Raven Mocker (19 page)

D
o you have Little People?” Snakewater asked the women one day as they prepared an evening meal.

“Little People?” said Swan, with her mischievous smile of good humor. “Of course. Doesn’t everyone?”

Snakewater was startled. She had asked out of curiosity, and was not certain what reaction she might get. Among the Real People the subject of Little People was an accepted part of life. Not everyone enitrely credited the sometimes bizarre tales about the Little People, but few denied their existence. The attitude of most was much like their attitude toward the old ways. As the Real People had begun to adopt the ways of the white man, many had come to say, “I no longer practice the old ways,” but few were willing to say, “I do not
believe
the old ways.” To her this was a strange contradiction.

“Why do you ask?” teased Swan. “Have you seen some?”

“No … I just wondered. Among my people they are important. No one can admit having seen one, of course.”

The women laughed, and then Swan became serious.

“I think everyone has stories of Little People. To some they are more important than to others. To us they are mostly amusing.”

It occurred to Snakewater that here there were no stories about Little People, and now she began to think that rather strange. Or maybe not—One of the Real People
would never wish to offend a Little Person. It might become too dangerous.

“Tell me more,” she requested.

“Well,” pondered Swan, “as I said, ours are amusing. They can help or hurt you. Those of some others seem more interesting. You have traveled with the trader. Did you not hear the stories of others?”

“Not much. I am made to think that to some, like my own people, it is too serious to talk about. But among the Plains people who hunt buffalo and live in lodges like this, I have met only your people.”

“Ah! I see. Well, we were speaking of the Little People …. Somebody—I can’t remember who—Their Little People live underwater, come out sometimes. They are to be feared. Who is that, Walks Alone?”

“I don’t remember,” said her sister. “One of those to the north. Not the Crows.”

“No … I remember
theirs.
The Crows’ Little People go into battle with them. Very dangerous fighters. They tell of fights where the Little People destroyed the enemy’s horses.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Snakewater. “By force or by magic?”

“Does it matter?” asked Swan. “Maybe both.”

“Why do you suppose that there are few stories about Little People?” asked Snakewater.

Swan shrugged. “I don’t know—I never thought about it. But… well, you would not want to
offend
them—ones who lived in deep water, or who could destroy horses in battle?”

The subject was becoming uncomfortable, which in itself must indicate something.

“Do you think it will snow tonight?” asked Walks Alone.

The others laughed, maybe a little nervously, and the subject changed to weather.

People are uneasy about the Little People
, Snakewater realized. Maybe she’d ask Lumpy about that. Or maybe not …
He’d only tease me
, she thought.

I
t was a hard winter. There were days at a time when Sun Boy’s torch was not seen at all. It would grow light in the morning, and dark again in the evening, with no apparent change in the gray pall of sky that hung over everything. Sometimes there was snow, sometimes not, but the air never seemed to become warm enough to melt the accumulation on the ground. The drifts deepened.

The people banked snow around the lower part of the lodges, piling it against the outside of the lodge covers. It was an advantage to have snow for this purpose, to shelter the lodges from the icy breath of Cold Maker as he howled outside.

There were many days when the ongoing storms were too bad to permit hunting or the running of traplines, so people stayed inside. Socializing became insufficient to rouse spirits. Everyone was irritable and glum. By the end of the Moon of Snows this became a matter of concern. Even with the bountiful harvest of meat last autumn, supplies might run short. The keeping qualities of dried meat and pemmican, while they were good, were not perfect. Even in weather such as this there was some spoilage.

To add to that… One evening just before darkness fell, there was a sudden distressed wail from the next lodge, some fifty paces away. Far Thunder seized a weapon and hurried outside. The wailing continued.

“What is it?” called Thunder, sprinting toward the commotion in the narrow path with snow piled high on both sides.

“Aiee
, all of it!” came the sound of a woman’s voice.

Other men were running, too, toward the source of the disturbance. The women emerged from the lodges, too, some carrying weapons, in case a defense might be needed.

“Are we being attacked?” someone called.

Now a man emerged from the lodge where the wailing continued.

“No, no,” he assured them. “Our food … Some creature …”He spread his hands helplessly.

Some small animal—possum, skunk, or raccoon, maybe—had entered the storage space behind the lodge lining and had remained there, feasting on the stored food supply.

“I thought I heard something scratching!” the woman said again and again.

What food had not been eaten had been spoiled and contaminated by the animal’s excrement and its digging through the packs and bundles.

