Ghost Dance

by John Norman

Then Drum said, "I would wear the feather of an eagle."

  Old Bear grunted.

  "The white man is the brother of Running Horse," he said. "That is why you want him to die."

  "No," said Drum, "to wear the feather of an eagle."

  "You want to shame Running Horse," said Old Bear, "and take my daughter to your lodge."

  "Running Horse is a short hair," said Drum.

  "He has danced the Sun Dance," said Old Bear.

  "I want only," said Drum, "to wear the feather of an eagle."

  "Speak to me with a straight tongue," said Old Bear.

  Drum looked down. "I want many things," he said.

  "Now," said Old Bear, "you speak with a straight tongue."

  Drum looked up at the old man, who sat so straight, gaunt and frail on his pony.

  "But most," said Drum, "I want to wear the feather of the eagle."

  For a long time Old Bear said nothing.

  Chance thought that a look of great sadness touched the face of Old Bear, and in that moment for the first time, Chance began to understand the meaning of that single white, black-tipped feather that stood in the old man's hair.

  At last Old Bear said, "The eagles are dead."

  "No!" shouted Drum.

  "They are dead," said the old Indian.

  "I," said Drum, jerking the thumb of his closed fist to his chest, "will wear the feather."

  "Then you will die," said Old Bear.

  "I am not afraid," said Drum.

  He snatched up the feathered lance from the dirt beside his pony and shook it.

  "So, too, was Kills-His-Horse," said Old Bear.

  "I am the son of Kills-His-Horse," said Drum.

  "Yes," said Old Bear, "I see in you the son of Kills-His-Horse, with whom I rode the warpath many times, and I see that it is true that you will wear the feather of the eagle, and that you will die."

  During this time, Chance had said nothing, though he had followed what was said.

  Old Bear turned to him. "Do you understand these things?"

  "I think so," said Chance.

  "All men die," said Old Bear, "but few men die with the feather of an eagle in their hair."

  Chance nodded. "I understand."

  Old Bear pointed to Drum. "He is young," he said, "but he is such a man."

  "Yes," said Chance. "He is such a man."

  Old Bear turned to Drum. "It would be better to let this man go."

  "I will not," said Drum.

  "Then you must fight," said Old Bear.

  A look of pleasure suffused Drum's face. "Yes," he said.

  The two braves flanking Chance grunted their approval.

  "It is sad," said Old Bear, "that two of the Hunkpapa must fight."

  "He is a white man," said Drum.

  "He is the brother of Running Horse," said Old Bear.

  "He does not even have a name," said Drum.

  Chance puzzled about that, for a moment, and then understood.

  Old Bear was looking at him steadily. Then Old Bear looked at Drum and the two braves. "He killed two braves, and hurt one other," he said.

  "Yes," said Drum.

  "He has strong medicine," said Old Bear. "The medicine of two peoples."

  "My medicine is stronger," said Drum.

  "And he is a warrior," said Old Bear.

  "I am a greater warrior," said Drum.

  "His name," said Old Bear, "is Medicine Gun." The old man pointed his finger at Chance. "Medicine Gun!"

  And it was as simple as this that Chance received the name by which he would be known from that day forward among the Hunkpapa, with the exception of Joseph Running Horse, who always spoke of him as "My Brother."

  Without looking at Drum or the braves, Old Bear turned his pony back toward the Grand River settlement, and Chance followed him, and Drum, and the two braves.

  * * *

  As Chance rode with the Indians back to the settlement on the river he told himself how mad this was. He had run from Grawson–from the law–had not stood and fought, and now he must fight–for no reason that he understood–and kill or die.

  There had been another duel, long ago, but with clean silken shirts, red sashes, seconds, a doctor in attendance, a measured set of rules to which gentlemen might be expected to adhere.

  This time his opponent would be a young Indian man, swift, half-naked, fighting before his people, following what rituals or traditions Chance couldn't guess, and whose honor would not be satisfied with a wound, or a touch, but only by death and Chance's hair at his belt.

  Chance wondered what the weapons would be.

