Markwildyr.com,
Post #232
Hope you enjoyed the story of the lion hunt. To some, a hunt is a hunt. To others, it is a spiritual journey. Such things mark the differences between men.
* * * *
MEDICINE HAIR
Gideon hadn’t tarried long, which made me wonder if he’d said everything he had come to say. Had he really made a fourteen-mile roundabout ride just to give me news of an Asian catastrophe? No, more likely he was leading a routine patrol. I laid such thoughts aside and went to work. After putting the finishing touches to a watering bucket in the forge, I went out to tend the fields.
A
little later, I was headed to the house for a glass of milk and a bit of jerky when
Todoh set up a yammer. A line of six horsemen rode through his territory directly
toward the house, and he didn’t appreciate the intrusion. Still, he had sense
enough not to press his objection too strenuously.
From
this distance the riders looked to be tribesmen. A lot of fringed buckskin and
a feather or two. Coming from the stretch of badlands up on Trickling Water
Crick, probably. Their slow pace indicated I had nothing to worry about, but I
moseyed over to the porch where my Henry rifle—with fifteen cartridges in the
sleeve and one in the breech—was propped beside the cabin door. After taking a
sip of water from the earthen jug customarily resting in the shade of the
overhang, I leaned against the porch to wait, arms folded over my chest.
A
few minutes later, five ponies came into view, making straight for the yard.
The sixth rider was likely on the hill to act as lookout. The man in front lifted
his arm in the open-handed greeting.
We
had exchanged hah-ues before I
recognized Crow Hop, Buffalo Leg’s son. I smiled and stepped forward to give
him an Indian handshake after he dismounted. A year or two older than my twenty
and four, he was taking on some of his father’s heft. A pleasing man of
aquiline features, he started making polite talk while I gestured for his
companions to take water from the keg. They were all fit men of an age, but for
one. He had probably seen his thirtieth summer. His erect carriage and piercing
eyes caught my attention. He held his tongue through the getting reacquainted
talk. Finally, it was his turn.
“I
am Firm Foot,” he said. “I have been to this place before when I was but a boy called
New Star. This was back when the whites were fighting the war between
themselves and militias ruled the land. The Yanube who lived here did us a
great kindness.”
“That
would have been my grandfather, Otter.” These men would understand my term of
respect.
“Just
so. My father is Spotted Panther, and my grandfather was Grass Dancer. Otter
sheltered us and gave us provisions as we passed through and came to our aid
when the militia caught up with us.”
“That
was his nature,” I said. “He helped when he could. Sometimes to his own risk.”
“We
heard what they did to him,” Firm Foot said.
I
couldn’t help glancing at the cottonwood. “I saw six horses in the distance.
Yet there are only five of you.”
Crow
Hop motioned with his chin to the hill. “One of us keeps an eye out for a
patrol.”
My
eyebrows shot up. “You are renegades?”
Firm
Foot shook his head. “Nay, not as you mean it. But the army declares any who
leave the reservations renegade. When we leave, they call it ‘breaking out’ and
figure we’re digging up hatchets to make war. I’m surprised they haven’t put
you on an agency.”
“I
have too much white blood for them to make the effort,” I said. “Besides, my tiospaye is gone. Murdered over thirty
years ago by American soldiers. Dragoons they called themselves back then. I’m
a farmer, and that’s what they want us to be, isn’t it?”
Firm
Foot looked down his nose. “They’ll not make a dirt scratcher of me. I am a
warrior. The militia turned me into one the day they shot down Grass Dancer and
my sister on Trickling Water north of here.”
Crow
Hop nodded. “The white men are good at turning us into warriors. Not so good at
turning us into farmers.”
“I
have nothing except coffee and tea and water to drink, but you’re welcome to
that. I can probably find enough bread and cheese and jerky for a meal.”
He
accepted my offer. Fifteen minutes later, we all gathered on the porch, most of
my guests sitting on the planking to eat and sip and converse. After more talk,
it became clear they were on the hunt for provisions because allotments at the
agency were slow and often short. I offered one of my steers. Even though this
was why they had come, they remained seated. Lord, don’t let this turn into one
of those long, protracted things where it takes forever before a blood gets
around to talking turkey. Nature intervened to speed things along.
One
of the younger braves grunted and lifted his chin. Most of us were under the
cover of the porch and had to stand in the yard to see he was pointing to a sun
enveloped in a wispy purple hue.
“Witchcraft!”
someone muttered.
Crow
Hop nodded agreement. “A bad omen. Something’s gonna happen.”
I
spoke without thinking. “It already has.”
They
all turned in my direction. Then Crow Hop walked over and removed the hat from
my head. “Tell us what you know about these things, Night Sky Hair.”
Others
of the group muttered when they took in the strange peppering of yellow in my black
mop. Now that I’d stuck half a foot into the affair, I regretted it. The
reservation schools hadn’t been very successful if I understood correctly, so
most of these men probably had little formal education.
