Dances With Wolves (9 page)

six

Cisco bent his neck and stared quizzically at the figure coming toward him, paying special attention to the bright red sash fluttering at the man’s waist. Even if the sash had not been there, it’s likely the horse’s eyes would have remained fixed. No one had seen Lieutenant Dunbar in quite this form before. Cisco certainly hadn’t, and he knew his master as well as anyone.

The lieutenant always dressed to get by, putting little emphasis on the glitter of parades or inspections or meetings with generals.

But if the finest army minds had put their heads together in order to produce the ultimate junior officer, they would have fallen far short of what Lieutenant Dunbar had wrought on this crystal-clear May morning.

Right down to the big Navy revolver swinging gently at his hip, he was every young girl’s dream of the man in uniform. The vision he presented was so full of dash and sparkle that no feminine heart could have failed to skip a beat at the sight of him. The most cynical head would have been compelled to turn, and the tightest lips would have found themselves forming the words:

“Who is that?”

After slipping the bit into Cisco’s mouth, he grabbed a hunk of mane and swung effortlessly onto the buckskin’s glossy back. They trotted over to the supply house, where the lieutenant leaned down and picked up the guidon and flag leaning against the wall. He slid the staff into his left boot, grasped the standard with his left hand, and guided Cisco toward the open prairie.

When he’d gone a hundred yards Dunbar stopped and looked back, knowing there was a possibility he would never see this place again. He glanced at the sun and saw that it was no later than midmorning. He would have plenty of time to find them. Off to the west he could see the flat, smoky cloud that had appeared three mornings in a row. That would have to be them.

The lieutenant looked down at the toes of his boots. They were reflecting the sunlight. A little sigh of doubt came out of him, and for a split second he wished for a stiff shot of whiskey. Then he clucked to Cisco, and the little horse rolled into a lope that carried them west. The breeze was up and Old Glory was popping as he rode out to meet . . . to meet he knew not what.

But he was going.

seven

Without being planned at all, Stands With A Fist’s mourning was highly ritualistic.

She had no intention of dying now. What she wanted was to clean out the warehouse of grief inside her. She wanted the most thorough cleansing possible, and so she took her time.

Quiet and methodical, she rode for almost an hour before she happened upon a spot that suited her, a place where the gods were likely to congregate.

To one who lived on the prairie it would pass for a hill. To anyone else it would have been nothing more than a bump on the land, like a small swell on a broad, flat sea. There was a single tree at its crest, a knobby old oak that somehow clung to life despite being mangled through the years by passersby. In every direction it was the only tree she could see.

It was a very lonely place. It seemed just right. She climbed to the top, slid off her pony, walked a few feet down the backside of the slope, and sat cross-legged on the ground.

The breeze was bouncing her braids around, so she reached up, undid them both, and let her cherry-colored hair fly in the wind. Then she closed her eyes, began to rock quietly back and forth, and concentrated on the terrible thing that had happened in her life, concentrated on it to the exclusion of all else.

Not many minutes later, the words to a song took shape in her head. She opened her mouth and verses tumbled out, as sure and strong as something she had diligently rehearsed.

Her singing was high. Sometimes her voice cracked. But she sang with her whole heart, with a beauty far surpassing something sweet to the ear.

The first was a simple song, celebrating his virtues as a warrior and a husband. Toward the end of it, a couplet came to her. It went:

“He was a great man,

He was great to me.”

She paused before she sang these lines. Lifting her closed eyes to the sky, Stands With A Fist pulled her knife from its scabbard and deliberately sliced a two-inch cut on her forearm. She dropped her head and peeked at the cut. The blood was coming well. She resumed her singing, holding the knife fast in one hand.

She slashed herself several more times in the next hour. The incisions were shallow, but they produced a lot of blood, and this pleased Stands With A Fist. As her head grew lighter, her concentration grew stronger.

