Fools Crow (Contemporary American Fiction)

by James Welch

  For Fox Eyes they found a ledge beneath a tan rock high up on the side of a bluff. Two men carried his body up the steep incline, their shoulders and backs gleaming with sweat. Three others brought his knife, his pipe and his war bag. The war chiefs followed with sacrifices of tobacco and greased shooters. Below, the men sang and wept as the body of their leader was placed beneath the ledge. Fox Eyes was the only true war leader many of them knew, and now he was gone to the Sand Hills, killed by the enemies.

  White Man’s Dog stood and watched the burial and thought of the afternoon a few days before when Sun Chief hid his face. And he thought of Fox Eyes riding down on Bull Shield instead of taking the simple shot that would have killed the Crow. White Man’s Dog couldn’t shake the feeling that Fox Eyes knew he was going to die, perhaps even wanted to. Only great chiefs died when Sun hid his face.

  13

  RED PAINT TRACED THE RIDGE of the war wound with her fingers. It was almost as long as her hand and was healing to a deep liver-colored stripe. She sat in the bright lodge beside her sleeping husband and watched the shadow of a spear-leaf limb sway against the south wall. The sun, even at its midpoint, was low in that direction. The nights had become cooler and the days shorter. In less than a moon, the leaves of the trees would begin to turn. She liked this season, for it promised nothing. The summer hunt was over, they had plenty of meat, and now they could be lazy until the blackhorns began to grow their winter coats. Red Paint wanted more than anything to go to the mountains of the Backbone. She wanted to pick the last of the chokecherries and swim in the cold streams. If they rode straight across from the Sweet Grass Hills, it would take them less than four sleeps. Her body tingled with excitement as she saw the sparkling water, the dark stones, the deep green of the scented trees. She was so thankful to have her husband safely back. And she had not bled for two moons running. She was certain now that she carried another life inside her. Once again she counted on her fingers and once again she came up with the many-drums moon, a powerful moon, the moon her son would be born. It would be a son and it would make her husband happy. They had to go to the valleys of the Backbone to celebrate alone this new son! But first she had to tell her husband that this son was surely on the way.

  “Wake up, Fools Crow!” She hit him on the shoulder. “Fools Crow!”

  He rolled onto his back and rubbed his eyes. His head hurt.

  “Fools Crow! Fools Crow!”

  He opened his eyes and looked at Red Paint. With great effort he propped himself up on an elbow and rubbed his head. He had drunk too much of the white man’s water the night before, in the big lodge. He suddenly sat up. At the naming ceremony!

  “Yes! Fools Crow, the great warrior!” Red Paint laughed. She handed him a bowl of water and he drank greedily. “It is midday, time to wake up.”

  “Fools Crow,” he said.

  “That is you, my husband.”

  Fools Crow. The naming ceremony. Three Bears had named him Fools Crow after hearing how he had tricked Bull Shield into thinking he was dead and then risen up to kill the Crow chief. But was that how it was? The story of how he had earned that name had been greatly exaggerated, despite his initial protests, until many thought he had tricked the whole Crow village, that his medicine contained some magic that made another man’s eyes see wrong. The story of how Fools Crow had killed and scalped the man who had mutilated Yellow Kidney was even more embellished. Now Fools Crow had made the man cry, had laughed and spit on him, had made love to his wife, then killed him and stuffed his bloody genitals in his mouth. The men of the warrior societies laughed and kidded Fools Crow, but in their eyes he had become a man of much medicine.

  If only he hadn’t drunk the white man’s water. He remembered sneaking out of the big lodge three or four times and drinking the harsh liquor out of a tin with some others. He remembered with shame how he had acted out his encounters with both Crows, how he had made the warriors laugh and moan with the ups and downs of his confrontations.

  Now he heard Red Paint, and she was talking about their son. “He will want to walk in the forest with us, to swim with us, to pick the cherries with us.”

  “Our son will come with us?”

  “To the Backbone. He is already with us.” Red Paint stood and walked to the other side of the lodge. She bent down and came up with a long soft-tanned bundle stretched over a willow frame. “See?” she said. It was a cradleboard.

