Beauty for Ashes

by Win Blevins

  To say it more directly—“A man is going to hold a sun dance. His name is Samalo, and he comes from Rides Twice’s village”—that would have been entirely improper.

  Since a sun dance was a rare event, the people asked each other who had pledged to make this ceremony, who the whistler would be.

  At first it seemed that no one knew. Then the news was traced to the village led by Rides Twice, and the name Samalo came forth.

  Samalo? It was a name no one recognized.

  Some said that it meant Joins with Buffalo in the white-man language.

  “White man?” people whispered to each other.

  “Samalo?”

  Many people were skeptical. Why would a white man seek to become a whistler? Why would he seek a vision of revenge? What relative of his died at the hands of the enemy?

  The answers were vague and contradictory. Sometimes the words “son of Gray Hawk” were spoken, but no one was sure.

  Many asked, “Should we join in a ceremony where a white man is the whistler?”

  Some answered, “If the Effigy Owner brings the medicine, we must.”

  Young men said to themselves, “Should I shed my blood in a lodge where a white man is the whistler? Seek a vision?”

  Some answered, “The medicine of the effigy is not often with us. I must seek a vision.”

  More answered, “This is very strange.”

  Fortunately, there were buffalo to hunt. Thousands of buffalo.

  Chapter Nineteen

  THE HERD SPREAD itself out over thousands of acres, over plain, through ravine, in the creek, up the hill, hard against the canyon walls. Vast as a forest, it covered the earth to the end of sight in three directions. Unlike a forest, it could get up and haul tail. When it did, it would be the biggest, wildest, stompingest beast…Sam couldn’t even imagine it.

  He grinned sideways at Flat Dog, and his head did a little dipsy-doo. Meat for the winter. Also, a chance to prove Paladin was a fine buffalo runner.

  They were lying on a low cedar ridge on the southeast edge of the herd, overlooking it all. Lodge Creek, meandering through the middle, was visible only because its cottonwoods stood tall and yellow-leaved above the dark brown mass. Most of the Kit Foxes of Rides Twice’s village were near Sam and Flat Dog, some on the ridge, some a hundred strides back holding the horses. Those were the orders.

  Red Roan’s sister held Coy well back from the action. Red Roan gave a strict order, unwilling for the coyote to come anywhere near the herd.

  That was the other part Sam could hardly believe. Of all human beings he’d been around, the Crows were the least likely to give anyone orders, or take them. Even in a battle, each man fought individually, according to his own lights. They didn’t seek victory as a group, but honors as individuals. In anything you did, if you said your medicine was that you should act in such-and-such a way, no one would bother you about it.

  Apparently, the buffalo hunt was run just the other way.

  The hunters divided themselves into their soldier clubs, Kit Foxes, Knobby Sticks, and Muddy Hands. Each club in each village was assigned a position and a strategy.

  Those buffalo in that draw? Cut them off from the others and shoot them from above.

  That bunch of cows? Disguise yourself in wolf skins, or as bushes, creep as close as you can, and shoot silently.

  Slip around into those trees, ease up close, and get as many as you can without stirring them up.

  Most important: No one was to show himself on a ridge top on horseback. No one was to shout or wave a blanket. If anyone had a gun, he was not to fire it too soon. No one was to make a ruckus.

  Inevitably, at some time, the herd would get agitated. They would chuff and stomp. They would mill about. They would run.

  A herd of several thousand head at a full run, hooves flying, tails waving, heads bobbing, horns waving menacingly. Sam wanted to see that, and he was scared as hell of being in the middle of it.

  His Naughty Ones were assigned to wait and watch. The quiet killing would be done by the most experienced hunters among the Little Foxes. When the stampede began, so would the chase.

  Sam could see Little Foxes from his village sneaking toward an edge of the herd. They held big pieces of sagebrush in front of them as they crawled over a low ridge. In the coulee, out of the sight of the buffalo, they ran swiftly. On the next ridge they became sagebrush again, and wormed forward slowly.

  Others were wolves, padding forward on all fours, their faces hidden behind wolf muzzles.

  After a long while Sam began to see arrows whizzing through the air. Cows faltered. Some fell. If the opportunity was right, every hunter would shoot at cows—bull meat was tough and stringy.

