The Year the Cloud Fell

by Kurt R A Giambastiani

  He felt One Bear’s hands leave him. He stood by himself, leaning back, suspended by his own skin.

  One Bear picked up the pipe and handed it to him. Storm Arriving took it with weak fingers.

  “Offer the pipe to the south and return here.”

  Slowly, Storm Arriving sidestepped the quarter circle to the right. Keeping the rope taut, he tried to kneel. His knees buckled, but One Bear was there and caught him. Together they laid the pipe down, south of the pole. Storm Arriving rose on his own and traversed the distance back to his original spot, facing the east.

  One Bear signaled approval. “Now there is only the waiting,” he said.

  Storm Arriving leaned back against the ropes and into the excoriating pain. He forced his arms to hang loose and his fingers to release their clenched grip upon the insubstantial air. The sun hit him now full in the face and he knew then that it did not matter whether the day would be warm or cold, for warm or cold, the sun would not climb higher into the sky nor rush more quickly in its path down toward the west. The sun would move as the sun always moved, and Storm Arriving would simply have to wait—and endure—until it was ready to set.

  When the sun was high overhead, George walked to the pond. He sat down at the base of a tree in the armchair formed by two buttressing roots. He gazed at the rippled mirror before him. The pond was long—a bowed ellipse beneath the bluff’s sudden side—and for the moment, it was empty. The men had all bathed earlier, shortly after the camp had been struck, and since then they had all been occupied with their own preparations for the days ahead. Even here near the pond’s gurgling outflow, the drumbeat pulsed through. George could hear the warriors’ eerie songs bounce between the cliffs and the water.

  He looked up to the overhang and saw one of the cliff-dwelling lizards leap off the rocky face. It dove down, guided by flaps of skin and webbed toes, then furled all at the last moment and hit the water with a sound like tearing cloth. A moment later it surfaced, a small fish in its jaws. The fish wriggled, the silver ribbon of its body flashing in the noonday sun.

  George shivered with a chill born of old memories. He remembered the first time he had seen a walker—the only time until he had come to be with the Cheyenne. It had happened many years before, when he was only a child. The rain had been biblical and he rode with his mother in a carriage as they traveled to The General’s newest frontier command. It was an ancient brougham that transported them, unsuited to both the uneven road and the unseasonable weather. The hood was up, but still the rain poured in the open front, soaking the hems of his mother’s skirts. He was spared such a watering, as he was still quite young and his feet did not reach the floor. He and his mother huddled together beneath blankets and oilskins, making—as they were often forced to do—the most of a miserable situation.

  The driver had no such protection as did they. He sat up on the hard side-seat, hunched over, the noisy springs beneath him shrieking with each hole and stone. His collar was up and his brim was down and streams of water sluiced off his shoulders and down his back.

  The sky was grey with clouds and the ground was brown with mud and the grass of late summer. George’s childish mind imagined that they rode on a silken ribbon on a tawny blanket, and that their weight made in it a depression that moved along with them so that the muck and water coursed along beneath them and that the featureless plain never showed them anything beyond the rim of the shallow bowl of their traveling. The grass was hip-high and he could see the rain-heavy heads of grain bow to the wind along the sides of the road, but beyond the limits of the muddy ruts it became an ocean, a thing whole unto itself, and the individual stalks were lost in it as a drop was lost in the sea.

  His mother held him close, surrounding him with her arms, her warmth, and her perfume of sunny flowers. She sang to him of gingham and calico and a cat and a dog, and though he did not know what gingham or calico was, he did know of cats and dogs and of how they fought, and so he listened to her quiet song. They giggled when the bumps in the road came out in her words, and he felt safe and sound and the chill air was not as cold as it had been.

  The driver shouted. George saw him reach for the Spenser rifle next to the seat, but a cloud eclipsed the sun—only there was no sun, and it was no cloud. It was a head, a monstrous head, and it reached in from the side and grabbed the driver by the body. The man screamed and George heard a crunch like kindling and then the man made only short, strangled sounds as he was lifted out of his seat.

