Fools Crow (Contemporary American Fiction)

by James Welch

  “But now things are different. The great war between the Napikwans far to the east is over. More and more of the seizers who fought for Ka-ach-sino, the great Grandfather, have moved out to our country. More come still. If we take the war road against the whites, we will sooner or later encounter great numbers of them. Even with many-shots guns we couldn’t hope to match their weapons. Or their cruelty. We have heard what they did to our old enemies, the Parted Hairs, on the Washita: rubbed them out. So too would they do to the Pikunis. We are nothing to them. It is this ground we stand on they seek. These four-leggeds they would have for their own meat. Our women and children would wander and starve—those that were left.” Rides-at-the-door paused and looked into the faces of the warriors. He could see fear. But he was not done. “Sun Chief favors the Napikwans. Perhaps it’s because they come from the east where he rises each day to begin his journey. Perhaps they are old friends. Perhaps the Pikunis do not honor him enough, do not sacrifice enough. He no longer takes pity on us.

  “And so we must fend for ourselves, for our survival. That is why we must treat with the Napikwans. You are brave men, and I find myself covered with shame for speaking to you this way. But it must be so. We are up against a force we cannot fight. It is our children and their children we must think of now.”

  Rides-at-the-door’s final words hung in the smoky lodge. Even Young Bird Chief, who had thought to deny Rides-at-the-door’s estimation of the Napikwans’ strength, could not refute the gravity of these words. The distant drum continued its monotonous beat. A woman called for her child, the sound of her voice ragged and harsh above the wind.

  Three Bears lifted his eyes from the fire. “Are there any here would deny the wisdom of Rides-at-the-door? You all know him as a brave men, a man who would lead this party against the whites if there was any chance of success. It has taken great courage to speak these words to you, and so we should listen with our heads, although our hearts say otherwise. It is natural for the Pikuni men to wish to fight. We have always fought our enemies. We now engage in the biggest fight of all—the fight for our survival. If we must do it without weapons, so be it. But if the Napikwans mistake our desire for peace for weakness, then let them beware, for the Pikunis will fight them to death. That too is natural.” Three Bears filled his pipe. “Are there any others who wish to speak on this matter?”

  One or two of the men shifted, but none took up the offer. The smoke hung gloomily above their heads.

  Three Bears turned to Fools Crow. “Young man, you have done a brave and good thing, for surely this Napikwan was possessed of evil spirits. As Sun Chief honors you, so do your people.” Three Bears glanced around the circle. “But let there be no more killing of the Napikwans. Let the Lone Eaters be known as men of wisdom who put the good of their people before their individual honor.” He pulled his blanket tighter against the draft that sifted between the lodge skin and liner. “Now tell us, brave one, did you lift this Napikwan’s hair?”

  Fools Crow dug into his robe, then held up the wolfskin headdress. “Just this, Three Bears. I thought it was his hair.” He placed the large cap on his head, the wolf’s head resting atop his own. The men nudged each other and began to laugh.

  “Ah, ah, you bad one,” said Three Bears. “See how you frighten your comrades?”

  “I have a woman who looks like that,” said Young Bird Chief.

  The warriors laughed, and the wind rattled the lodgepoles far over their heads. The mournful drum had stopped.

  16

  FOOLS CROW RODE HARD behind the big cow, knees clamped tight around the black horse. The blackhorn ran with her head down, her eye rimmed with white, her tongue lolling out of the side of her mouth. Her short legs were a black blur beneath Fools Crow’s line of vision. The drumming of her hooves sounded hollow on the short-grass prairie. When he got even with her shoulder, he raised the rifle to his cheek and fired. The shooter entered the blackhorn’s body just behind the shoulder and the front legs collapsed. Her momentum caused her to skid several paces on her chin. Then she rolled onto her left side, her back legs still kicking. She bellowed once, then lay quiet.