  In eerie silence the hunters tried to strike mortal blows, but not to finish the buffalo now. Plenty of time for that later.

  When a cow would fall, the animals near her would mill around her body, poke her with their horns, and kick at her. They clustered around any fallen one, sniffed, bawled out plaints of loss.

  Twice some bulls acted wild, like the smell of blood from their kind drove them mad. They ran forward and licked the wounds. Once two of them lifted a dead cow off the ground with their horns. Tongues thick with blood, eyes aglow, the bulls were an awful spectacle.

  But they didn’t run off. Everything but that. Sam remembered that the trappers sometimes called slow-minded people “buffler-witted.” Now he knew why.

  Finally, one bull pawed the ground and let out a terrible roar, deep and wild. He ran out toward the hunters, threw his rump in the air as he pivoted on his big front legs, and dashed back to the herd.

  A few more arrows…

  The herd fidgeted. Cows ran around directionless. Two bulls charged each other and banged heads fiercely. Sam felt like he should hear collision, but it was too far away.

  Suddenly Red Roan jumped onto his horse. He yelled, “Yi-ay-ii-ay,” and galloped toward the herd.

  The Kit Foxes flung themselves on their mounts and charged. Everyone yelled and waved blankets.

  The herd hesitated, quivered, and ran.

  In headlong panic beasts sprinted in every direction. They crashed into each other. They attacked the horses bearing down on them. With wonderful agility the mounts evaded the slashing horns, and the riders maneuvered into position alongside for a bow shot, or the thrust of a spear or lance.

  Far to the left, far to the right, all around this end of the herd, Sam heard the hunters shouting as they attacked. Clots of buffalo here and there began to run, like arms and legs of a single great beast.

  Suddenly, as though a gong sounded in the brain of every buffalo, they all ran north along the creek.

  Sam heard something he’d never heard before. He felt it in his skin—it vibrated in his bones. Ten thousand buffalo hooves pounded the earth in a fury. It seemed as though the earth itself, under the great tramp, trembled.

  Suddenly, a bull pivoted at full speed and charged a rider in front of Sam. The horse hesitated, or perhaps stumbled. A horn caught a hindquarter. A terrible whinny squealed out against death. The rider was down and out of sight, perhaps trampled, perhaps running for his life.

  Paladin sprinted headlong at a speed Sam didn’t know she had. He used no reins, but she responded perfectly to his knees. As though by instinct, without guidance, she drew alongside a good cow.

  Sam drew the big horn bow far back and whizzed an arrow into the cow.

  Hit! And well hit! She staggered.

  Now he could see only about a hundred buffalo, a dozen riders. The air grew rank with the smell of dust and dung, blood and urine. Sam drew, aimed, shot, drew, aimed, shot. His veins sang an exultant and terrible song of slaughter.

  Abruptly, the trap was sprung. A score of buffalo closed in on him. Pretending only to stampede, they crowded Paladin, penned her in, bumped her. Was she going down?

  Sam got a flash of his brain being trampled by hooves.

  Paladin eased her stride and slid out to the right.
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  Clear! Safe!

  The trap again! Buffalo thick about him, so close a hand couldn’t pass between them, jostling, screaming, and always pounding forward in headlong panic.

  Crash!

  Sam pitched off.

  Insanely, he sprawled over the back of a buffalo and bounced. He kicked wildly, slammed onto the back of another one. He roared with crazy laughter. Maybe I’ll walk on buffalo to the edge of the herd.

  Whumpf!

  He hit the ground ferociously. His breath was knocked away. Before he could pass out, his mind screamed at him to get on his feet.

  A cow nearly ran right over him. His dodge was slow, and her shoulder knocked him headlong.

  On your feet!

  He charged against the stream of buffalo, waving his bow. Dashing about, he stuck two fingers in his mouth and pierced the air with his shrill whistle.

  Could it be heard? In this tumult nothing else…

  Suddenly Paladin was alongside him.

  He made the highest, cleanest leap of his life onto her back.

  They got the hell out of there.

  Two cows sprinted away from the herd at a tangent.

  Sam galloped after and whanged an arrow into one.

