Vision Quest

by Judd Cole

  His anger was tempered by his private amusement as Touch the Sky grasped the situation. For the first time in his memory, Wolf Who Hunts Smiling had lost his arrogant, wily sneer. Why not enjoy this rare turn of events?

  “You say you only wanted to kill me in a fair fight. Then tell me, Cheyenne buck. Would you face a silvertip bear and call it a fair fight?”

  Wolf Who Hunts Smiling was shamed into silence.

  “And speak of this thing, great warrior. The night, at the white dogs’ camp on the Yellowstone, when you threw rocks to alert the paleface sentry? You ran away and left me to die. Was this another time when you wanted me to die in a ‘fair fight’?”

  “These—these things were wrong,” admitted Wolf Who Hunts Smiling. “But River of Winds has recently sworn that he saw you making medicine with Bluecoats! And that time with the sentry, I was still angry after our fight which caused Black Elk to turn against me.

  “But you were not killed as the result of anything I did, each time I left you a fighting chance. This is not the same as murder!”

  “A long, thin creature that slides on the ground and bites me with poison is the same as a snake to me,” said Touch the Sky. “Call it whatever else you will. When you speak this way, you mangle words. Just like the white men who write talking papers and then steal our land with them. They call a white rock black when it suits their purpose, just as you now honey-coat your treachery.”

  “Kill me if you will,” said Wolf Who Hunts Smiling. “Show me the Wendigo’s face and turn me to frozen stone. But do not say I am anything like the white devils who slaughtered my father!”

  “I say it again! Evil was not invented by the white man—I have seen red men who would make the white devil Satan proud indeed.”

  Wolf Who Hunts Smiling looked at the ground, knowing full well who he meant.

  “What?” said Touch the Sky. “The child sulks! Will you now threaten to kill me again? It was your favorite sport while I walked the earth.”

  “I have ears for this,” said Wolf Who Hunts Smiling. “You are right to mock me now. I spoke of it too much. Women fight with their words, men let their battle lances speak for them.”

  Touch the Sky permitted his lips to widen in a wry smile.

  “Are you telling me, then, that now you wish you would have killed me quickly and been done with it long ago?”

  Wolf Who Hunts Smiling looked like a fox caught in a blind trap. He hadn’t meant to reveal so much of his true thoughts. Yet, it was foolish to lie to a ghost—it was said by the elders they could read the human heart the way living Indians could read a game trail.

  Fear drained even the wily gleam from Wolf Who Hunts Smiling s eyes. But courageously, he nodded. “I wish now that I had sent you under, not Pawnee.”

  Touch the Sky could not help admiring his enemy’s audacious courage even as he loathed him for his petty hatred and jealousy and ambition. Abruptly, he reached down, picked up a handful of dirt, and let it scatter in the wind.

  “Tell me, Panther Clan!” he said to Wolf Who Hunts Smiling, each word laced with scorn. “How can a thing of smoke move the dirt—let alone harm a brave warrior such as yourself?”

  It took Wolf Who Hunts Smiling many heartbeats to understand his mistake. When he realized, blood rushed into his face. Humiliation vied with rage and relief. Reflexively, he raised the Colt and aimed it at Touch the Sky. For a long moment the two Cheyenne stared at each other, faces carved from stone, eyes unwavering.

  Then Wolf Who Hunts Smiling lowered the Colt. “Enjoy your white man’s joke. What happened here this day,” he said coldly, pointing out toward the battlefield where dead ponies and dead Pawnee still lay, “showed once again your great courage. You know I hate you, yet you saved me.”

  “I saved a Cheyenne,” Touch the Sky corrected him.

  “As you say. I still believe you secretly play the dog for whites. But I see now that I was wrong about your loyalty to the tribe. A Cheyenne who risks his life for a tribe member he hates will surely stand and cover himself with glory for those he loves.

  “Even so, I feel it in my bones, the day comes when we will tip our lances at each other. And I will kill you—honorably or otherwise—if I obtain proof with my own eyes that you serve the Long Knives against us. Until such a day arrives, I swear this thing on my medicine bag: Never again will I sully the Arrows by deliberately endangering you in secret as I have done in the past.”

