“This corruption may not be entirely her fault,” Standing Bear said, lighting his pipe with a cinder. “From what she tells me, she was taken from her school and forced into slavery by one of the whites she killed. We must also remember that she is the niece of Buffalo Bull and from a respectable family. We also can’t forget that the whites have powerful medicine. After all this time, who knows what witchcraft they have performed on her? A race that worships a dead body nailed to a tree is capable of anything.”
Smoke Maker opened his pouch and filled his bowl. “All of this is true. But there is still no changing the fact that she has been the white man’s slut. She could have chosen death before the magic you mention had a chance to take effect. Any Ponca woman worth the name would have slit her own throat rather than be traded like a horse among the whites.”
The discussion went on through nightfall, with many solutions and compromises offered. It was suggested that she be allowed to stay, but only as a slave; that she be given as a daughter to Sun Seen By All, whose own child had died the month before; that she be cleansed and rehabilitated through prayer and fasting.
At last, Chased By Owls raised his pipe.
“This woman is Ponca and not only by name,” he said. “I know this because in the end, she behaved as a warrior woman should. She burned the house of her shame with many white devils inside. I’m told there are white whores left alive who still scream from their burns. Good! Let every cry be a reminder to the whites that even an Indian with whom they sleep may seek her freedom in their deaths! I see the burning of the wicked house as a purification of her spirit. And any woman who can kill that many demons in a single evening can live in my village and welcome.”
Standing Bear surveyed the faces of the council. “This is uncharted territory for us. I cannot dishonor my house by taking her as my daughter, and my wives would make my life hell if I made her one of them. She could be a slave, of course, but we have agreed that she is Ponca, and such a fate is fitting only for scum like the Pawnee.”
“It is truly a problem,” said Big Elk, rubbing his eyes against the smoke. “But perhaps there is some other way for this woman to live here that has not yet been revealed to us? I suggest we give her a place to sleep and then put her among our people and see what the spirits decide. Who knows? She could turn out to be a lot less trouble than some of the women around here.”
The men of the council nodded. With the affair resolved, Standing Bear emerged from the lodge. He walked to the center of the village and gestured to two young braves to bring Half Horse to him.
As a boy, Half Horse had been shanghaied into a white school and had learned about enough English to get slapped in a saloon before he escaped with the left ear of the school superintendent and a copy of an English dictionary. He was highly esteemed for staying up late at night reading the big book, but in fact, he only looked at the pictures, translating the names of the things he recognized into Ponca. He used the ear as a bookmark.
Half Horse listened closely as Standing Bear explained the situation and then left the lodge to translate it for Lady-Jane. Seeing the lack of comprehension in her face, he repeated his speech perhaps a half dozen times. When at last she nodded her understanding, he smiled at his accomplishment. He needn’t be so prideful, Lady-Jane thought, it’s not that my Ponca is so bad but that his English is far worse.
The decision of the council meant that she would be safe, at least for the moment. With the peace between the government and the nations so fragile, she knew the blue coats would not look for her. It would not be worth the political fallout for them to invade a village over a burned-down cathouse. Besides, Lady-Jane had never told anyone in Omaha that she was Ponca; and even if she had, it was unlikely they would have remembered such an insignificant detail in the life of a red slut, no matter how expensive.
But even with her life spared for now, she wondered what kind of life it could be. Plains Indian society had as rigid a social structure as the castes of India. Among the Ponca, a daughter of her age would normally be chaperoned by her family, her father or brothers constant guardians of her virtue until she was betrothed. But Lady-Jane had come to the tribe with no virtue to protect; and so no brave would be chosen for her. And while even a slave might bear a warrior children, the council had decided that no man was to touch the newcomer, lest he be contaminated by whatever the whites had left inside her.
Once they had decided not to kill him, the Ponca debated several days over Julius Meyer.
