Ghost Dance

by John Norman

  Lucia, not facing them, could not believe her ears.

  "Take her with you," Joseph Running Horse was saying.

  Lucia suddenly felt like running, but instead she turned abruptly about, reddening, to face them.

  "What are you talking about, Joseph?" asked Lucia.

  Running Horse looked at her. "Do not talk now," he said. Then he faced Chance. "You can let her go at the end of the reservation."

  "I–I don't understand," stammered Lucia.

  Running Horse looked at her. "You could gather wood and cook for him and keep him warm in the blanket."

  "Joseph!" said Lucia.

  "It's not done," said Chance.

  Lucia blushed furiously, a change of complexion that was evident even in the moonlight.

  "You mind your manners, Joseph Running Horse," said Lucia.

  "Tie her to your horse," said Running Horse to Chance.

  "I won't stay here and listen to this," said Lucia. And then she said, "Oh!" as she suddenly felt a rawhide coil of a braided lariat dropped about her shoulders and drawn tight, pinning her arms to her sides. The other end Joseph Running Horse had already looped about the saddle horn of Chance's horse.

  "Joseph!" said Lucia, as primly as she could manage.

  "You are only a white woman," said Joseph Running Horse. "We are Hunkpapa."

  "I thought you liked me," said Lucia accusingly.

  "I do," said Running Horse. "You will like my brother, and it will be good for you."

  "No!" said Lucia, growing frightened.

  Chance, more bewildered than anything, had stood by this conversation.

  "And he will like you," said Running Horse, "for you are a good woman."

  Good woman, good rifle, good horse, thought Lucia. She squirmed in the rawhide loop. "Please explain to him, Mr. Smith," she said, she begged.

  "Yes, yes," said Chance quickly. "No, Running Horse, it wouldn't be right. She has been very kind. Has helped us."

  "It is for her own good," said Running Horse.

  "It is simply not done," said Chance firmly.

  "No," said Lucia, even more firmly.

  "All right," said Running Horse. "I thought it was a good idea."

  Chance thought to himself, yes, it is an excellent idea, but it is just not done.

  "I go watch," said Running Horse. Before he left he turned to Chance and said, rather sadly, "Good-bye, my Brother," and Chance knew that the young Indian did not expect to see him again, and Chance thought it was probably true, too, and said to him, "Yes, my Brother, Good-bye."

  "Farewell," said Joseph Running Horse in Sioux.

  "Farewell," said Chance, in Sioux.

  Running Horse disappeared, and Chance knew that he would not have to worry about Grawson or Totter for the time being. Running Horse would "watch" and he would have the start he needed, probably until morning.

  "Please," said Lucia.

  Chance removed the lariat from her body. "I'm sorry," he said, but he seemed to be smiling, and Lucia was not sure that he really meant it.

  "I don't know what got into Joseph Running Horse," she said.

  Chance thought to himself that Running Horse had been very practical in his Sioux fashion.

  "He thinks differently," said Chance. "He's Sioux." And Chance thought to himself it was not so much that he thought differently, as that he was willing, for one reason or another, to act as he thought. He had seen Chance had wanted this woman, and had understood, somehow, or thought he had, that she had wanted him, and so he had proposed that Chance see that it came about. But Running Horse, naturally, did not understand white women, nor, Chance told himself, did he himself.

  "The very idea," said Lucia, and Chance was pleased that she laughed.

  She looked up at him. "It seems I am fortunate that you are a gentleman, Mr. Chance."

  Chance smiled. "I suppose so–Miss–Turner."

  Lucia looked in the direction Running Horse had disappeared. She shivered. "He seems to think a girl would enjoy being dragged across the prairie," she paused, and looked at Chance, her eyes mischievous, "–on an out-law's rope."

  "Not so much that part of it," said Chance.

  "Oh," said Lucia, and looked down.

  They stood together quietly for a time, neither of them speaking.

  "You are very beautiful," said Chance.

