Sundancer (Cheyenne Series) (46 page)

      
The third day went on much as the preceding one had. Roxanna worked diligently at the cookfires and later in the afternoon was asked by White Owl Woman to carry food to the Medicine Lodge for the dancers. The edifice was surrounded by people, some chanting, some simply sitting in reverence. The food was received by Sees Much at the door. He took it gravely from her. Several other women bearing similar offerings also handed their bowls to warriors who carried them inside. Roxanna waited with the women, not certain what would happen next. She dearly wished to see what was going on inside, but the opening was blocked by several men who stood in front of it.

      
In a few moments the food, mostly untouched, was carried back out. Sees Much then began to distribute it among the men and women who sat around the lodge. At length he approached her, offering a bowl of dark red plums. “Will you eat now? It has been blessed in the sacredness of the lodge.”

      
Like a Eucharist
, Roxanna thought, struck at once by numerous similarities between Christian and Cheyenne beliefs. Cain had told her Enoch Sterling admired the Cheyenne religion. She was beginning to understand how that was possible. “Thank you,” she replied, accepting a plum from the bowl and biting into the sweet juicy fruit.

      
Her eyes strayed over to where Powell was sitting. He stared stonily, not sharing in the food. “What will happen to him when this is over? Will Leather Shirt be satisfied after he has forced Powell to watch his son here?”

      
“You understand much,” the old man replied. “Yet it is not important what either old man feels. They feed the bitterness of their hearts. What matters is that the Lone Bull is alone no more. He has rejected the one who rejected him and found that his true family is here. As to the fate of His Eyes Are Cold, I do not think Leather Shirt will kill him. Yet my brother wishes to know what has brought him here after so many years. There may be mischief in that.”

      
Roxanna thought of the raiders the Central Pacific had sent to attack Union Pacific crews and sabotage their supplies. “It may have to do with the great race between the Iron Horse men.” She explained about the competition and the skullduggery, and Powell's involvement.

      
Sees Much listened intently. “After the Medicine Lodge is completed, I will discuss this with my brother and the Lone Bull. Then we will decide what is to be done.” He arose with that agility that still surprised her because he looked so frail. “Tomorrow is the most sacred day. Rest well this night and prepare yourself.”

      
Roxanna wanted to ask why she needed to prepare. What would tomorrow bring? But Sees Much quickly disappeared into the Medicine Lodge. She did grow weary that evening and returned to her pallet as the moon rose splendid and golden over the tall cottonwoods along the river. At first she drifted in and out of a restless slumber, hearing the relentless pounding of the drum, thinking of Cain still dancing alone in the lodge. For some reason Sees Much had not returned tonight to the lodge he shared with the women. A feeling of unease swept over her, but then she fell into a deep dreamless sleep.

      
Just before dawn she awakened with a suffocating sense of dread laying so heavy on her that it felt as if a great invisible hand pressed her whole body into the furs on her pallet. She sat up slowly, orienting her muzzy senses in the darkness. The lone drum had ceased its pounding. Across the lodge Willow Tree and Lark Song slept soundly. The panic clawed at her with such fierceness that she scrambled up and began to dress awkwardly, her fingers clumsy with fear. She had to get out of the confines of the lodge, yet she had no idea where she would go.

      
When Roxanna emerged from the lodge, she could see the first pearl-gray light of dawn stealing over the eastern sky. No one stirred in the silent camp as she walked toward the big Medicine Lodge, drawn to share in her husband's suffering. How weak he must be with hunger and thirst by now. Could he endure another day of such suffering?

      
Just as she approached the big lodge, Sees Much emerged as if he had been expecting her. Odd, she thought, how often he seemed to anticipate events. “I feel foolish disturbing you,” she said softly. “Is my husband resting? I—I was worried about him. The drumming stopped and I thought—”

      
“There is no time for him to rest now That will come at sundown tonight.”

