Fools Crow (Contemporary American Fiction)

by James Welch

  One day while he stood on the edge of camp watching the children slide down a long hill on their blackhorn-rib sleds, he had the uncomfortable feeling that he too was being watched. For an instant he thought it might be Red Paint, but when he looked up the hill behind him he saw Fast Horse, arms folded, near the brow. They had not talked much since returning from the raid, had rarely sought each other out. On the few occasions they did get together, Fast Horse seemed sullen. He no longer made jokes at White Man’s Dog’s expense; he no longer joked with anybody. He didn’t brag about his buffalo-runner or flirt with the girls. He didn’t hunt with the others and he tended his horses poorly, allowing them to wander a good distance from camp. Most of the time the day-riders would bring them back, but once seven of them disappeared and Fast Horse accepted the loss with a shrug. If the weather was good, he would go off to hunt by himself, seldom returning with meat. When the storms came down from the north, from Cold Maker’s house, he would go inside his father’s lodge and sulk. His father, Boss Ribs, keeper of the Beaver Medicine, often asked White Man’s Dog to talk to Fast Horse, to try to learn the nature of this mysterious illness. Boss Ribs was sure that a bad spirit had entered his son’s body. But Fast Horse would have little to do with his friend. Once White Man’s Dog almost told Boss Ribs of his son’s dream of Cold Maker, but to tell another’s dream could make one’s own medicine go bad, so he held his tongue. But it troubled him that Fast Horse had not made good on his vow to Cold Maker. The helping-to-eat moon was nearly over and Fast Horse had not yet acquired the prime blackhorn hides for Cold Maker’s daughters. To break this vow was unthinkable; it could make things hard for all the Pikunis. But White Man’s Dog had another reason for wanting the vow honored. It had come to him one night while lying in bed listening to the wind blow snow against the lodge. Perhaps Cold Maker, not the Crows, held Yellow Kidney prisoner. Perhaps he was waiting for the vow to be fulfilled before he would set the warrior free.

  The next day White Man’s Dog caught up with Fast Horse just as the young man was starting out on a hunt.

  “Fast Horse, I would like to talk.”

  Fast Horse glanced at him. A fog had come down during the night and the air was gray between them. “Hurry, then. You see I am off to hunt.”

  “That night you caught up with us at Woman Don’t Walk—you told us about a vow you made to Cold Maker.”

  Fast Horse looked away toward the Backbone.

  “You vowed two hides. And you vowed the red coals for the eyes of his daughters. Because of these vows you said he spared your life.”

  “You stop me to tell me what I already know?”

  “I have come to tell you to fulfill your vows. The helping-to-eat moon is passing and soon it will be too late. If a vow—”

  Fast Horse laughed. “So you think I am incapable of keeping my word. You think Fast Horse has become a weakling, without honor.”

  “No, no! But I wish to hunt with you. I would like to help you acquire the hides.” White Man’s Dog hesitated, but he knew he would have to go on. “You see, I have it in my mind that Cold Maker holds Yellow Kidney prisoner and will not let him go until this vow is fulfilled. It is your failure that keeps Yellow Kidney from his people.”

  The look on Fast Horse’s face almost frightened White Man’s Dog. It was a look of hatred, cold and complete. For an instant White Man’s Dog thought of taking back his words. But then he saw another look come into the eyes, a combination of fear and hopelessness, and he knew he had been right to confront his friend.

  “I will get the blackhorns. I do not need you—or anybody. I am a man and have done no wrong.” Fast Horse kicked the buffalo-runner he had acquired from the Crows in the ribs and led the two packhorses away from camp.

  As White Man’s Dog watched him ride away, he knew there was something going on inside of Fast Horse that he didn’t understand. But it had to do with something other than his vow to Cold Maker. It had to do with Yellow Kidney.

  White Man’s Dog had given five of his best horses to Mik-api upon returning from the Crow raid. They had sweated together and prayed together, thanking the Above Ones for the young man’s return. White Man’s Dog thanked Mik-api and gave him a horsehair bridle he had made the previous winter. He left the old man’s lodge feeling pure and strong.

