Fools Crow (Contemporary American Fiction) (17 page)

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Authors: James Welch

BOOK: Fools Crow (Contemporary American Fiction)
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“And you—are you afraid?”
She felt her husband’s hand go rigid against her back. He sighed and said, “Yes, I am afraid.”
“Of the Crows?”
“Yes—no, not of the Crows. My medicine is strong. My luck has not been better, but—”
“Then you fear nothing?”
“There is always a chance that a Crow shooter will find me. I do not fear that, for I will die an honorable death. I have spoken with Old Man and he will guide me to the Sand Hills if I am killed. No, I do not fear for myself—Old Man knows the way.”
White Man’s Dog shifted and held his wife in his arms. Red Paint smelled the sweet tobacco on his breath and thought they were the closest they had ever been. She began to tremble.
“I am afraid for you—and for our infant inside of you.”
“I’m not certain—”
“I have never had such responsibility, and it makes me cry to think of you alone. You are a brave and good woman, Red Paint, and you work as hard as a woman twice your size. But without meat and hides you will suffer. And I must think about your family—Yellow Kidney and your mother and brothers. They too depend on me for their meat. Your brothers are a couple of winters away from hunting for their family.”
“Do not go, then.” Red Paint raised herself to her elbow. “Your father will understand. He is a kind and wise man.”
“Ah, if only it were that easy.” White Man’s Dog looked away and studied his pemmican sack hung from a lodgepole. He could barely make out the red and blue designs on it. “You see, I have chosen the way of the warrior and so I must take that trail, wherever it leads. If I were to stay behind, the others would lose respect for me. For an older warrior to say his medicine wasn’t good and he must not go, it would be understandable. None would question him, for that is the way. But I am a young man and my power is good.”
Red Paint rolled away and looked up through the smoke hole. She could see a few stars but they were indistinct, far away. She knew he would have to go on the war party, but for the past two days, since telling him she might be with child, she had held on to the faint hope that this knowledge would make him stay. But no. He would be thought of as a coward, to be shunned by the people he cared for, perhaps even his family. Red Paint sighed.
“I think you want a boy. Yes?”
“Yes,” he admitted.
“Would you want a boy named Sleep-bringer?”
“Sleep-bringer! But why?”
“Because I saw a butterfly at the very time I was thinking of a son growing inside of me. It was white with black tips on its wings. It sat and watched me, and soon I fell asleep and dreamed wonderful dreams of a proud young man who looked like you.”
“Sleep-bringer. It is a fine name.”
“We shall have a naming ceremony when he is born. We will ask my father to do us this honor, but just you make sure you whisper ‘Sleep-bringer’ in his ear.”
“Kom-i-os-che is more like it.” White Man’s Dog laughed as he patted Red Paint’s belly. “Soon he will be struggling like a worm.”
“He will want to be born so he can stand on the ground-of-many-gifts and look around. He will be just like you, only shorter.”
They laughed and hugged and gradually the happiness wore off and they hugged each other tighter and listened to the coyotes sing their songs to bring the moon around.

 

All the war chiefs were there with the exception of Tailfeathers-coming-over-the-hill. His horse had gotten too close to a blackhorn bull and the bull butted the animal, causing it to fall on the chief’s leg. Someone said the leg had turned around backward and that Tailfeathers-coming-over-the-hill would not walk again. He had sent his only son, Badger, in his place and there was concern for the boy’s safety, for if he were killed there would be no one left to carry on the chief’s tradition. But the boy insisted, and after a brief council, Fox Eyes, the head war chief, called him over.
“We know your father wishes you to accompany us, and so you shall. But you must stick with some of the experienced men and learn all you can from them. You are young and will no doubt attempt something foolish. I will keep my eye on you and on the other young ones. The first sign of foolishness, I will turn you around and you will have to explain to your father why.” Fox Eyes looked around at the assembled warriors. Some were sitting on their horses, others lounged in small groups. There were over three hundred of them. Most were proven fighters. They would have to look out for the young ones. “Good luck to you, Badger. If you listen and do as you are told, you will bring honor to your father’s lodge.”
The camp of the Small Robes, where all the bands’ warriors had assembled, was on a grassy flat near the point where the Yellow River joined the Big River. It was here that the first big treaty was signed, nearly thirteen winters ago. Fox Eyes could remember sitting almost on the exact spot where he now stood, listening to the Napikwan chief spell out the conditions of the treaty. One of the conditions was to cease making war on the enemies. But how was that possible when the enemies continued to insult the Pikunis? Were they not justified in earning the enemy’s respect once in a while? And, too, the Napikwans did not honor the treaty. They spoke high words that day, but they proved to be two-faced.

