Dances With Wolves

by Michael Blake

  The war party would be gone for some time, thus giving him the opportunity to learn a lot of Comanche. And in learning he knew he would be picking up more than language. If he worked very hard he would be on a whole new level by the time his mentors returned. He liked that idea.

  Drums had started up in the village. The big send-off dance was beginning and he wanted to go. He loved the dancing.

  Dances With Wolves rolled off the bed and looked around his lodge. It was empty, but before long it would hold the slim trappings of his life, and it was pleasant to think about having something to call his own again.

  He stepped through the lodge flap and paused in the twilight outside. He had daydreamed his way past dinner, but the woodsmoke from the cooking fires was still thick in the air and the smell of it satisfied him.

  A thought came to Dances With Wolves then.

  I should be staying here, he said to himself, it’s much the better idea.

  He started off toward the sound of the drums.

  When he reached the main avenue he fell in with a pair of warriors he knew. In signs they asked him if he would dance tonight. Dances With Wolves’s reply was so positive that it made the men laugh.

  CHAPTER XXV

  one

  Once the party was away, the village settled into a life of pastoral routine, a timeless rotation of dawn to day to dusk to night that made the prairie seem the only place on earth.

  Dances With Wolves fell quickly into step with the cycle, moving through it in a pleasant, dreamlike way. A life of riding and hunting and scouting was physically taxing, but his body had adapted well, and once the rhythm of his days was established he found most activities effortless.

  Kicking Bird’s family required much of his time. The women did virtually all of the work around camp, but he felt obliged to monitor their day-to-day lives and those of the children, the result being that somehow his hands were always full.

  Wind In His Hair had presented him with a good bow and a quiver of arrows at the farewell dance. He was thrilled with the gift and sought out an older warrior named Stone Calf, who taught him the finer points of its use. In the space of a week the two became fast friends, and Dances With Wolves showed up regularly at Stone Calf’s lodge.

  He learned how to care for and make quick repairs on weapons. He learned the words to several important songs and how to sing them. He watched Stone Calf make fire from a little wooden kit and saw him make his own personal medicine.

  He was a willing pupil for these lessons and quick to learn, so quick that Stone Calf gave him the nickname Fast. He scouted a few hours each day, as did most of the other men. They went out in groups of three or four, and in a short time Dances With Wolves had a rudimentary knowledge of necessary things, like how to read the age of tracks and determine weather patterns.

  The buffalo came and went in their mysterious way. Some days they would see none at all, and some days they would see so many that it became a joke.

  On the two points that counted, the scouting was a success. There was fresh meat for the taking and the countryside was devoid of enemies.

  After only a few days he was wondering why everyone didn’t live in a lodge. When he thought of the places he had lived before, he could envision nothing but a collection of sterile rooms.

  To him the lodge was a true home. It was cool on the hottest days, and no matter what sort of fuss was going on in camp, the circle of space inside seemed filled with peace.

  He came to love the time he passed there by himself.

  His favorite part of the day was late afternoon, and more often than not, he could be found close to the lodge flap, performing some little job like cleaning his boots while he watched the clouds change formation or listened to the light whistle of wind.

  Without really trying, these late afternoons by himself shut down the machinery of his mind, letting his mind rest in a refreshing way.

  two

  It didn’t take long, however, for one facet of his life to dominate all the others.

  That was Stands With A Fist.

  Their talks began again, this time under the casual but always present eyes of Kicking Bird’s family.

  The medicine man had left instructions to keep meeting, but without Kicking Bird to guide them, there was no clear-cut direction for the lessons to take.

  The first few days consisted mainly of mechanical, unexciting reviews.

  In a way, it was just as well. She was still confused and embarrassed. The dryness of their first one-on-one meetings made it easier to pick up the thread of the past. It allowed her needed distance in getting used to him again.

  Dances With Wolves was content to have it that way. The tedium of their exchanges was measured against his sincere desire to patch up whatever had damaged the link between them, and he waited patiently through the first few days, hoping for a thaw.

  The Comanche was coming well, but it soon became apparent that sitting in the lodge all morning placed limitations on how fast he could learn it. So many things he needed to know about were outside. And family interruptions were never-ending.

  But he waited on without complaint, letting Stands With A Fist skip over words she couldn’t explain.

  One afternoon just after the noon meal, when she couldn’t find the word for grass, Stands With A Fist finally took him outside. One word led to another, and on that day they didn’t return to the lodge for more than an hour. Instead, they strolled through the village, so intent on their studies that time ran out with little thought of its passage.

  The pattern was repeated and reinforced in the days that followed. They became a common sight, a pair of talkers roving the village, oblivious to all but the objects comprising their work: bone, lodge flap, sun, hoof, kettle, dog, stick, sky, child, hair, robe, face, far, near, here, there, bright, dull, and on and on and on.

  Every day the language took deeper root in him and soon Dances With Wolves could make more than words. Sentences were forming and he strung them together with a zeal that caused many mistakes.

