Fools Crow (Contemporary American Fiction)

by James Welch

  Fools Crow looked down at the hand on his arm. Women do not touch a man so easily, he thought. Not in his world. But her touch was light and warm and it did not offend him.

  “I do not live much in your world,” she said. “I do not fully understand the ways of the Pikunis anymore.” The smile returned to her face. “Are you hungry?”

  Fools Crow looked at the woman. Her skin was a shade lighter than his, yet she did not look like a Napikwan. He looked into her face, and she looked back, smiling. Pikuni women were not that open; nor were the women of the other tribes he knew. He looked away, down the river where he had first seen her. “I do not feel hunger,” he said.

  “No, there is no hunger here.” Her voice sounded almost wistful. “I have tobacco in my lodge.” She turned and began to walk downriver. The dog ran ahead of her.

  Fools Crow stood for a moment, confused at her openness, her boldness, but it did not seem offensive. Her touch had startled him, but it made him feel warm. Her smile and laughter too seemed easy, and as he thought about it, he found that he had enjoyed that too. But why had she cut off her hair? Whom did she mourn? He pulled on his winter moccasins and trotted after the woman.

  The lodge was set back thirty paces from the river, on a short rise of tufted grass. Behind the lodge, away from the river, stood a grove of alder trees, the gray skin of their trunks standing starkly against the greens and yellows of the summer valley. The lodge itself was made of skins as white as the woman’s dress. It too was unadorned. Fools Crow leaned against a backrest and smoked the woman’s tobacco. It was sweeter and more fragrant than the Napikwan tobacco that his people had come to smoke. As he smoked he looked around the lodge and was surprised to see that it contained almost nothing besides the backrest and two white bighead robes, one on either side of the fire pit. Against the wall opposite the entrance lay a bulging sack, old and worn, filled with what appeared to be round objects. Next to the sack he saw a digging stick, like the one Red Paint used to dig roots.

  Although the lodge with its white skins was almost as bright as the outside, the air was cooler, and the sweet tobacco made Fools Crow content. He felt as comfortable here as he did in his own lodge. He laid the pipe on a stone beside him and looked across at the woman. She had her head down, and he saw that she was painting a design on a yellow skin. Then she began to sing, and it was the sleeping song that Fools Crow had heard back in the cabin. He closed his eyes and listened to the sweetness in the voice. He felt no sense of urgency now. He had lost track of time and knew that the woman would speak to him when she was ready. This waiting was part of the journey. And so he listened to the woman’s song and he heard, beyond her voice, the noise like a distant waterfall of children laughing.

  He awoke to the blue light of false dawn. The walls of the tipi were blue, and when he looked at his hands he saw that they too were blue. He sat up quickly and looked across the fire pit. The woman was gone. He looked down at the small orange glow of the fire pit and felt a quiet sorrow spread through his body, and he couldn’t account for it. It seemed to enter him from outside, as though the lodge itself were filled with sorrow. He looked around the empty space and spotted the yellow skin that the woman had been painting. He reached it and held it before him, but there was no design, no picture on it. He turned it over and that side was empty of paint too. He held it closer, but there was no trace of pigment on it. How is this, he thought, that she paints, yet there is nothing there, not even a smudge? Did I not see the design with my own eyes? But he could not remember the design or the colors. In his confusion he thought he had dreamed the woman in her world, but as he looked around he saw the white bighead pelts, the embers in the fire pit. She was real, and suddenly he wanted to see her again, to feel her touch on his arm, to hear her strong, laughing voice.

  Fools Crow put the skin aside and stood. He was wearing only his breechcloth, and his skin looked pale in the blue light. Then he heard a sound from far off that he recognized as the cries of winter geese. Once, as a child in the big-wind moon, he had crouched on the brow of a hill and watched the geese coming and going, and he was blinded by their flashing wings in the gray sun. The large, shallow lake was covered with the flashing wings, and the commotion excited and frightened him. But it was the noise, the thousands of voices yelping shrilly in his ears, that caused him to fear for himself. For many sleeps after that he heard those voices, and they echoed and echoed deep within him until he thought he had become crazy and would die. Each night he dreamed of the winter geese, until Rides-at-the-door brought in a many-faces man to drive the voices from his body.