 

Four wolf scouts sat patiently on the bluffs to the south. Fox Eyes signaled to them and they galloped off. Then he called to his war chiefs to gather their men. It had been three winters since the last such party, the winter the Entrails People and the Crows were made to cry. Fox Eyes had been a war chief then and he had killed White Grass, the famed warrior of the Entrails People. He had brought back his enemy’s head on his lance, and the Pikuni women had kicked it around before roasting it on a fire. From that time, Fox Eyes became known and feared among his people’s enemies.
Now as he looked down at the faces, he prayed silently to the Above Ones to make him wise and correct in his role. He wished to return these husbands, fathers and sons to their lodges. He needed no war honors and was concerned only with his leadership, for on that would their fortunes depend. He stepped forward. The brass buttons on the tunic he had taken from a slain seizer chief glistened in the high sun.

 

“Hear me, warriors of the Pikuni people! Sun Chief smiles down on this spot where the Small Robes choose to summer and causes all of us joy and excitement. But he also knows that a great wrong has been done to one of his children and he wishes us to punish those who would laugh at the Pikunis. For this reason we now take to the war trail. Our brother, Yellow Kidney of the Lone Eaters, is not among us, for the Crows have mutilated him and shamed us all. In his place, White Man’s Dog, son of the war chief and leader Rides-at-the-door, will count the first honor against our enemy. It has always been so with our people, and so it shall be.
“There are many among us who go to war for the first time. Let them follow the counsel of their chiefs, and no harm will come to them. If their hearts are not in this, now is the time to turn back. There is no dishonor in wisdom. For those who would be foolish and seek to gain glory only for themselves, let them also turn back. In that way there is no profit.” The war chief paused and stared at the groups of young men. His eyes seemed to find each of them and look directly into their eyes. Then he lifted his head. “Now I pray to the Above Ones, to the Below Ones and to the four directions to grant us success against the Crow dogs and return us safely to our families. The war chief, Fox Eyes, is heard.”
The old men, women and children watched the warriors ride away. Even the dogs did not bark or try to follow. They sat silently in small packs, tongues hanging from the midday heat. Some of the men in the rear sang a riding song as the party climbed the bluffs. The horses were all painted on the shoulders and haunches, around the legs; some in the face. Fox Eyes was the first to reach the plain. He kicked his roan horse into a faster walk, not quite a trot. His feathered shield bounced against his left arm. Made from an old bull’s neck skin, it was the same shield with which he had fended off White Grass’s arrows. He had hated White Grass then, and it had been this hatred which gave him the strength to kill him. Now he felt a mild regret that his old enemy was no longer around. With his victory, Fox Eyes had lost something, the desire to make his enemies pay dearly, to ride among them with a savage heart. He had lived
forty-three
winters, and he wished to live forty-three more in peace. Two of his sons were
in the party,
and he worried about them. The youngest was only sixteen. Like the other youths, he would gladly follow the counsel of the war chiefs, but when they closed upon the Crows, he would ride blindly among them, seeking to kill them all, to count war honors enough to last a lifetime. This was how the young ones were killed.
Fox Eyes looked behind him. All the warriors had made the plain. They were a fearsome group, decked out in their war regalia, their painted bodies, their fastest horses. Some of them carried plumed lances and shields, as in the old days, but most carried guns. To his left rode Rides-at-the-door and, beyond him, Crow Foot and Takes-good-gun. Crazy Dog and Lone Medicine Person and Almost-a-wolf were to his right. They were good war chiefs and would handle their men well. If the Pikunis could take their enemy by surprise, it would go well for them. Perhaps then Fox Eyes could deliver his men safely home. But if the Crows learned of their party and met them with equal force, there would be much grief in the Pikuni lodges.

