Journey of the Spirit Page 7

  Without any training, he came by the talent naturally. His artistic eye picked up things in nature others couldn’t see.

  Boys and men laughed at him about painting the lodge covers with the women, but he didn’t care. He loved to paint, to create. What’s more, images in his mind sprung to life on his makeshift canvas.

  Ants also fascinated Hand—the way they toiled and moved, but not Little Hawk. Impatience drove the younger brother of Crazy Horse, who wanted to do something, anything, and do it right then.

  When Little Hawk jerked his horse’s reins, Hand nodded. “OK, but we need to go around. Can’t get down from here.”

  “Yes we can. It is not too steep. I know my horse can make it. I do not know about that old bag of bones you are riding.”

  There he goes again. He’ll even try to turn getting down this bank into a contest. “Charcoal can go anywhere that crow bait horse of yours can go. But it’s too dangerous.”

  “If we go around it will take almost two hours. We will not get to swim.”

  “I still think it’s too rough to go down.”

  “Hola. You do what you want, but I’m going down there to swim.”

  Hand didn’t want to go down to the river here, but he knew Little Hawk would attempt it whether or not Hand went with him. He couldn’t let him go by himself. Besides, the water did look good.

  Little Hawk jerked his horse around to face hand. “Well?”

  Hand took a deep breath. “OK—but let’s be careful.”

  After starting down the steep slope, Charcoal balked. Hand nudged him with his knees, and the horse started to ease his way down. The horses, with nervous steps, had a hard time making it through the low brush and burned stumps. Charcoal had to high-step over several of the logs lying on the ground. Hand turned. Little Hawk’s horse struggled more than Charcoal did. They hadn’t made it a short arrow shot from the top when Hand stopped to let Little Hawk catch up. “It’s too dangerous to go down here.”

  Little Hawk looked down to see how far they had to go, and Hand knew he thought about the risk and how long it would take.

  “You are right. Better turn back.”

  “Ayiee. Go ahead and I’ll follow you,” Hand said.

  For once, he was glad Little Hawk listened to him.

  When they started back, Little Hawk’s horse balked. Now, he didn’t want to go either way. After a couple of moments, the horse settled down. Charcoal tiptoed right behind Little Hawk’s horse and close to the right flank. He also acted skittish.

  The horses had more sense than the boys did. They didn’t want to go down this way to start with.

  Almost back to the top of the rim, a rattle warning alerted both boys to trouble. Moments later, the snake struck like lighting at Little Hawk’s horse.

  As the horse jumped backwards, rearing straight up, he fell backwards against Charcoal. Charcoal tried to sidestep, but his front hooves slipped and he started to fall sideways.

  Hand leaped as the horse fell over.

  Hand didn’t have time to think. Later he would tell himself he should have jumped opposite the direction Charcoal fell, but he didn’t. Landing hard, Hand only had time to blink his eyes open before a dark shadow fell towards him. His leg cracked like a gunshot and everything went dark.

  Seven

  Excruciating pain shooting through Hand’s body evaporated the darkness. He found Little Hawk kneeling over him. He wondered how long he’d been out. “What happened?”

  “Horse fell on you.”

  He tried to move, but couldn’t because of his awkward position. When he moved his legs, an enormous, stabbing pain surged from his leg to the base of his skull, taking his breath away. In a cold sweat, he raised his head. The upper part of his leg faced down hill, but the bottom part angled to the right. Shivers exploded down his back, and another burst of pain drove his head back to the ground.

  “Your leg is broken,” Little Hawk said.

  Pain lanced through his body. Tell him something he didn’t know. With tears streaming down his cheeks, he gritted his teeth. “I know. I can feel it. You need to get help.”

  “I cannot leave you here by yourself.”

  “Can you fix my leg?”

  “No.”

  “Then you need to go get help,” Hand spat the words through the piercing pain in his leg.

  Almost in tears himself, Little Hawk said, “I cannot leave you.”

  “Little Hawk—Listen to me—you can’t carry me—and I can’t stay here. You must go get help.

  Little Hawk started to race off.

  “Wait.” Hand yelled.

