Heartsong

by James Welch

  Charging Elk watched the procession make its way slowly up the wide steps of the holy house, and he realized that the voices of the people were not loud, just constant. They seemed to chant the same things at the same time, all the while crowding around the statue and a man in a red gown carrying a gold cross with red fire glistening at its center. As the procession ascended the stairs, Charging Elk could see that the leaders were holy, with their golden robes and tall stiff hats. One of them held a long coupstick which swayed slowly above the crowd. Two of them were swinging iron boxes that made smoke and caused the watching people to bob up and down and move their right hands over their bodies, just as they did that day in the dark cave of the holy house in Paris.

  The people followed the golden men into the big house and then the doors closed. The bell had quit ringing and suddenly it was as quiet as it had been that afternoon and evening. The golden torches were gone too; only the lights on posts cast their cold white circles on the wet cobblestones.

  Charging Elk wondered what kind of ceremony this was that the white people held during this Moon of the Popping Trees. He knew it was holy; perhaps as holy as the wiwanyag wachipi. But the Dance Looking at the Sun was held during the Moon of Red Cherries, when it was warm and Sun looked down on his people for the longest time of his yearly journey.

  Now the people were forbidden to hold the Sun Dance, just as they were forbidden to speak Lakota. But many of the people from Pine Ridge came out to the Stronghold to participate in the Sun Dance. The whites never bothered with the Indians out there and so they were free to perform their holiest ceremony in the old way.

  Charging Elk had sacrificed his flesh before the wagachun when he was seventeen winters, one winter after his visit from badger, who gave him much medicine. The pain of the thongs in his breast as he danced before the sacred tree was unbearable and he was certain he would disgrace himself, but just as he was about to cry out, the pain ended and he was in another world. It was as though he could see himself dancing and blowing the eagle-bone whistle and, at the same time, entering the Great Mystery, where he saw the ancestors and the great herds of buffaloes under the wind and sun and moon. He saw many sacred beings in this world and he knew it was the real world. He heard the beat of the drum and he knew it was the heartbeat of the can gleska, where all becomes one. As he danced, he heard the pounding rhythm in his feet, the shrill arrow of his whistle, and he felt the darkness take him. Later, in the pejuta wicasa’s sweat lodge, he had vowed to always live in the old way, to participate only in Lakota ceremonies, to avoid and ignore the holy ceremonies of the wasichus. And he had fulfilled that vow as best he could.

  But now he had witnessed one of the white mens ceremonies and he found himself wishing he could go into their sacred house and see some more. He wanted to be with these people, inside where it was warm and holy. But he knew that as soon as he entered, the people would stare at him, or maybe they would throw him out because he wasn’t one of them. Or worse, they might think he was an enemy.

  Charging Elk was sunk inside of himself, thinking of his loneliness in the cold dark while the wasichiu were in the sacred room with their holy woman and the golden leaders, and he didn’t notice the slow, measured steps which clumped dully on the wet cobblestones. If he had heard the steps, he could have just stepped farther into the shadows or walked deliberately around the corner and toward the harbor. He had observed that people who walked deliberately in these big towns were seldom seen.

  But he was caught unawares and he jumped when he heard the voice behind him. “Pardon, monsieur.” The voice was calling for his attention, and so he turned.

  The man wore a shiny dark cape that fell down past his knees and a small flat cap with a visor and a curtain that covered his neck and ears. He said something else, something that seemed to be a question. Charging Elk looked down at the man’s silver buttons, which were attached to a tunic beneath the cape. He shrugged uselessly and he saw that the man carried a long stick. He knew that the man was an akecita, for he had seen many of them patrolling the streets of Paris, and even Marseille. He had avoided them these past sleeps and now he was disappointed that he had been surprised by one. Again he shrugged, and again he avoided looking into the policeman’s face. But he had sized him up and saw that the policeman was taller than the people of this town, but still half a head shorter than Charging Elk. He was also slighter and the knuckles that gripped the baton were sharp and white. Charging Elk thought he could take him with a quick move that would allow him to spin the man and get a grip that would break his neck or his windpipe. One of the older men at the Stronghold, one who had fought many times with enemies, had shown him and Strikes Plenty how he had used this move when an enemy thought he had him cornered.