  They had seen him use his pistol.

  Knives, Chance guessed, knives.

  * * *

  Behind the cabin of Sitting Bull there was a council fire, and about the fire, sitting in circles, were the hunched figures of Indian men, wrapped in blankets, some of them smoking.

  Outside the rings of seated men there stood squaws and children.

  Beyond them, when he came around the corner of Sitting Bull's cabin, accompanied by the chief himself, the subchief Old Bear, and Running Horse, his brother, Chance saw, vaguely in the darkness, the shadows of several ponies, picketed, at hand.

  There had been tales of soldiers coming to the camp, to stop the Ghost Dancing, to capture Sitting Bull and return him to the stone houses of the days after the death of Long Hair.

  Here and there, in the flickering light, Chance could see loaded travois, lodge skins and provisions bundled across the poles.

  Chance sensed that many of the men seated about the fire carried their medicine bags tied to their belts.

  Chance could see that some of them had rifles under their blankets.

  At the fire itself Kicking Bear stood, and behind him Drum, and the two braves.

  "I will fight for you," said Running Horse.

  "No," said Chance.

  "Drum is very fast," said Running Horse.

  Chance had little doubt of it. "Thanks," he said.

  "You must be very fast," said Running Horse.

  Chance didn't quite follow why Running Horse was saying this. They both knew that Drum was dangerous, and that he would move swiftly. "All right," he said, "I'll try."

  Chance did not feel, and was grateful, that there was particular hostility towards him in the camp, in spite of the fact that he was white, and that the women, as he had learned, had returned from the ration point empty-handed.

  He had helped many of these same Indians in his stay in the camp.

  And they knew that in some strange way he, too, was a stranger to the white world outside the boundaries of the reservation.

  The Indians were bitter this night, but not towards him.

  Chance found himself standing across the large fire from Kicking Bear, Drum, and the two braves.

  Sitting Bull, Old Bear and Joseph Running Horse had all taken their seats, sitting cross-legged, in the forefront of the circle of men about the fire, some ten or twelve feet from the fire.

  Without a word the two braves behind Drum took their places, seated, across the fire from Chance, they too leaving open the circle of earth about the fire, that track on which whatever was to take place would soon take place.

  Kicking Bear wore a white muslin Ghost Shirt, deerskin leggings and beaded moccasins. There were three yellow lines drawn vertically on his face, one on each cheek, the other running from his upper lip over the nose to his hairline, like the rays of a rising sun. In his belt there were two wooden-handled, long, steel butcher knives.

  Chance studied Drum carefully. Other than moccasins he wore only a breechclout and leggings. His hair had been greased and freshly braided, and was tied with two strips of red cloth. His chest and face had been painted with white, black and red lines, painted for war. He did not move but stood with his arms folded, watching Chance. At his belt there hung the steel hatchet Chance had seen him use when he had fought Running Horse.

  Kicking Bear, saying nothing, jerked the hatchet fro
m Drum's belt, who seemed not to notice. Then Kicking Bear circled the fire and paused before Chance; then his hand quickly reached for the handle of the Colt, and Chance's hand closed on his, and Kicking Bear looked at him. Chance released his hand and, quickly, Kicking Bear removed the Colt from its holster.

  Kicking Bear then went to Sitting Bull and placed both weapons in the dust before the chief.

  Then Kicking Bear went to the side of the fire away from Sitting Bull, and stood to Chances' left and to Drum's right, and stood there, it seemed for minutes, not moving.

  Chance looked across the fire, to his antagonist.

  Drum, painted, standing very straight, was watching him, his arms still folded, his face for most purposes inscrutable, only his eyes betraying him, revealing suppressed eagerness, the intention to kill.

  The hair on the back of Chance's neck lifted.

  He swallowed, hard.

  He recalled the words of Running Horse, you must be very fast.

  He would try.

  With ceremonial solemnity, Kicking Bear, looking neither to the right nor left, removed the two steel butcher knives from his belt, and then he held them, one in each hand, high over his head.

  Thus he stood for perhaps a minute.

