Black Hills (23 page)

Paha Sapa blinks at this.

—
So he was
witko—
crazy.

Robert Sweet Medicine shows that long-toothed smile again.

—
He did not seem
witko.
He seemed… lonely. But, little Black Hills, have you never known a
wičasa wakan,
or some other sort of human with powers—a
waayatan
prophet, for instance, or a
wakinyan
dreamer who sees visions sent by the Thunder Beings, or a
wapiya
conjurer, or a
wanaazin
who shoots at disease, or a dangerous
wokabiyeya
who works with witch medicine, or a
wihmunge
who sucks disease straight out of a dying person with his own breath—who has spoken of leaving his body and traveling to far places?

Paha Sapa laughs and takes a long drink of the cold springwater in the jug.

—
Yes, uncle, of course I have. But I have never heard any holy man given powers who speaks of…

He pauses, remembering his own lying-in-the-grass experience (dream?) of rising so high in the sky that the sky grew dark in the daytime and the stars came out.

—
… of… traveling
so far.
But are you saying, uncle, that
wasichus
can have Visions, just like real People?

Robert Sweet Medicine shrugs and tosses more twigs onto the fire. Paha Sapa is growing warm and sleepy beneath his blankets. The second rabbit is now bones.

The old man’s voice, strongly resonant in the little cave, seems strangely familiar to Paha Sapa.

—
Have you ever noticed, little Black Hills, how all of our tribes—all the ones I’ve ever heard of, even those east of the Big River and west of the Shining Mountains and beyond the Never No Summer range, even those so far south that the plains are desert and no grass grows there—that
all
of us give our tribes names meaning the same as
Tsêhéstáno,
the
People,
as we Cheyenne say; or
the Natural Free Human Beings,
as you Lakota call yourselves; or the
True Human Beings,
as the Crow say—and so on and so on and so on.

Paha Sapa has forgotten the question, if there
was
a question, and is completely missing the point (if there was a point). He replies only by nodding sleepily and, remembering his manners, by belching softly.

—
I am just asking, little Black Hills, why each of our tribes calls itself
“the Human Beings”
and refers to no other tribe or group, even the
wasichus,
in that way.

Paha Sapa rubs his eyes.

—
I suppose, uncle, because our tribe is—I mean, that we
are—
the real human beings, while others aren’t?

The answer seems a little inadequate even to the quickly warming and belly-filled boy, but he can think of no other at the moment. But he will revisit the question more than a few times over the next decades.

Robert Sweet Medicine is nodding as if satisfied by a particularly clever answer from one of his
wičasa wakan
students.

—
Perhaps, little Black Hills, when you learn the particular language of the
Wasicun
ghost now babbling in your brain, you will begin to understand this strange question of naming ourselves a little better.

Paha Sapa nods sleepily and then snaps awake—
he has not told this old man about the ghost of Long Hair in him.

Has he?

But Robert Sweet Medicine is speaking again.

—
You’re going to the real Paha Sapa to perform your lonely
hanblečeya,
so you should fast after tonight’s feast. The place you seek is only a day’s ride from here if you take the proper paths in the Hills. I trust that your
tunkašila,
Limps-a-Lot, has instructed you well as to the preparations and sent along with you everything you need to do
yuwipi
properly?

—
Oh, yes, uncle! I have learned what I must have, and for things that I cannot find in the forest, they are all packed away on my white mare you hear cropping at the cave entrance!

Robert Sweet Medicine nods but does not smile.

—Washtay!
Limps-a-Lot sent with you the properly sacred pipe and the strong
caNliyukpanpi
fine-smoking tobacco?

—
Oh, yes, uncle!

Did he? In four nights of rain now, Paha Sapa has not fully unpacked the bundles his grandfather sent with him, usually merely hunkering against the mare in the dark downpour and groping around for the dried meat or biscuits that Three Buffalo Woman packed away for him. Is the sacred, irreplaceable
Ptehinčala Huhu Canunpa
—the Buffalo Calf Bone Pipe that Sitting Bull had appointed Limps-a-Lot guardian of—
really
in his bundle of goods, or has Limps-a-Lot sent along the lesser but still sacred tribal pipestone pipe? Come to think of it, Paha Sapa has not seen in his various soaked bundles the red eagle feathers that adorn the priceless
Ptehinčala Huhu Canunpa.

The old man is still talking.

—Washtay,
Paha Sapa. Stay away from the
wasichus’
roads—for the soldiers
and miners will kill you on sight. Go to the top of the Grandfathers’ Hill
. Yuhaxcan cannonpa!
Carry your pipe. Your pipe is
wakan. Taku woecon kin ihyuha el woilagyape lo. Ehantan najin oyate maka stimnyyan cannonpa kin he uywakanpelo.
It is used for doing all things. Ever since the standing people have been over all the earth, the pipe has been
wakan.

Paha Sapa shakes his head in an attempt to rid himself of the buzzing and confusion there. His fever fills him. His eyes are watering, either from the smoke or from strong emotions he does not understand. Still sitting cross-legged on the blanket while wrapped in two more blankets, he seems to be naked and floating inches above the cavern floor. Robert Sweet Medicine’s voice booms in his head like
wasichu
cannon fire.

—
Little Black Hills, you know how properly to construct your
oinikaga tipi?

—
Yes, Grandfather… I mean uncle. I have helped Limps-a-Lot and the men construct many sweat lodges.

—Ohan. Wašte!
And you know how to select the proper
sintkala waksu
from those other stones that might blind or kill you?

—
Oh, yes, uncle.