  Lucia did not look up, but in that instant like a fire running through her body she understood fully and for the first time in her life how it is that a woman can give herself completely to a man–though she knew she could not and would not do so–understood how it is that a woman could be shameless, rawly and utterly female. Knowing this thing she stood trembling at his saddle, aching, wanting him to touch her, to claim her weakness by his strength. Bind me, she thought, I desire to be yours. I will follow your horse like a captive squaw. But I must be made to do so. Must I ask you to tie your rope on my throat, to be tethered and led away, a woman?

  "Good-bye," said Chance.

  I don't want him to go yet, she cried out to herself, he can't go yet. He must not go yet.

  She is a good woman, Chance said to himself, a gentle and tender and beautiful woman and there is no place in her life for an outlaw, a man who runs from the law, and though he be tempted to be cruel and love her he must not yield to this cruelty; if he cares for her, he must care enough to go; if he wants to love her, he must love her enough to say "Goodbye," to leave her standing here alone, as he will always remember her.

  "Good-bye," said Chance.

  "Running Horse called you his Brother," said Lucia, quickly, desperately.

  "It's true," said Chance, explaining nothing.

  "I don't understand," said Lucia.

  "You don't even speak Sioux," said Chance. He must leave. He must be hard with her.

  "No," said Lucia, hurt, "I don't."

  He turned from her and, slowly, recoiled the rawhide lariat and tied it to the saddle.

  "I'm sorry I don't speak Sioux," she said.

  Chance turned to face her. "I'm glad," he said.

  "But I don't want to stay here," she said. "I'm going to leave."

  Chance hoisted himself into the saddle.

  He looked down at her, the blanket wrapped about her shoulders, her face lifted to his.

  "Do you know why Buckhorn, the little boy, kills snakes?"

  "For sugar," she said.

  "No," said Chance, "because someone whom he likes very much is afraid of them–he is afraid they will make her go away."

  Chance turned the horse, kicked it in the flanks, and rode from the white-boarded school, leaving behind him a young, blue-eyed woman who stared after him.

  "Good-bye, Mr. Chance," she whispered.

  Chapter Nine

  It was a dark, bitter rider who left the white school on the hill, his horse moving easily, the shadows in the silver light moving like spiders beside him.

  Through the cactus and the sage in the December night on Standing Rock he rode, not noticing much of anything, keeping the horse always west.

  They were long, cruel hours, and Chance would not make them easier.

  He cursed himself for running, but knew that it was what he must do.

  He was not a killer and he would not go back and kill.

  He must leave Grawson to pursue, and he must forget the girl.

  She had been brave, that girl, to have risked a hand in the games of men, and simply because he had been kind to a child, because he had stopped long enough to care for an injured boy.

  Did she know the danger in which she had placed herself? Could she really understand a man like Grawson, understand that, cheated of his prey and knowing it, he might kill her as easily as the paw of a puma can fall across the neck of a fawn? But Grawson would never know her part in this. It was Indians, simply Indians. Running Horse had seen to that.

  My Brother, Running Horse.

  The girl had been in her way beautiful, and she had been lonely, so lonely, lonely as Chance was l
onely.

  They had listened to one another, not just looking and nodding, but hearing and understanding, and caring.

  And, Chance told himself, she had held him, no matter what she said. She had cried out and kissed and touched, though she might deny it for a hundred years.

  We might have loved one another, thought Chance, in a different time and place.

  Chance stood up in the stirrups under the moon.

  "I don't want to run!" he cried aloud to the prairie. And all the hatred and frustration that had built its slow fires in his heart over the weeks burst ugly bright in his body and he wheeled the horse to face the backtrail and his boots tensed to hurtle the animal into a gallop back to the school, back to the soddy, to fight to the death those that followed him and would kill him, to kill them or die, and if he lived, to go to the soddy and say to the girl, "My name is Chance. I've come back."

  But Chance turned the horse again, west, enraged, weeping. Run, run, run.

  The horse snorted.

  Startled, Chance looked up. There was a ridge not more than fifty yards from him.