Buffalo Bull suggested he be made the personal servant to a deserving family; Voice Like A Drum asked that he undergo a complete religious conversion so that he might eventually become a respectable member of the tribe. Chased By Owls, thwarted in his vote for death, urged that he be cut behind one knee and live out his days without either the honor of escape nor the dignity of work.
In due course, it was decided that the boy be made a woman.
This humiliation seemed to satisfy the council members hesitant to anger the prophet’s gods, as well as those eager to exact punishment. The boy would gather herbs and fruits, sew clothing and footwear, and care for children. He would kill and skin dogs and prepare meals for the warriors. Unlike the rest of the women, the egg eater would not provide the men sexual pleasure, lest the council be accused of promoting pederasty. When his lighter labors were completed, the boy would tan hides.
Julius soon wondered if he would not have preferred death.
Tanning bison was a backbreaking and nauseating process. It began with removing the buffalo’s brain from its skull, mashing it into a paste, and then spreading the mixture over the animal’s skin. Added to this then were proportions of bone marrow, liver, soapweed, and the grease of an elk or bear. As the mixture soaked into the flesh, Julius and the women took hold of opposite portions of the skin, stretching and pulling in an attempt to sufficiently thin the hide so that it might be used for a robe or wikiup. This done, they would then beat the hide with rocks and branches, the better to break down its cells and reveal its softness.
After tanning, the boy’s arms were covered with a thick, stinking white slime. By the end of a day, his clothing was covered with grime and fine dust that seeped beneath his eyelids and turned his finger and toe nails black. When the women anointed their hands or went to the river to bathe, he was allowed only enough water to sustain his life; any more was considered a luxury unfit for one without a role among the Ponca.
As much as the hunger and more than the exhaustion, Julius despised this desecration of his body. Back in Bromberg, a bath was not only desirable, but commanded for any proper Jew. Prior to the Sabbath, the men and women would queue up at the synagogue mikveh, the ritual bath located just beyond the ark. The water removed not only a congregant’s ordinary sins, but a good portion of the week’s uncleanness—the manure of the ghetto’s horses, the droppings of its mice and rats, the grease of its kitchens. As he did all yiddisher ritual, Julius rebelled against the forced immersion. Fed by an underground spring, the mikveh was freezing cold and he was always embarrassed to appear naked before the other men; the rite completed, he would emerge into the early evening, his hair and ear-locks still damp, and shiver in the Prussian winter. Now, his hands black and his body smelling of buffalo, he longed for that bath; for the shock of immersion and the chill that crept beneath his hat and absolved him of wrong.
The Ponca women with whom he worked didn’t seem to mind his filth or smell; that would have required them to take notice of him. In the days he had been among them, none of the women had said a word to him; and when he tried to speak to them, they turned away. The silence left him to learn his new skills through observation only; there was no instruction either by word or example. Because of this, Julius often made mistakes and was beaten for them by the group’s grand dame, an unreconstructed battleaxe named One Who Runs. If he made too many errors in one day, she would turn him over to her son—a squat brave with a gray streak through his hair. He wouldn’t stop until he ha
d drawn blood.
The only exception among the women was a girl of perhaps sixteen. When he had first seen her, Julius had been too miserable to notice much, except that she seemed less filthy than the others. But as time went on, he noted that the girl always greeted the women with the same smile she had for everyone. Nothing seemed to disturb her serenity. If a stitch was dropped or a hide patch wasted, she would laugh; if a pair of moccasins consisted of two lefts, she would laugh harder. In her presence, the other women would miraculously take on these traits, behaving like work was play and as if Julius was actually something above a dog—deserving respect for perhaps no other reason but that he walked upright. Julius soon learned the reason for such deference: the young woman was Prairie Flower—the daughter of Standing Bear and his first wife, dead since the whites’ Great War.
When he had been in the village long enough for the moon to cycle, Julius began to itch. In that time, only his lips had touched water and he wondered if his condition stemmed from some parasite or just his own sickness with himself. Soon, the scratching manifested itself as a rash across his face and arms. The people of the village recoiled in mock horror at the sight of him, or teased him that the red bumps would spread further and were likely fatal. Only Standing Bear’s daughter looked at him differently. Though she remained as silent as the others, her eyes bespoke sympathy.
