For more than an hour the tribesmen took turns sounding the familiar themes of contention between the races, concerns that the Great White Father deflected with paternal benevolence, constantly returning to the declaration that his greatest desire was to ensure the welfare of his children.
The sharpest questioning came from Kicking Bird, who iterated a long list of conditions for a successful transition to the reservation, including freedom from assault by whites, limited sovereignty, hunting rights, and proper instruction in the ways of the holy road.
The Great white Father proclaimed repeatedly that he would never abandon those of his children who promised to behave themselves, and Kicking Bird's questions, like those of his brethren, at last collapsed under the weight of platitude.
Only Ten Bears was left to speak. He had sat placidly in his chair through the afternoon, listening attentively but expressionlessly to every exchange, and the Great White Father, though he was anxious to get on with his schedule, was curious about the old man.
"The oldest of you has not spoken,” he said, pointing out Ten Bears. “I would like to hear what is on his mind.”
Laying a hand on each arm of his chair, Ten Bears pushed himself up.
"You made us an invitation to come to Washington, and we accepted. You have taken our hands and made us presents and cared for our needs with generosity, and no harm has come to us. We never invited the white man into our country but he came anyway, not looking for game to hunt but for people to kill. Comanches did not fire the first shot . . . the white man did.
"Why the white man wants our country I do not know. He has more than enough for himself. I do not understand why the white man wants to kill everything in our country and make it poor. When the Comanche resists, the white man says he is misbehaving and must be punished.
"We have never tried to take over your country. All that we have ever asked is to be left alone. You will not grant that wish. Instead you want us to give up everything we love and come to live in a small space and wear your clothes and eat your food and pray to your god. You want us to walk with you on what you call the holy road. I will not do that.”
As Ten Bears paused to wet his lips with a sip of coffee he could see and hear the whites shifting in their seats. Only the Great white Father did not move but kept his eyes steadfast on the speaker.
“I was born upon the prairie," Ten Bears continued, "where the wind blows free and there is nothing to break the light of the sun. I was born where there are no enclosures and everything draws a free breath. I want to die there. I would rather wander the prairie eating dung than live on a white man's reservation."
Silence continued a few seconds after Ten Bears was seated again. At last the Great White Father rose.
"There is a poet among you," he announced, directing his gaze upon Ten Bears. “His speech is beautiful. Thank you for sharing it with us. And thank you for coming to my home today. I wish you all a swift, safe journey home."
Chapter LIII
Ever mindful of lasting impressions, the whites surprised the delegation by moving them to an even grander hotel on the eve of their departure, where they, their agents, their interpreters, and a host of Washington dignitaries were feted in a private banquet room. Before the meal was served the primitives were treated to the spectacle of gaslight as two black-skinned men entered and went from lamp to lamp, creating light out of a metal valve and the application of a spark.
The depth of conviviality that had been reached between Indian and white was amazing. After only a few days of intimacy, white and Indian were familiar enough to sit side by side at a dinner table. They talked, and in several instances Ten Bears noticed they were easy enough other's company to poke fun.
Ten Bears did not find fault with any of it. Nothing was better than peace and goodwill. At the same time, however, he found himself detached, as if he were viewing everything from a distance. He was no longer interested in human affairs. His motivation for living had been reduced to a single, powerful drive, and that was to go home.
The appearance, toward meal's end, of a white man priest, only increased his desire for the prairie. The priest made a long talk, during which he often referred to the black book which the white man said contained instructions from the Mystery. Ten Bears listened attentive, concluding, as did everyone else, that there was much in the book that made sense. But to the old man the appearance of the priest and the talk he made were final confirmation that the holy road should not be walked.
Though it no longer seemed important to do so, he shared his misgivings with Kicking Bird after they retired for the evening to their suite of rooms. Kicking Bird had been taken with many of the priest's ideas about brotherhood and not wanting other men's wives and loving neighbors and not stealing.
"Yes," Ten Bears agreed, "the words were good. But he didn't smoke the pipe. He didn't acknowledge the Mystery. These things have to be done."
“The whites have a different way of doing it," Kicking Bird answered resignedly.
“They think the Mystery lives in a book. Even a fool knows the Mystery is everywhere. The whites tell us they love the Mystery's instructions, but so far as I can see they don't do anything the Mystery tells them to do. I think the whites believe they are the Mystery.”
In his heart Kicking Bird agreed with Ten Bears, but understanding that the whites were wrong about the world would not aid his cause of helping people adjust to the reservation.
“You're probably right, Grandfather," he sighed, "but the whites will not change."
"No," Ten Bears replied wistfully, "they won't change. And neither will I. I want to go to sleep now. Sleep will bring tomorrow, and tomorrow we start for home."
Ten Bears found the bed to his liking. Kicking Bird, who preferred the floor because it was closer to the earth, performed his nightly ritual of clearing away the rugs to make a place on the wood to spread blankets.
