A Whisper In The Wind (6 page)

Chapter Ten

The days that followed were filled with discovery
and excitement.

He had prayed for a vision, hoping for some blinding burst of knowledge that would better help him understand his heritage, some miracle that would enable him to fulfill his great-grandfather’s dying wish. And instead of a vision, he had been plunged into the past. Rather like asking for a glass of milk and being given the whole cow instead.

Be careful what you ask for, lest you get it.

But for now, he would change nothing. He embraced the Cheyenne lifestyle, eager to learn. And he gained a new appreciation for the Indian people. But best of all were the hours he spent with his great-grandfather.

Each day Michael vowed to tell Yellow Spotted Wolf who he was, but somehow he could never find the words. It was hard to listen to his great-grandfather talk about the future, about how good life would be when the whites were defeated and the land belonged to the People again.

“What if you could see into the future?” Michael asked Yellow Spotted Wolf one night.

Yellow Spotted Wolf shook his head. “I do not want to know what turns my path in life will take. I want to discover what lies ahead one step at a time, as
Maheo
intended. If there is happiness waiting, I will be glad, and if sorrow comes, I will mourn.”

“But what if you could know for certain what life held in store for you?” Michael argued. “What if you could know how long you would live, the girl you would marry?”

Yellow Spotted Wolf grunted softly. “I know what lies before me,” he said confidently. “I have received a vision from the Great Spirit and He has told me the path to follow. Life is not life without change, but I have been told that long life awaits me if I hold tight to the ways of the people.”

“But…”

Yellow Spotted Wolf silenced him with a gesture. “To know the future is to rob it of life. There would be no honor in battle, no risk, if I knew I could not be killed. There would be no excitement in courtship, no anticipation of acceptance or fear of rejection, if I knew who my mate would be. It is enough to know that the Great Spirit has promised me long life. I do not want to know how long.”

Michael nodded. Yellow Spotted Wolf was right, he mused, and wished that the knowledge of what the future held for his people did not weigh so heavily on his mind.

He had been in the Cheyenne camp a little over a week when some of the warriors began preparing to go in search of the buffalo. Mo’ohta-vo’nehe was in charge, so naturally Michael went along.

They left early in the morning, the medicine man’s blessing on the hunt, the warriors, and their horses still ringing in their ears. Michael carried a bow made of mulberry wood. A quiver containing a half-dozen arrows was slung over his left shoulder. The quiver was made of panther skin, the tail still attached. It was, he thought, a thing of beauty. No one had asked him if he knew how to use a bow; he was a Cheyenne, after all. It was assumed that he was a warrior, that he was familiar with weapons.

Mounted on the big bay he had stolen from Deadwood Gulch, he rode alongside Yellow Spotted Wolf, wondering what he’d do if he actually had to use the bow. Yellow Spotted Wolf had taught him to string a bow, how to hold an arrow, how to sight down the shaft. But Michael had been a boy then, and his bow had been more of a toy than a real weapon.

They rode all that morning, and as the hours passed, Michael felt himself growing more at ease on horseback. The bay had a smooth walk and a soft, responsive mouth. But then Mo’ohta-vo’nehe urged his horse into a trot, and Michael knew his horsemanship needed a lot of improvement before he could ride as well as his companions.

It was nearing noon when they spied a small herd of buffalo. Once, the herds had covered hundreds of miles. Yellow Spotted Wolf had told of a time when the huge animals covered the earth like a great shaggy brown blanket, when it had taken a warrior three days to ride around the Northern herd. But those days were gone. The whites had been slaughtering the buffalo for years, taking the hides and sometimes the tongues, and leaving thousands of tons of meat to rot in the sun. It was the loss of the buffalo as much as anything else that had forced the majority of the Indians onto reservations. The Indians depended on the buffalo for their very life; they could not survive without them.