  Fools Crow shivered now, as he listened to the distant yelping, and a thought crept into his mind: I have been tricked by Nitsokan. He has brought me to this place to die. He has summoned the winter geese to kill me. And Wolverine helped him. Wolverine led me to this place. Ah, Skunk Bear, why do you betray me? Have I not helped you in your trouble? Twice I released you from the Napikwans’ steel jaws, twice I have saved your life. Treacherous creature, your brothers are right not to trust you. You steal their kills. I have seen you steal the long-legs from the little bigmouths after they have brought it down. I have seen you steal even a mouse from Sinopa, the fox. You are evil, Skunk Bear, and that is why you roam these mountains alone, stealing kills and killing others for pleasure. And today you wish to steal my life too.

  Now the winter geese were even closer, their cries entering Fools Crow’s ears and plunging into his heart. He stood naked before the shrill onslaught. He did not even have a weapon with which to fight and die honorably. As his heart fell down, he thought of the woman and wondered why she had taken part in such a cruel trick. Had she not touched him, and had not that touch been warm and trusting?

  Fools Crow quit the woman’s lodge and began to walk toward the alder grove. The flashing wings and cries were all around him now and he knew that his power was gone, but he walked ahead as a man does who is dreaming. And like the dreaming man, he did not see the geese, for they were all within him and they consumed his power, and he walked among the gray trunks of the alders in the false dawn.

  The woman knelt in a clearing beyond the alder grove. Her white dress was as bright as new snow in the blue light. She sat back on her heels and lifted her arms to the horizon on the eastern edge of the bowl. Beside her lay the bulging sack and before her, at her knees, lay the digging stick. She had fastened in her hair a yellow feather. In one hand she clutched a juniper bough. A spider’s web was woven among the shiny fingers of the bough.

  Fools Crow squatted at the edge of the clearing behind her, his back resting against an alder trunk. It was quiet in the bowl and he became aware, once again, of the absence of bird and animal. But as he thought this, he felt a presence behind him, a slow breathing. He turned his head quickly and saw the woman’s dog, three paces behind and slightly to the side. The dog was sitting patiently, as though he had witnessed this scene in this clearing many times. Fools Crow looked into the dark eyes and the dog glanced at him, then returned his gaze to the woman.

  “Sa-sak-si,” whispered Fools Crow. “Come, Freckle-face.”

  The dog did not hesitate. He walked the few paces, then sat down beside Fools Crow.

  “Tell me what your mistress is doing.”

  But the dog did not look at him.

  Just then the woman began to sing. She sang softly, but her music filled the bowl; it was as though it were made to hold her song. The words echoed round and round, and Fools Crow was filled with awe.

  “There is my son, and there is Morning Star,

  Together they ride forever, across the morning sky.

  Many have wanted to marry me,

  I love only Morning Star.”

  Three times she sang this, then three times more, and when Fools Crow looked up at the horizon before her, he saw Morning Star and his son, Poia, against the deep blue of the false dawn. The woman began to wail, and her wailing filled the bowl with the voices of a thousand geese, and Fools Crow closed his ey
es and clapped his hands over his ears, but the sound was once again in him and he was outside of himself, a child again, staring at the wintry lake and the flashing wings.

  And then the wailing stopped. Fools Crow opened his eyes, and Early Riser and Poia were gone. The horizon was streaked with the pale yellow of dawn. There was the sound of a drum, and the sky turned lighter and lighter, and then Sun Chief himself entered the bowl, casting his brilliant light down to the small clearing, and the clean night smells gave way to the dusty odors of the moon of the burnt grass.