  The horses bolted at once and only the ruts and the high grass kept them on course. George’s mother scrambled forward to grab the loose reins while George looked back out the brougham’s rear window of sewn-in glass.

  He saw the walker standing in the center of the road. The driver was crosswise in that terrible mouth. He twisted and squirmed and kicked his legs in futile attempts and while that image was horror enough, what George had always remembered and what had haunted his childhood nights was the sight of the beast as it tossed its prey into the air and caught the man head-first. As the brougham was brought under control, George watched the walker jerk its head forward in lunging gulps until the man disappeared—shoulders, torso, legs, and feet—into that fearful gullet.

  The fishing lizard paddled along the surface of the pond. It swallowed the fish and George sat in the shade of the pine tree and wished for the sun. The memory had always chilled his blood. Now fate had turned him around and he found himself leading a squadron of the monsters in an attack on his own country.

  He longed for someone to talk to. With Speaks While Leaving gone and Storm Arriving off on some clandestine errand, there was no one left with whom to converse. Red Whistler and the wounded Big Nose had both gone off with the main body of the tribe, so George was essentially alone. It was a place he had never liked. The military life had kept it at bay—one was never alone in the military—but here there was no escape. He was alone among strangers, and it was as plain as that. His thoughts wandered back to the Army’s attack on the Cheyenne encampment. For that, he could blame no one but himself. If he had not been there, it would not have happened. He had tried to blame his father and had tried to blame Stant, but he could not fault them for being as they were. Only a short time ago he, too, had felt as they did, equating the Cheyenne’s primitive existence with unabated savagery. But in the time he had been with them he had discovered instead a people with history, religion, government, and law. Their lives were violent at times and their technology was crude, but their ideas were not, and it was the ideas, he discovered, that defined a people. He recalled his West Point studies of Feudal Europe and saw that he had been poisoned—they all had been—by the theory of “might makes right.” It had not died with the barons and lords. It existed still, in the hearts of modern men, in the hearts of Americans.

  Would we have been so proud, he wondered, had we lost our Revolution? Do we really judge ourselves not by the successes of our generals, but by the loftiness of our ideas?

  No, he thought. We see only the vanquished and the victor. Ideas are a casualty of war and the commodity of historians.

  He threw a pebble out into the pond. The lizard dove beneath the jade waters and the sun winked from atop the slowly spreading ripples.

  The sun had scorched his face, baked his head, and burned his back. Now, he felt the evening rise in the songs of the frogs in the trees and the swallows in the air. He sensed the world cooling, the wind rising, the light fading. Dusk approached.

  The day had been a haze to him. He remembered only the creak of the rope and the songs One Bear sang as he sat vigil by the little fire. His thoughts had drifted very little. He had thought of his sister once at midday and of how he would miss her. He had thought a few times of Speaks While Leaving and of the power of her smile. But those thoughts had not stayed with him long. They had been ushered out by the pain just as the night now escorted the day to the edge of the world.

  One Bear left the fire and walked up behind him. “You have done well,�
�� he said.

  Storm Arriving blinked slowly and signaled his consent. He had no strength to spare for speech. The skin on his chest had been pulled by the rope and sticks until it was stretched out thin like a piece of blood-smeared hide. One Bear put his arm around Storm Arriving, then took his knife and sliced away the skin behind the sticks. Storm Arriving snarled. He felt himself falling but he did not hit the ground. Instead he seemed to float and he realized that One Bear was carrying him over to the fire. The sensation of lightness remained after he was laid on the grass and his vision took on a clarity he had not known before.

