Stone Song

by Win Blevins

  “Unci, the soldiers left the fort today. We burned it. The Sahiyela took everything that was left. Little Hawk, Hump, Little Big Man, He Dog, and I burned it.”

  She turned her head toward him. In the light of the center fire he could see how vacant her eyes looked. It’s not natural. She makes them look vacant on purpose, he told himself. Sometimes it frustrated him. I pour out the words, he complained in his mind, and her bucket doesn’t catch them. Sometimes the fear came back: She no longer had a bucket. Maybe she just liked to be touched the way he always took her elbow. Maybe she just liked to hear his voice, or anyone’s voice, and have the sense of companionship, but understood nothing.

  He knew better. He thought he knew better.

  He let his eyes wander around the tipi. Nothing there but shadows. Little Hawk was out there dancing. The people of the village were dancing their triumph over the soldiers tonight. He was grateful that their lodge was apart, and he couldn’t hear the music.

  He waited a little, and as always the awareness came to him. He felt it, not enough to call another being, a shade, a soul, even a presence. It was not even so much as a picture. He only had a faceless memory, a sense of warmth, the comfort of her arms around him and more of her flesh, chest or breasts or crook of neck, and beneath that her pulsing heart, her heart beating with the same blood that ran through him, the drumbeat beneath every day he lived, ever-going, the muted, ceaseless thump of life, life, life, the single song of this world: Mitakuye oyasin. We are all related.

  Sometimes he loved the beat of her pulse in his fleshly memory, and sometimes it made him want to scream.

  Tonight, as often, after he started a talk with his grandmother, he sat for a while cross-legged, the canupa extinguished in his lap, the glow of the fire on their faces, just sitting next to her, and the awareness coming to him. To both of them, he thought. At times like this, they were together, the three of them.

  He enjoyed just sitting there companionably, himself, his mother, and her mother. But there was a bargain always kept. It was that he spoke his mind, spoke it when the words were hard to find, spoke the words that hurt, spoke them when they tried to clot in his throat, spoke words when only tears would do. It was something he offered to his grandmother, and to himself, and to the one he never named.

  “They are dancing tonight, and proclaiming their deeds. The women make the trilling for them. They say we won the war. But, Unci, we are losing.” He looked into the flat, slate blackness of her eyes. “They counted coups and they killed and the soldiers ran away. But we’re losing.” He thought for a moment, groping for the words. “When it rains on a gentle slope, you can’t see the water run into the valley, or only a trickle of it here and there. The whites are trickling into our country, each drop as nothing. Today there are none here on Shifting Sands River. Tomorrow we will be knee-deep in them. The next day or the next moon or the next winter, we will be drowning in them.

  “The worst is, Red Cloud is going to see The One They Use for Father in the east. That one will make Red Cloud chief of an agency.” Crazy Horse snorted at the word chief. He went on, “Then the Bad Faces will be loaf-around-the-forts.”

  He threw his head back and looked into the blackness of the center hole, where the tied lodge poles blocked out the sky. He heard his grandmother’s soft breathing and looked back at her. Suddenly, forcibly, he saw his face in hers. It was odd: For twenty-five winters he had felt keenly that he looked only like himself, an individual, a solitary, even an aberration. Now, these last several winters, he had seen that they looked alike, he and she. Maybe he and his grandmother and the one he could not name. People said that, except for his light skin and hair, he looked just like that one. That idea always pleased him and hurt him, the feelings twisted together.

  “In a way it has been a good time to be a warrior, Unci. Battles to fight, many battles, endless battles. Many honors to win. Times to feel like a warrior.”

  He tried to hold her eyes with his, tried to penetrate all the barriers she had put up over all the twenty-five winters. He said slowly, each word like a drumbeat, “Of course, we must lose the war.”

  He smiled a little. “To a warrior the war is not all. He lives for a moment in battle, a …” He pondered. “His life is the sharp edge of a tomahawk whirling in the sun. Like life, one day it flies suddenly out of the hand and is gone forever. Yes, suddenly.”