  The woman sat with her back bent and her head down. Her arms were at her sides, and although she still held the juniper bough, it lay on the grass, dusty and limp. Fools Crow wanted to go away, to shrink back into the trees, but he could not bear to leave her this way. He walked quietly into the clearing, and when he reached her he touched her shoulder. He squatted beside her and looked into her face. The tears had dried, but something in the face told Fools Crow of a grief so deep it would always be there and no words from him could help. She opened her eyes and looked at him without seeing. Her eyes were the blue of the light in her lodge that Fools Crow had seen earlier, the light that created no shadows. Just then, Freckle-face, who had never left the edge of the clearing, barked and the woman blinked, and when she looked up the sun filled her eyes.

  “Are you well?” said Fools Crow.

  The woman slowly moved her head, taking in the clearing as though she were seeing it for the first time. “I was digging turnips,” she said. “I must have lost my way.” She heaved herself up from the ground, tired and heavy, like an old cow. She sighed and picked up her sack and digging stick. When she straightened up, she looked at Fools Crow and smiled and the youthful look returned. “Look, I have a whole bagful.”

  Fools Crow looked off to the eastern horizon. The mountain was a dusty green. Near the top, beneath the granite face, he could see a small pocket of yellow snow. On the other side of the peak, it would be winter, and his people would be there, waiting for a direction or a sign. Would they wait forever? Fools Crow turned back to the woman.

  “Who do you mourn?” He was surprised by the anger in his voice. “Who are you?”

  32

  RIDES-AT-THE-DOOR sat facing the entrance to his lodge. It was his accustomed place, and usually he would be flanked on either side by family and friends. There would be the smell of meat roasting; there would be stories and laughter; there would be faces, the faces of those he loved. But not this night. This night he sat alone, smoking his short-pipe and thinking of the ways he had tried to be a good man, a man of wisdom and generosity whom the people respected and sought for counsel. He thought of the times he had helped Three Bears do the necessary thing for the Lone Eaters, the times he had helped the young men in their war and raiding pursuits. He had tried to be a good father—he had taught his sons to ride and to hunt, to drive an arrow deep in the right spot. He had given them strength and courage when facing the enemy. And he had made Fools Crow proud to be of the Lone Eaters and the Pikunis. But he had failed somehow in the case of Running Fisher. He had been caught up in Fools Crow’s development as a man of many strengths; he hadn’t noticed how Running Fisher had been twisting away from the good path. At first, Rides-at-the-door had taken the young man’s haughty attitude as a sign of strength, of youthful pride, the way it is when a youth is full of himself. Sometimes that is a good quality in a young man, for he marks himself as one who will stand out in later life. Many times that quality brings honor to the man’s family as well as himself.

  Honor is all we have, thought Rides-at-the-door, that and the blackhorns. Take away one or the other and we have nothing. One feeds us and the other nourishes us. And so I must do this thing for honor. It is not a good thing but it must be done.

  The skin over the entrance rustled, and he watched Kills-close-to-the-lake enter and take a place far from him and the warmth of the fire. He looked at her without expression but he thought that she was indeed a lovely young woman, and he felt the sorrow he had felt when Striped Face told him of this thing. And the remorse—for he had deprived a young man of the chance to grow up with this young woman. He had taken her as a wife only as a favor to his pitiful friend, Mad Wolf. At the time it had seemed like an act of generosity, but now he wondered if he had taken her on as just another display. He had little patience with men who boasted of their wealth. Yet he questioned his own motives, for when she moved into his lodge, he had not only endured the teasing of his friends, he had enjoyed it.

  Kills-close-to-the-lake sat with her head down, a woolen shawl covering her face. There were many troubles in her heart, but overriding all of them was a feeling of resignation. It had been present when she left her father’s lodge in the camp of the Never Laughs. And it had been present when she moved into the lodge of Rides-at-the-door. She had endured his other wives’ commands and scoldings with the same lack of emotion, for she was sure that she would never be happy again. Even when Fools Crow lived in the lodge, even when she fantasized a life with him, she knew that it could never be and so she held her feelings for him in check. There were only moments when he looked at her and she didn’t avert her eyes that she felt something like hope come flooding into her heart. Only then would she allow herself to dream of a happy life with a man she could give herself to. And when he married Red Paint, she felt a pure and true emptiness and in a strange way welcomed it as though it completed her destiny.