  But Charging Elk stood, still looking at the buttons, while the akecita continued talking. The voice was becoming louder and faster, slightly more threatening, and Charging Elk felt his body go tense with anticipation of the policeman’s first move.

  He had been in three or four fights in his life, only one with a white man, a miner who had caught him stealing food from his shack. He had knocked the miner down and hit him on the head with a half-full coffeepot. Then he had run away. He and Strikes Plenty had laughed about the incident, but afterward Charging Elk had wished he had lifted the miner’s hair. But the thought had not occurred to him then as he sought only to escape. Anyway, there was no glory in scalping enemies anymore. There were no real enemies anymore. The old days when one rode into camp with an enemy’s scalp and the people sang an honoring song were gone. Now the reservation people would be angry and frightened of reprisal.

  Charging Elk felt the rush of anticipation leave his body. He knew he was just as powerless in this country beyond the big water as the people were on their own land. He knew that his badger medicine would not help him here. All he had left was his death song and now was not the time to sing it.

  The policeman grabbed him by the biceps and pushed him toward a street that led away from the square.

  Charging Elk sat for a long time under a single yellow wire in a small room in a place of many rooms. He sat on a hard chair with his coat buttoned to his neck and his beret pushed back so that it perched on the crown of his head. His long hair fell over the coat collar to his shoulders and his eyes were slitted and without expression.

  Many policemen came to look at him, in twos and threes, chatting among themselves, gesturing toward him, then going away. None of them addressed him, but one was bold enough to offer him his tobacco and papers, which Charging Elk took. He rolled a cigarette, accepted a light, then nodded at the man, and the man shrugged and almost smiled as he left. A moment later, Charging Elk could hear much shouting and laughter in the passageway outside the room.

  As he smoked, Charging Elk looked at the table before him, with its neat stacks of papers and a jar filled with writing instruments. On the wall behind the table, he saw a photograph of a white-bearded man in a dark suit with a sash draped over one shoulder and thought he must be the boss of these police. He studied the three-colored flag which hung from a pole in the corner. He knew it was the flag of France. During the grand entry to begin the daily Buffalo Bill shows, soldiers carried it along with the American flag. Then after the troupe circled the arena a few times on their horses, the Cowboy Band would play the power songs of the two countries and the audiences would rise and put their hands over their hearts. Charging Elk had grown to like these songs because afterward the crowds would cheer and clap their hands. Then they would be ready for the Wild West show. And the Indians would be ready to accommodate them. Wearing only breechcloths and moccasins and headdresses, they chased the buffalo, then the Deadwood stage, attempted to burn down a settler’s cabin, performed a scalp dance, and charged the 7th Cavalry at the Greasy Grass. Buffalo Bill always rescued the wadichud—the settlers, the women and children, the people who rode in the stagecoach—from the Indians, but he couldn’t rescue the longknives. They died every time before Buffalo
Bill got there. And when he came on the scene of the dead bodies, he took off his hat and hung his head and his horse bowed. By then, the warriors were behind the long canvas backdrop, which was painted with rolling yellow hills and the many lodges beside the wooded river. They were hidden from the audience and so they smoked and drank water and told jokes.

  It had been good in Paris. The days had been too hot sometimes, but the women were handsome, and there was much excitement all the time. Except for a few bouts of longing for the peaceful seclusion of the Stronghold, Charging Elk had enjoyed the whole experience. He had even come to know and make friends with some of the reservation Indians, who didn’t seem so weak after all. And after all the daily riding, they could sit a galloping horse almost as well as Charging Elk. But he still took the most chances, counting coup on the buffaloes, taking a fall from his horse after being “shot” with more vigor, fighting hand to hand with the soldiers with more spirit. He took pride in his performances, sometimes too much pride, and the others, led by Featherman, would tease him without mercy, calling him a black Indian because of his dark color, or a scabby tatanka because he lived in the badlands like an old bull. They played jokes on him, putting scratchy grass in his sleeping robe or the strong sand that goes on meat in his pejuta dapa.

