by Don Bendell
Strongheart stood and looked at her longingly, many thoughts flashing through his mind.
Joshua slowly reached down and grabbed her buckskin dress and raised it up over her shoulders. Disappointment showed on her face.
“Lila,” he said, “We are cousins. I am like your older brother, your protector. But I am also a man, and any man would want you very much. You have such great beauty and so much more to offer a man. But, my cousin, I loved Belle very much. I found her after We Wiyake butchered her, and I see it many times each day. I will always feel like she died because of me. We Wiyake wanted to steal my medicine, so he took the one thing I truly loved, her. When I love, that fills my heart, and I cannot ride two horses at once. In the same way, I cannot love two women at once, and I still see Belle everywhere I look each day, and in my dreams at night. You honor me very much, my beautiful cousin, but this cannot be. I will always love you, but you are my family.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she spoke quietly, “I can never love another man, either, because, Joshua, I have always loved you, and I always will.”
He stood and she did, too. He stepped forward and held her in a warm embrace, but not a romantic one. She laid her head on his muscular chest and Lila sobbed while he stroked her hair slowly. She stopped crying, and he pushed her back a step and wiped her tears with the back of his index finger.
He said, “You will find a great man someday when the time is right, if you let God, the Great Spirit, prepare that man just for you.”
He kissed her on the forehead and said, “I must sleep and prepare myself for the sun dance.”
Lila smiled bravely and left the teepee. Strongheart lay down and could not sleep. He pictured her beauty over and over, and the man in him felt frustrated thinking how easily he could have just taken her and not looked back. Then he would picture Belle in all her beauty and would feel ashamed of himself.
Finally, Joshua steeled his mind for the task ahead. He knew he would soon be going through an ordeal when Sitting Bull summoned him.
Sun dance is a traditional Lakota ceremony representing life and rebirth, and it occurs during the summer solstice. The dancing and piercing begins at the full moon during the last four days of the four-week ceremony. Normally, a person is invited to participate but must spend a year in preparation for the sun dance. There are many sweat lodges and some warriors go on vision quests, usually in the mountains. Because of the ordeal Strongheart had been through hunting down the seven-foot-tall crazed killer, We Wiyake, or Blood Feather, who had killed Joshua’s fiancée as well as many Lakota and whites, Sitting Bull had let Strongheart know that he had already been through more than a year of preparation.
The previous day was called Tree Day and a selected brave went out with several assistants and looked for a cottonwood tree that would be just right for the ceremony. The cottonwood was considered a sacred tree because its shape was said to have inspired the shape and construction of the very first Lakota teepees. The scout had searched along the banks of the Greasy Grass, or as the whites called it, the Little Big Horn, and had found one a quarter mile downstream from the giant encampment. The area was prepared for the dance and rest of the ceremony.
The next morning there was scratching on Joshua’s lodge, and his father’s best friend, Yellow Horse, came to him with an eagle fan and eagle-bone whistle. Joshua was to go to a sweat lodge and was led downstream to the ceremony site, where he entered the lodge.
Outside the sweat, he saw the stoic Oglala Lakota war chief Crazy Horse, who wore a red-tailed hawk feather tied down on the back of his hair and a pebble behind his left ear. He also always wore a sheep’s-wool anklet over his left ankle to hide the bullet scar from years before. Everybody felt Crazy Horse was blessed by the Great Spirit and could not be touched by bullets, and he did not want to spoil their image of him. He was noted for being very aggressive and courageous in battle, but with the Plains tribes, being close to or blessed by the Great Spirit drew higher accolades than courage in battle.
In the sweat lodge were several dancers including the mighty medicine man Sitting Bull, who spoke no words. This was not the right time for Joshua to speak to him about anything, as the sun dance ceremony was a very private personal occasion. Each man was alone with his own thoughts, and Strongheart decided he would take full advantage. After all he had been through, he needed this time of great introspection.
When the sweat concluded, the scout who found the tree led the dancers and others to the selected cottonwood. Everyone gathered around the tree in small groups at the four compass points and offered prayers. A piece of braided leather rope was tied to the top of the tree by the scout who climbed to the top. Then Crazy Horse, because of his many battle honors, came forward and counted coup on the tree. Three other select warriors came forward to cut the tree down, taking turns chopping. In the meantime, Sitting Bull, Joshua Strongheart, and the other dancers were given blankets to catch the tree in as it was lowered by the rope. Blankets were placed on the ground anywhere the tree might touch as it was carried to the ceremonial circle.
The dancers were instructed to carry the tree into the circle from the west, and it was again laid down on a series of blankets, with no part of it touching the ground. Next, the dancers tied bundles of sage and, in some cases, tobacco, to the top of the tree. Then like a Christmas tree, the sun dance tree was raised up and the trunk was carefully placed in the hole in the center of the ceremonial site, which had already been dug out by younger warriors.
For three days, Strongheart, still fasting and only drinking that sage tea and water, did the sweats and meditation in the morning, then danced all day, taking breaks to go off and pray and ask for a vision. The men and women of the village and the sun dancers would start dancing each morning and would dance in a clockwise motion with warrior men on the inside and women on the outside.
