Ghost Dance

by John Norman

  "My toast," said Aunt Zita.

  Lucia cut a slice of bread from the loaf and put it on the toast rack.

  "Why was there shooting at Grand River?" asked Lucia.

  "Take this away," said Aunt Zita, pointing a long white finger at the dark toast on her plate.

  Lucia took it. She might have eaten it herself but instead she used the lid iron to move one of the flat circular lids on the range and drop the bread into the flames, and then she replaced the lid. She would later remember that she had thrown away a piece of bread.

  Lucia turned around and faced Aunt Zita. "Please," she said.

  "My toast," said Aunt Zita.

  Lucia turned the toast and waited a minute until it had browned, and then served Aunt Zita.

  Lucia sat down opposite her, and watched her knife press butter onto the toast.

  "Please," said Lucia.

  "I heard yesterday," said Aunt Zita, chopping at the eggs with the side of her fork, "from one of the men who drives one of the beef wagons who heard from a lieutenant at Fort Yates that the Ghost Dancing is about over." Aunt Zita looked at her wisely, a flap of egg on her fork halfway to her mouth. Then the fork moved and the bit of egg disappeared between her thin lips.

  "I don't understand," said Lucia.

  "What's behind the Ghost Dancing?" asked Aunt Zita.

  "I don't know," said Lucia.

  "Sitting Bull," said Aunt Lucia.

  "There's Ghost Dancing on all the reservations," said Lucia.

  "Sitting Bull is behind it," said Aunt Zita. "Get him and you stop the dancing."

  Lucia went pale.

  The gunfire this morning, at the Grand River Camp.

  "Get him," said Aunt Zita, chewing, the side of her mouth bulging with buttered toast, "and you stop the Ghost Dancing."

  Lucia felt sick.

  "There was trouble," said Lucia, weakly. "I heard shots."

  "Well," said Aunt Zita, shoving back her plate, "the trouble's over now."

  Lucia picked up the plate and put it in the dishpan near the range. She would heat water and wash it later. Lucia herself was not hungry. Somehow she did not even, now, feel like coffee.

  "Now," said Aunt Zita, "tell me–and tell me honestly, mind you–what happened here when I was gone, exactly what happened here when I was gone."

  Then Lucia, numbly, pretty accurately, filled in the details of what had occurred during Aunt Zita's absence from the soddy. She left out very little, except perhaps that Edward Chance had held her in his arms, and that she in that moment had not objected, that her lips had touched his, and his hers, and that she had lived over that moment in the hours that separated her from him a thousand times, that she would never forget that moment, an instant at midnight on a moonlit hill at Standing Rock when two human beings, each lonely, had cared for and touched one another, she and a fugitive, a stranger.

  "What was the man like who was here?" asked Aunt Zita.

  "He was a nice man," said Lucia.

  "A criminal fleeing from justice," said Aunt Zita.

  "I don't know much about it," said Lucia.

  "And you thought he was a nice man," said Aunt Zita.

  "Yes," said Lucia, "he seemed to be a nice man. I thought so."

  Aunt Zita looked at her. Her eyes sparkled like a cat's. Her voice was measured, and the words came out one at a time, like individual drops of cold syrup pouring from a bottle.

  "The prairie," said Aunt Zita, "is a lonely place for a young girl."

  Lucia looked at her and flushed.

  "Did you tell him to go away?" asked Aunt Zita.

  "No," said Lucia.

  "Why didn't you tell him to go away?" asked Aunt Zita.

  "He only wanted a cup of coffee," said Lucia.

  Aunt Zita regarded her coldly.

  "It would have been impolite to send him away," said Lucia.

  "Why didn't you send him away?" asked Aunt Zita.

  "I told you," said Lucia.

  "It would have been impolite–"

  "Yes," said Lucia.

  "Is that the only reason?" asked Aunt Zita, her voice as pointed as a sewing needle.

  "I don't know," said Lucia. "I don't know."

  "I see," said Aunt Zita. "I see."

  Outside, the prairie wind, unhurried, rustled through the sage.

  Lucia looked at the older woman. "I don't like you," she said.

