winters old, a strange sickness came upon her. The _wichasha wakon_
could do nothing, and so she died. At that time her father and mother
were camping with some other Hunkpapas at Slim Buttes, north of Pa
Sapa. And when their girl was dead, they prepared her for the other
world and put her on a scaffold, the way I have told you. Then the band
broke camp and moved on towards Mini Shoshay, and the father and mother
and brothers went wandering and mourning. This was when the Moon of
Black Cherries [August] was young, and it was a time of no storms.
“There was a man whose name was Against the Clouds. He and his woman
were Sans Arcs. They had been visiting with relatives in Grandmother’s
Land, and they were on their way back to Bear Butte near Pa Sapa, where
the Sans Arcs would be camping. They were traveling alone with two
horses to ride and one to pull the drag. It was not very far between
sleeps, for they were getting to be old people and they would be
tired when there was yet much day. Also, they were having a good time
together, because the weather was so pleasant. They were not in a hurry
to be at home, because their children were dead and they had no family.
“So Against the Clouds and his woman were riding along slowly where the
trail left the creek and began to climb towards a pass in the sharp
buttes. These buttes stand tall in a row that is bent like a great bow
with the arrow aimed at the sunset; and that is the way the two were
going. The man was ahead of the drag-horse and the woman came last.
When they were not far from the pass, the woman said, ‘Look! Look over
there! Somebody has died here since we came through with the young
grass.’ So Against the Clouds stopped his horse and looked. ‘It is
so,’ he said; for yonder high up on the side of the butte, not very
far away, was a new scaffold. And the woman said, ‘I wonder if it is
somebody we know.’ The man looked hard awhile, then he said, ‘Do you
see how the crows are doing? They fly around but do not come close.
Something is scaring them.’ And the woman said, ‘There is something
sitting on the scaffold. Maybe it is a buzzard.’ And when the man had
looked hard for a while longer, he said, ‘That does not look like any
buzzard I ever saw sitting. Let us go and see.’
“So they left the drag-horse grazing by the trail and rode over a
little way to see what was sitting yonder on the scaffold. All at once
the woman cried out and stopped her horse. It surely was not a buzzard
up there. ‘Let us get away from here!’ she said, and she could hardly
make the words, she was so frightened. But Against the Clouds just sat
still on his horse, looking and listening, with his woman behind him,
looking and listening. It was the bundle that was sitting up there with
its face turned the other way--a little bundle! And as they stared with
their mouths open, hardly breathing, there came a thin sound like a
sick child crying and whimpering. Then the man said, ‘Nobody is dead
here. I think they put somebody up there too soon. I will go and see.’
So he did, while the woman waited, for she was still frightened. And
when the man had looked, he called to his woman. ‘Come here quick and
do not be afraid! It is a sick child, and it may die if we do not hurry
to help it.’ Then the woman was not afraid any more, and she went in a
hurry to help.
“So that is how the little girl who died came back to this world again.
And when the two old people had unwrapped her, they made a camp by a
spring that ran cool among pines just beyond the pass. And there they
washed the little girl very carefully with warm water. Also they made
some broth and put it in her mouth a few drops at a time, for she was
still more in the spirit world than here.
“Against the Clouds and his woman did not sleep much all night. They
sat beside the sick little girl and gave her drops of broth once in
a while, for they were afraid she would die again and they wanted to
keep her for their own. They had no children for their old age, and the
woman was already too old to have any more. While the little girl was
sleeping, they talked together and made a plan. If the girl lived, they
would take her home with them and say they adopted her in Grandmother’s
Land. They were very good old people and always spoke straight words;
but they wanted a daughter so much that they made this story to tell
so that they could keep her. They prayed hard too; and when it was
morning, they could see that the girl would live. And the woman said,
‘Let us give our daughter a good name. I think it would be well to call
her Plenty White Cows. It is a sacred name, and surely Wakon Tonka
has sent her to us from the spirit land. Also, it is a pretty name. I
always liked it.’ And the man said, ‘Let it be so. We will call her
Plenty White Cows.’ So they did.
