Conquering Horse (25 page)

Again the owl ahead hooted. Again the owl on the right answered.

“Ho,” he whispered to himself. “Both are false. A Pawnee
guard has seen me crawling and is whistling to warn his friend. It is perhaps one of Rough Arm’s soldiers.”

His eyes shone, brilliant. They seemed to be furnished with a light of their own to see things with.

Just ahead was a deep ditch, with a dirt embankment behind about hip high. He decided the first hooting guard was sitting behind it, watching where he lay.

He waited.

At last he saw a bump slowly rising on the embankment. It resembled a skunk coming at him with its tail raised. Gradually it formed into the roach of a Pawnee. He sat tense. He watched the head become a full man. The Pawnee slithered down the embankment, then through the ditch. After a moment the Pawnee came crawling across the bare ground, straight on. No Name waited. He could smell the Pawnee on the wind. He had not been near another man for some time and it surprised him to notice that the Pawnee’s smell was like an old wet moccasin held too close to a fire. He waited until the form was almost on him; then, sudden passionate hate rising out of the dark back of his head, he pounced, driving his knife deep in the Pawnee’s back. At the same time he slid his arm around the Pawnee’s neck to choke off a cry. There was a low groan, a straining of muscles against him, then the Pawnee lay limp in his arm. He counted coup on him with his bow, then scalped him. “I have overcome this one,” he said. It was his third kill and his first coup. He hid the scalp in his shirt.

He waited some more.

Presently the false owl on his right hooted a query.

He pinched his nose very tight and gave a soft low hoot in reply.

Again the false owl hooted a question, wonderingly.

Again he replied, soft, low. With all his mind he willed into his reply the thought that all was well, then willed the thought into the other Pawnee’s wondering mind.

There were no more hoots.

He crept on, toe down first, then the heel. His moccasins touched earth with the softness of a velvet paw. He snaked through the ditch, up and over the dirt embankment, and landed behind a dirt lodge. He smelled meat cooking, hides curing, kinnikinick drying. There was also the sacred smell of sage, the delicate incense of sweetgrass, the subtle perfumes of wild flowers. Stronger than them all was the stink of horse dung. The many smells made him homesick.

Leaf had told him that Sounds The Ground’s lodge was on the east side of the village. He would be able to tell it from the others by a peculiar vestibule, built higher than usual because Sounds The Ground was such a tall man. Also, Sounds The Ground’s war emblem, a stuffed wildcat’s tail, was usually flying high on a pole above his lodge.

No Name followed the embankment around the village. Crawling on hands and knees, he kept bumping into all sorts of castoff debris: old clay kettles, broken saddle frames, cracked marrow bones, discarded bows, imperfect arrow points, human dung, worn bone awls.

Twice, dogs smelled him. They growled; came toward him with ruffed necks; then, strangely, retreated.

“Ahh, they smell the scalp of the Pawnee in my shirt,” he whispered. “They know the Pawnee’s smell and are afraid he will beat them if they come too close.”

Just to make sure, when he next came upon some horse dung, he rubbed his clothes with it. The dung smell, along with the strong smell of his horse-gristle fetish, would help throw the dogs off even more.

At last, on the far side of the village, he found an earth lodge with a high vestibule. Looking up, he next spotted a wildcat tail fluffing against the stars. “Ae, I have found the lodge of Sounds The Ground. It is as Leaf told me.”

He sat on his heels, very still, wondering what to do next. It was almost midnight. The Pawnees were all asleep. He had left it to chance and a dark night to get himself, somehow,
into the presence of Sounds The Ground without being seen by the other Pawnees. He saw now how foolish this was, since a sleepy Sounds The Ground was as apt as any of the guards to kill him. Yet if he waited until morning some rambling nightwalker might spot him outside the high vestibule. Even the dogs, waking as they usually did twice a night to serenade the stars with their strange wild howling, might rove around a bit before settling down and so get wind of him.

Finally he decided to risk entering the lodge anyway. With guards out, and dogs to bark, the tall Pawnee chief would probably be as sound asleep as a beetle in milkweed down.

He was halfway down the dark vestibule, nose and eyes and ears alert, slow knee following cautious hand, when a large dog slowly raised its head and growled at him. He stopped dead in his tracks. With a great effort of will he refrained from gulping, then, after a moment, collecting his wits, he quietly backed out again.