The singing was good. It told the whole story of their lives in a way that talking to someone wouldn’t. Without going into detail, she left out nothing.

At last, when she’d made up a beautiful verse imploring the Great Spirit to give him an honored place in the world beyond the sun, a sudden surge of emotion hit her. There was little she hadn’t covered. She was finishing, and that meant good-bye.

Tears flooded her eyes as she hiked up the doeskin dress to slash one of her thighs. She drew the blade across her leg hastily and gave a little gasp. The cut was very deep this time. She must have hit a major vein or artery, because when Stands With A Fist looked down, she could see the red gushing out with every beat of her heart.

She could try to stop the bleeding or she could go on singing.

Stands With A Fist chose the latter. She sat with her feet stretched out, letting her blood soak into the ground as she lifted her head high and wailed the words:

“It will be good to die.

It will be good to go with him.

I will be going after.”

eight

Because the breeze was blowing into her face, she never heard the rider’s approach.

He’d noticed the slope from far out and decided that, since he’d seen nothing yet, it would be a good place to take a sighting. If he still couldn’t see anything when he got there, he might climb that old tree.

Lieutenant Dunbar was halfway up the rise when the wind brought a strange, sad sound to his ears. Going with caution, he cleared the slope’s crest and saw a person sitting a few feet down the hill, just in front of him. The person’s back was turned. He couldn’t say for sure whether it was a man or a woman. But it was definitely an Indian.

A singing Indian.

He was sitting still on Cisco’s back when the person turned to face him.

nine

She couldn’t have said what it was, but Stands With A Fist suddenly knew there was something standing behind her, and she turned to see.

She only caught a glimpse of the face below the hat before a surprise gust of wind whipped the colored flag around the man’s head.

But the glimpse was enough. It told her he was a white soldier.

She didn’t jump or run. There was something spellbinding about the image of the solitary horse soldier. The great colored flag and the shining pony and the sun blinking off the ornaments on his clothes. And now the face again as the flag unfurled: a hard, young face with shining eyes. Stands With A Fist blinked several times, unsure if she was seeing a vision or a person. Nothing had moved but the flag.

Then the soldier shifted his seat on the horse. He was real. She rolled to her knees and started to draw away down the slope. She didn’t make a sound, nor did she rush. Stands With A Fist had woken from one nightmare to find herself in another, one that was real. She moved slowly because she was too horrified to run.

ten

Dunbar was shocked when he saw her face. He didn’t say the words, not even in his head, but if he had, the lieutenant would have said something like, “What kind of woman is this?”

The sharp little face, the tangled cherry hair, and the intelligent eyes, wild enough to love or hate with equal intensity, had thrown him completely. It didn’t occur to him then that she might not be an Indian. Only one thing was on his mind at the moment.

He had never seen a woman who looked so original.

Before he could move or speak, she rolled to her knees, and he saw that she was covered with blood.

“Oh my God,” he gasped.

It wasn’t until she’d backed all the way down the slope that he raised his hand and called out softly.

“Wait.”

At the sound of the word, Stands With A Fist broke into a stumbling run. Lieutenant Dunbar trotted after her, pleading for her to stop. When he had closed to within a few yards, Stands With A Fist glanced back, lost her footing, and went down in the high grass.

When he got to her she was crawling, and every time he tried to reach down he had to pull away, as if afraid to touch a wounded animal. When he finally took her around the shoulders, she flipped onto her back and clawed out at his face.

“You’re hurt,” he said, batting away her hands. “You’re hurt.”

For a few seconds she fought hard, but the steam went out of her fast and he had her by the wrists in no time. With the last of her strength she bucked and kicked under him. And when she did, something bizarre happened.

In the delirium of her struggle an old English word, one she hadn’t spoken for many years, came to her. It slipped out of her mouth before she could stop it.

“Don’t,” she said.

It gave them both pause. Lieutenant Dunbar couldn’t believe he’d heard it, and Stands With A Fist couldn’t believe she’d said it.