  Charging Elk smiled for a moment as he recalled the jokes, but the reality of where he was abruptly jarred his consciousness. Except for the table and the chair Charging Elk sat upon, there was one other chair and a tall box with many drawers in a corner. The single yellow wire in its glass globe and a window which looked out into the corridor provided a harsh light but the corners of the room were shadowed. He had been sitting in the chair, almost without moving, for two hours and now he had to piss. He had not seen the akecita who had brought him here since their arrival.

  The tobacco he had smoked had made him dizzy and his guts were rumbling because he had not eaten for many hours. He closed his eyes and made himself think again of Paris and he saw the young woman who had come to look at the Indians in the village. That first time she was dressed in a long metal-gray dress which did not have the big butt and which was tight around the middle, almost like shiny skin. She was slender and her small breasts only slightly interrupted the smooth line of the tight material. She had come with an older man and another man about her age. At first, Charging Elk didn’t pay much attention to her. Many people, many handsome young women, came to the village to look at the Indians. If there was anything interesting about this one, it was her hat; or rather, the shiny green and blue and yellow feathers that surrounded the crown of it. It looked as though a strangely beautiful duck was sleeping on her head, its own head tucked under a wing. Charging Elk stared at the hat, then looked at her face and was a little surprised to see such a clean simple face framed by vermilion upswept hair. Her lips were pale and her eyes were the green of ice in the wind caves of Paha Sapa. He looked at her for some time and decided that she was nice to look at. Then he went back to playing dominoes.

  She returned the next day, just before the afternoon performance. Charging Elk was on the verge of entering the lodge he shared with five other young men to change into his buckskins and the long headdress he was given by the man in charge of costumes, which he wore during the grand entry and during the dance scenes. She was standing on the worn earth path between his lodge and Rocky Bear’s, looking at him. Although, like most of the other Indians, he didn’t like to look at the eyes of these wasichus, he did look directly at her, at her clean face, then into her icy-green eyes. She smiled at him and his heart jumped up and he ducked into the lodge. When he came out, adjusting the feathers of the headdress, she was gone.

  She came one more time after that—four sleeps later. Charging Elk had been counting because he had come to realize that he liked the attention that seemed beyond the bare curiosity of the other French women. He liked the way she had looked at him and he liked the smile that he saw many times after that, if only in his mind. For three sleeps he had worn his black sateen blouse with the brass arm and wrist bands, his father’s breastplate, a beaded vest, and the silver earrings he had taken from Cuts No Rope in a poker game. He carefully braided his hair with otter skin and red yarn. Then he waited in a variety of poses designed to show he didn’t care if he saw her again.

  The fourth sleep he decided she would not return, so he wore his worn calico shirt, a pair of baggy-kneed white mans pant’s, and a black vest. His braided hair was tied off with bits of rawhide. The day had been hot in that close damp way that made Charging Elk wish for the open air of the plains. He was tired and his young bones ached from all the riding and fake fighting he had done over the three moons since their arrival in Paris.

  He was playing dominoes with Featherman. It was just after the daytime performance and there would be no evening performance because this was the day the wasichus went to their holy houses and rested and ate long meals at home. Several of the performers were going to town to see the sights with Broncho Billy that evening. As tired as he was, he looked forward to eating a big meal in a brasserie that Broncho Billy had been told had plenty of American beef.

  As he studied his next move, he felt more than saw a shadow that covered his face and hand. He thought it might be one of the other show Indians come to watch the game, but when he looked up with mild annoyance at the closeness of the shadow caster, he saw the clean face of the young woman looking down at him from beneath a simple white bonnet.

