Part 7
“We crossed the Slim Buttes, where our people had a big fight with the soldiers a long while afterwards, and then we turned left towards where the White Giant lives. Afterwhile we came to a stream that ran the same way [the little Missouri] until it turned towards where the sun comes up and ran into Mini Shoshay [the Missouri]. But before we got there, we had to go through a strange land that was not like this world, and sometimes it was hard to travel and we had to go around [badlands]. There would be flat grassland with many buttes scattered in it, all staring at us like strangers that maybe never saw men and horses before. And there would be places where the land was all tangled with buttes and gullies; and sometimes these were burning and smoking. High Horse and I said maybe it was always like that when you were getting near the end of the world. Sometimes when I would look around, and everything was still and strange and there were only the ponies’ hoofs to hear, it would make me feel like getting out of breath.
“Afterwhile we came to where they said it was not far to Mini Shoshay, and we would have to make boats. We were on the right side of the little river that we were following, and our scouts had seen bison on the other side. The river was not very deep or wide, so we crossed over to kill some bison and to get hides for the boats.
“There was a steep hill, almost too steep for the horses; and we rode up there to look. Bison were grazing all over the flat green valley in among little hills down there, and they could not smell us or see us. It was good to look at them, and we lay down along the rim of the hill to rest and see awhile before we started killing. Right below us the hill was very steep, and we could see almost straight down. One Horn, the oldest in our band, was lying beside High Horse and me with his chin on his arms, just looking; and afterwhile he said: ‘Watch that old bull right down there. He is eloping with that young cow. See him? When they do that, the cow is always a nice fat one. She will make good eating, and I want a bite out of her hump.’
“We looked down, and there was an old grandfather bull with a young cow following close after him. I think he was the biggest bull I ever saw, and he looked proud and handsome like a great chief who lived a long while ago in some great-grandfather’s story. He walked slowly with the cow at his tail and did not notice the other bison at all.
“Then somebody said: ‘Look over there! We’re going to see a big bull fight!’ We looked, and there were four fine young bulls all in a row walking slowly towards the grandfather and the cow. When they were not very far apart, they all stopped and looked at each other awhile. Then the first young bull began to roll and tear the earth up with his horns, throwing the dirt over his back and bellowing. When the old bull saw this, he began doing the same thing, rooting up big chunks of sod and tossing them over his back. His voice was deep like thunder rumbling. Then they stopped and looked at each other a little while with their muzzles near the ground.
“All at once they both charged, and when their skulls came together it was like a gunshot. There was so much dust for a little while after they came together that we could not see what was happening in there. The cow just stood looking, and so did the three other young bulls. Then all at once we saw one of the bulls up in the air. When the dust cleared away, the grandfather was wiping his horns on the grass. Then he walked over to the cow and licked her face, while the young bull was getting up and staggering away with his insides dragging and his hind feet tangled in them.
“In a little while the second young bull began rolling and bellowing and tearing the earth with his horns. The old bull did the same; and when they came together the dust rose in a cloud. They fought so hard that we could hear them panting and grunting. Then the dust thinned in the wind and we saw one rise into the air and the other horn him coming down. Again the grandfather wiped his horns on the grass and went back to lick the cow. The other one was trying to get up, but he would always fall down again, and his belly was all torn open.
“Then the third young bull did as the others had done, and there was a longer fight in the dust and more panting and grunting. It ended the same as before, with the young bull staggering away dragging his insides. But we could see that the old grandfather was bleeding hard and wobbling. This time he just stood there and did not go back to the cow. High Horse and I were sorry, because we were on his side; and we wanted One Horn to shoot the last young bull with his gun. But he just laughed at us.
“Right away the fourth young bull rolled and tossed earth and bellowed, and the two came together with a loud sound. High Horse and I yelled, ‘_hi-yay, hi-yay_,’ cheering the old one; but One Horn told us to stop; and, anyway, maybe the young one would think we were cheering him. This last fight was the longest of all. We could see big bodies getting tossed in the dust, and the panting and grunting were louder than ever. Afterwhile the cloud cleared away. The young one was trying to get up, but, the way it looked, one of his shoulders was ripped nearly off and he was open underneath. The old one was still on his legs, bleeding hard from his nose and his belly, and we could see it was hard for him to steady himself. Then he staggered back to the cow without trying to wipe off his horns first. He just stood there trying to steady himself and bleeding hard.
“And what do you think the cow did? She went over to the last young bull that was trying to get up, and nudged him and pushed him, trying to help. She was right under us, and One Horn shot her with the gun he got at Red Cloud’s agency.