 

They followed the Yellow River south, keeping to the plain on the east side. Two sleeps away lay the Snowy and Little Belt Mountains. To the southeast, a little closer, they could make out the dark-forested Yellow Mountains. It would be easy going. Fox Eyes and his chiefs figured they would be in Crow country in six sleeps. The wolves were good, experienced men—Eagle Ribs was among them—but in this open country they would need luck to remain undiscovered. They wore no paint, no regalia, so even if the enemy discovered them, they might think the wolves were simply lone hunters. But they would be sweeping the country for distant movements, for recent fires, for blackhorn guts. They knew the signs of men and how to interpret them. But even now, thought Fox Eyes, a Crow party or their allies could be watching us from any of the surrounding buttes. A party of three hundred men was hardly invisible.
Fox Eyes called to Lone Medicine Person, who had been most recently in the Crow country. “My friend, I hear you have taken Crow horses this season of Home Days. Did you come upon the camp of Bull Shield?”
“We passed it by. It is on a small creek between the Bighorn River and the Red Mountains. I had too many youths with me to risk taking their horses.”
Fox Eyes almost smiled. Lone Medicine Person was a rangy man with a big nose and large hands. He was proud of his horse-taking ability.
“Were they many?”
“I counted eighty lodges. And there was another camp a short distance away. Thirty-eight lodges.” Lone Medicine Person spat. “And the white hide-hunters were with them. Seven of the Napikwan lodges. They had many big-ears to pull their wagons. We did not wish to get mixed up with them. Their guns are big and sound like thunder. I didn’t want any of my youths to piss on themselves.”
The war chiefs laughed and then the men behind them laughed. Fox Eyes’ big roan put back his ears in disapproval.
“And you, Lone Medicine Person—were you frightened?”
“You bet I was. Those guns can make a man’s guts want to leave his body. When I get old I want to tell my grandchildren I have seen something.”
“I would like to punish Shoots-near-the-water and his people,” said Crow Foot. “He took some of my best horses last heavy-wind moon. He took that big horse with the spotted rump I took from the Black Paint People on the other side of the Backbone.”
“Rides-at-the-door tells me you got that horse from the Liars,” said Crazy Dog. “He said you had to sleep with their ugliest woman to get him.”
“Rides-at-the-door tells lies that make the Liars look good. Their women are ugly, though,” admitted Crow Foot.
“They make good wives for the Napikwans. I have seen the offspring—they are pink like the entrails of the slippery swimmers. Even their eyes are pink.”
Fox Eyes listened to this banter with patience. The men were happy to be finally on the move against the Crows. The tension of waiting for this journey was dispelled and the men could now joke and laugh. But it would return in a short time as they neared the enemy’s camps. Fox Eyes had made up his mind, and he felt a tingle of excitement crawl up his backbone. When the talk died away, he said, “I think we will punish Bull Shield. He is the strongest of their chiefs and many will cry for him. His is the head that will be cut off so that our friend Yellow Kidney may sleep well in his lodge.”

 

Just after midday of the fourth sleep, a strange event took place. The party had ridden down a shallow coulee just north of the Elk River, keeping above a brush line that marked the course of a dry creek. The grass
around
them had turned golden in the late summer sun. The yellow-wings jumped and buzzed in the air before the horses. Fox Eyes had decided to await the return of the wolves at the mouth of the coulee. From there they could see the valley of the Elk River and remain unseen. The scouts would by now have located the camp of Bull Shield. On their return a strategy could be determined.

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