Brothers of the Buffalo

by Joseph Bruchac

  They all waited to be fed. Seven hundred lodges in all. They waited. Day after day.

  Just feed us. We will not fight.

  Still they were not fed. Still they waited.

  “My son!”

  Wolf looked up from the piece of wood he was carving with his knife. At first he had been whittling to pass the time. It kept his mind off his empty belly. But now the shape of a buffalo calf was beginning to emerge from the soft cottonwood.

  “Mother,” he said. He looked up. There was a hopeful smile on his mother’s face

  “Come along! Our agent is calling us to gather. It must be that the rations have arrived.”

  A crowd had gathered in front of the home of Agent Miles. But there was no smile on his face. The soldiers who stood to either side of him were not smiling.

  Wolf held on to his little sister’s hands on one side, his mother’s on the other.

  No, he thought. No. Let the news be good.

  “My friends, my dear friends,” Miles began. His voice caught, as if there was a hook in his mouth. He raised his hands. “I am sorry.” He looked down at his clenched hands and then held them open. “There is no more food for you. I have been told that there is none coming soon. There is nothing I can do. I am sorry.”

  No one in the crowd spoke, even after the interpreter finished translating. A few shook their heads, as if not understanding the words, but no one spoke.

  Agent Miles looked over at the army man next to him, whose yellow stripes on his shoulder showed him to be an officer. The officer nodded his head.

  “The army understands how hard this is for you,” Miles said. “So they have given you permission to leave. You may leave the agency to go and hunt. You may leave,” Miles said again. “Go. Find your buffalo herds. Hunt. You have my permission and that of the army to leave.” He turned, went into his home, and shut the door behind him.

  People began looking at each other and talking.

  “We came here believing their promises of food and peace,” a woman named Red Beads said. “Now we are worse off than when we arrived. Their promises are as empty as our stomachs.”

  But her words were not spoken with anger. If anything, her voice sounded tired.

  Wolf and his mother and sister turned away to go back to their lodge. Their possessions were few. Still, they needed to get them together so they could leave with the dawn.

  “My son,” Wolf’s mother said to him, “our hope now rests with our sacred herds. I know you will do your best to find them.”

  Early the next morning, the women took down the lodges. They tied the tipi poles to the oldest horses. The chiefs divided up the strongest of the young men into small scouting parties. They were given the best of the remaining horses. That way they could range as far as possible when they fanned out over the prairie.

  Wolf looked at his own scouting party. Himself and his three best friends.

  “Now that the hard winter is over,” Too Tall said, “hunting will be good.”

  “We will surely find our herds,” Too Short agreed.

  Horse Road nodded and kicked his heels into his pony’s sides.

  As they rode south they felt hopeful. And it seemed their hope was rewarded. On the second day, they found the tracks of a small buffalo herd.

  “Look,” Too Tall said, poking at a buffalo chip with a stick. “They passed through here no more than a few days ago.”

  “I am hungry enough to eat a horse,” Too Short said.

  “Eat your brother’s horse, then,” Horse Road said.

  “No,” Too Tall said, “my horse is skinny.”

  “That is true,” Too Short agreed. “We should eat Following Wolf’s horse first.”

  Wolf smiled. There was little chance of that. His horse, Wind, was strongest. It had been agreed that he would be the one to ride back once they saw a herd of their animals. While his friends kept track of the herd, he would lead back the lodges of women and children and old people. They would set up the hunting camp. As the young men hunted, the women would skin the sacred animals. They would butcher them with respect and care so that nothing would be wasted. All would give thanks to Maheo as they ate together.

  Wolf’s smile grew broader as he thought of that. Real food to eat. So much better than rotten beef from sick cows. The bellies of the sacred ones—the hungry children and the starving old people—finally would be filled again.

  The warm air tasted good as they rode. The tracks grew fresher as they trotted along. They knew they were moving faster than the buffalo. If there was good grass, a herd would move along slowly, grazing. And the grass had been good. It had been grazed down low all around them by the herd, but it was clear that the new grass had been green and tall. Deep winter snow always made for good grass when the spring came.

  Sun was in the middle of the sky. It was late spring. The days were long. Unless something had stampeded the herd, they might make up the distance between them before the end of the day. The sun moved across the sky as they rode. The width of one hand, two, three, four. Though the land seemed flat, there were folds in the prairie and small hills. Those folds and hills could hide even a large herd from sight until they were close.

  Horse Road began to sing. Too Tall and Too Short joined in with him.

  A good day to be alive

  a good day to be alive

  we are hunting for the people

  a good day to be alive…

  Wolf held up his hand. His friends stopped singing. They pulled up their horses. They were at the foot of a range of hills. The hoof marks of buffalo led up it, through a small pass at the top.

  Dismount, he signed.

  They did so quietly. Then they moved up the hill slowly. They didn’t want the sudden sight of hunters to disturb the herd that they would soon see on the wide plain stretching out on the other side.

