The Changing Wind (2 page)

“‘Small Elk.’ It is good.”

As the child grew, White Buffalo wondered sometimes if he had been mistaken. Small Elk seemed much like other children, no better or worse, no more or less mischievous. He participated in the games, dances, and instruction of the Rabbit Society with the other children. But no, there was that other quality, the desire of this child to be alone sometimes, to watch ants or silvery minnows in the stream, or the red-tailed hawk’s lazy circles in the summer sky.

When Small Elk was in his fourth summer, he came to his father one afternoon with a small object in his closed hand, his face shining with excitement. White Buffalo was reclining on his willow backrest, enjoying a smoke during a moment of leisure.

“What do you have there, little one?”

“It is a stone,” the child confided in hushed excitement. “Its spirit is good.”

White Buffalo became more attentive. This was not the usual play of a three-year-old.

“May I hold it?”

Small Elk proudly placed the stone in his father’s palm. It was white and rounded, polished by many lifetimes of tumbling in the rolling waters of the stream. White Buffalo closed his fingers around the smooth sphere, thinking as he did that it was much like an egg. The egg, perhaps, of one of the small ducks that sometimes nested in the reeds along the stream. It was warm, and the feeling was good.

“Yes,” he told the child, “its spirit is good.”

“Father, do all things have a spirit?”

“Yes. Some are stronger spirits than others.”

“But this is a good spirit?”

White Buffalo felt the smooth surface in his palm, the warm, comforting sensation that was unmistakable.

“Yes,” he said seriously, “this is good.”

“I will keep it,” Small Elk announced happily.

White Buffalo was still a little surprised that he was carrying on this conversation with a child of three. However, his expertise with things of the spirit told him not to ignore it. Small Elk was showing signs of spiritual awakening quite early. It might be that this child would be offered the
power of a strong medicine when he was ready—if, of course, he chose to accept the responsibility of such a gift. The idea pleased the holy man, that a son of his might follow in his steps. But for now…

“Come,” he said to Small Elk, “let us make for you a medicine bag. Your stone will be its first spirit.”

It would not do to try to influence the boy. However, it would do no harm to make the means available to him if and when he was offered the gift. After all, he could still refuse the responsibility if he wished.

S
mall Elk sat on the grassy slope with the other children of the Rabbit Society. One of the women was demonstrating the use of the throwing-stick. She was holding a stick not quite as long as her arm, the thickness of her wrist. A few steps away, slender willow twigs had been stuck in the mud to form a miniature fence as a target.

“Now, see!”

Bluebird suddenly whirled her arm and released the stick in a hard overhand throw. The missile whirled, end-over-end, at the willow target, knocking one of the slim twigs flat as it bounced beyond. The children laughed happily. One of the boys ran to retrieve her stick.

“Now, see again!” she called as she readied the stick for another throw.

This time the throw was a sidearm swing. The clublike stick spun horizontally, whirring toward the row of twigs. When it struck, the damage was apparent. Because of the flat spin, not one but several of the willow twigs were broken or knocked flat, in a path two handspans wide.

“So,” Bluebird announced, “you will kill more rabbits with a sidethrow. Now, try it. Don’t hit each other!”

“When can we try the bow?” asked Red Fox.

“Later. Soon, maybe, if you have one. But it is good to know the throwing-sticks.”

“But I would rather eat buffalo than rabbit,” one of the girls protested.

“So would everyone,” Bluebird agreed. “But when meat is scarce, in the Moon of Hunger, it is good to know how to hunt with the stick. Or, when the hunters are unsuccessful. Then what?”

The children took their small throwing-sticks and began to play at hunting rabbits. Bluebird walked over to speak to her friend Dove Woman, who sat watching.

“I will stand clear now,” she laughed. “They are reckless sometimes.”

Dove Woman smiled.

“At least, the dance is not so dangerous.”

Hers was the teaching of the first dance-steps to the smaller children of the Rabbit Society. From others they would learn the skills of hunting and the use of weapons, and compete in running, wrestling, and swimming. Both boys and girls learned all of these skills. It was not until later that their diversity of interests would sharpen the fine skills of the hunter-warriors and the domestic skills of the young women planning for their own lodges.

There was a yelp from one of the dogs, hit by an accidental bounce of a thrown stick.

“Be careful there!” called Bluebird.

Then she spoke aside to Dove Woman.

“Better a dog than each other. Now they will be more careful.”

“Yes. There is no way to keep dogs away from throwing-sticks, I think.”

“Your Small Elk seems good with the sticks.”

“Thank you. Your daughter, also.”

Dove Woman was pleased. These two children, Small Elk and Crow, were nearly the same age. Their mothers were friends and usually chose to set up their lodges near each other.

“They play well together,” Bluebird observed.

“Yes, for children of five summers, they quarrel very little.”

Both women laughed.

“Will your Small Elk become a medicine man?” Bluebird asked seriously.

“Who knows?” Dove Woman shrugged. “White Buffalo says he may. We will see if he has the gift.”

The children were becoming tired of playing with the sticks now and were straying off to other pursuits. Small Elk and Crow were near the stream, sitting on a level rock. Between them were a number of miniature green lodges, made by rolling cottonwood leaves into cones and pinning the edges together with a grass stem.

“Let us make a whole village!” Crow suggested.

“Why? We need only one lodge, you and I.”

Then they both giggled.