  “I play the dog for no one,” said Touch the Sky. “But I have placed your words in my sash. I fear they are as close to a truce as we will ever come.” Touch the Sky recalled his medicine dream at the lake and added, “I too feel we will one day meet in combat. One of us will sully the Arrows by killing a Cheyenne.”

  Wolf Who Hunts Smiling nodded. “I will wait here with Swift Canoe. Will you tell them back at camp where to find us?”

  Touch the Sky nodded. “And I will mark the trail clearly with sign so they will be quick getting here.”

  Touch the Sky had taken several steps back toward his hidden pony when the other Cheyenne called his name. He turned around.

  Wolf Who Hunts Smiling brandished the Colt rifle.

  “You have long wanted your weapon back. I offer it freely now.”

  Touch the Sky debated. Black Elk had already taken the percussion-action Sharps rifle his white father had given him. He couldn’t be trusted with it, Black Elk explained, after the report from River of Winds. Why, thought Touch the Sky now, give Black Elk a second weapon to steal? He was riding back to enough trouble and hostility as it was. Approaching camp now with a long arm might even get him killed.

  “You turned it into a true firestick this day,” Touch the Sky finally said. “I quit claim to it. The rifle is yours.”

  “I accept it gladly!” Wolf Who Hunts Smiling called to his retreating back. “Just carry my warning close to your heart. I respect you, yes. But I respect any enemy who is worth the effort of killing!”

  Chapter Eighteen

  When he arrived at the rim of the fertile Powder River valley, Touch the Sky halted his pony.

  The day was late, and the sun burned low on the western horizon. Far below he could see the Cheyenne camp. The tipis were arranged by clan circle with a huge clearing left open in the center. It was dominated by the largest structure, the hide-covered council lodge. Naked children played at war, riding stick ponies into battle and carrying willow-branch shields. Squaws bent over their cooking tripods to prepare the late meal.

  Touch the Sky knew that sentries were posted beyond this point, covering the approach to camp. But something else had begun troubling him as he neared the valley: What if there was now an order to kill him on sight?

  After all, he had left camp with most believing he was a spy for the Long Knives. True, Arrow Keeper’s power as acting chief was enough to permit his departure. But even Arrow Keeper had warned him to leave right away, during the night—as if afraid the tribe might override him. A chief was bound by the collective will of the tribe. Anything might have happened since he left.

  Since his epic vision at Medicine Lake, Touch the Sky wanted more than ever to belong to the tribe, to be accepted. The prospect of being killed on sight did not trouble him because he was afraid, or because the thought of death held a sting for him as for all men. Rather, he did not want to die alone. He did not want to pass through this life on earth belonging nowhere, treated like a rabid cur by white and red men alike.

  To belong just once before he died! And for this he had decided once and for all to make his stand in life as a Cheyenne, the blood of his birthright and as good a birthright as any man’s. Several sleeps earlier, he would gladly have ridden into a sentry’s arrow and ended this eternal fight just to survive.

  Now, however, he decided he wanted to live, to explore the full length of his tether before he crossed over to the Land of Ghosts. So he would wait until his sister the sun went to her rest. Then he would slip past the sentries and simply throw himself on Arrow Keepe
r’s mercy.

  While he waited, watching the valley slide further into shadows, he picked out Black Elk’s tipi. This was simple, for it was easily the finest and newest in the entire camp, and the meat racks behind overflowing. But the entrance flap remained closed. He failed to catch even a glimpse of Honey Eater.

  Angry at himself, he forced his eyes away. Yes, he would make his stand with the Cheyenne, if he could. But Honey Eater was smoke behind him now, part of a world that was dead to him. She belonged to a time when hopes for love still lived in his heart. That time was gone. She was married now, another mans wife.

  Chief Yellow Bear’s words from the recent vision came back to him, a memory echo that pimpled his skin with gooseflesh:

  I have seen you bounce your son on your knee, just as I have seen you shed blood for that son and his mother.

  But who would his bride be, then? He had no room in his heart for any woman but Honey Eater.

  While he thought these things, the sun slid lower and the first stars began to wink high in the night sky. Touch the Sky waited until the valley was shrouded in a cloak of black velvet darkness. Then, leading the gray by her hackamore, he carefully descended into the valley.

