Conquering Horse (14 page)

No Name said, “Shall we kill a rabbit for breakfast?”

“We have a certain quantity of dried meat left. Also a corn cake my mother prepared which I saved.”

“I am hungry. It will be good to eat over a fire again.”

“Ai, but you have been purified. There will be no fire until you have had a vision.”

Sighing, both braves then got up. They made pad saddles out of their buffalo robes again and cinched them around the horses.

As they were about to mount, Circling Hawk suddenly asked, “Friend, tell me, did you wive Leaf by the river? I wish to know.”

No Name caught himself just in time. He kept his face passive, expressionless. “She is gone. Why do we speak of her?”

“I wanted her for wife,” Circling Hawk said slowly. “I would have given twenty ponies for her. I felt sad that I had but ten. I did not have the second ten ponies.”

“I wanted her for wife also. But I did not have any ponies to give.”

“Your father has many ponies to give.” Circling Hawk burned a fixed unwavering eye upon him.

“I could not ask my father for the ponies. I did not have the vision. Therefore my grief was great.”

“Your father is related to many in our village. You have many cousins who could help you with the horses.”

“You are also related to my father,” No Name said. “Your father is my father’s cousin. Why did you not ask my father for the second ten ponies?”

“My father is dead. My mother is not well liked. Also there are those who do not favor me.”

No Name held up to Circling Hawk’s glaring eyes. “You say well. But my grief is still a great grief.”

Circling Hawk sniffed up a quick nervous breath; then expelled it with a blast.

Irritated, No Name did the same.

They rode steadily all day, going up the valley of the little stream as it meandered in from the west. The lofty round bluffs gradually drew together and at last became a narrow canyon. The footing in the stream changed, sometimes treacherous with quicksand, sometimes cruel with sharp rocks.

They came upon a ravine which opened into the canyon from the northwest. A small creek trickled down it. They turned off and went up the creek. The land rose steadily. The ravines became a narrow depression, finally leveled up onto a high plateau. All around lay the slowly sloping horizons of the high plains. The grass became sparse, mostly last year’s brittle stalks. In the hot afternoon sun the old grass gleamed a dull brown-gold. Occasional patches of pricklepear cactus came along. Twice the horses shied from green rattlesnakes. Dust puffed up on each throw of the hoof, lingering palely behind and riding slowly off on a soft west wind. Shortly before sunset, as they gained a long rise in the land, the Butte of Thunders reared out of the northwest horizon.

No Name looked at the butte with mingled feelings of joy and awe. As his father had told him, the butte was like unto the sacred power of a great stallion. Holding hand to mouth, long hair streaming on the wind, he cried, “There is the place. I see it. I am happy.”

Circling Hawk had also watched the butte rise into view. “There is some brush on the first hump on the south side. It will make a good place to camp and hide the horses.”

“It is a good place.”

When they came to a yet higher rise in the land, so that the whole of the gray-green butte was sharply etched against a yellow west, he saw why the Thunders liked to come to the place.
Its flat top made a good platform halfway between heaven and earth from which to broadcast messages.

No Name reined in his horse and got down on his knees on the ground. He rubbed himself reverently with a handful of silver sage. He held out his hands to the holy hill and began to rejoice. “Thank you, thank you. I am glad I have come. Tomorrow I will climb upon you and talk to the Thunders. They will send me the vision. Hi-ye! I have said.” He got to his feet and turned to Circling Hawk. “Friend, lead the way. You have had the vision and thus are my older brother. I am but a suppliant. Instruct me.” He remounted Lizard. “May the vision be a true one.”

Mares tails moved across the sky to the north of the butte. The slow high movement of the thin clouds had the effect of making the butte lean some to the west. The sun sank and the shadow on the east side deepened to a greenish black.

Jogging along on his horse, No Name continued to rejoice. “Thank you, thank you.” He held his right fist to his chin, forefinger out, in sign for truth. “This is the place my father spoke of and I am happy to come.”

“I see a small stream beyond,” Circling Hawk said. “It will be a good place to water the horses each day.”

No Name made out some rocks strewn down its side. “Look. Attend. See where the Thunders have been angry. It is where they have thrown stones in anger.”