“When we went down there, the five bulls were dead, and they were all so torn up and full of holes that we could not use their hides for boats. Also, the old men said we should not eat any of their meat, because they had murdered each other. But the young cow was fat and tender; and when we had killed and skinned enough bison for the boats, we had a big feast.”
X
_The Boys Who Had Sister Trouble_
When I had returned from the woodpile and fed the stove, Eagle Voice continued eagerly:
“There is no meat like that any more, and I can taste it now. It is hard to chew the meat they have these days; but sometimes I get a tender piece from a calf, and it always makes me think of a story I heard for the first time while we were eating that cow. Also, whenever I think of the story, it makes me hungry like a boy, although it is not about eating.
“We feasted and listened to stories most of the night, while the horse-guards took turns. Sometimes I would fall asleep, being stuffed with meat, then I would be wide awake again and everybody would be laughing at some funny tale, or saying, ‘_how! how!_’ around the circle, cheering a good story just ended. Then I would eat some more, and listen to the next one.
“Charger told this one, and I can see him yet, although he fed the wolves somewhere, I do not know how many snows ago. I thought he was an old man then, but now I think that he was almost young. He was always joking, but I cannot remember him laughing, for he had a face that made him look always sorry and surprised. He could never tell a story sitting down, because he could not tell it all with his mouth. He told it mostly with his face and his hands and his whole body; so he had to tell it on his feet, and if you did not see the story he was telling, you could not hear it all. Sometimes when he got a tale started he would go right on telling it without a word for a while, and everybody would look and look and not move. There was one about a wild young fellow who played ghost, and people would coax him to tell it again, although they knew it as well as he did. They wanted to see him telling it with looks and motions.
“This wild young fellow liked tobacco very much and he never had enough of it. He was always wondering how he could get some more. So one day he was traveling with his father and his mother, his grandfather and his grandmother. They had been away somewhere and they were going back to camp. There was some fresh meat on the pony-drag so that they could eat on the way, and with the meat there was a fresh cow’s bladder packed full of _wasna_, made of meat and tallow and buffalo berries pounded up together.
“They were all traveling along on their horses with the pony-drag; and they got to talking about tobacco. Maybe the wild young man started it. There was none at all in their _iglaka_ [a family outfit on the move]--only red willow bark; and when they camped that night there would be nothing to mix with it for a good smoke.
“When the sun was getting low they saw an _iglaka_ coming towards them. It was an old man and an old woman, and they were mourning. So when the two _iglakas_ met they stopped to talk awhile and tell each other what they had heard. Then the grandfather of the first _iglaka_ asked the old man of the second _iglaka_ for some tobacco. And the second old man said he had not any; but his son was lying dead in a tepee back there, and in the tepee was an offering of five plugs of tobacco. These old people had stayed all night with their dead son and now they had started to wander and mourn. The old woman was crying all the time they were talking. And the old man said: ‘He was a very generous son, and now he is dead back there. I think if you ask him for one of the plugs he will let you have it. He always liked to give to old people.’ When he said this, they both wept hard.
“While the old people were all feeling bad together, the wild young man had a big thought, and what he thought, he did. First he sneaked the fresh cow’s bladder from the drag and hid it under his blanket. Then he remembered something he had lost back on the trail, and told the old people he would have to ride back and find it.
“So that is what he did; only he did not ride back very far. He dodged into a side draw and came around some hills until he was far ahead of his people; and there was the tepee with the dead man in it.
“He did not go in there right away, because that was not the way it was in his big thought. He went down to the creek and tied his horse in the brush. Then he stripped naked and covered himself all over with mud, and made streaks in the mud with his finger. After that he painted his face with the mud to make it look terrible. Last of all, he emptied out the fresh cow’s bladder and pulled it over his hair and his head and his ears, right down to his eyes. He almost scared himself when he looked into the water.
“By now the sun was going down, and he went into the tepee where the dead man was lying all dressed up with five big plugs of tobacco beside him. The wild young man wanted to smoke right away; but he knew if he did that, the old people would come and he would not get all the tobacco for himself. So he hid under his blanket over against the tepee wall and waited.
“Afterwhile when the day was just getting half-dark, he could hear the four old people coming. Then he heard his grandfather say: ‘Soon our grandson will be coming back, and while we are waiting we may as well make an offering and get the tobacco.’ So they came into the tepee and sat down at the feet of the dead young man. The grandfather then filled his pipe with red willow bark and made an offering to the spirit. ‘Young man,’ he said, ‘whoever you are and wherever your spirit is now, here is an offering. We ask the favor of you that no harm shall come to us for taking your tobacco. We will always remember you when our days are ripe.’