  Suddenly with a cry Kicking Bear flung the two knives into the dirt, one on each side of the fire.

  Drum snatched the knife at his feet and leaped across the wide fire. His other hand swooped down and jerked the second knife out of the dirt.

  Chance saw Drum standing opposite him, the fire at his back, lifting the two knives in triumph.

  Drum's body, the fire bright at his back, was black, a demonic silhouette edged with flames, in each fist a steel claw nine inches long, that caught and flashed the firelight. And then Drum, exultant, began to chant and back dancing away from Chance around the fire, and Chance could see him, his young, strong body ugly and wild with the grotesque paint of war, red, white and black, and Drum seemed to be studying the ground, and dancing, as if looking for a sign, the spoor, the ashes, the traces of an enemy.

  Chance had been too slow.

  The other knife had been his.

  Now Drum straightened and pointed to the ground.

  He began to chant again, "I have found him. I have found my enemy. Now I will kill him."

  Come ahead, you bastard, thought Chance.

  Drum looked across the fire at Chance.

  Uttering a wild cry, the war cry of the Hunkpapa, Drum charged through the fire, hurtling himself toward Chance.

  For an instant the sudden cry had so startled Chance that he could not move and stood as though tied to a stake, numb, as the twin knives of the young Indian struck down at him, but at the last instant he managed to twist to one side, and Drum, in the fierce momentum of his charge, plunged past him.

  Chance, off balance, twisting, struggling to get rightly on his feet, not taking his eyes off Drum, stumbled blindly backwards through the fire, kicking its kindling to the left and right.

  Then, hunched over, but ready, on the other side of the broken stars of the fire, in the half-darkness, Chance waited for Drum.

  This time the young Indian would approach slowly.

  Chance crouched down and picked up a flaming brand from the scattered fire.

  Drum came about the right edge of the scattered fire now, both knives held low, below his belt, blades up.

  It would be a visceral stroke, difficult to block, not the foolish overhand blow that he had first struck.

  Chance wanted to get the fire of the brand in Drum's hair, heavy with grease.

  Suddenly Drum's moccasined foot swept through the ashes of the fire lifting a curtain of ash and sparks toward Chance, to blind him, but Chance, as soon as Drum's foot had moved, had himself charged and came through the hot veil of ash with its tiny, drifting points of fire, his eyes shut for the instant against the hot ash, the sparks stinging his face, and then was through it, blinking away the hot ash that clung about his eyes, swinging the limb of kindling like a flaming club and struck Drum across the forehead and the wood, hall burned, broke and Drum's head snapped back and before he could react Chance had leaped on him, pinning his arms to his sides, knocking him over backwards, but it was like trying to hold a puma and Drum's half-naked body, slick with sweat and glistening with paint and grease began to slip from him, and Chance desperately caught his wrists, each of Drum's hands still with its knife, and together they rolled in the dust in the circle, sometimes to the very knees of the Indians, watching and smoking, sometimes into the charred embers of the fire itself, first Chance on top, then Drum.

  Drum bit the side of Chance's face and then sank his teeth deep into Chance's arm, again and again, biting as innocently and viciously as any wild animal, but Chance could not release him, dared not, and he, Chance, the gentleman, tried to inch the young Indian's hair, glistening thick with its ceremonial grease, against one of the glowing scraps of kindling in the circle.

  Drum's face, a grimace of sweat and paint, was inches from Chance's, unshaven, the muscles in the jaw taut.

  There was a long, lateral welt across Drum's forehead, black from the soot of the wood that Chance had used to strike him, smearing the paint.

  The side of Chance's face bled from the marks of Drum's teeth.

  The only sound was the breathing of the men, the scuffling of dirt, the tiny crack of the flames in the scattered embers of the fire.

  Then as Drum tried to move his left hand away and Chance seemed to resist, Chance suddenly released Drum's left wrist, freeing his own right hand, and Drum's hand, with its knife, of its own muscular tension flew wildly to the side and at the same time Chance's hand, with all the power of a suddenly released spring, simultaneously doubled into a fist and flew toward Drum's head, catching him on the side of the jaw with a blow that might have broken a board but only staggered Drum for a moment, did not cause him to lose consciousness.