He put the thought from his mind as he watched the warriors move into position. They moved like drifting shadows, making no sound to spook the herd. There was a soft, sibilant twang of bowstrings, the muted swish of feathered shafts, the solid smack of arrows penetrating tough, shaggy hides.

The bodies of some ten to fifteen of the huge, curly-haired animals littered the ground before the herd took flight.

It was amazing, Michael thought. One minute the buffalo were grazing peacefully, unconcerned by the sight of their fellows dropping to the ground all around them, and the next the herd was on the move. Heads lowered, tails lifted, the buffalo thundered across the plains, their cloven hooves stirring great clouds of yellow dust, their squeals and snorts filling the air.

He had never seen or heard anything like it. Like a runaway freight train, the herd raced away, the sound of their passing lingering in the air long after they were out of sight.

“We should have brought the women,” Mo’ohta-vo’nehe remarked as Michael rode up beside him.

Dismounting, Michael examined Mo’ohta-vo’nehe’s first kill, a huge, old buffalo bull.

“His hide will make a fine shield,” Mo’ohta-vo’nehe remarked.

Michael grinned in reply, then felt the vomit rise in his throat as Mo’ohta-vo’nehe slit the buffalo’s throat and lapped up a handful of steaming red blood.

The warriors laughed and called back and forth as they dined on fresh hearts and livers and sucked the marrow from the bones.

Michael shook his head as Yellow Spotted Wolf offered him a chunk of bloody buffalo heart.

The men worked hard for the next couple of hours. They skinned the buffalo, quartered the meat, and packed it in the hides, which were then placed on hastily made travois for the trip back to camp.

“You did not join in the hunt,” Yellow Spotted Wolf remarked as they rode back to the village.

“It has been many years since I used a bow,” Michael said. “I did not want to shame Mo’ohta-vo’nehe with my ignorance.”

“I will teach you,” Yellow Spotted Wolf offered.

Michael nodded, aware of the close bond that was being forged between them. He wondered if Yellow Spotted Wolf felt it too.

A shout went up as the hunters returned to the village. Women swarmed around the travois, their mouths watering as they began to divide the meat. There would be a feast that night, with singing and dancing as the People expressed their joy and gratitude to
Heammawihio.

Michael spent the rest of the day sitting in the shade, his gaze forever straying to where Winter Song and her mother were working side by side, scraping the hair from one of the buffalo hides that Winter Song’s father had brought home. The scent of roasting buffalo meat filled the air, as did the squeals and growls of the camp dogs as they fought over bones and scraps.

As dusk fell, the women fed their little ones and put them to bed, and then the men gathered in a circle, sitting on the ground or on blankets.

Before the feast began, a little from each kettle was offered to the spirits, the food being held up to the sky and then placed on the ground near the edge of the fire.

Michael’s mouth watered as the women began to serve up platters of steaks and ribs, wild vegetables and freshly picked berries. It was, he decided, the best meal he’d ever had, or perhaps it only seemed so because of Winter Song. He smiled at her as she served him a slice of succulent tenderloin, felt his heart beat fast when she smiled back at him, her dark eyes warm with affection and promise.

Later, after everyone had eaten their fill, the drumming began. The warriors who had participated in the hunt danced first, telling how they had tracked the buffalo, boasting of their daring as they stalked the herd, bragging about their kills.

The dancers were magnificent, Michael thought as he watched them. Paint streaked their faces, feathers adorned their long black hair, sweat glistened on their bodies as they danced around the fire. They were free men, free in a way that white men were never free. The Cheyenne owned little, and so they had no need for big houses or fancy apartments. They had no need for money, so they didn’t have to worry about jobs or making ends meet. They had no debts, no mortgages, no loan payments. Their religion was an integral part of their daily life, so they had no need for churches or temples. Their god was found in the mountains, in the grasses, in the rushing rivers and sun-kissed trees. They were not bound by the rules and restrictions of civilization, only by the ancient traditions of their fathers.