“Just then the wild young man put his head out from under the blanket and yelled: ‘_How!_’
“When Charger got to this place he always quit talking awhile; but you could see the story going on. You could see how terrible the ghost looked, the way grandmother waddled as she ran, the way grandfather hopped with a lame leg, how mother covered her head with her blanket, running and falling, getting up and running some more. And you could see the father away out ahead going like a man in a foot race with his braids standing flat out behind his head because he was getting out of there so fast. You could see grandmother look back at the ghost and faint because it was so terrible. Then grandfather looked and fainted. Then mother looked and fainted. And then there was a big foot race between father and the ghost. You could watch Charger and see it--father puffing and grunting with his eyes almost popping out of his head, the ghost puffing and grunting and looking terrible. By the time the ghost caught up and father fainted, everybody was laughing so hard that Charger would have to wait before he could finish his story. And it was not easy to quit laughing, because Charger kept on looking so sorry and surprised, as though he thought it wasn’t funny to be chased by a ghost like that.
“Then the wild young man went back to the creek and washed himself all clean, and threw the cow’s bladder away. And when he was dressed, he got on his horse and rode around so that he could come galloping from where he said he had lost something and had to go back for it.
“So he did that, and when he came to where the four old people were huddled together waiting for him, he heard all about it, and he was so brave that his father and mother and his grandfather and grandmother were very proud of him. He said: ‘I will go and get that tobacco, and if the ghost tries to chase me I will fight him.’ They begged him not to do that because the ghost was so terrible. But he said: ‘Make a fire here and I will get the tobacco and bring the drag and the ponies so that we can eat and smoke. Maybe that ghost can chase old people; but if he tries to chase me, there is going to be a dead ghost around here.’
“They tried to hold him, but he went anyway; and afterwhile he came back with the tobacco and the horses and the drag. Then grandmother said: ‘We are safe now, for I think the ghost is afraid of our brave young grandson.’ But when they had eaten, the old people would not even touch the tobacco.
“So the wild young man had enough for once.”
Eagle Voice chuckled for a while, enjoying the boyhood memory; and then--
“Charger could tell sad stories too,” he said. “And when he told one, the people would be looking down their noses, feeling very bad. And he could tell the kind of stories that made a boy feel cold on the back of his neck and keep looking behind in the dark, because something that was not there, was there anyway, and it might grab you all at once.--Like the one about the evil _wakon_ who got his power from eating dead peoples’ tongues. In the night he would sprout great wings like a giant buzzard’s; and when somebody was sick and about to die, the people would hear him flapping, flapping, flapping, with a queer whisking sound above the tepee in the dark. Maybe somebody coming back late in the night would pass a new scaffold, and that man-buzzard would be sitting up there in the moonlight, and maybe the moon would be old and broken and just about to go down. Then the man-buzzard would lift slowly and fly away, and you could see him cross the moon and hear him going--flap, flap, flap, with a queer whistling sound. In the morning when relatives went to look, there would be another tongue missing! It took a long while to tell that story, because it took the people a long while to find out who was the evil _wakon_. They had to try this and try that and look here and look there. And when they did find out, everybody was surprised and you could hardly believe it.
“But the story that always makes me hungry is the one Charger told that night about the Two Boys Who Had Sister-Trouble. I want to tell it because what I eat these days does not do me much good, and I want to be hungry like a boy again.
“So this is the way it was with the two boys who had sister-trouble.
“A long while ago before the hoop was broken and the people still were good, there was a right way and a wrong way to do everything, and something bad would happen if you did the wrong way. I have told you how a man could not speak to his daughter-in-law and she could not speak to him, even when they lived in the same tepee. If they had to say something to each other, they said it to the son’s mother and she said it to the other one. Neither could the two eat together. It was the same way with a brother and sister when they were no longer little children. They respected each other so much that if they had to say something to each other they would say it to their mother and she would tell it. These ways were good for the people, but now there is nothing good at all. In those days a young man wanted his sisters to be proud of him, and they might make beaded clothing for him to show how proud they were, but they would be so ashamed to say it to him that they would rather die.
“Now there was a young Shyela [Cheyenne] and his name was Thunder Sounds. His father was a chief and people looked up to him. Also the family had many ponies and a fine tepee. Thunder Sounds was a very good-looking young man and his clothes were fine because his mother and his sisters thought so much of him. He wore a shield of otter skin across his breast. His quiver was full of arrows and covered with porcupine quills; and even his blanket was beautifully quilled. Also he had two fine spotted ponies that looked just alike. But I think he was prouder of his two older sisters than he was of the ponies, because they were very good to see and already they could do any woman’s work a little better than any of the other girls could.
