Scarlet Plume, Second Edition (22 page)

Immediately behind the herd traveled a small army of jack-rabbits. They moved along in erratic bounds. Still farther behind came a pair of spying wolves.

Scarlet Plume sang another buffalo song. His voice was low, persuasive. Out of the midst of the song there occasionally broke the urgent grunt of a bull mounting a cow.

The tufted buffalo drifted farther and farther into the trap. The sun rose to the midpoint of the morning sky. The wind continued warm and sweet from the southeast. Flowers opened. Perfumes hazed upon the air. Bumblebees flew about drunk. Meadowlarks cried their cheer that all the skies were clear.

The two trailing wolves were the first to smell trouble. They stopped, sat on their haunches a moment, sniffing the air with lifted noses, laughing with long red tongues, then up and with a twirling whisk of brush tails were gone. The jackrabbits were next to sense it. They abruptly began to bound away to the left and the right.

Traveling Hail stood up from his hiding place. He gave a high, clear coyote call. It wavered over the entire plateau. Instantly the heads of all the Yanktons popped up from behind stones and boulders and, making even lines, formed the wings of a human corral. There was another clear call and the ends of the wings ran toward each other, closing the corral. “Yip! yip! yip!” everyone hallooed, waving their scaring robes.

The buffalo didn’t scare immediately. They were fat, lazy. The laggard bulls in back turned their great heads about in mild curiosity. They chewed, and wondered.

But the old bull with the long shadow hair knew. He let go a great snort.

The snort galvanized the entire herd. Up came their heads, they stiffened, and then, tails in the air, they broke into a heavy run. They headed into the wind. They went straight for the highest dropoff of the escarpment, Buffalo Jump.

The Yanktons hallooed, “Yihoo!” and waved their robes, and shrilled and barked and hooted. “Yihoo!” The stampede was on.

Scarlet Plume up ahead appeared to be the least concerned of all the buffaloes. He casually grazed toward a grayish-red boulder. When the rampaging herd was almost upon him, he deftly stepped behind the boulder. The buffalo thundered by, going as fast as they could hump it. When the last one was well past him, he stepped into view again. Gone were the buffalo head and buffalo skin. He was sweating and in the sun his limbs shone like freshly burnished copper. With the others he ran after the buffalo, shouting, waving, hallooing.

Judith found herself running with the others. Her two heavy braids clubbed her over the back and arms. The running and hallooing reminded her of the children’s game pump-pump-pull-away.

Judith gathered her tunic up around her waist and ran hard. She ran swiftly. Her long legs enabled her to keep up with the swiftest of the Yanktons. She was one of those women who could run fluid and elastic off the hip, not as though hobbled at the knees.

The buffalo thundered on, tails up. The faster cows and heifers took over the lead. Then came the bulls. Then came the yellow calves. All ran blindly. All ran scared. All ran with heavy grunting bounds.

There was a slight fall in the land just before the brink. The buffalo gathered even more momentum.

Then they poured over, somersaulting, the cows with their legs still galloping in air, the bulls bellowing, the calves bawling. Trees cracked below. Pillars of red rock tumbled over. There was a heavy thunder of many thumps. There was a moment of swallowing silence; then, dying miserably, all splashed to pieces, all the fallen buffalo let go with a rising massive moan.

The Yanktons ran so hard after the stampeded buffalo, they almost took the jump too. They had to lean back to stop at the brink.

The Yanktons peered down. From below rose a slow cloud of dust and hair and threshed-out milkweed seed.

Scarlet Plume lifted up both hands. “Yanktons, you see the power of the divination. You see all the killed buffalo. They have consented to die for us so that we may eat.”

The women trilled cries of thankfulness.

Scarlet Plume turned to Two Two. “Brother, run to the village for pony drags. We are ready for the butchering. Tell them not to forget the many parfleches. We will need them all. There is very much meat.”

Two Two ran to obey.

Scarlet Plume sniffed the air. “The smell of buffalo blood is sweeter than the smell of a Yankton rose.” He looked down. Buffalo bellies still stirred and buffalo limbs still crackled. “Friends, let us descend. Hohe.”