She threw her head back and let her body sag against the ground. It was too much for her. She moaned a few Comanche words and passed out.

eleven

The woman in the grass continued to breathe. Most of her wounds were superficial, but the one on her thigh was dangerous. Blood was still seeping steadily from it, and the lieutenant kicked himself for having thrown away the red sash a mile or two back. It would have made a perfect tourniquet.

He’d been ready to throw away more. The longer he’d ridden and the less he’d seen, the more ridiculous his plan had seemed. He’d thrown the sash away as something useless, silly really, and was ready to fold up the flag (which also seemed silly) and return to Fort Sedgewick when he saw the rise and the solitary tree.

His belt was new and too stiff, so with the woman’s knife, he cut a strip out of the flag and tied it high on her thigh. The flow of blood diminished right away, but he still needed a compress. He stripped off his uniform, wriggled out of his long johns, and cut the underwear in half. Then he wadded up the top and pressed it against the deep gash.

For ten terrible minutes Lieutenant Dunbar knelt next to her, naked in the grass, both hands pushing hard against the compress. Once during that time he thought she may have died. He placed a tentative ear on her breast and listened. Her heart was still thumping.

Working there by himself was difficult and nerve-racking, not knowing who the woman was, not knowing whether she would live or die. It was hot in the grass at the base of the slope, and every time he brushed at the sweat dripping into his eyes, he left a streak of her blood on his face. Off and on he would lift the compress and take a look. And each time he would stare in frustration at the blood that refused to stop. Then he would replace the compress.

But he stayed with it.

Finally, when the blood had slowed to a trickle, he went into action. The thigh wound needed to be sewn shut, but that was impossible. He cut a leg off the long underwear, folded it into a dressing, and laid it flat on the wound. Then, working as fast as he could, the lieutenant cut another strip from the flag and tied it securely around the bandage. He repeated this process with the lesser arm wounds.

As he worked, Stands With A Fist began to groan. She opened her eyes a few times but was too weak to make a fuss, even when he took up his canteen and poured a sip or two of water into her mouth.

After he had done all he could as a doctor, Dunbar put his uniform back on, wondering what to do as he buttoned his trousers and tunic.

He saw her pony out on the prairie and thought of catching it. But when he looked at the woman in the grass, it didn’t make sense. She might be able to ride, but she would need help.

Dunbar glanced at the western sky. The smoky cloud was nearly gone. Only a few wisps remained. If he hurried, he could point himself in that direction before the cloud vanished.

He slipped his arms under Stands With A Fist, picked her up, and piled her as smoothly as he could onto Cisco’s back, intending to lead while she rode. But the girl was semiconscious and started to keel over as soon as she was on.

With one hand holding her in place, he managed to jump up behind. Then he turned her around, and looking like a father cradling his stricken daughter, Dunbar steered his horse in the direction of the smoky cloud.

As Cisco carried them across the prairie, the lieutenant thought about his plan to impress the wild Indians. He didn’t look very mighty or very official now. There was blood on his tunic and his hands. The girl was bandaged with his underwear and a United States flag.

It had to be better this way. When he thought about what he had done, cavorting stupidly around the countryside with polished boots and a silly red sash and, of all things, a flag flying at his side, the lieutenant smiled sheepishly.

I must be an idiot, he thought.

He looked at the cherry hair under his chin and wondered what this poor woman must have thought when she saw him in his dandy getup.

Stands With A Fist wasn’t thinking at all. She was in twilight. She was only feeling. She felt the horse swaying under her, she felt the arm across her back, and she felt the strange fabric against her face. Most of all Stands With A Fist felt safe, and all the way back she kept her eyes closed, afraid that if she opened them, the feeling would be gone.

one

Smiles A Lot was not a reliable boy.

No one would have characterized him as a troublemaker, but Smiles A Lot disliked work, and unlike most Indian boys, the idea of shouldering responsibility left him cold.

