Authors: Don Coldsmith
W
ith the great success of the buffalo kill that fall came a change in the fortunes of the Southern band. Hump Ribs proved an able leader. By the time the band was ready to strike the lodges and move to winter camp, he had announced their destination. They would move almost directly south through the Tallgrass Hills, to camp on one of the clear streams in the region where the grassland meets the oaks. There the climate would be milder through the moons of winter. They could also camp among the scrub-oak thickets, which would cut the bite of Cold Maker’s icy breath.
The new chief’s confidence was a thing of wonder to some. It was as if he had been planning for most of his life what he would do if he ever became the band’s leader. The transition was accomplished far more smoothly than anyone could have foreseen, and without offense to any as far as could be seen. Of course, it is difficult to find fault when one is comfortable, well provisioned, and full-bellied, as the Southern band was.
Hump Ribs guided his band by a route past a village of Growers. They had traded there before. It was a great pleasure to have plenty of meat, pemmican, and robes to trade. Though the Growers had suffered from the poor season, they had an adequate crop of pumpkins and some corn. The People spent a few days there and moved on toward the oaks country. Weather continued to favor them. This was considered a good omen, and the new leader’s prestige increased.
Small Elk, now White Buffalo, had paid a courtesy call on the morning after the celebration. He offered his help to Hump Ribs and congratulations on his selection as chief.
Hump Ribs modestly stated that he would welcome the help of the new holy man.
“I am pleased for you, too, Elk… or White Buffalo. It was a good plan, yours of the hunt. The Moon of Hunger will not be so bad this year.”
“I was fortunate,” the other answered. “It could have gone badly.”
“Ah, but it did not, my friend. Your medicine is good, and you are skillful with it. I welcome your help. You will tell me, if you have things I should know?”
“Of course.”
They had not known each other well before but were already developing a mutual respect that would stand them in good stead in the years ahead.
The band did winter well. There were few problems and very little of the winter sickness that usually came with Cold Maker’s onslaught. One exception was White Buffalo the Elder. After giving his name away, it seemed that he also gave away his ambition. He was not as he had been earlier, during the deadly drought. Then he had seemed to shrink from lack of hope. Now it was as if he had completed a task. He was pleased and satisfied, and ready to relax with the pleasantries of a nap in the sun, a smoke with friends, and play with his granddaughter. He gave his son advice when asked but offered very little otherwise.
“I fear for him,” White Buffalo the Younger told his wife. “He has decided that his life is over.”
“Maybe,” Crow agreed, “but he seems happy. His thoughts are good.”
The old man continued to seem at peace with his world and pleased to give his responsibilities to others. They did not notice further deterioration as they had in the summer, but in the Moon of Long Nights, White Buffalo the Elder died quietly in his sleep. His passing was mourned by the entire band, for his medicine had been good. His burial scaffold was placed in a thicket of scrub oak, his head to the east, and his feet toward the grassland to the west, where the buffalo would pass in their spring migration.
“His work was finished,” Dove Woman said simply, after the period of mourning. “He knew it was time to cross over.”
There were many who admired the old medicine man’s
ability to do so. Not everyone is so fortunate as to choose the time of one’s crossing.
When White Buffalo unrolled the story-skin to record the events of the year, he was surprised to find new pictographs already there. In his father’s familiar style, hordes of buffalo poured over the cliff like a waterfall. Standing over them was the figure of a man clad in a calfskin, his arms raised to heaven. It was with something of a shock that he saw the identity mark, a white buffalo in a circle, connected to the figure. Tears came to his eyes. His father had realized the reluctance that young White Buffalo would have to depict himself in this, the first pictograph of his new office. The old man had done it for him, and in a very flattering way.
“What is it, my husband?” Crow Woman asked.
Wordlessly, he turned the skin to show her the picture. She smiled, then came to sit by him and leaned her shoulder against his.
“His gift to you,” she said. “Your father knew that you would not paint such a picture of yourself.”