  He was forced to swing wide, at one point, to avoid a sentry camped on a ridge above the eastern entrance to the Cheyenne village. And Touch the Sky worried, as he reached the edge of the camp clearing, about setting the dogs off: The Cheyenne kept many dogs around, training them to hate the smell of their enemies. But they could also go into a barking frenzy at the arrival of a Cheyenne.

  But they ignored him as he slipped out of the trees. Touch the Sky skirted the tipis and the light from the huge fires in front of the lodges of the clans and military societies. First he turned his pony loose in the huge rope corral beside the river. Then, heart hammering against his ribs, he made his way toward Arrow Keeper’s tipi.

  It stood on a lone hummock between the river and the clan circles. The flap was up, a small fire burned within. The hide tipi cover had stretched so thin that the firelight inside turned it a soft orange-yellow color that glowed like burning punk. The old shaman’s hatchet-sharp profile stood out clearly in silhouette.

  Touch the Sky glanced inside. Arrow Keeper sat with his back to the entrance, silver-streaked hair spilling over his blanket-draped shoulders.

  Touch the Sky looked closer, and a reverent awe filled him: Arrow Keeper held one of the sacred Cheyenne Medicine Arrows. Carefully, lovingly, he brushed its entire blue-and-yellow-striped length with a soft piece of chamois.

  Touch the Sky was about to announce his presence. Suddenly, his back still turned, Arrow Keeper’s gravelly voice said, “Welcome, Touch the Sky. Step inside and visit with your chief.”

  The old shaman turned around now. His nut-brown face was sere and wrinkled. But his eyes blazed with the intensity of the spirit flame that stays strong even when the body sickens and ages.

  “I knew you were coming,” he said as the youth stepped inside. “A great eagle circled camp this morning. It dropped this in front of my tipi.”

  The medicine man held up the tail feather of an eagle.

  Touch the Sky felt his blood singing as he stared at the feather.

  “I have one just like it, Father.”

  The shaman nodded. He slipped the Medicine Arrow back into the coyote fur pouch which held the other three Arrows. Arrow Keeper slid the pouch under his sleeping robes.

  “Tell me, little brother,” he said. “Did you find the vision you sought?”

  Touch the Sky nodded. “It was as you said. Much was not clear, and already I have forgotten some things. But Father, this I know, my place is here with the tribe. Will they accept me?”

  Arrow Keeper was silent for many heartbeats.

  “I cannot speak the will of the tribe,” he finally answered. “I cannot assure you they will accept you, not quickly. River of Winds’ report has branded you a spy, or at least a traitor, in the eyes of many. But I can assure you they will tolerate your presence. And then perhaps, with time, acceptance will come if you earn it.”

  “How can you assure this thing?”

  “I have long considered something. Twice now you have experienced a medicine dream, this time at Medicine Lake and earlier, before you rode against the paleface merchants of strong water.”

  Touch the Sky said, “There were two others during my journey. Smaller visions.”

  Arrow Keeper nodded. “I have reached a decision.”

  Grunting with the effort, stiff kneecaps popping, Arrow Keeper rose and stepped outside into the night. Touch the Sky was curious when he heard the acting chief call a young boy over. Arrow Keeper said something and the boy raced off.

  Shortly after, to Touch the Sky’s astonishment, Black Elk stepped into the tipi.

  “You sent for me, Father?” he was saying as he entered. Then he spotted Touch the Sky, and his jaw slacked open.

  “You!” He spoke before he could stop himself.

  Arrow Keeper was enjoying himself immensely but kept his smile turned inward.

  “Black Elk seems surprised,” said Arrow Keeper. “Almost as though he were staring at a ghost.”

  Black Elk had recovered somewhat and regained his fierce aspect. His dark eyes snapped sparks in the soft light of the tipi. In spite of himself, Touch the Sky again found himself staring at Black Elk’s dead lump of ear. The warrior himself had sewn it back onto his head with buckskin thread after a Bluecoat saber severed it.

  “Not a ghost, Father,” he said, “a turncoat spy who licks the hand of his white masters, then sniffs at our Cheyenne women!”

  “So you say.” Arrow Keeper looked at Touch the Sky. “Have you seen Wolf Who Hunts Shilling and Swift Canoe?” he asked with exaggerated innocence. “They have been gone ever since you left. No doubt our war chief must wonder where his best bucks are hiding.”