  The girl arose from the kitchen table and went to the door of the soddy, opening it and looked out. She looked at the gradual, sloping hill that lay between the soddy and the school, on another hill beyond; she looked away toward Grand River; she looked at the sky, huge and gray that Monday morning of the 15th of December, 1890. She noticed, from the direction of Grand River, a bit of dust hanging in the air, horsemen, but did not think anything of it.

  She could hear Aunt Zita's words behind her. "Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother," said Aunt Zita.

  Lucia turned to face the older woman. "I did better than that," she said. "I loved them."

  "I," said Aunt Zita, "stand now in their place."

  "No," said Lucia, "you are not in their place." She felt her breath quicken. "You took their house," she said, "you sat in their chairs, you ate from their plates, you slept in their bed, but you were not–ever–in their place." Lucia suddenly realized her fists were clenched. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them she had regained control of herself. "Never say that again," she said.

  The girl turned away, bitterly. The bit of dust on the horizon was larger now.

  "A good woman," said Aunt Zita, "takes no pleasure in the presence of men, save perhaps an interest in the salvation of their souls."

  Lucia was watching the dust on the horizon.

  "I myself," Aunt Zita continued, "have saved the souls of many a man, whom I brought to repentance, for which they will be grateful at the time of judgment."

  "I have never saved a man's soul," said Lucia.

  "Perhaps in time you will receive an opportunity," said Aunt Zita, "perhaps in time you can even marry for marriage can be the lesser of various evils and in marriage you can make of your bed a school for the soul of your husband."

  Lucia watched the dust on the horizon. It was getting nearer.

  Aunt Zita's words drifted to her, as if from a distance. They sounded like something she had read, something Aunt Zita had given her to read.

  Lucia wished that the approaching dust might have been lifted by the rapid hoofs of the horse of Edward Chance, that he might be riding back, even now, riding back for coffee as he had asked, that he might be coming even now to fetch her, to claim her for his own, to tell her that he wanted her, that he loved her, she and she alone.

  She smiled bitterly.

  Never, never would she see him again. She had little to remember him by, only the memory of a single kiss which she would never forget, and the sound of the hoofs of his horse as he vanished in the night.

  It could not be the dust from the hoofs of his horse, not if he were coming alone. It was the dust of several horses.

  "I myself," Aunt Zita was saying, "have never allowed myself the weakness of the flesh."

  Several horses, several.

  "Nor must you," said Aunt Zita.

  Suddenly Lucia turned to face the older woman, her face crimson.

  "What do you mean?" she demanded.

  Lucia forgot about the dust, the horses.

  "Did you place your lips on him?" asked Aunt Zita.

  Tears suddenly burned in Lucia's eyes.

  "Did you allow him to put his mouth on you?" asked Aunt Zita.

  Lucia burst into tears and ran to the cot on which she slept, throwing herself on it, pushing her face into the folded blanket that covered the pillow, the dust in the distance forgotten.

  Aunt Zita rose from the table, her spine as straight as an angel's sword, her eyes as hard as the points of nails.

  She stood over Lucia.

  "Did you put your mouth on him?" demanded the
older woman. "Did you allow him to put his mouth on you?"

  Lucia lifted her head, her eyes filled with tears. "I would have let him do anything he wanted," she said.

  Aunt Zita's black-sleeved arm whipped forward and her thin, bony hand struck Lucia fully across the mouth, viciously, jerking her head back.

  "Shameless," said Aunt Zita.

  Lucia put her fingers to her mouth, which felt numb. Her lips, she could tell with her fingers, were wet. She tasted blood.

  "Anything he wanted to," repeated Lucia, scarcely hearing the words.

  Once again Aunt Zita's bony hand lashed her mouth.

  "Anything," said Lucia, "anything."

  Aunt Zita stepped back and Lucia, in tears, mouth bleeding, struggled to her feet, stood up on the dirt floor beside the cot, bent over, facing her, her fists clenched. "Anything!" she screamed at the older woman. "Anything!" Then she turned awkwardly back to the cot, and fell on it again, weeping.

  Aunt Zita's face was white and hard.

  "We are going back to Saint Louis," said Aunt Zita.

  Lucia began to laugh, crying, the sounds muffled in the blanket, laughter, hysterical, preposterous, tears, not controlled, wild, laughing, crying.