  But he was back the next day, this time with some real-meat that his mother had given him. The two men ate and talked, and then White Man’s Dog left. But he came back often, always with food, for he had never seen any provisions in the old many-faces man’s lodge. Mik-api lived alone on the edge of camp and received few visitors. He performed healing ceremonies throughout the winter, elaborate ceremonies to drive out the bad spirits, and White Man’s Dog grew fascinated with his powers. He had never paid much attention to heavy-singers-for-the-sick. Their way seemed like magic to him, and he was fearful to learn too much. But sometimes as he and Mik-api talked, the old man would mix up his medicines or sort through his powerful objects and White Man’s Dog did not see much to be afraid of.

  One day Mik-api asked White Man’s Dog to prepare the sweat lodge, and that was the beginning of the young man’s apprenticeship. As he repaired the willow frame and pulled the blackened hides in place, he thought of his actions as a favor to Mik-api. He built up a great fire and rolled the stones into the hot coals. He carried a kettle of water into the sweat lodge. He added more wood to the fire. He felt strong and important, and he was glad to help the old man.

  When Mik-api and his patient, a large middle-age man with yellow skin, were settled in the sweat lodge, White Man’s Dog carried the large stones with a forked stick into the lodge. He set them, one by one, into a rock-lined depression in the center. Then he stood outside and listened to the water explode with a hiss as the many-faces man flicked it on the stones with his blackhorn-tail swab.

  Sometimes Mik-api would go into the sweat lodge alone to purify himself when he had to go to a person who was gravely ill. White Man’s Dog would hold Mik-api’s robe while listening to the old man sing and pray. He was always surprised at how thin and pale Mik-api was. He always reminded himself that he would have to bring even more meat next time. He had taken to accompanying Mik-api to the sick person’s lodge, carrying the healing paraphernalia. Mik-api would clear the lodge and step inside. White Man’s Dog would wait outside for as long as he could, listening to the singing, the prayers, the rattles and the eagle-bone whistle. Often these healings took all day, sometimes more. Eventually, White Man’s Dog would go to his father’s lodge to eat or nap, but he would come back to see if Mik-api needed anything.

  Later, in Mik-api’s lodge, as he tended the fire, White Man’s Dog would watch the frail old man sleep his fitful sleep and wonder at his power. But the young man had no thought to possess such power. He was just happy to help.

  One day while Mik-api was sorting through various pigments he said, “Now that we have changed your luck and you have proven yourself a great thief of Crow horses, you must begin to think of other things.” Often Mik-api teased him, so White Man’s Dog waited for the joke. And it occurred to him that the others had quit teasing him so unmercifully. He was no longer the victim of jokes, at least not more so than any of the others. No one had called him dog-lover since the raid on the Crows. He hadn’t really noticed it until now, but the people seemed to respect him. He felt almost foolish with this knowledge, as though he had grown up and hadn’t noticed that his clothes no longer fit him.

  And now Mik-api was telling him about a dream he had the night before. “As I slept, Raven came down to me from someplace high in the Backbone of the World. He said it was behind Chief Mountain and there he dwelt with several of his wives and children. One night as they were bedding down he heard a great commotion in the snow beneath their tree, and then he heard a cry that would tear the heart out of the cruelest of the two-leggeds. When Raven looked down in the almost-night, he could see that it was a four-legged, smaller than a sticky-mouth but with longer claws and hair thicker tha
n the oldest wood-biter. The creature looked up at Raven and said, ‘Help me, help me, for I have stumbled into one of the Napikwans’ traps and now the steel threatens to bite my leg off.’ Well, Raven jumped down there and tried to pull the jaws apart, but they wouldn’t budge. Then he summoned his wives and children to help, but nothing would make those jaws give.” Mik-api stopped and lit his pipe with a fire stick. He leaned back against his backrest and smoked for a while. “Then Raven remembered his old friend Mik-api, and so he came last night and told me of his sorrow. We smoked several pipefuls and finally Raven said, ‘I understand you now have a helper who is both strong and true of heart. It will take such a man to release our four-legged brother. My heart breaks to see him so, and his pitiful cries keep my wives awake. If you will send this young man, I will teach him how to use this creature’s power, for in truth only the real-bear is a stronger power animal.’ Then my brother left, and when I awoke I found this dancing above the fire.” Mik-api handed White Man’s Dog a pine cone. It was long and oval-shaped and came to a point at one end. “I believe this came from Raven’s house up in the Backbone.”

