Beauty for Ashes

by Win Blevins

  Sam got jerked in head over heels.

  The cold was a universe he’d never known. It felt not like liquid, but a weight, an immense, crushing weight. In one instant he knew he was going to die, and the next instant he burst out of the water for breath.

  When the water reached only to his waist, it was merely agonizing.

  “Lucky you hold on to the rope,” said Bell Rock.

  Coy looked for a long moment and then jumped into the pool. He skittered out just as fast.

  The medicine hat stood in the pool up to her withers. Her eyes rolled and she trembled all over. Maybe it was from the cold, or maybe from being held on the lead by Sam—she was looking at Sam insanely.

  She couldn’t rear or crow-hop or buck, or act up any other way. The deep water put a stop to that. Now Sam began to get what Bell Rock was doing.

  Bell Rock stuck the saddle pad out at Sam. “Put it on her.”

  Sam did.

  The medicine hat shivered when the pad hit her back. But she stayed still.

  Sam reached to touch her muzzle and the horse threw her head. “Won’t let me touch her.”

  “Be glad she’s not trampling you,” said Bell Rock. “Lead her around in a circle.”

  Sam did. Unexplainably, his legs sort of worked.

  “Put your hands on the apishemore.”

  Sam did. The medicine hat twitched, but no more than that.

  “Take this rope, tie the apishemore on.” He handed Sam about ten feet of line braided from rawhide.

  Sam had to dip arms and shoulders down into the cold to bring the rope around. He wanted to screech. But he knew if the mare wasn’t deep in water, she would have been kicking the hell out of him.

  “Enough for now,” said Bell Rock.

  At the tipi they staked the mare with the saddle pad still tied on.

  Sam got out of his wet clothes and into his capote. Then he straddled the low center fire for a long moment, feeling the warmth climb up his legs to the middle region. He sighed loudly. After a couple of minutes he rejoined his friends outside.

  “Look,” said Bell Rock.

  The medicine hat had lost interest in what was on her back and was munching on some winter-brown grass.

  “Let’s give her bark of the sweet cottonwood.” They did. Of the two kinds of cottonwood, horses liked the bark of this one. “You will always stake her by the lodge, always bring her food, never turn her out with the horse herds.”

  Sam nodded. He got it. Not that he had any horse herds to turn her out with.

  When they went back to the pool later, they got the saddle on the medicine hat, and left it on. That evening Sam tried to uncinch the saddle, but the mare kicked at him and crow-hopped in every direction. Back to the pool, back into the cold, and off with the saddle.

  The next day they left it on all the next day and scarcely worked with the horse, except to lead it around. When the sun was almost behind the mountain, Bell Rock said, “Soon comes the great moment.”

  THAT EVENING SAM stood fidgeting near Meadowlark’s lodge. His feet were freezing, so he stomped them. “They’ll never be warm again,” he told Coy, and cursed the river.

  Coy whimpered. Sam could never tell what that meant. He thought maybe it was, “I’m sorry I don’t understand what you’re saying, friend.” Coy sat patiently, his butt on the chill earth. Snow seldom stuck in this high valley of the Wind River, but the ground was plenty cold. It didn’t seem to bother Coy. “Lucky fellow, you grow your own coat.” It was thick, too. First winter on Earth, but Coy knew what to do to stay warm, or accepted the cold as part of living.

  Tonight Red Roan was taking his time, seemed like all the time he damn well wanted, with Meadowlark. Sam’s practice now was to stand with his back to them and glance over a shoulder once in a while. He couldn’t stand to see Meadowlark looking happily up into Red Roan’s face, maybe even adoringly. Every night when Red Roan walked away, Coy yipped a little to let Sam know.

  Sam looked around at the lodge circle. Every tipi had a fire inside, and they glowed like lanterns in the midwinter darkness. Children were playing games in those tipis. Stories were being told. Women were beading moccasins, or other clothing. People were sitting close to the fire, or cozying between buffalo and elk robes. Sam stomped his feet hard.

  A tap on the shoulder.

  He made himself turn slowly, unbelieving. Yes, Red Roan.

  The chief’s son said slowly in the Crow language, as though speaking to a child, “You are training the horse. Good. Soon I teach the young men to shoot bow and arrow well. You want learn?” A big smile accompanied the invitation.

