Fools Crow (Contemporary American Fiction)

by James Welch

  Fools Crow had been looking at Feather Woman’s hands, the very hands that had dug the sacred turnip, but in the silence he stole a glance outside the entrance. Freckle-face sat alertly, looking in at the woman. He did not seem to be aware of Fools Crow’s presence.

  “Storytellers say that Spider Man let you down and you became a bright fire in the sky. The people thought it was a feeding star, and when they found the spot it landed, there were you and Star Boy. They say you were never happy again, that you rejected your people, that each dawn you would beg Morning Star to take you back.”

  “It is so even now. One dawn, in the long-ago, he spoke to me. He said, ‘You have brought upon yourself your own misery—and misery to your people.’ And it is true. Now you see sickness and hunger, Napikwans and war. It is no wonder the people didn’t mourn me when I left their world.” A small joyless smile crossed her lips.

  Fools Crow looked out at Freckle-face. He remembered the wailing of a thousand geese in the bowl that morning. He saw the great water birds’ flashing wings and he saw Feather Woman with her arms outstretched, beseeching Morning Star and her son to allow her to fly with them across the sky. He couldn’t understand—all these winters, these summers, why did she continue? It was so hopeless. Then he heard her voice and he realized with shame that she had read his thoughts.

  “One day I will rejoin my husband and son. I will return with them to their lodge and there we will be happy again—and your people will suffer no more.” Now her eyes were bright again, the eyes of a young one.

  The spell had been broken and Fools Crow was again aware of light and shadows, of warmth and the odor of dusty summer pines. Freckle-face had entered the lodge and now sat beside Feather Woman, a look of contentment and loyalty on his face. He has been her only companion all these winters forever, thought Fools Crow, and he suddenly loved them both and was glad he had come to their world.

  “You should be proud of giving birth to Poia,” he said, “for he has given the Pikunis their sacred summer ceremony. Long ago he taught the Pikunis the ways of the Sun Dance, and they honor Sun Chief exactly as he instructed. In this way you make Sun Chief to smile on his children and to provide for them.”

  Fools Crow was puzzled by the look of alarm on Feather Woman’s face. Had he not spoken truly? Had she misunderstood him? For a short time she seemed hesitant, even timid. She had not been this way before. Even her wailing and crying had been strong, her grief full of resolve.

  She picked up the yellow skin and unrolled it. She laid it on the white bighead robe and smoothed it out with her long brown fingers. Then she stood and left the tipi. Freckle-face followed her. At the entrance she looked back briefly, then was gone.

  Fools Crow sat for a moment and looked out at the blue river. Somehow he knew that the point of his journey had been finally reached. He was in no hurry as he crept around the fire pit and knelt and looked down at the yellow skin. It was a well-tanned skin, creaseless, without thin spots or cracks.

  At first he didn’t see the designs. He rubbed his eyes and blinked and leaned closer—and he saw the first one. The pigments were not strong and he had a hard time seeing it in its entirety. The yellow light within the tipi was strong and almost washed the colors away. Then he saw a circle and, within the circle, the familiar triangular shapes of painted lodges. There were many lodges. In the middle were the lodges of the bear, elk, beaver and otter. Outside the circle many horses, bridled and painted, stood in a white background. Fools Crow was confused by the proximity of the sacred lodges surrounded by whiteness. These lodges belonged to different bands and came together only during the Sun Dance ceremonies; yet, in the design, the white represented the snow of winter moons. As he looked at the representation he thought at first that it was only a poorly done winter count or war history. But then the horses began to move; almost imperceptibly, the horses came alive. One switched its tail, another took a step, another pawed at the snow. Then he noticed a wisp of smoke coming from one of the lodges, and he saw a dog sit up and scratch his ear with a hind leg.

