Bill Dugan_War Chiefs 03 (8 page)

The old men were more restrained, standing on the outer edge of the circle. They had seen enough of war to know that bad news would find you sooner than you wanted. A man could afford to wait because he couldn’t really hide from it. And after all, it wasn’t as if not knowing changed things for the dead man. He was still dead, and that was permanent. And what was a few minutes when you measured it against forever?

For Slow, though, the homecoming was more complicated. The headlong charge against the Crows would seem like nothing compared to his mother’s anger. The Lakota never struck their children, but that didn’t mean they didn’t get angry. And Her Holy Door would certainly be angry. She would shriek at him until his ears burned, and then she would turn her back. The cold shoulder would freeze him then, and his teeth would chatter as if he were stranded in a blizzard without a robe to protect him.

At first, Sitting Bull would try to calm Her Holy Door down, but sooner or later he would fail. Slow knew that, too. And then his father would just stand aside and let the tantrum run its course. He would tell Slow then that it was better than having Her Holy Door mad at both of them. For Sitting Bull, maybe. But for Slow, it would be like having the weight of the world on his own still slender shoulders. And for a time, he would feel like an
orphan. For a time, he might even wish he were, because anything would be better than having to endure his mother’s wrath. But sooner or later she would forgive him. She would understand, even through all the scolding, that he had done what he was born and bred to do. And when she had given voice to her own anxiety, changing it first into rage and then into complaint, she would hug him. And the thought of her arms around him was almost enough to steel him for the onslaught. Almost, but not quite, because Her Holy Door could be formidable when she was angry, worse than any Crow.

The warriors, as was their custom, started to circle the camp, boasting of their exploits, and the women and children were forced to back away to make room for the horses. Slow, watching from the back of his gray, realized that Sitting Bull had not joined the victory celebration. Instead, he dismounted and lifted Slow from his pony. Slow was sure he was in for it now. Sitting Bull dragged him toward his lodge and hauled him inside. Her Holy Door tried to come in, but Sitting Bull shouted for her to stay outside.

Slow began to stammer that he was sorry, but Sitting Bull waved off the explanation, sweeping him up in a bear hug, nearly crushing his lungs in the process. Then he moved into the shadows at the edge of the tipi and reappeared with a small pot. Without a word, he began to daub black paint all over Slow, starting at his forehead and working his way down until the boy was covered from head to foot in the black paint of victory.

Still saying nothing, Sitting Bull dragged Slow back into the open. Once more lifting the boy in his arms, he clapped him down on the back of a fine bay stallion, Sitting Bull’s favorite horse. “He’s yours now, son,” Sitting Bull said, his voice shaking a bit as he stepped back to examine the young warrior on his new warhorse.

Then, in a loud voice, Sitting Bull called out to the camp at large. The strong voice seemed to echo from the hills behind the camp, and everyone stopped what they were doing and began to move toward Sitting Bull’s tipi. Taking the bay by the bridle, Sitting Bull moved toward the center of the camp.

When he reached the middle of the circle of tipis, he raised his voice again. “My son has struck his first enemy!” he announced. “He is no longer to be called Jumping Badger or Slow. Instead, I give him the name
Tatanka lyotanka.
And from this day forward I will be known as Jumping Bull.”

Slow gasped. His father had given up his own name, surrendering it to his son. He was now to be known as Sitting Bull. The boy remembered the story of how his father had come by the name, the visit from the big medicine buffalo, and he felt a lump in his throat. This was no ordinary name. This name was special. Not only had it been his father’s, but it had come from
Wakantanka.
It would be a burden as well as an honor to carry such a name. It meant that great things were expected of him … perhaps even greater things than those of which he dreamed. And it meant, too, that things would change for his father. Jumping
Bull had been the second name given by the medicine buffalo, representing the second stage of life, and he wondered for a moment whether it meant that his father was moving through some sort of invisible barrier and, if so, whether he had been the cause of it.

