Fools Crow (Contemporary American Fiction) (6 page)

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Authors: James Welch

BOOK: Fools Crow (Contemporary American Fiction)
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White Man’s Dog was remembering the young Crow he had killed and wondering if this was the time to tell his father. But he was not really thinking about his father. He looked at his hands and listened to his sobbing mother and decided the time was not right.
That night there was a feast in the lodge of Rides-at-the-door honoring the return of his son. The people sang and told stories —some even mocked White Man’s Dog—but the mood was not one of celebration. Striped Face and Kills-close-to-the-lake, the younger wives of Rides-at-the-door, served up the boss ribs, hump meat and back fat. Double Strike Woman, who usually oversaw such a feast, sat beside her son and periodically hugged him to her. White Man’s Dog, his face flushed, accepted the hugs and mocking praise. Several times he glanced at Kills-close-to-the-lake, but she avoided his eyes, serving the food with delicate determination. Later, during an honoring song, she slipped out of the lodge to get a kettle of water and White Man’s Dog felt his heart grow heavy. Then he felt the guilt that always accompanied this desire to have some small contact with his father’s wife. Double Strike Woman squeezed the back of his neck and he flinched and she hit him on the head. The people around them laughed and White Man’s Dog laughed too. But as he hugged his mother back he grew excited at the prospect, now that he had some wealth, of having his own lodge and his own woman. He would be his own man.

 

Heavy Shield Woman emerged from her lodge the third day after the return of the horse-takers and her cropped hair was ragged. She had slashed her arms and legs and painted her face with white ash. But she held herself erect as she carried the brass kettle to the river. The few people she met on the path stepped aside to let her pass. They did not speak but they looked at her expectantly. She passed as though they were not there but they did not take offense. They had seen grieving women often—many men did not return from the hunt, the horse-taking, the war trail. Even in camp there was the danger of being surprised by the enemy. So the people let her alone. They knew she would decide when to end her grief, when she would speak, when she would allow the people back into her life.

 

That night Heavy Shield Woman made a soup of dried sarvisberries and chunks of meat. She used some of the Napikwans’ white powder to thicken it. Red Paint, her daughter of sixteen winters, was both heartened and puzzled. Her mother hadn’t eaten for three days. She had ignored all the food the other women had brought to their lodge. Now she would have some of this soup. But it puzzled Red Paint that her mother would choose this time to make this soup. It was a special-occasion feast, one that Yellow Kidney loved above all else. And he wasn’t here to eat it.
Heavy Shield Woman dished up five bowls of the sarvisberry soup, one for her daughter, one each for her two sons and one for herself. She placed the other bowl beside her, where her husband usually sat. Then she ate and the children ate, Red Paint watching her mother’s ghostly face all the while. The soup was sweet and heavy and the boys ate three bowls apiece. Good Young Man was twelve, One Spot ten. They had mourned the loss of their father, sometimes loudly, sometimes silently, but now they were beginning to look on life again. One Spot slurped his soup down and belched. Heavy Shield Woman called to him, and he ran around the fire and sat down next to her. He pressed his knee into her lower leg, touching one of the swollen slash marks, and she winced. But she pulled him close and said, “Do you see that bowl of soup there?” All of the children looked. “That is for your father.” One Spot looked up into her eyes, but she pulled him close against her breast. Then she told them that their father was still alive; he had come to her in a dream, covered with old skins and rags. He had told her that he was wandering in the land of the Crows, that he could not return yet, that he could not return until Heavy Shield Woman agreed to perform a task which only the most virtuous of women could accomplish. He said he would be home in time to see her do this thing but he could not say exactly when. But she must set his food out for him each night so that he could keep up his strength.
“What is the task, Mother?” said Good Young Man. “I cannot tell you but you will learn soon. It is up to all the people to grant me the right to accomplish it. They will have to decide if I am fit.”
One Spot threw his arms around her neck. She felt his small body shake as he sobbed into her ear. “Bring him back, Mother, bring back our father,” he cried. “He is cold and alone out there. He needs to come and eat his soup.”
Red Paint and Good Young Man cried too. They cried because they were happy, and they cried for their own loneliness.
Heavy Shield Woman did not cry. She smiled at her children and thought of her husband and how it would be good again.

