Conquering Horse

by Frederick Manfred

  No Name shook his head gently yet firmly. He felt sorry for the old man. Shakes His Spear had outlived his usefulness as warrior and provider, and now in his old age tried to get returning warriors to let him tell the news. Everyone knew that in return for the telling the old man expected the present of some food or a new blanket.

  “The people wait,” Shakes His Spear said. “They wish to hear the news of the great things you have done. Also, they wish to dance the victory.”

  “Later,” No Name said. “My father and I still have much to talk about.”

  Shakes His Spear still tugged at him, filling his ear with flattery. “You have overcome a great enemy. You have been a very brave one. The people wish to know of this. They wish to know how and where each wound was given and received.”

  “My father and I still wish to talk. Go. Later we will call the herald.”

  “The people wish to celebrate the glory. It is theirs to know. What you have done belongs to them.”

  No Name shook off the old man’s touch again. “Later. Go.”

  “Already some of the young braves laugh and say that you have chased a ghost stallion seen in a boy’s dream.”

  “Go.”

  “They also laugh and wonder at this white colt you have brought home. They wonder why he should be considered a great horse.”

  “Ho, would they mock at the wishes of the gods?”

  “Ahh, it is only a manner of saying by the young men.”

  Redbird finally raised his eyes. “When my son and I have finished talking together, I will call Thunder Close By to tell of it.” Then Redbird smiled, and added kindly, “It is a chief’s son who has returned. Therefore it must fall to the camp herald to tell of it. But do not fear. There will be many gifts and you will be among those who shall receive. I have heard your words of praise for my son, and they are good. Tell the people a feast is being prepared. Let everybody paint up, cook meat, cut tobacco, and get ready for a big dance.”

  “Thank you, thank you,” old Shakes His Spear cried.

  “Also, inform the old men and the chiefs of the warrior societies to gather in the soldiers’ lodge that they may examine my son closely as to his deed of valor as well as to the second part of his vision. This is to be done before the feast and the dance. It is time that my son wore an honor feather. Also that he be given a new name.”

  “Hi-ye, thank you, thank you.” Shakes His Spear placed his hands on No Name’s head and shed tears over him a moment. Then he scuttled for the door and disappeared.

  There was a whispering outside in the dusk, then gradually a hum of excited voices rose on the evening air.

  Redbird listened to the happy sounds outside, then, again lifting his old eyes, looked across the lodge at Star. “Woman,” he said gently, “where is the meat for the feast? My son has returned in glory.”

  Without a word, Star and Loves Roots stepped outdoors. They called up the dogs. There was some scuffling, then some cringing and whimpering, then some crushing blows on skulls. Soon four fat dogs were in the pot and cooking.

  Smiling gently, yet carefully avoiding a direct look at Leaf, Redbird said, “My son, I am glad that you have brought home a good wife. Where is my grandson? I wish to see him.”

  There was a low cry of pleasure from Leaf. She took the baby from its cradle and handed it over to No Name. Leaf had been waiting for this moment ever since their arrival and had cleaned the baby carefully, repacking its buttocks with fresh milkweed down and scenting it with the juice of the orange lily. No Name fondled the baby a moment, smiled at it, and then handed it around the fire to Redbird.

  Redbird looked down at the baby a long time. The baby in turn blinked up at him, its black eyes for once holding steady on one spot.

  At last Redbird smiled. With his thumb and forefinger, playfully, he gave the baby’s nose a tweak. “Little one, this is done so that your nose may be made to grow long before it is hard.”

  The boy was not in the least frightened at Redbird’s touch. To both No Name’s and Leaf’s surprise, he suddenly smiled up at his grandfather.

  Everyone in the tepee, including Star and Loves Roots, laughed happily.

  Redbird gave No Name a gently inquiring look.

  No Name instantly caught what his father wanted. “He is well formed, my father.”

  “Hi-e. It is well.” Redbird gave the baby back to No Name for him to give back to Leaf. Then with a hand on his knee, groaning some, Redbird rose from his back-rest. “My son, let us go to the council lodge where the elders and warriors await us. It is time.”

