Conquering Horse

by Frederick Manfred

  Lightning, then thunder, smashed into the tumble of red rocks across the river. Almost immediately after, the sprinkling thickened into a heavy rain. It drenched the tepees and those standing without.

  “My son, it does not matter where the body lies, for it is as grass. But where the spirit is, there it will be a good place to be. My son, be not like a woman. Do not kneel, but stand on your feet. Come, call up Circling Hawk and his braves and prepare for the battle.”

  Conquering Horse got up as one commanded in a trance.

  Buckskins soaking wet, holding his lance high, Redbird walked in a stately manner out of the village circle. He took the stepping stones across the red cataracts and climbed into the tumble of red rocks above Falling Water. Then, having set himself, he lifted his voice and began to sing his death chant in an eerie high- pitched voice:

  “Friend, my sorrow would be great

  Were I to be given a long life.

  Therefore, I wish to die.”

  Redbird pointed his lance at the black belly of the thunderhead, gazing upward in ecstasy, crying:

  “See, my grandfather is dangerous!

  When he brandishes his warclub

  Death flies about like many crows.

  Yet my friends the Thunders come too late.

  The white mare of my son’s vision is very powerful.

  The young men come and rise against me.

  I am no longer of use to my people.

  Therefore, I have become their enemy. Epelo!”

  Redbird looked across the river toward the camp. When he saw that his son and the young braves still had not followed him, he cried aloud, “What, have I been a father to cowards? The white mare commands, my son. Even the Thunders obey her. She is your god. She is your vision. Come. Attack. It is fated.”

  At that moment Moon Dreamer emerged from his lodge. He waggled his buffalo head back and forth and up and down. Fixing his eyes on Conquering Horse, he cried, “What, and have I been a holy man to dogs? Advance, my sons, the gods wish it.”

  Conquering Horse stiffened under the lashing words. His face flushed black. His eyes hardened and became fixed in the manner of a reptile. He looked at the guards sitting before the door of the council lodge, then gave an explosive gesture downward, the sign for death.

  Immediately Circling Hawk and a dozen braves came bursting out of the council lodge, all of them bristling with honor feathers and armed with warclubs.

  Conquering Horse gestured again, first to the left, then to the right. “Charge!” he cried. “Hokay-hey! you see the enemy. Surround him.”

  Quickly the braves ran for the river, leaping across, and began to surround the tumble of red rocks. They shrilled cupped yells. “Oh-ow-ow-ow!”

  Star and Loves Roots and Leaf, and all the people, came out of their tepees. They stood in the heavy rain and watched. Star and Loves Roots and Leaf lifted their voices, chanting, their voices wild and haunting. Others of the women fell to their knees and wept. Some tore their clothes. Some held a hand over their eyes. All cried as with one voice, “Father, father, why are you fighting us?”

  Redbird lifted his copper-tipped lance four times and cried down at the advancing braves. “Ho-hech-e-tu! It is a good day to die. Come, defend yourselves.”

  Then, just as Conquering Horse and the young warriors climbed into the tumble of red rocks and were about to fall on Redbird, the Thunders spoke. A long pink tongue of fire licked down out of the churning black cloud above and ticked the copper tip of Redbird’s lance. There was a dazzling explosion, completely enveloping Redbird. The explosion was so great it hurled Conquering Horse and the young braves entirely out of the tumble of red rocks and threw them backward upon the ground.

  When the people looked again, after the lightning spots had cleared from their eyes, Redbird was gone.

  Conquering Horse and the braves slowly picked themselves off the ground.

  The old men stood in numb wordlessness.

  The little children ran cowering to their grandmothers.

  Star and Loves Roots and Leaf, and all the women, began to wail dismally beside their tepees in the pelting rain, slowly scarifying their breasts and legs.

  Conquering Horse surveyed the red rocks and the river and the camp beyond, then lifted his hand and cried in a great voice, “He-han! It has at last been given us. Now we see. Now we know. Wakantanka has tested us all and found us worthy. Therefore, he told the Thunders to come for our father as they had promised him. Because of this the white mare could also give the son of the father all that she had promised him. The prophecy has been fulfilled. Hi-ye!”

  Conquering Horse took his knife and, slicing, ran it around his left forefinger. “My father, this I do in memory of you. Take this finger and keep it until I come for it in the afterlife.” Conquering Horse snapped the finger off at the knuckle and threw it at the skies in the direction his father had gone.

  At Wralda

  December 2, 1958

  GLOSSARY

  Butte of Thunders. Thunder Butte in South Dakota.

  Falling Water. The falls on the Big Sioux River in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

  Great Smoky Water. The Missouri River.

  Increasing Moon. First quarter.

  Moon of Black Cherries. July.

  Moon of Fat Horses. June.

  Moon of First Eggs. May.

  Moon of New Grass. April.

  Moon of Ripe Corn. August.

  Moon of Scarlet Plums. September.

  Nibbled Moon. Second quarter.

  Place of the Pipestone. Pipestone quarry in the Pipestone National Monument, Pipestone, Minnesota.

  Place of Six Strange Boulders. The Two Maidens in the Pipestone National Monument, Pipestone, Minnesota.

  River of Blue Mud. Blue River in Nebraska.

  River of Little Ducks. Republican River in Nebraska.

  River of Milky Water. Minnesota River.

  River of the Double Bend. The Big Sioux River which drains Siouxland.

  River That Sinks. The Platte River in Nebraska.

  River With Red Blood. The Red River which forms the boundary between Minnesota and the two Dakotas.