  Chance had not supposed he could knock Drum out. As a physician he knew enough physiology to understand that when men fight for their lives consciousness is not easily surrendered. It is many times easier to knock a man out when life is not at stake than when it is. To cause Drum to lose consciousness he might have had to hit him with an ax handle, or a dozen times with the blow he had, but he had not counted on knocking Drum out, but only stunning him for the moment he needed.

  Chance, in the instant when Drum tried to shake the pain and exploding light from his head, let his hands go and grabbed Drum by the hair dragging him and moving him with his boot in the midst of a pile of brands from the council fire and then with the flat of his hand shoved his head back into the embers, and shuddered at Drum's cry as his long black hair, thick with its grease, took the fire.

  Drum leaped up twisting away from Chance screaming and, suddenly, hair flaming, charged again, unwarily, and Chance's boot caught him in the solar plexus and Drum, grunting, scarcely able to move, hurled the two knives high and away over the circle of Indians, and they flew over the heads of the watching squaws and children and disappeared in the darkness.

  And then he threw himself on the ground rolling and knelt down to scoop dust over his head.

  Now there were no weapons. Drum had seen to that, knowing he could not fight, knowing he must prevent Chance from getting a knife, knowing he must put out the fire that tore at his head.

  Chance stood back, breathing heavily, not knowing if the fight were over or not.

  He knew that warriors did not fight with their hands, but with weapons. It was not seemly to be unarmed. Yet in such a situation, having only one's hands, feet and teeth, Chance supposed, they might still fight. He didn't know.

  Chance looked at Running Horse, but Running Horse said nothing. Chance didn't know, now, what was to be done. Was the fight over? Or was he to try and finish Drum, strangle him?

  Drum was on his feet now, sucking in the air in gouts, covered with dust, the paint smeared, his hair loose and thick with grease and dirt.

  His eyes rega
rded Chance with hatred, with the inflamed savagery of a mad wolf, not a human being.

  He snatched his hatchet, the long-handled hatchet, from the dust before Sitting Bull.

  Chance stepped back. He was more afraid of the hatchet than the knives. He could lose an arm even blocking a blow, and bleed to death in minutes.

  But Drum, struggling with himself, threw down the hatchet, angrily into the dust before his chief.

  It was not permitted him.

  Then, unarmed, with a cry, he rushed at Chance and Chance met him and they grappled, grunting in the circle.

  "Stop," said Sitting Bull.

  Drum and Chance disengaged themselves and stepped back, breathing heavily, looking at the chief.

  "It is enough," said Sitting Bull.

  Old Bear, by his side, grunted his approval.

  "You are Hunkpapa," said Sitting Bull. "Do not fight like drunken white men."

  "Give us weapons," said Drum.

  "Where are your weapons?" asked Sitting Bull.

  Drum was silent.

  "It is enough," said Sitting Bull.

  Drum looked at Chance. "There is enmity between us," he said.

  "All right," said Chance, relieved that the business was over, at least for the time.

  He knew that Drum had not fared as well in this battle as he had intended, when he began it, with his paint and proud dancing, when he had intended to kill Chance swiftly and skillfully.

  He had been, in effect, disarmed, and he himself, to save his life, had thrown the weapons from the circle.

  He had been forced to grovel in the dirt to end the flames that had burned in his hair.

  It would not be soon that Drum would forget the encounter of the night.

  The night had not been worthy of Drum, and there would have to be, Chance understood, another meeting.

  There was only one thing to be grateful for, as Chance saw it. They had met as warriors of the Hunkpapa, and that meant that Drum would no longer kill him as he might a white man, or a Crow, silently, without warning, from ambush, for that would have been

  Kicking Bear had come to Drum and placed his blanket about his shoulders.

  Without another look at Chance, or at anyone, Drum straightened and left the circle, followed by Kicking Bear and one of the two braves who had accompanied him.