“Against the Clouds and his woman stayed in camp there until the girl
was well enough to talk, but she could not remember much. She would
just look and look at the two old people, and sometimes she would cry a
little. They asked what her father’s name was, and she could not tell.
She did not know her own name either, so they told her the new name,
and she would say it again and again.
“Afterwhile she could remember that she was sleeping and that a man
came singing. He touched her and told her to ’waken, for some people
were coming to take her back. So she awoke and tried to get up. It must
have been hard to crawl out of the bundle, but somehow she did part
way. And when she sat up, there was no man, but only a crow flying off.
Then she was frightened and began crying, and right away the people
that the singing crow-man told about were there. Then she did not
remember any more until she was tasting broth.
“The old people were so good to her that in a little while she loved
them very much and learned to call them father and mother. And when she
was well enough to walk a little, they broke camp and started for Bear
Butte with Plenty White Cows riding on the drag.
“When Against the Clouds and his woman came back home with their new
daughter, their friends would come to see and bring gifts. But the
little girl would hide behind her foster-mother and peek around at the
faces. For a long while she seemed to be looking for somebody she knew,
but when anyone spoke to her, she would hide behind her foster-mother
and cry. Maybe she was looking for her own father and mother like
people she had seen in a dream. Her foster-parents said she was very
bashful; but people talked about it and said she was queer.
“So Against the Clouds and his woman had Plenty White Cows all for
themselves, and they were so fond of her that people said they were
foolish about her. Also, she loved them very much and was always
helping her foster-mother. It was not long before the foster-parents
noticed that she knew things she could not know unless a spirit told
her. Sometimes she would talk to people they could not see and learn
something that was true but that she could not know by herself. That is
the way she found her foster-father’s horse when it was lost and no one
could find it.
“I think it was two snows after this, and the Sans Arcs were traveling.
It was in the Moon of Black Cherries again. The people with their
pony-drags were crossing a deep creek and Hunkpapas were camped on
the other side. Some Hunkpapa men were at the crossing to help if any
should have trouble with the drags in the mud. One of these Hunkpapas
was the brother of the girl’s father, and when Against the Clouds and
his woman and Plenty White Cows came riding with their drag, this man
looked very hard at the girl; and when they had crossed, he wondered
and wondered. Then he went and told his brother, who was camping there,
that he had seen a girl who looked just like the one who died, only
maybe a little older. So when the Sans Arcs had camped not far from the
Hunkpapas, the real father and his brother went over to see.
“When they had walked part way around the village circle, they saw
Plenty White Cows helping her foster-mother at the fire in front of
the tepee. And when the real father saw her, he just stood with his
mouth open, looking, until the girl cried out and ran to hide behind
her foster-mother. Just then Against the Clouds came from staking
out his horses, and the real father said to him, ‘_Kola_, you have a
little daughter here who looks just like the little daughter I had, but
she died two snows ago just about this time. It was at Slim Buttes.
My woman still cries hard whenever we talk about our daughter.’ But
Against the Clouds and his woman looked down their noses and said
nothing. Then the real father and his brother went away.
“In a little while, the real father came back with the girl’s real
mother. And when the mother saw the girl, she screamed and hid her face
with her hands. Then she looked again, with tears running through her
fingers, and she wailed, ‘What do I see, O what do I see? My little
girl is dead! My little girl is dead! What do I see?’ This time the
girl did not run and hide. She looked with big scared eyes at the woman
who was crying so hard, and then she ran to the woman and the woman
seized her and held her, crying very hard.
“By now Against the Clouds and his woman were just standing there with
tears running down their faces, and the real father was crying too. And
Against the Clouds said at last, ‘Friends, it is true. This is your
little girl. We saved her from the scaffold and made a story so that we
might keep her.’ And the foster-mother said, ‘Yes, it is true, but we
love her so much, and we are getting old and she is all we have.’