His father was not finished yet. He handed the newly christened Sitting Bull a brand-new lance, one that had never been into battle, one that he had fashioned with his own hands. The bright iron blade glittered like a shooting star as it was waved overhead, and when his father finally placed it in his hands, he traced the perfect symmetry of the polished wood with trembling fingers.

Already the warriors were shouting out, telling the rest of the village about his dash against the Crows, how he had struck the enemy with his coup stick, and how he had shown the nerve of a great warrior.

The young Sitting Bull felt his head swimming. The women were crowding in around him now, singing of his triumph, their shrill wailing sending chills down his spine. He spotted Blue Eagle and Little Calf, two of his closest friends, pressing in among the women, trying to get to the front of the circle surrounding him now. The two boys stood there slack-jawed, their eyes big as the full moon. They were in awe of him now, stunned into immobility by the news. Later, they would remind each other that they had known him when, but for the moment, all they could do was gape.

Jumping Bull had slipped away, but Sitting Bull had not noticed. Now his father was back, once
more pushing through the crowd and calling attention to another gift. When he reached the side of the big bay, he handed the gift to Sitting Bull without a word.

Sitting Bull stared at it, turning it this way and that to let the light catch the brilliant colors. It was a shield, brand-new, like the lance never used in battle. Like all Lakota shields, it was a circle of wood covered with tough hide. At the four cardinal points, a tuft of eagle feathers fluttered in the hot breeze, one each representing North, East, South, and West. The center of the circle contained an image that had come to his father in a vision. Some said it was a bird, perhaps an eagle, while others said it was a man. Still others argued that it was both—a birdman. But Sitting Bull knew that it had been painted on the thick buffalo hide by a holy man, and that it was powerful medicine. The bright red, dark blue, and deep green paints seemed to glow with an inner fire as they reflected sunlight back into the sky.

Raising the shield high overhead, Sitting Bull uttered a war cry, and unlike the dry squawk of a few days before, this time his voice was full and rich—not as powerful as his father’s, but no longer the reedy squeak of a boy. It was a man’s voice, and a man’s war cry. He nudged the bay into a walk and circled the camp, waving to friends, and reveling in the friendly slaps of the warriors. This would be a day he would never forget.

When he had completed his circuit of the village, he dismounted in front of Jumping Bull and solemnly embraced him, as if meeting him for the
first time. He heard the catch in his father’s voice and patted his shoulder. As he started to back away, he caught sight of his mother, standing a few feet behind Jumping Bull. Her face seemed composed of warring halves, one emotion after another passing across her features. Pride was there, certainly, but fear, too. She knew what this day meant, knew what might happen to him. She had lost him, now. The ghostly sorrow of some future day when he might not come home seemed to suffuse her features for a moment, until her joy at his victory gained control. She gave him a smile, at first pale and weak, just a flicker. But when he stepped around Jumping Bull and wrapped her in his arms, she beamed with pleasure.

He was no longer her little boy, but had become what she had always known he could be, and hoped he would be—a proud Lakota warrior. And there was no point in trying to pretend that it could be otherwise. She lay her head on his shoulder and stroked his back, her sturdy fingers digging into the flesh along his spine. Her breath was hot and came in short gasps then she backed away to hold him at arms length, tears streaking her dark skin. She sniffed once, chewed her lower lip, then slowly shook her head up and down.

She approved, he knew that. But it seemed that she had not until that very moment. “There is a lot to do,” she said. “There will be a victory celebration, and you will be at its center, son. I’d better get ready.” She nodded once, as if the suggestion had come from him, then turned away. Only then did she reach up to wipe away the dampness from her
cheeks. A moment later, she vanished into the milling throng, and Sitting Bull turned once more to the admiring well-wishers.

His first victory dance, he thought—that was something to look forward to. He had seen them before, of course, but since he had never struck an enemy in battle, he had not been allowed to participate with the warriors. Tonight, for the first time, he would join them as they danced and told the whole village of his accomplishment. His legs felt like jelly, and he wondered whether they would hold him.

But the warriors swept him away, and he forgot about his concern in the frenzy of the moment.