He was a dreamer, and as a dreamer often does, Smiles A Lot had learned that one of the better stratagems for avoiding the boredom of work was to keep to himself.

It followed, then, that the shiftless boy spent as much time as possible with the band’s large pony herd. He drew the assignment regularly, in part because he was always ready to go and in part because he had, at the age of twelve, become an expert with horses.

Smiles A Lot could predict to within hours the foaling time for mares. He had a knack for controlling unruly stallions. And when it came to doctoring, he knew as much or more about tending to equine ailments as any grown man in the band. The horses just seemed to fare better when he was around.

All of this was second nature to Smiles A Lot . . . second nature and secondary. What he liked most about being with the horses was that they grazed away from camp, sometimes as far as a mile, and this placed Smiles A Lot far away, too; away from the omnipotent eyes of his father, away from the potential chore of minding his little brothers and sisters, and away from the never-ending work of maintaining camp.

Usually there were other boys and girls lolling around the herd, but unless something special came up, Smiles A Lot rarely joined their games and socializing.

He much preferred climbing onto the back of some calm gelding, stretching out along the horse’s spine, and dreaming, sometimes for hours, as the ever-changing sky drifted by.

He’d been dreaming like this most of the afternoon, happy to be away from the village, which was still reeling from the tragic return of the party that had gone against the Utes. Smiles A Lot knew that, though he had little interest in fighting, sooner or later he would have to take up the warpath, and already he’d made a mental note to watch out for parties going against the Utes.

For the last hour he’d been enjoying the uncommon luxury of being alone with the herd. The other children had been called back for one reason or another, but no one had come for Smiles A Lot, and this made him the happiest of dreamers. With luck, he wouldn’t have to go back until dark, and sunset was still several hours off.

He was smack in the middle of the big herd, daydreaming about being the owner of a herd all his own, one that would be like a great assembly of warriors whom no one would dare to challenge, when he picked up a movement on the ground.

It was a large, yellow gopher snake. Somehow he’d managed to get himself lost in the midst of all these shifting hooves and was slithering along at a desperate clip, looking for a way out.

Smiles A Lot was fond of snakes, and this one was surely big enough and old enough to be a grandfather. A grandfather in trouble. He spilled off his horsey couch with the idea of catching the old fellow and carrying him away from this dangerous place.

The big snake was not easy to run down. He was moving very fast, and Smiles A Lot kept getting hemmed in by the tightly bunched ponies. The boy was constantly ducking under necks and bellies, and it was only through the dogged determination of a Good Samaritan that he was able to keep the yellow body twisting along the ground in sight.

It ended well. Near the edge of the herd the big snake finally found a hole to crawl into, and the only thing Smiles A Lot caught was a last glimpse of the tail as it disappeared underground.

Then, while he was standing over the hole, several of the horses whinnied and Smiles A Lot saw their ears go up. He saw all the heads around him suddenly arch in the same direction.

They’d seen something coming.

A shiver ran through the boy, and the buoyancy of being alone turned against him in a single stroke. He was afraid, but he moved forward stealthily, staying low amongst the ponies, hoping to see before being seen.

When he could see empty patches of prairie opening in front of him, Smiles A Lot dropped down and duck-walked alongside the horses’ legs. They hadn’t panicked and that made him feel a little less scared. But they were still watching with as much curiosity as ever, and the boy was careful not to make a sound.

He stopped when the horse flashed by, twenty or thirty yards away. He couldn’t get a good look because his view was blocked, but he was sure he’d seen legs, too.

Slowly he rose up and peeked over a pony’s back. Every hair on Smiles A Lot’s head tingled. A racket went off in his head like buzzing bees. The boy’s mouth froze, and so did his eyes. He didn’t blink. He’d never seen one before, but he knew exactly what he was looking at.

It was a white man. A white soldier man with blood on his face.

And he had somebody. He had that strange one, that Stands With A Fist woman.