  Fools Crow smiled and forgot about his aching head for a moment.

  “It belonged to my mother. She carried me in it, then Good Young Man, then One Spot. Now she gives it to us.”

  “When will our son come out to look around?”

  “Moon of many drums. It is the best time.”

  Fools Crow walked around the fire. He took the cradleboard from his wife. It was made of elkskin and decorated with a single wild rose. He touched the skin, and Red Paint moved closer to him and put her arm around his waist.

  “What is this talk of the Backbone?”

  “Can we go there? Now? In the morning? I can pack right now.”

  He looked down at his wife and his heart jumped. He was ready to go. It was a perfect thought, just him and Red Paint. They could pick chokecherries. He would hunt the white bighead and the bighorn. They could stay through the falling-leaves moon, until Cold Maker’s breath turned frosty.

  “Two sleeps,” he said. “We will get ready tomorrow and leave at dawn the day after.” He hugged Red Paint to him and felt her heartbeat, or was it the pounding in his head?

  Red Paint slipped out of his arms and ran to the entrance. “I will tell my mother!” Then she was gone.

  Fools Crow. Fools Crow. He was beginning to like the name. If only he hadn’t drunk the white man’s water. He remembered dancing on the scalp of Bull Shield and the men shouting. And then he remembered Yellow Kidney, who sat quietly, impassively, as he often did these days. After the dance, Fools Crow had held up the scalp and boasted, “There is your Crow brave, this puny hair that sickens Fools Crow!”

  Now the young man groaned loudly and dropped to his knees. He rolled onto his back and closed his eyes as an older memory crept into his heart. He had boasted to Yellow Kidney in the same manner that Fast Horse had boasted to the Crows the night Yellow Kidney was captured and mutilated. He had belittled his father-in-law without thinking, and he knew Yellow Kidney had lost face forever. His humiliation was complete.

  Fools Crow wept and cursed himself for being wicked, for drinking the liquor, for killing Bull Shield, for allowing the others to think he had tricked the Crow. Fools Crow was his name now, but he hadn’t earned it. The Crow had fooled himself into thinking White Man’s Dog was dead. Then a thought crossed Fools Crow’s mind that caused him to stop weeping. The bad spirit that Mik-api had driven from the body of White Man’s Dog—it was still out there, Mik-api had said so—perhaps it now found the body of Fools Crow. Perhaps it didn’t know that both bodies belonged to the same man. Perhaps it was now making Fools Crow do wicked things. Perhaps Mik-api could heal this newly named man.

  As he stared at the shadows the ear poles were making on the high walls of the lodge, Fools Crow felt a drumming in his body. He lay there almost dreamily watching the shadows as the sound entered his ears. He heard the beating hooves, then the shouts of men, the patter of children running. He jumped up and ducked through the entrance, his many-shots gun in his hand.

  Across a wide plain to the southwest he saw a column of Napikwans loping toward the camp. One of the men leading them carried a lance with a colored cloth tied to its tip. As they closed, Fools Crow saw the blue uniforms of the seizers. He began to walk, then trot to the lodge of Yellow Kidney, for Red Paint was there visiting her mother. Then he saw her and Heavy Shield Woman standing by a robe they had been tanning. They were watching the seizers.

  The column came at a leisurely pace, leaving a trail of dust that blew to the south. All the horses were bays, their deep red intensified by dark streaks of sweat on the shoulders and fla
nks. One of the leaders shouted and the column came to a halt as one. They were not more than a hundred paces from the perimeter of the camp. Fools Crow could see the dark sweat circles under the riders’ arms. One of the horses whickered and shook his head. The bit jingled in his mouth, the only sound in the afternoon air.

  “They are many and big like the tall stones of Snake Butte,” whispered Red Paint with awe.

  Fools Crow recognized the scout, Joe Kipp. He was a halfbreed who knew the Pikuni tongue and had often led the seizers north from their fort on the Pile-of-rocks River. His father had been a trader among the Pikunis for many years. Fools Crow remembered Joe Kip as a young man who joked with the warriors and teased the women.