Musselshell River
1846

S
LOW HAD NO TROUBLE
getting used to his new name. Being called Sitting Bull, the name of his father, was a great honor. This was not just because his father was a great warrior and a holy man, but because the buffalo itself was so important to the Lakota, and it meant that he would one day be important, too, if he was true to the spirit of the buffalo and of the Lakota traditions.

The upright eagle feather he wore in his hair each day reminded him that he had garnered his first coup. The feather’s upright position reminded him, and everyone who saw him, that not only had he struck the enemy, he had struck the enemy first.

Only the first four strikes earned a warrior a coup, and each was symbolized by the angle of the feather. Upright meant first coup, while the other three were represented by the feather’s direction and deviation from the vertical. He knew that there
would be more coups and more eagle feathers to come, but the first one is always special. It was a watershed in a warrior’s life, a kind of transition from boy to man that every Lakota male dreamed of from the moment he was old enough to understand the way his people lived.

The newly named Sitting Bull saw his coup feather every time he bent over a stream to drink, every time he rode along the edge of the river and saw his reflection in the shimmering surface of the current. It was a constant reminder, not just of what he had done, but of what was expected of him. He was a warrior now, and that meant that great responsibilities lay squarely on his shoulders.

It was all well and good to play a boy’s game of hoop and javelin, shoot blunt arrows at birds, run footraces with the other boys—those had only been preparation, games intended to teach him what he needed to know to be a warrior. Now that it had come to pass, he was able to look back at those things of his youth and see how much more they meant than he had realized. Now his life, and the lives of his family and friends, might be at stake every time he drew a bow. His skill with the lance might bring down a buffalo when his family was hungry, or save the life of a friend on the warpath against the Crows or the Hohe. And his great speed might save his own skin one day if his horse were killed or wounded in battle. Or it might enable him to come to the aid of a beleaguered or wounded friend.

Jumping Bull had tried to explain these things to him ever since he had been old enough to listen.

He had thought he understood, but he had only been fooling himself. Now, though, it had all become clear. It seemed to him that for years he had been looking into a muddy pool, where things moved, barely seen, through the murky water, a glimpse here and a hint there, and because these hints and glimpses were all he saw, he had thought they were all there was to be seen. But he had been patient, as his father had counseled him. He had waited, and now the mud had settled, the water was pure as crystal, and he saw everything so much more clearly.

Jumping Bull understood that his son had changed, had reached an important point in his life. He understood that it was tempting for Sitting Bull to think that he was finished growing, finished learning. The boy had always been inquisitive, and he had treasured those walks in the hills, those long hours watching the birds and the rabbits and the buffalo. He was proud of Sitting Bull, but not so proud that he shared the boy’s temptation to think that growing and learning were finished.

Just as his legs would thicken, his shoulders broaden, his arms grow more powerful, so too would Sitting Bull’s mind grow more penetrating, his patience deeper, his understanding sharper. That would come in time, as long as he was willing and open to knowledge. Jumping Bull knew that it would be more difficult to teach his son now, but more important than ever. As it was, he would be a fine warrior, but that wasn’t enough. There was so much out on the plains, so much in the sky that a man ought to know if he were going to lead his
people and keep them safe from harm. And these were things that no man ever learned completely, no matter how long he lived or how closely he studied the world around him. The important thing was not to think you knew it all, but to keep on learning. Jumping Bull wondered whether he was equal to the task of showing his son these truths.

Each time a war party went out against the Crows or the Hohe or the Flatheads and Sitting Bull went along, there was a chance that he would not come back. Jumping Bull knew this, but he did not dwell on it. He could not allow his concern for his son’s safety to stifle the boy. If Sitting Bull were going to be a great warrior, he would have to take risks, learn how to handle himself in unimaginable situations, think on his feet, and let his courage protect him. That is not an easy thing for a father to watch. Sometimes when Sitting Bull went on a warpath, Jumping Bull stayed home. It was better, he thought, to let the boy become his own man, rather than a looking-glass reflection of his father.