Circling Hawk blew his nose clear with a loud blast. He looked down at the grass going by underfoot. “The horses will suffer in this country. One of us will have to get grass.”

They were within a mile of it, when suddenly a piece of the rimrock broke off. It fell a ways; then, magically, sprouted wings and flew off in a great curve to the west, slowly mounting the air on great beating wings, rising higher and higher, until finally it was but a tiny speck. Then, between eye blinks, it vanished altogether.

“It was one of the Thunders,” No Name said reverently. “He has gone to tell the others that I have come.”

Circling Hawk gave his horse a kick in the flank. “It was but an eagle. When the eagle saw we had arrows for him he flew away.”

They stopped just below the butte, on the south side, on the hump where part of the rimrock had fallen. Debris lay scattered to all sides. Some of the fallen rocks were larger than horses. Rosebushes and chokecherries grew between the rocks. The valley all around shone with silver sage.

Eyes glowing, thick hair streaming down his shoulders, No Name continued to look up at the towering place of the gods. “Ho-hech-e-tu! I have come to the holy place of the Thunders at last.”

5

He was sleeping one moment, the next moment was wide awake. Something stealthy was moving near his head. He heard thick breathing. Someone seemed to be in a terrible rage. His heart began to bubble in his chest.

“It is Circling Hawk,” he thought. “Ae, Circling Hawk accepted the mission to come with me, because it was wakan and worthy to do, but he also hated me with all his soul and therefore has decided to kill me. He has found a great stone and now stands ready to drop it on my head.”

No Name shivered.

The sound of the thick breathing came nearer. After a moment a hot breath brushed over his face. The breath stank, raw, rotten, as if the breathing one had just finished a meal of decayed frogs.

No Name waited for the end.

The thick hot breathing continued. Yet the stone did not descend. There was no smashing crack on the skull.

No Name finally opened his eyes. There, in the soft weak light of the Nibbled Moon, was a white prairie wolf. The great wolf’s eyes were red, and they blinked and burned into him. White bristles twitched on its blackish nose. Its countenance was so close, so full upon him, that for a moment No Name thought he was having a bad dream.

He heard a chewing sound in the chokecherries behind him. Ae, there was yet another wolf in the camp. He remembered his father Redbird saying that wolves like to gnaw bridle ropes because of the human smell in them.

He blinked. And just as quickly the white wolf vanished.

At that No Name sat up. Ghostly shapes with bushy tails, as vague as streamers of mist, slipped across the rock-strewn slopes. No Name stared at them, watching them fade into the dim dark green distance. Not one shape seemed real. Had it not been for the lingering stink of the white wolf’s breath he would have sworn he had dreamed it all.

Shivering in the frosty cold, heaving a long sigh, he lay down again and snuggled inside his sleeping robe. All of a sudden he became very lonesome for his father and mother and for the wonderful smell of their fire and the remembered taste of fat hump. He began to wonder if the ordeal he was about to un dergo was worth it after all.

At last dawn broke in the east, a speckled black slowly giving way to a smoky blue.

He waited until a certain bright star overhead faded away and then, hardening himself to it, got up.

He touched Circling Hawk. “Friend, the morning is good.”

Circling Hawk sat up with a start. “Where are they? I dreamed of wolves.”

“The great day has come. You must watch as I prepare my self.”

Circling Hawk was immediately attentive. He threw back hi sleeping robe, got up, stretched, then seated himself on a rock

No Name removed all his clothes. He gathered a handful o
silver sage and rubbed himself briskly, until the air was stuffy with its dusty aromatic smell. He found a crumble of volcanic ash underfoot and carefully painted his face black, well up into the roots of his hair, under his ears and chin, even down his chest some. He combed his wild, straggly hair with the rough side of a buffalo tongue. He unwrapped his red pipe from its case.

He handed Circling Hawk his bow and quiver, and also his knife. “Friend, will you keep these until I return?”

“They shall be as my own until you come.”

“Also, will you keep the watch until I return?”

“Do not fear. May the gods hear your prayers.”

“Look. Attend. The red of the morning. The sun is almost here. It is my wish to begin the vigil on the mountain top at sun rise. Now I go to climb the hill my father spoke of.”

