Conquering Horse (5 page)

No Name loved her. He wished she would come around to his side of the fire and stroke his nose and think to awaken him.

The smells of burning oak and of steaming meat had just begun to sweeten the air in the tepee, when Thunder Close By, the village herald, let go a roar outside, calling the people to get up. “Ha-ho! It is time to renew the body with water! Get up! Water is your body!” Thunder Close By had such a powerful voice he sometimes had to cover his own ears to keep from hurting them.

Redbird stretched under his sleeping robes, then sat up. His fur-wrapped braids slid forward and hung down his chest. He turned his great eagle nose and looked at where Star was tending the steaming pot. “Woman,” he said quietly, with a sweet gentle air, “where is my water?”

Without a word Star stepped outside and got a clay pot of water.

As he washed his face and arms, Redbird looked over at where No Name still lay pretending sleep. “Get up, my son. Go down to the river and renew your body. It is time to bathe again.”

No Name sat up. “Yes, my father.”

Looking at his father’s naked body, No Name hoped he would be as well preserved when he reached the great age of sixty winters. Only over the elbows and around the neck were there any wrinkles. Redbird’s long slender arms were still full and smoothly muscular, his bronze chest with its two sun dance scars still rose out of his belly in fine swelling power, his eyes were still piercing black. He carried himself with grave high-headed dignity. His manners were those of a well-born one, exquisite, leisurely, sure.

No Name looked next at his father’s left hand with its missing forefinger, the finger chopped off in memory of Pretty Rock.
Staring at it, he hoped he someday would have the manhood to show such devotion.

Redbird glanced at No Name again. “Do not forget the feather, my son. That of the goose tickles best.”

“I know, my father.”

“Good, my son.”

No Name smiled warmly at Star. “Good morning, my mother. And how is the day?”

“It is without wind, my son.”

“Then it will be a good day.”

“Ae, but the ducks are already coming down from where it is always white.”

“Ah, then tonight we will have the frost.”

No Name noticed that Loves Roots’ bed was empty.

Star caught his look. “The time of the moon came upon her in the night.”

No Name brightened at the news. With Loves Roots gone, he could have his father and mother to himself. Loves Roots would have to stay in a menstrual hut at the end of the village seven days and would not be allowed to return until after the old women had given her a sweat bath. No one but the old women could come near her. They would feed her while she sorrowed. She would not be allowed to touch anything with her hands. She could not even scratch herself.

“My mother, will we have meat boiled with dried plums for breakfast? It is my favorite dish.”

“You must eat what the pot gives up, my son.”

No Name got up. Throwing a white robe over his brown shoulders, picking up a goose feather, he stepped through the door flap.

Dawn had just broken, a misty pink, over the east prairies. All of the tepees in the village circle, the old smoked-up ones as well as the newer white ones, stood bathed in the reddish light. Smoke had just begun to wisp out of the nearest lodges. Children and dogs were already whining for food. There was no wind and
the cottonwood leaves hung like the ear lobes of old men. Outside, the rushing noise of Falling Water was louder too. A mist rose off the sliding river, both at the foot of the splashing falls and up on the streaming cataracts. The jagged red rock gave added depth to the pink morning.

No Name threw a quick look at Leaf’s lodge under the cottonwood. Her lodge had just begun to puff smoke too. Gray wisps were curling off the pointed ends of the poles in the smokehole. The gray smoke slowly dispersed into a dull buckskin sky. In a few moments Leaf and all the other camp maidens would go down to bathe in their private place near the willows.

He was the first of the young men to reach Falling Water. The roar hurt his ears almost as much as Thunder Close By’s cry. No Name watched the pale limpid waters tumble over the worn red rocks, watched them spill into the swirling pool below. Behind the braiding waters lived the Buffalo Woman, the tribal guardian spirit who always sent them plenty of meat in the hunting season. She always remained hidden, yet was ever alert to their needs. She was one of the reasons they continued to dwell on the rolling prairies between Falling Water and the Place of the Pipestone, slowly chevying from one to the other, depending on the season.

