Heartsong

by James Welch

He stood and walked to the entrance. Andrew and Joseph were standing just to the side. Charging Elk clasped hands with Andrew. “Thank you for the warmth of your lodge. You have made a poor stranger feel as though a part of him which had been missing for many years has come home.”

  Andrew touched Charging Elk’s arm lightly. The leering grin was there but his eyes were warm and dark. “You are not a stranger. You are Lakota, wherever you might go. You are one of us always.”

  Charging Elk turned to Joseph, but the young man said, “I will walk you to the edge of camp.”

  The two men walked side by side in silence through the quiet camp. Most of the lights in the lodges had been extinguished, but the sky above was lit by a three-quarter moon, throwing shadows before the men. Charging Elk looked around, wanting to remember what the camp looked like—the dozen lodges, the big fire pit in the middle of the circle. There were no drymeat racks, no dogs, no horses, no people walking about, but in his mind he was a boy of ten winters and the camp was pitched on the banks of the Greasy Grass. And although the soldiers were already looking for them, it had been a joyful camp, relatives coming together, friends meeting friends. It had been the last joyful camp of the Lakotas and of his youth. The Oglalas had come in to Fort Robinson less than a year later.

  Joseph stopped him just before they reached the path that led to the show grounds. “I have been thinking—that voice, the one in your dream—” He hesitated, the way a youth does before telling of an important thing. “That voice belonged to your mother. She is alone now.” He hesitated again, not looking at Charging Elk but at the base of a knobby plane tree flanking the path. “She was telling you to come home. She needs you now.”

  Charging Elk also looked away. He had come for this moment, but now that it had, he felt his heart sink. “I can’t,” he said.

  Suddenly Joseph looked at him, and his eyes were bright in the moonlight. “You can come with us. Tomorrow is the last show of the season. We’re going home for the winter. Come with us!”

  “It isn’t so easy....”

  “Come back tomorrow. We can talk with Buffalo Bill. He will be glad to see you. He always treats us well.”

  Charging Elk turned toward the path.

  “But what about your mother? She cries for you.”

  Charging Elk stopped. He could almost hear Joseph’s heart beating in his own chest. He saw his mother in the kitchen, cooking meat for him and Strikes Plenty. He saw her on the travois horse, the tears, as they waited to descend into the valley of Fort Robinson. Then he heard the singing, all of the people singing. “She will be all right,” he said. “She will be better off without me. By now, she thinks I am dead for sixteen years. Let her remember me with a loving heart.”

  “But she would be happy. ...”

  Charging Elk turned on the path in the shadow of the plane tree. “This is my home now, Joseph. I have a wife. Soon I will have a child, the Moon of Frost in the Tipi.” Charging Elk stopped as he realized how improbable this must have sounded to Joseph. Then he said, in a wistful voice, “I am not the young man who came to this country so long ago. I was just about your age and I thought of it all as a great adventure. But now here I am, a man of thirty-seven winters. I load and unload ships. I speak the language of these people. My wife is one of them and my heart is her heart. She is my life now and soon we will have another life and the same heart will sing in all of us.” Charging Elk walked the few paces back to where Joseph stood. He hugged him, feeling the strength in the youthful body. Then he stepped back, suddenly shy at such a gesture.

  Joseph said, “Wait,” and he reached behind his head and his fingers became busy. Then he was holding the pouch that had hung around his neck in his hand. “It is only a stone. But it came from Paha Sapa. Perhaps one day it will bring you back to us.” He put the pouch in Charging Elk’s hand and turned back to his lodge.

  Charging Elk watched him. Then he called out. “Joseph!”

  The young man stopped.

  “My father—did he ride a fine horse—before he became ill?”

  The silence that followed was so long Charging Elk wondered if Joseph had heard him. Then he heard the words that filled his heart.

  “He rode a tall red horse with a good mouth and eyes that looked far ahead. None of the horses in this show could compare with him.”

  Charging Elk turned and walked up the path. He walked past the sideshows, dark now, and the empty arena. The white, many-pointed awnings over the bleachers looked like distant mountains. He walked away from the show grounds. It was late now and the trolleys wouldn’t be running, but he didn’t mind. He needed to walk and the Moon of the Falling Leaves would light his way.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  From Montana to Marseille id a long jump and I never would have made it without the generosity and encouragement of a large number of people, both in this country and in France.

  I would like to thank my longtime editor and friend, Gerry Howard, for encouraging me to write this story and for steering me back on course when I started listing. And I would like to thank my dear agent, Elaine Markson, for her perceptive reading, suggestions and, perhaps more importantly, faith and belief. I would also like to thank Sally Wofford-Girand and Elizabeth Clementson, Elaine’s associates, for all their help and encouragement. And thanks to Mary Kling and Maggie Doyle, my French agents, for their help and hospitality at more than a few lunches over the years.

  Thanks also to Liliane de Kermadec, and Thierry and Patricia Mouthiez for providing me with information on the court and prison systems of turn-of-the-century France. I also thank Nelcya Delanoë and Joelle Rostkowski for their writings and conversations concerning Indians in France.

  Thanks to my translator and friend, Michel Lederer, for providing prize-winning translations of my novels. And many thanks to Hélène Fournier and Jacqueline Lederer, dear friends, for their warm generosity and hospitality to my wife, Lois, and me. And thanks and love to Ripley Hugo, for her perspicacious reading of this novel in manuscript form, as well as the others I have written.

  I would especially like to thank my editor at Albin Michel, Francis Geffard, for believing that my books could find an audience in France. He has done more to publish and promote the writings of American Indians and western Americans than any other soul in France. He is a treasure and a good friend. And thanks to his boss, Tony Cartano, for giving him the green light.

  Thanks doesn’t seem quite adequate when it comes to my wife, Lois. She has not only stood beside me, offering encouragement and consolation by turn, but she has taken a very active role in my writing, from reading chapters, to providing me with research books, to translating. A night on the town will have to do.

  And finally, I would like to thank Pierre Falaise, without whom this book would not have been written. He not only gave me the germ of the story one hot afternoon over beers after a book-signing, but he was of great assistance during subsequent research trips to Marseille—from introducing Lois and me to other Marseillais who had interesting stories to tell, to taking us around to pertinent locations, to xeroxing newspaper articles about the Wild West shows of 1889 and 1905, to providing me with the official French program of the show and Featherman’s death certificate. I have taken liberties, dear friend, but I hope you will find this book true to the spirit.

  James Welch