Fools Crow (Contemporary American Fiction)

by James Welch

  “Now I forget my story. Ah, yes, you ask me when I became one of the many-faces. It was in that season of the falling-leaves moon and I had been hunting in the mountains where the Shield-floated-away River begins. I had been lucky, and as I packed out one late morning I had a long-legs and a small sticky-mouth, gutted and cleaned, across my packhorses. I had killed these animals because my family wanted a change from the blackhorn meat. It was brushy all around and the riverbed was sandy, so I was riding down the middle of the river, singing my victory song. I was young then and somewhat foolish. I sang so loudly and the horse made so much noise sloshing through the water that I didn’t hear anything else. But then I stopped to admire a grove of the small quaking-leaves. They had not yet lost their color and they were golden against the rock wall behind them.

  “As I sat there in all that beauty I started to sing a song I had made up for my girlfriend, but I heard something else, a kind of wailing that reminded me of a puppy, but I knew no dogs lived around there so I guessed it must be a young coyote or a wolf. I dismounted there in the water, for I had always wanted one of these creatures for a pet. I took my lariat and crept into the bushes, but the wailing had stopped. I listened for a long time but it never started again. Just as I was about to leave, I saw some broken grass at my feet. Farther along I found the place where the thing had entered the brush. There was a trail of willows that did not stand straight. I took my knife in hand and followed the bent willows some way away from the river. Then I saw something dark ahead, and as I crept closer I could see that it was a man. He lay on his back, his head propped against a rock, a knife in his right hand. I was off to one side and I thought to sneak up and lift the man’s hair. But then the man flopped his head in my direction and I saw who it was. ‘It is Head Carrier!’ I cried out, for it was he who later became the great warrior of the ghost shirt now worn by Fast Horse. But he was a youth then, a year older than I. As I ran through the brush I saw him lift his head and knife at the same time. Then he recognized me. ‘Oh, Spotted Weasel,’ he cried—for that was my name then—‘I am killed by the murderous Snakes.’ With that he closed his eyes and rolled over.

  “I ran to him, for I was sure he had passed to the Sand Hills. He had two broken-off arrows in him, one in his side and one in the guts. I pulled back his shirt and listened to his heart, and I could hear a faint murmuring. Then I rolled him onto his side. The arrow in his ribs had passed through his body and the arrowhead was sticky with blood. I managed to tie my lariat around the shaft and, with a great deal of effort, pull it through his body. But the arrow in his guts had not come through. I brought him water and made him drink but he couldn’t take much. I bathed his wounds as best I could and I held him and cried. Along came dusk, and he opened his eyes and said in a weak voice, ‘Go away, Spotted Weasel, let me die like a warrior.’ I protested, telling him I would take him home so he could die with his people. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I do not want my parents to watch me die. I want to die here, alone.’

  “And so, still weeping, I left him there and wandered back into the brush. I could hear his death song getting fainter behind me. I found a slough and sat with my head in my hands. Oh, I was sad. All around me the green-singers were tuning up. I had never liked frogs, but as I cried I became aware of the beauty of their song. It filled me with so much sadness I thought my heart would fall down, never to rise, and I cried louder. Soon the biggest of the frog persons came up to me and said, ‘Why do you weep when all we mean to do is cheer you up? Are you not grateful to us?’ And so I told him about my friend, Head Carrier, who lay dying. Frog Chief said, ‘I understand how it is with friends. But you people sometimes play with us and kill us for no reason. You are very cruel to your little brothers.’ And I cried, ‘Oh, underwater swimmer, if you will help me now I will tell my people to leave you alone. Never again will a Pikuni harm his little brothers.’ So Frog Chief signaled me to be patient and dived into the slough.

  He was gone for a long time. Seven Persons had begun to sink in the night sky when he came up again. He carried deep in his fat throat a ball of stinking green mud. He was exhausted, and I helped him crawl out on the bank. After a while he said, ‘I had to go to the home of the chief of the Underwater People. He was reluctant to help, but after I told him your vow he gave this medicine to me. Now take it and smear it on the wounds of your friend.’

