Fools Crow (Contemporary American Fiction)

by James Welch

  “You tell them Owl Child did this to you. This is how he treats with the belly-crawlers.” He knew she didn’t understand him, but that was all right. The message would be delivered.

  Under Bull and Bear Chief had the Napikwan’s horses out of the corral and ready to drive. They watched Fast Horse study the red hair in his hands. But Fast Horse was not happy. He had wanted the Napikwan to die more, piece by piece. He had been cheated by his own rage. He tucked the red hair into a pocket of his buffalo coat, which was tied to the saddle behind him. Then he watched Owl Child and the others leave the bare-earth yard and ride toward him. Under Bull and Bear Chief started the horses. “Sonofabitch.” He had done it too fast.

  19

  DOUBLE STRIKE WOMAN cut many chunks of meat the size of her fist from the hindquarters that lay on a piece of rawhide near the wall of the lodge. Her friend White Grass Woman was coming to feast, along with her husband, Skunk Cap. She hummed as she worked, a gentle sleeping song that she used to sing to Running Fisher and, before him, White Man’s Dog. She still couldn’t get used to the name Fools Crow, just as many years ago she couldn’t feel comfortable with the name White Man’s Dog. She had to smile when she thought how he had acquired that name. He was nine winters, and he had taken to following an old storyteller around—Victory Robe White Man. One day one of the men saw the storyteller alone and said, “Where is White Man’s dog?” and the name stuck. Double Strike Woman had never liked it. In the lodge, sometimes, she still called him Sinopa, his birth name, but she knew better than to embarrass him with a child’s name when they were with others. He had changed so much in the past year, so fast. One day he was a sullen youth, in and out of love, unlucky in all his endeavors. The next day he was a man, married, soon to be a father, counting war honors and a great favorite of Mik-api. Now he was a presence in camp, the kind of man the others asked about.

  But Double Strike Woman was worried about him and angry with him. Once again he had sneaked out of camp, this time to get that no-good Fast Horse. Just when things are going good for him, she thought, he does this foolish thing. It wasn’t just Fast Horse, it was that whole gang of killers he ran with. They were so vicious they would kill one of their own and not think twice. Why hadn’t he thought more about his own family? She cut the last chunk of meat, then rewrapped the hindquarters in the rawhide. The worst part was she had had to hear it from White Grass Woman. How did that woman hear everything? She always had the latest gossip. Somehow she was able to dig it out of people. Even as they were telling her their troubles or secrets, they knew she would hurry off to gossip about them. Perhaps they felt it was better to tell this great cow of a woman and have it become common knowledge than to let it seep out slowly to become twisted and malicious. White Grass Woman was in great demand among the Lone Eater wives. Perhaps, thought Double Strike Woman, that is why she is so fat.

  She padded over to the entrance and stuck her head out the flap. Striped Face knelt over a large stone. She had a stone hammer in her fist. Several cracked marrow bones lay beside the stone.

  “Are you getting it all out?” Double Strike Woman called to her sister. “Here, this one here—there is still some in this end.”

  “That is too near the knuckle. I can’t crack it. Now leave me alone.”

  Double Strike Woman laughed. She was glad that Rides-at-the-door had taken Striped Face for his second wife. Striped Face had been a wild girl, and their parents thought she would be too much for any young man to handle. They feared that she would never get married. It took a lot of talking by Double Strike Woman to convince Rides-at-the-door that she needed help around the lodge. But Striped Face was attractive in a belligerent way. Her small tough body and mocking eyes made men uneasy—but interested. Rides-at-the-door had thought he would have a hard time of it trying to keep her from straying, but once she moved into the lodge, she changed. She still enjoyed flirting with men around the camp, but it had become harmless on her part. Mostly, she liked to tease Rides-at-the-door, to make him angry and aroused enough to take her into the small lodge, where they would struggle among the robes. The first time this happened, Double Strike Woman had felt strange; not betrayed, exactly, but forgotten, as though she were no longer principal wife but a thing, a cow that suckled the two infant sons. She had felt old, even at the age of twenty-four winters. Her heart was a heavy thing beneath her full breasts. But when they came back to the big lodge in the morning, she saw in Rides-at-the-door’s eyes that she was still his sits-beside-him woman. That night she gave him one of her breasts, and the strength between them grew.