As he was executing this chore, one of the departing rugs revealed a rough spot on the floor about the size of two men laid side by side. The flooring was so cracked and rotted that in some places light shone, through. The white people had used the rug to hide the eyesore but for Kicking Bird it was just right. He was tired of perfect surfaces and happily spread his blankets over the rough spot. Though the night was cold and there was much on his mind, Kicking Bird willed himself straight to sleep.
Ten Bears had a more difficult time of it. As on the night of the council when his village was split forever, he could not shut down his mind. It flitted, uncontrolled, from one disconnected thought to another, teasing the old man toward the border of sleep only to pull him back again.
Exasperated, Ten Bears turned his mind exclusively to landscapes of his homeland but something was still distracting him and, when he opened his eyes, the old man realized that the little fires on the walls were keeping him awake. He swung his feet to the floor, pushed himself off the bed, and went from one fire to another, opening the little grass doors and extinguishing each irritating flame with a puff of his breath.
Back in bed he felt much better. In the darkness his mind began to slow and as he tumbled toward unconsciousness, he saw the prairie in its limitless glory. The grass was waving, the sun was high, the sky was blue, and in the far distance he could see the distinctive dark forms of buffalo grazing. He also saw something coming toward him.
Nothing more than a speck at first, the object came at great speed and suddenly the face of an eagle filled the whole of Ten Bears' vision. Its keen, unblinking eyes were focused solely on Ten Bears but the old man felt no fear.
An instant later Ten Bears realized he was astride the eagle's back. Powered by the great levers of the eagle's wings, they were rising through the mist of earthbound clouds.
Sudden as the turn of a dream, eternal blackness stretched above them. Glittering stars, more stars than could ever be imagined, stood out like particles of dust spinning in a ray of afternoon sun. They covered Ten Bears like f
alling snow.
Then they went out.
Chapter LIV
Two days later, Kicking Bird and Lawrie Tatum boarded a westbound train, and, though he had made a full recovery and had not been damaged physically, the Comanche was still shaken when he took his seat.
Having no idea how he had been spared made the entire episode impossible to reconcile. How was it that his nose had found and pressed itself into a crack in the wood that provided enough oxygen to keep his body from succumbing to the gas? How was it that he had been found and pulled from the room with what the whites said were minutes to live?
How could it be that Ten Bears' body lay on the floor of a coach a few behind his own, his remains enclosed in one of the white man's death boxes? How could it be that an old man's humble wish to die on the prairie had not been granted? How could the Mystery let it come to this?
Kicking Bird had never felt more helpless. He could not exist in his present state, yet he was powerless to change it. The past was gone, the future was overwhelming, and his life, as he sat inert and shattered, was being measured out minute by minute.
The train jerked ahead and, with each revolution of its wheels, a healing miracle began as well. Knowing that he was moving west drove Kicking Bird's soul forward, and by the time they crossed the span over the Mississippi River, the far-seeing Comanche realized that he was nearly whole again.
Perhaps he was intact once more because he was also feeling a new, exhilarating sense of purpose. The Comanches, whether they knew it or not, had their greatest protector in the man Kicking Bird. It was Kicking Bird who was best qualified to see them through the struggle of change, and this he was resolved to do even if it meant the sacrifice of all he possessed, even his life.
Now he was ready to lay himself down and let his people cross over to the future with all the security his body and spirit could provide.
Chapter LV
The abortive raid on Captain Bradley's column had plunged the hostile camps into chaos, and the news of Ten Bears' death, transmitted by spies filtering in and out of the reservation lands, was marked by a shorter period of mourning than would have been observed in better times. In the frenzy of trying to mount a defense on the run, every day was a desperate struggle, and grief was a luxury that no one could much indulge.
Hunting For Something hacked off her hair, as did Stands With A Fist, and both women gashed their arms and legs. But the cuts were fewer and not as deep as they might have been.
Owl Prophet was vehement in his conviction that the whites had murdered Ten Bears through the use of some magical agent but his ire was quickly shoved aside by demands from the many wounded men who had managed to make it back from the attack. It seemed that every other lodge held someone who needed attention and, in the coming weeks, the prophet was perpetually applying spells, potions, and even surgeries as his family picked the surrounding prairie clean of healing medicines.
Like many others, the Dances With Wolves and Smiles A Lot families had doubled up. It was the only way to meet the increasing demands of cooking and cleaning, hauling food and water, tending to the needs of exhausted husbands, and organizing the lives of Snake In Hands, Always Walking, Stays Quiet, and Rabbit.
In addition to their clearly defined and dangerous roles as providers and protectors, warriors were burdened with a staggering onslaught of decisions, all of which had to be made in the ever-shifting circumstances of evasion and escape. owing to new movements on the part of the white soldiers, camps were erected only to be struck a day or two rater. Keeping every camp supplied with the basic elements of food and fuel was a herculean task that never seemed fully accomplished. In addition, huge expenditures of energy were surrendered in restraining factions of young men, eager for combat, from running amok.
Some people went into the reservation, only to return disillusioned, while a few hardened warriors packed up their families and possessions and took the white man's holy road, never to return.
