Bill Dugan_War Chiefs 03
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Authors: Sitting Bull
War Chiefs
BILL DUGAN
Chapter 1
Many Caches, Missouri River Basin
1831
T
HE BABY WAS STRAPPED
to his cradleboard, his arms free to waggle in the air like feathers in the wind. The tipi was tall, so tall that its top was lost in shadows, even when the bottom was rolled to let in the warm breeze in summer. His birth name was Jumping Badger, but everyone knew that the name was only temporary. When he grew older and went off for his vision quest, he might come back with a new name from
Wakantanka,
the Great Mystery. Or perhaps he would do something great in battle against the Crows or the Hidatsa or the Assiniboin, and he would take a new name to celebrate his exploits. But for now, Jumping Badger would do.
The baby’s father, Sitting Bull, had taken his own name from an apparition, not on a vision quest, but on a hunting expedition. Gazing at the new addition to his family, Sitting Bull remembered the occasion as vividly as if it had just
happened that morning. It is not often that holy things happen, even to a holy man like Sitting Bull, but there was no doubt in his mind that what had happened had been a sign. Even a man who believed in nothing would have been impressed by the visitation. And a man like Sitting Bull, who at that time was known as Returns Again, was no ordinary man. He came from a long line of warriors who were also holy men, and was schooled in their ways. He took both medicine and the warpath seriously. He was called Returns Again in those days because he was fearless in battle, never content with making a single pass at the enemy, but coming back again and again until the battle was won.
Thinking back on that night, he still felt chills, the hair on the back of his neck prickling as if some invisible hand whipped him with a pine branch, the needles stabbing into the skin with every blow. It had started as an ordinary hunting expedition. But after three days on the plains, with just a single buffalo to show for their efforts, he and the other three warriors had camped for the night.
They had known even before the sun went down that they were in for some heavy weather. The clouds had thickened, catching fire, then swirling in dark masses, as if they were tumbling in a torrent, the sky all but disappearing. The four men huddled around a fire when the cold wind came and slashing rain hissed through the trees like angry snakes. Everything had changed. It was dark … darker than usual. There were no stars to be seen because the clouds were so thick and black, hanging just above the tops of the trees.
Returns Again knew enough about the hostile world of the plains to know that they were in for a bad night. And there was just the hint of something ominous in the sky, as if it were preparing itself for something.
Despite the risk of discovery, they had built a fire. It was better to be warm in the sudden biting cold than to worry about enemy warriors who, if they had any sense at all, would be huddled around their own fire, if they were unlucky enough to be away from their own tipis on such a night.
Returns Again fell into a fitful sleep, huddled in a buffalo robe spread on the ground. He was as close to the fire as he dared to be, close enough that he could smell the steam rising from the rain-soaked fur of the buffalo skin. They were camped beside a creek, farther away from the bank than usual because the waters might rise if it continued to rain. In the darkness, the sound of the rushing current drowned out everything but the wind in the trees that rattled the brittle cottonwood leaves, already losing their green with the advancing autumn.
Gray Horse sat up to keep watch, his back against a tree, while the others tried to sleep. But the weather was so much on their minds, so insistent in its ferocity, that sleeping was difficult. The night wore on, and the rain continued.
It was just an hour or two before dawn when Returns Again sat up. He had heard something in the distance, out on the open plains … an indistinct sound, possibly the hooves of a horse pounding the sodden earth, or maybe a buffalo. He got to
his feet, careful to fold the buffalo robe to keep it dry, and took his bow in hand. Slipping the quiver over his shoulder, he left the campfire and went to find Gray Horse. He found him slumped against the cottonwood trunk, wrapped in a robe, so still he might have been dead … had it not been for the sibilant shudder of a snore, he would have thought so.
For a moment, Returns Again thought about waking his comrades, but the sound out on the plains was not threatening, just mysterious. He moved further away from the fire, now little more than glowing embers that hissed now and then as wind-blown water spattered the cherry coals, darkening them as curls of steam rose up to mingle with the rain.
He stood quietly, not sure what it was he was listening for. He was sure only that he had heard something. He listened for several minutes but heard nothing more. Only when he had decided to turn back did it come again, the thud of an uncertain hoof on the long grass. Squinting through the rain in the direction of the sound, he saw nothing. He was about to move toward it when he heard a sound behind him and turned to see Gray Horse, bow in hand, an arrow notched but not drawn.
“What is it?” Gray Horse asked.
Returns Again shook his head, then held a finger to his lips. He pointed into the night, and Gray Horse leaned forward to peer through the darkness. But he saw no more than Returns Again had.
Then came the thud of another hoof, then another, then a third. It sounded as if whatever it was was
coming closer. It could be a scout from a band of Crows, or maybe a Shoshone. It could be a hunter, lost in the storm, groping his way home. Maybe an elk or a buffalo. It was heavy, not a deer or a pronghorn. Either a horse carrying a man or a full-grown buffalo, Returns Again decided.