They filed down a pass in the red cliff, eyes popped and shoulders humped in anticipation. They surrounded the great tumble of broken buffalo. There were splintered hoofs, cracked spines, split bellies, running green anuses, limp tails, dying hearts, bitten tongues.

The Yanktons waited for Scarlet Plume to speak again.

At last, in reverent manner, Scarlet Plume took a pinch of dried sweet grass from a pouch he carried at his belt and touched the nearest buffalo with it. That done, he scattered the rest of the sweet grass in the direction of all the broken buffalo. He took a knife from his belt and placed his moccasined foot on the head of the nearest buffalo. “Friend,” he said down to the dulled-over half-closed eyes, “we thank you for letting us catch you. Friend, we too were animals before we were people, hence we must apologize now that we have killed you. Friend, we will not forget this. We thank you. I have said.” He made motions with his knife as if to lay open the hairy hump of the buffalo, then on the fourth and sacred motion finally did cut into it. Flesh parted, blood flowed.

The Yanktons piled in with their knives and teeth and fingers. They were like thirsty weasels. They drank the blood of the buffalo before the heartbeat faded away. Each cut for himself a choice tidbit. The Yanktons believed that like parts of animals nourished like parts of man. Some fancied raw purple liver seasoned with a drop of green bile. Some desired certain portions of raw kidney. Others declared raw brains were the best. Young wives anxious to have more children craved the silky envelope of the embryo. Mothers who wanted powerful runner sons fancied the soft feet of the fetuses. Old men hoping for a return of virility cut themselves slices of raw testicles. There wasn’t a part of the beloved buffalo but what some Yankton didn’t fancy it. The Yanktons crawled in and out of the mass of flesh like beetles investing the dead carcass of a super mammoth. Soon they were all covered with blood from head to foot. Red blood for red men. Even Scarlet Plume.

Judith and Mavis were revolted. They turned away. They retched. Their empty stomachs pumped and pumped. The one’s retching led to more retching by the other. Gall burned bitter on the lip and smell of it cut the nostril. The human beast was no better than the wolf who lived from kill to kill.

Judith and Mavis started back for the village by the springs.

The Yanktons were amazed at the behavior of the white women. Enough food had been given them by Wakantanka to last them all of a bitter winter and a mother turned sick at the thought of it?

Scarlet Plume and Traveling Hail hurried to block their path. Both men were gory with the blood. It trickled from the corners of their mouths.

Traveling Hail said to his wife, Mavis, “Shot-up Woman, what is this? Are you not happy with our great kill?” Traveling Hail was trying not to be angry. “Tell me.”

Mavis retched yet once more.

Scarlet Plume spoke soothingly. “You have run very far without food. The white woman has not done this before. There is a fruit nearby that will quiet your belly. Come.” Scarlet Plume stepped over to a patch of wild roses and picked a handful of orange hips. He gave Judith and Mavis each four. “Eat them. They are often given to mares to quiet their bellies after a hard run.”

Judith and Mavis stared at the proffered hips. Both women gave each other tormented, even strangled, looks.

“Eat.”

Judith nibbled at one of hers, found it surprisingly good. Finally she ate all four. So did Mavis.

Traveling Hail said to Mavis, “I will help the Shot-up Woman. Come. This is your first buffalo kill.”

Scarlet Plume said to Judith, “Come. I will help you get the meat for my father’s tepee. The day will come when your tongue will relish raw liver sweetened with a pinch of gall.”

Remembering their captivity, swallowing their bile, the two went back to the place of slaughtering.

After the best meat had been separated from the mass of broken bodies, and green hides removed and folded up, it was found that one of the yellowish calves still lived. This became a source of much astonishment to the Yanktons.

Scarlet Plume helped the calf out, and set it on its feet in the grass. The yellow calf stood stunned awhile.

“The calf is wakan,” Scarlet Plume said, “to live after such a great fall. He is protected by the spirit of the Buffalo Woman herself.”

Judith’s heart went out to the yellow calf. She gave it two fingers to suckle.

Soon it was seen that the yellow calf was drawn to Judith and would not leave her side. This astounded the Yanktons even more.

