Part 3
“They unhitched the pony and leaned the drag against the scaffold. Then two men climbed up and pulled the bundle to the top and tied it down with thongs against the winds. And when this was done, they led the buffalo-runner under the scaffold, with his face towards the setting sun; and just before they shot him, he lifted up his head and sent forth a great, shrill neigh, as though he were calling to my father away off yonder.
“The people all went away in the twilight, and the night up there was big and still and starry; so big and still that it did not seem to know about my father and our weeping and moaning there by the scaffold. Only the coyotes heard us; and when they raised their high sharp song of sorrow and ceased, the night was bigger and stiller than before, and nothing cared.
“I remember my grandfather standing still and dim and tall against the stars, facing the end of earthly days with his hands held high. Sometimes I could hear him praying aloud to Wakon Tonka, then for a long while he would just stand there holding up his hands. When I heard him asking for ‘the strength to understand and the eyes to see,’ I forgot to cry with wondering how strong I’d have to be. Maybe the buffalo-runner could understand because he was so strong; maybe he had the eyes to see; and maybe that was why he called so loud towards where the sun goes down. Maybe a buffalo bull, a very big one, could understand everything. Then I got to wondering what it would be like if I were strong as a big buffalo bull and had the eyes to see into the land of spirit. How blue would the sky be and how green the grass? If there were never any clouds, how could it rain and keep the grass from getting yellow? What was my father doing now, and had he caught his buffalo-runner yet?
“Then all at once I wasn’t there on the hill any more, and I could see.
“It was a wide land, wider than many looks could reach across, and yet I saw it all together; and what was far away was near too, because of the clear light that lived everywhere. Many smokes rose straight like slender trees from many hoops of people living in green valleys by bright streams. And while I looked and looked, there was a kind of singing everywhere, although everything was still. Then all at once a great happy neighing filled the world, and there was a horseback coming on a green, green hill that lived high up in the blue, blue sky; and I saw it was the buffalo-runner that came prancing and nickering, and on his back was my father smiling down at me, and his face was all shining. Then he leaned to hold a hand for my foot, and I mounted behind him, light as a feather, and the buffalo horse leaped into a run that was like floating, and when he neighed it was laughter. Buffalo beyond counting raised their noses from the glowing grass and lowed softly as we passed, and the elk were glad to see us and the deer and antelope danced with joy.
“Then when we had come to the high green hilltop living in the happy blue, the horse stood floating, and I heard my father saying: ‘You must go back to your mother now and take care of her and tell her not to cry any more. Always be good to old people and bring them tender meat that they can chew. And never be afraid of anything.’ And when I put my arms around his waist, trying to hold on a little longer, there was nothing in my arms, and the hill went dark; and I awoke, lying beside the scaffold in the cold starlight.
“My grandfather lay sound asleep there where he had been praying; and my mother and grandmother were sleeping too, worn out with weeping. There was a low streak of day far off, and the big morning star was looking down at me, very kind with something that it knew, for what it knew was good.
“I was glad the old ones were resting, and I did not feel alone or afraid, because my father was just a little sleep away. And while I sat there looking at the star, I thought of many great deeds that I would do, for I would be as brave as my father and as good to all the old people. I was almost a chief already in my thinking before the streak of day had widened and the star died. Then all the hills around stood up to stare upon the scaffold with sad looks, and I began to cry again.
“Some relatives came with the sun to take us back to the village, and there was a sweat bath ready for my grandfather and me. And while we were being cleansed and rubbed with sacred sage, some women were taking care of my mother and grandmother, washing the tears from their faces and combing and braiding their hair. Then they fed us, and we ate.
“And when we had eaten, there were two good old men and two good old women who came to teach us, the men for the men and the women for the women. And they taught us, being wise, for they had lived much and wanted nothing any more. It was a good time to become better people, they said, for now we had nothing left but the spirit. We should stay there four days after the village moved away, and those four days we should lament and pray. But there were others who had lost everything, and they were mourning too. We should remember to be kind to them and to try to help them in their sorrow, and that would make our spirits stronger. Then after four days, we could leave that place and wander alone, the four of us; and while we wandered we should mourn less and less, but keep on praying. And always we should be up to see the morning star, for that would give us wisdom.
“So the village moved away from that place of death, and only those who mourned were left; and we were all kind to each other, sharing much sorrow and a little meat.
“And when the fifth day came, we caught one of the old horses that had been left behind, a lame old grandfather horse who was always looking at the ground. And we made a drag for him and on it we put a smoke-blackened piece of an old tepee that was left behind because it was no good any more. Then we began wandering alone out into the hills towards where the sun comes up, because there were no soldiers over there.
“We had no gun, but I had my bow with the sharp arrows. It was my second bow and it was still a little too strong for me. My grandfather had said it would make me grow faster so; but that was why I had never killed anything bigger than a rabbit. I could not pull it far enough to kill.