Climbing a jagged wall to the right of the falls, he emerged above on the cataracts where the young men had their own bathing place. Here the River of the Double Bend, sliding slowly down from higher ground, spilled across staggered slabs of rock in a thousand tiny streams. Eons of flowing water, grit-laden, had honed the red quartzite down to so fine a polish that it resembled the smooth silken flesh of quartered beef. Throwing aside his robe, he kneeled and drank a great quantity of water. Then, after a little wait to make sure the stomach was well cleansed, he carefully thrust his goose feather deep into the back of his throat. He tickled until he broke into a violent cough; kept tickling until the cough exploded into a vomit.

Next he found himself a small swirling pool a foot deep.
Slowly he let himself down into the cold water. “Ai! it is truly cold this day.” He rubbed his dark brown body briskly. As he bathed in the pink morning, shivering, spilling water down his goose-pimpled skin, he sang the rising song:

Off in an eddy lay a curl of reddish sand. He gathered up a dripping handful, took a deep breath, then, shivering, began rubbing down his entire body, around the neck under the braids, around and over his high wide shoulders, down his slim belly and hips, down his legs, scouring until his rose-brown body slowly pinkened over.

Other young men came straggling up, sleepy-eyed, shivering under their robes.

“The morning is good,” No Name called out cheerfully as he put on his white robe again. “Hurry. It will be a good day.”

The foremost among them returned the greeting, smiling, white teeth gleaming in the morning light. A few gave him a dour look.

No Name was proud of the young men in his band. The Yanktons were a tall slim people, runners, with broad deep chests and sinewy legs and arms. Most had naturally large feet which, placed parallel upon the ground, enabled them to walk as surefooted as bears. Compared to the dark Teton Dakotah, the Yanktons had glowing rose-brown bodies. All had luxuriant night-black hair which, when left unbraided, hung down as straight as horsetails. Some had hair so black a red sheen glinted over it. The faces were usually oval, with strong cheekbones and high arched noses, with the inner angle of the eye slanted down. Their bodies were hairless, they had little or no beard, and
like the women had very little pubic hair. A few of the young men, those who had counted coup, had sun dance scars and tattoos on their chests.

No Name spotted his cousin Circling Hawk coming down the path. Despite the chill in the air, Circling Hawk scorned the use of a robe and had on but a narrow breechclout and a red-tipped feather in his hair.

Circling Hawk hailed him. “Is the morning good, friend?”

“It is quickening, friend.”

Circling Hawk was very tall, had great muscular bulk, and big hands. His face was as Leaf said—rough, like the back of a toad. It was also huge, more round than oval, with rolling flashing eyes. There was an air about him suggesting that on the least provocation he was ready to go down the violent path with one. Circling Hawk danced energetically in the dust of the path. “Well, well.” Circling Hawk had a way of talking all over, with his face and hands, with even the muscles of his body. “Ha, how is it that one who is last to dream is always first to bathe?”

No Name tried to hold up to Circling Hawk’s eyes; found he was not quite up to it. “My father laughs when I tell him what you say.”

Circling Hawk’s feet stilled. His eyes began to glow in his great head. “Your father laughs at what Circling Hawk says?”

“Ae. He says the Thunders are preparing a special vision for his son.”

Circling Hawk’s hair rose like bristles on a wild boar. “Must No Name always wait for his father’s words? Has he no words of his own to speak?”

No Name could see that Circling Hawk longed to call him a coward to his face but didn’t quite dare. Circling Hawk knew that No Name could be brave when necessary. No Name had once swum the Great Smoky Water when it was raging full of ice. Somehow Redbird’s favorite buffalo pony had got across before spring breakup and when No Name saw tears in his father’s eyes at its possible loss he plunged in without a word.
He swam across, caught the horse, swam back again, steering the horse ahead of him by its tail, calmly braving the driving cakes of ice and all the lashing whirlpools.

Circling Hawk glanced scornfully at No Name’s body; then touched a pair of white sun dance scars on his own chest. “I see you still have the body of a
ẇ
oman. When will you torment yourself?”

Disdain rose in No Name. Circling Hawk was a crude man. For a brave who dreamed of replacing Redbird as chief of the band, Circling Hawk had little of the reserve and dignity that went with such an office.

“The day waits for me,” No Name said then, and brusquely left Circling Hawk standing alone.