The one thing the Comanches and their allies did not need was the rain, which made every obstacle that much harder to overcome. It never seemed to stop, and after weeks of inundation, the people native to the land wondered if they hadn't miscalculated in supposing the Mystery had abandoned only them. It seemed the whole world was gradually submerging under the deluge.
Ponies sank past their ankles in the sucking mud that coated the prairie everywhere they traveled. People were never dry and their skin became so sodden that this time of their greatest trial was referred to through succeeding generations as “the wrinkled-hand chase.”
Ceaseless traveling in difficult conditions took its toll on possessions as well as people, and long before the running and fighting ended, people were often forced to sleep in the open. For a time, the comment that it was "cruel to wake a man before his puddle was warm” enjoyed wide popularity. But the joke quickly played out. There was too much struggle for levity. Every day of life was a grand achievement for the grim souls who had committed themselves to defiance.
Yet, if asked, it is certain that the people branded hostile would have agreed that the fierceness of their determination elevated them to a previously unknown spiritual plane. Mourning for the warriors who had fallen in the unsuccessful first attack of the campaign was conducted inwardly, privately. The desperate search for food and forage went on without complaint. Even the coughing sickness many had contracted from the wet and cold was ignored in the set-jawed atmosphere of defense.
Stands With A Fist and Hunting For Something and Wind In His Hair's wife, One Braid Trailing, rose unheralded to positions of leadership in the phalanx of women who kept the village intact and moving. Somehow they managed to nurture children, prepare food, provide shelter, create warmth, and strike or set up camp at a moment's notice in the muck and rain. The women organized and maintained a semblance of life in vague hope that the warriors, already overtaxed by the never-ending search for food, would find a way to defeat the white soldiers.
The fact that Captain Bradley's troops had repelled them so effectively forced Wind In His Hair and his inner circle to suspend plans for further attacks on the invaders. The fast-shooting guns of the whites were too powerful. Sixteen warriors had been lost in a fight that yielded no scalps and caused but a momentary halt in the enemy's advance.
Bad Hand had taken the field with hundreds of blue-coated men. They were driving down from the northeast while Captain Bradley's smaller force moved steadily up from the south. A third army of soldiers was coming from the northwest, but, fortunately, they were being held up by large groups of Cheyenne and Arapaho.
The situation was growing more dire by the day for Wind In His Hair's community. They knew they could not evade the white soldiers forever, nor could they fight them effectively. Groups of decoys, sent to draw the hair-mouths off the scent, had succeeded only in causing slight delays in the enemy advance. The warriors agreed that the best they could hope for was to stay out of range until the soldiers ran out of ambition, or food, or both. Sooner or later they would have to leave the country.
But even that strategy disintegrated on a rare, rainless night when Dances With Wolves, Smiles A Lot, and Blue Turtle returned from a long scout to report that a train of perhaps twenty soldier wagons, undoubtedly intended to resupply those already in the field, was driving toward them from the east. Dances With Wolves said he had not seen any of the fast-shooting guns and only a small force of soldiers was escorting the train.
That same night, after a council remarkable for its brevity, Wind In His Hair gave the order for camp to be struck. The whites had opened the only avenue of action available to the warriors. They had to move east and engage the wagon train. It was their best and, as each warrior knew in his heart, only chance.
Chapter LVI
Early in his life as a warrior, Wind In His Hair had nearly been killed several times on a single raid into Mexico and on his return home had sought the counsel of an old woman reputed to have the power to turn bad
luck to good.
When the old woman learned that Wind In His Hair had recently begun to eat with metal implements, she advised him to cease the practice. Wind In His Hair had followed the advice unerringly, and not once in the intervening years had his lips touched food tainted by the metal of a white man's spoon or ladle.
Even in the chaos of the wrinkled-hand chase, he had scrupulously monitored the preparation of his food, but in a temporary camp sequestered in a stand of cottonwoods several miles from the wagon train, the taboo was violated.
That morning had been particularly confusing. Camp was erected as men prepared for battle, and while trying to organize the warriors, he had too hastily accepted and devoured a bowl of broth and meat. A few minutes later One Braid Trailing had brought him a second breakfast. Tracking the first breakfast back to its source, Wind In His Hair discovered a large metal ladle submerged in the pot that had produced his meal. If he led his warriors that morning he was certain to die, so he watched sourly as two hundred warriors disappeared into the east to confront the wagon train.
Careful to avoid casualties, they swooped down from all sides and put the mule-driven wagons to flight, killing several soldiers and knocking down a few mules in the process.
The ungainly wagon train fled in the direction of a nearby stream, hoping to make its stand in reach of water, but the warriors quickly surrounded it, forcing the wagons to halt short of their objective.
The whites drew their vehicles into a tight circle and began to throw up breastworks of wet earth as the Comanches and Kiowa, following Wind In His Hair's strategy of weakening them through hunger, thirst, and attrition, settled in to snipe at long range.