“What will we do?” wailed the young wife.

“I can let you have some pemmican,” offered Swan.

“I too,” said another woman.

Quickly there were several offers of help. Despite this everyone knew that it was a serious situation. Most people had very little more than enough for their own families, and the Moon of Hunger had barely begun.

T
here was another incident of an animal raid and damage to the food of another lodge a few days later. Again, other families helped.

Everyone else now checked carefully behind their own lodge linings, and a few more cases of intrusion were discovered. Most were slight, but in the overall picture a considerable amount of food had been harmed.

A council was held in the lodge of Far Thunder, with three subchiefs present. It was agreed that they must have inadvertently camped in a place that harbored a great number of possums or possibly raccoons. There was a gentle jibe or two over “Who chose this place?” but it was not a serious accusation. Far Thunder brushed it aside. What was needed now was an answer, not an accusation.

To move to another area might have been a solution earlier, but by now it was too late. The lodges were heavily banked with snow and would be frozen in until the spring thaw.

“Why did the dogs not know?” asked Two Hatchets, a quiet young man who was greatly respected in the band.

“Mine did!” offered another. “Did not yours?”

“Some—but that was outside.”

There was a discussion. The lodges where dogs slept inside had not been bothered. Those whose dogs found their own shelter in the brush and snowdrifts were most vulnerable.

“It is too late now to change that,” observed Thunder. “Now, what can be done?”

There was silence. It was plain to see. Nothing…

The dogs could be eaten, it was noted.

S
nakewater had been somewhat startled by this comment, and asked Swan about it later.

“You eat the dogs?”

“Of course. That is much of their purpose. Your people do not eat dogs?”

“No …I …Maybe in a time of starvation.”

She had wondered at the great number of dogs that followed the camps, but merely attributed it to the great quantities of food available to dogs after a buffalo hunt.

“When the taste of dried meat and pemmican becomes stale, there is still fresh meat,” explained Swan.

“Then this means no problems with the loss of food in the lodges?” asked Snakewater. “The people will eat their dogs?”

“There
is
a problem,” Swan answered. “The people have counted on the dogs already. And a dog does not last long in a big family. A day or two…

Snakewater now recalled that she had seen a woman skinning an animal of some sort. It had been at some distance, and she had assumed it to be game that one of the hunters had brought in—beaver, maybe. But now …It had probably been a dog.

This whole idea was a new experience for her. The Real People had been settled in towns and depending on farming for many generations. It had never occurred to her that these nomadic buffalo hunters were far more dependent on the season and on the climate. They had stopped to trade some of the meat and hides to one of the
grower towns during the move south. They had acquired, in this way, corn, beans, and dried pumpkins.

Now supplies were to run short, unless the spring thaw came early to allow a hunt. Yes, she could see that there might be a problem.

T
he cold continued, with more snows. Everyone, at least the adults, began to eat less and less. On several occasions Snakewater would pretend not to be hungry, and would share her own portion with the children. She saw the others do the same, and supposed that similar events were occurring in the other lodges.

Those who were trapping no longer discarded the flesh of the fur bearers they caught, but brought them home to feed their families. Surely spring would come soon ….

“We could eat the horses,” suggested Far Thunder.

But so far no one had done so. That was a matter of prestige. And so far no one was actually starving.

“I am told,” Swan told Snakewater, “that this was once called the Moon of Starvation, before the coming of the Elk-dog—the horse. Now it is only the Moon of Hunger. At least so far.”

T
here were a few days when it appeared that the snows might be over. A little melting actually occurred. But then Cold Maker mounted one last thrust in defiance of Sun Boy’s now brightening new torch.

Dark clouds rolled in, the temperature plummeted, and once more it began to snow. People withdrew again into their lodges, carrying what firewood they could. That, too, was becoming scarce.

As Snakewater entered the lodge, she heard the sound of singing and turned to look back. There, walking straight and tall, was an old man carrying his weapons and marching straight into the teeth of the storm.

“What is he doing?” Snakewater asked in surprise.

“He goes to fight Cold Maker,” said Swan, a little sadly.

“But … why is he
singing?”

“That is the Death Song,” Swan answered. “Our warriors ride into battle singing,

and his family will live. He will have beaten Cold Maker.”

“Has he gone crazy?”

“No, no. There will be one less mouth to feed… more food for the children—his grandchildren. And life goes on.”

A
t last the bright rays of Sun Boy’s new torch began to show some results. Each day became visibly longer than the one before, as Cold Maker began to withdraw in defeat.

