Fireblossom

by Wright, Cynthia

  Fox managed to nod, then slapped the reins against the mules' backs so that they would carry the wagon rumbling down the hill after the seven proud young Indians astride their ponies.

  Maddie clutched Fox's arm and whispered excitedly, "We're safe, aren't we? I don't know what you were saying, but I could tell. Everything's going to be all right, isn't it?" She paused to wait for his nod, then rushed on, "What was he talking about at the end?"

  "Why do you ask?" Fox's voice was low and harsh.

  "Did I say something wrong? I just meant that... well, it's very odd to be frightened out of one's wits by people who have dressed up to accomplish that very purpose, and then, when they speak, not to be able to understand a word that's being said! I'm just curious, that's all. I wish you'd translate all of it for me so that I don't feel quite so lost!" She pushed back the wayward tendrils that blew around her cheeks and brow. "He's your friend; I can see that much—and there was something very touching about the expression on his face at the end. Won't you tell me what he said?"

  "His name is Kills Hungry Bear," Fox reminded her.

  "He's as worthy a human being as anyone you know, so you may as well call him by name." A sigh rose aching from his heart before he finished, "The last thing I spoke to Kills Hungry Bear about was the symbol of mourning painted on his pony's flank."

  "And?" Maddie prodded gently, thinking at the same time that she would never be able to learn what everything meant in this extraordinarily foreign culture.

  "His brother, who I once knew, was killed at Little Bighorn by one of Custer's soldiers." Fox's eyes burned as he spoke the words. Why did life have to be such a damned bloody mess? Would he ever find his way out of this labyrinth of guilt and confusion? Annie Sunday had taught him that good and bad were easy to separate if one searched for the truth, but in the world that was being reshaped on America's frontier, everything seemed to be painted in shades of gray. Right and wrong just depended on a person's point of view.

  Or did it?

  "How terrible," Maddie was saying sympathetically. "Still, it hardly seems fair to blame the white people for that, since the Indians killed every one of Custer's men in return!"

  "I'm afraid it's not that simple."

  The Indians who led the way on horseback had followed the upper curve of the ridge and now began to descend, heading down into the valley that emerged in front of the shielding cottonwood trees. As the mules clambered in the ponies' wake, Maddie gasped and pointed at the spectacle that lay below.

  There, nestled against the glimmering trees and a curled ribbon of azure water, was the Indian village. Splendidly picturesque, like the paintings by Philadelphia artist George Caitlin that had fascinated Maddie as a child, the tableau before them held her spellbound. Dozens of tipis fashioned of buffalo hide and topped with graceful fans of willow poles, huddled in the carnation pink depths of twilight. Figures with black hair and tan garments moved about, and a herd of hundreds of ponies raised soft clouds of dust as they grazed in the shadow of Bear Butte.

  "It's amazing," Maddie murmured, and felt Fox's answering smile. "I feel as if I've dropped into one of the stories I used to read in Harper's Weekly. I never dreamed..."

  Fox thought of many responses to make, but none seemed sufficient. At length, as they drew nearer, he queried, "You're not frightened anymore?"

  A few older children were frolicking in the stream, and their giggles joined with the clear, musical sound of adult laughter. Maddie saw some men playing a game with stones while a group of women gathered wildflowers and wove them into one another's braids.

  "Frightened?" she echoed. "Of what?"

  Kills Hungry Bear, Striped Owl, and their escort of five rode ahead into the village. Moments later, the laughter stopped. People began to point up the hillside at their clumsy mules and wagon with Watson bringing up the rear. Kills Hungry Bear spoke animatedly to a group that formed rapidly. The men surrounding him appeared to be important, and Maddie wondered if Crazy Horse was among them. What if he proclaimed that she and Fox must die to pay for the sins of their race?

  Fragrant wisps of woodsmoke rose out of the tops of the tipis, which Maddie noticed were of varying sizes and generally larger than she had imagined. A great deal about the village was different from what she had imagined. Although the people had fallen silent as they watched the white intruders, moments before they had acted like human beings with minds, wits, and skills as well developed as anyone else's. These Indians appeared charmingly civilized. Who could say that this simpler style of living was less enlightened than the rowdy mayhem of white settlements like Deadwood? Maddie sighed, contemplating the seemingly endless series of paradoxes.