“Elk, do you know how to make a moccasin from a cottonwood leaf?”

“No. I have seen them. It is harder than making the little lodges.”

“You could ask your father. He knows all things.”

“Yes, but…”

Small Elk was a little uncertain whether a holy man’s area of skills included the making of toy cottonwood-leaf moccasins.

“I will ask, sometime,” he agreed cautiously.

The conversation was interrupted by the approach of one of the other boys.

“Want to go swimming?” asked Bull Roarer.

He stood there, whirling a noisemaker on a thong around and around his head in a wide circle. With each revolution, the flutter of the flattened stick at the thong’s end made a deep whirring noise, like the distant bellow of a buffalo bull. It was a common toy, but this boy’s affinity for the pastime had led to his being called by the name of the device, “bull roarer.”

“Who is going?” Crow asked.

Bull Roarer continued to swing his noise maker.

“We three, Fox, Otter, Cattail, my sister Redwing.”

“We will ask,” Crow announced.

She jumped up and ran to her mother with the explanation and request. Bull Roarer’s sister was a few summers older, a reliable supervisor, and both Bluebird and Dove Woman quickly agreed.

Most children of the People were strong swimmers. The bands must always camp near a water supply, and summer camp was frequently selected with an eye to its recreational possibilities. Of course, this went hand in hand with the more serious purpose of the selection, availability of game. Grass and water, essential to the buffalo, also make a campsite esthetically pleasing. In turn, the presence of a clear, cool stream in the heat of a prairie summer invites swimmers.

The summer camp this season was in a favorite area of the People. Sycamore River, trickling over white gravel bars and long level shelves of gray slate, was a favorite stream. Its deep pools were spaced at intervals along its course like beads on a thong.

The pool the children preferred was perhaps two long
bowshots below the camp. It was ringed with willows on the near side, except for a level strip of white gravelly sand, a perfect place to lie in the sun to dry after a swim. Across the pool, a stone’s throw away, cattails formed a backdrop for the scene, as well as a site where ducks and smaller water-dwelling birds might build their lodges.

The memorable event of the day for Small Elk, however, was not the swimming party. It happened on the way back to the camp. He and Crow had lagged behind the others to watch a shiny green dung beetle roll an impossibly big ball of dung, larger than itself.

“What do they do with it?” asked Crow. “Where is he taking it?”

“To his lodge, maybe,” Small Elk suggested.

He hated to admit that he had no idea what a dung beetle does with balls of dung. He would ask his father later. White Buffalo, who knew all things, could surely tell him about dung beetles.

The children rose to move on. It was just at that time that the rabbit sprang from a clump of grass beside the path and loped away ahead of them. Small Elk was startled for a moment but then reacted almost without thinking. He was still carrying his throwing-stick from the earlier lessons of the day. The missile leaped from his hand, whirling toward the retreating animal. His throw was wide and should have missed completely except for unforeseen circumstances. The whirling tip of the stick struck a sappling beside the path and was deflected, bouncing crazily end-over-end. Even so, the rabbit would have escaped harm if it had continued in a straight line. But rabbits do not run in straight lines as a custom. They sometimes zig and zag, taught to do so at the time of creation to escape the strike of the hawk or the lunge of the coyote. In this case, the escape trick proved the rabbit’s undoing. It bobbed to the left just as the whirling stick bounced to the right. There was an audible crack as the hard wood met the skull of the animal.

“Aiee!”
exclaimed Crow softly.

Small Elk rushed forward to grab the kicking creature, wriggling in its death throes. He picked it up and watched the large brown eye lose its luster and become dull with the mist of death. It was his first kill, and he should have felt good. It should have been a glad and proud moment,
but that was not what he felt. There was a letdown, a disappointment. The rabbit had been more pleasing to look at in life than it was now, its eyes glazing and a single drop of blood at the tip of its nose. He was confused. Why had he wanted to kill the rabbit? For meat. Yes, for its flesh, he thought. That is the way of things. The rabbit eats grass and in turn is eaten by the hawk, the coyote, or man. That is the purpose of a rabbit. He watched as a flea crept into sight from the thick fur of the rabbit’s cheek and burrowed into another tuft.

Then he remembered watching his father at a buffalo kill early in the spring. The medicine man had stood before the head of a massive bull… yes, of course. He would perform such a ceremony. He placed the rabbit on the ground, arranging it in a natural position. Then he stepped back, faced the head of the dead creature, and addressed it solemnly.

“I am sorry to kill you, my brother,” he stated, trying to remember his father’s words of apology, “but I am in need of your flesh to live.”

He felt a little guilty for such a statement, because he was not hungry or in need at the moment. What had White Buffalo said next?

“Your flesh feeds us as the grass gives your life to you.”

Yes, that was it. Small Elk felt better now, and forged ahead. How was it?…

“May your people be fat and happy, and be plentiful,” he told the rabbit.

Feeling considerably better about the incident, he picked up his kill and moved on toward camp. In his preoccupation, he did not notice the expression in the eyes of the girl beside him. It was an intense look of surprise mixed with admiration and approval.

A similar expression might have been noted on the face of the man who had watched the whole scene from behind a thin screen of willows. White Buffalo waited, perfectly still, until the children had moved out of sight. Then he rose, a satisfied smile on his face. He must share this with Dove Woman.

“It is good,” he said quietly to himself. “And Small Elk performed the apology well.”