      
“I have had this feeling of terror. It awakened me. At first I thought it must be because I'm with child, yet it seems so real, so oppressive.” She waited for the old shaman to reassure her, but instead he changed the subject.

      
“The Lone Bull prepares for his vision. It will come by the end of the day. There were some in the warrior societies who did not believe one who is half white should be allowed to make a Medicine Lodge. They said his white blood would displease the Powers, that he would be denied a vision, that he lacked the heart to fast and dance, to make the final sacrifice. Already they know they were wrong and say they have never seen one make a stronger sacrifice for the People. For the three days he has not rested as he might have at night. He has danced with good heart. He shows great courage. Now he will swing to the pole in the center of the sacred lodge.”

      
“You have explained about the dancing, the fasting, the vision, but not what swinging to the pole means.” The feeling of dread seemed even more oppressive now. She could not shake it.

      
“You will see. The lodge skins will be rolled up this afternoon so that all may watch the final time when his vision comes.”

      
A low keening chant began on the other side of the lodge near its open door, a woman's voice, growing louder and stranger with each note. “Who is that?”

      
“White Owl Woman sings a strong-heart song for the Lone Bull, to cheer him on through his ordeal so that his sacrifice will bring many blessings to the People.”

      
Sacrifice. Ordeal. Roxanna felt a prickling along the hairs at the nape of her neck. What exactly was going to happen today? She felt oddly constrained from asking Sees Much any further questions. He vanished back inside the Medicine Lodge.

      
The sun rose cloaked in orange and gold now, and people began to emerge from their lodges. The ritual of the morning song echoed across the camp. Then the sound of the drums resumed inside the big lodge, the beat loud, steady, relentless. A wave of renewed excitement swept over the camp as people converged around the sacred edifice.

      
Roxanna was joined by Willow Tree and Lark Song, who urged her to break her fast in preparation for the day. She demurred, finding that the hearty appetite of pregnancy had suddenly deserted her. The hours seemed to drag through the morning as Roxanna helped with the cooking and carried offerings of food to the Medicine Lodge.

      
When the sun reached its zenith, an excited murmur ran across the assembly as the dancers from the ceremony began to roll up the lodge coverings. Roxanna worked her way carefully to the front of the assembly, staying far from where Andrew Powell was seated. She was dimly aware that the crowd parted deferentially for her, giving her honor as wife of the pledger.

      
Some sixth sense centered her concentration on the tall center pole of the lodge, rising above the walls. She could see a rope attached at the top of it being pulled from below slowly, back and forth in a semicircle. This was swinging to the pole. Cain must be pulling on it as he danced. The lodge covering was rolled high enough now for her to see his feet moving in the circle. She knelt down to see the rest of his body, then fell to her knees, suppressing a cry of shocked horror. Both hands flew to her mouth, covering it lest she scream.

      
Blood. There seemed to be blood everywhere, rolling down his chest, mixing with the red ocher paints and perspiration, running in smaller rivulets over his thighs, streaking his legs, soaking his moccasins with crimson. His chest had been cut by some sharp instrument. The skin over the pectoral muscles on both sides was skewered with leather thongs which were fastened to the braided rope suspended from the top of the center pole.

      
He moved slowly in the circle, dancing to the steady beat of the drums, oblivious to his surroundings. His eyes were closed, his hair matted to his head, soaked with sweat. Each step he took was deliberate, each jarring bounce when his foot came down on the hard-packed earth must have been agony. His lips were pulled into a wide thin slash, his expression a feral grimace of pain and determination.

      
She sank onto the ground, unable to tear her eyes away from his face. He was utterly silent as he circled the pole. Roxanna bit down on her lips, drawing blood, to keep from crying out when he lunged backward in a deliberate attempt to yank the cruel thongs from his flesh. His eyes opened then, blank and fathomless, as he stared up past the lodge pole towering above him into the blazing noontime sun.