  His friend and brother stopped and ran back. “You told me to go.”

  “Yes, but where’s Charcoal?”

  “He rolled behind you. You can not see him.”

  “OK, go, but hurry,” Hand said.

  When Little Hawk ran up the hill, Hand wondered where his horse was. He’d expected Charcoal to come and nuzzle him as he had in the past.

  With pain exploding up his leg, his entire body hurting, he tried to think of something else, but couldn’t concentrate. Strange sounds behind him disturbed the quiet slope. He attempted to move and locate the rattling sound, but racking pain forced him back down. Not an animal sound or snake—it sounded like water gurgling over rocks. But that couldn’t be. He was a long way from the river.

  For a moment, he forgot the sound when pain waves zipped through him. As he took a deep breath, he turned his body.

  The sounds that he’d heard came from Charcoal.

  Great sobs spewed from Hand, originating from deep in his chest. Charcoal had fallen on one of the trees lying on the ground. This one must have had a large limb sticking up because it stuck all the way through Charcoal’s body. Bloody froth bubbled from Charcoal’s lungs triggering the sounds Hand heard. Tears blinded him, the pain forgotten.

  “Whankan Thanka. He’s lying there suffering and I can’t do anything. Please take his pain away.”

  Hand watched his friend. Time floated past, as the boy remembered how the horse had taken care of him after the massacre of the wagon train. How he’d followed the boy as a baby. At last, Hand became aware that the sounds had stopped, and so had the frothy blood.

  Voices from the top of the hill interrupted his thoughts. It wasn’t long before Ate and Little Hawk leaned over him. Worm examined his leg with a worried expression and told Hand’s brother to go cut some small saplings. He held his hand with his middle finger and thumb touching to show the size he wanted. Little Hawk scampered off.

  Worm’s soothing voice didn’t help. Hand had a deeper pain—he’d lost Charcoal.

  As Worm patted Hand’s long, unbraided black hair, he said, “We have to put that bone back where it’s supposed to be.”

  He placed a stick in the boy’s mouth. “This will hurt. You need to bite down hard on the stick. That way you won’t bite your tongue off.”

  Hand nodded, and Worm took the foot of his broken leg in both hands.

  “Are you ready?”

  Again, he nodded.

  The medicine man pulled the leg forward and twisted slightly at the same time. Bone grated as it snapped into place, and the excruciating pain exploded in Hand’s brain and made him black out.

  Through clenched eyes, he became aware of what went on around him. He didn’t know how long the blackout had lasted. He knew when Ate placed the green buffalo hide around his leg, and tied the saplings, but he’d not realized more people were present until they lifted him off the ground.

  He turned his head as they carried him away—one last look at Charcoal. Somehow, the death of the horse signified the death of his white life.

  * * * *

  For Hand, with his leg stable in pole splints and green buffalo hide that had dried tight, time went by fast. At first, he slept a lot, waking to have Ina feed him from the horn. A moon later, when Hand could get around a little, Crazy Horse brought him a crutch he’d made out of bois d’ arc. He’d cut the hard, straigh
t limb at a fork and left several inches of the fork so Hand could put it under his arm and walk. It had rubbed under his arm and hurt until Worm wrapped the fork in the soft skin of a deer. With help getting up, the crutch enabled Hand to get around some by himself.

  At first, many people visited, to see if they could do anything for him, but they started to come by less frequently. He only had the people of his lodge to talk to, and Worm needed to tend to other people. Crazy Horse and Little Hawk spent most of the time hunting. To Hand’s great delight, the one exception was Little Cat, now known as Cat Woman because of her development from a girl into womanhood, a transition that pleased Hand, but not her father.

  The two would sit, hold hands for hours and talk, smile at each other, and tease. Sometimes he’d hobble to the river and sit on the bank watching the fish, birds, and insects, until Cat showed up to sit beside him, and lean her head on his shoulder, both knowing that it could not go any further. Cat Woman’s father had put his foot down. Shortly after the two met, the girl’s father had visited Worm’s lodge to speak to the medicine man and Hand about his daughter.