  But now a wave of despair came over her as she thought of Running Fisher, of his thin laughter and mocking eyes, and the way he entered her so roughly and spent himself so quickly. The thought of the way she clung to him even when he wished to be rid of her made her cheeks red with shame.

  She heard the flap being pulled open and she felt the rush of cold air but she didn’t look up. This night her shame would be known and she would be dealt with harshly, but she welcomed even that, even mutilation or death.

  Rides-at-the-door motioned his son to sit. Then he opened his tobacco pouch and filled his short-pipe. He didn’t know how to begin, and so he began in the middle of it.

  “You have brought dishonor into my lodge,” he said. He seemed to be addressing both of them but he looked only at Running Fisher. “My wife Striped Face tells me that you are copulating with each other. How she knows this I do not ask. For now I will take her at her word. I have never known her to lie about an important thing, and I do not think she is lying now.”

  A dog began to bark somewhere close; then another one, farther away, joined in.

  “What do you say, Running Fisher?”

  Rides-at-the-door listened to the dogs and watched his son’s face. He wanted his son to deny this charge, to be indignant, outraged that his father could even think such a thing. He wanted his son to stand and fill the lodge with shouted invectives against him and Striped Face, the bringer of such vile lies. But as he watched his son’s eyes focus themselves on the lodge wall behind him, he knew that the charges were true. He looked away when he heard his son’s voice.

  “It is as my near-mother says. Kills-close-to-the-lake has visited me in my lodge.”

  There were several dogs barking now. Their sounds were crisp, each voice distinct in the clear night air. On any other night Rides-at-the-door would have been interested in the cause of their commotion, but not this night. He felt the weight of his bones, his flesh, and he could not have moved them. Even the act of lighting his pipe required too much effort. Inside himself he felt the burdens of his people—the encroachment of the Napikwans, the demands of the seizers, the appearance once again of the white-scabs among the Pikunis. All seemed very black to him.

  “My heart falls down to hear of your guilt, my son. If you had said otherwise, I would have gladly sacrificed my body to the Medicine Pole, old as I am. I would have given away my belongings to hear you say otherwise. Already I share our people’s sorrows—now I must suffer this affront too.” The dogs had quit barking, and Rides-at-the-door’s voice filled the lodge. “Per
haps this is my punishment for being greedy, for taking on a young wife when I knew in my heart that it was wrong. Your mother and your near-mother were not happy with me, but at the time I said I was doing it for my old friend, Mad Wolf.” He turned to Kills-close-to-the-lake. Her face remained hidden in the shawl. “I have wronged you, my young wife, and I ask you to forgive me. I brought you into my lodge and then neglected you. I allowed my other wives to treat you badly. And now I caused you to commit this bad thing with my young son. I ask you to forgive me—but I do not forgive you. You bring dishonor into my lodge, and for that I cannot forgive you. But I can give you something. Look at me, wife!”

  Kills-close-to-the-lake, startled by the sudden sharpness of his voice, jerked her head in his direction and the shawl fell around her shoulders. Her black hair glistened in the firelight.

  “You have seen the cut-nose women of the other bands. There are three of them in the Hard Topknots alone. You have seen Throws-her-horse-away. She comes to visit her relatives here. She was once a beautiful young woman, like yourself. Now even her relatives do not like to look at her too closely. But these cut-noses are lucky in that they still cling to life. Many who betrayed their husbands are wandering in the Shadowland, killed by their husbands’ warrior societies or relatives. To dishonor her husband this way is the worst thing a wife can do. Ten, fifteen winters ago, I would be tempted to have you mutilated, even killed. But I am older, older even than my years, and I see that I have wronged you. Just as badly, my son has wronged you. There is not much honor in him, I fear, and for that I also take the blame.