Gray Horse leaned close enough to whisper, “We should wake the others.”
Returns Again shook his head impatiently. “Did you hear it?”
Gray Horse nodded.
“What was it?” Returns Again asked.
“I don’t know. But I think we should wake the others. I don’t like the sound of it.”
“Go ahead, then.”
“Wait here until I get back.”
But Returns Again was in no mood to wait. As soon as Gray Horse vanished in the darkness, he started to move away from the trees and underbrush. He could still hear the creek burbling behind him, but the noise of the hooves was more insistent now, and closer.
He looked up at the sky, thinking there might be a break in the clouds, maybe a little moonlight to let him see more easily. But the mass of clouds was unbroken, like a ceiling of slate stretching to all four corners of the earth. He moved into the tall grass, feeling the resistance of the water-soaked blades against his leggings. Despite the chill, he wore no shirt, and the rain pelted his skin now like icy needles.
The wind whispered through the trees and moaned back from the darkness. He moved cautiously until
he was fifty or sixty yards away from the brush, but still saw nothing. The sound of the hooves had stopped now, and Returns Again was baffled. He listened for several moments, then turned back toward the campsite. He encountered Gray Horse on the way back and told him that the sound had stopped and that they might as well go back to sleep. “It will be morning soon, and maybe we will see what it was when the sun comes up.”
Gray Horse seemed uncertain, but Returns Again knew things other men didn’t, and Gray Horse decided that he might as well take the suggestion. When Returns Again reached camp, he threw a couple of pieces of wood on the fire. Even though they had tried to protect it from the weather, the wood was damp, and for a few moments it hissed and sputtered as the water boiled off. Then the bark caught and light flared up, widening the circle of comfort among the trees.
Gray Horse lay down wearily, curling up as if to sleep, but no sooner had he closed his eyes than the sound of hooves could be heard again. This time the noise was loud and steady. Accompanying the thud of hooves was another sound, almost like water running, but not quite. It sounded a bit like an old man talking in his sleep, but not quite that, either.
The four Lakota warriors, their bows gripped tightly, arrows ready, moved away from the firelight and pressed in among the trees. Suddenly, so suddenly it seemed almost as if it had not walked but just appeared, a huge buffalo bull stood in the circle of light. The thudding of hooves stopped, but
the other sound, now like someone muttering, continued. It was babble, the kind of noise a crazy man makes when he thinks no one is listening.
Gray Horse drew his arrow all the way to the fletching, but before he could let it loose, Returns Again stopped him. “Wait!” he hissed. “Listen!”
Gray Horse looked at him as if he had said something crazy, but he relaxed the tension on his bowstring, still keeping the arrow notched, ready to draw it full and loose it in a split second.
“That buffalo is medicine,” Returns Again whispered. “He is talking to us.”
Gray Horse was not convinced. But he knew Returns Again understood medicine, knew that he was
wichasa wakan,
a holy man, a man who understood the spirit world. Returns Again had had visions and dreams, and he could tell the future that no man had yet seen. If he said the buffalo bull was talking to them, then they had better listen.
The four warriors stood as if frozen, listening to the strange mutter, trying desperately to understand it. It might be the buffalo god talking, and ignoring it might be dangerous. But try as they might, they could not interpret the sound. Gray Horse was getting impatient, but as soon as he made a move, Returns Again held up a hand. In the firelight, the great bull looked as if it were made of metal, not quite gold, but not quite flesh and fur, either.
The flames flickered, casting waves of highlights on the animal’s thick hide. The dark eyes of the huge beast glistened, and its heavy head swung back and forth, the sharp horns reflecting fire and
winking out, then bursting into flame again. The bull was making the same sounds over and over again, as if repeating a message in annoyance, one that should have been simple and easily understood. The sounds grew more strident, as if the bull—or the buffalo god himself—were frustrated by the thick-skulled dimwits he confronted.
Finally, Returns Again raised a hand and looked at the sky. “I understand,” he whispered. “I know what he is saying.”
He leaned closer, as if to make sure, and the bull went through the same strange muttering once more. Then it turned and disappeared as suddenly as it had come. For a few moments, they could hear its snort and the drumming of its hooves in the darkness, then the hiss of rain washed the echoes away and there was nothing but the wind again.
“What did he say?” Gray Horse asked.
At first, Returns Again didn’t answer. It seemed almost as if he hadn’t heard the question at all. But finally he walked to the fire and sat down. Without looking at Gray Horse, he said, “The buffalo was talking about the four ages, childhood, youth, maturity, and old age—Sitting Bull, Jumping Bull, Bull-Standing-with-Cow, and Lone Bull.”