The Holy Road dww-2

by Michael Blake

  That he was such an easy young man did not help him, either. Apart from his devotion to horses, he had never demonstrated the passion expected of youth. That, of course, did not mean he was devoid of feeling. If anything, youth's hopes and desires ran deeper in Smiles A Lot than in most, but it was not in his nature to express them openly.

  The tall, good-looking young man had kept his feelings hidden from view all his life. But as the village twisted in mute turmoil over the issue of the whites, Smiles A Lot writhed in a personal agony, a dilemma he shared with no one. It took a big effort to keep his torment secret, for was like a sickness. He had suddenly and inexplicably fallen in love.

  This lovesickness was easily the most monumental thing that had ever happened to him. In sunlight he often had to shake his head to clear out the thought of her while he was trying to concentrate on something else. At night it was much worse. He rolled back and forth under his covers, trying to fend off a constant bombardment of images that denied him sleep.

  There were times when these visions would force him from bed. Wrapped in a blanket, he would stumble out of his parents' lodge and make his way through the pitch to the horses. In the grass he could writhe without anyone seeing, talk to himself, moan when he felt like it, stare dreary-eyed at a canopy of stars until he was so exhausted by her that he was able to lose consciousness for a few hours.

  How he had tumbled into this inescapable captivity was a mystery to Smiles A Lot. He had known her all his life but had felt nothing special until a fateful afternoon when he stopped by Ten Bears, lodge to discuss a few trivial matters about the condition of the old man's horses. From

  the time of his boyhood, Ten Bears had kept the shy young man who knew so much about horses under his wing, and on quiet days, the two passed a few minutes together. It was on such a day that Hunting For Something had come in with a bowl of pemmican for her grandfather.

  Greeting Ten Bears, she dropped to her knees on the opposite side of the fire and with a single look that lasted no more than a second or two, turned Smiles A Lot's world upside down. It was nothing more than a shy glance, delivered under lidded eyes. But it was directed squarely at Smiles A Lot and carried the power of a mortal brow. In that instant she changed from a skinny girl of barely fifteen summers to a woman of profound mystery whose spell was paralyzing.

  From then on she was never far from his thoughts, and Smiles A Lot, without any experience as a suitor pursued her. Whenever possible he watched Ten Bears' lodge, hoping to see her go inside so he could make an entrance of his own. He made it a point to look in on the old man each day, and every time he came to the lodge flap it was with a heart that threatened to jump out of his chest.

  Her family lived on the other side of the village from his own, and he conjured any excuse he could to travel that way, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. He loitered along the path to water, joining other young men with crushes on various girls. And suddenly he was in attendance at any communal gathering that might include her.

  But he had no success. Every time he went to Ten Bears, lodge it was as if all the forces of earth and sky were conspiring against him. She was never there. He had seen her only once as she disappeared into the traffic of camp. The fleeting view of the glistening black hair trailing below

  her waist, the long dress, and the moccasined feet had held him transfixed as he wondered about her feet and arms and legs, the smell of her skin, the touch of her finger, the sound of her voice.

  His surveillance of the trail to water yielded only two sightings. Each time she was with her mother, and when he saw them he immediately turned away, too nervous to rook in their direction. As he stared at the ground, or into the branch of a tree, he thought of himself as foolish beyond words. She was passing so near. It was the opportunity he had sought to the exclusion of all else, yet he could not act. He could only subject himself to torture. And if he found the courage to cast his eyes about in time to see the fading form of mother and daughter, that was worse. All he could see then was the impossibility of his vain dream.

  It was just as bad at a dance or ceremony which brought everyone together. A public setting made any contact out of the question, and all he could do was peer through the fire and into the faceless crowd of girls steeped in shadow on the other side.

  At times Smiles A Lot wished fervently that she had never looked at him because all the difficulties of his life were nothing compared to the fix he was in now.