  The rest of the small herd disappeared over the lip of a ravine. Fools Crow reined his horse in and watched them stream up the other side. The black horse panted lightly, but Fools Crow could feel the rib cage expand and contract between his legs. He turned in the saddle and looked behind him. The other cow lay like a black stone some five hundred paces back. In the distance he could see Red Paint and Heavy Shield Woman leading their packhorses toward the first blackhorn. It had been several sleeps since he had killed blackhorns. The thought of boss ribs and back fat made his mouth water. The hides were not yet prime, but they were thick and sleek. They would bring a fair price.

  Fools Crow ejected the spent shell and sniffed the faint smell of gunpowder. He looked up at the sky. The clouds were lower and puffier today, driven south like gray bighorns by Cold Maker. There had been a snow cover at dawn. It was gone now, but the longtime-rain moon had passed. Soon the snow would come to stay. Fools Crow tightened the belt of his capote and turned away from the wind. To the south he could make out the pale outline of Sun Chief behind a high thin cloud. He thought again of that hot day when Sun had hidden his face. He had thought of it many times with an increasing sense of dread. The people always said when Sun Chief hides his face a great chief will die. Fox Eyes, the great war chief, had died, and the people thought that was the end of it. But perhaps they were wrong, he thought, perhaps they were mistaken. He felt a mild tingle of fear in his backbone. To question Sun Chief was not good, but he couldn’t help the feeling that came over him, the thought that had been growing in his head. Perhaps Sun was angry with the Pikunis and meant to strike them all down. Hadn’t Rides-at-the-door, his own father, said that the people were no longer favored by Sun? Wasn’t it true that Sun Chief no longer cared whether the people lived or died? Perhaps he had sent the Napikwans to rub them out. The Pikunis were small in his eyes. Only the Napikwans were large enough to attract his pitiless gaze.

  Fools Crow looked mournfully about him. He scanned the prairies and horizons. Like all the Pikunis lately, he had taken to looking often into the distance, not for game, but for the enemy, the Napikwans, the seizers. He was certain in his heart that the seizers would return, this time not for talk but for war. He remembered how the striped-sleeve had watched the parley between the leaders of the Lone Eaters and Joe Kipp and the seizer chief. Even now he could almost smell the hatred in the man’s eyes, like the acrid scent in a cornered weasel. But since shooting the big Napikwan in the Backbone, Fools Crow was no longer afraid of them. They were only men who could be killed with their own weapons. He looked down at the many-shots gun. He knew that he could kill more Napikwans, and in spite of what his father said, he looked forward to it. Still, it gave him no joy. Why had Sun Chief deserted the people?

  Fools Crow was about to turn back, to help Red Paint and her mother load the meat and hides on the packhorses, when something caught his eye to the southeast. He squinted but he could not make out the size and shape of the object. It could be a lone blackhorn, he thought, or a dark rock. Perhaps a bear. Or a rider. Most of the Lone Eater men were off hunting to the southwest, near the rims of Yellow Paint Coulee. This rider, if the object was that, was not of the Lone Eaters. Then who? The Never Laughs band was camped to the south, near the big bend of the Bear River. Perhaps this rider was of the Never Laughs, perhaps with news.

  Fools Crow turned his horse and galloped back to the small knoll where the two women were butchering the cow. He addressed only Red Paint, cautiously avoiding his mother-in-law. They had the hindquarters off and were working at the ribs. Heavy Shield Woman continued to split the ribs with a small ax while Fools Crow and Red Paint talked. She feigned indifference, but as soon as her son-in-law expressed concern that the rider might be hostile, she began to drag a hindquarter toward the packhorses. Fools Crow helped them load the horses, finally covering the meat with the
wet hide. Then the women mounted their horses and turned toward camp, leading two of the packhorses. Fools Crow watched them go, then glanced up at the lightless sun. They would make the camp well before dusk.

  He led the other packhorse to the downed cow, which he quickly gutted, setting the liver and emptied stomach off to one side. Then he got back on his horse and rode to a rock outcropping on the edge of the cutbank coulee. He could see, on a gentle slope to the south of him, the sliding prints made by the blackhorn herd he had chased earlier.

