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Authors: James Welch

Fools Crow (Contemporary American Fiction) (3 page)

BOOK: Fools Crow (Contemporary American Fiction)
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He opened his eyes and watched Medicine Stab work on his bowstring. He had the string threaded through the eye sockets of an old blackhorn skull and was vigorously pulling the string back and forth to make it pliable and smooth. The others were all resting now, and the day was warm and quiet. The thin clouds that had been following them from the north had disappeared and Sun Chief rode high in the early afternoon sky. It was a good time and White Man’s Dog should have been content to drowse with the others, but he was troubled by the dream. He had had many dreams of desire, he welcomed them, but this one was different. This one was a sign, and he didn’t know how to interpret it. He wanted to go to the white-faced girl but knew that there was danger in that direction.
4
THE NEXT DAY they camped at the foot of Woman Don’t Walk Butte. Yellow Kidney sent Eagle Ribs to the top to look around. Sometimes war parties camped at the top of the butte to offer prayers and plan strategies. Yellow Kidney himself had been a member of Big Lake’s war party the summer they took revenge on a group of Snakes for killing three Pikunis and stealing thirty horses. They had offered their prayers at the top of Woman Don’t Walk, and four days later they killed off forty of the Snakes and got their horses back and more.
Yellow Kidney sat on a rock in the morning chill and smoked his pipe. The others had scattered in all directions to look for Fast Horse’s ice spring. Their young energy made Yellow Kidney realize that he was getting old too soon. His legs ached and the cold air was beginning to make them stiff. He had been shot in the left leg by a Cutthroat several summers back and it had given him trouble since. Although it was hardly noticeable around camp, it bothered him to walk a great distance. It hurt him most to squeeze his buffalo horse when he was running the blackhorns. His thirty-eight winters sat heavily on his shoulders and he knew he didn’t have many journeys left.

 

Sun Chief had cleared the hills to the east, lighting the frosty yellow grasses on the side of Woman Don’t Walk. Yellow Kidney offered up a prayer of thanks for so many days of smiling. This time of year, each day was a blessing. And Night Red Light, three quarters full, had allowed their eyes to look around each night. But she would be full by the time they reached the Crow camp, and this worried him. Her light could prove dangerous to those sneaking among the lodges for buffalo-runners. Yellow Kidney himself had two of the big fast horses and didn’t need any more; nevertheless, he would be obliged to lead the way into camp. He almost laughed out loud at himself. He knew that once they were near the Crow camp, he would be as eager as any of the others to capture a prize horse. He knocked the ashes out of his pipe and stood, the frozen grass crunching under his feet. He spotted Fast Horse and White Man’s Dog about halfway up the butte, where the yellow grass met the towering granite face. They were bent over and intent. Below them, Sun Chief hit the silvery brush with a glare that made Yellow Kidney shield the bottom part of his eyes. He felt his heart quicken until he saw them stand up and move away to the south face.
He knew it was wrong to question another man’s dreams, but he couldn’t help being skeptical because the ice spring dream had come to Fast Horse. The young man was ambitious and perhaps foolish, but his father, Boss Ribs, was a powerful heavy-singer-for-the-sick. He kept one of only three Beaver Medicine bundles among the Blackfeet tribes. The Kainahs and Siksikas possessed the other two. Beaver Medicine was even stronger than Sacred Pipe Medicine, so Yellow Kidney had great respect for the father of Fast Horse. For that reason he had agreed to take Fast Horse on the raid.

 

As he watched the two young men pick their way among the rocks, he found himself studying the contrast in their appearance. Fast Horse was half a head taller than White Man’s Dog, and in his buckskin shirt and leggings he looked like a big man, an impression furthered by his erect stance that told of pride not yet earned. His long black hair was piled in a knot on the front of his head. Unlike the others, he had painted his face before each night’s trek—three ocher streaks on either side of his face and a vermilion smudge on his chin. White Man’s Dog, a year older, was broader in the body, unusually broad, although he was flatter in the belly and chest than Fast Horse. He wore his hair simply, his braids unadorned. He is like the wolverine, thought Yellow Kidney, low and powerful. If he has the heart to match, we will make these Crows pay.
Fast Horse pouted that day in camp because they did not find the ice spring. He had stayed out looking until Sun Chief was high in the southern sky. When he returned he ate a chunk of cold deer meat and stared at the butte. Yellow Kidney saw in his face that he was questioning his dream. Yellow Kidney questioned not the dream but the dreamer. He went off a way and prayed. He asked the Above Ones to tell him what to do. Asked Cold Maker to take pity on them. To turn back now would lead to ridicule when they got home. Yellow Kidney would lose face. But to go on, to risk the wrath of Cold Maker—wouldn’t that lead to far more disastrous consequences? Why did he feel that he couldn’t trust Fast Horse? He looked about him in the failing light. He looked at Woman Don’t Walk Butte. He thought of the night Big Lake had prayed for guidance and the ensuing success. But Big Lake had proven warriors with him. Yellow Kidney had youths, except for Eagle Ribs. Anything could go wrong, even if the signs seemed right.