Cold Maker did not concede defeat gracefully. He never does. He retreats, snarling and snapping like a wolf at bay, striking out at his tormentor with a vengeance as he slinks back toward his ice caves in the northern mountains. He may even turn to attack another time or two. But it is easy to see, by the Moon of Awakening, what the outcome will be. Sun Boy will triumph again, bringing back the grass and the buffalo.

The people of Far Thunder’s band had come through the winter thin and hungry, but alive. They had fewer dogs, but that would be quickly remedied. They had not had to resort to eating the horses.

One old woman had succumbed to pneumonia, and her body was ceremonially placed on a burial scaffold, to remain there when the band moved on.

“You do not bury in the ground?” asked Snakewater.

“Sometimes,” Swan explained. “Maybe when we come this way again, there will be a few bones left. Those we would bury.”

The body of the old warrior who went into combat with Cold Maker singing the Death Song was never found.

But the Moon of Awakening had arrived. The bare branches of the willows along the stream now began to show a bright yellowish color. Buds were swelling on the maples. On southern slopes the snow began to melt, the water trickling in little rivulets, joining other trickles to ripple downhill with increasing volume, flowing faster and faster to plunge into the swelling torrent of the stream.

Back on the newly exposed south slopes, sprigs of green began to push through the reddish soil and the dead foliage of last year’s growth. The grass was returning.

There was a restlessness among the people, an urge to do
something.
The men began to hunt again, ranging farther from the camp.

The old urge to move was stimulated by the long lines of migrating geese high overhead. They were now returning northward, honking in derision at Cold Maker’s retreat as he fled before the advance of spring.

“When will we move?” asked Snakewater.

“Ah!
You
are impatient! You are becoming one of us!” laughed Swan. “But it will be a little while—it is too muddy to travel yet. Soon, though!”

S
nakewater was startled one afternoon by some sort of disturbance in another part of the camp. There were yells and people running.

“What is it? Are we being attacked?” she asked.

“No, I think someone is hurt,” answered Swan.

There was a general rush toward the source of the disturbance. Some carried weapons, just in case.

A young man lay on the ground in front of the lodge, bleeding from a wound in his upper arm. Another, about the same age, was talking rapidly, babbling almost incoherently.

“Wait!” said an older man. “Slow down! Tell us what happened.”

The young man paused for a deep breath and began to talk more calmly.

“We were hunting,” he recounted. “Red Dog, Lizard, and I took our horses and rode to the east, looking for
deer. The timber is heavier there, and we were made to think—”

“Go on!” an older man interrupted.

“Yes …Well, Dog killed a doe and we were deciding how to pack it back here, when we saw some men watching us.”

“Osages,” interrupted the wounded youth on the ground, gritting his teeth as a woman, probably his mother, bound up his wound.

“Yes, they were Osages. They told us that we should not be there, that it was
their
hunting ground. This was in hand signs, of course. We were polite and agreed to leave, but Dog wanted to claim the deer. They refused, and one of them shot an arrow. It missed Dog but flew on and hit the arm of Lizard there. We ran, leaving Dog’s deer.”

“There were too many of them,” said Red Dog. “Five or six.”

“That was wise,” said Far Thunder. “You would have been killed over a deer.”

“I told them we would be back!” said Red Dog angrily.

“Ah, that was not so wise,” Far Thunder said. “What did the Osages say?”

“That they would be ready.”

Thunder nodded. “They could not do otherwise. Now, how is Lizard? The arrow went on through?” he asked the woman who was cleaning the wound.

“We pulled it through,” said Red Dog.

“It missed the bone,” said Lizard’s mother. “I will wrap it.”

“I have some medicine,” offered Snakewater. “I will get it.”

“It is good,” said Far Thunder. “Let it be so. But now we need a council. What is to be done?”

“Punish them!” called an angry man. “Kill an Osage or two.”

“That is one plan,” said Thunder, “but let us consider…. Let us meet at my lodge in a little while.” He glanced at the sun. “It is too late today to start a war.”

“They will start a
war?”
Snakewater asked Swan.

The woman chuckled. “No, I think not. Thunder does that to make them think, and gives them a little time. Always somebody talks big.”

W
hen the men gathered in front of the lodge of Far Thunder, there were some who spoke with anger and demanded vengeance—mostly young hotheads who were not directly concerned.

“We should make them know that we are not to be treated so!”

“Of course,” said Thunder easily, “but let us smoke and then plan.”