      
It was as if he were in some sort of trance which carried him beyond the pain. She knew he had abstained from all food and drink for the past three days. Did the heat and his natural lightheadedness produce such a state? Perhaps that was how the pledger received his vision, the desperate hallucination caused by starvation and exhaustion compounded by unspeakable pain. There was a burning behind her eyelids, but tears would not form. She was beyond tears.

      
Did he do this for her? To prove to her that he had not married her only for his job with Jubal, that he had come to love her, that he could love their child? I wanted you to love me,
Cain, but I never wanted this!

      
Roxanna forced herself to watch as he made his way back and forth in front of the pole. Each time he threw himself back, pulling against the thongs, she felt his pain as tangibly as if she too were pierced and bleeding with him. All the murmuring of the crowd, the beating of the drums, the shrill sounds from the eagle-bone whistles, the songs of the other warriors who danced with him—everything faded. She saw only her husband.

      
Sees Much observed the Lone Bull's head lift skyward again, turning his face toward the fiery heat of the sun. Soon the vision would come. He could feel its power and knew it would be good for the young man who endured so bravely. And for his woman. The old man turned his attention to Her Back Is Straight. Luminous eyes, the color of polished turquoise, stared in rapt horror at the pain her man was undergoing.
She does not realize why this must be done.
He made his way outside and sat down next to her. In tacit understanding, Willow Tree and the others around her arose and cleared a space, allowing the shaman and his young charge to speak privately.

      
“He shows great courage. So do you, my child.”

      
Roxanna sucked in a breath. “He knew what would happen this day. What did you say to him before the ceremony to make him throw himself into this as he has?”

      
Sees Much was silent a moment. “When a man pledges the Medicine Lodge it cannot be done in half measures. This the Lone Bull knew.” He smiled faintly. “I know he did not believe in the medicine as I did. But he believed in you.”

      
Roxanna squeezed her eyes closed and the earth beneath her seemed to spin. “Then this is all my fault.”

      
“There is no fault. He could have taken you away. None would have stopped him.”

      
“But I made him—”

      
“No,” he said forcefully. “You did not force him to do this. There was something—some small spark deep inside of him, long buried, that flamed to life because of his love for you and his child. That is what took hold of him when he began to dance on the second day. I watched it grow as he fasted and danced through the nights and the days until this morning...the final day.”

      
“How can we do this to him? How can he endure it?”

      
His eyes were sympathetic. She had not been raised in their way. That was why he had withheld from her this information about the fourth day of the ceremony. “He endures because it is the only means to receive his vision. Pain does more than purge past sins and prove great courage to the people who watch. It also teaches him that he has great heart, strength.” He pounded his chest, which also bore the scars of the Sun Dance. “In the Medicine Lodge a man faces himself and sees who he is.”

      
“And what if he does not like what he sees?” The question seemed to ask itself. This was her greatest fear for Cain.

      
“He did not like himself because he refused to look until now,” Sees Much replied.

      
“If he must finish this, then I must watch him,” she said, turning her eyes back to her husband once again. Steely determination was etched in every plane of her face as she sat rigidly still. Only her tightly clenched fists buried in her lap betrayed her anguish.

      
Each time he threw himself backward, working the cruel thongs through his flesh, a low hum of approval was elicited from the observers. Roxanna’s nails dug deeper into her palms until she too bled with Cain.

      
Time stood still. Or it seemed to. Heat rose in shimmering waves from the plains grasses undulating to the far horizon. The drum's rhythm seemed to be one unified heartbeat which was shared by every man, woman and child present. The high wailing songs of the other dancers grew gradually louder, the shrill piercing sound of eagle-bone whistles more frequent as the drums' tempo slowly accelerated.

      
Sweat poured off the Lone Bull, diluting the rivulets of blood and paint, bathing his whole body in crimson. Had he danced forever? There had seemed no end at first. Now there seemed no beginning either, only the eternal now of heat and drums and blood, the pounding of his feet on the earth below, the blazing gold of the sun above, the fierce insistent agony of thirst and pain...and the vision. He blinked, opened his eyes wide and stared into the sun, not seeing its bright rays.