Then, on the third day, which Lakota actually call “piercing day,” the heyoka would start dancing. These were clowns, people with mental illnesses, or any who have shown themselves to be very spiritual people. This was to motivate the sun dancers as all of these three groups were considered very sacred and spiritual. Only the heyoka would wear black-and-white and dance in a circle going the opposite way of the rest of the people. The heyoka clowns would also do silly or ridiculous things trying to get the sun dancers to laugh even as the latter were expected to maintain a very serious meditative demeanor.
In the afternoon, the sun dancers were stopped and those who elected to be pierced, which was a much greater honor than simply dancing, were all made to lie down. Piercing was, by far, the most sacred part of the sun dance ceremony of the Lakota, which was the only nation to practice it. They saw it as making a personal sacrifice for the good of all red brothers.
One by one, holy men from each tribal circle went to each sun dancer and cut two holes in that dancer’s chest slightly above the nipples on the pectoral muscles. In Joshua Strongheart’s case, instead of a sharp knife, a ceremonial golden eagle talon was used, which did make Joshua feel even more special. Then wooden or bone pegs were inserted into the holes as that sun dancer was blessed and prayed over by the medicine man. Before they all stood again, Sitting Bull sat up and cut himself up and down his arms and sides, making fifty additional cuts on his body to show he was really willing to sacrifice for mankind.
The sun dancers were told to approach the tree and the medicine men attached braided leather thongs from the top of the sacred tree to the pegs sticking through the flesh on each man’s pectorals. The most senior medicine man there, a leathery and very wrinkled old man, instructed the dancers to dance up to the tree, then back until the pegs pulled their flesh out. They were told to do this three times, then on the third try, they were to dance backward and when the flesh started stretching, they were to thrust themselves backward with all their weight and strength tearing the pegs through their flesh. Strongheart noticed that the much older S
itting Bull was bleeding profusely, so the Pinkerton decided he would endure whatever happened. He did. Some dancers did not tear their flesh when they tried, but Joshua made his rip free and he fell on his back and look skyward, barely conscious as his father’s village medicine man came forward, cut the remaining pieces of flesh with a sharp knife, and placed them in the ceremonial fire.
7
THE VISION
At first there was blackness, but then somewhere in that darkness Joshua Strongheart could hear the sounds of the drums and the chants of the singers. He could see a purple mountain range in the distance and a small dot in the cloudless sky flew toward him. It took a long time to get near him but it kept getting larger, and he saw it was a bald eagle. As it flew closer, he saw a human face on the eagle, and it was his beloved Annabelle Ebert. She had never looked more radiant or beautiful than now. She was in human form wearing a shiny gold dress, and she was mounted atop Gabe, his red-and-white overo paint, which had also been killed by We Wiyake.
Belle rode right up to him and smiled the whole time. So did Joshua.
He spoke first, saying, “I love you, Belle. I always will, I can never love another. I am so sorry I got you killed.”
Then he felt tears spilling down his cheeks but they started turning to ice. He realized he was back above timberline in the Sangre de Cristo mountains, where he had gone to meditate and grieve.
Strongheart started saying, “I’m so sorry,” over and over.
Belle spoke very sharply and emphatically, “Joshua! Hush up right now. You did not get me killed. Blood Feather did.”
Joshua cried, “I am leaving the Pinkerton Agency. My job got you killed.”
Belle started laughing, and he got irritated. Why was she laughing?
Belle said, “You silly man. Do you suppose I would have fallen in love with you if you were working as a desk clerk at the St. Cloud Hotel, or running a freight line out of Pueblo?”
“What?” Joshua replied. “Is this a dream? It seems so real.”
Belle said, “It is a dream, my love, but I am real. I am not there now, but I am real, Joshua.”
He cried tears of relief and saw that her skin was unblemished, and she had no wounds anywhere, like she did the last time he saw her.
Gabe whinnied as if to let him know he was real, too. Suddenly, Gabe was gone, and they were in her café in Canon City sitting at their private table in the kitchen.
Belle came closer and smiled warmly.
She said, “Joshua Strongheart, I fell in love with a gentle kind man, who is a mighty warrior, too. My first husband was a cavalry officer. I never would have married a hotel desk clerk. If you were not a Pinkerton agent, you would be a sheriff, or frontier scout, or Sioux war chief. You can love again, and you must be good at your job, for that is what made me love you, too. You are a hero and cannot help that.”
She started to back away, and he wanted her to stay, but now she was back on Gabe.
He said, “Wait.”
Belle smiled and said, “There was never anything to forgive, Joshua. You must live and smile and be my hero.”
He heard the beat of the drums and felt warmth on his face. She was gone just like that, and he realized he was dreaming. He tried very hard to bring Belle back but his body wanted to make his eyes open. He looked up at the blue sky and realized the sun was positioning itself to decide where to drop down and find a hiding place behind the distant mountains to the west. There was activity all around him, and he saw the medicine man from his father’s circle sitting cross-legged smiling at him as well as Yellow Horse, his father’s friend.
Joshua sat up and his chest ached. He looked down at dried blood all over his chest.
The medicine man puffed thoughtfully on his pipe, stating, “You had a vision.”