The white soldier’s horse started into a trot as he passed. They were headed straight for the village. It was too late to run ahead and raise the alarm. Smiles A Lot shrank back into the herd and started to work his way back to the center. He would get into trouble for this. What could he possibly do?

The boy couldn’t think clearly; everything was tumbling in his head, like seeds in a rattle. If he’d been a little steadier, he would have known from the look on his face that the white soldier could not be on a hostile mission. Nothing in his bearing said so. But the only words banging around in Smiles A Lot’s brain were “White soldier, white soldier.”

Suddenly he thought, Maybe there are more. Maybe there is an army of hair mouths out on the prairie. Maybe they’re close by.

Thinking only of atoning for his carelessness, Smiles A Lot pulled off the willow bridle he kept around his neck, slipped it onto the face of a strong-looking pony, and led it as quietly as he could out of the herd.

Then he jumped up and whipped the pony into a run, racing away in the opposite direction of the village, anxiously squinting at the horizon for any sign of white soldiers.

two

Lieutenant Dunbar’s adrenaline was running. That pony herd . . . At first he’d thought the prairie was moving. Never had he seen horses in such numbers. Six, maybe seven hundred of them. It was so awe-inspiring he’d been tempted to stop and watch. But of course he couldn’t.

There was a woman in his arms.

She’d held up fairly well. Her breathing was regular and she hadn’t bled much. She’d been very quiet, too, but tiny as she was, the woman was breaking his back. He’d carried her for more than an hour, and now that he was close, the lieutenant wanted more than ever to get there. His fate would be decided shortly, and that kept his adrenaline running, but more than anything, he thought of the monstrous ache between his shoulder blades. It was killing him.

The land up ahead was dropping away, and as he drew closer, he could see pieces of the stream cutting across the prairie, then the tips of something; and then, as he reached the brow of the slope, the encampment rose into view before his eyes, rising as the moon had done the night before.

Unconsciously, the lieutenant squeezed the reins. He had to stop now. He was gazing on a sight for all time.

There were fifty or sixty conical, hide-covered houses pitched along the stream. They looked warm and peaceful in the late afternoon sun, but the shadows they cast also made them look larger than life, like ancient, still-living monuments.

He could see people working around the houses. He could hear some of their voices as they walked along the tamped-down avenues between lodges. He heard laughter, and somehow that surprised him. There were more people up and down the stream. Some of them were in the water.

Lieutenant Dunbar sat on Cisco, holding the woman he had found, his senses crushed by the power of the ageless tableau spread out before him, spread out like the unraveling of a living canvas. A primal, completely untouched civilization.

And he was there.

It was beyond the reach of his imagination, and at the same time he knew that this was why he’d come, this was at the core of his urge to be posted on the frontier. This, without his knowing it before, was what he had yearned to see.

These fast-moving moments on the brow of the slope would never come again in his mortal life. For these fleeting moments he became part of something so large that he ceased to be a lieutenant or a man or even a body of working parts. For these moments he was a spirit, hovering in the timeless, empty space of the universe. For these precious few seconds he knew the feeling of eternity.

The woman coughed. She stirred against his chest and Dunbar tenderly patted the back of her head.

He made a short kissing sound with his lips, and Cisco started down the slope. They’d only gone a few feet when he saw a woman and two children come out of the breaks along the river.

And they saw him.

three

The woman screamed as she let go of the water she was hauling, scooped up her children, and broke for the village, crying, “White soldier white soldier,” at the top of her lungs. Scores of Indian dogs went off like firecrackers, women shrieked for their children, and stampeded around the lodges, neighing wildly. It was full-scale pandemonium.

The entire band thought it was under attack.

As he drew closer to the village Lieutenant Dunbar could see men running everywhere. Those who had gotten hold of weapons were going for their horses with a whooping that reminded him of game birds in a panic. The village in upheaval was just as otherworldly as the village in repose. It was like a great nest of hornet people into which a stick had been poked.