Outside once more, looking up at the wildcat tail fluffing softly in the night breeze, he all of a sudden knew what to do. He scrambled up the roof of the dirt lodge, picking his way carefully through a cover of sparse grass and prickly bushes.

He found the square smokehole at the top and, sliding on his belly, looked in. Embers still glowed weakly below him in the dark interior. He could just make out the forms of Pawnees sleeping on rush mats: a long gaunt naked man whom he took to be Sounds The Ground, an old woman whom he guessed to be Shifting Wind, a middle-aged woman, and seven naked youngsters. Their heads clustered together resembled a bunch of fat purple grapes.

Again on impulse, boldly, drawing his knife, he slipped over the edge of the smokehole and dropped lightly to the floor below. His feet hit earth so softly beside the firepit that not a single sleeper stirred. He looked at each dusky face carefully, especially the stern sleeping face of Sounds The Ground, toyed with the thought of killing them all in their sleep, in revenge
for all they had done to Leaf as well as for a hundred other evil things done to the Yanktons, but then, remembering what he had come for, put the thought away. Instead, seeing some meat curing above him he cut himself a piece and settled down beside the fireplace. Some of the meat wasn’t done to suit him, so quite soberly he held it over the embers on a stick a while. Then, having eaten his fill, and taking a long drink from an earthen crock, he stretched himself out on the floor beside Sounds The Ground and calmly fell asleep.

He was the first to stir when dawn began to lighten the smokehole above. He sat up and had a look around at his strange new surroundings. His quick dark eyes took in everything; fire-pit scooped out of the earth a span wide and a hand deep, stake to one side serving as a crane for cooking, beaten floor dug out below ground level, narrow earth bench all around the wall. Narrowing his eyes, he also made out certain of the objects standing well back in the dusk: a drum, fur robes hung over a wooden frame, strings of red and blue and calico corn hanging from the ceiling, a warclub and spear and bow and quiver and decorated shield dangling from a tripod, pots of food, pestle and mortar, two saddles, fish nets, a bundle of eagle feathers. His roving eye next made out the family altar, an earthen bench projecting out a span or more from the wall directly across from the entrance. On it lay a sun-bleached buffalo skull, a painted ceremonial drum, four dance rattles, a triangular rush mat painted for ceremony, a sacred pipe. Above the altar on a wall of woven willow branches hung a sacred bundle. Sniffing, he noted that the dirt floor smelled different from the dirt floor at home. The Pawnee earth was richer, not unlike the smell of an open blister.

The left side of his face began to tingle. Turning, he found Sounds The Ground awake beside him and looking at him.

They stared at one another. And stared. They looked into each other’s eyes so long that wondering inquiry gradually became
a contest of will power to see who would give way first. Black hypnotic eye burned into black hypnotic eye.

All the while No Name quietly noted the other’s various features: the high noble forehead, the shaven head, the roach running back from the scalp lock, the strong chin, the wide mobile mouth, the handsome broad shoulders and long arms, the sun dance scars across the chest, and the marvelous phallus rivaling even that of a pony stallion. The tall Pawnee’s physique reminded No Name of his father’s well-preserved body. It came to some men, one here, one there, to keep their youth well into old age.

Light from above opened still more. Then, in the tight silence, a crumble of earth broke off the edge of the smokehole and fell into the firepit in front of them, raising a little puff of white ashes and gray smoke.

Both instantly glanced up at the smokehole, then down at the rising whitish gray puff, then at each other. And looking, both smiled. They understood each other. Sounds The Ground smiled because No Name had been so bold as to enter by way of the smokehole; No Name smiled because he knew Sounds The Ground admired him for it.

Sounds The Ground rose from his sleeping mat. Motioning for No Name to follow, Sounds The Ground crawled over to the firepit and sat down. He got out pipe and tobacco and lighted up with a coal. Again, as they paid their respects to the great directions and as they smoked together, pipe glowing in the gloom, they silently inspected each other, though this time in a more friendly manner.

No Name was privately very much pleased with himself. He had passed a certain test. He could at last look a tough grown man in the eye and hold up to him.