  And what if she looked at him again? What if they talked? What if they touched? The obstacles that lay beyond were insurmountable. Her father, Horned Antelope, was the son of Ten Bears and a Hard Shield. Smiles A Lot's father was a craftsman, a master of bow-making, but nothing else. Matches like that were not made.

  It was terrible to be stuck. It seemed to take all the power he possessed to get up each day, to walk and talk and sleep. He was a fluttering piece of chaff whose every motion was under the absolute control of a momentary meeting with the eyes of a girl.

  Yet there was a strength coming out of it, a hardening in Smiles A Lot he had never felt before. He possessed the heart of a dreamer and the sanctity of dreaming was something to be protected. At his darkest moment, the lonely, desperate heart that beat inside him grew suddenly large and powerful at the thought of defending his dream. In a strange way it didn't matter if they never spoke or touched. She was already in him. A dream of blinding, beautiful purity was buried in his heart. No one could take it away. He didn't care about Wind In His Hair's scalp or the coming of the whites. He didn't care if the earth yawned one morning and swallowed the whole village, for he knew that as he drifted down,

  spiraling head over heels into the void, he would be encased in the cocoon of her being. . of the girl called Hunting For Something.

  Chapter VII

  All communities are susceptible to exotic influences, and this was true of Ten Bears' village. Kicking Bird's deviation into the wider stream of political life had created a vacancy in the spiritual life of the band which was now occupied by the secretive, mysterious man known as Owl Prophet.

  In many ways he was as traditional as any Comanche. He was happily married, the father of two likeable daughters. He practiced the medicine of healing and curing with better than average results, steadily building a lucrative practice that largely freed him from the time-consuming labor of the hunt and the inherent dangers of raiding.

  But Owl Prophet's true specialty was not medicine. Medicine was but a sidelight to his true calling of prophecy and Owl Prophet conjured the future with a magic so dazzling that he was able at times to hold the entire village in sway.

  He operated out of a lodge adjacent to his family's. No one knew what went on inside, because no one had ever entered. In fact, the power that resided within was so daunting that it stifled the natural curiosity of children. Not one among them brave enough or foolhardy enough to lift the flap of Owl Prophet's lodge and peek inside. What prayers he softly chanted, what charms he maintained, what spells he concocted were known only to him. Since childhood he had been the most inscrutable member of Ten Bears' band and the mystery about him only deepened as more and more of his predictions came true.

  Everyone knew about the owl. It was the one object inside the special lodge that people had seen, and its rare appearances were not to be missed because his most spectacular forecasts had come after publicly consulting with his animal assistant.

  Owl Prophet routinely predicted dry summers, difficult births, and spectacular weather. Of course he was not right every time, but his many successes made his failures, especially ones without import, easy to forget.

  He was particularly adept at sorting out omens, and none was more spectacular than the mystery of the rat. Shortly after Wind In His Hair announced that he and several Hard Shields were going into Mexico and any able-bodied men could join them, a dead rat, its entrails bulging through an opening in its stomach, appeared one morning in the center of the village as if it had dropped from the sky.
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br />   Wind In His Hair thought the rat had been dropped somehow by a hawk or owl passing overhead, an explanation readily accepted by Dances With Wolves and the rest of the Hard Shield membership. Ten Bears peered down at the rat and wondered if it hadn't disemboweled itself in a freak accident. Kicking Bird dismissed the rat as a trivial matter, not worthy of thought. But talk persisted and theories of one sort of another fluttered around the village like scattering birds.

  The rat's corpse was snatched up by one of the camp dogs before Owl Prophet could examine it, but that evening he hired a crier to circulate through the village, inviting all who desired information to assemble in front of his medicine lodge at the falling of night's first star.

  Many eyes watched the sky that night and when the first star flared and died, a crowd gathered at the appointed place. Oddly, there was no fire inside the lodge and people began to grow restless, wondering if Owl Prophet was even inside. Suddenly the tent flap flew up and he stepped out. The crowd was silent. They could make out the outline of the famous owl perched upon his head. A few people gasped as the owl's head swiveled.