  He’d made it clear that he had nothing against the boy, but he wanted his daughter to marry a blooded Lakota, not an adopted white boy. He’d said that they could be friends, but not to think about marriage or anything else.

  His words had hurt Hand and Little Cat. They’d not talked about their feelings, but both knew. As they grew, the feelings became stronger, more intense. Hand would lie awake at night thinking about the beautiful girl.

  Now, his thoughts changed to fear. Of marrying age, Cat’s father pushed her to find a husband. Hand didn’t think he could stand the thought of the woman he loved more than anything, or anyone, with another man. But he didn’t know what he could do about it. Cat Woman would not go against the wishes of her father.

  * * * *

  Crazy Horse and Little Hawk prepared to go on a big raid led by Red Cloud, who had asked them in person to come along. Hand wanted to go with them. He’d do anything to go, even be a go boy again, but didn’t say anything because he knew that he couldn’t. He didn’t want to embarrass them by making them have to tell him he couldn’t go.

  After first light, the raiding party set off. Worm helped Hand sit outside the lodge to watch, and he’d chosen to stay outside, where he could see all the activity in camp and talk to people who came by.

  Several minutes later, Cat stopped by and sat beside him. She reached over and took his hand in hers. He loved to feel her near him, to touch her, even if he could only hold her hand. He felt connected to her soul with their hands interwoven. The raiding party hadn’t been gone long when No Water rode back. Hand had seen him leave with the raiding party and wondered why he returned. He didn’t run his horse and showed no signs of excitement. An emergency didn’t cause him to return to camp.

  In a short time, Small Beaver strolled by, and Hand asked him about No Water. He told them No Water came back because he had a bad tooth and his medicine wouldn’t work. Neither Cat nor Hand thought anything about it—too busy gazing into each other’s eyes. After Cat left, Woman’s Dress stopped at his lodge and told him No Water and Black Buffalo Woman had wed.

  That night Hand lay beside the dying fire outside the lodge with his broken leg propped up on some folded buffalo hides. The moon had chased the sun away, and remaining embers were glowing eyes in the dark. The marriage of Black Buffalo Woman troubled him. With the evening meal over, and all the fires dying around the village,—Ate’s voice startled him.

  “You must be troubled—you didn’t eat the green head duck soup your mother made, and I know you love it.”

  He hung his head and mumbled, “I didn’t mean to offend Ina.”

  “If you’re afraid for your brothers on this raid, you shouldn’t be. Little Hawk is impulsive and reckless, but if he listens to Crazy Horse, he’ll be OK.”

  “It’s not that. I know Crazy Horse will take care of Little Hawk.”

  “If it’s not fear, what bothers you that you can’t eat the duck soup?”

  “There are things I don’t understand. I heard a rumor that Black Buffalo Woman married No Water.”

  “What you heard is true. The two are husband and wife.”

  “But this can’t be. Crazy Horse and Black Buffalo Woman love each other. We all know this. They should’ve wed.”

  “Here, let me help you into the lodge. I’ll explain things to you.”

  Hand leaned his left shoulder on Worm and put the forked stick under his right arm. With Worm’s help, he rose to his feet. Two moons had passed since he’d broken his leg. The leg didn’t hurt too much, but he remained in a sad mood about Charcoal. They hobbled into the darkening lodge. The flaps remained open before sleep time, and Worm sat in his place facing the lodge opening, leaning back in his wicker seat to rest his back. Before Hand could take his assigned seat on the left, Worm patted the robe beside him.

  “Sit beside me in the place of honor.”

  Moving with practiced ease on his crutch, Hand lowered himself to sit beside his father. Quietness prevailed in the lodge, with the others either asleep or pretending to sleep. A long silence ensued while Worm stuffed tobacco into his pipe and lit it. Hand knew to remain silent while he smoked the pipe.

  Worm adjusted himself on the robes. “Things aren’t always what they seem. You see the Ogallala people as one, but we aren’t. Time was when our people considered us the greatest of all of the Lakota’s seven councils. But that’s not so. Bad blood has divided us. The greatest offense the people can do is to spill the blood of one of our own, and this happened many years ago. Bad feelings have never gone away. Other Lakota councils know this, and stay away because they don’t know when blood may be spilled again.”