“My grandfather felt bad when we began to wander, and he got sicker until he could hardly walk. So we camped by a water hole and made a shelter with the old piece of a tepee, so that he could rest and get well. Of course, my mother and grandfather could not talk to each other, because he was her man’s father, but my mother was good to him anyway. She would hunt turnips and berries, and when she had cooked these, she would put them where he could get them. If they wanted to say something to each other, they would tell my grandmother and she would say it. The little dried meat we had was gone, and we got very hungry eating wild turnips and buffalo berries.
“We did not forget to pray, but it seemed Wakon Tonka did not hear us. I roamed far from our camp looking for a rabbit that I could kill; but I could not find one sitting; and when I would came back with nothing, my mother and grandmother would be crying, because they were thinking how it was before my father went away.
“Then one day when I was far from camp looking for meat, I came to a water hole with deer tracks all around it; and all at once my heart grew strong, for there was a clump of brush just a little way from the hole, and I knew what I would do. I did not say anything about this at home, and I think I hardly slept at all that night.
“Something ’woke me when it was still dark. The morning star was just beginning to look over the world, and I asked it to help me. The others were still asleep, and I started for the water hole where the deer tracks were. There was a long valley, and afterwhile there was a gulch to the right. Up that gulch and over a ridge there was another valley. To the left a long way up that valley was the hole with the deer tracks, over at the bottom of a ridge to the right, and close by was the brush. I was running fast before I knew it; but I made myself go slower because I could not shoot straight out of breath. It was hard to keep from running, but I came to the place when there was just a little streak of day far off. The star looked happy, waiting for something good to happen.
“It was very still, because the wind was waiting for the sun; but when I wet my finger in my mouth and held it up, I could feel the air breathing a little towards the water hole; and that was good. Then I went into the brush, standing so that I could see the hole, and began to pray hard, just whispering so that only Wakon Tonka could hear me, and I said: ‘Grandfather, send me a deer and make me strong to pull this bow and guide my arrow when I shoot. You see that we are poor, for we have given everything to the needy. My mother is crying, and the old people are crying, and we are all hungry. I have been a little boy long enough, and you must make me strong. You can do anything.’
“When I had said this over and over, I got to thinking of my dream there by the scaffold, and how he told me to take care of my mother and be good to old people. While I thought about this, I could feel myself growing stronger and stronger. And when it was just getting daylight, all at once there was a deer with a fawn coming down to the water hole.
“I held my breath and waited until they put their noses in the water. The smaller one had its side towards me, and it was the one I wanted, because maybe I could drag it home, and also the meat would be very tender for my sick grandfather.
“Maybe it was the dream that made me strong. I took a big breath and pulled quick and hard. Maybe Wakon Tonka pulled a little too. The string came back almost to my shoulder. _Whang!_
“I ran out of the brush and danced and yelled and yelled, until the hills across the valley yelled back, cheering me for what I had done. The arrow went deep just behind the shoulder. I had a deer! I had a deer!
“Then I quit yelling, because the fawn began to look so big I wondered how I was going to get it all the way home. I had my knife yet, because I was so proud of it that I kept it hidden when we were giving to the needy. I could cut off a hindquarter and carry that; but I wanted to show the whole deer all at once. So I began dragging it down the valley by the heels. But it was getting bigger and bigger, and when the sun looked over at me, I was all out of breath and had to sit down on it and pant. Then when I had my breath back, I began dragging again. But the sun was getting hotter and the deer was getting bigger. Pretty soon it would be as big as a buffalo, and I could never get it all over the ridge into the next valley.
“I looked around with a forked mind, wondering what to do, and there were some stunted trees standing low down on the side of the ridge I had to cross. I would cut the deer up and put the pieces in a tree, all but one hindquarter, where my mother and I could find them. So that is what I did.
“The sun was getting high when I sneaked up to the camp through some brush because I wanted to surprise my people. And when my mother and grandmother saw me there, panting and all bloody with the meat on my shoulder, they just stared awhile with their mouths open. Then my grandmother began jumping up and down like a little girl, crying: ‘O see what our grandson has brought us! O see what our big grandson has brought us!’ Then my grandfather sat up; and when he saw, he clapped his hands, crying, ‘_hiyay! hiyay!_’ And my mother laughed with joy. It was the first time since my father went away.
“So my mother sliced the meat and roasted it over a low fire, and we feasted. But before we ate, my grandfather raised his hands towards where the sun goes down, and made an offering, like this: ‘Grandfather, Great Mysterious One, behold me! You have sent our boy a deer and made us happy. Remembering all living things that are in need, this I offer to you that my people may live and the children grow up with plenty.’ Then each of us cut off a little piece of meat and tossed it over the shoulder. It was the first bite to the Spirit that gave. I did not make mine very big, for I could feel teeth inside of me, I was so hungry. While we ate I had to tell how I did it, and I told everything but the dream; for if I told that, maybe I would lose my new medicine power.
