Dakota Dream (3 page)

“I don't have any people,” I answered, “not if you mean family. That's a big part of what this is all about. I never knew my parents; I've spent my life in foster homes and group homes.”

“You live in one of these group homes now.” He didn't say it like a question, but I knew that's what it was.

“Yeah,” I said. “At least I did, up until three days ago. There's a housemother in charge, but she's a basic hairbag. I have a social worker I like better; she's real green, but she means well. I felt a little guilty taking off on her like I did, but I hope she'll understand—she knows how I'm always getting bounced around from one placement to another.”

The chief took one of his long pauses. He got a pipe out of his shirt pocket, packed it, and lit it. I wondered at first if it was willow bark he was smoking, but I could smell right away it was some kind of cherry tobacco. After he took several puffs, he said quietly, “Your love for the Dakota is plain. Is there something I can do for you?”

I couldn't see any reason to beat around the bush, not after I'd come this far and so much was on the line. I took a deep breath and said, “I want to live here on the reservation. As a matter of fact, I want to become a Dakota.”

He was still listening, so I went on: “The truth is, it's not just something I
want
. It's my destiny to become a Dakota.”

“Can you explain what you mean by destiny?” he wanted to know.

I said, “Your destiny is what you were meant for. You have to find a way to fulfill it or else you will live your life in frustration. The things that try and block you from your destiny you have to have the courage to ignore, and put yourself in a position to fulfill it. That's why I'm here.”

“And how did you learn this destiny?”

“The usual way,” I said. “I had a vision that came to me in a dream.”

“I would like to hear about the dream, if you don't mind,” said the chief.

“Of course.” I felt truly honored, the way he was treating me with such sincerity and respect. “I had the dream about a year ago. All the details were really crisp to me, like things in a photograph. In the dream, I was a Dakota warrior on horseback. It was in the middle of a winter night, the Moon of Popping Trees, one brave called it. I was one of twenty or thirty braves riding single file on a narrow path in a dense forest. It was a crystal-clear night of a million stars and a full moon, but the snow was deep, so our progress was slow.”

“All of you,” said Chief Bear-in-cave. “Where were you headed?”

“That's the worst part. We didn't know. We were retreating from a minor battle with soldiers at a place called Willow Creek. One of the Indians, whose name was High Horse, had a bullet lodged in his hip; every once in a while he would groan or cry out with pain.

“The winter had been tragic already and there was a lot of it left. The herds were gone, and cattle were scarce. The soldiers had forced us off our lands and out of our camps. Maybe we'd go to one of the settlements; all we knew for sure was, we were freezing and starving.”

The chief's eyes were half closed, but I knew he was hearing every word. I could have added more details, but it seemed better to keep my summary brief. He didn't seem ready to speak, so I wrapped it up: “My mind was one with the other warriors. It was wholesale despair; it was freezing, and starving, and defeat, and pain. But the thing that was worst of all was having no home to return to. The soldiers had taken everything, so there was no place left to call home. When I woke up, I understood my destiny. The reason I respected the Indians so much, and wanted to become one, was because I must have been a Plains Indian in a previous existence. When I fulfill my destiny to become a Dakota, it will just mean returning to my true nature.”

Then I stopped talking. My cards were on the table, as honest as I could be. I waited for the chief.

He finally said, “Thank you. It is good of you to share all of this.” Then he had to stop to relight his pipe. When he had it going, he said, “Now I have another question. What is it you admire most about the Dakota?”

I had to think a minute. If I tried to tell him everything I admired about Dakota ways, it would take too long; I needed to summarize the basics. “Belonging is important,” I said. “Real important. When I was talking to Donny Thunderbird, he told me about his relatives all over the reservation. He has cousins with no mother or father, but because they are members of the tribe, they will never be without a home. They will always belong to something.