“This happened in the spring when the people were moving camp, and Thunder Sounds, not being a man yet, did something just for fun that would bother his sisters at their work. They were so bothered that they forgot all about the right way to do, and scolded him. And that was how it began.
“When the camp moved, Thunder Sounds did not go along. He stayed right there, sitting on the ground in his fine clothes with his head hanging and his two spotted ponies looking at him with their heads hanging too; for it made them sad to feel how sad he was. It was morning when the camp moved, and when the sun was getting low, he still sat there thinking and thinking about his sisters and about death. Not only had they spoken to him and thus shown they did not respect him; they had even scolded him the way you scold a dog for stealing your meat. He knew that he just could not live any more; but how could he find death?
“About that time a young man came back from the camp and stood beside Thunder Sounds and said: ‘Your sisters have sent me. They are sorry and they are crying for you to come back. Also they are cooking some tender meat just for you.’ But Thunder Sounds did not lift his head and the ponies did not lift their heads either, and the young man heard nothing but his own words. So afterwhile he got tired standing there, and went away. And the sun went down and there were stars and it was still.
“Then Thunder Sounds stood up and began singing a death-song there in the big empty night, and the ponies neighed shrill. When he had sung, he mounted and the other pony followed and the three went away in the still starlight, looking for death.
“As he rode, Thunder Sounds thought: Surely tomorrow or the next day or the next I shall meet an enemy who will kill me, and then all the shame will be gone. All night long he rode, and when the morning star looked out across the world where it was no longer night nor yet quite day, and he could hardly keep the saddle any more, and the ponies stumbled with weariness, he lay down on the prairie, thinking: Maybe an enemy will find me while I sleep and the sun will never see my shame again.
“But when he awoke, the sun was high and staring hard at him; so he got upon a pony and rode away, and the other pony followed. And as he rode he lifted up his voice and sang a death-song. Some wrinkled old hills mocked him, and a flock of crows jeered, fleeing from his shame.
“Now the sun was getting low again, and as Thunder Sounds rode, there grew a gnawing in his belly even sharper than the shame that gnawed his breast; and he said to himself: Am I a sick old woman to die by starving? It is no way for a brave man to meet death. I will eat and be strong to meet death like a man. So he found a water hole and let the ponies drink. Then he hobbled them and left them where the grass was deep along the slough. And having done these things, he hid with his bow and arrows near the water hole and waited, with that gnawing getting sharper in his belly. It was not long before some fat deer came there to drink in the cool evening. So that night he feasted long beside his lonely fire; but when the gnawing in his belly had grown dull and ceased, the gnawing in his breast grew sharp again for all the heaviness of sleep that was upon him, and he thought: This meat and a good sleep will make me strong to die tomorrow like a man. And he slept.
“Then all at once the sun was staring hard at him again and the hobbled ponies were looking down at him and nickering. So Thunder Sounds filled his belly again against the gnawing, and, having done so, he said to himself: Here is much good meat left. I cannot be always stopping to hunt food when I am looking for death; and if I do not eat, how can I be strong to die like a man? So he made a drying rack from bushes that grew along the slough, and stripped the meat and hung it on the rack to dry in the hot sun. It was the third evening at that camp before the meat was light and dry and he could start again in search of death.
“Now it happened the next evening that Thunder Sounds came to a deep narrow valley where trees grew and a little stream flowed among the trees and the grass was deep and green beside the running water. There was growling, jolting thunder just beyond the valley, and yonder clouds were piling up above the treetops, and surely there was going to be much rain. So Thunder Sounds thought: I have no tepee; it is nearly night already, and the rain will be cold. It is no way for a brave man to get sick and shiver until he dies. Maybe there is a cave to shelter me so that I may be strong to die like a man when I meet an enemy.
“And so there was a cave but not just one. There were many caves, one above the other up the steep side of the valley. The thin flat stone top of one was the flat stone floor of the next one higher up. So Thunder Sounds hobbled the ponies and left them where the grass was deep and green. Then he took his bundle of _papa_ [dried meat] and crawled into one of these caves a little way up the steep side of the valley where he would not be far from his ponies.
“Thunder roared, lightning flashed, the wind howled, the rain came down like a river; but Thunder Sounds was dry and warm, and being weary and full of dried meat, he slept a dead sleep.
“When he awoke, the storm was gone, the night was still and there were stars out yonder above the dark treetops. He held his breath and listened. There was a sound just beneath him--a low regular sound like breathing; then it was louder like the snoring of a heavy sleeper; then it changed into snorts for a while, and again it was like steady breathing.