  “I ran back to Head Carrier shouting and whooping, for I knew he would be glad to see me. But when I got there he was cold and stiff and his eyes stared up at the stars. Now I knew he had gone to the Shadowland. Without much hope I smeared the stinking mud on his wounds, then fell into a deep sleep. A small time later I felt something cold on my face, and when I woke up there stood Head Carrier, dripping wet. ‘Wake up, you nothing-man,’ he said to me, ‘you have slept half the morning and I have already been swimming.’ I sat up and looked at him, for I was sure he was a ghost who had come to torture me. But he said, ‘When I woke up this morning I had the strangest feeling that I had gone to that place no man returns from. I dreamed that I had been killed off by the Snakes. And when I looked down I had some stinking stuff all over my body, so I went down to the river and washed it off.’ I looked at his body and there was not a mark on it.

  “Later, at a big ceremonial, I told this story to my mother’s sister, who was a healing woman among the Never Laughs band. ‘Foolish young man, why didn’t you tell me of this sooner?’ she said. ‘Now I will teach you all the ways of healing, for you are truly chosen.’ So I became a many-faces and so I am.”

  White Man’s Dog sighed. The white-headed eagles were gone.

  “Later still, I received some real medicine from the Black Paint People, but that is another story.” Mik-api’s voice trailed off.

  White Man’s Dog thought he saw a look of pain in the old man’s eyes and it surprised him. He hadn’t thought of Mik-api as having emotions anymore. He had thought many-faces men were beyond such frailties. The pained look had startled him but it pleased him as well. It pleased him to know that Mik-api still lived in the world of men.

  8

  ON THE DAY before the Lone Eaters were to strike camp and journey to the trading house on the Bear River, Fast Horse sat alone behind his father’s lodge, staring up at the Beaver Medicine bundle, which hung from a tripod. It was a large bundle, the size of a blackhorn calf, and its rawhide covering was yellowed and cracked. He had taken to sitting there by himself, day after day, looking at the bundle, trying to feel its power. His father, Boss Ribs, had kept the bundle for as long as he could remember, and both his father and he assumed that one day the bundle would be passed to him. His father had been waiting until Fast Horse was old enough, and patient enough, to learn all the songs and rituals associated with the objects in the bundle. All the living things in the country of the Pikunis had given their songs to the medicine bundle, and the power contained within was immense. But only if the ceremony was done right. And so Boss Ribs had been in no hurry to begin the teaching of his son. The time would come soon enough.

  But all that had changed now because Fast Horse had changed. He had become an outsider within his own band. He no longer sought the company of the others, and they avoided him. The girls who had once looked so admiringly on him now averted their eyes when he passed. The young men considered him a source of bad medicine, and the older ones did not invite him for a smoke. Even his own father had begun to look upon him with doubt and regret. As for Fast Horse, the more he stared at the Beaver Medicine, the more it lost meaning for him. That would not be the way of his power. His power would be more tangible and more immediate.

  Cold Maker—he scoffed at Cold Maker. One day, on one of his solitary, unsuccessful hunts, he had dismounted and challenged Cold Maker to do him in, to kill him on the spot; he had nothing to live for. At first, he had trembled, but when nothing happened, he grew louder, more angry. At the time, he wanted to die, he welcomed death, he wanted Cold Maker to clutch his heart in his icy fingers. He sang his death song and w
aited. Nothing. And then he grew bitter and he hated his people and all they believed in. They had no power. They were pitiful, afraid of everything, including the Napikwans, who were taking their land even as the Pikunis stood on it. Only Owl Child had power and courage. He took what he wanted; he defied the Napikwans and killed them. He laughed at their seizers and chiefs when they threatened revenge. And he laughed at his own people for their weak hearts.