  He stood quickly, all thoughts of his aching bones a thing of the past, and she involuntarily took a step back and made a noise that he knew was not a word. He was a head taller than she was and she seemed almost frightened at his size. But she recovered in the time it took for him to realize this and she stepped forward and offered her hand. It was a small hand in a white lace glove without finger pockets. Her nails were small and shiny, the skin unlined, even around the knuckles. Charging Elk didn’t know what to do with the pale hand. He had seen men kiss their women’s hands, or take the hand and bow. Both gestures seemed too demonstrative, and he didn’t want to shake her hand as men did, so he brushed her fingertips with his own dark hand while looking at her white bonnet.

  She drew her hand back and touched her dress just above her breasts and said, “Je m’appelle Sandrine. C’est mon nom.” Charging Elk looked at her lips and they were the color of wild rose. “Sandrine”, she said. “Moi.”

  Then Charging Elk heard Featherman’s voice behind him. “That is her name, I believe. Sandrine. Now you must tell her yours. In American.”

  He looked at the young woman called Sandrine and touched his own chest and said, “Charging Elk.”

  She said, “Charging Elk.” When she said it again, the first part of his name was soft and flowing, but the Elk was firm and emphatic. He had not heard it that way before. “Sandrine,” he said, pointing to her. Then he laid his fist against his chest. “Charging Elk.” And he heard Featherman’s high laughter ring out in the closeness of the afternoon heat.

  Charging Elk opened his eyes and he was still in the small room with the glaring light from above. He was thirsty and hungry and he had to piss. He hadn’t had a drink since he had stopped at a fountain sometime before dark. It seemed a long time ago that he had sat in the arcade and eaten the bread and cheese. He unfastened the bottom two buttons of the coat, crossed his legs, then closed his eyes again to block out the cold light.

  Sandrine had led him out in back of the camp into an airy forest of tall trees with heavy leaves and hard, green trunks. Bushes grew among the trees but there were cinder paths that wound around and among the bushes. They came to a lake with an island in the middle. On the island, he could see a cave carved out of a large boulder. He had been to this lake several times before—the show Indians often took walks out here to sit and smoke, to eat bread and meat sticks, away from the curious white people, although they were often followed by children. It was out here, while smelling the grass and looking at the cool surface of the lake, that the young
men talked openly of home. The relative peace of the forest reminded them of all the quiet land of home, the open plains, the river bottoms, the pines of Paha Sapa. Quite often they would talk and smoke for an hour, then fall silent, each remembering home in his own way, all sick for home. But when they returned to camp to dress for the next performance, they would make self-conscious jokes, tease each other, perhaps wrestle, all the time putting on their bravado, along with their paint, for that evening’s show. And when they entered the arena for the grand entry, they were dignified young warriors, ready for anything.

  Sandrine and Charging Elk sat in the grass on the edge of the lake, looking at the island but stealing glances at each other. Sandrine picked up a small stone and looked at Charging Elk and said, “Caillou.” She held it between two fingers and repeated the word. Then she gave him the stone, dropping it into his palm. “Inyan,” he said. She said, “Inyan,” and they both smiled. It was the first time he could remember feeling warmth for a wadichu. She looked up at the hazy blue sky and said, “Ciel” And he said, “Mahpiya.”

  They had spent a pleasant hour naming things for each other—horse, dog, earth, water—but rarely looking into each other’s eyes. If she looked at him, he was looking at the cave. If he stole a glance at her, she would be looking down at a blade of grass between her fingers.

  Finally she stood and brushed the back of her flower-print dress. Charging Elk watched this and he thought, She is a different woman from the one I first saw—the formidable one with the tight metal-gray dress and the hat that looked like a many-colored duck. He liked this one better. He wished they could have stayed there into the evening and then the night. Even when they were quiet, he had felt at ease, as though they were two people with one cante, with one being. He had never felt like that with a woman. He had never really been with a woman, except the crazy woman out at the Stronghold who lived alone and opened her thighs for a bottle of holy water. Only twice was he able to bring her the mni wakan and those were the only two times he had entered a woman.