  Sam thought how desperate he had been when he had only eleven balls left for his rifle, how near he had come to starvation. Though making arrows was laborious, going to the settlements for ammunition was harder.

  This invitation seemed generous. “Yes.”

  Fear bit at his breath. Was this some trick?

  “At the half moon,” the big man padded away, light on his feet.

  Sam stepped close to Meadowlark, wrapped in her blanket. Now he could forget about his feet. “I love you,” he said. This was the way he began the courting each evening.

  “I am glad to see you,” she answered with a smile. She looked at him adoringly. Every night he tried to figure out whether this was the same look she gave Red Roan, but he never could.

  He reached out and took the hands that held her blankets clasped. She squeezed his fingers, reached down, and picked up Coy. At about eight months the pup was getting big to pick up, though it seemed he was going to be a small coyote. Still, Meadowlark picked him up every evening. Sam wondered if that was her way of preventing him from embracing her, kissing her. He watched her nuzzle Coy with her face. Yes, she liked him. Sam had seen the delight on her face when this little animal responded well to Sam’s commands. Crows didn’t train their dogs like this, or pet them. She buried her nose in Coy’s fur and rocked him. Maybe she is avoiding holding hands with me.

  He told her about his day, what his progress was with Bell Rock and Blue Horse to train the medicine hat as a buffalo runner. He laughed at himself about the awful cold of the river. After a look of surprise—did Crow men confess weaknesses like this?—she laughed too.

  Then he took a risk. “Red Roan offered to teach me, along with the other young men, how to shoot the bow and arrow well. Is he trying to fool me?”

  “He’s a good man,” she said.

  But there was something she wasn’t saying.

  “And…?”

  “I trust him.” She smiled like a pixie. “He and Blue Dog are rivals, maybe a little. Red Roan is a war leader. My brother wants to be.” After a moment she added, “My brother is a natural leader. Everyone has high hopes for him.”

  She gave him the news of her day. She was sewing elk teeth onto a dress. Sam knew it took a long time to collect enough of these rear teeth to decorate an entire dress. When she was finished with that, she would trim the yoke, sleeves and neckline with red wool strouding her mother had traded for. She gave Sam a look like, You’re special because you brought this cloth to our village. The dress, altogether, would be very beautiful. She would save it for an important occasion, he knew. He hoped she would save it for the day she came to him and they set up their own lodge, together.

  Coy mewled. Gray Hawk was sticking his head out of the lodge. “Time to come in,” he told Meadowlark.

  She gave Sam’s hand a squeeze, set Coy down, and darted into the tipi.

  Sam stood and looked at the sides of the lodge, shaped into flat planes by the poles. The fire was lower than half an hour ago. The family would sleep soon, and sleep warm, the parents in the robes at the back, the two daughters on the north side near the door.

  Sam wished he had a family.

  He strode out of the lodge circle, toward the quarters of the young men and the lodge of the trappers. There a fire would be waiting, and meat, and stories. Gideon, Beckwourth, and Third Wing were such storytellers th
at Sam could only listen, amazed.

  He turned and looked again at the circle of relatives, peoples who made their lives together. The fires were low, making the lodges ghostly pyramids against the black night.

  Again Sam wished he had a family.

  THE GREAT MOMENT Bell Rock promised…

  All right. Sam took a deep breath, or as deep as he could get, standing waist deep in this river. The cold made him want to scream.

  Blue Horse held the medicine hat’s reins. The friends grinned at each other, comrades in being foolish enough to get into this river in midwinter.

  Bell Rock handed Sam the saddle pad and the saddle. The use of this saddle was Bell Rock’s concession to Sam’s being white. He arranged and smoothed the pad, taking his time. He set the saddle loosely on the medicine hat’s back. No sense in hurrying when your next job is to…He just did it, as quick as he could. Ducked down into the water, grabbed the cinch, slid it through the double ring, pulled down hard.

  Stand up! Out of the crush of the cold! He looked at Bell Rock, glad his teacher didn’t know how poor the cinching job was.

  He thought, bit his lip, ducked down again, and pulled the cinch tighter. The worst thing he could do, the first time on this horse, was to step in the stirrup and pull the saddle underneath her belly.