  He shrugged. He looked into his grandmother’s face and considered her life. She was not simply witko, as everyone else thought. She chose her silence. He felt sure of it.

  In that silence, he imagined, she saw and understood. Maybe from there she knew a wisdom beyond his, and the words he was about to say. He wondered what it might be.

  At last he went on.

  “A warrior, a warrior like me, does not think of sitting in the sun and watching his grandchildren play and maybe letting someone’s young wife bring him a little soup. In the summers of the arrow and spear, that does not feel like living.”

  He let the feeling rise in his chest, the elation of riding into enemy fire, the spirit growing to become Rider, and then suddenly the sense of living forever within that instant. He thought of telling her all this, but the words felt weary even before he spoke them. So he didn’t trouble the ears of his grandmother, or of the unseen one, with false words. Instead he said, “But maybe things have changed.”

  So he told Grandmother Plum about the fight with the whites running from Horseshoe Ranch. Before long he came to the part where he saw the hairy-faced old man running away helpless. “I remembered Hairy Face,” said Crazy Horse. “He used to come to camp trading for the Hudson’s Bay Company. I didn’t know him well, or especially like him, but he did something curious. He trained a beaver to be his pet. Truly. This beaver would follow him wherever he went. Sometimes he put a rope around its neck and led it like a horse. Sometimes he tied it to a tree so it could chew on the trunk.

  “Little Hawk and I used to wait for the part that was fun. He’d sit down on a rock and wave his hands and sing, or usually he whistled. When he’d wave his hands hard enough, the beaver would slap its tail on the earth, like a drum. Do it over and over. On they’d go, whistle and drum, whistle and drum. And Little Hawk and I would start giggling.”

  He sighed. “If he saw us, he would run us off or pick the beaver up. But I can still see him making music with the beaver.”

  Crazy Horse squirmed to get his legs more comfortable. “A little thing. So I saw him trying to hide because he couldn’t keep up anymore, because the others were running too fast. He hadn’t had a drink all day, his face was bright red with trying to go fast enough, and for sure his scalp was itching….”

  Crazy Horse smiled to himself at that and then sobered. “I felt a little sick. We were chasing these helpless men across the plains. Yes, they shot at us. They were more scared than smart. They wounded two of our men. So we were going to spill their lives into the dust.”

  He took a deep breath and let it out. “I let him go. He looked pitiful running, crazy with panic. Later I made peace with the others and let them go, too.” He felt no need to talk about the danger of that. “I told Little Big Man we’d done enough killing for one day.” He looked sideways at his grandmother. “He had no idea what I was talking about.”

  He saw light in her eyes. He didn’t know whether it was the reflection of the fire alone or understanding.

  “Things have changed,” he repeated. “Red Cloud has quit. I’m weary of fighting. There’s not much left to fight for.”

  The thought of Black Buffalo Woman rose in him. At times like this he felt as though she were inside him and they were communicating without the need of words or even touch. He hadn’t touched her since she married No Water.

  “Maybe I should take her as my wife,” he said, not mentioning the name. He held his grandmother’s eyes and breathed in and out. He felt sure she was looking at him. “I have loved her a long time, more than ten winters. The way she looks at me, I know she ha
s the same thoughts.” Now Plum was looking at him as if she knew. “Maybe …” Maybe that would change dust to honey in his mouth.

  But he didn’t say the words. He didn’t have to. His grandmother knew.

  They sat together and watched the fire. It seemed to glow and dim, almost in a rhythm, like breathing. He slid his hand down from her elbow to her hand and held it.

  He felt for Hawk in his heart, but she was still, silent.

  He asked himself, What happens to a man following the vision of a warrior when the war ends?

  RED ROAD OR BLACK ROAD?

  When his father’s voice called, “Come in,” Crazy Horse lifted the door flap, bent, entered, and disbelieved his eyes.

  Pretty Fellow and his brother Standing Bear sat behind the center fire next to Worm. Closest to Worm sat White Twin, the one the people often called Holy Buffalo now, No Water’s brother. Oh, Crazy Horse reminded himself, Pretty Fellow is called Woman Dress now. I must remember that.