  “I know the meaning of the rat,” Owl Prophet proclaimed. “Come again in two sleeps and I will tell if it is good or bad.”

  Owl Prophet slipped back into the lodge, dropping the flap behind him, and the crowd broke up in confusion. Two nights later the throng that gathered outside Owl Prophet's medicine lodge was large and expectant. The glow of a fire could be seen inside the place of mystery and the crowd waited silently as if holding its collective breath. For several minutes a flurry of shadowy movement held the onlookers' full attention. Then the flap was thrown open by unseen hands and the viewers pressed closer together, craning frantically for a better view of the amazing tableau that had sprung up before their eyes.

  Filling the entrance was a large square of canvas, a screen illuminated by the light of the fire behind it. Out of nowhere the silhouette of a man appeared which everyone assumed was the form of Owl Prophet. But before anyone could be sure, another silhouette appeared behind the screen. There was no mistaking the distinct outline of an owl. Its head swiveled on its neck and its body expanded and contracted with what appeared to be living breath. The bird's movements were stiff and mechanical, but instead of inviting skepticism they had the opposite effect. The queerness of the action behind the screen held the audience rapt. Not a soul had ever seen anything like it before.

  While the owl performed, incantations were uttered, incantations that seemed to be coming from the silhouette of the man, though the voice sounded different from Owl Prophet's.

  “Great Mystery,” the voice intoned, “speak to your servant. Tell me of the rat with the hole. The people want to know its meaning. They are afraid. Let them understand it, Great Mystery. They seek to serve you."

  The request was repeated three times, and all the while the owl gyrated. A long silence followed during which both silhouettes ceased to move. And then, in a measured way, the owl astonished the Comanches by slowly and dramatically spreading its wings. This action was also repeated three times and was so deliberate as to leave the impression that something was about to happen.

  When it did, the effect was overwhelming. Gasps of horror broke out in the ranks of the audience. Several youngsters ran away and two people slumped unconscious to the ground as the owl's silhouette began to talk.

  It was nothing anyone could understand, an otherworldly blend of high-pitched screeches, low grunts, and prolonged sighs all delivered with dizzying rapidity. The creature spoke for no more than a minute before it spread its wings once more, issued a final piercing screech, and fell away from the screen.

  The figure of the man fell away too, and for a few moments the crowd stood still, staring at the black canvas in complete bewilderment. Before anyone could move, heavy, scraping sounds were heard, and moments later, to the astonishment of all, Owl Prophet himself crawled through the entrance. He flopped down in front of the lodge and, with much effort, raised himself to his knees.

  “The Mystery has spoken,” he gasped. “The rat with the hole. . a bad sign. . many rifles in Mexico. . death in big water. . a scalp coming back. . a red scalp!”

  With that Owl Prophet pitched forward and lay heaving on the ground, unable to move.

  The people closest to the medicine man were wary at first of going to his aid, thinking he might be dying. But Owl Prophet continued to breath, and when he lifted his head slightly, those with the courage to do so lifted him up and carried him through the dispersing crowd, depositing him in the family lodge across the way. For several hours, Owl Prophet lay in fevered delirium before slipping into a sleep from which he would not wake until twilight of the next day.

  People wandered back to their homes drained by the experience, their minds packed with unforgettable images that kept the camp awake long after bedtime.

  One who stayed up late was Wind In His Hair. He did not dismiss Owl Prophet's performance. In fact, he was as deeply impressed as anyone. But he was also angered by the turn of events. He snapped at his wives and children before retreating to the special Hard Shield lodge, where he sat for an hour in solitary contemplation, angry that the delicate chemistry of an important raid, so long in planning, had been upset. Owl Prophet had power to be sure. But what about his own? Was his own power to be thrown away because an owl talked? Was the might of all Comanches to be subverted by a spectacular show of prophecy?