Coming through the horns of the camp, the opening to the east, No Name found the women up and about. All were lighting cooking fires outside their lodges. The various plumes of smoke around the camp circle rose straight up into the windless air, then, at about tree height, flattened off into a vague cloud. The sun was at last fully up, above the mist on the land, illuminating the smoke plumes with a hue as softly purple as the inside of a clam shell. The old women opened up the food parfleches and immediately all the dogs and children crowded in. The slimlegged fierce dogs became so daring the women had to club them away. One yellowish-gray dog, with the flashing green eyes of a wolf, was hit both front and back, and ran hobbling off on only a front paw and a hind leg, yelping pitifully. The old women called up the little girls to get more water for the cooking. Presently the young women returned from their bathing. Some took to combing their hair in the sun, decking their cheeks and the parts in their hair with vermilion. Others got out the master’s spear and shield and medicine pouch and hung them in the sun high out of reach on the tripod. Soon too the old men got up and poked their heads out of the door flaps and looked at the morning sun. A yell from some of the boys told of how they’d been caught stealing meat from a drying rack. At this the old
men smiled. Stealth learned early made for bold raiders. It would come in handy when they went on horse raids later on.

Looking around, No Name finally spotted Leaf sitting on a high red rock at the edge of the camp circle, combing her hair. Her face was hidden behind a long lash of hair. Her hair glowed with a touch of rust, like a raven’s wings in springtime. He whistled and she looked up. She gave him a wide fulsome smile, then went back to her grooming.

Redbird’s lodge stood opposite the horns of the camp circle, west of the council lodge. In the bright sun the painted emblems on the lodge stood out very clearly. The upper half of it, including the smoke flaps, had been painted a deep black. This signified that Redbird had once been given a vision by the Thunders. The panel to the right of the door featured a running horse. It was done in red ocher, and was so spirited in detail that No Name sometimes had to look twice to make sure it wasn’t their spotted horse Swift As Wind. It signified that Redbird had once dreamed of a horse of a certain swiftness. The imprint of a bloody hand decorated the panel to the left. It signified that Redbird had once killed a man barehanded.

The most decorated tepee in camp belonged to his bachelor uncle Moon Dreamer. It stood next to Redbird’s lodge. Moon Dreamer the holy man had once heard in a revealed vision the White Woman In The Moon singing a majestic song. To commemorate the great event he had painted a rising white ball at the top of his tepee. Thirteen rays shot out from the ball. One of the rays became a long curving line and pointed at a picture of the Sioux bird, the singing meadowlark. Moon Dreamer had also spoken in dream with the Ancient Of Clouds as well as the Ancient of Darkness and so had worked out the design of a dark cloud moving across an empty land, with below a band of deepest black from which reared the dark head of a buffalo.

No Name stooped through the door of his father’s lodge. “I am here.”

“When you come I am glad,” his mother said. “The meat is ready.”

No Name sat down before the steaming earthenware pot with his father. Cross-legged, knives in hand, they each speared up a piece of dripping buffalo meat, the fat on it globular and grayish. They chewed solemnly together, with smacks of satisfaction. No Name consciously tried to imitate his father’s delicate way of turning his knife around as he ate. Star brought them both a chip of baked prairie beans. She served the bread on a wide piece of cottonwood bark. Then she sat back, folding her arms inside her loose wing sleeves.

“My mother, the bread is very good,” No Name said.

“I am glad.” Star sat in the woman’s way, knees and feet to one side. Her hair and braids shone from combing. The part down the middle, from the forehead back to the nape of the neck, had been neatly painted with vermilion. Copper earrings dangled from her ear lobes.

“The bread is very light, mother. It is like the lungs of a dog.”

“Eat, my son. You are very thin.”

Finished, both men stabbed their knives into the sandy earth to clean off the fat. They washed their hands in a jar of water.

Next they prepared the toilet for the day. No Name loosened his two fat braids, as well as the finely plaited scalp lock in back, and combed them out with the rough side of a dried buffalo tongue. Tangles he cut through with his knife. He found a few lice, as well as nits, and killed them by placing them on a flat smooth stone and whacking them with the handle of his knife. The larger lice made a light pop of a sound when hit just right. Redbird reclined on his willow back-rest and held up his long hair to the light of the smokehole, looking for gray hairs. When he found one he jerked it out with a quick, deft snap of fingers.