The Owl Hunt (26 page)

“And on this night, let the Dreamers dance.”

“They will dance, Owl.”

“The time has come, and you will know it when it happens, and you will be free. All the white men will walk away from here.”

They gazed at him silently, almost in rapture. The gray-haired ones studied him sternly. The children edged close, so they might touch him. He gathered the children to him, and blessed them with a hand on the head of each one. The worn mothers collected their children then, and watched shyly.

It was time. He smiled at them, stepped onto the gold mule, and crossed the river. The water at the ford was shallow, and soon he was headed down the trail to the next camp, farther toward the agency. There were prints of many shod hooves on the trail, and that was good.

He found many Dreamers in the next camp, and they swarmed around him as he rode the golden mule into the center of this place, which was very close to the cold river. They studied him and his mule, and the shirt and the union suit poking through, and they remained silent, even as the people collected there.

He had no gifts to give these people except the greatest gift of all.

“I have come to tell you the time is at hand,” he said. “Soon the white men will walk away. Soon the People will be free to go anywhere, hunt anywhere, and all the earth will be our home again. This night, let the Dreamers dance. And when the time comes, you will know it, and you will be free.”

They stared raptly, knowing that Owl's words sprang from someplace beyond the ken of most persons. These were messages from the world beyond the living, so they listened with respect and never missed a word that Owl said.

Then he steered the golden mule away, and they smiled at him, and rejoiced at the things that would happen soon. Some followed him out of the encampment, wanting to share some of his long journey with him. They flanked him as if they were his guard, walking proudly beside the golden mule as they traversed the trail along the sparkling river. Then, after a while, he paused, nodded, clasped the hands of those that were offered to him, and went ahead alone. They didn't turn back, but watched Owl until he was out of sight and walking through the silence of a cold day.

There would be many more camps to visit, many more Dreamers to contact, before he was done.

thirty

Good times were coming. Wherever Owl went, the word preceded him. In some mysterious fashion, the People knew he was coming and stood at the edge of their camps, awaiting him and his glad tidings.

Many camps lined the Wind River, where the Shoshones could find firewood and a little food, and one by one, Owl visited them through the moon of first frost. He marveled at the greetings he received.

“Greetings, Grandfathers and Grandmothers,” he said, as he rode into an encampment.

“Greetings to you, Grandfather Owl,” they replied.

“Good times will come soon,” he said.

“How will we know?”

“You will know when it happens. My spirit guide has told me of this. Wait for the good times.”

“What will this time be like, Dreamer?” one old woman asked.

“There will be meat in every kettle, and the People will be fed, and there will be hides to make lodges and coats. Every man, woman, and child will have new moccasins to warm their feet. There will be elk and deer and buffalo and coyotes and wolves and antelope.”

“And when will this happen, blessed Dreamer?”

“When the white men leave. Soon the white men will load their wagons and go away. Soon the soldiers will march to the east, from whence they came. Soon the settlers will give up, because they don't belong here, and drive their oxen away. Soon the fire wagons to the south will stop riding the iron rails. Soon the world will be as it always was and always will be, with meat enough, and the People will sing, and dance the Dreamer Dance, and take gifts to the other Peoples so that all may know that the white men have gone away.”

Often they stared raptly at him, absorbing his words with hope in their faces.

“Where did you get that mule, blessed Dreamer?” an old man asked.

“My spirit guide led me to the mule and gave it to me. It was in the corral of a white man, and when I saw the mule I knew at once that the gift was given me by the creature that has entered into my heart. It is a beautiful mule, with hair the color of the sun, and when I am done with the mule I shall return it to the white man.”

Sometimes some older people stared at him, unconvinced, or at least in sharp silence. He ignored them. Everywhere, the People were expecting good times, and the Dreamers dreamed.

“When will this be?” they asked in each settlement.

“Soon! Before the snow flies, before the last of the birds flies south.”

“But most have flown south, Blessed One.”

“Soon, soon, for I have said it, and my word is true.”

“What does our chief say of this?” one asked.

“Our blessed chief awaits the word, and is silent. When the word comes that the white men are gone, he will lead us once again, and the People will be great among the tribes, and we will dazzle the other Peoples with our meat and our weapons and our strength in battle, and our warm lodges, and our good moccasins.”

In one camp, where some old and powerful headmen and shamans had pitched their lodges, Owl sensed that they stared at him darkly.

“The soldiers are looking for you,” said one.

“Where are the soldiers? They are not here! They marched from one end of the reservation to the other, where the Arapaho people are, and they did not find me. And now they are back at their post.”

“This is trouble,” another said.

“Only for a moment, and then the good times will come. Some things are destined, and all must come to pass before the good times come, Grandfather.”

“And what is destined?”

“That is only for Owl to know, but you will all know when the good times begin.”

An old woman came close to touch him. “You are the Beautiful One to come,” she said.

“Grandmother, you have seen me wisely,” he replied, touching her cheek.

“Aie! He is the Beautiful One! I have said it,” she cried.

“I am what was given to me, and nothing more, Grandmother. I am nothing, but my word is true, and the word is the promise, and the People will enjoy the word.”

“You are not nothing; you are everything, Blessed One.”

“I came into this world with all the gifts given to a Shoshone boy-child, and soon I will leave the world with nothing at all.”

“You are leaving the world?”

“When the time has come for all to happen, it will happen, blessed Grandmother. All the People will see and hear and celebrate.”

He left that camp with the mark of a prophet upon him, for he could see into the future, and he could awaken the People to the times that would come.

There were many camps to visit, and he went to them all, riding his mule the color of the sun, and he was greeted in every village with great joy, for his message has speeded ahead of him, so that the People were waiting. They brought him water and bits of meat, and he refused the meat but he took the water, and proceeded on his way, drawing closer and closer to Fort Washakie and the agency.

