* * * * *
The Crystal Palace proved to be nothing like Doug had imagined it to be.
He had expected the Palace to somehow be softer. He had assumed all of the building’s walls would be painted pink. He had expected all the inner chambers to be crowded by mirrors, with twirling disco balls hurling spectrums of light across the stages. He had anticipated girls sparkling in glitter and sequins, wearing nothing more than high heels and plastic diamonds. He expected platinum blondes. He expected leather and lace.
But the Crystal Palace Doug found offered none of those things. A sharp collection of weapons gathered upon the walls – rifles with long and varnished barrels; curved sabers with fine, gleaming edges; long spears tipped with ghastly points and colorful feathers; fine bows demanding the pull of powerful arms; brutal, primitive clubs apparently crafted for a titan’s grasp. Buffalo hides, not mirrors, hung on the remaining space offered by the dark walls, absorbing much of the light cast by burning sconces and flames blazing in brick fire pits. Doug sheepishly averted his eyes to avoid meeting the stares of packs of men tending to their wounds evidently suffered in the hunt of the buffalo, or downing tankards of beer and massive legs of roasted meat.
The girls who escorted Doug to a large table set before the Palace’s central stage were friendly and attractive, but Doug was surprised to find them dressed in buffalo hides and stepping in moccasins rather than the leather and lace he had always assumed constituted a Palace dancer’s wardrobe. Neither girl wore a blue or pink wig. Doug saw neither wore any make-up, nor large earrings or glistening pearls. Their only adornment were necklaces and bracelets carved from what Doug guessed was buffalo bone. He knew how the Palace girls always mesmerized the polishers, but he had no means of anticipating how his heart pulsed whenever any of those women wearing buffalo skin smiled at him as they escorted him through the Palace.
A tall, lean woman appeared at Doug’s side. She didn’t dress in hides, as did the other girls. A sharp suit, one as tight as any worn by those men who perched atop the glass towers, fell over the woman’s frame, giving Doug the impression that such a woman would fit in very well at that board table that monthly gathered the city’s patriarchs.
“Lady Finch.” Doug offered his hand, and he felt a tingle when the woman gripped his fingers.
“I apologize for your inconvenience, Mr. Stewart,” replied the woman. “I know the dust must be terrible for your towers. All the soot and ash must be even more terrible with all the polishers chasing the herd. I’m sure Satinka will know something that can help you.”
“I understand you’re the proprietor of the Palace.”
“I am, but I have nothing to do with the buffalo, and I certainly have no sway over that herd. If you’ve come to my Palace hoping to find a reprieve from the dust, you’re going to have to speak to Satinka.”
“Who?”
The woman chuckled. “Forgive me, Mr. Stewart. I forget you’re not a polisher. Satinka’s the one who clutches the hearts of all the polishers. She’s the one who danced and summoned that herd. If she can’t help you, than I can’t imagine anyone else can.”
“Summoned? How? From where?”
“I know.” Lady Finch held up her hands. “It sounds crazy. But the buffalo still charge along these shores.”
A purple curtain fluttered as a woman dressed in robes stitched together from buffalo hides of light tans and dark browns walked onto the stage. A thick, black hide fell down her back, topped with a pair of buffalo horns curving from each side. The robes were thick, but they failed to conceal the shape of the woman’s swells and curves. She turned to Doug, and in an instant he knew that woman had to be Satinka, the dancer who had captured the heart of every polisher.
A man seated at one of the adjacent tables rose and produced a curved buffalo horn. He blared the instrument, and all of his compatriots seated about the Palace’s tables went quiet and turned their attention towards the stage.
Satinka grinned. “I’m happy to see the Palace tables so crowded. How many have been lost to the herd in today’s hunt?”
“Three more have been lost this morning,” a man shouted in reply. “Lyle Overbay and Yancy Rayburn fell beneath the hooves and dust. A stray bullet killed Teddy Jackson.”
Satinka nodded. “The herd demands its sacrifices. May the white buffalo escort their spirits to their new home.”
Another man lifted a glass. “They were all brave hunters, happy to have the opportunity to become something other than polishers. A toast to them so our broken bones can mend.”
The men at the tables howled. They threw back their necks and downed their beer before stomping their boots. Several of the girls who floated about the Palace laughed and jumped into many a hunter’s playful embrace.
Satinka’s dark eyes grinned. “And what trophies do my hunters bring me from the herd?”
One after another, the men stood from their tables and presented Satinka with trophies from their hunt – hides of furs, jewelry of bone, daggers and knives shaped from buffalo ribs, fine bows strung with buffalo hair. Every man in the Palace presented Satinka with an offering, and Satinka happily accepted each gift. She gave the men who visited the Palace a reason to sing, to boast, to drink and to feast; and those men, who had for so long been relegated to the humble post of the polisher, worshipped Satinka for her magical dance that summoned, in the dusty shape of a thundering herd, purpose to their days.
Satinka thanked the last hunter to offer her his trophy and stepped down from her stage, the men returning to the food and drink held upon their tables. She smiled as her eyes greeted Doug’s blushing face.
“My dance summons many strange things,” Satinka spoke, “and along with the buffalo, my steps have brought one from the glass towers to my stage. Tell me, what do you think of the men seated all around these tables?”
“They’re very brave. They’re very striking.”
“Yet, I doubt you ever truly noticed them before, even if they spent so much time polishing your shining towers,” and Satinka’s eyes narrowed a moment before her smile returned. “But that’s lost to the past. What has motivated you to come to my stage, Mr. Stewart?”