On the day Julius sighted her by the river, he could only remember the words the prophet had quoted so often: fortune, he always said, favors the bold. He waited until One Who Runs lay down for a short nap following the midday meal. With the other women following suit, he slipped away from the circle and made for the river.
She stood on a stone outcropping, which jutted out over the water. In her hands was a large earthen jug painted with elk and warhorses. From his shelter behind a tree, Julius noted for the first time the delicacy of her neck and the wideness of her eyes. Summoning his courage, he stepped into the open and began to walk toward her, bowing every few feet until he was close enough to speak.
He pointed toward his wrist, black with dirt and scaled with red patches.
“Please, princess,” he said, in the Ponca he had managed to learn, “might I please have some water for my hands?”
Prairie Flower looked at him and smiled. Her face filled with a kindness he had not seen since his mother had died in his arms. Julius bowed again and turned his face toward the ground. He could hear the shifting of the water in the jug as the girl raised it to her shoulders.
In a blast of white light, his head and neck became a band of pain. Before it could subside, he took another blow, this time feeling the crunch of wood against the forearm he had raised in defense. He fell on his face, and earth filled his mouth. The cudgel came down again, this time on his unprotected flank, and he thought he felt a breaking in his ribs. Then his eyes filled with red; and just before it faded to black, he glimpsed something beautiful: an ivory-colored band of bear claws that clattered against each other, making a high and hollow sound like a skeleton deep in dance.
12
IF THERE WAS SAFETY IN NUMBERS, THEN THE PONCA HAD TO be the most endangered people on the Plains.
The legends said the tribe once included more than two thousand souls, happy and rich with land and game; but this was before the grandfather of Standing Bear broke away from the Omaha for reasons no one could remember. Years of conflict followed with the loathsome Dakota, followed by the white man, who brought gunpowder and diphtheria and smallpox to further reduce the population; and as the Ponca dwindled, so did their land. They had once occupied a large tract north of the Niobrara River. Later, the so-called United States had moved them east. Now the whites were demanding they move again, this time a ride of many days south.
Standing Bear would have understood this request if the whites had simply committed their usual treachery and broken the treaty of 1868 as they had so many others. But this time the agreement had been breached not because of the usual avarice, but because of what the whites called an “oversight.” Someone in an office somewhere had simply not remembered what the parties had previously agreed to. Had his people been the size of the Sioux, an official apology would have been drafted and the mistake quickly rectified; the last thing the government wanted was seven tribes and ten thousand fighters painted for war. But the Ponca were fobbed off with a few written regrets and then told that the results of the “mistake” would stand. The Sioux would now own the tract they had long lived on. It had taken most of what was within Standing Bear to endure such an insult. The arrival in the new land had taken the rest.
And now, with all of this on his shoulders, he was faced with the unpardonable sin of the boy.
Had he been a farmer or stray cowboy, the decision would have been simple; so simple that Chased By Owls would have already made it. But the tall brave had also captured a shaman: and where the fate of a shaman was concerned, there were the spirits to consider.
It was a point not lost on John McGarrigle. And he behaved accordingly.
As Julius watched from a place along a wall, the prophet stalked the center of the main lodge, spewing a mixture of Ponca, Spanish, and English words. His fingers flew around his body, signing in every shape from great arcs to small circles. Not even the boy’s facility for language could decipher the exact meaning of the old man’s oration, but it didn’t take an interpreter to understand that he was pleading for Julius’ life.
“No use to smoke a pipe with all those old ones, Chief, not about this. We both know that ol’ Chased here would love to see my young friend roasted until the face exploded off his skull. You can let him do it. Go ahead! But we both know that if he does, it’ll bring a shitstorm of ghosts down on your heads. I’ll call on every shaman in this world and the next—and you won’t see a buffalo or a stalk of corn between now and the return of Jesus.”