  “Will they kill the Lone Eaters?” said Red Paint. “They have a cruel look about them. I do not like that seizer chief.”

  “Hush,” said Heavy Shield Woman. “Don’t put ideas in their heads. Look, they dismount.”

  Joe Kipp and two of the seizer chiefs had gotten down from their horses, but the others sat motionless, their rifles across their laps. There were more than eighty of them, by Fools Crow’s count. Many of them had whiskers and their blue shirts were dusty. One of them took his cap off and wiped his forehead with his arm. Another yawned, a large dark hole in his sunburned face. Another said something to him and he sat up straight.

  The two chiefs with Joe Kipp walked stiffly, almost uncertainly, the way men do when they have spent a long time in the saddle. One of them had many yellow stripes on his arms. The other wore a white head-cover that shaded his eyes, but Fools Crow could see that he had a hairy face. He was buttoning the top buttons of his tunic. A long knife jangled against his thigh.

  “Haiya!” shouted Joe Kipp. “Where are my friends, Three Bears, Rides-at-the-door, Boss Ribs! Ah, there they are, the great chiefs of the Lone Eaters!”

  “How is it that the Napikwan speaks our tongue?” said Red Paint. She had seen very few white men in her life. “He does not look like the others; yet he is not like a Pikuni. Perhaps he is of the Liars. He has those kind of eyes.”

  “His father owned a trading house many sleeps east of here. Often we traded with them when we were over that way,” said Heavy Shield Woman. “His mother was of the Dirt Lodge People. Now this young Kipp is a wolf for the seizers.”

  Fools Crow left them and walked cautiously to Three Bears’ lodge. His father glanced at him. Three Bears stood unsmiling, his blanket wrapped around his shoulders. In his hand he held his long-pipe.

  Joe Kipp held out his hand and Three Bears took it. Kipp smiled and clasped hands with Rides-at-the-door and the others. Then he gestured toward the seizers and said, “This is the Captain Snelling of the Pile-of-rocks River and his war chief, John Gates.”

  Kipp turned to the two men and said something in their language. The Captain Snelling stiffened and bowed slightly, his blue eyes fixed on Three Bears. The striped-sleeve lifted his arm to rub the back of his neck and nodded. He wore a pink garment under his blue shirt. Above the button, a mat of curly red hair caught the sun.

  Three Bears motioned for the men to sit. Several of the Pikuni men had appeared and they sat in groups around the seizers and the chiefs.

  “We will smoke,” said Three Bears. “Tell your seizers that the Lone Eaters smoke with them. We welcome them into our camp.”

  “The Captain Snelling is honored,” said Joe Kipp. “He rides far and his business is urgent, but he would welcome a smoke with the fine Lone Eaters.” Kipp turned to the seizers and spoke the strange language. The striped-sleeve shouted to the mounted men and they relaxed in their saddles but didn’t dismount or sheath their rifles.

  After the pipe had gone around, the seizer chief unbuttoned the top three buttons of his tunic and spoke. He said many words to Three Bears. Joe Kipp looked nervously from the seizer chief to Three Bears and Rides-at-the-door.

  Fools Crow wondered if Joe Kipp knew that his father spoke the Napikwan language. Rides-at-the-door had sat in on many of the negotiations with the Napikwan chiefs, and Fools Crow had heard him speak with the traders. But now he sat with a blank expression. Maybe this Napikwan spoke a different tongue, or perhaps Rides-at-the-door didn’t wish to acknowledge the words yet.

  The seizer chief fell silent and wiped his forehead with a red cloth.

  “My friends, a bad thing has happened,” said Joe Kipp. “Seven sleeps ago the white man, Malcolm Clark, was killed. You know this man as Four Bears, husband of the Pikuni Cutting-off-head Woman. He has lived and traded among you for many years. He is much respected by the white bosses for his knowledge of his red brothers. Now he is murdered and his spirit passes to the Shadowland. This makes the bosses of the great lodges at Many-sharp-points-ground very angry—”

  The seizer chief interrupted Joe Kipp and again spoke for a long time. The longer he spoke the sharper became his voice. At one point he pressed his thumb into the palm of his hand and moved it back and forth. Then he stopped and glared at the chiefs.