“Could we speak somewhere more private?” Doug peeked at the men grunting at their tables.
Satinka shook her head. “I conduct my business here on this stage. I’m not interested in keeping secrets from the Palace.”
Doug took a breath to gather his resolve. He hadn’t anticipated to find the Palace filled with wide-shouldered men with powerful hands and strong backs. He couldn’t recall the polishers having ever been so fit and trim when they rose upon the towers and worked to rinse away the soot the wind blew upon the glass. How could the hunting of a herd so transform those polishers, both physical and mentally, in such a short time? Logic itself seemed broken, and Doug wondered if magic, and miracle, was all the explanation he could expect to find along that eastern shore where the Crystal Palace glowed. His colleagues in the tight suits and narrow ties sent him to find a way to vanquish that herd, to ask that the woman rumored to be responsible for that stampeding mass of dust and fur to snap her fingers and erase those hooves from the streets. How could he make such a request surrounded by such men? How would they react when Doug asked that the herd that transformed their lives and gave them such power be taken from them?
“I’ve been sent from the towers to ask if you can chase away that herd.”
The Palace fell silent. Doug held his breath as all of those men set down their legs of meat and their tankards of beer to face the interloper from the opposite, western shore, who had come, not to hunt the buffalo, but to simply ask that the creatures disappear. Several stood from their benches, pounding fists into palm, their eyes blazing at Doug.
Satinka held up her hand, and the men returned to their seats, though they didn’t turn their heated gazes away from Doug’s trembling face.
“I’m a little surprised you had the courage to ask that question here within the Pal
ace. But you might be very surprised to know that I understand. It’s never been my intention for the buffalo to always remain after summoning them with my dance. I might dispel the herd, given a couple of conditions.”
Doug jumped. “Name them. Those of us seated atop the glass towers are very wealthy.”
Satinka snorted. “I’ve no interest in shiners. I want to own the very reflection of your towers. I want everyone who looks into all that glass to see my face and shape. I’m well aware of how carefully you wizards in your suits and ties cultivate the faith invested into those spires, and I want my figure to play a part in that religion. I want my face and my body to be there whenever a polisher has to stare all day at that glass. I want my shape to give a polisher a reason to clean away all the dust and the grime, a reason that will make a polisher’s heart happy. I demand that my dance will be projected upon that glass, so that something meaningful replaces the emptiness all of you in the tight suits and narrow ties so carefully cultivate.”
Doug swallowed. He reminded himself that it wasn’t his place to decide whether or not to accept whatever terms were given to rid the streets of the buffalo herd. He reminded himself that it was not his role to determine if such request would be possible, or to gather the machinery and means to project Satinka’s image across that glass skyline. It was only his job to ask, and to report.
“And your second condition?”
Satinka strolled to a wall crowded with mounted weapons. No one in the Palace made a noise while Satinka considered those sharp instruments. Her hands a few minutes later took a long spear from that wall, a spear carved in intricate runes, with feathers tied to the shaft just before it was topped by a gleaming tip of bone. Doug winked as Satinka turned and swayed back to him. She looked much taller. With that spear gripped in her hands, she looked as terrible as she did beautiful.
“My second condition, Mr. Stewart, is that you take part in the hunt,” and before he could voice a protest, or before he had the sense to take several steps back, Satinka pushed the long spear into Doug’s hand. “My second condition is that you use that spear to kill the sacred, white buffalo. You need not bring any trophy back. I will know when the white buffalo’s blood flows.”
Doug almost collapsed as the men roared at the tables. The spear’s weight nearly dragged his knuckles to the floor. The mass of that weapon settled into his shoulders, and his imagination couldn’t stretch so far as to imagine how he might possibly wield the weapon against any kind of sacred creature. The laughter of the men seated at their tables crowded Doug’s ears. Satinka was very clever. She had told him what he might do to rid the land of that herd, but she had also made him compete against those stronger hunters to claim the trophy of that white buffalo Satinka demanded from him. How would he compete against such rivals? How would he survive if any of those hunters decided to protect the herd by killing him? His knees knocked.
Doug thought he trembled in fear, but he realized that the walls of the Crystal Palace were shaking as well. A vibration pulsed through the floor. He felt the murmur rising up through the soles of his shoes. All of the men at the tables roared another time before rushing to walls and quickly grabbing at weapons. In a blink, they rushed through the Palace’s entrance, their abandoned plates and mugs still rattling as those men gave chase to the returning stampede of Satinka’s buffalo herd.
Satinka nodded at Doug. “You’re welcome to start your hunt right away, Mr. Stewart. None of those hunters will harm you if you decide to join them. They might well compete against you, but if you’re to be hurt, those hunters realize that it’s the herd’s right to do you injury.”
“I must return to the towers,” Doug stammered.
Satinka smiled. “Of course, but know that the herd will not be going anywhere until you join in the hunt.”
Satinka turned and stepped once again through the fluttering, purple curtain. Doug stood with that tall and heavy spear clutched within his hands. He felt the fire in his blood. Was it because the herd thundered outside and lit some flame even within him? Was that such a strange thought? Hadn’t the polishers also been timid before the herd’s arrival? Did that heavy spear revive some ancient impulse in his hunger? Or, Doug wondered, was the way Satinka’s hips swayed as she strolled back behind her purple curtain the true reason why his heart thundered?
* * * * *