  “Fire grows on the prairie.”

  “Eating water is good for me.”

  “Is that man a bone?”

  He was like a good runner who falls every third stride, but he kept hacking at the morass of the new language, and by sheer force of will he made remarkable progress.

  No amount of failure could flag his spirits, and he scrambled over every obstacle with the kind of good humor and determination that makes a person fun.

  They were in the lodge less and less. The outside was free, and a special quiet was now in place over the village. It had become unusually peaceful.

  Everyone was thinking about the men who had gone out to face uncertain events in the country of the Pawnee. With each timeless day relatives and friends of the men in the war party prayed more devoutly for their safety. Overnight it seemed, prayers had become the single most obvious feature of camp life, finding their way into every meal, meeting, and job, no matter how small or fleeting.

  The holiness that shrouded the camp gave Dances With Wolves and Stands With A Fist a perfect environment in which to operate. Sunk as they were in this time of waiting and prayer, other people paid little attention to the white couple. They moved around in a serene, well-protected bubble, an entity unto themselves.

  They shared three or four hours each day, without touching and without talking about themselves. On the surface a careful formality was observed. They laughed at things together and they commented on ordinary phenomena like the weather. But feelings about themselves lay concealed at all times. Stands With A Fist was being careful with her feelings, and Dances With Wolves respected that.

  three

  A profound change took place two weeks after the party went out.

  Late one afternoon, after a long scout under a brutal sun, Dances With Wolves returned to Kicking Bird’s lodge, found no one there, and, thinking the family gone to the river, headed down to the water.

  Kicking Bird’s wives
were there, scrubbing their children. Stands With A Fist was not around. He hung about long enough to get splashed by the kids and climbed back up the path to the village.

  The sun was still brutal, and when he saw the arbor, the thought of its shade pulled him over.

  He was halfway inside before he realized she was there. The regular session had already been held, and both of them were embarrassed.

  Dances With Wolves sat down at a modest distance from her and said hello.

  “It . . . it is hot,” she answered, as if making an excuse for her presence.

  “Yes,” he agreed, “Very hot.”

  Though he didn’t have to, he swiped at his forehead. It was a silly way of making sure she could see he was here for the same reason.

  But as he made the fake gesture, Dances With Wolves checked himself. A sudden urge had come over him, an urge to tell her how he felt.

  He just started to talk. He told her he was confused. He told her how good it felt to be here. He told her about the lodge and how good it was to have it. He took the breastplate in both hands and told her how he thought of it, that to him it was something great. He lifted it to his cheek and said, “I love this.”

  Then he said, “But I’m white . . . and I’m a soldier. Is it good for me to be here or is it a foolish thing? Am I foolish?”

  He could see complete attention in her eyes.

  “Is no . . . I don’t know,” she answered.

  There was a little silence. He could see she was waiting.

  “I don’t know where to go,” he said quietly. “I don’t know where to be.”

  She turned her head slowly and stared out the doorway.

  “I know,” she said.

  She was still lost in thought, staring out at the afternoon, when he said, “I want to be here.”

  She turned back to him. Her face looked huge. The sinking sun had given it a soft glow. Her eyes, wide with feeling, had the same glow.

  “Yes,” she said, understanding exactly how he felt.

  She dropped her head. When she looked back up, Dances With Wolves felt swallowed, just as he had felt out on the prairie with Timmons for the first time. Her eyes were the eyes of a soulful person, filled with a beauty few men could know. They were eternal.

  Dances With Wolves fell in love when he saw this.

  Stands With A Fist had already fallen in love. It happened at the time he began to speak, not all at once but in slow stages until at last she could not deny it. She saw herself in him. She saw that they could be one.

  They talked a little more and fell silent. For a few minutes they stared at the afternoon, each knowing what the other was feeling but not daring to speak.

  The spell was broken when one of Kicking Bird’s little boys happened by, looked inside, and asked what they were doing.

  Stands With A Fist smiled at his innocent intrusion and told him in Comanche, “It is hot. We are sitting in the shade.”

  This made so much sense to the little boy that he came in and flopped onto Dances With Wolves’s lap. They wrestled playfully for a few moments, but the roughhousing didn’t last long.

  The little boy suddenly sat up and told Stands With A Fist he was hungry.

  “All right,” she said in Comanche, and took him by the hand.

  She looked at Dances With Wolves

  “Eat?”

  “Yes, I’m hungry.”

  They crawled out of the arbor’s doorway and started for Kicking Bird’s lodge to get a cooking fire going.

  four

  His first order of business the next morning was to visit Stone Calf. He dropped by the warrior’s lodge early and was immediately invited to sit down and have breakfast. After they’d eaten the two men went outside to talk while Stone Calf worked on forming the willow for a new batch of arrows. Except for Stands With A Fist, it was the most sophisticated conversation he’d had with anyone.

  Stone Calf was impressed that this Dances With Wolves, so new among them, was talking in Comanche already. And talking well.