  The figure was that of a man on horseback, and he was riding directly toward Fools Crow. He looked behind the rider but the prairies were empty to the horizon. He got down off the black horse and levered a cartridge into the chamber of his rifle. The wind ruffled the two raven feathers in his hair.

  He did not recognize the rider. The heavy buffalo coat and wide-brimmed hat hid the man’s features. The horse was a large bay. The saddle was a white man’s saddle. The man was hunched forward into the wind, his hat pulled low.

  Fools Crow held his rifle at his waist. He couldn’t tell if the man had spotted him. He was less than a hundred paces away, on the other side of the shallow ravine. The man stopped his horse and lifted his head. He looked around him, as though he had just woken up. His buffalo coat parted and Fools Crow saw the short-gun in the man’s hands. Both men stared at each other across the ravine. Then Fools Crow let out a whoop, jumped on his horse and rode down into the ravine. The black horse jumped a dry wash and scrambled up the other side. The man looked wary but sat on his horse patiently.

  “It is you,” cried Fools Crow, looking into the dark, close-set eyes. “Fast Horse, you have returned!”

  Fast Horse grinned at his old friend, baring his clenched white teeth, more a grimace than a smile. His face looked ashen, but Fools Crow thought it was because of the gray light.

  “You look about the same, dog-lover,” said Fast Horse. “Perhaps a little fatter. They tell me you are married now.”

  “To Red Paint, daughter of Heavy Shield Woman and Yellow Kidney.” Fools Crow saw the flash of pain in his friend’s eyes and wished he hadn’t mentioned Yellow Kidney.

  After a pause in which Fast Horse turned in his saddle and scanned the prairie behind him, he said, “And a new name. They tell me you fool the Crows now. Is this true?”

  “So you say.” Fools Crow rubbed his nose in embarrassment.

  Fast Horse laughed, but the deep voice had an edge to it. “Your luck has changed, my friend. You are no longer the sad-faced dog-lover of this time a winter ago.”

  “You are different too. You no longer dress like the Pikunis.” Fools Crow had been studying his friend’s dress—the buffalo coat, the dusty black hat, the white collarless shirt, the gray wool pants. Fast Horse wore moccasins, but he had a pair of Napikwan boots tied to his saddle. His face, lean and tight-lipped, retained that look that Fools Crow had noticed at the Sun Dance ceremony.

  “I have been places,” said Fast Horse. “I have been to the whiskey forts beyond the Medicine Line. I have been to that place below Many-sharp-points-ground where the Napikwans dig the yellow dust. Now I return from Many Houses fort on the Big River.” Fast Horse smiled. “And now I’m afraid I am shot.” He lifted the buffalo coat from his left side. He had tied a heavy cloth around his ribs but it was caked with blood. “Here is where it came out.”

  Only twice on the journey to the camp of the Lone Eaters did Fast Horse speak again. Once he asked about his father in such a way that Fools Crow knew he was apprehensive about his reception in camp. Another time, after a long coughing fit in which he spit up a mouthful of foamy blood, he said, “I am shot by the fool Napikwans.” The rest of the time he hunched low in his saddle and appeared to doze.

  It was dusk by the time they arrived in camp. As Fools Crow led his friend to Boss Ribs’ lodge he noticed how quiet all the lodges were. Three dogs had come out to meet them as they approached camp, barking and howling, but now they trotted silently beside the horses. A woman with an armload of firewood watched them pass. But he saw no children about, no men standing in small groups, gossiping. It had become a winter camp.

  Fools Crow got down from his horse and called into the lodge for Boss Ribs. Then he helped Fast Horse down, but the young man’s legs were as weak as a baby’s. He fell and Fools Crow caught him and laid him gently on the ground.

  Boss Ribs came out, followed by his two wives, neither of which was Fast Horse’s mother. She had been killed by a real-bear while berry picking. Boss Ribs knelt beside Fools Crow and looked down.

  “He’s been shot.” Fools Crow drew away the coat, exposing the bloody cloth.