  White Man’s Dog felt the pine cone. It had hairs coming out from under its scales. He had never seen such a pine cone. “How will I find this place?” he said.

  Mik-api broke into a smile. “I will tell you,” he said.

  Red Paint sat outside her mother’s lodge in the warm sunshine of midmorning. Her robe, gathered around her legs, was almost too warm. Her shiny hair was loose around her neck, framing a bird-bone and blue-bead choker. Her light, almost yellow eyes were intent on the work before her. She had passed, over the winter, from child to woman with hardly a thought of men, although judging by the frequency with which they rode by her mother’s lodge, the young men had thought plenty about her. It was clear that when or if Yellow Kidney returned, he would be besieged with requests to court his daughter. But for now, as she bent over her beadwork, she was concerned with other things. Her mother, Heavy Shield Woman, had become so preoccupied with her role as Medicine Woman at the Sun Dance that she hadn’t noticed her two sons were becoming boastful and bullying to their playmates. One Spot had even tried to kill a dog with his bow and arrow. And, too, Red Paint was worried about a provider. Although White Man’s Dog still kept them in meat, she felt that one day he would grow weary of this task. Without a hunter, they might have to move on to another band, to the Many Chiefs, to live with her uncle, who had offered to take them in.

  She held up the pair of moccasins she had been beading. She had taken up beadwork for other people, particularly young men who had no one to do it for them. She was good and her elaborate patterns were becoming the talk of the camp. In exchange, the young men gave her skins and meat, cloth, and the Napikwans’ cooking powder. They brought her many things for her work, they tried to outgive each other, but she paid attention only to their goods. Now she looked for flaws in the pattern on the moccasins. She wanted them to be perfect. They were for her mother to wear at the Sun Dance ceremony. She stretched her neck and allowed her eyes to rest on the figure astride the gray horse moving away from camp in the direction of the Backbone. The white capote that the rider wore blended in with the patches of snow and tan grass. Beyond, the mountains looked like blue metal in the bright light. Red Paint bent once again to her work, sewing the small blue beads with an intensity that made her eyes ache.

  In a draw just below the south slope of Chief Mountain, White Man’s Dog made his camp. He built a shallow lean-to of sticks and pine boughs and covered the floor with branches of fir. He had enough branches left over to cover the entrance. Then, in the dying light, as the sun turned Heart Butte to the south red, he gathered the wispy black moss from the surrounding trees and balled it up. He struck his fire steel into this ball until he coaxed a yellow flame. He piled on pieces of rough bark stripped from the lower dead twigs of the trees and soon had a fire. He put several twigs on the fire and sat back. Even three moons ago he would have been afraid to be alone in the mountains of the Backbone. As he watched the chunk of meat on a tripod before him sizzle and splatter the fire, he felt comfortable and strong. The fat real-bears would still be sleeping in their dens and the bigmouths would be hunting in packs on the plains.

  The young man thought about the following day, for it would be the most important in his life. He knew where to find the four-legged trapped in the steel jaws. Mik-api had given him good directions, and the spot was less than half a day distant. He put the hood of his capote over his head and felt the hunger gnawing at his belly. If his luck stood up, he would find the spot behind Chief Mountain, release the four-legged and be back to this site by nightfall. He was certain that the animal was a wolverine. Mik-api would not call it by name, for to name another man’s power animal would rob that man of its medicine. So Mik-api had pretended dumb. But White Man’s Dog knew that the skunk-bear was the only animal as fierce as the real-bear, although smaller. He took the roasted meat off the fire, and when it cooled he cut off a small piece and placed it carefully in the fork of a tree a short distance away. Then he ate greedily, for it was his first food since morning. The yellow fire reflected off the silvery needles of the firs around him.