“Also, the Dakota way is a way of harmony, especially harmony with nature. The buffalo kill is not just slaughtering some creature to eat. Somehow it seems like oneness, but I don't know if that's the best word for it. Black Elk said, ‘Is not the earth a mother and the sky a father?' Now I'm just rambling; my thoughts aren't really organized.”

“Your thoughts are good thoughts,” said the chief. He took another pause, and I could tell the wheels in his brain were really turning. Then he raised an index finger up next to his head and said, “I have a story.”

Chief Bear-in-cave told me the story of a brave named Two-Claw. When he was a young man, Two-Claw captured a bear and tamed it. He got it so tame that he turned it more or less into a household pet. After a long time passed, Two-Claw didn't want to be bothered with the bear anymore, and it was then that he realized his dilemma: He couldn't release the bear into the wilderness, because it wouldn't be able to survive on its own.

People in the tribe told Two-Claw that the only thing to do was kill the bear because it would be better off dead than living helpless in the wilderness. Two-Claw had a lot of honor; he understood the wisdom of this advice, and he cursed himself for playing a game that turned a bear into something unnatural. He told the people in his tribe that he was going to kill the bear, so he took it up into the hills.

When Two-Claw got high up in the hills and far away from anybody, he couldn't do it. He couldn't bring himself to kill the bear. So he hid the bear in this cave, where it would be safe. To keep it safe, he had to return quite often with food and to check for predators. He had to carry the burden of this chore for many years, because the bear was young, and he also had to carry a burden of extreme humility because his situation was a constant reminder of how he had meddled with the ways of nature.

When Chief Bear-in-cave was done with this story, he looked straight at me with his one good eye and said, “It's a lot like that when you're an Indian on a reservation.”

Well, I have a lot of appreciation for stories, and I felt honored that the chief took the time to tell me the Two-Claw adventure. But I wasn't sure I understood the underlying meaning of the story. Or maybe the truth was, with this sort of creeping disappointment I felt in the pit of my stomach, I understood better than I wanted to.

There wasn't time to think about it then. The chief got out of his chair and went into the den part of the trailer, where there were a whole lot of books in bookcases, all dusty and disorganized-looking.

When he came back to the table, he had an index card and a ballpoint pen. He said to me, “I don't think you want to give me the name of that housemother of yours, but please write down the name and address of that social worker.”

Naturally, this request didn't exactly make me comfortable. I had thought the chief and I were really into each other here. What was he going to do now, turn me in? While I was staring at the blank card, the chief was sitting down again.

“Are you going to call my social worker?” I asked.

He was smiling at me. “I don't know. I have to think a while, until I know the right thing.”

“I don't understand.”

He still had the smile. He still had both of his front teeth, but only one molar, as far as I could see. He said, “Dakota teaching says that if you have any wisdom, you know when it's time to do a thing. Even death; you know when it's time to go off for dying. So please write, and I will wait for wisdom.”

I decided all I could do was trust him. I had come this far, hadn't I? I wrote Barb's name and address on the card and I even added her phone number. I pushed the card across the table.

“Thank you,” said Chief Bear-in-cave. I watched him fold the card and put it in his shirt pocket, right behind his eyeglasses. Then he said, “Now I have a suggestion. I think it's time for your
hanblecheya.
”

This didn't sink in for a few moments, maybe because I was still thinking about the index card. Did he say
hanblecheya
?

The chief asked did I hear him.

“Yeah, I did. Sorry.”

“If you go on the
hanblecheya
with your heart and mind open, your direction will become clearer. Your wisdom will increase.”

He was talking about the sacred tradition of the vision quest. The
hanblecheya
meant four days and nights fasting in the wilderness, seeking enlightenment. I could hardly believe it. In the Dakota tradition, it was holy; the chief's offer meant respect and honor.

Chief Bear-in-cave asked me if I understood the tradition of the
hanblecheya.

“Of course,” I answered. “Maybe not every single detail.” I summarized quickly my knowledge of the vision quest tradition, and the chief was satisfied.