  Boss Ribs looked down at his son, who lay with his eyes closed. If Fools Crow had expected to see Boss Ribs exclaim or weep, he was disappointed. The older man said to his wives, “Help me carry him inside.”

  As Fools Crow hurried down to Mik-api’s lodge, he wondered at Boss Ribs’ reaction to his wounded son. He realized he had never come to know this keeper of the Beaver Medicine. When Rides-at-the-door told him of the many crazy things he and Boss Ribs had done when they were young, he had never been able to imagine Boss Ribs running a herd of horses through the camp of some Entrails People back in the days when the Pikunis were friendly with them. Or pissing from a ledge onto a Cutthroat scout who had fallen asleep. Fools Crow only knew him as his friend’s father, a serious quiet man who opened his Beaver Medicine bundle with each new moon and who kept the winter count.

  Fools Crow sat near a far wall of the lodge all night, watching Mik-api make his medicine. Boss Ribs and his two wives sat together, opposite Fools Crow. Mik-api did not like to have a sick one’s family in the lodge because it thinned the concentration of the medicine. A bad spirit, as it made up its mind to leave the body, would sometimes see the family, become frightened and jump back in. But Mik-api made an exception in this lodge. Boss Ribs was a spirit man and his wives helped him with the Beaver Medicine ceremony.

  Mik-api performed the healing ceremony as though only he and Fast Horse were in the lodge. The only time he looked away from the youth was when he needed something from his bag or told Fools Crow to boil water or grind leaves. He seemed to be in another world as he chanted and sang and beat the small stretched skin with his blackhorn-scrotum rattle. Once he stood up and circled Fast Horse, swooping and diving, imitating the eagle’s flight, blowing on his eagle-bone whistle. Then he dropped to his knees and fanned Fast Horse’s body with an eagle wing. He blew the whistle over the body, and a thin yellow stream of paste dribbled on the chest and stomach. He put away his eagle things and applied a third compress on the wound. He held the compress tightly until all the liquid oozed over the wound. All the while he chanted, “Eagle spirit, heal this body, each death makes me poor.”

  Fools Crow awoke in the gray light of winter morning, startled out of a dream of mountains and berries. He stirred the small fire and added more wood. Mik-api was still bent over the limp body, praying in a language that Fools Crow had heard before in Mik-api’s healing ceremonies. It was the language of the Black Paint People, who taught him his medicine. Mik-api’s gray hair hung loose around his face. He looks like an old woman, thought Fools Crow, so drawn and wrinkled. Even his hands are bleached and withered, like an old skin thrown away to the rain and sun. It was hard to believe that the shrunken old man possessed so much magic. Fools Crow settled back to watch, to learn.

  Again, Fools Crow was awakened out of a dream, this time by a sharp moan. He sat up quickly. The lodge was light and quiet. Mik-api was gone. Boss Ribs and his wives were gone. Fools Crow scrambled to build up the fire.

  Fast Horse lay with his eyes open. His face was gray and bloated. At first, Fools Crow thought he was dead, but as he looked down in dread, he saw his friend blink his eyes. He knelt beside the face and touched it with his hand. The cracked lips moved but no sound came out. The eyes closed.

  Fools Crow dipped a cloth into the warm water over the fire. He wrung it out and bathed his fri
end’s face. He dipped a cup of water before he remembered that Mik-api, another time, had told him not to give water to one who had been gut-shot.

  Mik-api must have gone to his own lodge to sleep, thought Fools Crow. He hated to wake the heavy-singer-for-the-sick, but he knew that Mik-api would want to know that Fast Horse had opened his eyes. He pulled the robe up under his friend’s chin; then he ducked outside the flap and almost knocked Mik-api over. Mik-api was wearing a fur cap over his damp hair.

  “I was having a sweat with Boss Ribs and his wives. They’ll be along shortly.”

  “He opened his eyes.”

  “That is a good sign, but we must not hope too much.” Mik-api entered the lodge. “There is poison in him yet.”