  As he stared at the scabby medicine bundle and thought these things, Fast Horse began to hear voices, shouts, and he saw some children running toward the east edge of camp. There was always a lot of commotion in camp, especially when visitors arrived, and Fast Horse thought they were probably hunters from one of the other bands. Out of mild curiosity, he stood and walked in that direction.

  By the time he reached the edge of camp, there were already fifteen or twenty people standing there, talking among themselves. “I don’t recognize the horse,” said one. “Nor the strange blanket with which he hides his face,” said another. “He is not from one of our camps,” said a third.

  The horse was small and white, with dark scars showing through the hair. It walked with a slow, awkward gait, as though it had been ridden into the ground at one time and had never recovered.

  When the figure was a short distance from the camp, he slid his right leg over the horse’s neck and jumped off. The horse lowered its head and began to eat the spring grass.

  Fifty paces from the group the thin figure stopped and shook his head. The blanket fell away from his face, and the woman beside Fast Horse sucked in her breath. The face was gaunt, the skin stretched tight over the bones and deeply pocked. The man held his blanket over his arms in front of him. The people stared silently.

  “Ha! Don’t you recognize me, Lone Eaters? Have I been away so long, have I changed so much?” The man laughed. “You, Eagle Ribs, don’t you know me?”

  Suddenly Eagle Ribs, who had been at the front of the group, shouted and dropped his musket. He ran to the man, crying, “It is you! It is you!” He hugged the thin figure and called back to the people, “It is Yellow Kidney! He returns to his people!” In his excitement he had knocked the blanket from his friend. And now he saw the women put their hands to their mouths and cry out. The men stared. “What is this? Wretched Lone Eaters! Do you not recognize your brother?” He turned to his friend, and Yellow Kidney held up his hands. Where there had been fingers now there were none. Eagle Ribs started back. His mouth was open as though he had been caught in the middle of laughter, but no sound came out.

  The people ran forward, past the dumb Eagle Ribs, to touch and embrace their brother. There was much crying. Two of the women ran toward camp to tell Heavy Shield Woman that her man had come home. A boy of ten winters picked up Eagle Rib’s musket and tried to hold it to his cheek. Fast Horse was gone.

  “This then is my story. You, Eagle Ribs, you, White Man’s Dog, know the truth of what I am about to tell. But you don’t know the all of it.” Yellow Kidney looked at the men of the various groups of the All Friends society. They had smoked, and then they had eaten, and now many of them filled their short-pipes. The big lodge was heavy with the smell of meat and smoke. Three Bears burned some sage in the fire to sweeten it up. Then he too sat back. The women who had served the men were gone.

  Yellow Kidney told of the journey to the Crow land, of the cold walking nights, of the lack of meat, and of the moment he sent White Man’s Dog with the other young men to steal some of the grazing horses. “Then I sent Eagle Ribs in one direction and Fast Horse in another. There were fat buffalo-runners tied up all through the camp. The camp itself was as large as the valley, four hundred lodges at least. There were Napikwans there too, traders or hide hunters. They were thick with the Crows, many of them sitting at fires in the camp. But finally it grew quiet. We had let the last of the drunken revelers wear themselves out. I pulled my robe up over my head and walked into the camp. Young Bear Chief and Double Runner have seen me do this before. I walked boldly among the lodges until at last I was standing in the middle of the camp, beside the great lodge of their smoking societies. There I looked about, and it did not take me long to find what I was looking for. Night Red Light looked down from a hole in the clouds and I saw clearly, not twenty-five paces away from where I stood, the tipi of the blue buffalo. As you know, this is the lodge of our old enemy, Bull Shield, who has made the Pikunis cry many times. I approached his lodge with caution and there, tied to the lodgepole, was the most beautiful black horse I had ever seen. Now if I had been alone on this raid, I would have gone into the lodge and cut Bull Shield’s throat. Oh, how I wish I had! But I was responsible for the young men who were with me, so I decided to take the horse and leave. As I cut the lariat, I whispered in his ear. Then I began to lead him away. He was eager to come with me. One could tell he was an intelligent animal.