“When my mother and I brought the rest of the meat home, we feasted again; and when we were full, we sang. Then my grandfather blew a big breath and said: ‘I think this is going to make me well again.’ And so it was.
“I did not sleep for a long while that night, thinking about what I had done and all I was going to do. Sometimes I could hear my mother crying a little so as not to waken anybody, and my grandmother moaning in her sleep. It made me feel stronger than ever to hear this.
“It is a long way back to where we have been, and I am weary. You will come again tomorrow.”
V
_Was the Great Voice Angry?_
It was apparent from a distance that Eagle Voice was up and waiting. A thin stem of smoke from a well-established fire stood tall and straight above the tepee, blooming flatly aloft in the glittering, knife-edged air of the clear morning.
As I stooped through the flap, the sudden friendly warmth seemed to radiate from the old man’s happy face. “_How_, my grandson,” he said merrily. “The Grandfather has sent us a good day, and I am glad to see you.”
The pipe was ready and we smoked awhile in silence.
“That was very tender meat we had yesterday,” he said at length, with a mock-serious crinkling about his eyes. “I think it was the best meat I ever ate. It sent me a good dream last night, and I think I am getting younger. If only I had enough of it, maybe I could turn into a boy!
“Yes, it made my grandfather well again, and after that we did not lack meat, for he was a better hunter than I was, even with my new medicine power! In those days I thought he was almost as old as the hills, but I can see now that he would have to be my younger son if he came back.
“So we wandered while the young moon came and grew and died, praying much and mourning less and less; and always we were up to see the morning star. Who sees the morning star shall see more, for he shall be wise. The people were still good in those days before the sacred hoop was broken; but the time of wandering alone with the spirit, mourning and praying, made them better. It was like dying with the dear one and coming back all new again and stronger to live. Now, when somebody dies, we don’t go anywhere. We just sit where we are and feel bad, and we don’t get along with each other any more, for we have forgotten how to learn.
“Afterwhile it was getting to be the time to make winter meat, and we wanted to be ready for the big buffalo hunt; so we went back to our village in the valley of the Tongue.
“Everybody was happy to see us again. The people sang welcoming songs when we entered the hoop and circled the village from left to right, as young men ride after a victory. My grandfather walked first, leading the horse with the drag, and behind the drag was grandmother, then my mother, and I was last. The old grandfather horse was very tired, but he lifted his head and nickered to the singers, for he was happy too.
“When my mother and grandmother had set up the old smoke-blackened piece of a tepee for a shelter, many people came to us with food, and we feasted together. And while we feasted, there was a big giving of gifts until we were not poor at all. There was a tepee of buffalo hide made double against the coldest winter and the hottest summer, and the deeds of my father were painted on it. Our new horses were staked all around us, whinnying with joy, and none of them was old. We all had new buckskin dresses; my grandfather had a good gun with plenty of powder and lead; and there was nothing lacking in the tepee that women need to make a home. But the best gift of all was the horse I got for myself. He was not too young, not too old either, and I called him Whirlwind because he could run so fast. It was Looks Twice who gave the gift with a speech that made me proud, for he was my father’s brother-friend, and he carried my father dead out of the battle. Brother-friends do not have the same mother and father, but they are closer than common brothers, because they are just like one man, and if one of them is in trouble, the other must help, even if he knows he will die. Maybe that horse had some spirit power from my father, for sometimes when I was riding alone, all at once I would be back in the dream that came to me by the scaffold, and Whirlwind would be the buffalo-runner floating.”
The animated expression suddenly left the old man’s face, and for some time he sat looking at the ground, blowing softly on his eagle-bone whistle. A chuckle signaled his return from the remoteness of the inner world.
“I was thinking,” he said with the crinkled look, “about stealing my grandfather’s pipe that time; and this is how it was. I knew I had to be a great warrior and a great hunter so that everyone would praise me, and I had a good start already with the fawn. I thought and thought about it. Maybe in the big hunt we were going to have I could sneak out among the hunters when everybody was excited, and nobody would notice; and maybe there would be a lame cow and I could kill her. Or it would be a calf anyway, maybe one that had lost its mother in the dust. I was not very sure about the cow; but the more I thought, the more I knew I had to have that calf; and it came to me that I’d better get Wakon Tonka to help me. I would dedicate a pipe to the Great Mysterious One and make a sacred vow the way I had heard them tell real warriors did. Then maybe I would get that calf. I was already feeding enough old people for ten calves when it came to me that I had no pipe.