He watched as they danced and sang, the sights and sounds alien and yet familiar. The beat of the drum was the beat of his own heart, the soft, guttural sounds of his childhood tongue were like sweet music. The smell of smoke and pine and aromatic sage surrounded him like welcoming arms. But it was Winter Song who held his attention.

How beautiful she was! Her hair was as black as the night, her skin the color of the earth, her eyes as dark and fathomless as the sky. She wore a doeskin tunic the color of fresh cream, the texture of velvet. Soft moccasins beaded in red and yellow hugged her feet. A shell necklace circled her throat.

Someday, he vowed, she would be his.

He was becoming a warrior. Little by little, he was becoming a warrior. He sat with the men in the evening, listening to their tales of courage and bravery, hearing the names of chiefs he had read about in history books, caught up in battles that had been fought a hundred years before he had been born. He ate what the warriors ate—succulent tenderloin, roast buffalo hump, venison, elk, wild fruits and vegetables, jerky and pemmican, stews and broths and thick soups flavored with onions and sage and turnips. He dressed as they dressed, wearing only a clout and moccasins when it was warm, fringed leggings and a heavy buckskin shirt when it was cool. He played their games, slept in a hide lodge, smoked
na’koo’neeheso,
a mixture of dried leaves and bark. And he courted a Cheyenne maiden. To this end, he acquired a flute from a medicine man known for his power in affairs of the heart. It was a thing of beauty, his flute, made for the music of love. Its shape was that of a long-necked bird with an open beak, and he often played it outside Winter Song’s lodge in the dark of the night.

His chances to see her alone were rare. Often he rose early in the morning so he could meet her at the river when she went to draw water. But those moments were brief and the chance of discovery great.

Courting a white girl had been much easier, Michael mused. Alone, in the dark cocoon of a parked car, anything could happen, and often did. But he was rarely alone with Winter Song, for the Cheyenne held the chastity of their women in high regard. He thought often of coaxing her away from the village, but leaving the camp was risky. Alone in the tall grass there was always danger. You could be gored by a buffalo, attacked by a grizzly, killed by a band of marauding Pawnee or Crow, or captured by the
mila hanska,
the Long Knives.

But late at night he could let his emotions soar in the plaintive notes of his flute. Sitting in the dark outside Winter Song’s lodge, he let the soft, crying notes of the flute speak to her of the feelings in his heart, of his longing, of his loneliness.

Of course, he was not the only man courting Winter Song. She was a woman of rare beauty, a woman from a good family, one with pleasing manners. Many of the young warriors, and a few of the older ones, sought her hand, but her most persistent suitors were Michael and Two Ponies. Some nights there were as many as six or seven men gathered outside her lodge, each waiting for a chance to speak with Winter Song. There was much speculation in the camp as to whom she would eventually choose for her husband. Most of the people favored Two Ponies, for he had been courting her for almost two years, but a few of the more discerning women in the tribe shook their heads, declaring that Two Ponies had lost the race the day Wolf took up residence in the village.

When he was not courting Winter Song, Michael was practicing the skills necessary to be a warrior. He spent one whole day learning the proper way to take a scalp. Though scalps were not held in high regard by the Cheyenne, the taking of a scalp was something a warrior needed to know. Often scalps were used as emblems of victory, and it was a good thing to carry an enemy’s scalp back to camp to rejoice and dance over, although any part of an enemy’s body would serve just as well. Scalps were often used as trim for war clothing or fringe on shirts and leggings, or to tie to a horse’s bridle when going to war. Usually a scalp was only a little larger than a silver dollar, though on occasion the whole skin of the head was taken.

“Now you know how,” Yellow Spotted Wolf said after describing the procedure. “When you take your first scalp, you will receive instruction from my father on how the scalp should be handled.”

“What do you mean, handled?”

“Scalps must be stretched over a hoop, but before any work is done, my father will light his pipe and offer it to the earth and the sky, then the stem will be held toward the scalp and he will offer a prayer for further good fortune.