It was not a question but a statement of fact.
Strongheart said, “Yes, I did. A strong one.”
The medicine man said, “Sitting Bull had a vision, too, and wants us to eat with him when the sun goes into its lodge and smoke. He will speak.”
The meat in Sitting Bull’s teepee was steak from a pronghorn antelope and it was delicious. He also was given coffee and a dish made out of sliced apples and grapes. He had cleaned in the river and bandaged his chest, putting a poultice on the wounds, which was very soothing. He could see Sitting Bull was cleaned and patched up, too, very much unlike the bloody mess he had been earlier.
As they smoked, a man painting a winter count on a piece of stretched hide was painting symbols of Sitting Bull’s vision as he related it.
The Hunkpapa shaman puffed on the pipe and blew a tendril of blue out, the smoke slowing to a snail’s pace and curling into a lazy climb upward toward the teepee airhole.
Sitting Bull waved smoke over his head and face with his other hand and then spoke, “I had a vision.”
Everybody in the teepee stared at the popular medicine man with intense interest and hung on to every word.
“The wasicun came to our lodges firing their rifles. Many warriors braved up and many coups were counted. There were many circles of lodges along the water and bluecoats falling upside down into our encampment like grasshoppers falling from the sky. They were lying all around the circles with their heads pointed in toward the center.”
Joshua heard the rest of his words but thought about the statement “their heads were pointed in toward the center,” and that they fell headfirst out of the sky. That meant that many white men were killed in his vision.
Religiously, Joshua Strongheart was a Christian and raised in church by his mother and stepfather, but he never judged or demeaned his father’s spiritual beliefs. He always wanted to be open-minded, and he truly wondered if Sitting Bull had had some kind of premonition. Sitting Bull was actually named Tatanka-Iyotanka, which meant “a buffalo bull sitting down on its haunches.” He had been chosen before the sun dance by the united tribes to be chief of all the Lakota while defying the wasicun. He was noted for many courageous deeds in battle, including walking out between battle lines of Lakota and cavalry soldiers during a lull in one battle where he sat down and ate lunch just to intimidate the “long knives.” What was most important to Joshua Strongheart, Sitting Bull earlier had been made the chief of the elite warrior society that transcended tribes within the Lakota nation referred to as the Stronghearts. Joshua’s father was one of its first members, and it was where his white man’s name was derived from. His mother gave him the first name Joshua from the Bible, and always read the verse to him Joshua 1:5: “There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”
These last months, more than a year actually, since Annabelle Ebert was butchered, Joshua had really been soul-searching, questioning his own religious beliefs. He also was really leaning toward leaving the Pinkerton Detective Agency, blaming his occupation for what had happened to Belle. The vision he had had during the sun dance gave him a new clarity of purpose. He would pursue his career as a Pinkerton with a vengeance.
Yes, he met with a lot of prejudice in his travels, but Strongheart also knew that most white people back east assumed all cowboys out west were white men. However, many were actually Indians who had learned to live in white society, former black slaves, and Mexicans who preferred it north of the border. Truth be told only one third of all American cowboys in those days was white. He had been treated well by the Pinkerton Agency and there would be opportunity for him there. Belle, in his dream or vision or whatever it was, was correct. He was a man of action and would become very bored in a normal job after the life he had lived.
Now, Sitting Bull shooed everybody but Joshua from the lodge. He smiled at the half-breed and offered him the long-stemmed pipe. Joshua took a long puff and as the smoke wafted out of his mouth he waved it over his head. The two smoked for a full ten
minutes before a word was spoken.
Sitting Bull said, “Wanji Wambli has been asked by the wasicun chiefs to speak to his father’s people, to your people, and tell us we are bad Indians and we must go back to our reservations.”
Strongheart chuckled, then replied, “No, Sitting Bull, there are some bad wasicun as there are Lakota whose hearts are bad, too. They hate and see with angry hearts, not their eyes and their minds.”
He puffed on the pipe to let those words sink in.
“There are white men among the chiefs who steal from the nations, from all nations. They take blankets that Washington buys for the Lakota, the Apache, the Cherokee, and more.” Strongheart went on, “They sell the new good blankets and take a little money to buy old bad blankets and give these to the red people.”
Sitting Bull smoked thoughtfully then said, “Why do they kill so many buffalo?”
“To kill you and all our people,” Joshua replied. “They feel if the buffalo dies, the Lakota and all plains tribes will die.”
Sitting Bull puffed again several times, then said, “This could be true, but if all buffalo are taken away, we will ask Mother Earth to give us new animals for our meat, hides for our lodges, and clothes. The Great Spirit did not give the buffalo to the Lakota to hunt them. He gave the buffalo to the Lakota to feed and clothe them.”
Joshua thought about this simple, logical, positive thinking when faced with the enormity of the problem, and he understood he was in the presence of a great man and a true leader.
He said, “Yes, they want me to speak peace with you, but they want me to find these bad white-eyes and catch them.”
Sitting Bull said, “And then what?”
Strongheart said, “They will go to jail, or they will die by my guns.”
Sitting Bull grinned and then chuckled softly, “The wasicun and their jail.”