  "Don't worry," Fox said. "They're more frightened of you than you are of them."

  They had come to a stop a few dozen yards away from the group of conferring men. Fox reached over and absently squeezed Maddie's hand, and for an instant her world was condensed to his power to move her and the force of her feelings for him.

  The sound of whispering roused her. The young women who had been picking wildflowers stood quite near to the wagon, frozen with fright and curiosity. When Maddie looked at them, they gazed back with dark eyes alight with pride.

  Kills Hungry Bear returned to the wagon in the company of another, older man with an aquiline nose and penetrating eyes. Fox translated for Maddie as he was introduced as He Dog, a comrade of Crazy Horse's since childhood. It seemed that Crazy Horse himself was not in the village, but He Dog and the other men who formed the core of the last resistance against white efforts to manipulate the Indians in the Dakota Territory had agreed to allow Fox and Maddie to come into their village.

  "I thank you for your efforts on our behalf," Fox said, with a relieved smile.

  Kills Hungry Bear replied, "We need the rifles and ammunition you have brought to us, and some of the other men remember you when you lived among us on the plains. We do not trust as readily as we did then, but all agree that you earned the regard of the Lakota people for many seasons. This means more than promises on a piece of paper."

  He Dog nodded once, then spoke. "I, too, remember you, Fox-With-Blue-Eyes. I knew your father. He was there during my first real buffalo hunt when I was a boy. The land was black with buffalo and the ground shook under my horse. Your father urged me on when he sensed that I was frightened. His kindness stayed in my mind." A bittersweet note crept into He Dog's voice as he stared into the distance, back into the past. "Those times have gone with the buffalo. The whites have done us much harm, but I have not forgotten that there are real human beings among you."

  Fox couldn't speak for a moment as he imagined his father, whom he had loved so fiercely, hunting buffalo among the Lakota people. Even when Fox had first visited here, before Custer's expedition discovered gold in the Black Hills, the halcyon days of buffalo herds a million-strong and limitless freedom for the Indians were over. Zachary Matthews had been fortunate to dwell among the Lakota people when he had.

  With quiet dignity, the village welcomed Fox and Maddie into its midst. Kills Hungry Bear did not ask why Maddie was with Fox, or if they were married, and she didn't argue when he gave them his tipi to share. Secretly she was immensely happy for the opportunity to spend more time alone with Fox.

  She ducked down to enter, Fox followed her, and the flap dropped behind them. Surprised, Maddie stared at Fox with wide green eyes. "Is he leaving us now for the whole night? What about Sun Smile? When will we be able to ask about my sister?" She had already begun to wonder if Sun Smile had been one of the women who had gazed at her with such eloquence upon their arrival.

  "There's a certain amount of... etiquette, for lack of a better word, that must be observed," Fox replied. "After we rest a bit and settle in, I'll visit with Kills Hungry Bear for a while. With luck, the opportunity will arise for me to mention Sun Smile."

  A little furrow appeared in Maddie's brow. "Why can't you simply create an opportunity?"

  "The Lakota people don't admire
our tendency to just blurt out whatever question is on our mind. They prefer to be patient and allow life to reveal itself to them when the time is right." Seeing her frustration, he murmured, "I'll learn what I can."

  Maddie nodded, accepting that as the best he could offer, and turned her attention to their quarters. The tipi was thoroughly alien, yet surprisingly comfortable. Its compact frame consisted of a dozen willow poles over which were stretched soft buffalo hides neatly stitched together. In the middle at the top was a smoke flap; directly under, on the ground, were the remains of a fire. The rest of the floor was covered with grass and wildflowers, over which were spread rawhide rugs with the hair side turned up. Maddie reached for a velvety buckskin pillow, squeezed it, and asked, "What do they stuff them with?"

  Fox grinned. "Cottonwood floss."

  "How lovely!" Her face glowed with wonder.

  He pointed out other features of the home. Although at least two beds were customary, to accommodate a family, Kills Hungry Bear had only one. Roomy and inviting, it consisted of a mass of buffalo skins and pillows. Against the back wall was a painstakingly decorated hide that depicted the history of Kills Hungry Bear's family.