  Rides-at-the-door leaned close to Three Bears and said something. Fools Crow could see his lips move but he couldn’t hear what his father was saying. Three Bears continued to stare at the seizer chief.

  “The big bosses have sent this chief to track down the murderers. There were witnesses. Malcolm Clark’s daughters and son saw this thing happen. The son was wounded and left for dead, but the Great Spirit was looking out for him. Now he identifies Owl Child and Bear Chief and Black Weasel as the men who killed his father.”

  Fools Crow felt his heart quicken. He wondered if Fast Horse was among the murderers. It was less than a year ago that Fools Crow and Fast Horse had gone on the Crow raid to gain honor and wealth in the traditional way: Fast Horse, who would one day become the keeper of the Beaver Medicine, who had always been smart and ambitious. It wasn’t the fact that he might have helped kill the white man that bothered Fools Crow. This Malcolm Clark was known as a two-faced man, a bully, a dangerous fool who had little regard for the Pikunis. His death caused Fools Crow no sorrow. But Owl Child was also a bad man. He had killed one of his own, Bear Head, when the two men argued over the scalp of an enemy. Owl Child had lied and tried to claim it, but many in the party had seen Bear Head bring down the enemy. Now Owl Child wandered about with his gang, threatening the Napikwans and stealing their horses—and Fast Horse had become a part of it. He had turned away from his own people.

  They could kill us now and their bosses would be pleased, thought Fools Crow. Sun Chief favors them with strong medicine.

  “It has become known to the white chiefs that Owl Child and his men are with Mountain Chief’s band, that they hide with their relatives. I have told this seizer chief that Mountain Chief has crossed the Medicine Line, but this pup is bull-headed”—Kipp almost smiled—“and wishes to know if the people of the Lone Eaters band know where he is. I know my friend Three Bears is a good man and it pains me to speak to him thus. It is with a straight tongue that I tell him Joe Kipp wishes him and his people no harm.” Kipp’s eyes changed to a glittering hardness. “But you know how the Napikwan thinks, and it will go hard for you if you try to deceive him.”

  Three Bears leaned toward Rides-at-the-door and said, “How is it with the seizer chief that he smokes with us, then threatens to harm us when we welcome him?”

  Rides-at-the-door had his back to Fools Crow. He spoke, then shrugged his shoulders.

  Three Bears knocked the ashes from his long-pipe. He looked at the seizer chief and spoke. “As you know, Joe Kipp, I have known your father for a long time. I traded with him and he always treated me fairly. I watched you grow from an infant to a man, and I always had a liking for you. Now it saddens me to see you consorting with this rude long-knife. There are better ways for you to put food in your mouth. But you have chosen this way and so I will tell you what I know. It does not sadden me to hear of Four Bears’ death. The Pikuni people have long since cut the rope with him. He is a two-faces. He talks to us one way and to the Napikwans another. Now he is dead and
we lose no sleep. Owl Child is no better and it does not surprise me that he has killed Four Bears. Bad blood has always existed between them—ever since Four Bears beat him in front of his own people. Owl Child swore revenge and he has taken it. That is no business of the Lone Eaters. But it troubles me that this long-knife has nothing better to do than threaten us. All the time the Napikwans trespass on the Pikuni territory. Their whitehorns threaten our blackhorn ranges. It is known by Ka-ach-sino, the great Grandfather in the east, that his children who were here first desire to live in peace with the Napikwans. He has promised us that this should be so. He has promised us that we would be treated fairly and we would be rewarded for the lands we have given up. He has promised us rations. But so far the Pikunis see nothing. His agents give us nothing, though we have knocked on the door many times. Is this how he would have us treated?

  “No, tell your seizer chief here that the Lone Eaters have not seen Mountain Chief or Owl Child. The Lone Eaters attend to their affairs and wish to be left alone. Tell him the pipe is empty.”