  Aunt Zita looked on the distraught figure of the girl as though she might have been demented.

  "We are going to leave this place," said Aunt Zita.

  Lucia sat up on the cot, wiping the sleeve of her dress across her eyes.

  "No," said Lucia. "I'm going to stay here. I'm going to wait for him." Then she put her head down and held her sides, laughing.

  "You are mad," said Aunt Zita.

  Lucia looked up. "He may come back for a cup of coffee," she said. "Don't you understand?" And then she laughed again.

  "Mad," said Aunt Zita. "You are mad." Then the older woman turned away and walked to the center of the room, and then sat down at the kitchen table, not facing Lucia. "This is a Godforsaken place filled with heathen," said Aunt Zita. "They're even the color of the devil that possesses them." Aunt Zita stared at the wall of the soddy. "In this place, Lucia Turner," she said, "you have been lured into listening to the call of the flesh." Aunt Zita turned and faced Lucia. Her eyes were stern. Her voice was cold. "On your knees, Lucia Turner," she said, "and together we will beg God's forgiveness."

  "No," said Lucia.

  "Together we will beg God's forgiveness," said Aunt Zita.

  "If God must forgive me for how I feel," said Lucia, "then you must beg Him, for I will not."

  "You are shameless," said Aunt Zita.

  "I'm in love," said Lucia.

  Aunt Zita stared at Lucia. The silence in the soddy was as tangible and inflexible as the blade of a knife.

  "I'm in love," said Lucia, quietly, herself amazed at the words she had spoken, words that she had not known to be true until she had heard them said, words that made her happy and yet hurt her more than she could tell, because Chance, the man, was gone, and would not return. "Yes," said Lucia, quietly, now calm, not crying, wanting to hear the words said again, as if she had not trusted herself to have spoken them, as if she did not trust herself to speak them again, "I am–I am in love."

  Suddenly outside there was a shout and the sound of several horses, a cry in Sioux, the snorting of animals.

  Lucia ran to the door of the soddy, throwing it open.

  About fifteen yards from the soddy, on stamping, barebacked ponies, were seven riders, their mounts white with the lather of sweat. Feathers were twisted into the manes of the ponies. Four of the riders wore a feather, a single white, black-tipped feather, among them their leader, whom Lucia recognized as Drum. The braves wore no paint but their blankets were loose around their waists, leaving their hands and arms free for using their weapons.

  Drum, mounted, speaking rapidly in Sioux, gestured over the hill and toward the soddy.

  Then Drum, and four riders, kicked their ponies in the direction of the school, while two young men leaped from their ponies and rushed to the soddy.

  Lucia stood, bewildered, in the doorway of the soddy.

  One of the braves seized her by the arm.

  "Guns!" he said. "Guns!"

  "No," said Lucia. "No guns. We have no guns."

  The brave thrust her aside and entered the soddy, followed by his companion.

  "Get out of here!" cried Aunt Zita. "What do you think you're doing?"

  The two braves began to ransack the soddy, upturning chests, throwing over boxes, tearing the bedclothes, hunting for weapons or bullets. They picked up kitchen knives and one of them took a bolt of yellow cloth. Lucia saw, with a sinking heart, the walnut china cabinet crash to the dirt floor of the soddy, the glass panels breaking, the dishes inside shattering.

  Aunt Zita pounded on the back of one of the braves.

  With a cry of rage he turned and seized her by the arms and forced her toward the range.

  His companion with a kitchen knife forced open one of the circular lids, revealing the burning kindling inside.

  The Indian who held Aunt Zita then held her by the arm and with his hand in her hair forced her head toward the circular opening and she screamed the wailing, unutterably horrifying scream of a terrified old woman.

  Lucia seized up a piece of wood from beside the range and stood between the Indian and Aunt Zita and the range.

  "Stop!" she cried.

  The other Indian easily took the piece of wood from her, and held her about the waist, struggling.

  Lucia screamed as the red fist thrust the head of the old woman into the flames and the soddy and the sky itself was rent by the old woman's agonized shriek.

  Lucia broke away from the brave who held her and seized Aunt Zita's shoulders and with a strength she never knew she possessed tore her literally from the range and the man who held her and led the screaming woman to the wall of the soddy, holding her hands that she might not with her fingernails tear the burned flesh from her face.