“Then the real father said to Against the Clouds, ‘_Kola_, we are men,
and we can smoke a pipe and talk this over.’ So that is what they did,
and this is how they agreed. The girl was born and had died. Then she
was born again. So she had two mothers and two fathers, and the first
parents would own her as much as the second parents, the second as
much as the first. The girl would keep her second name because the
first name died with her. She was born first in the Moon of Dark Red
Calves [February], so in that moon she would go to live with her first
parents. Then in the Moon of Black Cherries [August] she would go to
live with her second parents, because it was then that she came back
from the spirit land.
“And when this was agreed, the first father and mother and the second
father and mother and their little girl were happy.”
XXVI
_The Moon of Black Cherries_
“_Dho_,” said Eagle Voice, approving the conclusion of his silent
meditation. “I got used to the strange land. By the stories that came
to us, home was not yonder any more. The sacred hoop of the people was
broken, and old men said it could never be mended. If Sitting Bull went
back, maybe the soldiers would kill him. They had killed Crazy Horse
already. My brother-friend was gone. The people yonder were hungry
around the agencies. Where we were, there were bison in plenty, and no
soldiers to chase us. I was young and I liked to live. So I got used to
the strange land; and I got married too.
“We were on a fall hunt with some people from different bands of the
Lakota, and a few Cheyennes and Arapahoes, maybe ten or twelve lodges
altogether, and we were camping by a creek. Three of my horses strayed
away and I was out looking for them. They had strayed far, dragging
their lariats, and the sun was getting ready to go down when I got back
to the creek. I was on my horse, holding the others while the four were
drinking.
“There was going to be frost that night. The air smelled good and it
was still. The smokes stood straight from the tepees yonder in the
flat. Leaves were changing color and some plums were red in a clump of
brush. A little sound was big. I was just sitting there leaning on my
horse and holding the others. There was a whiff of meat cooking. Maybe
I was thinking about something a long way off, but I do not remember
what.
“All at once the brush cracked. The horses snorted. The two young ones
reared and broke away, running and kicking and making sharp wind when
they kicked. It was just like the other time I told you about; that
time after my first sun dance when the people were getting ready to
scatter and my horses broke away at the creek.
“She was standing there at the edge of the plum brush, and my heart
jumped in me; for all at once it was that other time back home. Then I
saw that it was Plenty White Cows standing there. She had red plums in
a fold of her blanket, and she was looking at me and smiling. She was
pretty.
“Our party was small, so I had seen her often since her family came to
camp with us. Against the Clouds and his woman were dead, and she was
living with her real parents. I had noticed her more than other girls
because I knew the story about her and the strange power she had. That
was not the only time she had smiled at me that way. The first time was
when I was riding by her tepee and she was cooking out in front of it.
She was bent over, stirring the pot, and she looked up at me surprised.
Then she looked happy and smiled, and she was pretty, and she did not
seem strange any more.
“Yes, it was like the time back home that I told you about. Maybe that
is why I said it, or maybe I was bashful all at once. My mother and
grandmother wanted me to get married, and they said I was too bashful
because I did not notice girls much. Maybe I was bashful then. I said,
‘Hold this horse for me while I catch the others.’ So she took the
lariat and I rode away on the run after my horses. While I was chasing
them, I was wondering if the horse would be tied to the brush when I
got back. The young horses felt good, and I had a long chase before I
caught them in a bend of the creek against a high bank. It was dark
before I got back with them, and I thought surely the other horse would
be tied to the brush, just the way it was that other time.
“It was not so. She was standing in the same place, holding the horse.
There was starlight.”
The old man fell silent and began fumbling in his long tobacco
pouch. When he had filled the pipe and tamped it with a leisurely
thoroughness, he said, “That is how it was, Grandson; that is how it
was.” Then he lit the pipe, his lean cheeks hollowing.
When we had sat in silence for a while he began talking in a low voice,
with little expression at first, as though remembering aloud with no
thought of sharing.
“She was a good woman, and she made the strange land almost like home.