  But a fever seized him. He had to be part of the great, running, weaving beast of madness again.

  He steered Paladin into the herd. He rode, he shot, he rode, he shot, addicted to the pell-mell of blood and death.

  Until he ran out of arrows.

  Then he arced out of the herd. Slowly, drained, he looked around. Black carcasses dotted the earth behind him. Women and children flocked around them like birds drawn to carrion. He rode slowly among them. The women slit the great animals from throat to genitals. The guts spilled out into the dust. Huge flaps of skin, pulled onto the prairies like tables, held heart and liver, glistening.

  He looked for his arrows. Some laid on the ground, but most stuck out of buffalo flesh, usually several in one animal. He found three of the great masses of meat he had felled. He didn’t have to think about the meat. He’d asked Flat Dog to give all but one to his family.

  Flat Dog brought back this reply: The family wanted no meat from Joins with Buffalo, but their women would butcher it and give it to the elderly.

  He watched the women butcher out tens of thousands of pounds of meat. They would load it on pack horses to haul back to camp, and everyone would feast.

  He retrieved his arrows. Most would be fine to use again.

  A woman he recognized from Rides Twice’s village walked up to him and held out something bloody. A huge, raw piece of liver. He took it with both hands. It wanted to slither away and plop into the dust, but he sank his fingers in. Blood and juices ran over his hands and down his arms. He lifted the liver to his mouth, sank his teeth in, and swallowed a big piece raw. Something primal thrummed in him.

  Chapter Twenty

  THE PEOPLE STAYED in one big camp to dry the meat on head-high racks over low flames. Also, with mixed feelings, they stayed to prepare for the great ceremony, and be part of it.

  True, they did save the tongues, but some talked against it. “This isn’t right,” they whispered. “One man, Bell Rock, has no authority to decide for the whole tribe. Joins with Buffalo isn’t a Crow.” That was all, but it was plenty.

  They also told and retold the story of what happened on that ill-fated raid, how Sam led a good young man to his death. “A man who would go to war against the Head Cutters without medicine. What is he, crazy?” People snorted and spat in disgust.

  The meat on the racks drove Coy wild. Sam found him scraps. When Coy did a good job of riding on Paladin’s back, he got rewarded.

  Bell Rock brought it up to Sam directly. “This talk is no accident,” he said. They were broiling hump ribs over the supper fire. It seemed to Sam that all he did now was work on arrows between huge bouts of meat consumption. He threw Coy a half-eaten rib and looked questioningly at Bell Rock.

  “Two people, Yellow Horn and his wife Owl Woman, they started all this talk, and they’re spreading it.”

  Yellow Horn and Owl Woman. Sam knew vaguely who they were. They lived in Rides Twice’s village. Sounded like he should find out why they were causing trouble. He said, “Maybe I should talk to them.”

  Bell Rock shook his head. “After the dance.” He gnawed. “Or after the raid.”

  After the raid. Bell Rock spoke like his confidence was perfect. But Sam’s wasn’t. Maybe in the ceremony he’d get a vision of revenge, maybe he wouldn’t. If he didn’t, he damn well wasn’t leading any raid of revenge. He’d learned that lesson. He rubbed Coy’s head.

  Bell Rock said, “I have a lot to do to get ready for the dance.”

  So Sam spent time learning how to make pemmican from Bell Rock’s wife, Coming-from-the-Water. Her daughters smiled at Sam learning women’s work, but he figured he’d better learn how to do everything he could. He was living on a thin edge.

  What the Crow people made from the buffalo was astounding. It was nearly their entire diet, roasted, boiled, jerked, or stored as pemmican. The organ meat was treasured, the liver often eaten raw, the gall drunk as spice. The bones were cracked for marrow. The intestines were kept to make boudins, a sausage some white men thought the finest of all Indian delicacies. They saved the tallow as butter, and sun-dried strips of back fat for a gourmet treat.

  The list of what they made other than edibles seemed endless. Men used the thick skin of the head for shields, or turned the horns and head into a hat. A horn might become a container for powder. A good hide, beautifully tanned by a woman, became a calendar. Men recorded each year’s happenings as pictures on these robes.