Very quickly the formal circle was formed and the pipe lighted. Far Thunder blew smoke to the four directions, to the sky and the earth, and passed the pipe to his left. It progressed ceremonially around the circle and back to the band chieftain. Thunder knocked the dottle into his palm and tossed it into the fire.

“Now,” he began, “our young men have met the Osages, and blood has been spilled. What is to be done?”

“Kill them!” blurted a young warrior. “We must not be treated so!”

Far Thunder nodded thoughtfully. “We could easily do that. Then, of course,
they
would have to even the score.”

“Let them try!”

“We could defend ourselves, maybe,” agreed Thunder. “But there are other things to consider. We will be leaving soon, for summer range. The Osages will stay here.”

“And it must not seem that we were frightened away!” insisted the other.

Now an older man spoke. “It is hard to defend a moving column against attack. We will have women and children, all our possessions.”

“We can fight them!” insisted the militant young warrior. “Let them know our strength.”

“But they know this region better than we do,” spoke a calmer voice. “We would have dead and wounded.”

“And so would
they.
They must be made to suffer! Even the score!”

“Let us think now,” said Thunder, “about ‘evening the score.’ To do that they would have to give us one deer carcass, and let us shoot somebody through the arm, no?”

There were quiet chuckles.

“Now,” he went on, “if we kill one or two Osages, then they must kill three or four of us. In the middle of all this we must move anyway. And that will look like retreat ….”

There were nods of agreement.

How clever
, thought Snakewater.
It is no wonder that Far Thunder is a respected leader.

“Let us show them that we are not afraid,” Thunder continued.

A murmur of agreement went quietly around the circle, mingled with a trace of doubt.

“And how is this to be done?” asked a middle-aged warrior. “If we move, we look like cowards, unless we kill some of them.”

“Then how can this be done?” mused Far Thunder. “Maybe we could
tell
them.”

There were gasps of astonishment.

“Tell
them?”

“But—”

“Yes,” Thunder said thoughtfully. “A few of us go to them. That shows we are not afraid. We explain that we were preparing to leave, and that we mean them no harm.”

There were thoughtful nods of agreement, more conversation, and by the time the matter came to a vote, there was no need for a vote. This was a plan.

S
nakewater was not privileged to be present at the meeting with the Osages, but she heard the details later. Everyone did.

Five leading warriors, guided by young Red Dog, returned to the place of the deer kill, and then moved in the direction from which the Osages had come. It was soon apparent that they were being observed. To a dimly seen
figure in the shadows Far Thunder openly raised a right hand, palm forward, in the sign for peace.

It was nearly midday when they saw and smelled the smoke of a village’s cooking fires. They rode on, following a trail that was now plain to see.

They were met by a party of six well-armed warriors, who blocked the entrance to the town. Far Thunder and the others raised hands again in peace.

What do you want?
signed a big man in the middle of the Osage party, apparently their leader.

We would smoke and talk
, Far Thunder answered.

No
, signed the other.
Your hunters kill our game
.

But our young men did not know
, answered Thunder.
One of them is wounded
.

His own fault
.

We have come
, Thunder continued,
to say that our hearts are heavy for this, but we understand. We are preparing to leave anyway.

There was a snort of contempt from one of the younger Osages. He was quieted with a gesture from their leader.

We do not leave because of fear
, Far Thunder continued,
but to avoid any killing. We can kill if we must, of course.

The Osage chieftain pondered a long while and then laughed aloud.

You must be speaking truth
, he signed.
No one could think of a trick this stupid. Come, let us smoke.

He turned and gestured the way as they moved on into the village.

T
he council was a success, and the two groups would remain allies, at least for now. The rights of the Osages to their hunting grounds were to be respected. Any of the Elk-dog People who found themselves in the area would try to contact some Osages to let their presence be known. They would kill for their own needs.

They agreed to make their winter camps farther to the west in the future.

How is your young man recovering?
asked the Osage leader as they parted.

He does well
, answered Far Thunder.

Good …. Boys will be boys
, answered the other.
When will you leave?

Maybe three days
, Thunder signed.

The Osage nodded.
We will send a party to escort you.

Is it not necessary
.

It must be so, to honor our new friends
.

So, three days later, the Elk-dog People took down their lodges and moved northwestward. They were accompanied by a party of mounted Osages. It might have been interpreted as an honor guard or as a security measure, to assure the honesty of Far Thunder’s band. But at least for now there was no bloodshed.