  The croak was so deep and close, he thought he had been awakened by his gut rumbling. It took a moment to realize he was not in his father’s warm lodge. He pushed aside the boughs covering the entrance and looked out into the gray light. He had slept well in his small shelter, but now his breath told him that it was very cold—and still. He heard the croak again and looked up into the trees. The sky was lighter above them. The granite face of the great mountain loomed through the trees, and the yellow light of Sun Chief struck the very top. He rolled out and stood up, and there in the pine where he had placed the meat sat a fat raven.

  White Man’s Dog ate a piece of cold meat and the patient raven watched him. When he had finished and gathered up his gear, the raven flew away through the trees, away to the west into the mountains. White Man’s Dog looked down into the clearing where his hobbled horse grazed. There was enough grass showing through the snow and a stream nearby. He turned and followed the raven.

  The shiny black bird led him up into the mountains, following a game trail on the side of a deep ravine. The winds had scoured the side, leaving only an occasional drift of snow behind rocks and downed timber. Then the bird flew up and across a massive slide of scree, dipping and bobbing its effortless way through the late morning sun. It disappeared over the top of a ridge. The way was harder for White Man’s Dog, for although the scree was mostly frozen and offered firm footing, sometimes it gave way and he slid some way down the slope. Four times he slid off the hardly-there trail; each time took a little more effort to climb back up.

  Finally he stood at the top of the ridge, sweating and panting, and looked around. To the south and west he could see Heavy Shield Mountain and, at the base, Jealous Woman Lake. Beyond, he could make out Old Man Dog Mountain; then, south again, Rising Wolf and Feather Woman—all mountains of the Backbone—and he prayed to Old Man, Napi, who had created them, to guide him and allow him to return to his people. He looked down the other side of the ridge and saw the raven, sitting in a snag beside a pothole lake that was covered with snow. Below the lake, in a grove of quaking-leaf trees, he made out the shiny ice and open water of a spring that led away to the north. “Oh, Raven,” he cried, “do not lead me too far from my people, for the day approaches its midpoint.” At that, the raven glided down to the shiny ice and lit on a rock beside the bubbling dark hole of water.

  The footing was good on this side of the ridge, and White Man’s Dog trotted down on a slant, now one way, now the other, until he was circling the lake, his heavy fur moccasins leaving a soft flat imprint in the wet snow. He slid down the steep incline on the far side of the lake. The snow was firm, but going back would not be easy. Once down, he pulled his musket from its tanned hide covering and tapped some powder in the barrel from his blackhorn flask. Then he heard the raven call to h
im. He was sitting on a branch of one of the delicate quaking-leaf trees not fifty paces ahead. “You do not need your weapon, young man. There is nothing here to harm you.”

  White Man’s Dog felt his eyes widen, and his heart began to beat like a drum in his throat. Raven laughed the throaty laugh of an old man. “It surprises you that I speak the language of the two-leggeds. It’s easy, for I have lived among you many times in my travels. I speak many languages. I converse with the blackhorns and the real-bears and the wood-biters. Bigmouth and I discuss many things.” Raven made a face. “I even deign to speak once in a while with the swift silver people who live in the water —but they are dumb and lead lives without interest. I myself am very wise. That is why Mik-api treats me to a smoke now and then.”

  White Man’s Dog dropped his weapon and fell to his knees. “Oh, pity me, Raven! I am a nothing-man who trembles before your power. I do not wish to harm my brothers. I was afraid of this place and what I might find.”

  “It is proper that you humble yourself before me, White Man’s Dog, for in truth I am one of great power.” Raven allowed himself a wistful smile. “But my power is not that of strength. Here you see your brother, Skunk Bear, is caught in the white man’s trap and I have not the strength to open it. In all of us there is a weakness.” Raven dropped down out of the tree behind a patch of silvery willows. “Here,” he croaked.