  The winters have gone by, thought Double Strike Woman; my sons are now young men who seek their own way. She frowned as she thought of Running Fisher. What had gotten into him lately? She still couldn’t understand why he had moved out of the lodge. He never talked anymore. Sometimes when she asked him a question, he only looked at her, as though his mind wandered out on the prairies. The other day when she had taken him a special meal of stuffed intestines, she had found him lying in his robe, staring up through the smoke hole of his small lodge. Rides-at-the-door said he was having trouble because his older brother had become successful in many ways. It was natural to be jealous, and it would soon pass. But why did he have to quit the lodge? She missed her sons, the laughter and teasing, the fierce scoldings she gave them when they reached too far. Double Strike Woman sighed and ducked back into the quiet lodge. Kills-close-to-the-lake looked up and smiled. She was cutting new neck-hide soles for a pair of winter moccasins.

  Kills-close-to-the-lake, the third wife of Rides-at-the-door, sat far from him. She dipped some marrow from the bowl and sucked it off her fingers. There seemed to be three conversations going on most of the time, but when White Grass Woman mentioned a name they all stopped talking and listened intently. Even the men did not want to miss the latest story about Two Stab’s wife, or about Big Wolf Medicine and the stolen gray horse, or about the young man from the Grease Melters who had been seen around Motokis’ lodge. White Grass Woman reported these inci dents in a fine bitter voice, followed by a rich, rolling laugh when she reached the end of a story. Then the voices would begin again, a loud hum of laughter and anger, sometimes at the same time, and Kills-close-to-the-lake would return to her own thoughts.

  She was the daughter of Mad Wolf, a poor man of the Never Laughs, on whom Rides-at-the-door had taken pity. The two men were cousins in a distant way and they were members of the same society, the All Crazy Dogs. Many times at the Sun Dance ceremony they had sat together and talked. In spite of his name, Mad Wolf was a gentle man, given to moments of sorrowful silence. He was neither a good hunter nor a warrior, but Rides-at-the-door found a quality in him that he liked, a trustworthiness that made one want to confide in him. Once Rides-at-the-door was to the point of asking Mad Wolf to take his family and live at the agency at Many Houses. There he could ingratiate himself with the Napikwans, work for them and perhaps gain some information that would be useful to the Pikunis. But such a move would destroy those very qualities that Rides-at-the-door liked.

  It was at the summer encampment the summer before this last one that Mad Wolf expressed concern for his only daughter. He had no dowry to offer, so it was unlikely that a young man would take her as wife. She would grow old and bitter in her father’s lodge. In a moment of pity and generosity, Rides-at-the-door said he had no need of more wealth. He offered to take the girl into his lodge as his third wife. She was sixteen at the time. There was no ceremony, only an exchange of small gifts. Rides-at-the-door gave his friend an old ball-and-powder gun, and Mad Wolf gave him a somewhat battered real-lion skin with painted designs on the tanned side. So Kills-close-to-the-lake left the encampment with the Lone Eaters. She had been desperately unhappy to leave with the stranger and his two other wives but she had little choice in the matter.

  “... and so that skinny thing had to move into the lodge of her son-in-law. Can you imagine the trouble they must be having trying to avoid each other?” White Grass
Woman rolled her eyes.

  Kills-close-to-the-lake listened to the laughter with a nervous flutter in her stomach. Her throat was dry, and the small amount of meat she had eaten threatened to come back up.

