The Owl Hunt (3 page)

three

The dream came to Waiting Wolf in the middle of the darkness, when the moon had eaten the sun. He stared into the heavens, and it came to him just then, so ice-clear that he knew he had been changed for all time. Owl stared at the boy with big eyes and spread his wings across the entire heaven. Then Owl glided away. Waiting Wolf was transfixed, for in that moment he was burdened with the salvation of his people. Now he would wear that which had been given to him. Even as a bead of light burst on the other side of the dark moon, Owl glided away into the stars.

Waiting Wolf only dimly fathomed what his mission would be, how he would do this thing, and how the People might receive him. An Owl vision? The most dreaded of all the creatures, the harbinger of evil, the omen of doom had come to a fifteen-year-old youth. Waiting Wolf knew that there would be some who would respond sharply; this could not be. But it would be. And no one of the People could ever disdain a vision.

Now, on a night filled with misty darkness, Dreamers gathered far from the eyes of white men. No moon offered a lantern to this place, and everyone had found it almost by instinct, there being only the faintest of starlight. There were twelve present, all older men save for himself. Many had war honors from times past. Younger ones dreamed of them. All of them had become Dreamers, ritually bathing in sweet grass smoke, crying for a vision. All had received a dream. All were quietly recruiting others who were open to the dream.

Now they bathed their bodies in the smoke of the sweet grass, which took away corruption of heart and body and made them clean. The smouldering fire lay in the bottom of a gully that emptied into the Wind River, unseen even by someone nearby.

Waiting Wolf let the fragrant smoke drift over his flesh until he was purified, and then he climbed to the top of the bluff, a signal to the rest that he would give them his words.

The rest collected below, attentive to the youth, and silent.

“I dreamed my dream,” he said. “It came upon me at the moment when Moon ate the Sun and the People were crushed by darkness. Hear me now. For this is a mighty dream. And it truly came upon me. In that moment, when all seemed lost, Owl spread his wings across the entire sky, from horizon to horizon. Owl was a terrible presence, and my heart quaked in me. Owl stared at me until I felt small and then I knew all things. Owl told me to take heart; in a moment Sun would return and with Sun, a new-made People. Hear me, and believe me. Owl told me what I must do, and then glided away, even as Sun burned a bead of light on the edge of Moon.”

Waiting Wolf stared calmly at the rapt faces below. None of the Dreamers had missed one word.

“I am taking a new name, as was given me. My name is Owl.”

That brought sharp gasps. No Shoshone could imagine such a thing. Owl was the harbinger of evil, dreaded more than any creature. Still, no one objected.

“I am Owl. And Owl will spread his wings over the soldiers and they will be taken sick and fall down. Owl will float over the agency, and the agent and his staff will tumble down and go away. Owl will float over the white man's school, and all who are in it will fall to the ground. Owl will float over the lines that imprison the People, and the lines will go away and the People can go anyplace. Owl will glide over the mountains and plains, and drive the buffalo to us, and the elk and deer to us, and the People will have meat and be well fed.”

Some of the Dreamers were frowning, but Owl knew they would come around.

“I have been chosen to be this one; I have dreamed it,” he said.

His oration met with silence. How could any Shoshone be named Owl? It was a sort of sacrilege. It turned the world upside down. Yet no one among them challenged him. A dream was sacrosanct.

The fire flared a moment. He saw warriors with long scars upon their arms and backs, the victims of lance and arrow and clubs and knives and axes and bullets.

It was Owl's own father, Buffalo Horn, who finally asked the only question: “Will Owl glide over Chief Washakie?”

“The Owl will do whatever the Owl will do,” the youth replied.

That evoked a stir. This was something unthinkable.

He sensed anger among those who listened. But none dared protest. A dream carried its own weight, and that weight could not be questioned.

“The time of the white man is over,” he said. “You will see with your own eyes.”

“I am with the Owl, then,” said a voice from the darkness.

The young man newly named Owl felt a chill but set it aside. Men twice and thrice his age listened raptly and he marveled at it. He was yet a youth. He had never counted coup or gone to war. He had barely killed anything in a hunt because there had been no game. But there he was, a prophet and Dreamer.

