Bill Dugan_War Chiefs 03 (5 page)

Calves drifted in their mothers’ wakes, their tails lashing the air, looking almost ludicrous, their already bulky bodies held up by spindly legs. All along the opposite ridge, Slow saw other Hunkpapas watching the herd, trying to gauge its temperament and making last-minute preparations. The Lakota had been hunting buffalo for generations, but it was not something they did casually. They depended on the animals for just about everything, and a mistake could send the herd rumbling away before they had killed enough to meet their immediate needs. And it was in the haste to make up for their mistakes that hunters got hurt, or sometimes killed.

To guard against overanxiousness,
akicitas,
warriors chosen this time especially to police the hunt, made sure that everyone stayed in line. They would surround the herd, and timing was crucial. If anyone broke cover too soon, it could stampede the animals before all the hunters were in place. Such a man would have to answer to the
akicitas,
and his punishment could be severe.

Sitting Bull pointed out a cow and her calf on the fringes of the herd. “You should take a calf first, Jumping Badger. If all goes well, then maybe next time you can go after a cow.”

The boy nodded, never taking his eyes off the two buffalo. Dropping to one knee, Sitting Bull continued. “Come in from behind, so the calf doesn’t see you, and approach from the right side. If you can get your pony almost even, you will have a clear shot. Draw your bow fully, and aim for the shoulder. If you hit it right, you will get the heart or the lungs. But make sure you have control of your pony, and make sure you don’t get between the calf and the cow. The cow will try to protect her calf, and if you are busy watching the calf, you cannot watch the cow. That is a sure way to get yourself in trouble.”

Again, Slow nodded. He thought about asking a few questions, but knew that Sitting Bull had already thought through what he wanted to say, and he would have missed nothing that Slow needed to know. Interrupting with questions would just waste time and distract his father. He was too anxious to join the hunt, barely able to restrain himself as it was.

Sitting Bull continued, “The bulls are the most dangerous. They are almost as fast as your pony, and they can change direction quickly. If a bull spots you and decides to charge, don’t think that you can bring him down. You are not ready for that, and before you realize it, it will be too late. He will be on you. Never drift into the middle of the herd, because you can’t watch every direction at one time. If the calf you are after heads toward the middle of the herd, let it go and find another. As long as you keep to the outside edge, there will always be another target for you.”

Two huge bulls had lowered their heads, and once again the thunderous crack of their collision reverberated through the valley. It was rutting season, and the bulls were competing for female attention. Other bulls were pairing off, and more duels began. But the buffalo seemed to have short attention spans, and the fights ended almost as soon as they began. Two or three rushes seemed to settle matters, and one bull or another would amble off, its tail flicking at flies, none the worse for wear, while the victor turned his attention back to the business of grazing.

“Are you ready?” Sitting Bull asked.

Slow was anxious to get started, but he wasn’t sure he was ready. His father sensed the uncertainty. “No one is ready the first time, Slow,” he said. “A wise man knows when he should be cautious. It is only natural that you hesitate, but you cannot hesitate forever. I would not send you down there if I did not think you were ready. Understand?”

Slow nodded. He was pleased that his father had confidence in him, and it bolstered his determination. “I am ready,” he said. But his voice sounded less certain than his words.

Sitting Bull knew that he could not wait much longer for fear Slow would lose his nerve. Besides, there was his obligation to the others to be considered, and one man’s son was nothing when measured against the general welfare. He said, “Let’s get on our horses. We have to circle around the valley and get to the other side, where the others are waiting for us.” Without waiting for an answer, he moved to his horse and swung aboard, reining in while he waited for Slow to mount his gray pony.

When the boy was mounted, Sitting Bull nudged his horse back downhill a few yards, staying below the ridgeline. It would reduce the chances of spooking the buffalo. The packhorses trailed behind him in a single line. It took fifteen minutes to reach the east end of the ridge. Crossing the narrow mouth of the valley, the buffalo well west of them now and out of sight, Slow was beginning to feel a new surge of confidence. By the time they had climbed to the opposite ridge and reached the end of the line of impatient hunters, Slow was convinced that he would take his first buffalo that day.