  Once again she tried to convince herself that it was all right, that it was not even her doing. She glanced across the circle to Rides-at-the-door. In the time they had been married he had taken her to the small lodge only four or five times. He treated her more as a daughter, and his other wives treated her as a necessary but uninvited presence. Double Strike Woman ordered her about, and Striped Face often mocked her timidity—especially when Striped Face came back after spending the night with Rides-at-the-door in the small lodge. She would sit across the fire sewing or drinking broth and look up from time to time to grin silently at the young girl.

  White Grass Woman was telling yet another story, but Kills-close-to-the-lake felt that all were conscious of her presence and her thoughts. She saw herself again that first time it happened. It was dusk and she was walking down to the river to fill a kettle. A light snow had fallen, and she could hear the squeak of it beneath her moccasins. As she passed the small plain tipi set apart from the others, she heard her name being called in that familiar voice. Now she knew she had recognized a tension in the voice and knew she should have kept walking. But she had stopped and turned slowly. She saw him standing by the entrance, a load of firewood in his arms. As she entered the tipi, she saw him bend over and she heard the brittle clatter of the wood dropping on the hard earth. He was talking in a spirited way, but she didn’t remember the words. When he turned she looked down at the buckskin leggings she had made for him, the red trade-cloth that covered his groin. When she looked up she saw the firelight dancing on his strong teeth. He was laughing in that thin, nervous way she had heard so many times around her husband’s fire.

  She tried to recall exactly how it happened, those first few moments in the tipi, but all she could remember was being shoved down on the blackhorn robes and the feeling of his cold fingers inside of her. She had struggled, but he had forced her back with his forearm across her shoulders. When his harsh breathing had subsided, she stood and smoothed her dress down over her leggings, picked up the brass kettle and continued down to the river. There she washed herself in the cold water. It wasn’t until the next morning that the shock wore off and she felt a warmth in her thighs. She felt her heart beat fast and realized that she wanted a man of her own, wanted him more than anything she could imagine. And she would go back again, and again, for as long as he wanted her.

  She felt dizzy and almost sick from the laughter and the heat in the big lodge. She looked across the fire at White Grass Woman, who had the marrow bowl set on her great breast. Her chin was greasy and her small eyes glittered with delight. Her husband, Skunk Cap, was telling a story that had the others whooping with laughter. Striped Face was bent at the waist, spearing a piece of meat from the wooden slab, her other hand over her happy mouth.

  Kills-close-to-the-lake slipped quickly out the entrance, walked a short distance away and raised her face, breathing deeply the chinook wind. Seven Persons was partially hidden behind a ragged cloud illuminated by the half-full moon. She stood still and listened to the talking and laughter in the lodge. They had not missed her. She walked to the path that led down to the river. She wove her way among the lodges, glowing with evening fires. Some were quiet; others contained the noises of feasting that went on every night in the camp. She stopped behind one lodge to let two women pass. She didn’t see their faces. Then she was on the path which snaked between two patches of wild rose. Once beyond them she could see the plain tipi set back among the big-leaf trees, thirty paces from the path. She picked her way through the long damp grass, holding the hem of her dress. She stood beside the entrance and listened for the sound of voices, half hoping to hear them. She heard only the rippling of the river as it descended a riffle to a smooth bathing pool. Off to the southwest Early Riser glittered yellow-white in the night sky. Kills-close-to-the-lake breathed deeply and ducked down through the flap.

  Running Fisher lay against a backrest, studying the markings on an arrow. He glanced up, and she saw his young smooth face clearly in the firelight. At seventeen, he was one winter younger than she. He smiled, and then he laughed that high nervous laugh that sounded like wind through a quaking-leaf grove.

  “You have returned. What’s the matter—did you leave something last time?”

  She wanted to answer in that same mocking tone but when she opened her mouth a dryness caught in her throat. She stood just inside the entrance, her legs trembling. She tried to smile.

  “Come here, then—where it’s warm.” Running Fisher held the robe back. He was naked from the waist down.