Smoke finished, Sounds The Ground next reached up and cut off two pieces of cured meat. He gave his guest the largest piece, motioned for him to eat up. His manners were exquisite. Only after he made certain his guest had a good start did he
begin to eat himself. Solemnly they chewed together, each still with a quiet wondering eye on the other. Halfway through both found the meat not quite to their taste, and both, quite soberly, got a stick and held it over the warm embers for more broiling. Then, having finished their portions exactly at the same time, Sounds The Ground reached in back of him and picked up a small earthen crock of water and held it out to his guest to help himself. No Name was still thirsty, but with fine delicacy took only four swallows, then poured a little over his hands and refreshed his fingers and face and passed the water back.

At last Sounds The Ground spoke up, in Sioux. “My son, what brings you here at this time? Who are you?”

“I am No Name, the son of Redbird, a Yankton Dakotah. I have come to pipe-dance the Pawnees.”

The moment they spoke, all the other sleepers in the lodge popped up from their mats, wide awake. The old woman, Shifting Wind, gave a loud gasp of astonishment when she saw No Name. She quickly put a hand to her old wrinkled mouth.

Sounds The Ground looked around mildly at her, said quietly, “Woman, where is my water for the morning washing? Neither my guest nor I have had sufficient with which to start the day. The crock was almost empty.”

Eyes wild, Shifting Wind turned to leave by way of the funnel door into the vestibule.

“Hold, woman!” Sounds The Ground said sternly. “There is enough water in the jars under the wall. We will announce that we have a stranger in our midst after we have had some warm soup.”

Shifting Wind did as she was told. She gestured for the other wife, somewhat younger and not as withered, to help her. Together the two women brought up more water, then some wood for the fire. They threw some meat in the pot and put out a loaf of cornbread.

The naked children, meanwhile, like a nestful of wildcat
kittens, stared at the intruder, their eyes alternately glowing and glittering from under mops of bushy tangled hair.

The meat soup was soon ready and the cornbread heated. “Here is something warm for you to eat,” Sounds The Ground said, giving No Name a horn spoon. “Eat this and may it give you great strength. Loa-ah.”

Again, after they had washed themselves, Sounds The Ground asked him, “My son, tell me, what brings you here at this time?” “I have been told that you know of a great wild stallion who lives on the wide prairies. I have come to catch the stallion.”

The eyes of Sounds The Ground opened with astonishment. “How could a Yankton know of the white stallion?”

“Leaf, my wife, told me you knew where he lived.”

Sounds The Ground stiffened slowly. “Leaf is your wife?” “Ho. These many days she has been heavy with my child.” “Leaf is still alive?”

“Ae. I found her buried in the sand beside a stream. She lies now hidden in a certain place waiting for me.”

“Ahh,” Sounds The Ground said low, “ah.”

Again Shifting Wind edged for the door. And once more Sounds The Ground stopped her with a stern word. “Hold, woman, where do you go?”

“But, my husband, he is a Sioux. I will run and tell Rough Arm. Perhaps this Sioux is an advance scout and many more are coming.”

“Stay beside me and attend to my wants. He is the son of Redbird who befriended me when I lived with them. I remember this youth well, though he does not remember me. He was a child playing with his father’s toes at the time.”

Shifting Wind turned on him with the fury of a wildcat. She snarled, “Arrh! I see that my husband has forgotten how the Sioux treated him, how the throat-cutters from the north regarded him as a miserable captive and made him do the work of a slave.”

“For a short time only.” Sounds The Ground looked at her
with firm unbending eye. “Redbird was gentle with me and I have not forgotten it. On a buffalo hunt once, when I was gored by a bull, my shadow soul almost parted from my body soul. But Redbird and his friends stood around me and prayed to their gods, and passed their hands over me, and at length I again breathed regularly.”

Shifting Wind’s eyes blazed. She raged, “You are a soft-hearted woman to welcome this snake of a Sioux into your lodge. That is what comes of smelling pretty flowers when alone, like some silly goose of a girl.”

All through the tirade both Sounds The Ground and No Name sat in grave dignity, their faces expressionless. A proud man considered it disgraceful to fight with a woman. Smoke slowly lifted off the firepit and lazily sought the hole in the roof.

Finally, seeing that everything she said to the two men was like rain off a well-greased tepee, Shifting Wind went over and spat No Name in the face. And to make sure she was thoroughly understood, she next spat her husband in the face.