“I
know why the sun is playing tricks on us and the moon is changing and sunsets
look like prairie fires.”
“Pho!” Firm Foot exclaimed. “Tell us.”
“Far
beyond Turtle Island, so far that it is on the other side of Mother Earth,
there is an island the foreigners there call Krakatoa. During the last moon, a volcano
on the island blew up. You understand what a volcano is?”
“It’s
like the Yellowstone country where hot water shoots into the air and smelly mud
comes up out of holes.” This from the young brave who’d spotted the sun
changing colors.
“Yes,
like that, except it springs from a mountain and is many, many times more
powerful. It blew up—what they call an eruption—and threw most of the island
into the sea. The explosion spewed a thousand times more dirt into the air than
the Yellowstone geysers. And it changed everything.”
“How
so?” Crow Hop wanted to know.
“It
threw so much ash and pumice and smoke into the air that Father Sky waved it
away to keep from choking and sent it all around the earth. And that cloaked
the sun and covered the moon and infected the sunsets. We will see these things
for a long time.”
“How
do you know this?” Firm Foot asked in a rising voice.
“Medicine,”
Crow Hop said. “Can’t you see from his hair that he has medicine? My father
told me this man’s Spirit Dream foretells great joy and dancing and a bloody
slaughter. A battle we will not win.”
“And
the murder of a great man,” I said. “One of our own.”
Firm
Foot regarded me for a moment before stepping forward to finger my hair. With a
somber face, he announced that from this point on, I would be known as Medicine
Hair.
“You
misunderstand,” I said. “I learned all of this from the whites who have singing
wires that circle the world. You know that Mother Earth is round, don’t you?
Like a ball.”
Most
of them nodded, but some put a lie to the gesture with widened eyes.
Crow
Hop and Firm Foot put their heads together for a moment, and then Spotted
Panther’s son walked up to face me. “I do not trust anyone who claims to be a
medicine man. Better that he should demonstrate it and let me discover him as such.
I now understand why my world has changed, and it is you who have given me this
knowledge. It is as I said. You are Medicine Hair to me now.”
I
did not argue with my friends. After all, their perception of me did not rule
my life. I got aboard Arrow to go pick out a steer for them. Otherwise, Todoh
would have taken them on when they tried to claim one of his charges. He still
put up a fuss when a man dropped a loop over the animal I chose. Then moved by impulsive
generosity, I gave over a second steer to them. I had to coax Todoh into jumping
up in the saddle and holding him in my arms as they rode away. Else he would
have chased after them to reclaim his lost animals.
After
the riders passed virtually out of sight, I turned Arrow and pulled to a halt.
A man astride a long-maned pinto stood silently twenty yards away. The sixth
rider. I’d forgotten him. The hair on my neck rose, and the significance of
that imperfect horseshoe track I’d found on the backside of the hill struck me.
I eyed my empty saddle holster. My Henry still rested on the porch. I was
unarmed but for a knife.
“I
see you, War Eagle.” The man’s deep voice still disturbed me in my stones.
“And
I see you, Raven Strongbow.” This was the army scout who had denounced Matthew
and then disappeared. “We thought you were dead.”
Todoh
growled at my tone. I released him, and he went on alert as soon as his paws
hit the ground.
“Nay.
Not dead.”
“So
you ran off.”
He
rode closer with a half-smile on his handsome features. He looked little
different from the last time I’d seen him four years ago. “It seemed the thing
to do when your three messengers came for me,” he said.
“Crow
Johnson and the other two scouts?”
“They
always followed his lead. They made it plain it was worth my life to remain in
the barracks.”
“So
you proved you were a coward and ran away.”
His
expression did not change at my slur. “So, I was prudent and left. I knew I
would see you again one day. Just as I knew Red Star wouldn’t remain faithful.
That he’d throw you over for a woman or a boy. Where is he, by the way?”
“I
know nothing of Red Star, but Shambling Bear will be home soon. Our bond is strong.
We pledged ourselves before a council, so we’re married, Raven. Go away and
leave us alone.”
“How
often does he desert you to go to his other family?”
My
back puckered. I reached for the rifle that wasn’t there.
He
noticed and smiled again. “Don’t worry, I wish you no harm. But I still want
you, Eagle. I’m haunted by the memory of fucking you, feeling you respond to me.
I…”
I
kicked Arrow’s sides and sent him straight at the man. But Raven moved his pony
aside, and I rushed past, making straight for the cabin. When I arrived, my
Henry was no longer on the porch. He hadn’t stolen it, merely moved it inside
the door. His way of letting me know he’d violated my home…just as he’d
violated my body four years ago.
I snatched the weapon and rushed to the top of the hill behind the cabin, but he was already out of sight, following the trail laid down by his companions. I collapsed in the dirt and leaned against my rifle as tortured memories swamped me.
* * * *
Now we know how John got the name of Medicine hair. And we also know the handsome Cheyenne, Raven Strongbow, is back. That portends nothing but coming trouble.
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Mark
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