  He looked at them flatly. What did these Bad Faces want in his father’s lodge? Had White Twin come to say something for his brother No Water? Pretty Fellow—Woman Dress—and Standing Bear to speak for their cousin Red Cloud?

  He felt himself sucked into a world he disliked and distrusted, Red Cloud’s world, persuading other people to do things, moving his fingers through other people’s lives, making weaves of his own design …

  “Join my guests and me,” said Worm. Crazy Horse heard his father gently pointing out his impoliteness. He saw the bowls the men had eaten from and the canupa that were now out. Politely, he sat.

  “We must go,” said White Twin. “We want to be in our own lodges tonight.” Which was not so far that they needed to leave now, at midday. “We’re sorry we can’t stay and talk with you,” he said to Crazy Horse. To Worm, “Thank you for your hospitality.” The three visitors rose, White Twin imposingly tall. Crazy Horse looked at Pretty Fellow’s—Woman Dress’s—nose, the one broken by that kick many winters ago. To him the nose looked as straight as ever. But not to Woman Dress, naturally, or his family. Worm followed them out the lodge flap.

  Crazy Horse sat alone, angry at himself for his suspicion and hostility. He couldn’t even remember why he had come to his father’s lodge. Part of a ribbon of cansasa lay on the cutting board, probably a gift from the visitors. Once it had been cut, the gift could not be refused. Crazy Horse wondered whether they were trying to bribe his father, and why.

  Worm was back in a moment. “Are you all right?” he asked his son. Crazy Horse nodded. “You don’t have to say it, you know. They see your feelings.” This was an indirect reprimand, the old habit of a father telling a son to behave. Crazy Horse didn’t like it any more than he had as a teenager.

  “What did they want?” he asked impatiently.

  “They brought news from the southern bands,” Worm said slowly, “and the loaf-around-the-fort people. It seems that the soldiers haven’t killed anybody recently.” Worm flashed his ironic smile. “They had some other gossip, and a message. The message was delicately put but not delicately meant: They will not let you have Black Buffalo Woman.”

  Crazy Horse lashed out. “They will not let me, they will not let her.”

  Worm interrupted him softly. “The woman herself does not matter. They cannot allow the offense.” He paused. “No Water thinks maybe he should cut off her nose.”

  Crazy Horse burst out, “If he touches her, I’ll kill him!” His mind was wild with pictures of Black Buffalo Woman mutilated.

  A Lakota had the right to cut off the tip of the nose of an adulterous wife, and some did.

  Worm went on, “If you lift the lodge flap again when he is away, he will do it.”

  Worm waited. Crazy Horse let the guilt and fury subside. He hated the violation of his privacy. What lodge flap he lifted was not his father’s business. He had never mentioned his love for Black Buffalo Woman to Worm, and never would have.

  Yet the harmony of the peoples was at stake here, and he, the shirtman, had to act well.

  “They will not let her go,” Worm said firmly.

  “Hah!” Crazy Horse still could not stop himself. “They have turned into white men, telling other people what to do. She is a Lakota woman. Of all people the Bad Faces know this.”

  He meant that the trouble that had split the people nearly thirty winters ago had been over a woman, a relative of Bull Bear. She had run off with Bad Face, his people had stood up for her right to choose, and Bull Bear had ended up dead on the ground.

  “They know it,” Crazy Horse repeated.

  “It will cause a fight,” said Worm imperturbably. As before, he meant it. A generation of hostility had come from that, and it was only now healed, after the bands had whipped the whites over the issue of the forts.

  Crazy Horse felt his flood of anger ebbing again. Many a dog lifts its leg, but a shirtman must take no notice.

  He needed to make a conciliatory gesture to his father. He got out his canupa and his own cansasa and started filling the bowl. He gave the cansasa to Worm. At last he said, “Only fools would split the people over a woman.”

  “They are telling us they’re fools,” said Worm. “I know Red Cloud, and Black Twin and White Twin, and No Water, and I think in this matter they are. I think you are not.”

  Crazy Horse let his breath out all at once. “I will say this to you and no one else. Since she married No Water, I have not touched her.”