  Three stars were visible in the twilight sky. They shone like minute beacons in the purpled shell above. The flames of the fire danced with a rhythm that bordered on comprehension. He felt them reach out to warm his bones, while on the other side night stole the heat from his body. He felt the blood on his chest as it oozed and began to clot and dry, and he felt each blade of grass that touched him with its rough edge. He smelled the greenery, the smoke, and the metal of his own blood. He heard the crickets begin their nightly chants, and heard One Bear sing the final song.

  Storm Arriving turned his head to the side and watched as the father of his beloved picked up the flaps of sacrificed skin. The chief showed them to the four quarters of the world and placed them at the base of the pole as he sang the sacred words. Storm Arriving heard the power in the words. It welled up from the ground like spring water; it bathed him and it refreshed him, and when he saw the image of his sister standing at his feet he was not surprised.

  She smiled down upon him and he smiled, too, happy that she was at peace in her new home.

  We thank you, Blue Shell Woman said, though her lips did not move. Your love is strong and your sacrifice has been great. The People are renewed.

  Her form wavered and she became a white buffalo.

  Our blessings are upon you, she said and loped away into the darkness.

  He had never had a vision before—not a true one. Only dreams.

  “This is interesting,” he said and heard the gravel in his own voice. He sat up, slowly but without much pain. He looked at his chest and saw the raw spots where the skin had been cut away. They glistened in the fading light. There was some blood, but not much.

  “How do you feel?” One Bear asked him.

  “I am well,” he said. “Sleepy, but much better than I had expected to be.” He did not mention the vision of his sister and the white buffalo. It did not seem proper to mention it.

  “Shall we return?”

  Storm Arriving acquiesced. He put his leggings back on, tying them as best he could. His shirt he would carry, along with his belt and the pipe bundle. They made their way slowly down the hill and walked back towards the nearly empty camp just as the horned moon touched the horizon.

  He heard a shout and Laughs like a Woman came running up to greet his friend. The two men said nothing to one another: they just exchanged smiles; one of satisfaction for one of pride.

  “Will you eat at my fire tonight?” Laughs like a Woman asked.

  “No,” Storm Arriving said slowly, then laughed at his friend’s look of dismay. “It is only that I am not hungry, but it would please me if I might sleep by your fire, for I am very tired.”

  Laughs like a Woman smiled again, his large white teeth gleaming in the last of the moonlight. “That is best, for even after eight years, I am no cook. Come.”

  “A moment.” Storm Arriving turned to the man who had seen him through the day. “My thanks, One Bear.”

  The chief bowed his head in acknowledgement. Then he reached within his shirt and took out the bundle with the sticks and knife. He held it out for Storm Arriving.

  “For when someone asks you to help them do the same.”

  Storm Arriving took the bundle, and shook the chief’s hand. “I will see you in the morning,” he said. Then he let Laughs like a Woman lead him away.

  George gasped as Laughs like a Woman brought Storm Arriving into the light of the fire. The tall Indian looked a grisly fright. His body was covered with dried gore and fresh blood wept from two wounds on his chest.

  “Are you all right? What happened?”

  Storm Arriving smiled with genuine good humor. “Do not worry. I am fine.” He yawned, his movements slow and lethargic. George had never seen him in such a state.

  Laughs like a Woman pointed to a buffalo robe and bade George roll it out. He did so and Storm Arriving laid down upon it. He looked up at them both. “It is good, my friends,” he said in the language of his people. And then he was asleep.

  George looked at the wounds as Storm Arriving breathed in and out in peaceful slumber. They were not like wounds had in battle. They were too regular. Then he remembered and knew that they were the same shape and placement as the old scars borne by One Bear. A ritual, then; and his civilized sensibilities recoiled.

  Why, it is nothing less than self-mutilation, he thought to himself.

  Then he stopped. He knew this man, knew him to be intelligent, thoughtful, stubborn, and passionate. He was not a mindless savage. He did not revel in blood-letting or the slaughter of babies to a dark unseen god. Then why?

  George turned to Laughs like a Woman, pointed to the wounds, and asked him. “Why?”