The men who had reached their horses were swarming into a force that would momentarily race out to meet him, perhaps to kill him. He had not expected to create such a stir, nor had he expected these people to be so primitive. But there was something else that weighed on him as he moved close to the village, something that blotted out all else For the first time in his life Lieutenant Dunbar knew what it felt like to be an invader. It was a feeling he didn’t like, and it had a lot to do with the action he took next. The last thing he wanted was to be regarded as an intruder, and when he reached the bare ground of a clearing at the mouth of the village, when he was close enough to see through the curtain of dust that had been raised by the clamor and into the eyes of the people inside, he squeezed the reins once more and came to a stop.

Then he dismounted, taking the woman into his arms, and walked a pace or two in front of his horse. There he stood still, his eyes closed holding the wounded girl like some strange traveler bearing a strange gift.

The lieutenant listened hard as the village, in stages that lasted only a few seconds each, grew oddly quiet. The dusty curtain began to settle, and Dunbar perceived with his ears that the mass of humanity that had raised such a fearful howling only moments before was now creeping toward him. In the eerie quiet he could hear the occasional clank of some item of gear, the rustling of footsteps, the snort of a horse as it pawed and jostled impatiently.

He opened his eyes to see that the whole band had gathered at the village entrance, warriors and young men in front, women and children behind them. It was a dream of wild people, clothed in skins and colored fabric, a whole separate race of humans watching him breathlessly not a hundred yards away.

The girl was heavy in his arms, and when Dunbar shifted his stance, a buzz rose and died in the crowd. But no one moved forward to meet him.

A group of older men, apparently men of importance, went into a huddle as their people stood by, whispering amongst themselves in guttural tones so foreign to the lieutenant’s ear that they hardly seemed to be talking.

He let his attention wander during this lull, and when he glanced on a knot of about ten horsemen, the lieutenant’s eyes fell on a familiar face. It was the same man, the warrior who had barked at him so ferociously on the day of the raid at Fort Sedgewick. Wind In His Hair was staring back with such intensity that Dunbar almost turned around to see if someone was standing at his back.

His arms were so leaden that he wasn’t sure if he could move them anymore, but with the warrior’s glare still fixed on him, Dunbar lifted the woman a little higher, as if to say, “Here . . . please take her.”

Thrown by this sudden, unexpected gesture, the warrior hesitated, his eyes darting about the crowd, obviously wondering if this silent exchange had been noticed by anyone else. When he looked back, the lieutenant’s eyes were still on his and the gesture had not been withdrawn.

With an inward sigh of relief Lieutenant Dunbar saw Wind In His Hair leap off the pony and start across the clearing, a stone war club swinging loosely in his hand. He was coming over, and if the warrior had any fear at all, it was well masked, for his face was ungiving and uncaring, set, it seemed, on doling out a punishment.

The assembly fell silent as the space between the immobile Lieutenant Dunbar and the fast-striding Wind In His Hair shrank steadily to nothing. It was too late to stop whatever was going to happen. Everyone stood still and watched.

In the face of what was closing on him, Lieutenant Dunbar could not have been braver. He stood his ground unblinking, and though there was no pain in his face, he wore no fear there either.

When Wind In His Hair was within a few feet and slowing his pace, the lieutenant said in a clear, strong voice:

“She’s hurt.”

He shifted his load a little as the warrior stared into the woman’s face, and Dunbar could see that he recognized her. In fact, Wind In His Hair’s shock was so plain that, for a moment, the awful idea that she might have died flashed through his head. The lieutenant looked down at her, too.

And as he did, she was torn from his arms. In one strong, sure motion she’d been ripped from his grasp, and before Dunbar knew it, the warrior was walking back toward the village, hauling Stands With A Fist roughly along, like a dog would a pup. As he went he called something out that prompted a collective exclamation of surprise from the Comanches. They rushed forward to meet him.