  On the top of this ridge, clear and black against the moon, was a rider, an Indian, who carried a lance, winged with feathers; on his left arm was a buffalo-hide shield, from which hung five streamers of leather. With him were five braves.

  The man lifted his arms, with shield and lance. He called out, "I am Drum, the son of Kills-His-Horse."

  Chance remembered the Indian girl in the camp of Sitting Bull. She had spoken to him. "Sing your death song," she had said.

  Chance threw back his head and not knowing why laughed like a madman.

  "You bastards," yelled Chance, "I love you, you dirty bastards!"

  It was the end of it. No more running. The end of it. It was over.

  With a wild shout Chance kicked his horse up the ridge toward the Indians.

  They were waiting for him to turn and run.

  He didn't.

  Chance was in the midst of rearing, snorting horses, sprawling bodies, screams of surprise.

  At point-blank range Chance jerked twice on the trigger of the heavy Colt.

  One brave fell backward blindly, pawing at his face, not reaching it.

  Another, grabbing his gut, rolled over the neck of his pony and fell under the hoofs of the animals.

  Chance jerked the trigger of the Colt again but the hammer struck on the rim of a bad cartridge and Drum's lance thrust through his shirt and Chance could feel blood inside but the lance ripped through and came free and another brave was behind and Chance swept the barrel of the Colt back and caught him in the throat and he dropped off the rump of his pony with a noise like gargling.

  They were scattered.

  Two were dead; another was dragging himself into the sagebrush.

  About thirty yards off, the other two braves and Drum were gathering together, to come at him, and Chance yelled again, insanely, jerked his horse around and charged them. This time the knot of Indians broke with startled yelps and each rider separated, and they melted into the prairie, each one taking a different direction.

  Chance found himself alone on the top of the ridge.

  He had won.

  * * *

  Chance walked his horse down the other side of the ridge.

  There was no point in being targeted against the sky.

  It would be stupid to chase the Indians, and Chance wasn't stupid. But he had been lucky, he knew, damn lucky.

  Not being afraid of dying he had done pretty well.

  He knew that if he had run he would have been dead by now.

  It hadn't even occurred to the Indians that he would attack them. They had wanted the hunt, the chase, making it last, then cutting him down when they pleased.

  Drum hadn't even taken his rifle out of the buckskin sheath across his pony's back.

  He had wanted to use the lance.

  Drum would not make that mistake again.

  It occurred to Chance, incredibly, that he was hungry. He pawed through the saddlebags on Grawson's horse, but there was no food there. Chance wondered idly if there had been. Perhaps Grawson had taken it with him, to eat while he watched. Chance recalled Lucia's offer of food. Pinned down in the soddy, tense, waiting, he hadn't eaten. He wished he had. Even a piece of bacon would be all right now. He wouldn't build a fire, too dangerous. He could eat it in the saddle, raw.

  The various digestive juices, the names of which Chance recounted dismally to himself, were working on his stomach.

  A jack rabbit lit out of the brush almost at his horse's feet and took its long bounding trajectory across the prairie.

  Chance urged the horse after it and thought of taking a shot at it, and then thought the better of it. The shot would mark his position if there were any of the braves about. At last the rabbit entered some brush and seemed to stay there. Chance dismounted, picked up a rock and approached the brush. There didn't seem to be a rabbit and, poking around, Chance found the hole. He threw the rock away disgustedly. Then he lay on his belly and reached his arm down the hole. It was a damn sight deeper than the reach of his arm. Chance stood up and disgustedly slapped the prairie dust from his clothes.

  His horse was browsing about ten yards off and Chance walked over to get it and the horse moved ahead of him, and Chance moved after it and the horse found something else to eat, always about ten yards further away than Chance happened to be at the time.

  Then Chance said a few things to the horse which he would not have said in the presence of Lucia Turner, or for that matter in the presence of the woman in Chicago.

  He stumbled after the horse, his feet shuffling in the dust, muttering.