“Are your hands clean? They are not defiled?”

“I have taken the sweat bath. I have traveled a long way to get here. I have rubbed myself with the sacred sage. You have seen. I am ready.”

“Go. Depart. Climb to where the eagles like to sit. Receive the vision.”

“This is my fourth trip to a high hill. The fourth time is the sacred time. I am ready. Hoppo.”

Erect, face up, holding his red pipe in front of him, he walked stiffly around to the east side of the butte and began the ascent. His naked body glowed a dusky red. “O great spirit,” he cried, “be merciful to me that my people may live!”

It was cold. A gauze of frost lay over the ground. Under the pink dawn it sparkled like glazed blood. The cold ocher soil burned his bare feet. He let his bronze toes pick the path, around spine cactus, over clumps of sage, around red ant mounds, across shivered shale.

The slope began to tilt up, then to steepen sharply. The morning rose as he climbed. Blackened face lifted, erect, gleams of red flashing down his black hair, he worked upward. The land behind him fell away. A clattering cricket jumped out of the short
grass. It opened its wings and became a flying drop of blood. Still the slope steepened. It lengthened. What looked sleek green from a distance, close up was rugged terrain. More and more rocks, fallen from the eroding escarpment above, lay in his path. He skirted them, stepped over them. Some of the rocks had just broken off, their edges a fresh hard gray. Others had lain a millennium and were covered with light green lichen. He puffed. The escarpment began to hang over him like a looming cliff. The smoke-blue sky lowered slowly toward him. He could feel the horizons all around sinking and falling back. He climbed, dark glittering eyes fixed on the rimrock, up, up. The work of it warmed him. His heart struggled loud in his chest. His heart pumped him up the hill.

Immediately below the rimrock lay even greater piles of freshly broken-off rock. There was no grass or moss or lichen to soften the footing. Twice he stepped on stones so sharp they cut his feet. Rich glowing pink surrounded him. It bathed all things. The sun was about to burst over the horizon. He hurried, holding his red pipe before him.

A sheer wall towered above him. He looked along it to the south for a way up. It was unclimbable in that direction as far as he could see. He looked along the precipice to the north. There, not a dozen steps away, next to a jutting rib, was a large chimney-like opening. He scrambled over and found it to be full of good handholds, even a few step-like projections. Then he spotted some half dozen perfectly shaped round stones on a ledge. “Ae,” he thought, “wakan stones. Someone, perhaps my father, has carried them here in a ceremony. I have found the true way. It is good.”

He climbed swiftly up the chimney. It narrowed. There was just enough room the last few feet for him to squeeze through. Grunting, lifting himself, his head finally popped out on the flat top above. He heaved up the rest of himself, and then, standing erect, turned to face the east.

At that very moment the red sun began to show over the horizon.
For a moment the edge glowed like a distant prairie fire. It shimmered, wavered, increased, at last became a full circle and lay on the far rim of the earth, a huge burning stone. Almost between the wink of an eye the whole of it lifted free and it began to revolve around and around. One furious flush after another raced across its face.

“The sun is my father. I am ready.” Pipe stem pointed ahead, he began to look for a clean level place to lie down on. He paced completely around the outer edge of the butte top, now and then glancing down at the prairie far below. He found that the whole top was about as large and as round as their village circle. Most of it was covered with frost-shivered shale and eroding gray rock, with here and there some pockets of soil, a few prickly pear cactus, some clumps of grayish sage, and the pale green tufts of new buffalo grass. There were innumerable ant mounds. The butte top seemed to be a sort of heaven for them. Red ants, some crawling, some flying, swarmed everywhere in the warming sun.

He found a gap, or opening, in the south edge of the rim, where the rock had tumbled down. It looked upon their night camp. The size of the gap surprised him. It had not seemed that large from below. The gap was at least ten horses wide and four deep. He spotted Circling Hawk below rubbing down the horses. He was so high above them that Circling Hawk resembled a small turtle with hair, while the horses looked like small bloated boudins.

The sun rose. Between him and the oscillating sun lay a vast valley, a pale blue prairie yielding at the horizon to a paler blue sky. He looked at the sun until it seemed to him two coals were slowly searing their way through the bone at the back of his head.