  “I am glad to hear it,” Worm said. “The question is, Will you!”

  Crazy Horse puffed and sent the smoke up to Father Sky. He thought of all the pain the last split of the people had caused, thirty winters of pain. “I hate the way they act,” he said, “bending other people to their will.” The Lakota as a people professed to despise that kind of domination, but many still used it.

  Worm nodded. “I understand,” he said. “And you are a shirtman.”

  Now the words rose from his innards, but they clotted in his throat and stuck there. “I will not divide the people,” he should have said. “I will put the people’s needs above my own. I am not just any man with natural desires. I am a shirt wearer, pledged to put the welfare of all the people ahead of my own wants, even wants that all men share.”

  He should have said more: My vision commands me to the solitude and danger of a warrior, not to home, center fire, and the comfort of women and children.

  He knew no words against all that and had no thoughts that would defeat it. He had only feelings. Ten winters and more of longing. And the sense that only a woman could solace him now.

  He would say nothing to his father. It was nothing firm anyway, just a sense, a feeling, shapeless, seductive.

  The words lurched into his mouth like bile, but he did not speak them: I will not take her. No, the words offended him, they stuck in his throat. He would say nothing.

  It was Red Cloud the whites wanted in Washington, D.C. They insisted.

  “He’s not even a chief,” many Oglala complained. “He can’t sign a paper.”

  “The whites want his mark,” said others.

  “It’s their newspapers,” some said mockingly. “Their newspapers make Red Cloud a big man, so he’s the one who has to go.”

  People gave each other unhappy looks. Really, it wasn’t funny that the whites understood so little. It made them worse to deal with. Man-Whose-Enemies-Are-Afraid-of-His-Horses, Sitting Bear, Brave Bear, yes—these were the headmen of the Oglala. They could probably persuade the people to do what they had promised when they signed the paper. Even then, each man had choice, and the chiefs would work by leadership, not command. No Lakota could speak for another.

  Then the true word came. Red Cloud had stalled, pretending not to decide whether to go see the Great White Father, until they promised to make him head chief of all the Oglala.

  That’s what people whispered, snickering, but their smiles were pained. The whites were unbelievable. There could be no head chief of all the Oglala—the Big Bellies w
ere several. Everyone remembered what had happened when the whites tried to make Bear-Scattering head of all the Lakota. When the chief accepted, forced by the whites, he had predicted his own death. And the whites had killed him.

  But what was most outrageous was that your enemies tried to choose your people’s leader. Passing over the men the people respected, those who had demonstrated they thought of the welfare of all the people, the whites wanted to put their own man in. One who had split the people nearly thirty winters ago with a violent act.

  The whites were arrogant beyond belief. Or stupid. People wondered why the powers made them so many and gave them guns. It was like putting everyone’s welfare in the hands of youths. Except that Lakota youths were not as wild and insolent and destructive as white people.

  Crazy Horse, though, approved of Red Cloud going to see The One They Use for Father. Maybe recognizing these Bad Faces, giving them status, would ease their spirits, he told Worm. Maybe it would keep them from scheming for power all the time. And maybe they would not be so quick to take offense because a woman of their band and a shirtman of the Hunkpatila loved each other.

  Crazy Horse went to his hunka. “Let’s go check out the Pani horses,” he said.

  Hump took his meaning, all of it, the suggestion of adventure, the anger, frustration, the blocked fury.

  He shook his head. “Come with me north,” he said, “where people still act like Lakota.” He hesitated and then added the angry words he meant. “And not dogs groveling near white campfires hoping for scraps.”

  Crazy Horse thought for a moment. It was attractive. He was related to the Mniconjou—Grandmother Plum was a Mniconjou and might be happier there. Maybe she would even start talking again.

  Then, suddenly, Hump named it. “I wish I knew the words to get you away from her,” he said regretfully.

  Black Buffalo Woman’s name sat between the hunka, unspoken. Crazy Horse saw how strongly Hump felt—otherwise he would have never dared say even this little. It was an old sorrow between them. This was the closest they’d ever come to talking about it.