  At that very moment, the herald Thunder Close By coughed outside the door, then stepped inside.

  “Ae, what is it?” Redbird inquired mildly.

  “Circling Hawk sends to say that the elders and the warriors have spoken together.” Thunder Close By saw the baby and lowered his voice to a whisper. But even his whispering was so penetrating it scared the baby and caused it to cry in fear. “With one voice they say it would be a good thing if Redbird’s son were to tell of his great deed and also the second part of his vision to all of the people at once, the women and children at the same time with the council of elders and warriors. The people cry to hear it. The elders and warriors already know that Redbird’s son deserves an honor feather and a new name. What Redbird’s son has dreamed and done belongs to all of the people immediately.”

  Redbird grunted. He waited until Leaf had quieted the child, then said, “I hear you. It is good. Tell the keeper of the sacred fire to build a large camp fire. Tell the elders and the warriors and all the people to assemble in one place.” Redbird shook his head a little. “It is not the customary thing. But the people wish it and thus it shall be done.”

  Thunder Close By grunted, then turned and left.

  No Name sat very still. Tears filled his eyes. “My helper, they wish to know. How can I tell them that a true son has been commanded to kill so loving and so old a father?”

  Silence.

  “Also, my helper, if I withhold the white mare’s words from my father and all the people, will it not be considered an evil thing? The wrath of the gods are certain to fall upon the Yanktons if I tell a partial truth.” No Name wept within. “Helper, I have come to a fork in the trail. I am not a twin spirit that I can travel down two paths at the same time. Which is the true path?”

  Silence.

  Thunder Close By began to bellow outside, going the rounds, calling up the people, telling them No Name would soon appear with his father to tell of great things, telling them to dress for the scalp dance, calling up the singers and drummers.

  A deep murmur of approbation spread from tepee to tepee. The little children cried gleefully that now they could stay up late and play. The warriors began to hold kill talks in groups all over the village common.

  Redbird looked wonderingly at No Name still sitting by the fire. “My son, why do you not get up and paint yourself for the telling and the dance?”

  No Name got to his feet slowly. “My face is already blackened, my father.”

  “What? Is this not an occasion for your best ceremonial painting? The people demand it, my son.”

  With a heavy heart, No Name began to prepare himself. He let his father step outside unknowing.

  When all the people had assembled around the big fire in the center of the camp, Circling Hawk brought out the white skull of a dog and placed it on a piece of ground cleared of all grass and sticks and insects. The moment the skull touched earth the voices of the singers fell low and the drummers tapped lightly. Children sat on the ground on the inner circle, while ring upon ring of grownups stood behind them, the nearest faces lighted a bright red-brown, the farther faces a dark brown. Teeth flashed in dusky faces; eyes sparkled under slanted brows.

  The drummers paused. One of them gave the drum a thump. Then the herald began to clear a way for Redbird and No Name. Redbird walked in quiet dignity, holding his copper-tipped spear before him. No Name walked with face averted.

>   Redbird held up his copper-tipped spear. “My children, you see me now an old man.” Firelight glinted on his bear-claw necklace. “I have waited many winters for this day. At last it is here. My son has returned in glory. He wishes to tell you of his deed of valor. He also wishes to tell you the second part of the vision which was withheld from you at the sun dance. This is so that the Yanktons may know how great a nation they are.” Redbird let his spear sink to the earth, slowly. “I have said.”

  The drummers beat up a short resounding song. The old women lifted their voices in trills of hope.

  Leaf came next carrying Sharp Horn’s scalp tied to the tip of a pole. The scalp pole had been daubed with bright vermilion. She had on her best dress, a loose supple doeskin tunic, and had painted her cheeks and the parting in her hair a deep red. She looked up at the dangling Pawnee scalp, her eyes suddenly full of feverish hate, her face expressing terrible revulsion. She shook the pole frenziedly, whipping the scalp about so hard it snapped like a small whip, as if she believed it to be still alive and capable of suffering. A murmuring, then a loud cry of hate, swept over the assembly. Leaf accepted the cry of the people eagerly. She began to revile the enemy scalp, then revile all of the Pawnee people. The Pawnees were dogs of dogs, not men of men as they bragged. Pawnee sons were rapers and killers of their mothers. Pawnee daughters were vampires and murderers of their fathers. Then, sudenly breaking off, violent passions abruptly passing away, Leaf set the pole in a hole beside the dog skull and stepped back.