Sitting Bull picketed his packhorses, then mounted up again. He reached over to ruffle his son’s hair, then nodded, and the hunt leader gave the signal to begin. Unlike a war party, where the point was to terrify the enemy with war cries, the hunters moved quietly, spreading out behind the herd and hoping to get right on top of it before
the alarm began to circulate among the grazing animals.

But soon the approaching horses were too obvious for the buffalo to miss, and the herd began to move. At first the animals just milled around, raising their heads to pick up the scent of the intruders. They broke into uncertain trots, some in one direction, some in another. But as the Hunkpapa got closer, the nearest animals began to run. Soon a surge spread through the herd from one side to the other, and they were all in flight, heading west, down the length of the long, narrow valley.

Sitting Bull hung back, wanting to keep an eye on Slow without the boy realizing he was being watched. If things went well, he wouldn’t interfere, but he would be close enough to help if Slow ran into trouble.

He watched as his son skirted the rear fringe of the herd, moving parallel to a handful of cows and calves. Slow held his bow with arrow notched but undrawn as he tried to maneuver his gray pony alongside a fat calf. He clutched two more arrows against the curve of the bow, ready for quick release, just as his father had shown him so many times. The calf kept changing direction on him, sometimes moving away from its mother and the rest of the herd, sometimes drifting into a clump of other calves. It might have been easier to pick another target, but Slow had his heart set on his first choice. Ahead, he could see the first few kills—dark, immobile mounds in the surging brown sea.

The buffalo parted to get past the fallen animals,
then reconverged. As the last of the herd passed the first few victims of the hunt, the carcasses remained in the trampled grass like great brown boulders. But Slow was too busy tracking his prey to pay much attention to the success of the other hunters.

He moved in closer, gaining confidence with every stride of his pony. The calf turned once to look at him, then veered away, and Slow kicked his heels into the pony’s flanks for an extra burst of speed. He was just ten yards behind the calf now and closing in fast. Once more the calf veered, drifting to the right and cutting across his path. The gray responded, changing direction so horse and rider were once more behind the right flank of the terrified calf.

Slow drew his arrow now, squeezing the gray between his legs to hang on. He tried to aim, but the bounding pony made it difficult for him to hold to his target. The bowstring hummed and the arrow grazed the calf’s back, the iron arrowhead plowing a shallow furrow in the flesh and leaving a bright red line to mark its passage.

Slow shook his fist in anger before notching another arrow from those in his hand. Adjusting it, he drew it back almost to the head, his frustration giving him strength. Before letting the arrow fly, he had to change direction yet again as the calf veered to avoid a fallen bull. The calf flew by on the bull’s left, Slow on its right. He passed close enough to see three arrows buried to their fletching in the buffalo’s shoulder, blood seeping from around the shafts.

Once past the bull, he adjusted his angle on the calf again and drew the arrow back full, letting fly while the pony was in mid-stride. This time he had better luck and the arrow found its mark. It must have struck bone, because it penetrated only a few inches and flapped loosely as the calf galloped on. Again closing the gap, another arrow strung and drawn, he shot for the third time. This time he saw his arrow bury itself to the feathers. The calf stumbled but did not go down, simply changing direction as it regained its stride.

But the calf seemed slower now, as if the arrow had found something vital. Its lips were bloody, and it snorted bloody foam as it turned to look at its tormentor. Another arrow ready, Slow drew close, aimed, and cut loose. Once more, the arrow buried itself completely in the calf’s side. This time it stumbled, lost its feet, and fell to its knees, skidding several feet, its hind legs trying desperately to keep it moving forward.

Slow looked ahead, saw that he was not that far from another calf, and left his first animal to breathe its last as he kicked the gray into a full gallop. There was no danger of losing his calf to another hunter, because the markings on his arrows would identify it unmistakably as his.