  The older warrior could also tell that Dances With Wolves wanted something, and when the discussion suddenly shifted to Stands With A Fist, he knew that this must be it.

  Dances With Wolves tried to put it as casually as he could, but Stone Calf was too much the old fox not to see that the question was important to his visitor.

  “Is Stands With A Fist married?”

  “Yes,” Stone Calf replied.

  The revelation hit Dances With Wolves like the worst kind of news.

  He was silent.

  “Where is her husband?” he finally asked. “I do not see him.”

  “He is dead.”

  This was a possibility he had never considered.

  “When did he die?”

  Stone Calf looked up from his work.

  “It is impolite to talk of the dead,” he said. “But you are new so I will tell you. It was around the time of the cherry moon, in spring. She was grieving on the day you found her and brought her back.”

  Dances With Wolves didn’t ask any more questions, but Stone Calf volunteered a few more facts. He mentioned the relatively high standing of the dead man and the absence of children in his marriage to Stands With A Fist.

  Needing to digest what he had heard, Dances With Wolves thanked his informant and walked off.

  Stone Calf wondered idly if there might be something going on between these people, and deciding it was none of his business, he went back to his work.

  five

  Dances With Wolves did the one thing he could count on to clear his head. He found Cisco in the pony herd and rode out of the village. He knew she would be waiting for him in Kicking Bird’s lodge, but his mind was spinning wildly with what he’d been told and he couldn’t think of facing her now.

  He went downriver and, after a mile or two, decided to go all the way to Fort Sedgewick. He hadn’t been there for almost two weeks and felt an impulse to go now as if in some strange way the place might be able to tell him something.

  Even from a distance he could see that late summer storms had finished the awning. It had been torn away from most of the staves. The canvas itself was badly shredded. What was left was flapping in the breeze like the ragged mainsail of a ghost ship.

  Two Socks was waiting near the bluff and he threw the old fellow the slab of jerked meat he’d brought along for nibbling. He wasn’t hungry.

  Field mice scattered as he peeked into the rotted supply house. They’d destroyed the only thing he’d left behind, a burlap sack filled with moldy hardtack.

  In the sod hut that had been his home he lay down on the little bunk for a few minutes and stared at the crumbling walls.

  He took his father’s broken pocket watch off its peg, intending to slip it into his trouser pocket. But he looked at it for a few seconds and put it back.

  His father had been dead six years. Or was it seven? His mother had been dead even longer. He could recall the details of his life with them, but the people . . . the people seemed like they’d been gone a hundred years.

  He noticed the journal sitting on one of the camp stools and picked it up. It was odd, leafing through the entries. They, too, seemed old and gone, like something from a past life.

  Sometimes he laughed at what he had written, but on the whole he was moved. His life had been made over, and pieces of the record were set down here. It was only a curiosity now and had no bearing on his future. But it was interesting to look back and see how far he had come.

  When he reached the end there were some blank pages, and he had the whimsical idea that a postscript was in order, something clever and mysterious perhaps.

  But when he raised his eyes to think, against the blankness of the sod wall he saw only her. He saw the well-muscled calves flashing from under the hem of her everyday doeskin dress. He saw the long, beautiful hands extending gracefully from its sleeves. He saw the loose curve of her breasts beneath its bodice. He saw the high cheeks and the heavy, expressive brows and
the eternal eyes and the mop of tangled, cherry-colored hair.

  He thought of her sudden rages and of the light surrounding her face in the arbor. He thought of her modesty and dignity and of her pain. Everything he saw and everything he thought of, he adored.

  When his eyes fell back on the blank page spread on his lap, he knew what to write. He was overjoyed to see it come alive in words.

  late summer 1863

  I love Stands With A Fist.

  Dances With Wolves

  He closed the journal and placed it carefully on the center of the bed, thinking capriciously that he would leave it for posterity to puzzle over. When he walked outside Dances With Wolves was relieved to see that Two Socks had disappeared. Knowing he would not see him again, he said a prayer for his grandfather the wolf, wishing him a good life for all his remaining years.

  Then he vaulted onto Cisco’s sturdy back, whooped a good-bye in Comanche, and galloped away at full speed.

  When he looked over his shoulder at Fort Sedgewick he saw only open, rolling prairie.

  six

  She waited almost an hour before one of Kicking Bird’s wives asked, “Where is Dances With Wolves?”

  The waiting had been very hard. Each minute had been filled with thoughts of him. When the question was asked she tried to construct her answer with a tone that shielded what she felt.

  “Oh, yes . . . Dances With Wolves. No, I don’t know where he is.”

  She went outside then to ask around. Someone had seen him leaving early, riding to the south, and she guessed correctly that he had gone to the white man’s fort.

  Not wanting to know why he had gone, she threw herself into finishing the saddlebags she’d been working on, trying to blot out the distractions of the camp so that she could focus only on him.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  She wanted to be alone with him, even if it was just in her thoughts, and after the noon meal she took the main path down to the river.