  A meadowlark burst up from the dry grass in front of them as they climbed. It fluttered so close to Horse Road’s face that he almost fell down. He looked over at Wolf and grinned. Wolf

  grinned back.

  They all dropped down low to crawl.

  They reached the hilltop.

  Together, in silence, the four young men looked down across the plain.

  Before them were many buffalo. So many. They would have been enough to feed every lodge of their people for many days. The herd had been bigger than expected.

  Wolf and his three friends stood. The walked down among the herd. They walked in silence. Wolf began counting the animals. Ten, twenty, a hundred, two hundred. There were buffalo everywhere as far as they could see.

  But Wolf’s counting soon stopped. It was not because the number was too great. It was because his eyes filled with tears. He could no longer see clearly.

  Two ravens ka-awked. They flapped up from the remains of the stinking buffalo carcass closest to Wolf. Only the hides and tongues had been taken by the hunters. Even after the prairie wolves and ravens had taken their share, there had been much meat left. But now that meat was no longer good. The weather had been warm. The buffalo hunters had not taken out the insides of each animal. They had not done as the people always did, finding a use for every part of this sacred gift. What meat was left was rotten.

  That awful waste showed who had done this terrible thing. That and the way the buffalo had been skinned. When Indians skinned a buffalo, they took the whole hide. But the white buffalo skinners were always in such a hurry that they cut around the legs.

  “We will stay hungry,” Horse Road said. The hard anger in his voice was like a stone.

  No one else had anything to say.

  Listen to me carefully,

  Sweet Medicine said,

  and truthfully follow my instructions.

  You chiefs are peace-makers.

  Though your son might be killed

  in front of your lodge,

  you should take a peace pipe and smoke.

  Then you would be called an honest chief.

  You chiefs
own the land and the People.

  If your men, your soldier societies,

  should be scared and retreat,

  you are not to step back

  but take a stand to protect your land

  and your people.

  Get out and talk to the People.

  If strangers come, you are the ones

  to give presents to them and invitations.

  When you meet someone,

  or he comes to your lodge

  asking for anything,

  give it to him. Never refuse.

  Go outside your lodge

  and sing your chief’s song

  so all the People will know

  you have done something good.

  QUANAH’S SUN DANCE

  The sun had risen and set twenty times since Friend Miles had released the Cheyennes to hunt. Their scouting parties had gone far and wide. They had ranged across the lands where the great herds had always grazed at that time of the year. But no one had found a single living buffalo. Instead of living herds, they found only skinned bodies. In some cases, the killing had been recent. So a little meat had been salvaged from the fresher carcasses. It had been enough to feed the people for only a few days.

  The leaders gathered.

  “There are herds farther to the south,” White Horse suggested.

  “But there is danger there, too,” Gray Head said. “Buffalo hunters. Stinky white men who would shoot an Indian as quickly as they would an animal. Perhaps more quickly. And there are not just a few of those stinky white men to the south. There are many.”

  “Those stinky white men,” White Horse said, “they broke the law against coming onto our buffalo grounds.

  “But the army did not stop them,” Heap of Birds said. “It has turned a blind eye toward them. Now they have built a big camp. It is near the old white man’s abandoned fort the ve’hoes call Adobe Walls. They even have their own store there. It supplies them with goods and buys the skins from them. They will stay there until every buffalo left in the world has been killed, skinned, and left to rot.

  Wolf walked away from the little council. He walked for a long time through the hills. His feet kicked up swirls of dust as he walked.The snow was gone, but this moon brought no rain. No rain at all. First the killing cold and now this drought.

  When the sun was two hands above setting, he returned. His mother had set up their lodge near a small streambed. There a trickle of water still flowed. His mother and sister were not there. He saw they had taken their digging sticks. They were looking for roots for food. It was so dry they’d had little luck at that. Still, they kept trying.

  Wolf slid down against the wall of the lodge. The dry leaves in the nearby grove of cottonwoods rattled in the breeze.

  “Is there nothing we can do?” he said to himself.

  “There is something we can do!” Horse Road sat next to him.

  “Henova’eto? What?”

  “We can go to the Comanches.”

  “Henova’e? Why?”

  “They are having a Sun Dance. They sent a messenger, who came while you were off walking. All are invited.”

  Wolf looked hard at him. “It is not yet the time for the Sun Dance. It is only the Spring Moon. The Sun Dance is done when the days are long and the sun is high.”

  “That is true,” Horse Road said.

  Wolf thought about the Sun Dance. It was a great and sacred ceremony. It was always done carefully and in a sacred way. They would build a great arbor and put up a sacred tree. Cheyenne men who had pledged themselves to sacrifice would put on holy paint. They would dance for several days facing the sun. They would take neither food nor water as they prayed to Maheo. They prayed for health and help for the people.

  “There are many sacred steps that must be taken to do the Sun Dance properly,” Wolf said.

  “That is also true,” Horse Road said. “Also, as far as I know the Comanches have never done a Sun Dance before. But has not knowing how to do something ever stopped a Comanche from trying to do it?”