  Fools Crow shrank back from the skin with a small cry. He trembled and he wanted to run away, to leave that place and the strange woman, to return to Red Paint and his family. He was no longer eager to complete his journey, to learn the fate of his people. Nitsokan. Why had Nitsokan chosen him? Why did he have to see this thing? He tried to stand, to leave, but his legs wouldn’t move. He was rooted to that spot and he couldn’t stop looking into the yellow skin. He was powerless to keep from seeing, and so he saw inside the lodges and he saw the agony of the sick ones, the grief of the mothers and fathers, the children, the old ones. And he saw the bundled bodies of the dead, slung across the painted horses being led from camp. He saw inside the lodges of all the Pikunis and he saw suffering and crying and wailing. He saw mothers mutilate themselves, men rush from lodge to lodge, clutching their young ones, the elders sending up their futile prayers.

  Through his tears, Fools Crow felt his eyes wander over the design. He recognized people from the Hard Topknots, the Never Laughs, the Grease Melters, the Many Chiefs, but it was only after he had searched all the lodges did he know what he was looking for—his own lodge and that of his mother and father. They were not in the village. Nor were the lodges of most of the Lone Eaters. He let out his breath in a sigh, but a lodge on the edge of the encampment caught his eye. It was the painted ermine lodge of Three Bears. Outside, Three Bears’ sits-beside-him wife knelt in the snow with her head down. There were two other lodges from the Lone Eaters band.

  The white-scabs disease has reached us, thought Fools Crow. We did not act quickly enough. We did not go north to the land of the Siksikas. It will be only a matter of time before all the Lone Eaters join this village of sickness.

  Then the village was gone and Fools Crow saw only the yellow skin. He sighed deeply, and his heart was heavy in his chest. He closed his eyes, and in his weariness he could think of nothing, could feel nothing but a mild gratitude that Red Paint had not yet moved their lodge to that village of death.

  Fools Crow had seen enough, but when he opened his eyes he saw a faint design, as indistinct as a shadow. He bent forward and the shadow became a red wash across the skin. Then the red wash became a column of horses. Stick figures rode the horses and their heads were colored yellow. Small black curly marks turned into buffalo coats and one of the yellow-heads moved, turned around and looked at the other yellow-heads. And then the red horses were moving through a snowy valley. Fools Crow heard the squeak of leather and the bark of a dog. He looked back to the sound of the bark and saw the seizers’ fort on Pile-of-rocks River. A small knot of men and women were watching the seizers ride off.

  It was bitter cold and the seizers rode with their collars up and wool scarves tied over their caps and ears. Their horses lifted their legs high and snorted white smoke in the cold air. As Fools Crow swept the column, from rear to front, the number of seizers grew until he could see hundreds of them, each with a long-gun in his scabbard. At the head rode a seizer chief that Fools Crow had never seen before. But beside him, his broad yellow face partially hidden in the collar of his buffalo coat, rode the scout, Joe Kipp.

  When the seizers reached the edge of the valley they rode up a wide gully and up to the short-grass prairie. Fools Crow put his hand to his mouth to muffle the cry that had begun in his throat. He recognized that gully. It was the one he had just ridden down on his black buffalo-runner. The seizers were traveling north to the country of the Pikunis.

  Then the design faded but its image lingered in Fools Crow’s mind. He wanted to call it back, to learn of the hairy faces’ destination. All of the bands were camped in that direction, along the Two Medicine and Bear rivers. The seizers’ journey in such weather most certainly had an object, a mission. Were they after Mountain Chief? Who would they make cry?