  Black Elk’s discomfort was obvious. Now Touch the Sky understood—Black Elk had ordered his death.

  “I have seen them,” Touch the Sky replied. Briefly, withholding most of the details, he explained that Swift Canoe was hurt and where they could be found.

  “Tell me this also,” said Arrow Keeper, his sharp old eyes fastened on Black Elk. “Did they attempt to kill you?”

  The silence inside the tipi grew tense. By Cheyenne law, what Black Elk had done—ordering the assassination of a fellow tribe member without decree of the Headmen—was a serious crime. Black Elk could be stripped of his coup feathers and his possessions, lose his position as war leader.

  And thus, thought Touch the Sky, plunge Honey Eater into a destitute marriage. He could not do that.

  Touch the Sky met Black Elk’s eyes as he spoke. He recalled Wolf Who Hunts Smiling’s careful distinction between murder and placing a life in danger.

  “They did not lift a finger against me,” he replied truthfully enough. “Their bloody battle was with the Pawnee.”

  Relief washed over Black Elk’s face. Arrow Keeper studied Touch the Sky for a long time, then nodded. He understood this gesture: The youth was extending an offer of peace to Black Elk, and Arrow Keeper approved this.

  But in his secret heart of hearts, Black Elk was implacable in his jealous hatred. This stinking dog had met secretly with his squaw—perhaps he even lifted her dress and bulled her! He could not speak this shame to the others, but neither could he let this outsider return so Honey Eater would see him. Her heart was already filled with thoughts of him as it was.

  Arrow Keeper seemed to read much of this in his war chief’s face. Now, his voice all authority and business, he said, “The Councilors meet soon. You will make the following announcement. As of this day, Touch the Sky has become my apprentice. He is blessed with the gift of vision-seeking. Therefore I will teach him the arts of the medicine man.”

  Both Black Elk and Touch the Sky were stunned by this proclamation. Arrow Keeper was not only acting chief but the tribe’s permanent medicine man. This double authority gave his decision the force of
law. Touch the Sky’s acceptance or rejection by the tribe meant little now—with this important decision, Arrow Keeper had ended all talk of banishment or execution.

  “Your training will be hard,” he said to Touch the Sky. “And long. There is much to learn, and a young man can quickly grow bored with it. But I am convinced Maiyun has marked you out for a shaman.”

  Touch the Sky nodded. He was still surprised but submitted humbly. Black Elk, however, started to protest.

  “Father! Think on this thing. River of Winds—”

  “River of Winds,” Arrow Keeper interrupted him, “is a good, honest brave. But he has been deceived by appearances. This buck before you is straight-arrow Cheyenne!”

  “But he—”

  “Now my old ears can hear no more,” said Arrow Keeper. “Your chief has spoken. Now leave, both of you, and let an old man smile in his dreams.”

  ~*~

  Touch the Sky left his possessions in his tipi. Most of the activity in camp was now centered around the various lodges and the common square, where the young men were gathering for the pony races. He avoided those places, walking down to the river to bathe.

  By chance Little Horse had just returned to camp from a word-bringing mission. Arrow Keeper had sent him to Sun Dance’s Lakota village to inform the Sioux of the place and time for the upcoming chief-renewal. Little Horse had led his pony to the river to drink. Touch the Sky spotted him and the two friends had joyously embraced.

  Touch the Sky was still recounting the events of his remarkable journey to Medicine Lake as the two friends headed back toward Touch the Sky’s tipi. Abruptly, Little Horse laid a hand on his friend’s arm.

  “Hold, brother,” he said in a whisper.

  He pointed toward Touch the Sky’s tipi. Because he had no clan affiliation in this Northern Cheyenne band, Touch the Sky’s tipi, like the chief’s, stood by itself.

  In a slanting shaft of pale silver moonlight directly in front of the tipi knelt Honey Eater. Touch the Sky felt his pulse quicken at this unexpected glimpse of her frail beauty.

  Every evening when Touch the Sky was away from camp, Honey Eater added another ritual to her nightly habit of picking fresh columbine for her hair: She would also stop in front of his tipi to verify that the stone was still there—the stone which he had placed there as a symbol of his eternal love. When it melted, he had sworn to her, so too would his love for her.