“
Hanblecheya
is hard,” warned the chief. “Very hard. Do you feel yourself ready?”

“When would I go?”

“Today.” He was looking at his watch. “Donny Thunderbird will be in charge of your preparations.”

“What do I do to get ready?” All of a sudden it seemed like things were going so fast.

The chief was on his feet. “Donny will guide you through your preparations. If you change your mind, if you decide not to go, there's no shame.”

We were shaking hands. Before I knew it, I was out the door, heading along the gravel path in the direction of the campground. My mind was spinning so fast, I didn't even notice my surroundings. I was a runaway with a stolen bike; there might be cops after me, but Chief Bear-in-cave was making me an offer of utmost respect. I had made the 800-mile journey of hardships, but now my destiny seemed at hand. The
hanblecheya
filled me with hope, but also with fear. Besides, there was the index card and the disappointing story of Two-Claw's tame bear. What about that?

There was too much to think about, so it seemed like a good idea to let the numbness take over. I listened to the gravel crunching beneath my feet.

When I got to the campground, I found Donny cleaning the shower house. As soon as I summed up my conversation with Chief Bear-in-cave, he nodded and said, “We need to get started with the preparations.”

I helped him load some trash bags into the bed of the pickup. He suggested we ought to move my bike to a safer place. “What if we take it up to the equipment shed?” he asked.

“That sounds like a good idea,” I said. “I'd feel better if it's not in the bushes.”

We muscled it up into the truck, and Donny got a good look at its run-down condition. “I'm surprised you got here on this thing,” he said.

“I didn't, remember? It broke down on the way. If you think it's bad now, you should've seen it before we worked on it.” But my mind wasn't really on the bike; I was still more or less numb from being on the threshold of an authentic
hanblecheya.

After we dumped the trash, we put the bike in a woodshed, next to a snowplow. The next thing I knew, we were back in the truck and heading up into the hills. Donny was maneuvering the truck at a fairly high speed on about the most primitive dirt and gravel road I'd ever seen.

He asked me if I was scared.

“I'm scared,” I said. “If I start now, when will I be finished?”

“This is Wednesday, and we should get you started by noon. You'll be finished at noon on Sunday.”

“Is it okay if I take my backpack?”

“Sure, you can take it. I'll fix you a canteen of water, too. Since the
hanblecheya
is a fast, you can't have any food, but you can have water. In the old days, you couldn't even have water, and some people actually died on their vision seek.”

We were gaining altitude. I don't know how many miles we were actually covering, probably not as many as it felt like, but we were a long way from anything that had to do with tourists. There were scattered clusters of pine forest, but mostly rocks and brush. I saw a few patches of puny-looking corn, maybe ankle high; in one of the patches, some women were hoeing.

“What if I chicken out?” I asked. I had to know.

“You thinking of backing out?”

“No, I mean what if I can't hack it? What if I give up after a day or two and quit?”

“There's no shame in that. It's not unusual.”

If you say so
, I thought to myself. We came to a plateau clearing, where there was a group of twenty or twenty-five tipis and a store that didn't look like a store; it looked like a small warehouse made of logs and mud.

Donny parked the truck and said with a big smile, “My hometown.”

If it was a town, it wasn't one that would show up on anybody's map. What it really was, was a trip back in time to another world. Donny spent a few minutes talking to some guys in front of the store. One of the men was Delbert Bear, but I didn't recognize the others. After that, Donny took me to a tipi that belonged to his older sister, Kaia, and her husband, Gilbert. Gilbert wasn't there because he was away on some highway construction job.

This was not a canvas tipi; it was made of real buffalo hides. It did have a couple of modern features, such as cots to sleep on, and instead of an ordinary fireplace in the center, it had a wood-burning stove, with an exhaust pipe that went straight up through the top. The water, which had to be fetched from a well, was stored in large metal army cans; I tried lifting a full one, but it felt like it weighed about a thousand pounds.