  "That can be removed from the wall and worn as a robe for important ceremonies," Fox explained. "Those bags hold all of his, and his family's, worldly goods. Do you see how they're decorated? Kills Hungry Bear's wife spent many hours mixing berries and earth to make paints, then she made each one into a work of art." He leaned over to pick up one of the handy rawhide bags and showed Maddie the added decorations of colored porcupine quills.

  She fingered them in amazement, then peeked inside the bag's opening. "What sorts of things does an Indian own?"

  Her curiosity was so artless that he succumbed. "I'll take Kills Hungry Bear's belongings to him when I go, but perhaps first we might look at one or two. Don't tell him, though!"

  "How would I do that?" she countered, with a wide smile.

  Fox's brow curved upward. "I am grateful for the language barrier. It's the only hope I have of censoring you in front of our hosts." He looked into the bag then and drew out a soft leather case. "This was made to hold a comb." Out of it he pulled a long, painted object that bore only a passing resemblance to the imported silver-plated comb Maddie owned.

  "Oh!" she exclaimed, reaching out to touch it while making a face.

  "It's a porcupine tail," Fox explained, straight-faced. "Clearly these people are clinging to their old ways, because a comb would be easy enough to trade for." Then he produced a smaller painted bag and opened it. "This is the art kit, you might say. Here are the brushes, and the turtlebacks they use for paint pots." When he held one out, Maddie touched it and smiled slowly. "In the other bags are clothing and moccasins. Over there is Kills Hungry Bear's own supply of food, and his utensils. It doesn't look like he has much, and I would expect him to have more beds, a bigger tipi, and more painted decorations. It's almost as if he doesn't have a family."

  "Does he have a wife?"

  "I'm certain he had just married when I left his tribe three years ago. Little Dove was her name, I think." Pensive, Fox gazed at the tipi walls, where the usual array of long, carved pipes hung in fringed cases, along with a bow and arrows in a quiver, and a bag that held Kills Hungry Bear's war bonnet looped over the tripod above the bed. It was all normal enough, but there were no feminine touches. "Well, I suppose I should take these things to him and see what he's prepared to tell me."

  Maddie watched as he gathered up Kills Hungry Bear's painted bags and felt a tremor of anxiety. She was quite hungry, too, and warm.

  Throwing back the door flap, Fox scrambled into the violet-hued evening air and reached back inside to collect Kills Hungry Bear's belongings. Then, as if seeing into Maddie's mind, he said, "I can open other flaps around the tipi if you're hot. It's common practice during the summer. You'll be much more comfortable if you don't mind a few curious looks from your new neighbors."

  "Not just yet, I don't think," she said doubtfully. "But perhaps I'll keep this flap open."

  "It's a sign of welcome for guests," he warned.

  "Oh, Fox, I can't keep track of all these new rules!" Maddie gave an exasperated sigh. "I'll just take my chances with the guests, as long as they are friendly... and you bring me something to eat right now!"

  After he'd fetched their own sack of food from the wagon, Maddie chewed vigorously on a strip of jerky and watched him go off into the village in search of his old friend. Consumed by curiosity and a nagging flutter of trepidation, she continued to gaze outside, but stayed well back in the shadows. Children and dogs continued to scamper through the village. One man passed, laughing, with his son riding on his back. Families were beginning to gather inside their tipis, lowering the side flaps since the night promised to be cooler.

  Maddie's heartbeat quieted as she absorbed the sense of peace and harmony that prevailed. No one was going to leap on her and scalp her if she let down her guard. Edging nearer the opening of her tipi, she leaned forward to get a better look. The stream purled in the distance and the shiny leaves of the cottonwoods gleamed silver in the light of the rising moon. A young woman led her pony back from the stream. As she neared Kills Hungry Bear's tipi, Maddie swallowed a gasp. What could be the matter with this girl? She was filthy, streaked with some sort of brownish grayish mess; her dress was ragged and dirty, her hair uncombed and apparently unwashed, and she chanted to herself as if she were mad.