“There will be more signs,” he said. “The Owl, my spirit helper, will glide through the nights, and the hearts of the white men will grow cold. The Owl will visit their hearts and make them sick. The Owl will fill their minds with regrets. The Owl will turn their faces east and they will yearn to return to the lands they came from.”

“Who are you to say these things?” an old headman asked.

“I had a dream.”

“So have we. But we know nothing of this.”

“I can only tell you what was given to me, Grandfather.”

That one didn't like it. Owl, as he now called himself, knew who it was. This one, old Runner, was a petty chief, a friend of Washakie, and a brother of Blue Dawn, the woman who had mated with Barnaby Skye. And therefore, a man to be wary of.

“Young people can be hotheaded.”

Owl contained his irritation, but nodded. He would not let an old fool bleed this moment. What good was caution when the People were hungry?

“I will tell you what I know,” Owl said. “Watch for the buffalo. They will drift here, and feed us. Watch for the elk. They will run through the mountains. Watch for the soldiers to leave. They will load their wagons and march out. Watch for the missionaries to go away. These missionaries with their books and rules, they will go away with the soldiers. Watch for other peoples, like ours, to rise up. Watch for the Bannocks to rise up. Watch for the Paiutes to rise up. These are all signs we can all watch for, and when you see these good things, you will know that the sun is rising on our People.”

The youth sensed a grudging respect. Could the fate of the Shoshones really rest in the hands of one so young?

He turned to his father. “See me, Buffalo Horn. The dream you wanted has come to your son. See me, and be proud.”

But his father stood motionless in the night, barely visible, and Owl could not tell what was passing through his father's heart. Owl waited for an acknowledgment that didn't come. Ah, so his father was envious. Too bad for him. He wasn't given the dream.

“I am Owl, and I have a dream,” he said, directing the remark at his father, and his brothers, too.

He felt light-headed. His voice was more powerful than all other voices. More powerful than Chief Washakie, who quaked before white men and served white men and surrendered to white men. Owl's word would soon be the only word, and the old chief would fade away. Old Washakie, traitor to the People! Owl would take back everything that the old chief had surrendered, and then erase even the memory of Washakie.

“Now is the time to spread the word. Go to every corner of our land and tell them that Owl, born of another name, will spread his wings against the white men, and soon they will fall sick and dead, and leave the land, and all will be healed.”

“Grandfather,” came a voice out of the night. “Grandfather, when will this be?”

Owl savored the moment. They were calling him grandfather, a term of utmost respect. “It will be when it will be,” he replied. In truth, he didn't know and wouldn't say. “Soon,” he added. “Soon.”

The Dreamers drifted into the night, and no sign of their meeting would exist save what lay in their memories. But soon the Dreamers would be gathering throughout the Shoshone lands, cloaked in darkness. For here was the salvation, voiced by a chosen one of the People, to lead the Shoshones to the sweetness of the life they knew.

Soon this cruel and pointless existence would pass away. The starvation would pass. Eating bugs and snakes would pass. There would be buffalo meat to fill their bellies, buffalo hides for their lodges and winter coats, elk hide for moccasins and shirts. And the liberty of all of nature would return to them. Ah, quaking hearts, take courage from the Dreamers.

He hiked the long trail upriver with his father and brothers, pitying them because their dreams were not the smallest part of his own dream. This was a good thing, for he was the eldest of three sons, and it was right that he would be honored. He did not scorn his brothers; they were simply boys, and without gifts.

His parents kept a traditional lodge, scorning white men's cabins. The Shoshone way was good; nothing else was good except for guns gotten from traders. He slipped inside, along with the rest, and lay restless in the blackness, his mind seething with plans. He would take his dream to the People. Let them see Owl, let them hear Owl. Let them heed Owl.

But first there was one thing to do.