  The drummers beat up a short measured chant, then followed it with a quick loud yell.

  No Name stepped forward. Because of his father’s remark, he had taken some pains to dress for the occasion. A scarlet plume bobbed in his hair, red woodpecker feathers shimmered down the front and back of his clout, and a pair of shell anklets clashed every time he took a step. Circling Hawk had helped him paint on his sun dance markings again, a red sun on his chest and a black crescent moon on his back, with twenty-eight stripes of white radiating from the sun and coming together again on the moon.

  The people recognized the sun dance markings and a low cry moved through the assembly. “Ahh-h-h.”

  No Name felt all eyes on him. The close attention of the people lifted him despite his melancholy. The moment had come for him to exalt them. His heart began to beat high in his throat. His chest swelled. Memory of all the difficulties he had overcome during the past year rushed over him as a great wind. His eyes glittered like a panther’s in his blackened face, darting this way and that. His limbs shuddered with power. He lifted his warclub flashing in the light of the glowing bonfire. Then quickly, with a show of authority, he struck the dog skull.

  All fell silent.

  Lifting his voice, with swift gestures, he recited the details of his adventure. He told of eluding the Omaha beyond the River of The Double Bend, told of finding two sacred painted stones which pointed the way for him, told of finding Leaf buried in the sand.

  He turned completely around to take a look into all the ranked black eyes a moment. “When I listened for the voice within, I found the true path. Wakantanka, he who lives behind the sun, also wants you to listen for the voice within. It is when all do this, all rocks and earth and sand, all growing things, all fourleggeds, all twoleggeds, all wingeds, all spirits great and small, even Wakantanka himself, that all are happy together.”

  A single boom sounded on the drum.

  The red flames of the bonfire subtly became gray smoke, and the gray smoke in turn subtly became a purple plume rising against the black sky of night.

  He told next how he killed a Pawnee and counted coup on him. He pointed to the scalp on the pole in proof. Instantly the people let go with a mighty roar. He then told, point for point, of entering the lodge of the Pawnee chief Sounds The Ground As He Walks and of all that happened therein. He told of Sounds The Ground’s eventual kindness to them and how he and Leaf were given two horses and safe conduct toward the River of Little Ducks.

  “Even among the hated there are sometimes good men.”

  Boom!

  Voice low, yet vibrant with power, he told of finding at last the great white stallion himself, with a family of many spotted horses, of how he watched Dancing Sun for days to learn his ways, watering and feeding and herding, of how he finally set out after him, going around and around in a circling drive on the wide lonesome barrens. As proof of it all, he held up his dark leg to show them the light-brown scar where Dancing Sun had bitten him.

  He paused for a breath.

  The eyes of all, young as well as old, stared at him in fixed unwavering gaze. Blushes of light from the rose-pink fire moved across their faces.

  He began to shake with emotion. His voice sank, he almost choked, when he told them of leaping astride Dancing Sun and of the wonderful ride that followed. In vivid pantomime he showed them how he and the horse ducked and dodged the great hail, how they swam in the raging flood, how the great white one finally took his own life by leaping off a cliff. He staggered, sobbed, shrieked, as he recounted his sorrow in that awful hour of loss.

  “He died as a noble Yankton would die. As one of those who cannot be conquered!”

  The people listened as with one heart and one mind. The drummers and singers sat stunned. The wise old men sat with their mouths open, little boys again being told a marvelous fable from another time. The maidens and the children sat with their breaths held and their eyes dilated. For one long beating moment of time, the people were as one being with No Name.

  Then he told of how he found immediately after, first, Leaf his wife washing a newborn infant, second, Twinkling Feet the stallion’s favorite mare giving birth to twin colts.