But
does
he? When the time comes in the Black Hills, will he be able to differentiate the special stones in the creek beds, those with the “beadwork” designs that show them safe for use in the sweat lodge?

Paha Sapa begins sweating and shaking under his blankets.

—
Has your grandfather’s wife cut the forty squares of flesh from her arm for your
wagmugha
to go with the
yuwipi
stones?

—
Oh, yes, uncle!

Have
Raven’s Hair or Three Buffalo Woman cut the necessary bits of flesh for the sacred rattle or gathered the little fossil stones to be found only in certain anthills? How could they have? They have not had time!

The old man nods again and throws several scented sticks onto the already raging fire. The cave fills with the sour-sweet smell of incense.

—
You have been warned, little Black Hills, that once you are
nagi,
pure spirit essence, you will be visited—almost certainly attacked—by
ocin xica,
bad-tempered animals, as well as by
wanagi
and
ciciye
and
siyoko.

—
I am not afraid of ghosts, uncle, and
ciciye
and
siyoko
are boogeymen for children.

But Paha Sapa’s
voice is shaking as he says this.

Robert Sweet Medicine seems not to notice. He is staring at the fire, and his black eyes are filled with dancing flames.

—
A
hanblečeya
Vision is a terribly serious thing to put on the shoulders of any man, my son, but especially upon the shoulders of one so young. You understand that sometimes the fate of the vision-seeker’s band depends upon the Vision. Sometimes the fate of an entire people—more than a tribe, but a race—depends upon the Vision and what is done after that Vision. You understand this?

—
Yes, of course, uncle.

Paha Sapa decides that Robert Sweet Medicine is insane.
Winkto.

—
Do you know why the Grandfathers, the gods, and
Wakan Tanka
himself exist, little Black Hills?

Paha Sapa wants to say—
What are you going on about, old man?
—but he manages a respectful—

—
Yes, uncle.

Robert Sweet Medicine looks up from the fire and stares directly at Paha Sapa, but the old man’s black eyes still reflect the flames.

—
No, you do
not,
young Paha Sapa. But you
will.
The gods and the Grandfathers and the All himself exist because the so-called People exist to worship them. The People exist because the buffalo exist and because the grass grows free throughout the world we think is the World. But when the buffalo are gone and when the grass is gone, the People will be gone as well. And then the gods, the spirits—of our ancestors, of the place, of life itself—will be gone as well. Do you see, Paha Sapa?

Paha Sapa can humor the old man no longer.

—
No, uncle.

Robert Sweet Medicine grins his strong-toothed grin.

—Washtay!
That is good. But you will be the first to see, little Black Hills. Gods die as buffalo die, as people die. Sometimes slowly and in great agony. Sometimes quickly, unprepared, and not believing in their own death, denying the arrow or the wound or the disease even as it is killing them. Do you understand this, Paha Sapa?

—
No, uncle.

—Washtay!
This is as it should be now. What matters is not that you see how the buffalo and the people and the way the people live and the gods and the grandfathers and the All shall die and disappear, Paha Sapa—many of us with the gift of
wakan
have glimpsed this before—but what you
do
about it in the eighty summers
and more remaining to you. What
you—
no one else—what
you
do about it. Do you understand this, Paha Sapa?

The boy is angry now. Sleepy and feverish and ill and close to weeping and very angry. If he kills this old man now, no one would ever know it.

—
No, uncle.

—Washtay!
You will sleep late and long in the morning, young Black Hills, and I will be gone…. The rain will abate just before sunrise, and I have business in the
O-ana-gazhee,
the Sheltering Place, far from here and the Hills. I will leave no food for you, and you must not touch yours. Your fasting must begin at sunrise.

—
Yes, uncle.

—
Your testing will not be over if and when you survive your terrible
hanblečeya.
That is just the beginning. You will never get word of your Vision back to Limps-a-Lot and your band. Your horses will be killed—not by Crazy Horse, who seeks you elsewhere and then forgets you in his lust to kill more
wasichus—
and your sacred pipe will be stolen and you will be stripped naked, but this is as it should be. Understand that while there is no Plan for the universe, there are specific crucifixions and new births for each of us.

Paha Sapa does not understand that word—
crucifixion
—but the old man is making no sense with the words the boy does understand, so he lets it go.

—
I will not let that happen, uncle. I will die—as my father died, staked down and fighting—rather than surrender our tribe’s sacred
Ptehinčala Huhu Canunpa
that Limps-a-Lot and ten generations of holy men before him have kept safe, never losing so much as a single red feather on it.

Robert Sweet Medicine looks at him.

—
Good. Let me tell you now, Paha Sapa, that I am honored that you will name your son and only child after me.

Paha Sapa can only stare at the old man.

—
It is time to lower the fire to embers, go to the cave entrance to piss and to see that your two horses are comfortable, and then to sleep, Paha Sapa. I will wake from time to time while you sleep to shake my own
wagmuha
to keep the ghosts at bay tonight.

Robert Sweet Medicine shows him the ceremonial rattle that looks to be as old as time.

—
Paha Sapa
, toksha ake čante ista wacinyanktin ktelo.

I shall see you again with the eye of my heart.

With many groans and grunts, the old man slowly uncrosses his legs and manages—after several tries—to get to his feet, where he sways as old men do when seeking their balance. Robert Sweet Medicine’s voice is very soft.

—Mitakuye oyasin!

All my relatives. It is done.

Together, slowly, the old man moving very slowly but the boy not helping him because he is afraid to touch him, Paha Sapa and Robert Sweet Medicine walk to the entrance of the cave where they check on the horses and piss—far apart, each looking into a different part of the darkness—out into the rainy night.