“That was when I made a mistake. I said to myself: ‘It will be all right to take grandfather’s pipe, because I am doing this for _very_ old people who have hardly any teeth at all; and anyway he has two pipes now.’ I did not ask for the pipe, because I knew he would not let me have it. So I just took it when nobody was looking, and rode far out to where there was a tall, pointed hill, standing all alone above the little hills that sat around it.
“When I tied Whirlwind to some brush and climbed to the top, I saw that some black clouds were coming up over towards where the sun goes down, and it was that way I had to look when I made my offering. I did not know just how to do it, but maybe it would be all right anyway. So I held the pipe up and cried out in a loud voice: ‘_Tonka schla_, Wakon Tonka! You see me here and you know I must get a calf for the old people, because they can hardly chew. I give you this pipe, and if you send me a calf, I will dance the sun dance, just as soon as I get big enough.’
“When I said this, all at once there was a big thunder off there--_boom-m-m how-ow-ow oom-m-m ow-ow!_
“I dropped the pipe and ran as fast as I could down the hill. Some of me almost got there before I did, because I stumbled and rolled part of the way. Then I rode home as fast as Whirlwind could go, because the big voice sounded angry, and I was frightened.
“When I got home I did not say anything to anybody. And afterwhile grandmother said: ‘I wonder what is wrong with our boy. He looks queer.’ And my mother said: ‘He does look queer. Maybe he ate too much.’ Then my grandfather looked hard at me and said: ‘Maybe he has been smoking my pipe, for I see it is not here.’ And when he kept on looking hard at me for a while, I had to tell him; but I did not tell everything. I just said I took it because I had to make a vow so that we would get plenty of meat in the hunt.
“I thought he was getting ready to be angry, he looked so hard at me. Then he said, ‘_hm-m-m_,’ high up in his nose, and his eyes looked as though he might be going to laugh; but he didn’t. My mother and grandmother didn’t say anything. They just tried to look sad down their noses.”
After chuckling awhile over the memory, the old man continued: “If I had been a Wasichu boy, I think they would have whipped me; but Lakotas never hurt a child. They were good in those days before the sacred hoop was broken. It was the sacred way they lived in the hoop that made them good and taught the children; and I will tell you how that was.
“There were seven _teoshpaiay_ [bands], seven council fires, and one of them was my people, the Oglala. They were all Lakota and had the same tongue, but they did not all say things in the same way, and when we got together, sometimes we boys would mock each other, because our way of speaking was the best. Each _teoshpaiay_ was a hoop by itself, and could go anywhere it pleased, for it had its own tepee _okige_, the highest tepee where its chief lived, and its own tepee _iyokihe_, the next highest tepee, where its councilors made the laws for the people.
“When all the seven _teoshpaiay_, or most of them, came to live together, they would camp in a great hoop, which was more sacred than any of the smaller hoops that made it. And if there were laws to be made for all the hoops to obey or something to decide for all of them, then each _teoshpaiay_ would bring its council tepee to the center of the great hoop; and with all these tepees they would make a big place for all the councils and chiefs to meet as one, and this they called tepee-thrown-over-together. It had no roof, only walls, because it was not needed very long.
“And it was here that four were chosen to be chiefs above all others--one _wichashita nacha_, who is highest, and three _nacha_, who were next.
“Also each hoop had its own _akichita_, and they were the keepers of all the laws. They were like relatives of the thunder beings, and theirs was the power of lightning. Nothing could stop them; and if any man broke a law, they took care of him, even a brother or a father. If the chief himself broke a law, the _akichita_ could throw him out of the tepee _okige_, and a better man would be chosen. If any should go on a war party or a hunt when the council said, ‘no,’ the _akichita_ could whip them and cut their tepees in pieces. And if any fought the _akichita_, they would be killed. If you broke a law, it was like breaking the sacred hoop a little; and that was a very bad thing, for the hoop was the life of the people all together.
“If an _akichita_ did some bad thing or did not do what he ought to do, then the _wichasha yatapika_ could throw him out before all the people; and it was better to die than to see shame in every face. Even little boys could mock such a man and no one would stop them. For the _wichasha yatapika_ [men whom all praise] were stronger at last than all others except Wakon Tonka; and yet they did not make the laws. They chose the chiefs and the councilors and the _akichita_ from among themselves; and any man could become one of them, but it was not easy, and it took a long time.
“It was like this. Maybe I am a young man and I think to myself that I want to be a chief sometime. I don’t say anything to anybody about this, but I know what I must do. First, I must be very brave. I have to kill an enemy, I have to count coup so many times, and I have to get a scalp. Nobody can say I was ever afraid. But that is only the beginning. I must never break any laws, I must be good to everybody in the hoop, so that afterwhile people notice this and talk about it until everybody is saying it. And that too is only the beginning, although it takes a long time. I must be very generous and always see that old people and the needy have meat. I do not do this once or twice. I keep on doing it until everybody notices and talks about it, and then I keep on doing it.