She was always working and never angry. She would make low songs for
herself when she was working. I think she could tan deerskin as soft as
my grandmother could; and she made clothing of it, beautiful with beads
and dyed porcupine quills. I always got plenty of tender meat for us,
plenty for my grandfather and grandmother too. They would come to eat
with us and bring other very old people with them. I could always get
plenty, because she could tell me where to hunt. Sometimes she would be
working and singing to herself; then she would stop singing and tell
me where she saw some fat young deer drinking when the sun was going
down. Maybe that would be in the morning, but she would see it. So I
would be there waiting for the sun to set, and the fat young deer would
come.
“She always looked after my moccasins, and when I had been hunting on
foot and was tired, she would grease the bottoms of my feet by the
fire. She was patient and wise, and sometimes she was more like my
mother than my woman; maybe because she was older.
“She could see what others could not see, and what was going to happen,
she could tell it. When someone was going to die, she would tell me,
and it would be so. If somebody lost some horses, she could sit still
with her eyes shut and dream, and in the dream she would go to where
the horses were then; and when she opened her eyes, she would tell how
she went there, and it would be so.
“She was a good woman, but not strong like other women, maybe because
she had died once and come back for a while. No children came to
us, and my mother said the women talked about this. I think they
did not like her. Maybe they were afraid because of her _yuwipi_
[spiritualistic] power. But sometimes when they wanted to know
something hidden, they would come to her with little gifts.
“There were grasses and snows and the land was not strange any more.
When Sitting Bull went back and surrendered to the Wasichus, we did not
go back, for the stories that came to us from our people on White Clay
Creek where their reservation [Pine Ridge] was were not happy stories,
and we were used to the new land.
“There were more grasses and snows and more grasses. Then one day when
the cherries were turning black Plenty White Cows did not get up in the
morning. Her mother and mine came over to help and they made some soup
for her, but she did not want to eat it. She did not talk to us, but
sometimes she would talk to people we could not see. Afterwhile when
she was sleeping hard and there was nothing to do, our mothers went
home.
“When the sun was beginning to go down, she called to me, and I leaned
close to hear. Her voice was far away. I thought she was dreaming and
talking in her sleep. There were tears on her face, and she said, ‘A
little girl is crying. Do you not hear her crying far away?’ And I
said, ‘No little girl is crying. You are dreaming.’ Then she looked at
me with a soft look from far away, and said, ‘It is the little girl you
think about when you are alone. I hear her crying far across snows and
grasses.’
“She closed her eyes and when she looked at me again, it was a far
look that did not see me, and she was talking about a great water
reaching to the sunrise, and a long road across it and strange peoples
yonder in a strange land. ‘It is a long road,’ she said, ‘but you will
come back home. The little girl will grease your feet beside the fire,
and she will not cry any more.’
“I thought she had gone to sleep and I sat there awhile listening to
her breathing, and wondering. I went outside and while I stood there,
the sun went under. Then I heard her call me again, and I went in and
leaned close to hear what she would say. ‘Cherries are getting black,’
she said. ‘They are getting black.’ And I said, ‘It is so; they are
blackening.’ At first I did not know what she meant. Then she looked at
me from far away, and her voice was far away too, and she said, ‘The
young moon is low yonder. It is time to go. They are coming to take me
home again.’
“Then there was a sudden wide look in her eyes, and I knew it was not
for me. All at once I knew it was for her foster-parents, Against
the Clouds and his woman. They had come for her in the Moon of Black
Cherries, the way they used to do before they died; but I could not see
them. I knew this all at once, and there was a big ache in my breast;
but I said, ‘Plums are beginning to ripen too. Soon they will be good
to eat We will go and pick some,’ I was seeing red plums in a fold of
her blanket. She closed her eyes and lay still, but I could hear her
breathing deep.
“I was sitting there in the dark wondering and thinking many things
with the ache in my breast. Her mother came back, but I did not tell
her anything because I must not talk to her. I could see the old woman
was leaning down over her daughter, and I think she was listening. Then
she cried out and began mourning.
“My mother came and others too. They made a fire in front of our lodge,
and there was mourning all night.”
Eagle Voice was silent for a while, looking at the ground. At length he
turned a squinting gaze on me and said, “There is a strange road ahead,
Grandson, a road that leads far. Let us walk on it tomorrow. I want to
sleep now.”