“See,” Two Two cried, “the yellow calf is also related to the Woman With The Sunned Hair. We can now see that the white woman is a Yankton truly. She is my mother. Ho hechetu!”

The yellow calf nosed after Judith wherever she went. It reminded her of calves she used to feed on the farm. Only its head appeared to be different from the usual domestic calf.

Judith became a bit more reconciled to the buffalo kill that evening when the hunters brought home the game. The shrilling, wildly exultant welcome the little children gave them was one of the most moving things she had ever seen. “Oo-koo-hoo! Oo-koo-hoo!” the children cried. “Now there shall be a great feast.” There would be dancing and mimicking, and singing and drumming, and heroic tales told. The blood, the blood, the blood. The time for rejoicing had come. “Wana hiyelo. Houw!” The children proclaimed aloud the names of the heroes: Scarlet Plume, Traveling Hail, Bullhead, Two Two, Plenty Lice, all those who had been in the buffalo surround. They were the great ones, all of them.

But the name the little red children sang the loudest of all was that of Whitebone. Whitebone went carefully about through his entire village looking for the poor and the unlucky, and those without a hunter in the house. Whitebone gave them heaps of meat, and many fresh buffalo hides, until at last even the poorest of the Yanktons appeared to have more than he himself. Through it all yellow tears ran down his seamed face.

Judith’s heart was wiped out.

Judith retired early. Born By The Way hung asleep in his cradle. A twig fire bloomed pink at her feet. Smoke rose in a silky line straight for the smoke hole and vanished against the faint glow of the Milky Way. The only discomfort in the curved cone of the tepee was the flatness of the ground under the bed robe. Back in St. Paul she and Vince had always slept on a featherbed. Prairie sod, while not as hard as rock, certainly wasn’t any feather mattress. It just didn’t give enough in the right places.

Outside, the Yanktons were still celebrating the great kill. Booming drums echoed off the red rock walls. Various dances were going on at the same time: buffalo dance, scalp dance, victory dance. Singers opened their throats to the stars. This night the Shining People Living In The Center Of The World were very happy.

Roasted buffalo hump had tasted good, delicious, gamy. Judith’s mouth still watered at the thought of it. She recalled Whitebone’s wonderful remark when he had finally had enough. “My belly was folded up. My teeth were long. But now, look, after this feasting I am a fat man again.” Judith smiled as she ran a hand over her own stomach. She too had eaten too much. She had gorged herself.

Out of the camp revelry there gradually arose a discordant note. There were occasional violent words said. Some of the braves were arguing. One of them seemed to be roaring mad.

She heard mice gnawing at the parfleches near the door. She knew she should get up and chase them out, but decided she was too tired. The Yanktons could use a few cats. Their dogs were worthless when it came to mice.

Smoke smells drifted around her. Smell of jerked meat on the drying racks outside came in through the door. Her braids lay rancid on her breasts.

Suddenly the door flap swung open and Bullhead jumped in. Two great strides and he loomed over her. His big face was fearfully worked up. His bloodshot eyes glared down at her from behind an ambush of black hair. Angela’s silver scalp hung over his ear like a woman’s extra switch of hair. He carried a globe-shaped club in his right hand. He was stark naked.

Judith lay petrified under her fur robe. She tried to scream; couldn’t. She tried to swallow and scream; couldn’t. She tried to collect spittle on her tongue and scream; couldn’t.

Bullhead settled on his heels beside her, the head of his phallus bobbing between his thighs. He grabbed her arm with his left hand. “Get up, white woman,” he said thickly, giving her a jerk. “I wish to count coup upon thee the white man’s way. I know a place behind a rock.”

Judith quivered at his touch. Then she jerked free.

His big hand closed around her slim white neck. He pinched thumb and forefinger together so hard she couldn’t move. “Come, white woman, I wish to play bull and cow.”

A puff of his breath touched her cheeks. Then she knew she was really in for it. His breath stunk of alcohol. Of wine. Bullhead had somehow managed to get hold of liquor.

He waggled his globe-shaped club in her face. “Come, or tonight the blood of the white woman shall run like red rain.”

“No!”

“Come.”

Judith got off a piercing shriek. “No-o!”