 

Yellow Kidney had one option and he decided to take it. They would go on, they would continue into Crow country, but at the first sign that things were not right they would turn back. Meanwhile, he would keep an eye on Fast Horse. As he picked his way down the rocky slope toward camp, he thought of White Man’s Dog and felt his spirits rise. In spite of his unlucky reputation, there was a steadiness, a calmness in White Man’s Dog that Yellow Kidney liked. These were rare qualities in a young man on his first adventure. He can be trusted, thought Yellow Kidney. He will do well.

 

After four more days making cold camps and traveling by night, they rested in a small deep draw that emptied out into the valley of the Elk River. Not far downstream stood a Napikwan trading fort. Eagle Ribs had scouted it from a nearby bluff. Many Crows were trading there, along with Spotted Horse people and Parted Hairs. Yellow Kidney was surprised because the Crows and Parted Hairs had never gotten along, but he also knew that the white traders made the tribes behave before they would trade.

 

“We are less than two sleeps from the Crow camps on the Bighorn,” said Eagle Ribs.
“We will have to travel far tonight. We will strike them when Seven Persons reaches its highest point the next night.” Yellow Kidney knew where most of the winter camps would be. He wanted the camp of Bull Shield because the Crow chief had made the Pikunis cry many times. He also had many horses. But mostly, Yellow Kidney wanted to take Bull Shield’s buffalo-runner. He had thought many times on the journey of doing this. It would be a great coup and would be talked about among the Pikunis. But it had been merely a thought. Now he would do it. He took Eagle Ribs aside. “You must find the camp of Bull Shield,” he said quietly. “He has many horses. If you leave soon, you can find his camp and double back to meet us at Black Face Butte by the time Morning Star comes up.”
“I will eat something first.”
“It will be dangerous to travel by day. There will be many Crow hunters out. But you are cunning, Eagle Ribs, and your medicine is good. You must remember to give the Underwater People some tobacco before you cross the Elk River. They will help you to stay unseen.”
Eagle Ribs smiled. He liked the challenge of traveling in Crow country by day. Only the best of the wolves could do it.
After Eagle Ribs left, the young men sat back in a hollow surrounded by rosebushes. They checked their weapons and war paints; they prayed and thought of the night two sleeps hence when they would prove they were men of heart. The long march had sharpened their senses, the nights of seeing and feeling their way across the plains, the cold water of the fords, the almost constant hunger in spite of the meat they had killed and eaten. Each of them had watched the stars closely and had become attuned with the night and the four directions. Now they had to test their courage.

 

White Man’s Dog held the small pouch of yellow pigment that Mik-api had given him. It was a strange powdery earth that Mik-api had obtained from the Siksikas in the far northland. Just to hold it made White Man’s Dog tremble with expectation. He remembered the sweat he and Fast Horse had taken with the many-faces man. Mik-api had dabbed water on the hot stones with his blackhorn-tail swab and the steam took their breath away. Mik-api sang and prayed as the purifying sweat rolled from their naked bodies. White Man’s Dog had felt then that the bad spirit that caused his misfortune had left his body. He had felt empty and content as the infant who just enters this world. After they had bathed in the Two Medicine River, Mik-api led them to his lodge. There they smoked to the four directions and to the Above Ones, the Below Ones, the Underwater People. Then Mik-api had given White Man’s Dog the yellow paint and the instructions for its use. If he painted himself exactly as Mik-api had told him, he would gain the strength and cunning necessary to be successful. Now he packed the pouch away carefully in his war bag.
The dream of the white-faced girls had not come to him in several sleeps. During the long silent night walks he had tried to interpret the dream. He had memorized all the details and called them up, one by one, but the meaning was as far from his grasp as the stars. So he put the dream away and thought instead of his good fortune.