 

Around that time when Sun takes himself to the farthest point from the Pikuni land, Heavy Shield Woman called on Three Bears, chief of the Lone Eaters. He smoked and listened to her request. He was a big rangy man with many war honors, but his sixty hard years had taken their toll. His knuckles were always swollen and painful when he moved his fingers. His back was stiff, and many times he had to be helped up. But his face, with its deep creases around the eyes and mouth, was strong and his eyes were bright. He listened and, when she was through talking, he questioned her keenly, asking her if she knew the seriousness and difficulty of her desire.
“I wish my man back. My children need their father. I have assisted twice as a coming-forward-to-the-tongues woman. With the help of my sisters and the older ones, I will carry out my duties correctly.”
“You are a brave woman, Heavy Shield Woman. It will be an arduous task. If you fail, you know what the others will say about you: that you are not a virtuous woman, that you bring dishonor not only to yourself but to the memory of Yellow Kidney and his people. But I see you wish to do this and so I will speak for you.”
Heavy Shield Woman had spoken strongly, but as she watched Three Bears burn a braid of sweet grass to purify them with its smoke, she couldn’t control the small shiver of apprehension that rippled up and down her spine. It was out in the open now and she wondered if she had the courage for it.
That night Three Bears gathered the older and middle-age warriors of the All Friends society—the Braves, the All Crazy Dogs, the Raven Carriers, the Dogs and Tails. He pointed the pipe in the four directions and to the Above Ones and Below Ones, then lit it and passed it around the circle to the right. It was returned to him from that direction because it could not be passed across the lodge entrance. He refilled it and passed it to his left. Then the old chief burned some sweet grass and watched the others smoke. At last, he spoke. “As you know, our Heavy Shield Woman carries with her a heavy burden of grief. Many in our camp think Yellow Kidney is dead and has gone to the Sand Hills to be with our long-ago people. If that is so, it is good. Yellow Kidney would have died a good death.” The pipe was handed back to Three Bears, and he laid it on an otter skin. “Others of us think he might be alive, that he is too hard for the Crows to kill. Some signs point to this. But if he is alive, he is wandering out there and is likely to die a miserable death—unless we do something.” Three Bears listened to the men murmur their assent. “Now our sister, Heavy Shield Woman, comes to me with a request to pass on to you. She appeals to your generosity and wisdom and to your loyalty to her husband, who is, as you know, a member of the All Crazy Dogs. You leave a space for him. That is good.” Several of the men looked to the folded robe between Young Bear Chief and Double Runner.

 

“We think he will return,” said Young Bear Chief.
“And so thinks Heavy Shield Woman. She has requested that should her man return safely to her, she be the Medicine Woman at the Sun Dance ceremony this summer.” Three Bears had expected an uproar over this revelation—most of the bands did not like to have a woman declare herself for this role; if she failed, it would bring dishonor on them and disfavor from Sun Chief himself—but he was not prepared for the silence which followed. Even Rides-at-the-door, the man Three Bears depended on most, sat quietly filling his short-pipe.
This reaction annoyed Three Bears. “I myself am for it, for I know that Heavy Shield Woman has led a virtuous life. I am satisfied with her request.”
“Has she the wealth for such an undertaking?” said one of the Raven Carriers.
“The raiders returned with thirty-five of the Crow horses for Yellow Kidney. She will have those, as well as the rest of his herd.”
“The Medicine Woman bundle comes high. The transfer will cost her many possessions. And too, she will have to acquire many blackhorn tongues. Since she can’t hunt, she will have to pay for them. She will be a poor woman when this is done.”
“We talk as though it is a sure thing that Yellow Kidney will return. Only a woman whose prayers are answered can sponsor the Sun Dance. If Yellow Kidney is dead, all this talk is without meaning.”
“It is as you say, Dull Knife. This is all up-in-the-air talk, but it would please and comfort this woman to know that we are behind her. If Yellow Kidney does not return by the first-thunder moon, we will know he is in the Sand Hills and will never come back. But we know he possessed strong war medicine and his success cannot be questioned. If anyone can escape from the Crows, it would be brave Yellow Kidney.”
“If Heavy Shield Woman takes this vow I am with her,” said Double Runner, Yellow Kidney’s best friend. “And if our brother returns safely I will contribute twenty blackhorn tongues. I say this to you.”
One by one the men voiced their support and help. Rides-at-the-door too signaled his agreement, but he did not speak as Three Bears and the others expected and wished. He was a wise man and his opinions were listened to with respect, but he simply smoked and thought of the man Yellow Kidney had been and the man who would return.

