicu
called Cheyenne and Arapaho—too.

“
A-i-i-i
, Curly,” said No Water, “can you put your ear to the ground and hear the buffalo?” The people had run off from Laramie without their rations of food, and they needed a good fall hunt. “
A-i-i-i
, Curly,” the big fellow repeated, grinning at his comrades, “can you? Can your father, the
wicasa wakan
?”

Curly had nothing to say. He didn’t have the medicine of seeing things far away, and No Water knew it. Neither did Curly’s father. Tasunke Witko was not that kind of
wicasa wakan
.

“When we find the buffalo,” No Water went on, “I’ll get one my size, and Curly will get one his size.” No Water thumped his big chest, and all the youths but Hump and Curly laughed.

Pretty Fellow was making mocking eyes at Curly now. Then he tossed his head around in the air with a grin and began to hum. Everyone wondered what he was doing. Finally he crooned a teasing song:

“
Our cousin has hair the color of dust
.

His fathers
,

Were they shaggy, hairy, dirty
wasicu?”

All the Bad Face boys grinned and looked sideways at Curly. The boy felt his face flush. He gripped the reins until his knuckles turned white. They were almost into camp, and Curly thought someone might have overheard the song. Tomorrow it would be all over the village anyway.

Then he saw that Buffalo Hump was looking at him differently, too, challengingly. Curly understood. Hump wanted to see whether he handled this like a grown-up or a child.

Hawk lurched at her leg ties, flapped her wings, and shrieked.

Hump wants me to ignore this teasing
, thought Curly,
but Hawk wants me to fight
. He spoke in a casual tone. “Maybe one of you Bad Faces would like to practice fighting a little.”

The Bad Face youths looked at each other, all smiled, and all said at once, “Me.”

Hump was not surprised. He held up a hand. “Wait,” he said. He studied everyone. “Bad Faces, you pick your champion. Curly will pick the weapons.”

The Bad Faces all looked at each other again and as one said, “No Water,” and laughed.

Hump nodded. As he expected, they had picked the biggest, to take the most advantage of Curly’s slightness. Now Hump wanted to see how
wise his
hunka
would be when confronted with this challenge. “Weapons?” Hump asked.

“Knives,” said Curly.

Hump smiled at his
hunka
. His anger was not running ahead of his wisdom.

The preparations took a few minutes. The combatants wrapped their blades with strips of deer hide, so neither would get cut. They stripped to breechcloth and moccasins. Hump went into the village circle and came back with a handful of wet ashes. “Here,” he said. “Put this on the knife edges. That way we can see when someone gets hit.” They rubbed the soot on the deerskin coverings.

Hump backed off and gave the sign to begin. The fighters circled each other. The Bad Face youths looked on in a group, smirking. Black Elk, Young Man-Whose-Enemies, Lone Bear, and Horn Chips came up to watch the fun.

Yes, yes
, Hump thought. Curly was staying well away, knife held low in his left hand. He would dart in and out. No Water’s strength would do him no good this way, and his size would make him slow. Curly had chosen perfectly.

Hump wondered what Curly’s being left-handed would do to No Water. The Bad Face might not have faced a left-hander before. Hump had taught Curly to take advantage of that.

No Water jumped forward and thrust. Curly knocked the blade hand aside, slid to the left, and flicked his blade at No Water’s face. The big man jumped back, a black slash on his cheek. He looked furious.

The Hunkpatila, Black Elk, Lone Bear, and Young Man-Whose-Enemies, let out a cheer. Horn Chips looked on impassively.

Hump thought,
Don’t build up the fire in him
. Hump wasn’t sure whether Curly had gone high because the left arm was protecting the gut or deliberately to shame No Water by marking him.

His knife well down, No Water suddenly charged.

Curly kicked the knife arm away. “Beautiful!” Hump wanted to shout. No Water hurtled past, carried by his momentum. Curly cut a black gash down his side.

Hump looked hard at Curly’s face. Yes, his
hunka
was full of cold fury. Hump wondered who would win, Curly or his anger.

“Be careful,” Hump wanted to warn Curly. “The bull may charge again. He is not tricky, but he is dangerous.”

Curly stepped slowly toward No Water, feinting left and right with his hips and head. The knife blade stayed still, point up.

Uncertain, No Water backed up.

In a flash Curly knocked No Water’s blade aside and hit him twice on the chest. Soot blackened each nipple.

Hump was thrilled at his pupil’s quickness.

Black Elk and Young Man-Whose-Enemies minced like women and made the trilling sound mockingly.

No Water exploded. He gave a huge yell and bolted forward, straight at Curly, knife high this time.

Curly ducked under the blade. He came up under the armpit and let No Water ride onto his shoulder. They toppled, Curly going backward. Into the dust they fell, No Water on top. The big man’s gut bounced off the point of Curly’s knife.

“That’s enough!” yelled Hump. No need to say that Curly had won, that with an exposed tip the blow would have been fatal.

Rolling off Curly, No Water jabbed him in the face with an elbow. “Didn’t mean to,” he said baitingly.

Hump saw Curly start to flash in anger and then control himself. Good.

“That
hurt!
” complained No Water, rubbing his gut and scowling at Curly.

Curly said nothing.