  Once he got to within about four or five yards of it and then it shied away and stood looking at him, as though it might never have seen him before.

  Chance whistled softly and coaxed and wheedled but the animal had better things to do.

  Nibbling here and there out of reach.

  Then Chance, not thinking, angrily, hungry, began to run after the animal, and it moved easily away again, effortlessly maintaining that same maddening, delicate interval.

  Then he stopped and began to cajole it once more, and wished he had the rope that was on the saddle, and felt like putting a bullet behind its ear.

  Then Chance said, "Ah," for he had seen to the left, about a hundred yards away, a small grove of trees, and Chance circled so as to drive the horse into the trees.

  "Yah!" he yelled, rushing forward.

  The horse turned and cantered into the trees. There, after a minute or two, Chance ran the animal into a mass of brush and as it was backing out snorting he grabbed the bridle.

  Instantly the horse became calm and obedient, infuriatingly domesticated.

  "Goddam you," said Chance, giving its neck a couple of happy slaps. "Yes," said Chance, "double goddam you." The horse rubbed its nose against his shoulder.

  Chance heard a tiny noise.

  It sounded like dried peas or pebbles in a wooden bowl, and it was over his head.

  He looked up.

  In the moonlight above him, hanging from a branch of the cottonwood beneath which he was standing, he saw a gourd rattle swaying softly, gently, in the wind. It was from this that the sound came.

  He looked up past the rattle and was startled.

  In the branches of the tree, a few feet above the rattle, there was a wooden scaffold, and on the scaffold there was a large bundle, wrapped in leather and tied tightly.

  In other trees Chance saw similar scaffolds, each with a similar burden.

  From the scaffolds, here and there, hung other rattles, and bone whistles and pieces of colored cloth. From some of the scaffolds there hung, like dark disks in the moonlight, leather shields.

  He knew what place this was, and that there would be food here, offerings of corn and dried meat, but he also knew that he would not eat it.

  * * *

  The eastern sky was gray now, the moon a pale disk in a robe of fading stars
.

  The first definite light of the sun, flung from its rim's edge, lay over the prairie now like a cold, golden blade, a saber gleaming at the bottom of the horizon, bleak and glinting in the east.

  Chance stooped down and tore up a handful of grass and sucked the moisture from it.

  The wind cut through the grove of cottonwoods, stirring the rattles and the streamers of colored cloth, faded now, hanging from the branches. Over his head the buffalo-hide shields turned and swayed, moving with the wind.

  Chance shivered.

  It had taken him longer to catch the horse than it should have, and he had stayed perhaps a bit too long in this place, looking about.

  Had he not been as hungry as he was he might have stayed in the grove until dark, and then moved out at night.

  He could eat the offerings on the graves, and he supposed it was the thing to do, in spite of the repulsion. He asked himself why he should not do so. He told himself he was not yet that hungry. Also, he told himself, I am the brother of Running Horse, and he would not want that.

  Swinging up into the saddle Chance moved the horse out of the trees.

  They had broken cover only a pace or two when Chance flung himself out of the saddle, the rifle shot cracking over his head, two others splattering into the damp ground under his horse's hoofs.

  Running he dragged the protesting animal back into the shelter of the trees.

  Of course they had followed him, Drum and the others. They had been waiting for him to come out of the trees.

  They should have waited longer.

  They had been eager, too eager, as young men are eager.

  Chance tied the horse well back in the grove, where it could not be seen, trying to shelter it back of a knot of cottonwoods.

  He slipped Grawson's carbine from the saddle boot, checked the weapon quickly, scooped a handful of cartridges from the saddlebag into his pocket.

  Why hadn't they come into the grove to get him?

  Chance ducked back through the trees and getting to the edge of the grove, crawled forward on his stomach, inching with the carbine up a tiny, bush-covered rise that would give him a view of the prairie.

  Water from the bush he crawled under slid down his neck, and Chance cussed to himself and lifted his head over the rise, just enough to bring his eyes over the grass.