  Fools Crow looked at the skin again for a trace of the design. Instead, it had become all-over yellow with wandering dark lines and splotches of blackness li
ke fresh blackhorn dung. Gradually he began to see the features of the design, and it was the Pikuni country with its creeks and rivers and small mountain ranges. He noticed the Two Medicine River, but the winter camp of the Lone Eaters was not there. He could see so far he thought he must be on a cloud high above. He recognized the Bear River, the Sweet Grass Hills, the Bear Paws and the Little Mountains. To the south he saw the Big River and, farther south, the Yellow Mountains. Off to the west, he saw the upsweep of the Backbone, its forested darkness giving way to gray spires that rent the yellow sky. His eyes were filled with wonder at the grand sweep of prairie, the ground-of-many-gifts that had favored his people. After the other designs, this one filled him with peace and humility and his spirits rose up. The moon of the yellow grass meant good hunting, abundance for all. Fools Crow began to look for those places which the blackhorn herds favored this time of the year. He searched around the Sweet Grass Hills, the Yellow River, the Shield-floated-away River, Snake Butte and Round Butte. But he did not find the blackhorns. He looked along the breaks north of the Big River, and he looked to the country of the Hard Gooseneck and the White Grass Butte, the Meat Strings. But there were no blackhorns. And there were no long-legs and no bighorns. There were no wags-his-tails or prairie-runners.

  It was as if the earth had swallowed up the animals. Where once there were rivers of dark blackhorns, now there were none. To see such a vast, empty prairie made Fools Crow uneasy. Perhaps the magic of the yellow skin had chosen to hide the blackhorns from him. Perhaps they were there but he was not meant to see them. As he thought these things, his eyes were focusing on something that seemed not to fit in the landscape. He looked closer. It was a square dwelling place like the Four Horns agency on the Milk River. But this one was farther north, on Badger Creek, in the heart of the Pikuni country. Then he saw the lodges pitched around the square compound and there was snow on the ground. He saw people standing around the tipis and the buildings. They were huddled in worn blankets. Some had scarves tied around their heads. Many had scraps of cloth tied around their feet. They were a pitiful people, and Fools Crow did not recognize them.

  Near the entrance to the compound he saw a large-wheeled wagon and a team of large gray horses. There were three long boxes in the back. The horses started and they pulled the wagon across the flat and up the incline to the south. At the top of the ridge the wagon stopped and the four men who had been riding in back unloaded the boxes near a pile of other long boxes. As Fools Crow watched the wagon return to the compound, he felt something dark pass through his heart and he knew that the boxes contained dead ones. But what did they die of? There were more boxes on the ridge than he could count. Was it the white-scabs? And why didn’t the people bury their dead in the proper way?

  Once again he searched the yellow skin for an answer. But the yellow land told him nothing. Then he saw a woman carrying something from the compound. It was a metal bucket and it was filled halfway with guts. As he watched her hurry along, he recognized something about her. The gaunt hollow-cheeked face, the eyes that stared at nothing as she walked—they hid somebody that Fools Crow had known.

  Three women who had been sitting beside their lodges got to their feet and began to approach the woman. They had their hands out and their voices were weak and piteous. The woman tried to walk by them but they blocked her path. As two of the women distracted her with their weak pawing, the third reached into the bucket and came up with a handful of intestines. She began to run away, followed by the other two. Fools Crow looked again into the familiar woman’s face; in its gaunt hardness, he saw the girl his mother had wanted him to marry in happier days. Little Bird Woman, daughter of Crow Foot, hugged the bucket to her breast and hurried on.

  Fools Crow began to frantically search the drab village. He saw many other familiar faces, but he did not take the time to identify them. Many were marked by the pocks of the white-scabs; many were too hollow to be recognizable. He saw four men carrying a burden in a blanket. As it passed beneath his eyes he saw it was the body of a boy, not much older than ten or twelve winters. One of the men holding a corner of the blanket looked up and Fools Crow looked into the face of Eagle Ribs, the horse-taker, the brave who had scouted on Fools Crow’s first raid against the Crows. He shouted to Eagle Ribs but the man did not look up again. It was all he could do to carry his share of the burden.

  The scene began to fade into the design, and that too faded, until there was nothing but the yellow skin. This time Fools Crow did not attempt to call it back. He had seen the end of the blackhorns and the starvation of the Pikunis. He had been brought here, to the strange woman’s lodge in this strange world, to see the fate of his people. And he was powerless to change it, for he knew the yellow skin spoke a truth far greater than his meager powers, than the power of all his people.