  Laughs like a Woman did not have much French nor did George know much of the Cheyenne tongue, but between the two they worked the meaning out.

  “From him,” George attempted to summarize. “To the spirits—Nevè-stanevòo’o. To the People, for strength?”

  Laughs like a Woman agreed and pointed. “Strength, to he. Strength, to me. Strength, to all.” He smiled and pointed to George. “And to you. Strength, and…bonne chance.”

  “Well,” said George. “We could certainly use it. Néá’eše.” Thank you.

  The camp had quieted and fires burned low as the war party began to bed down. Men slept next to their mounts in groups of three or four. The crickets laid down their tapestry of song while from above, just beyond the limits of the firelight, George heard the chitter and flap of a fishing lizard in search of a nighttime meal.

  He prepared for sleep. The morning would come quickly—too quickly, he thought, and part of him wished it would never come. He found no joy in the course he had laid out for them. It was long, it was dangerous, and it would throw them all into the path of the most dangerous man he knew.

  The moon had set. It was, he guessed, close to midnight; even later than that at home. He thought of his mother and of his sisters and regretted the strife and shame they would suffer on his account, but then he thought of Blue Shell Woman and her quiet adoration. That death—that one and the hundreds of others—required answer. The answer, he was determined, would be delivered.

  Custer sat in the big chair in the upstairs library. It was dark. His taper had guttered out an hour before. The house was silent, sleeping, as quiet as death.

  It’s been a house of mourning, Custer thought. A house of death. We’re all dead.

  The girls had been crying all day and Libbie had not said a word to him since she had fled the war room. She had never shut him out like this, not in all their twenty-three years of marriage.

  He is dead, Custer thought. We are all acting like it, even I.

  There was a knock at the door, a polite double-rap.

  “Don’t you ever sleep, Douglas?”

  The door opened and the house butler came into the darkened room carrying a tray and a candle. Custer heard the rattle of china and smelled the bitter sweetness of Cook’s hot cocoa.

  “Nossir,” the butler said. “Not while any of the family are awake.” He put the tray down on the table next to Custer’s big chair. Along with the cocoa were cookies and quarters of dry toasted bread. “It’s nearly morning, sir. The paper’s just come. Do you want to see it?”

  Custer nodded and from a slot in the base of the tray, Douglas pulled out the corner of the morning’s news. Custer took it from the slot. The headlines were black and bold. He sneered
at the words.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever asked you, Douglas. Can you read?”

  “Yes, sir,” the aged Negro said. “My mama taught me on the Bible when I was a boy.”

  “Quite commendable of her,” Custer said. “So what do you think of these headlines?” he asked.

  “Oh, I never read the newspapers, sir. Never anything good in the newspapers.”

  Custer chuckled ruefully. “That is true enough today, at any rate. Thank you, Douglas. And thank Cook, too.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  The old man headed out the door.

  “Oh, Douglas.”

  “Sir?”

  “How did you know I wasn’t asleep?”

  “Sir? You snore, sir.”

  He chuckled again. “Of course,” he said. “Thank you. And Douglas, please throw out the rest of the papers. Mrs. Custer is upset enough as it is. Will you do that for me?”

  “Yes, Mr. President. Right away, sir.”

  He left and Custer sipped at the cocoa. Cook added a dollop of sweet butter and always kept it on the bittersweet side of the fence. It was gently sweet, rich, woody, and went down as smooth as satin. He set down the cup and once again perused the headline:

  CUSTER’S WAR LOSES FIRST BATTLE

  And, beneath that, in smaller print:

  HUNDREDS LOST IN ROUT OF ARMY FORCES

  Most disturbing to him, however, was the picture beneath the headlines. It was a likeness of young George—the pose was copied from the photograph taken to commemorate his graduation from West Point. It was a good likeness and resembled Custer himself in his youth. The caption read, “Young Cpt. G. A. Custer, Jr., believed lost in the battle.”