  Hand remained quiet as Worm leaned forward taking a coal from the fire to re-light his pipe. When the pipe again filled the tent with the aromatic aroma, Hand asked, “But what does this have to do with Black Buffalo Woman marrying No Water?”

  “Be patient. Let me tell you this story, and I think you’ll understand. The Bad Faces are led by Mahkpia-Luta, or Red Cloud. When he was a little boy, six summers old, his father died. There is no shame in a father dying from illness or in battle. This brings great honor on a boy, but Red Cloud’s father died from the white man’s medicine water called whiskey. There is great shame in his heart for this. The other children laughed at him.”

  Worm leaned forward with a knowing stare. “Sometimes children can be cruel. Anyway, for a time as a young man, he left the people and stayed around the whites at the Laramie fort. I don’t know what happened to him at the fort, and of course, he has never spoken to me of it, but I do know the whites were cruel to him, too. He returned to the people with a burning rage and desire in him to show everyone he’s the greatest.”

  Hand started to reply, but Worm stopped him with a raised hand. He wondered what this had to do with the marriage. Red Cloud seemed like a disagreeable sort. Hand didn’t know him well, but he did ask Crazy Horse and Little Hawk to go on the raid with him.

  “When Red Cloud came back to the people, his uncle, Bull Bear, a great chief, took him in, which is our custom. Old Smoke, another great chief, and Bull Bear were terrible rivals, and always argued, dividing our camp. Old Smoke, like most of our people, didn’t like the disagreeable uncle. Red Cloud is much like his uncle—hard to like.

  Old Smoke tried to stay away from the vicious Bull Bear. Red Cloud’s uncle cut Old Smoke’s best warhorse trying to get him to fight, but old Smoke wouldn’t violate our law of spilling the blood.

  Then one day, our camp moved close to the fort for trading. While the trading went on, the whites brought out the whiskey that makes men crazy. The two argued over some small things when the white men urged them to fight each other.

  Most of the young men were drinking whiskey and acting crazy, all except Red Cloud, who wouldn’t touch the stuff.

  A fight broke out, and in the midst of the fight, Red Cloud violated the sacred
oath—he killed Old Smoke. For many days after, our people fought and several died. We had much sadness in our village, and the bad feelings continue even today. We’re a separated camp. Followers of Old Smoke, grouped around Old Mans Afraid of his Horses, are the Smoke Clan. The other, called the Bull Clan or Bad Faces, group around Bull Bear, but he’s old, so many are following Red Cloud, who is obsessed with power.”

  Hand looked around and reached for a long, thin willow branch that he kept in the lodge. He inserted the branch inside the rock-hard buffalo hide covering his leg. He had to try several times to get the stick in the right place to relieve the itch. When he had, he let out a relieved sigh.

  With the itch gone, Hand leaned forward. “Father, I still don’t understand what this has to do with Black Buffalo Woman, and Crazy Horse.”

  “Be patient, son. You see, Red Cloud is a very devious man. He planned this whole raid on our enemies to get Crazy Horse out of the village so the marriage could take place. No Water left with the war party, but came back because his medicine wasn’t good. As soon as he returned, he went to his brother Black Twin, who is big in council. Before he left, Red Cloud, Black Buffalo Woman’s uncle, arranged for the marriage to take place. If Black Buffalo Woman married Crazy Horse, as many of the Bad Faces feared, Red Cloud wouldn’t gain from the marriage. However, now that she has married No Water, this joins these two great families. Red Cloud will have Black Twin speaking for him in council that will make him even more powerful. This marriage will pull many of the people in Old Smoke’s clan to Red Cloud.”

  Hand sat, staring into the fire for a long time, not sure what to make of this. In a way, it sounded like what he was going through with Cat Woman. He could not be with her because of his white blood. Crazy Horse could not be with the woman he loved because he belonged to the Smoke Clan, and not the Bad Faces. He couldn’t be with the woman he loved because of politics inside the tribe.