  He gripped the saddle horn, stirruped the foot, and swung onto her back.

  The mare stood still.

  Maybe she rolled her eyes at Blue Horse, standing in front of her muzzle holding the reins. But she didn’t buck. Couldn’t, actually. He felt her quiver. He grinned madly. She was overloaded. The cold pummeling her senses. A man invading her back. And the deep water keeping her from doing what every instinct screamed for—to buck this man off.

  He sat there, triumphant. He looked at the Wind River Mountains on the southwest, their snowy summits remote against a crystalline sky. He looked at the crazy jumble of red hills on the northeast, footstools of the Absaroka Mountains, strange, barren mazes. He grinned at Blue Horse, then at Bell Rock.

  He swung down. The cold made his bones holler at him. He stepped around to the mare’s muzzle, looked her in the eye. He put a hand on the muzzle.

  For the first time she didn’t throw her head.

  “Trade breath with her,” Bell Rock said.

  Sam looked up at him.

  “Bend down, nose to nose. Let your breath go into her nostrils. Let her breath come into yours.”

  He did. Warm breath, warm muzzle—it was almost like kissing. He forced himself not to laugh. He looked into the mare’s eyes. Do we understand each other better, the breath and spirit of you in me, the breath and spirit of me in you?

  A memory seared him. The first night he dreamed of melding with the buffalo, the buffalo melding with him. One creature. “Samalo,” he murmured then.

  He stood back. Once more, now confident, he stirruped the foot and swung up. She quivered less this time. Once more he surveyed the world from horseback. Then he swung down and waded fast out of the water.

  His lungs quit squeezing against the cold. He breathed normally for the first time in long minutes. “Enough,” he said to Blue Horse, and his friend brought the mare up.

  Coy ran up and jumped on him until Sam petted the pup.

  Getting on was achievement enough for Sam this morning. He would give her sweet cottonwood bark now, a thank-you.

  “Let’s go get warm, Coy. Let’s stand by the fire.” He wanted to fill both their bellies with meat and the hot liquid it floated in.

  “YOU CONDUCT THE sweat lodge ceremony?” Sam asked Bell Rock. They sat behind the center fire of Sam’s lodge, dipping meat from the pot. It was their custom, the three of them, to lunch together after the morning’s training session.

  “Yes.”

  “What does it do?”

  Bell Rock looked away and slowly put out some words. “The sweat lodge is the womb, our mother. We go inside and invite the powers to come, the four directions, Mother Earth, Father Sky…. Whoever is in the lodge with me, he maybe asks them for something. He asks for help for his family and his people, that they have good lives. If someone’s sick, he asks for healing. He’s uncertain, he asks what to do. He has a problem, he asks for guidance. If he’s a young man, he asks for a vision, then he goes on the mountain and looks for it.”

  Bell Rock looked into the pot for a moment, like he saw something other than meat in its rich juices.

  Sam blurted out, “I had a dream. Will you help me understand it?”

  Bell Rock said gently, “You ask me? Why not ask other beaver men?”

  Sam felt like his tongue was lashed to a post. He stammered three or four times before he got out any words. “Hannibal McKye. My friend. Six months ago on the banks of the Missouri River. I told Hannibal my dream of…this buffalo.” He started to say something about the mystic buffalo, but some sense said no—keep it for the sweat lodge.

  “Hannibal’s the only person I ever told. Hannibal said, ‘Do a sweat lodge, tell a medicine man.’”

  Sam looked at Bell Rock and Blue Horse. He reached for Coy and slid the pup onto his lap.

  “Tell me more.”

  Now Sam must descend into a morass, or was it ascending into realms of fantasy? The Missouri River was within Bell Rock’s ken, but Dartmouth College, a school founded in New England to teach Indians? Latin and Greek?

  He blundered forward. “Hannibal McKye is an important man in my life. He’s the son—it’s hard even for me to believe it—of a man who teaches languages at a school for Indians, that man and one of his students, a Delaware woman. Delawares are Indians who live a hundred sleeps away, near the water-everywhere to the east. Hannibal reads a lot of languages, but he hunts and tracks and wears hides like any Indian. He is an Indian. And a white man, all at once. I met him by accident, it was like he was an angel.” On top of what must already mystify Bell Rock, “angel” wouldn’t do. “A spirit messenger.” Sam spread his hands in futility. “He said, ‘Do a sweat lodge, tell a medicine man.’”