 

The men were silent for a time as they considered all that had gone on. Then Double Runner, filled with hope and joy, stood and acted out the time he and Yellow Kidney had made the three Liars smear blackhorn dung all over their bodies before they let them go. The men smoked and laughed, and then their women brought food.
6
WHITE MAN’S DOG had settled down into the routine of the winter camp but there were days when he longed to travel, to experience the excitement of entering enemy country. Sometimes he even thought of looking for Yellow Kidney. In some ways he felt responsible, at least partially so, for the horse-taker’s disappearance. When he slept he tried to will himself to dream about Yellow Kidney. Once he dreamed about Red Old Man’s Butte and the war lodge there, but Yellow Kidney was not in it. The country between the Two Medicine River and the Crow camp on the Bighorn was as vast as the sky, and to try to find one man, without a sign, would be impossible. And so he waited for a sign.
In the meantime, he hunted. Most of the blackhorn herds had gone south, but enough remained to keep the hunters busy. It was during this season that the hides were prime, and the big cows brought particularly high prices. Very few of the men possessed the many-shots gun, so they hunted with bows and arrows. Their muskets were unwieldy, sometimes they misfired, and always they had to stop the chase to reload. Every man was determined to pile up as many robes as he could in order to buy a many-shots gun the following spring. It was rumored that the traders were bringing wagonloads of the new guns.
Most of the time White Man’s Dog hunted with Rides-at-the-door and Running Fisher and a couple of his father’s friends. Because the many-shots gun was so scarce, not even Rides-at-the-door possessed one, but the hunting group had grown adept at surprising the blackhorns, riding down on them and among them and getting off their killing shots. They kept Double Strike Woman, Striped Face and Kills-close-to-the-lake busy tanning the hides. Once in a while, White Man’s Dog would go off by himself to hunt nearer the Backbone. On those occasions he spent much of his time staring off at the mountains. He longed to cross over them to see what he might encounter, but the high jagged peaks and deep snow frightened him. There were no blackhorns in that country, but there were many bighorns and long-legs. Once he came upon two long-legs who had locked antlers during a fight and were starving to death. Both animals were on their knees, their tongues hanging out of their mouths. Although they were large animals, their haunches had grown bony and their ribs stuck out. White Man’s Dog felt great pity for the once-proud bulls. He got down from his horse and walked up to them. They were too weak to lift their heads. He drove an arrow into each bull’s heart and soon their heads dropped and their eyes lost depth. He did not even think to dig out their canine teeth, which were much valued as decorations for dresses. As he climbed on his gray horse, he thought of next summer when these bulls would be just bones, their antlers still locked together. He went home without killing anything more that day.

 

But he killed many animals on his solitary hunts and he left many of them outside the lodge of Heavy Shield Woman. Sometimes he left a whole blackhorn there, for only the blackhorn could provide for all the needs of a family. Although the women possessed kettles and steel knives, they still preferred to make spoons and dippers out of the horns of the blackhorn. They used the hair of the head and beard to make braided halters and bridles and soft-padded saddles. They used the hoofs to make rattles or glue, and the tails to swat flies. And they dressed the dehaired skins to make lodge covers and linings and clothes and winding cloths. Without the blackhorn, the Pikunis would be as sad as the little bigmouths who howled all night.
Because there were always dogs lurking about, White Man’s Dog would halloo the lodge and then turn and ride off. Once, Red Paint emerged before he could get away, and he stammered something about meat and galloped his horse clear out of camp. But he had looked on her, and afterward her vision came frequently. Sometimes when he imagined himself in his own lodge, her face would float across the fire from him. She was almost a woman and he didn’t know when this had happened. It seemed less than a moon ago she had been a skinny child helping her mother gather firewood or dig turnips; now, her eyes and mouth had begun to soften into those of a young woman and her dress seemed to ride more comfortably on her shoulders and hips. Except for that one time she had surprised him, White Man’s Dog observed her only from a distance. He had acted foolish and he knew she would scorn him.