McGarrigle spat on the lodge floor. The boy had understood a few of his words: “pipe,” “spirit,” “face,” and “ghost”: but he could not for a moment fathom why John had pointed to him and invoked the Son of God.
John knelt beside Julius, still speaking and signing.
“Three seasons ago you saw my ghost dance and heard me speak the future. So if you think all this gyratin’ and hollerin’ is just a bad case of gas, then go on and kill this boy. But if you do, you’ll have to deal with my God plus the Jehovah of the egg eaters. And I promise you they’ll both be goddamned mad.”
Standing Bear knew there was no choice but to take such threats seriously. Three years before, he had indeed witnessed the medicine of the gray man with his own eyes; and the terrible result of ignoring his warning.
The occasion had been yet another treaty meeting between the Ponca and General George Crook, the great chief who commanded all the territory’s bluecoats. The prophet had been present at the gathering, having contracted to guide Crook’s soldiers safely through the Indian lands and back. The negotiations had been both grueling and tedious, and the whites’ interpreter, a typically traitorous Pawnee, took forever to translate each sentence. When McGarrigle became possessed, Standing Bear was standing next to his horse, a big gray whose color became steadily darker toward his hindquarters and turned white again at the tail. He never forgot this detail because, at the time, it seemed to him the animal was the exact same color as the man.
The scream that split that day would have been worthy of any of his braves in battle. The prophet’s hands shot into the air as if trying to take hold of the empty atmosphere. With a choked rasp, he fell shaking into the dust, and for a moment it looked as though he would burrow through the earth. Finally, with a howl like brother coyote, he staggered to his feet and pointed a shaking finger at a tall young brave named Big Rain. He spoke and signed and shrieked at the hapless interpreter, ordering him to translate his words.
“Your raid on the Lakota tribe will fail and you’ll die,” he shouted at the astonished brave. “Their camp is not where you think it is. It will take you long to reach them and you
will arrive weak and exhausted. They have many guards around their women and horses. If you go, they will bury you in pieces, jewels in your jaw … jewels in your jaw … jewels in your jaw …”
Standing Bear remembered how McGarrigle had punched at the air and then fallen to the ground. Three of the bluecoats rushed to his side and dragged him beyond the shadow of the lodges. At the next day’s round of talks, the chief inquired as to the health of the old scout. General Crook informed the chief that Mr. McGarrigle had not awakened; he would not for two more days.
By that time, Big Rain had left to raid the Lakota. When the party didn’t return, Standing Bear ordered a search.
A day’s ride from their camp, Chased By Owls located what little remained.
The skull had been placed on a pike by the main trail, an agate bracelet hanging from its mouth. Chased By Owls remembered that Rain’s wife had given him the trinket upon the birth of their first son, and since that day he had never seen him without it. The heads of the remainder of the party lay at the pike’s base, stacked in a jaunty pyramid, their various personal effects placed where eyes or ears or teeth had been. Their flesh had long become food for vultures.
Standing Bear nodded again and turned toward the prophet.
“The Gray One must be respected. There is iron in his words and he has earned the authority allowed a holy person. He does the work of a man here and keeps away the curses of the Man Nailed To A Tree. But this egg eater’s behavior has become intolerable! We spare his life and what does he do? His lurks among us—listening at doors and windows trying to learn our speech. Even this we could tolerate. But this evening he committed a crime. He attempted to speak to the daughter of Standing Bear as if he were her equal! A stinking white wretch! Even if he were a born member of this tribe, such conduct would require permission and a proper chaperone. There would be the giving of gifts and talk of the proper time and place. Worse, his speaking forced me into an undignified and unseemly temper. Before my people, I beat him to the ground. This display has caused me to lose face with my soldiers and made me appear impulsive. I believe the gray one must now release this boy from your protection—and tell your spirits that such a transgression should allow a father satisfaction.”
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