 

That evening the men got together and ate the last of a small deer that they had killed three sleeps back. The wind had picked up, forcing its way through the rosebushes the men huddled behind. The night would be clear but cold, colder than any of the previous nights. Yellow Kidney thought once again of Fast Horse’s dream of Cold Maker. He looked over at Fast Horse and thought the young man seemed less confident, a little more drawn into himself, than he had before the search for the ice spring. Even now he squatted a distance apart, looking back toward the country they had come from. Yellow Kidney swallowed the last of his meat.
“We will walk long tonight,” he said. “We must cross the Elk River and make it all the way to Black Face Butte this night. There we will meet up with Eagle Ribs and he will tell us about the Crows. I have it in my mind to strike the camp of Bull Shield.”
The five young men looked at him with wide eyes. They had heard many stories of this hateful Crow chief from their fathers, their older brothers, the men who sat around the fires at night. Many Pikuni parties had gone after him only to sneak back into camp, their bellies low to the ground.
Yellow Kidney laughed at their startled faces and laughed at himself. He too had been surprised to hear himself speak Bull Shield’s name out loud. But now it was in the open, and if Eagle Ribs could find it, Bull Shield’s camp would be struck.

 

“Come now. You wish to be warriors? You wish to follow the war trail? Then let us count coup on this enemy who has made our relatives cry! When you get home you can tell your families you have done something. The way will be hard from now on. You will get little rest, less sleep. We have had a sign that does not offer us much encouragement.” He glanced at Fast Horse. “But we have come this far undiscovered. Our power is strong and we are Pikunis, so we shall continue.” Now he looked hard into each youth’s eyes. He was no longer the tired, lame man who envied these young men’s spirits; to them he had become the warrior who had returned to camp many times with horses and war honors. He turned and began to walk quickly down the draw. The young men scrambled for their weapons and packs.

 

Night Red Light cast her full face on Eagle Ribs as he came to the series of low hills above the Bighorn. He kept as best he could to the swales and washes, to the clumps of greasewood and sage. He had his short-robe over his head and back, but he knew he would appear as large and distinct as a real-bear in the bright light. The wind was in his face and he was grateful because it would blow his sound and smell back away from the camp dogs. The same wind carried the sound of drumming up the hills from the valley floor. He stopped and listened and heard the shrill voices of the singers. Near the top of the last hill he dropped to all fours and crawled around the sage clumps, sniffing the sharp sweet odor into his nostrils. He crawled until he reached the brow and then he looked down at the encampment.

 

The lodges loomed white and ghostly in the full moonlight, and he had to look hard to see the yellow glow of cooking fires. He lay and let his eyes adjust and then he saw figures walking among the lodges, women with kettles of water from the river or loads of firewood, a group of men in robes sitting around a fire by one of the main tipis. They would be young men. Then he heard dogs barking and children yelling. On a plain north of the camp he saw a large band of children kicking up dust as they played horses. The dogs milled around them, barking and feinting into the group. Three men on horseback left the south perimeter of the camp, and he followed them with his eyes. Then he saw the great herds of horses, hundreds of them, strung out on both sides of the river, the nearest bunch a good distance from camp. These would be easy. The young men would be able to sneak down and drive away many of them. Once again, he focused on the camp and began to pick out the buffalo-runners staked to the lodges. Because of the distance, Eagle Ribs could not make out the blue buffalo tipi of Bull Shield. But he would surely be there. And it struck Eagle Ribs that he had not seen such a large encampment outside the Sun Dance encampment of his own people. It was bundled up like a winter camp but it was too large. That many people would hunt out the game in a matter of days.
Then he heard talking and laughing almost beside him. He shrank back away from the crest and flattened himself against the cold earth. Not a hundred paces to the left, six men led a string of horses down a draw to the river bottom. Two of the horses had green blackhorn robes on them; the other five were packed with meat. The men were so close Eagle Ribs could see their bodies sway from side to side as their horses descended. He hugged the earth until he no longer heard the clatter of stones. When he looked again, the hunters had reached the valley floor and had broken into a trot, waving their arms and hallooing the camp. The children who had been playing now ran to greet them, followed by the barking dogs.
BOOK: Fools Crow (Contemporary American Fiction)
11.76Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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