Slowly, White Buffalo rerolled the skin, wrapped it, and tied the bundle. Once more, he realized how deeply perceptive his father had been. It was, somehow, like a message of comfort from the Other Side.
Dove Woman moved into the lodge of White Buffalo and Crow.
“I do not wish to be a burden,” she told her son’s wife. “This is your lodge.”
“Remember, Mother, I lived in your lodge at first, and you helped me much. I am proud to have you here.”
It was noted that Dove Woman and her husband had always been extremely devoted and close. She had been like a partner in her husband’s medicine. From time to time, he had seemed to confer part of his gift on Dove Woman, and she had performed many of the routine ceremonials. She was held in high regard in her own right. Now she seemed to have no direction. She was quiet and smiling, at peace with the world though obviously lonely. Early in the Moon of Awakening, she crossed over to rejoin her husband.
All of these events served to mark the beginning of a new era for the Southern band of the People. Supplies had been
more than sufficient for the winter, but the taste for dried meat, even pemmican, becomes jaded. There comes a craving for fresh meat, the flow of the life-giving juices that will nourish both body and soul.
There was another urge, less well defined. The wild geese still feel it today, the restless call that stirs in the subconscious, an instinct that tells them, “Go north…
now!”
The quiet echo of this primitive migration urge still sounds in the souls of men and women today. We may stand on a hill in the pale sun of late March or early April, and watch the long lines of geese high overhead. Their distant call seems to reach out in harmony with the human instinct, calling, tempting us to come, follow the trail of the geese to the north, to the unknown adventure and excitement of the new season.
It was so that year, in the Moon of Greening, when Hump Ribs and White Buffalo stood on the hilltop and watched the sky, dotted with the graceful figures of the great birds—moving, shifting in ever-changing patterns against the blue but always moving north.
“Are the signs good?” Hump Ribs asked.
“For the move? Any time now,” the medicine man answered.
“Then we move. We are a people of the grasslands. We should greet the return of the sun and the grass in the prairie, not here in the brushland.”
There was a sense of excitement in the air, a spirit of expectation, as the band broke winter camp to start north. The start was early, but Hump Ribs wished to leave the scrub-oak country and range out into the grassland in expectation of the buffalo herds. The move would also allow them to cover part of the distance to the site of the Sun Dance.
The Real-chief, Spotted Elk of the Northern band, had sent word that the Sun Dance would be held at Walnut Creek. That site had been selected but not used last season, in that terrible Year-of-No-Rain. The runner also said that the other bands had survived. Hardest hit was the Red Rocks band, which had suffered heavy losses from starvation in the Moon of Hunger. A number of the old members of that band had walked out into the teeth of a blizzard during the Moon of Snows. They had gone, singing the Death Song, as warriors into a hopeless battle. They fought
Cold Maker to the death for the lives of the children. In this way, there had been enough food, though just barely, to keep the Red Rocks alive until spring.
In the autumn, the Southern band had reported their good fortune in the hunt and the loss of their chief. Now, they sent word by Spotted Elk’s runner that they had wintered well and were en route to the Sun Dance and Big Council.
“We will stop to hunt, of course,” Hump Ribs explained, “but we will be partway there.”
The messenger laughed.
“You like the shelter of the scrub oak, but you miss the tallgrass prairie.”
“Of course,” Hump Ribs agreed. “That is why we wintered there.”
Their leisurely migration continued. Each day, White Buffalo went out to read the progress of the greening. Small sprigs of grass were beginning to sprout among the dead stems of last year’s disastrously short growth. He realized that as they traveled, the greening was moving north with them and at almost the same rate. There was little difference in the height of the sprigs of real-grass now, compared to that at the start of their journey. They would be able to choose the area of the spring hunt,
then
burn the grass and await the herds.
One bright spring morning as the band traveled, White Buffalo went out with one of the “wolves” to look for his signs of the season. It was an area of rolling hills, and they were out of sight of the moving column. The medicine man was kneeling to examine more closely a plant that was unfamiliar to him when he heard a startled exclamation from Woodpecker. He straightened to see three well-armed strangers only a short bowshot away. Their dress, hairstyle, and weapons marked them as Head Splitters.