  The call went out to the Hard Shields that same night and when they assembled in Wind In His Hair's meeting place, he spoke out of his heart, saying that while he could not doubt the truth of Owl Prophet's words, he was not ready to surrender to them either. Owl Prophet might have the ability to speak with the Mystery but he could not guide an arrow to its mark. He had never faced an enemy in battle, and while Wind In His Hair admitted he knew little of magic, he knew how to lead men in war. That was his specialty. He then asked each man at his fire how he felt and if each still wanted to go.

  All of them did, and two days later the large party with Wind In His Hair at its head rode into a stiff breeze from the south, leaving behind them the anxious hopes of friends and relatives.

  When the bedraggled war party returned it was learned that each part of the prophecy had proven out. There were many guns in Mexico, far too many. Three good warriors had been drowned in floodwaters. The scalp hung in Wind In His Hair's lodge. AIl had been predicted with awesome perfection. Overnight, Owl Prophet's influence increased ten-fold, and when the crier went around two moons after the party's return from Mexico, everyone put aside their business and came to the medicine lodge. This time Wind In His Hair stood at the front of the crowd, fingering the sewn lids of his missing eye, waiting as anxiously as anyone for Owl Prophet to appear.

  The medicine man did not consult the owl behind the screen that evening. There was nothing flamboyant about his condition or the words he spoke. He was perfectly matter-of-fact, but the absence of a show did not matter to his audience. They were intent on his every word.

  “In less than five sleeps, friends from the north will come to our village,” he announced. “They will bring with them a strange story.”

  Chapter VIII

  They appeared late in the afternoon four days after Owl Prophet's pronouncement, a long line of travelers occupying a narrow band of light on the horizon, heralded by the hollow boom of thunder from ominous skies.

  Wind In His Hair and his family were visiting one of his wives' relations in the south, and Dances With Wolves, accompanied by his two eldest children, had taken a small hunting party off to the east. Everyone else was in camp and they all turned out to greet their friends, the southern Cheyenne.

  Because Ten Bears' strongholds were found only in the most far-flung sectors of the measureless space that comprised the Comanche homeland, such visits, especially with the Cheyenne, were extraordinary. From the moment the visitors were sighted an atmosphere of celebration swamped the village.

  People rushed to their lodges
to make themselves presentable. A welcoming committee was hastily assembled to provide the honored guests with everything they needed: a practical campsite, fresh water, pasture for their animals.

  Once the new lodges were erected visiting began in earnest, led as always by young people. Initially shy, children of both tribes were soon tearing around camp, cavorting together as if they had known one another all their lives. The adults followed suit. The Cheyenne were an exotic disruption in the routine of village life, and the isolated Comanches relished the change.

  The visitors were generally taller and leaner than their hosts. Their clothing and accessories were different, as were their prayers and taboos and humor. The only thing truly abhorrent about them was their reputation for eating dogs. But since no Comanche had actually witnessed such a barbaric practice, the unsettling quirk was quickly pushed to the back of people's minds so that the best of times could be enjoyed.

  The Cheyenne leader, a stately, elegant man of middle age whose name was Wolf Robe, immediately paid a visit to Ten Bears. The men had met twice over the years, and their acquaintance, though slight, made this occasion a reunion. Wolf Robe and his band were on an expedition to Mexican traders in the west and sought permission to camp with the Comanche for a few days before proceeding on, that is if water and game were plentiful. Ten Bears insisted that was the case. The old man also insisted that Wolf Robe and his leading warriors come to dinner that night, suggesting Kicking Bird's lodge as a good site for the feast.

  The dinner at Kicking Bird's was the last of many on a night when everyone stayed up late. The children were too excited to sleep, and so were the adults. There were many new people to meet and, like all Indian get-togethers, the trading began at once, not stopping until the Cheyenne left. People began to eat and that didn't stop, either. On the first night the camp crier announced half a dozen calls to eat at various Comanche homes.