XXVII
_The Dark Hills of Water_
The wind had sharpened, shifting eastward in the night, and now it
filled the dull gray morning with the prickling smell of snow. When I
arrived, Eagle Voice was up and eager to continue, beginning where he
had ceased the day before, as though there had been no interruption.
“_Dho_,” he said when I had placed a cottonwood chunk in the stove, “it
is a road that leads across the world.
“After Against the Clouds and his woman came and took her home to the
world of spirit the land was strange again. Sometimes I rode all day,
but there was nothing. Everywhere the valleys were empty, and if I
stopped to listen, they would be listening too. The hills looked, and
did not know me. Sometimes I thought I would go back home; but there
was no home yonder. Sometimes I thought I would ride down to see the
Rosebud and the Greasy Grass again, and maybe I would go over to the
Little Piney country where my father’s scaffold stood. Then I would
think maybe there would be many Wasichus yonder, too many to kill. Or
if there were no Wasichus, the valleys would be empty and I would be
a stranger and the hills would stare. The bones of my father would be
scattered and the blowing of the wind would be like mourning. So I did
not go.
“The snow came and fell deep.
“Dreams came to me when I slept, and when I sat alone beside my fire
and the wind whipped the smoke-flap, dreams came to me awake. Sometimes
I would be sitting there looking at the fire, and she would be sitting
yonder across the fire, maybe sewing quills and beads on a moccasin.
Then I would look, and there would be nothing I could see; but when I
looked away she would be there again sewing by the fire.
“I hunted much and got fresh meat for my grandparents and other old
people. Often people invited me to come and eat with them, and there
would be stories, so that I would be back in the good days awhile.
But I liked to be alone too. I wondered much about the great water
reaching to the sunrise and the strange people in a far land and the
little girl crying far away. Maybe the little girl was Tashina when I
was a little boy. But I was a man, and how could she grease my feet?
“One night when the winter was old, Plenty White Cows came while I
slept, and I saw her clear. She was standing by the plum brush, and she
was smiling at me. Plums were red in the thicket and there were some in
a fold of her blanket. She smiled at me and said, ‘_Shonka ’kan_, you
made me proud.’ Then I saw that it was not Plenty White Cows standing
there. It was Tashina. And just as I knew her, horses snorted and broke
sharp wind. Then there was only starlight and a voice that said, ‘Hold
fast, there is more.’ And I was awake in the dark and the wind was
whipping the smoke-flap.”
The old man paused, fumbling in his long tobacco pouch. After a
leisurely tamping of the pipe, he lit it, passed it to me and sat
gazing at the ground. When it seemed that he had lost me in his
meditation, I prompted him, ‘And the long road, Grandfather?’
“Ah,” he said, his gaze slowly focusing upon me; “the long road. I
started south before the young grasses appeared, going to see my
people, the Oglalas, again. Maybe there would be soldiers, so I rode
nights, slept days. No soldiers. I saw the new iron road [Northern
Pacific] that the Wasichus had made, and for a while I was afraid to
cross it. My horse was afraid too; but we crossed it on the run. I was
hiding when the great iron horse went by snorting smoke and pulling
many big wagons. I rode down across the flat-lands, past the White
Buttes and Bear Butte and Pa Sapa.
“When I came to Smoky Earth [White] River, my mind was forked. Maybe I
would go over to the Miniconjous on the South Fork; maybe I would go
to the Oglalas on White Earth Creek. I went to the Miniconjous, and I
was a stranger. People were talking about the Wanekia [the Messiah] who
was coming soon, they said. He was coming from where the sun goes down,
and all the Wasichus would disappear like smoke when he came; and there
would be a new heaven and a new earth for Lakotas. I did not believe
it. I thought they were all _witko_.”
“And Tashina Wanblee, Grandfather,” I urged when he had been silent
overlong. “Surely you went there to see her.”
“She was not there,” he said in a matter-of-fact manner, fixing his
crinkled look upon me. “Too many snows and grasses. She had a Hunkpapa
man. Living up on Grand River with Sitting Bull’s people; five snows
ago, they told me.