White Buffalo had no weapon except for a knife, and the scout, though appropriately armed, was badly outnumbered. Nervously, he fitted an arrow to his bowstring. The enemy warriors seemed suspicious but approached in a circling fashion that gave a hint where their main party might be.
“Shall we fight or run?” young Woodpecker asked.
“Neither,” suggested White Buffalo. “These are their
wolves. They do not know where our party is, either. Let us talk to them.”
He made the sign of peace, right hand upraised with palm forward. The strangers seemed to relax a trifle, and one made the same signal in answer. They came a few steps closer, weapons still ready.
“Who are you?” the one who seemed to be the leader signed.
“I am White Buffalo, medicine man of the People.”
There was a hurried conversation among the Head Splitters. The power of a strange holy man was not to be trusted and might be dangerous, but the strangers apparently wondered if White Buffalo spoke truth.
“We do not believe you,” one signaled. “A medicine man would not be so stupid to be alone and unarmed, with only that one for protection.”
He pointed derisively at the sweating Woodpecker.
White Buffalo was thinking rapidly. Why not take advantage of the other’s doubt? He laughed aloud.
“You are the stupid one,” he signed, while Woodpecker gave a little gasp of despair. “My medicine is strong enough to protect us. Would I dare be here otherwise?”
There was another discussion.
“You lie!” the Head Splitter accused.
White Buffalo laughed again, hoping he did not sound as nervous as he felt. Slowly, he reached a hand into the medicine pouch at his waist.
“Shall I show you?” he asked.
“No! It will not be necessary,” the other replied quickly.
White Buffalo withdrew his hand from the pouch, empty. Now there was a slight exclamation of surprise from Woodpecker. Over the rise behind the Head Splitters strode a determined-looking warrior, then another. A couple of dogs ranged around them, sniffing curiously at new smells. Then came two women, leading a large dog that was harnessed to a poledrag. Immediately behind them straggled other people, dogs, and children. It was the main party of a traveling Head Splitter band.
For some reason, the three enemy scouts seemed not to notice. They were staring, absorbed by something behind White Buffalo and Woodpecker. The medicine man glanced over his shoulder. There, over the other ridge, came the People.
Both groups stopped and waited, discussing the situation among themselves. White Buffalo was greatly relieved, and it was obviously even more so with Woodpecker. Now two men detached themselves from the People’s group and made their way down the hill. White Buffalo recognized Hump Ribs and Short Bow, who had participated in many such meetings.
From the other hill came a large, heavy-set man with an equally large ax in his hand. His demeanor plainly marked him as the leader of this band. With him was a young man of wiry athletic build whose dark and shifty eyes caused more anxiety than the size of his leader. Here was an unpredictable, hence dangerous man.
Each of the approaching groups joined their own wolves and paused for formal conversation. The People’s representatives were still outnumbered, but it was no matter now; there would be no fight. Both groups on the opposing hilltops included women and children, the families of the envoys below. It would be too dangerous to fight.
“Greetings,” the big man signed. “How are you called?”
This would be a formal discussion, carried out under strict protocol.
“I am Hump Ribs, of the People,” the young man answered. “And you?”
“Bull’s Tail. How is it that I do not talk to your chief?”
The young man drew himself up proudly.
“You do so,” he signed. “Broken Horn is dead, killed in our most successful hunt, last autumn.”
Bull’s Tail laughed derisively.
“You lie. No one hunted well last season. I should not talk to you. I know that one, though.”
He pointed to Short Bow.
“Our chief speaks truth,” Short Bow signed. “The buffalo kill was great.”
The astonishment in the eyes of the Head Splitters was apparent. They must believe Short Bow who was known to them, but it was obvious that their own winter had not been good. White Buffalo now began to notice that their buckskins were tattered, dark with the smoke of many lodgefires. They had had a difficult year.
Apparently, Hump Ribs was noticing the same thing.
“We have plenty of supplies,” he signed. “May we give you some?”