  “But we had not gone a hundred steps before I began to hear a loud noise at the edge of the camp. I lowered the robe from my head and turned my ears in that direction. The small wind was behind me and so I could not hear distinctly. My ears turned as big as the wags-his-tail’s and soon I heard words, and when I could make them out they were fierce words indeed—‘Oh, you Crows are puny, your horses are puny and your women make me sick! If I had time I would ride among you and cut off your puny woman heads, you cowardly Crows’—said in the tongue of our people as clear that night as I tell you now.”

  As if by magic, all the men quit smoking and swung their heads in the direction of Eagle Ribs.

  “No, no.” Yellow Kidney laughed. “Eagle Ribs is a brave and wise horse-taker. He knows the consequences of such action. It was not his voice I heard that night.”

  “Fast Horse!” It was out of his mouth before White Man’s Dog could think.

  Yellow Kidney’s dark eyes locked on his. After a moment he said, “It will be known. There is time.”

  “Where is Fast Horse?” said Three Bears. “He is a member of the Doves. He should be here.” He nodded in the direction of the Doves, who sat the farthest away. Two of them stood and slipped out the entrance.

  “I heard the first stirrings of excitement in a nearby lodge, and so I drew my knife. When a man emerged, carrying a short-gun, I stepped close to him and drove my knife into his heart. Then I began to hurry away, still leading the black horse, to the north edge of the camp. Three men ran past me, then another two, and I began to feel that my luck would hold, that I would be able to mount the black horse and ride off toward the Napikwans’ wagons and there turn west to rejoin my comrades. But I saw a group of men beside a lodge, talking excitedly, and one pointed at me. I knew that I had been found out, so I dropped the horse and ran behind a tipi and ran some more. I heard shots being fired and more men yelling. Three men were running in my direction but they hadn’t seen me yet, so I ducked into a lodge. I had my knife ready to strike the dwellers. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light of a night fire I saw several bodies along the walls, but none of them stirred. I began to think they were just piles of robes when on the far side I saw a figure rise up and throw the robe back. I had made up my mind to attack but I saw that it was a young girl. She just looked at me and her eyes were heavy with sleep. I thought it odd that the other figures had not been awakened by the gunshots. But this thought was erased quickly by the sounds of voices outside the lodge. I know enough of the Crow tongue to understand that they were saying I had come this way, that I had passed by. I had no choice but to try to hide so I crept over to the girl, put my hand over her mouth and crawled into the robe with her. I had just pulled it over our heads when I heard the flap being opened. There was a long silence as the observer passed his eyes over the robes. Than a couple of shots rang out a way off and I heard the flap drop shut.

  “After a while I took my hand from the girl’s mouth but she lay there with her eyes closed. I felt under the robe and she was naked and her skin was hot. I felt her breasts and her belly and they were hot and damp. I couldn’t understand because the fire was h
ardly big enough to see by. It was cold in that lodge, but she was naked and sweating. The mind does funny things when it is confused, and I began to feel a stirring of excitement for this hot girl. By now all the commotion was at the other end of the camp. I found her there between the legs and entered her—not without some difficulty, for she was only on the verge of becoming a woman. When I had had my pleasure, I rolled away, and that’s when it hit me that she hadn’t moved, hadn’t made a sound, only lay there with her eyes shut. I became afraid at these unusual circumstances, so I crept to the fire and took a burning stick. I pulled the robe back and looked at her. I had seen it before, some winters ago when our people were struck down, when half of the Lone Eaters perished. There on her face and chest were the dreaded signs. I had copulated with one who was dying of the white-scabs disease.”

  For the second time that night White Man’s Dog spoke without thinking. “My dream! My dream!” He covered his mouth in horror, but the words were unmistakable in the silence of the lodge.

  Rides-at-the-door looked sharply at his son. Several of the other men murmured their disapproval. It wasn’t good for a young man to interrupt his elder, especially during such an important account.