  Beyond that, it was women’s work. Winter hides, finely tanned with the hair on, became blankets to sleep under, or wraps to wear, thick moccasins against the cold, or surfaces for the geometrical paintings made by women. Summer hides, with the hair removed, turned into lodge covers. After they’d served their purpose as lodge covers, they became parfleches, handsomely decorated boxes where family belongings were kept. Or summer moccasins. Or leggings. Or they could be put to all the uses of rawhide, even making dolls for children.

  The hide was just the beginning. The sinew became thread, and splitting it for thickness was a valued skill. The hooves became rattles, or were boiled to make glue.

  It was all more than Sam could remember.

  The business at hand, though, was making sure of enough pemmican. First he dried the meat thoroughly, which took several days. Coy and the camp dogs went around with their muzzles up during the drying—the smell of the meat drove them wild. But it was spread in strips on racks as high as a tall man’s head.

  Then Sam pounded the dried meat into small shreds. For some reason, Coy thought this was funny, and made playful runs at the meat while Sam whacked it on a flat stone. Meanwhile, he had fat melting in a pot. While the fat was getting runny, he and Coy gathered chokecherries and serviceberries. Then, still under instruction, Sam dumped in handfuls of the berries into the fat and mixed that concoction with the meat, equal parts by weight. Last, he stuffed the whole tightly into a skin sack and sewed it shut.

  The result was kind of like a sausage made by the Pennsylvania Dutch, Sam thought. “It will last for months, even years,” said Coming-from-the-Water. “Especially if you don’t feed it to the coyote.”

  When Sam showed Bell Rock a sack of pemmican he’d made, Bell Rock said a little gruffly, “It’s past time for everything but your journey to the lodge of the sun. Sit down and we’ll smoke a little.”

  Sam patted the ground behind him and instructed Coy to sit. The little coyote had gotten good at keeping still for long periods.

  They smoked Bell Rock’s pipe this time, observing all the small rituals that were proper. Then Bell Rock went into his lodge and came back bearing something wrapped in deer hide. With an air of respect he set it between them.

  “The sun dance effigies,” he began, “they came to the people in the following way. D
ances Four Times was fasting on a mountain when he saw, to the west, seven men standing on another mountain.”

  Sam knew that “fasting on a mountain” was an oblique way of saying, seeking a vision. Lots of what the Crow people talked about, if it was important, they spoke of at a slant.

  “Before them a woman stood, holding an effigy in front of her face. The men beat drums with skunks painted on them and sang songs. Dances Four Times memorized the songs.

  “He looked away for a moment, and when he looked back, they were standing on a closer hill. When he looked away and then looked back again, they were walking across a nearby bluff. When he looked away the fourth time, he heard a noise where he was, and there they were sitting beside him.

  “The Moon—for the woman was the Moon—stood with the effigy wrapped in buckskin in her hands. Again the men began to sing. At the close of the first song, without any movement from Moon, the effigy’s head popped out of the wrapping. At the end of the second song, Moon shook the bundle and stepped back. The effigy revealed its arms. When the third song was finished, it exposed itself to the waist. At the conclusion of the fourth song, the effigy appeared wholly, in the form of a screech owl.”

  Sam stared at the bundle in front of him, curious about what the effigy looked like.

  “The owl perched on Moon’s head, and then on the chest of the one who lay fasting.

  “One of the visiting men suddenly drew a bow and nocked an arrow. ‘Screech owl,’ said the woman, ‘this man will shoot you. You better make your medicine.’ It rose up and flapped its wings.

  “The man shot at the bird. Instantly the bird flew into his chest and started hooting from inside.”

  Coy mewled. Sam patted his head, and the coyote quieted.

  “Then Dances Four Times saw a sun dance lodge. Moon and the seven men walked toward the lodge. Four times they stopped and sang a song, and then went into the lodge. In the lodge, on the north, was a cedar tree with an effigy tied to it. At the foot of the tree lay a whistler.

  “Once again the seven men sang four songs. With each song Moon lifted up the whistler a little and then laid him back down. At the end of the fourth song she pulled him all the way up. She gave the whistler the effigy. He put it back on the cedar tree. Then they sang and danced to the effigy.