  Maddie drew back as the woman passed, uncertain whether or not she might be dangerous. Actually the girl was quite lovely, Maddie noticed, under the dirt that caked her skin and hair and the ragged buckskin garments. Her form was lithe and gracefully curved. Her features were almost classically delicate, unlike the broader faces of most of the other Lakota women. How tragic it would be if someone so young and lovely had descended into madness!

  Then, as if feeling Madeleine's stare, the girl turned slowly and gazed into the tipi's opening. To Maddie's further consternation, the haunted eyes that met hers were dove gray, thickly lashed, and eerily familiar.

  Chapter 17

  August 6-7, 1876

  After Fox took Kills Hungry Bear his belongings and the young man had handed them into the tipi where he would sleep during the white visitors' sojourn in the village, the two friends went off to unload the rifles and supplies from the wagon. Exclamations of surprise and pleasure were heard as He Dog and some of the other Lakota men joined in. They built a bonfire nearby so that they could see the crates as they were opened. Everyone was shocked by the quantity and quality of the gifts Fox had brought from Deadwood.

  "You have been very generous," He Dog said as he inspected bags of sugar and coffee. "Our supply of food is small. Buffalo are scarce and, of course, we do not take rations from the agency. However, we have a priceless commodity that is not available at the agency: freedom." His nostrils flared as he spoke the word. "Your people think that the land belongs to them or to us, when in truth it is no man's to buy or sell. The land and the sky and all that lies between belong to Wakan Tanka, the Grandfather of us all! Your people do not listen to simple truths. They take what they want if it is not given freely! Your people—"

  "Please." Fox held up his hand. "I know you are angry at the white people, but as you said before, we are not all the same."

  "No." He Dog took a deep breath, calming. "That's true. I have been unfair. As you said, we are angry."

  "Why did you bring so many guns and so much food?" Kills Hungry Bear asked. "It is very good of you!"

  "I brought them, but they are a gift from a man named Stephen Avery. Do you know of him? He spent a winter with a band of Lakota people many seasons ago. In fact, the woman who came with me is Stephen Avery's daughter." He waited to see if anyone would encourage him to continue.

  "Huh." Kills Hungry Bear looked bored and the other men had begun carrying the crates of rifles away. "Those are repeaters? Most of us are spoiled now for the bow and arrow since we found repeating rifle
s."

  The abrupt change in topic let Fox know that Stephen Avery's name was known to Kills Hungry Bear and the others. Perhaps his old friend even guessed why Maddie had come, but clearly no one wished to talk about Sun Smile—at least not yet. The Lakota took life one event, one subject, at a time and did not believe in rushing things. Fox was familiar enough with their ways to realize that Kills Hungry Bear would give him a cue when the time was right. His only problem was explaining the concept of patience to Maddie.

  When the work was done and Watson and the mules had been watered and fed, Kills Hungry Bear suggested that Fox and he climb up Bear Butte and smoke.

  They didn't go far. The bonfire was still in sight when they hunkered down on a rocky ledge and exchanged Kills Hungry Bear's pipe. Its bowl, of soft red stone, was carved in the shape of a bear, and its long stem was fashioned of gray ash wood. Plainly made, Fox recognized that this was his friend's everyday pipe, yet the ritual they shared would always be meaningful. When both men had smoked and shared a few minutes of silence, Fox spoke in a quiet voice.

  "Your tobacco is good. Not too strong."

  Kills Hungry Bear nodded, his eyes closed. "I mixed it with some willow bark and bearberries. Maybe a little bit of sumac leaves, too." He drew slowly on the pipe, then said, "The bluecoats are coming for us, I suppose. That is why you brought so many rifles. I guessed that it would happen, after we killed Long Hair and his soldiers at the Greasy Grass River. Some think that they will leave us alone now, but it will not happen. For every white man we kill, countless more come to take his place."

  He fell silent, smoking, then added, "They will not let us have a victory. We will be punished for fighting for our lives and our freedom."

  Fox said nothing at first. He looked at Kills Hungry Bear with his melancholy black eyes, proud features, and bronzed skin. Strips of fur were twisted around his freshly braided hair. As the pipe was handed back to him, it came to Fox how remarkable this simple ceremony was that they shared. When men passed the pipe and opened themselves, they could, together, cross a bridge from the earthly world to the spiritual. How little the white race knew of the mysteries of the universe.