 

One day while he stood on the edge of camp watching the children slide down a long hill on their blackhorn-rib sleds, he had the uncomfortable feeling that he too was being watched. For an instant he thought it might be Red Paint, but when he looked up the hill behind him he saw Fast Horse, arms folded, near the brow. They had not talked much since returning from the raid, had rarely sought each other out. On the few occasions they did get together, Fast Horse seemed sullen. He no longer made jokes at White Man’s Dog’s expense; he no longer joked with anybody. He didn’t brag about his buffalo-runner or flirt with the girls. He didn’t hunt with the others and he tended his horses poorly, allowing them to wander a good distance from camp. Most of the time the day-riders would bring them back, but once seven of them disappeared and Fast Horse accepted the loss with a shrug. If the weather was good, he would go off to hunt by himself, seldom returning with meat. When the storms came down from the north, from Cold Maker’s house, he would go inside his father’s lodge and sulk. His father, Boss Ribs, keeper of the Beaver Medicine, often asked White Man’s Dog to talk to Fast Horse, to try to learn the nature of this mysterious illness. Boss Ribs was sure that a bad spirit had entered his son’s body. But Fast Horse would have little to do with his friend. Once White Man’s Dog almost told Boss Ribs of his son’s dream of Cold Maker, but to tell another’s dream could make one’s own medicine go bad, so he held his tongue. But it troubled him that Fast Horse had not made good on his vow to Cold Maker. The helping-to-eat moon was nearly over and Fast Horse had not yet acquired the prime blackhorn hides for Cold Maker’s daughters. To break this vow was unthinkable; it could make things hard for all the Pikunis. But White Man’s Dog had another reason for wanting the vow honored. It had come to him one night while lying in bed listening to the wind blow snow against the lodge. Perhaps Cold Maker, not the Crows, held Yellow Kidney prisoner. Perhaps he was waiting for the vow to be fulfilled before he would set the warrior free.
The next day White Man’s Dog caught up with Fast Horse just as the young man was starting out on a hunt.
“Fast Horse, I would like to talk.”
Fast Horse glanced at him. A fog had come down during the night and the air was gray between them. “Hurry, then. You see I am off to hunt.”
“That night you caught up with us at Woman Don’t Walk—you told us about a vow you made to Cold Maker.”
Fast Horse looked away toward the Backbone.
“You vowed two hides. And you vowed the red coals for the eyes of his daughters. Because of these vows you said he spared your life.”
“You stop me to tell me what I already know?”
“I have come to tell you to fulfill your vows. The helping-to-eat moon is passing and soon it will be too late. If a vow—”
Fast Horse laughed. “So you think I am incapable of keeping my word. You think Fast Horse has become a weakling, without honor.”
“No, no! But I wish to hunt with you. I would like to help you acquire the hides.” White Man’s Dog hesitated, but he knew he would have to go on. “You see, I have it in my mind that Cold Maker holds Yellow Kidney prisoner and will not let him go until this vow is fulfilled. It is your failure that keeps Yellow Kidney from his people.”
The look on Fast Horse’s face almost frightened White Man’s Dog. It was a look of hatred, cold and complete. For an instant White Man’s Dog thought of taking back his words. But then he saw another look come into the eyes, a combination of fear and hopelessness, and he knew he had been right to confront his friend.

 

“I will get the blackhorns. I do not need you—or anybody. I am a man and have done no wrong.” Fast Horse kicked the buffalo-runner he had acquired from the Crows in the ribs and led the two packhorses away from camp.
As White Man’s Dog watched him ride away, he knew there was something going on inside of Fast Horse that he didn’t understand. But it had to do with something other than his vow to Cold Maker. It had to do with Yellow Kidney.

 

White Man’s Dog had given five of his best horses to Mik-api upon returning from the Crow raid. They had sweated together and prayed together, thanking the Above Ones for the young man’s return. White Man’s Dog thanked Mik-api and gave him a horsehair bridle he had made the previous winter. He left the old man’s lodge feeling pure and strong.