And nowhere was there a bluecoat soldier, for the columns had all gone back and the whole reservation belonged only to the People. He rejoiced, and steered the friendly mule downriver, and let it eat the brown grasses, and let it water at the riverbank, and was in no hurry, for time didn't matter, and all was ordained to happen the way it was ordained to happen.

And so, in the middle of a sleepy afternoon, he rode the golden mule straight into the agency grounds, and no one stayed him. He saw no one about. A thin stream of smoke rose from the schoolhouse stove, and more smoke rose from the chimneys of the agency, because the weather had turned sharp. He rode the mule to the agency, and tied it to the hitch rail, and saw no soldiers and not a soul was stirring.

He pushed open the outer door, and then walked through the antechamber to the office of the agent, Major Van Horne, who was slumbering with his feet upon his desk, and his beard buried in his chest.

The agent awoke with a start, squinted at the youth, and lowered his legs.

“Yes, what?”

“I am Owl.”

“Who, who?”

“The one you seek.”

“Go away, don't bother me.”

“I will wait.”

Owl settled in a chair while the agent stared at him.

“The boy? The Dreamer?” the agent said.

“I have heard you want me. I am returning a mule to its owner.”

“Owl!” The agent yanked open a drawer of his desk and extracted a revolver and waved it at Owl.

“Guard, guard!” he bellowed, but no one was about.

“Don't you move,” he said, and rumbled through the agency, looking for a soldier or two. He came back much riled up.

“All right, you, we're going to talk.”

“My words are not very good in your tongue.”

“We'll get the teacher,” Van Horne said.

At last a sleepy clerk showed up.

“Get Dirk Skye. At once. To translate.”

The clerk eyed the boy, the waving revolver, and the agent, and vanished.

They sat quietly, but light and joy were building in the eyes of the agent. Then, after a commotion on the porch, blue-shirts boiled in and swarmed around Owl. The big chief himself strutted in, eyed Owl, and barked an order or two. Soldiers patted down the boy, and then stepped back.

“You got him,” the big chief, Cinnabar, said.

“I caught him sneaking around here,” the agent said.

“Well, you caught the most dangerous savage in the West,” Cinnabar said. “I was ready to post a reward for his capture.”

“We'll defuse all that now,” Major Van Horne said. “This does it.”

“What are we waiting for, Major?”

“We're waiting for Skye to come translate.”

“Hope he's up to it,” Cinnabar said.

“Oh, he's good enough when he wants to be,” the agent said.

The teacher arrived, glanced at Owl and the rows of soldiers forming human walls in the office. Owl glanced back. The teacher looked unhappy, unlike the rest. Owl smiled at him.

“All right, ask him why he was sneaking around here, Skye.”

Owl understood the English. “To give myself to you,” he said.

“And why?”

“It is what I must do to make the vision come.”

“What vision?”

Owl smiled. “The People will be free, and the buffalo will return.”

“There, you see? Insurrection from his own lips.”

Dirk Skye hadn't translated a word.

Owl addressed him in Shoshone. “This must happen for all things to be. Soon the white men will walk away. They will fill their wagons and their oxen will take them away. Then the People will live as they always have. But for this to happen, Owl must give himself to them.”

Dirk Skye, North Star, hesitated, glanced at the white men, and slowly translated.

“Give himself to us?” the agent asked.

“I must die,” Owl said, in English.

“Well, you'll die all right, just as soon as a tribunal can convict you.”

Owl smiled.

“He is fulfilling his vision, given him the day of the eclipse,” North Star said. “It is not a vision of war against white men. It's a vision of the heart going out of white men, so they turn away from here.”

“How do you know that, Skye?”

“The boy has shared it with me.”

“You've been in touch with him? Eh, Eh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you didn't report it?”

“That is correct, sir.”

They stared at North Star, who stood resolutely.

“Ask him whether he tried to kill the Partridges.”

Owl listened, and replied in Shoshone. “The shaman brings a false vision to my People, and if the false vision goes away, and white men have no faith in it, and stop believing, then the white people will walk away.”

North Star translated reluctantly, as if he did not want to give these words to the white men.

“Does he or does he not admit he attempted murder?”

Owl pondered the question. “I wished that the bad message of the white man might die and so I attacked the bad message.”

The agent was amused. “With a heavy candelabra,” he added. “I'll take it for a confession. You think that's a confession, Prescott?”

“Sounds like a dandy confession, Sirius.”

“You figure the little devil was fixing to lead an insurrection, kill us off and kick us out of our turf?”

“Sure sounds like the little devil was planning it,” the captain said.

The agent turned to North Star. “Ask him if there's more of those Dreamers lurking around here, waiting to pounce.”

Owl raised himself high in his chair. “I came alone.”

“Alone, eh? But you've got a bloody army ready to jump. Is that it?”

“They are singing tonight, dreaming the dream this night.”

“Sure sounds like an old-fashioned revolt to me, Captain.”

The captain leaned over. “Ask him what happens next.”

The teacher asked, and Owl pondered his reply. “This is the beginning of the end of white men's times. It was given to me by my spirit guide, who talked to my heart, who told me some things must happen, and now these things are happening, and now the world will change, and my People will rejoice and sing and dance, and lift up their arms to the sky.”

The big chief was impatient. “We've got the brat. We'll triple the guard and take care of things around here. I'll convene a tribunal to convict this little bugger, and then we'll string him up. That should solve a lot of problems around here.”

“The golden mule. I was given the mule, and now you must give it back. It belongs to the one who has cattle north of here. Owl is done with the mule,” Owl said.

The teacher translated.