  “Twins!” Redbird ejaculated. “Such a thing happens only when the gods intervene. Ai, it is wakan.”

  “Wakan!” all the people murmured.

  “One was alive!” No Name cried. He pointed to someone standing beyond the rim of the firelight. “You see him now!”

  All faces turned to look.

  Looking proudly from side to side, stepping with pompous straddled legs, Circling Hawk came in leading the little white stud colt.

  No Name pointed again. “See him! There he is. The son of Dancing Sun. Soon he will be as great as his father. He will make a noble seed-father for all our mares. All the Yankton breeders shall use him. He will give us many spotted horses and will make our nation a great one.”

  A roar of joy exploded from the assembled host. The drummers and singers beat up an ecstatic chant. The old women ululated a high wild chorus.

  No Name held up his hand for silence, again beckoned for someone beyond the rim of light to come forward.

  This time it was his old friend Strikes Twice, leading the sorrel One Who Follows and the dun mare Black Stripe.

  “See them,” No Name cried. “They became our faithful friends in the land of the enemy. There is no fault in them. I give them both to Owl Above. The Pawnees took from Owl Above’s herd and now the Pawnees give back to Owl Above’s herd. Hi-e! I have said.”

  The people broke out with cries of approval.

  Then it was Redbird’s turn to hold up his hand for silence. He stepped forward gravely. He looked at the individual faces of the elders and warriors around the circle, his slow gaze picking them out one by one. “You have heard my son tell of great things. You have seen the white seed colt. What is your wish? Does our son deserve the honor feather at last? Shall we give him a new name? What is your wish?”

  Without hesitation, with one voice, the elders and warriors and all the people shouted, “The son of Redbird has done a great thing! Give him the feather of the golden eagle! Give him his name!”

  Silence. Full. Intent. Black eyes glittered in the jumping firelight. Bronze forms stood as statues in the red dust.

  “No one steps forward to deny it. It is good.”

  Redbird turned to Speaks Once the father of Strikes Twice, standing at the edge of the crowd. He beckoned for him to come forward. �
�Friend,” Redbird said, “we ask this. Our son needs a new name. Will you give it?”

  Speaks Once strutted up. Thick lips proud, deerbone breast-piece gingling, he drew a single eagle feather from his belt. He held it up to the light for all to see. He turned it slowly. The tip of the feather was fluffed out with the red down of a woodpecker.

  “My son,” Speaks Once said, and he tapped No Name lightly on the shoulder with the point of the feather.

  No Name knelt in the red dust at the foot of the scalp pole.

  “My son,” Speaks Once said, “this day you have made the Yankton people a great nation.”

  “Houw, houw!”

  “It is because of what you have done that we give you this.” Speaks Once thrust the long tail feather into No Name’s hair, at the back so that the tip stuck straight up.

  No Name shivered at the touch.

  Speaks Once turned slowly, solemnly, and faced toward the tepee of Moon Dreamer. He said aloud, “It has been told us that the gods have given our intercessor a new name for our son. Let our holy man now come forward and tell it so that it may be given.”

  All eyes turned to look at Moon Dreamer’s lodge. Even as they looked, an old hand reached out of the lodge and pulled the door flap shut and lashed it down tight.

  A gasp went up.

  No Name shuddered. Looking to one side as he knelt, past his left cheek, he caught his father looking at him with glittering probing eyes. No Name groaned. His father still expected him to tell the remainder of the vision. In the excitement of the moment, the people had forgotten about it, but not his father. Moon Dreamer knew this and that was why he would not join them in the naming.

  All stood stunned for some moments. All feared what the gods might do. Some even looked up to see if the Thunders might not be coming.

  Then Redbird, his eyes almost closing over, pointed to the herald Thunder Close By and said, “Friend, approach the lodge of our holy man. Ask him if he will not at least give us the name. We wish this. Though there is yet much to know, our son deserves a name at this time.” Redbird slowly looked down at his son in love. “Hi-ye! far better this son than his father.”