 

But he was back the next day, this time with some real-meat that his mother had given him. The two men ate and talked, and then White Man’s Dog left. But he came back often, always with food, for he had never seen any provisions in the old many-faces man’s lodge. Mik-api lived alone on the edge of camp and received few visitors. He performed healing ceremonies throughout the winter, elaborate ceremonies to drive out the bad spirits, and White Man’s Dog grew fascinated with his powers. He had never paid much attention to heavy-singers-for-the-sick. Their way seemed like magic to him, and he was fearful to learn too much. But sometimes as he and Mik-api talked, the old man would mix up his medicines or sort through his powerful objects and White Man’s Dog did not see much to be afraid of.
One day Mik-api asked White Man’s Dog to prepare the sweat lodge, and that was the beginning of the young man’s apprenticeship. As he repaired the willow frame and pulled the blackened hides in place, he thought of his actions as a favor to Mik-api. He built up a great fire and rolled the stones into the hot coals. He carried a kettle of water into the sweat lodge. He added more wood to the fire. He felt strong and important, and he was glad to help the old man.

 

When Mik-api and his patient, a large middle-age man with yellow skin, were settled in the sweat lodge, White Man’s Dog carried the large stones with a forked stick into the lodge. He set them, one by one, into a rock-lined depression in the center. Then he stood outside and listened to the water explode with a hiss as the many-faces man flicked it on the stones with his blackhorn-tail swab.
Sometimes Mik-api would go into the sweat lodge alone to purify himself when he had to go to a person who was gravely ill. White Man’s Dog would hold Mik-api’s robe while listening to the old man sing and pray. He was always surprised at how thin and pale Mik-api was. He always reminded himself that he would have to bring even more meat next time. He had taken to accompanying Mik-api to the sick person’s lodge, carrying the healing paraphernalia. Mik-api would clear the lodge and step inside. White Man’s Dog would wait outside for as long as he could, listening to the singing, the prayers, the rattles and the eagle-bone whistle. Often these healings took all day, sometimes more. Eventually, White Man’s Dog would go to his father’s lodge to eat or nap, but he would come back to see if Mik-api needed anything.

 

Later, in Mik-api’s lodge, as he tended the fire, White Man’s Dog would watch the frail old man sleep his fitful sleep and wonder at his power. But the young man had no thought to possess such power. He was just happy to help.
One day while Mik-api was sorting through various pigments he said, “Now that we have changed your luck and you have proven yourself a great thief of Crow horses, you must begin to think of other things.” Often Mik-api teased him, so White Man’s Dog waited for the joke. And it occurred to him that the others had quit teasing him so unmercifully. He was no longer the victim of jokes, at least not more so than any of the others. No one had called him dog-lover since the raid on the Crows. He hadn’t really noticed it until now, but the people seemed to respect him. He felt almost foolish with this knowledge, as though he had grown up and hadn’t noticed that his clothes no longer fit him.
And now Mik-api was telling him about a dream he had the night before. “As I slept, Raven came down to me from someplace high in the Backbone of the World. He said it was behind Chief Mountain and there he dwelt with several of his wives and children. One night as they were bedding down he heard a great commotion in the snow beneath their tree, and then he heard a cry that would tear the heart out of the cruelest of the two-leggeds. When Raven looked down in the almost-night, he could see that it was a four-legged, smaller than a sticky-mouth but with longer claws and hair thicker than the oldest wood-biter. The creature looked up at Raven and said, ‘Help me, help me, for I have stumbled into one of the Napikwans’ traps and now the steel threatens to bite my leg off.’ Well, Raven jumped down there and tried to pull the jaws apart, but they wouldn’t budge. Then he summoned his wives and children to help, but nothing would make those jaws give.” Mik-api stopped and lit his pipe with a fire stick. He leaned back against his backrest and smoked for a while. “Then Raven remembered his old friend Mik-api, and so he came last night and told me of his sorrow. We smoked several pipefuls and finally Raven said, ‘I understand you now have a helper who is both strong and true of heart. It will take such a man to release our four-legged brother. My heart breaks to see him so, and his pitiful cries keep my wives awake. If you will send this young man, I will teach him how to use this creature’s power, for in truth only the real-bear is
a
stronger power animal.’ Then my brother left, and when I awoke I found this dancing above the fire.” Mik-api handed
White Man’s Dog a pine cone.
It was long and oval-shaped and came to a point at one end. “I believe this came from Raven’s house up in the Backbone.”

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