In the morning he bathed at the creek, paid homage to the sky and earth spirits, and set out for the Wind River Agency and the schoolhouse. It would do no good at all to talk to the Indian agent, whose ears were full of wax. But it would be a joy to tell Skye, that two-blood traitor to his mother's people, what he had dreamed, and what his name was now.

He walked a long while before the white agency buildings hove into view. He hated them, these structures inhabited by the invaders. The military buildings at Camp Brown he didn't mind so much as the agency itself, where a white man ruled over the whole tribe. That was almost more than he could bear. Buffalo Horn's family had even despised Barnaby Skye, the second agent, who struggled to keep the tribe fed. But that old man was merely the agent of the Yankee masters. And even worse was his son Dirk, who chose that side. It was a pity he had not chosen his true name, North Star, and made himself one of the People.

Owl knew he was not the youth he had been hours before. His walking was different, his way of standing was different, his way of addressing others was different. He was no longer Waiting Wolf. When Owl spread his wings and glided through the darkness, the world quaked.

Owl found Dirk Skye in the schoolhouse, where he was obliged to be by those who paid him. Owl saw that he was reading at his desk, and approached boldly. The teacher swiftly sensed this was not an ordinary meeting, and set his book down.

“I am pleased to see you, Waiting Wolf,” Dirk said.

Owl smiled. “You do not look closely. Why do you think I am still what I was?”

Dirk smiled. “I see a confident young man ready to resume his lessons.”

“Why do you think I need your white-man lessons?”

Dirk paused, weighing that. “You have come to tell me something, and I am ready to listen,” he said.

“I have come to tell you that I am a Dreamer, and I have a new name.”

“Good. It is fine for you to take the name given you.”

“My name is Owl.”

The teacher visibly startled.

“Owl, Owl, Owl,” the Dreamer said. “Owl was the name I dreamed, and Owl is now my name.”

Dirk paused, obviously weighing his words. “And what do your family and clan and the People think of this?”

“They have made me the chief of them all,” Owl said. “I carry the Shoshone nation on my wings.”

four

No doubt of it, the young man had changed. Owl was no longer Waiting Wolf, the bright youth who would tackle the three Rs one week and drift the next. Now he was Owl, the most dreaded spirit animal known to the Snake People, as the Shoshones were also called.

Dirk digested all that. Owl was only a few years younger than himself, but somehow seemed a man now. Owl slowly smiled, but it wasn't a friendly smile, it was the gloat of triumph, and then Owl swept out of the schoolroom.

Dirk wasn't puzzled. These people dreamed. These youths went off on vision quests. This one had found a dream waiting in the middle of an eclipse. Their universe was not governed by impersonal forces, but by powerful spirits. By an owl. An oppressed and dispirited people had suddenly found a messiah. Owl could be Owl only when his beak faced white men; if his beak faced the Shoshones, they would somehow drive him away.

The boy would stir them, and there might be painful confrontations with soldiers and the agent, but those would pass. Owl would remind them of their misery, maybe even win some concessions from the government, and then he would fade from memory.

Dirk empathized with the youth. There were times when the Shoshones needed an Owl to deal with obtuse Indian Bureau officials or boneheaded military officers. Dirk felt his two bloods warring with each other, for Owl had stirred up in him the bitter mingling of white and red.

He had never harmonized his two bloods, and finally had stopped trying. His mother's blood stirred at the sight of Owl; his father's blood had congealed in his veins. His two bloods hung over him as a curse; he wished he might be one or the other. Either! It didn't matter which. He would have been a proud Shoshone, his mother's son. He would have been a proud Englishman, his father's lad. His father's blood ached to see the Shoshones settle into farming and ranching, educate themselves in the manner of his people, and enjoy the settled world. His mother's blood resisted; it rose in the middle of lessons, when sometimes he wished some student or other wouldn't learn English, but become a medicine man of his people.

It was unending, this strife in his bosom, and maybe that was why after years on the reservation he was no further along than when he started. Where was he? His teaching was a failure; he had no wife, and had managed to drive away the one girl he cared about, Washakie's daughter Mona. He had drifted, doing his duty in the schoolhouse, sliding into apathy because nothing was better than before.