  As he sat in his hopeless resignation, he heard the sound of children laughing and he recognized it as the sound he had heard since entering this world. The laughter and chatter mocked him, but he was weary deep in his bones and he had no spirit to despise it. It took him a long time to realize that he was looking at another design on the skin. In the middle of the design was a long white building with four of the Napikwan square ice-shields on each of the long sides. The building was not far from a grove of big-leaf trees that marked the course of the Milk River as it spilled out from the Backbone. Fools Crow could see Ear Mountain and Danger Butte with its war lodge. The lodge was caved in, its poles and logs scattered in the long grass. He looked back to the white building and saw faces through the ice-shields, and they were young and open with laughter. Outside, there were other children, running and playing, laughing. The girls wore long dresses and high-topped shoes. They held hands and danced around and around in a circle. The boys, in white shirts and short pants, chased each other. But a small group of children stood on the edge, near the white building. They were dark-skinned, and they watched the other children. The two dark boys wore clothing like the other boys and their hair was cut short. The three girls wore cloth dresses and they stood timidly a short distance from a large white woman who held a brass bell. Around the building and the ground the children played on stood a fence made of twisted wire and pointed barbs. Beyond the fence there was nothing but the rolling prairie.

  “You have seen something,” said Feather Woman.

  They walked together down toward the river. Sun was still high above them. Morning Star and Star Boy were up there too but hidden by Sun’s brilliance. It is difficult for her to know that they are up there—far away, but there where they can look down upon her any time they wish, he thought. And for the first time, he came to think of them, the Above Ones, as cruel spirits to allow Feather Woman to suffer so. And to allow what he had seen.

  “Yes,” he said. His voice was flat but edged.

  “It makes you angry?”

  Fools Crow stopped and looked at her. “No,” he said. “I am not angry. Anger can sometimes do a man good, but now it is futile. I am not angry now, and I will not be angry then, when it all happens as I saw it on the yellow skin.”

  “There is much good you can do for your people,” said Feather Woman.

  Fools Crow looked toward the river. His black buffalo-runner stood patiently, saddled and bridled, his eyes studying something far downstream.

  “You can prepare them for the times to come. If they make peace within themselves, they will live a good life in the Sand Hills. There they will go on to live as they always have. Things will not change.”

  “I do not fear for my people now. As you say, we will go to a happier place, far from these Napikwans, this disease and starvation. But I grieve for our children and their children, who will not know the life their people once lived. I see them on the yellow skin and they are dressed like the Napikwans, they watch the Napikwans and learn much from them, but they are not happy. They lose their own way.”

  “Much will be lost to them,” said Feather Woman. “But they will know the way it was. The stories will be
handed down, and they will see that their people were proud and lived in accordance with the Below Ones, the Underwater People—and the Above Ones.”

  Fools Crow stood for a moment, considering Feather Woman. He thought of her transgression in digging the sacred turnip. Morning Star had said she would bring misery not only on herself but on her people by that act. And the misery was only beginning. But she was a good woman; her only sin was one of loneliness, then and now and forever. She had been punished and the people were being punished for a reason that Fools Crow could not understand. The people had always lived in harmony with their sacred beings. Always they had performed the ceremonies to the best of their ability. They sacrificed often and without stinginess. And yet they were being punished.

  He stepped forward and hugged the woman with the cut-off hair and blue eyes. Her elkskin dress was warm beneath his hands. Then he walked quickly to the black horse and swung up on his back. He glanced at her and she was smiling and her eyes were bright. He dug his heels into the horse’s sides and the horse began that fast easy trot. He was glad to be returning to his people, but he could not help feeling that someday he would like to come back to Feather Woman and this green sanctuary between earth and sky.