  With a thin cry that she didn’t hear, she slipped beneath the robe. He sat up and pushed her dress around her waist. He undid her leggings and pulled her moccasins off. He smiled down at her and said, “You are shivering. Is it cold out? Would you like me to build up the fire?”

  With a shudder she pulled him down and felt his warmth growing against her thigh. His fingers stroked her and she bit her lower lip in an effort to keep from crying out. At that moment he was everything she possessed in the world, and she gave herself to him.

  Striped Face limped back to camp, muttering in pain. Once she stopped and lifted her dress to look at the knee. She rubbed the roughened skin and held her hand to the moonlight. The blood was dark and warm on her fingers. She cursed the stone she had tripped on and the stone her knee had hit. This is what you get, she thought, for being so nosy. But the wound was not bad, not as bad as she had thought. It was only the cold air that made it sting so. She lowered the hem of her dress and walked on.

  She had been right, though. She had seen something and heard even more. In spite of the pain, she smiled. To think it had been Fools Crow that she had suspected! When he lived in his father’s lodge, she had seen the way they looked at each other, the way they touched by accident, the way her cheeks flushed on those rare occasions he spoke to her. At the Sun Dance encampment she had spied on them down by the creek. Although they kept their distance from each other, Striped Face could feel the tension in the heavy summer air. She had been sure they were lovers, but she could never catch them. It had been a disappointment when Fools Crow moved out of the lodge to marry Red Paint.

  Ah, but this one! Running Fisher, the proud one—the one who never acknowledged Striped Face—satisfying his lust with his own father’s young wife! This was better, for in truth she liked Fools Crow.

  And she pitied Rides-at-the-door; if the news got around camp he would lose much honor. To be betrayed by a wife was one thing; to be betrayed by a son was another. But together! Striped Face frowned. She too would lose honor to be married to such a man. They would all be talked about and laughed at. She thought of White Grass Woman’s great rolling laughter and became angry. And she grew angrier at the injustice of her own situation. She had been virtuous although it hadn’t been easy. When the drunken hunter of the Hard Topknots had carried her into the bushes, she had fought him. Her heart wasn’t in the fight —her struggle became a struggle against herself as well. And there were others, but she hadn’t allowed herself to submit. Her knee began to throb as the stinging lessened and she thought of those men, and she knew again the power she felt when she turned them away. Even her husband—when she was in the mood for teasing, she made him ask, almost beg to come to her. Oh, he treated her roughly when she finally yielded, but they both knew that she had the power.

  And now she had real power over Kills-close-to-the-lake and Running Fisher. She was pleased with herself for having the cunning to follow the young wife when she left the lodge. She just had a feeling. Her face burned when she recalled the sounds of their lovemaking. She had stood outside the tipi, hidden in a thick stand of willows, scarcely three paces from where they carried on. She had felt her own legs grow weak, as though each moan and cry were her own. She had closed her eyes and imagined that
she could see them, could smell the juices of their coupling. Suddenly it had become quiet and when she opened her eyes, she saw the warm glow of the tipi and heard a dog bark. She had felt heavy and weak as she picked her way through the willow to a clearing by the river. She was going down to wash her face when she stumbled over the river rock and hit her knee. That had brought her to her senses.

  But now she was again filled with desire, and vaguely irritated that it should be so. As she neared the big lodge she wondered if Double Strike Woman would be sleeping with Rides-at-the-door. She grinned with heat. There would be no teasing tonight.

  20

  FOOLS CROW HAD TAKEN to traveling cautiously now, for he was in the country of the Napikwans. There were ranches along the Big River and others scattered on the bluffs above. Each year there were more, and they became harder to avoid. He stayed well away from the buildings, but sometimes he had to ride through the herds of whitehorns. They were scrawny things with wide horns and long faces. Sometimes they would run from him, but other times they would just look up, chewing thoughtfully, their dark eyes questioning this strange man. Most of the time he kept to the low points, the ravines and cutbanks, as he made his way south.