  Horse Road smiled at his own joke. It was a thin smile that did not go beyond his lips. The laughter that used to be in his eyes as they joked with each other was gone.

  “Anyhow,” he continued, “whether they know how to do it or not, they are going to do one now. Quanah has invited all of the nations to come. He says that his little prophet, Isa-tai, can make us all bulletproof.”

  Isa-tai. Wolf knew who he was. Like Quanah, Isa-tai was Quahadi. He was not a fighter. He had not accomplished any deeds of war. But he had done other things. Or so people said. He foretold the coming of the Great Star before it began to burn its path across the sky. Night after night, that strange star lit up the dark like a second moon.

  Isa-tai had not feared that burning star.

  “The star is a good omen,” he had stated boldly. “It will disappear in five days’ time.”

  When it did just that, many were impressed. His next prediction had been about the season to come.

  “There will be terrible cold!” Isa-tai had prophesied loudly. “Great blizzards will come. It will be worse than any winter in

  memory.”

  Indeed, that past winter had been as dreadful as Isa-tai said. Most Comanches now believed that his power was real.

  “So,” Horse Road said. “Shall we go to Quanah’s Sun Dance?”

  “Hea’e,” Wolf replied. “Maybe.”

  There was a strange, tight feeling in his chest. He could not tell if it was excitement or dread.

  Four days later it was a warm and beautiful day. The sun was shining. A small wind was caressing the long grasses about the Comanche Sun Dance grounds. Swallows were dipping down to the surface of the nearby river. They dappled the water with their beaks as they scooped water to drink in midflight.

  The Comanches had chosen a good spot for their Sun Dance. It was near the boundary of their reservation, on the banks of the north fork of the Red River. As Wolf expected, they had stripped away much of the ceremony. They had not used sacred paint. Many other important things had been left out.

  “Why is there no Sacred Woman?” Wolf asked a young Comanche man who looked about his age. His name was Ta-a-way-te. Buffalo Scout.

  “Ours is a big Sun Dance for warriors,” Buffalo Scout replied. His tone indicated he thought that was a foolish question.

  I will ask no more questions.

  Their Sun Dance was, indeed, a very big one. They had made a huge circular lodge, placing twelve poles around it connected to a forked center pole. From the top of that center pole hung the skin of a newly killed buffalo, stuffed with willow twigs. The ceremony had been simplified, but the Comanches had worked hard to prepare.

  They had sent invitations far and wide for others to join them. Come, help us pray for the return of the buffalo and the survival of all our nations.

  There were more people gathered in one place than Wolf had ever seen. All of the Comanche bands had come. So, too, had many of the Cheyennes. There were Arapahos, Wichitas, Delawares.

  Surprisingly, Wolf saw few of the closest allies to the Comanches, the Kiowas. The only Kiowas at the Sun Dance were Lone Wolf and his small band.

  There was also whiskey. Plenty of whiskey. Too much of it. Most of the Cheyennes were staying away from that firewater. But others were drinking and behaving as men do when they are drunk. The tight feeling in his chest came back.

  How can there be whiskey at a Sun Dance? How can whiskey help when we are praying for help from the Creator?

  Buffalo Scout smiled and beckoned for Wolf to come join those about to be pierced before they would dance facing the sun.

  Wolf shook his head. He meant no disrespect to their ceremony, but he would not take part.

  This whole ceremony was far different from any Sun Dance ever done before on the plains. Its purpose was different, too. Rather than just praying for help, it seemed to be meant to be the prelude to a war council.

  On the next day, that was made clear.
A council was called. Quanah rose first to speak. He called Isa-tai to his side.

  “I believe in this man,” Quanah said in a strong voice. He stared out across the crowd. “We must do as he says.”

  Although Quanah spoke in Comanche, all of those gathered understood him. Comanche was the easiest of the Plains languages to speak. It was the one most often used when there was more than one nation gathered.

  Isa-tai stepped out in front of Quanah. He lifted up his skinny arms. “Hear me,” he proclaimed, in a voice that seemed too big for his body. “I have talked with the Great Mystery. I talk with him every day. He has promised to aid us if we join together to fight.”

  “We do not have enough ammunition for a war,” one of the Wichitas said. “The American soldiers are too well armed.”

  “Hah! I can make bullets come out of my stomach,” Isa-tai boasted. “I can make all of you bulletproof. I will paint you with sacred paint that will protect you. Then, if I wave my hand, bullets fired at you will fall to the ground and not touch you.”

  The Wichita man shook his head in disbelief. He turned without another word. He walked over to his horse. The other Wichitas followed him. They all mounted and silently rode away.

  I, too, have my doubts, Wolf thought. There is something about Isa-tai that I do not like. Maybe it is his name. Isa-tai means “Coyote Dung” in the Comanche language. What if what he is saying is no more than that?

  Horse Road grabbed Wolf’s right arm.

  “Wait,” Horse Road said. “He is right. Together, something great could be done. We should join together, ride out, and strike the enemy.”

  “Which enemy we ride against?” someone with a Delaware accent called out from behind them.