  Bell Rock waited, looking into Sam’s eyes, maybe hunting for something. “You ask me for a sweat lodge, I do it as a gift.”

  “Ordinarily,” said Blue Horse, “you give a medicine man a horse in return for this ceremony.” Blue Horse’s way was always to be a little formal and do things entirely the right way.

  “As a gift,” Bell Rock repeated, “I help you with your dream.”

  BELL ROCK UNTIED the thong that held his breechcloth up, and it dropped. He stepped out of the last of his garments, his moccasins. He and Blue Horse looked expectantly at Sam.

  “It’s ready. Go in, crawl sunwise around the lodge, and sit by the door.” Bell Rock made a clockwise circle with his hand to indicate the way Sam should go.

  As Sam slipped out of his hide trousers, a flash of memory hit him. When he had first been naked with a woman, Katherine, now his brother’s wife, he had flushed with embarrassment. She laughed at how his pink skin looked against his white hair.

  He knew he was flushing now. Off with the shirt, off with the moccasins, stand naked in the February cold. He shivered in one big jerk. It wasn’t just the cold, but what was coming—or maybe the fact that he had no idea what was coming. He studied the lodge, which looked a bowl turned upside down. The inside would be low and dark, room only to sit or crouch. And it would be very, very dark.

  That feeling lightninged. Once in a while it came up—I’m living among an alien people. One day will they…? It always gave him a flicker of panic.

  What was really going to happen behind that lodge door? Blackness, chanting, strangeness, maybe a kind of madness. From here he could see the lava rocks in the hole in the center. Some spots glowed faintly red, like a warning. He knew Bell Rock would pour water on them and make steam. He had heard it got really hot.

  “Your dream is waiting for you,” said Bell Rock.

  Sam sucked in his breath, thought of the buffalo, dipped low, and went.

  The lodge was pleasantly warm. He
crawled to the spot instructed and sat. Close to the lava rocks, his shins felt half ready to blister.

  Bell Rock slipped in and sat on the other side of the door.

  Coy yipped, and Sam saw Blue Horse grab him and pull him back. “No dogs in the lodge,” Blue Horse shouted in English. Bell Rock grinned and called out, “Might as well talk to him in Crow—he speaks both the same!” Sam laughed and felt better.

  Blue Horse handed in a bucket and dipper.

  Sam smiled wryly. The bucket—at least there was something white-man in this place.

  “Wet your hair if you want,” said Bell Rock. He dipped his hands in the bucket and slicked his own with the water. Sam followed suit.

  “Close the door,” called Bell Rock. Blue Horse did. Bell Rock told him where to tuck it at the bottom. In moments the sweat lodge was as dark a place as Sam could remember. He couldn’t see his own knees. “Now I’m throwing cedar on the rocks,” Bell Rock said.

  A sharp smell hit Sam’s nostrils, pungent but good.

  “First I’m going to warm up the lodge.” Sam heard a faint splash of water and then a big h-i-s-s-s. Steam ate at his nostrils.

  “I’m going to pour four rounds,” said Bell Rock. “Four pours the first round, seven the second, ten the third, and the fourth uncounted.” Sam wasn’t sure what he meant by “pours.” Dipperfuls?

  “This is your first time. You may get uncomfortable. If you do, put your head down on the ground. It will be cooler there. If you get really uncomfortable, put your nose in the corner, where the lodge cover meets the ground. Try it.”

  Sam did. Right there the air was almost cold.

  “Now you know you can take care of yourself.”

  H-i-s-s-s! A roar came from the rocks. Steam erupted around Sam’s face and chest, almost scalding. He forced himself to stay upright.

  Bell Rock began to pray. Sam couldn’t remember most of the prayer later. He knew Bell Rock called to each of the four directions and invited them into the lodge.

  H-i-s-s-s! Sam thought, I don’t know if I can stand this. He told himself he had to stand it. If he embarrassed himself, everyone would hear about it, Meadowlark included. The feeling of being closed in was oppressive, maybe worse than the heat.