Sitting Bull, confident that his son was in control of things, turned his attention to the hunt. He plunged into the herd’s rear guard, singled out a fat cow, and quickly brought her down with three arrows placed so closely their shafts touched. Leaving his first kill, he moved on for another. There was always another winter to prepare for,
and the upcoming one already had all the signs of being a cold and snowy one, even this early in the summer. It was time to start gathering supplies to get the family through the worst of the cold weather, when game would be hard to come by. And the later in winter you hunted, the thinner your prey, as the deer, elk, and buffalo used their fat to supplement their own more meager winter food supply.

By the time the herd disappeared to the west, Sitting Bull had brought down two cows and a bull. Slow was less fortunate. He had the one calf, but had not managed to get another. He sat there on the gray, surveying the valley, now deathly quiet, the thunder of thousands of buffalo hooves just a fading memory. The air was thick with dust, and the smell of blood gave it a sweet scent.

Several of the fallen buffalo were still alive, some trying to get to their feet, others panting and groaning as they lay on their sides, no longer having the strength to move. Already the hunters were moving among the dead and wounded animals, looking for their own prey and, as soon as they found it, setting to work with their knives.

There were many ways to butcher a buffalo, and the choice depended on what use would be made of the hides. If they were intended for robes, they would be cut one way, if they were to be fashioned into tipi siding, they were cut another.

Slow looked for Sitting Bull, finally spotting him a few hundred yards away, already busy with his first buffalo carcass. Nudging his pony into motion, he picked his way through the carcasses, feeling
that something had changed, that he was not the same Jumping Badger he had been two hours ago.

Several of the hunters looked up from their work as he passed, and they waved to him and greeted him not in the way they would the children, but in the way they would one another. They were looking at him in a new way, which just reinforced his feeling that something had changed. He wondered, if he were to see his reflection in one of the white man’s looking glasses, would he recognize himself, or was what he felt inside also apparent on the outside?

When he reached Sitting Bull, he slipped from the gray and squatted down beside his father. He had never butchered a buffalo, and he watched in fascination as his father removed the hide, leaving a bit of fat on the inside of the skin. When the hide had been removed, the real business of butchering began, and Sitting Bull looked up without slowing his work. “Get the packhorses,” he said. “We’ll do your calf as soon as I am finished with this cow.”

Slow, somewhat deflated at being sent to do a chore, walked back to his gray and headed for the ridge. Well, he thought, maybe he doesn’t see it, but I
am
different now.

Yellowstone River Valley
1845

S
LOW SLIPPED OUT OF THE TIPI
and walked into the center of the camp. He was fourteen now, tired of being considered a boy, but it was not easy to prove himself, to earn the respect of the warriors. Sometimes he would sit and listen to them, their tales of bravery, of battles against the Crows and the Hohe, and he grew envious. When, he wondered, would he have the chance to tell his own stories?

Sitting there, just outside the reach of the firelight, it was as if he didn’t even exist. The warriors paid him no more attention than they paid the stray dogs that wandered from tipi to tipi, looking for a handout. It didn’t seem right, somehow. It had been four years since he had killed his first buffalo. He did his share of work in the village. He was ready for the warpath, and no one could tell him otherwise. His mother, of course, would try to keep
him a boy as long as she could. But she couldn’t succeed forever.

Nearly every week, he raised the issue with Sitting Bull, but the answer was always the same. “Not yet,” Sitting Bull would tell him. “You are too young for the warpath.”

Sometimes at night he would hear Sitting Bull and Her Holy Door talking about him. Sitting Bull would tell her that Slow wanted to go on the warpath, and Her Holy Door would whisper sharply, “What did you tell him?” Sitting Bull would say that he had tried to discourage the boy by telling him that he was too young. “Well, he
is
too young,” Her Holy Door would say. Sitting Bull would not answer, and Slow wondered whether that meant his father agreed with his mother, or that he disagreed but did not want to argue about it. They had had such a conversation the night before, but Slow was not discouraged.

He saw a few warriors sitting in a tight circle, talking among themselves. As he crept closer, their voices exploded in laughter. He tried to hear what they were saying, but the words were muffled. He moved even closer and sat on the grass, just close enough now to hear what was being said.