  Lucia heard the two braves laugh, returning to their work.

  One was taking a pillowcase and putting all the food in the soddy into it.

  The other was delicately picking a piece of burning kindling from the range.

  Lucia took a handful of butter from a stone bowl and rubbed it onto the face of the old woman. Her gray hair had not caught fire. The old woman's shoulders shook and she shrieked, her entire body trembling, knotted up, its knees under its chin by the dirt wall of the soddy. Lucia seized up her coat and put it about her shoulders.

  The brave who had the piece of burning kindling was now applying it to the plank roof of the soddy, to the beds, to the furniture.

  Lucia, half dragging, half carrying Aunt Zita, got her out of the soddy.

  They had scarcely left the soddy when she saw Drum and his four braves returning from the direction of the school. She could see smoke, and knew that the school was burning. It was gone, the white-planked school with its chipped paint, the swings without rope, the foolish teeter-totter, the walls, the roof, the benches, the slates, the books, what all that had stood for.

  Lucia knelt beside Aunt Zita in the dust beside the burning soddy, weeping, holding the older woman by the shoulders, trying to console her.

  She looked up to see Drum standing over her.

  "Sitting Bull is dead," said Drum to her.

  He looked on the piteous old woman, his face expressionless. He loosened the hatchet he wore at his belt.

  He took the old woman's hair in his left hand and swung the hatchet back.

  Aunt Zita, whimpering and moaning, understood nothing. Lucia, holding Aunt Zita, put her own head across that of the older woman.

  She looked at Drum fiercely, half blinded with tears.

  "No!" she said.

  Drum said something in Sioux and one of the other braves pulled Lucia's hands from about Aunt Zita's neck. "Lucia!" cried the old woman, reaching out for her.

  She opened her eyes, the lids seared by the flames, and saw Drum's hatchet, and shook her head, "Please no,
don't hurt me, please."

  Drum's face was expressionless as the bluish steel of the hatchet blade, red in the flames of the burning soddy, stood as still as a poised hawk at the back of its arc, before its descent, its fall, to the forehead of the old woman.

  "She is a Holy Woman!" screamed Lucia.

  Drum's arm did not fall. He turned to look at Lucia.

  "Holy Woman!" screamed Lucia. "Bad Medicine kill Holy Woman! Bad Medicine!"

  A shadow crossed Drum's eyes, and he lowered the hatchet. "Holy woman?" he asked.

  Lucia shook her head vigorously. "Yes," she said, "Holy Woman! Holy Woman!"

  Drum shrugged. It did not matter to him one way or another whether he killed the old woman.

  He released Aunt Zita and with the hatchet in his hand gestured across the prairie.

  "Run, Holy Woman," he said. "Run!"

  Aunt Zita struggled to her feet and, terrified, her face opened and blistering even under the butter, fled across the prairie.

  She did not look back.

  Stumbling and screaming she ran from the small group by the burning soddy.

  She did not look back.

  Drum regarded Lucia, who was staring numbly after the fleeing figure of Aunt Zita.

  Drum spoke rapidly in Sioux to his men. They brought Lucia's horse, the horse which Lucia and Aunt Zita used with the buckboard.

  The roof of the soddy, with an angry roar, fell between the dirt walls.

  Drum now looked again at Lucia, who was still held tightly by the arms by the brave who had torn her from Aunt Zita.

  Drum spoke in Sioux to the brave and he released her, and Lucia stood alone, among the Indians. They mounted, except for Drum and two braves.

  He looked at Lucia.

  "Are you a Holy Woman?" he asked.

  Lucia looked up at him, calmly. "No," she said, "I am not a Holy Woman."

  Lucia watched Drum's hatchet. It was fastened to his right wrist with a leather thong. He held it in his hand lightly, the blade swinging a bit a few inches above his ankle.

  Then she saw him replace the hatchet in his belt, and she felt as if she might faint with relief.

  She hardly heard for a moment what he had said as he had replaced the hatchet. Then, she seemed to hear it after he had said it, not when he had actually spoken the words. "Yesterday," had said Drum, "a white man took a woman of the Hunkpapa."