Conquering Horse (28 page)

He reached the river just as light began to open a filmy pink over the cliff. The river lay before him like polished slate. He looked up and down the running water, finally spotted what he was seeking, a patch of tall reeds growing in a still place. He
approached silently. It wasn’t until he was almost in the middle of the reeds that he saw them, ducklings, eyes winking in the half-dark, sitting very still, bobbing like gourds upon the water, all of them still too weak to fly. Suddenly the mother ducks quacked loud and angry. The mothers couldn’t rise out of the reeds. A month before they had plucked their wing feathers for nest-making. Chasing the little ones down, splashing through the quiet waters, he soon had a dozen in hand. He snapped off their heads, one by one, then picked them up by their slim orange legs and carried them back to the cave.

He found Leaf up. Her sleep-swollen eyes widened, then glowed, at the sight of the fat little ducklings.

He explained, “Sounds The Ground told us the name of this place was the River of Little Ducks. Ha-ho, I said to myself, it has been many moons since I brought home some ducklings for the pot. I will get some for my wife.”

“I will soon have them picked and roasted.”

“Good, my wife. I will sit and smoke until they are ready.”

After they had eaten heartily together, he picked up his bow and quiver. “I am going to look for the place where the wild stallion comes down to drink. Wait here.”

“There is much to do, my husband. Do not fear.”

To kill his scent, he went down to the river again and rinsed his hair thoroughly, and washed out his clout and moccasins in a harsh fashion, and then daubed himself from head to foot with smelly mud.

Satisfied that not even a wolf could have told the difference between him and a clod of earth, he waded downstream until he came upon another little trickle of water running down from the high ground on the south side. Following it with his eye, he saw that it issued from a cedar-filled ravine between the first and second bluff.

Then he saw it, a wide much-used trail in the grass next to the trickle of water. “Ho! Here are his tracks. I have come to the place at last.”

He studied the tracks a while from where he stood in the water. He tried to make out the trail beyond the cedars on the bluffs above, but couldn’t quite decide if it was hoof marks he saw or a strip of flowers.

He waded further downstream, well past the horse trail, then swung in and climbed the bank. He found some ragweeds with leaves as big as floppy dog ears. To make doubly sure of hiding his scent, he wrapped the leaves around his feet.

He climbed the steep incline of the third bluff. He went slowly, stopping every now and then to catch his breath and have a look around for a sign. As he climbed, the other two bluffs lifted with him, while the valley behind fell away.

He reached the top just as the sun exploded over the east horizon. The tops of the three fat bluffs shone a luminant green in its yellow light.

He stood very still for a time, admiring it all, examining it point for point. Turkeyfoot grass flourished underfoot. Occasional gopher holes opened into gray-yellow clay. A bumblebee crawled clumsily over a red-centered hard little daisy. A tall bull thistle stood nearby, pricked out like a tripod covered with spears. A brilliant green hummingbird hovered a beating moment over an orange globe mallow, then a silver cactus, then a blue spiderwort, then, in a blurr and a blink, was gone. Over it all whistled the cheery meadowlark, singing in what seemed perfect Sioux.

His eye caught sight of something ahead. Stepping up, he found where the grass was trampled down by a horse. Some of the hoof marks were fresh, made but the day before. He followed the tracks back a ways, finally made out that a single horse often came to the spot, stopped for a look around, then after stomping a bit, turned and went back. There were no droppings, no places where the horse had staled. It puzzled him.

He walked on, following the trail east.

Presently he began to see the three bluffs and the land around
them in a slightly different light. The three bluffs were actually a part of a long undulating hogback.

The ragweed leaves on his left foot worked loose and he stopped to rewind them.

Looking east again, he was startled to see the edge of the horizon, to the right just under the sun, unraveling off toward the south. At first he thought it a prairie fire racing before a wind. Yellow smoke seemed to be lofting high above. It took him a moment to realize that after the rain last night the prairie was hardly dry enough to burn.

Palm over his eyes, he tried to fix the edge of the horizon firmly in sight. The edge still shimmered unnaturally with seeming flame and smoke. He blinked. Cleared his eyes. Stared.

Gradually his eyes began to pick the racing edge apart, to see it in segments. It was a herd of some sort. Horses. The waving flamelike motion could come only from manes and tails flowing in the sunlight. Something had spooked the horses and they were running away in the morning sun. What had looked like smoke was actually dust rising from their beating hooves.

He leaped straight up in exultation. “It is the white stallion and his mares!”

He watched them go. They raced off far to the south like slowly vanishing heat waves. Yellow dust lingered high behind them.

He went back down the bluff. He removed the cocoon of ragweed leaves from his feet, also the moccasins, and waded into the river. He had a long drink, then climbed the north bank.

He found what he was looking for, a towering cottonwood standing directly across from the horse trail. The tree was an embattled old veteran, with one side dead and riven-white by lightning, and the other side thick with glittering green leaves. The tree would make a good lookout from which to watch the horses when they came down to drink. Also scent rarely sank to the ground.

With a run he climbed up its rough bark and caught hold of
the first branch. He heaved himself up. He scrambled up as high as the top branches would bear him. Near the top he found an arm-thick limb with some side branches. He flattened himself along it.

He waited.

Presently a gentle wind came out of the southeast. It streamed down off the bluffs and rippled across the river and tinkled the leaves around him. He thought this a good omen. Wind from that quarter would make it all the harder for the stallion to get scent of him.

The gentle wind rocked his limb. He rested. And resting, he fell asleep.

The sound of trampling thunder awoke him. He came to with such a start he almost fell out of the tree.

Peering through the leaves, he saw them, single white horses on each of the three fat bluffs, in bold relief against a pale blue sky. Behind them, farther back on the plateau, was the slow melee of manes and tails of still more horses.

His eye fastened on the dancing blur on the middle bluff. He blinked. The horse’s coat of hair was so dazzling white it hurt his eyes. “It is the sacred white stallion,” he whispered. He closed his eyes a moment, rubbing them. He broke out into a heavy sweat.

He looked again. The whiteness of the stallion still hurt his eyes. It was like staring at a glinting mound of pure white alkali under a pitiless desert sun. The whiteness of the stallion was exactly as radiant as the whiteness of his dream mare. And the stallion’s movements, like the dream mare’s, spread upon the immediate air a halo of glittering white motes.

The more he looked at the magnificent shining appearance on the middle bluff, the more he began to wonder if the gods had not made a mistake. The horse on the middle bluff was too wakan for him to catch. “He is not a true horse, but a ghost horse,” he whispered. “Perhaps he is a great mysterious one from
the world above, one of those grandfather Wondering Man sometimes spoke of.”

Trembling in awe, No Name touched his fetish. He tried to recall clearly the sweet winning talk of his dream mare. Surely she could not have meant this great, wild white one. This wild white one was too fearful and too terrible a being for a Yankton boy to catch. This white being could be Wakantanka himself. And who would be so foolish as to try and catch Wakantanka with a rawhide rope?

He lay trembling on the fat limb high in the cottonwood tree.

Then a winning voice spoke in his ear. “Do not be afraid. He is the one you seek. Hey-hey-hey. Are you not the one who overcame the flaming sky-horse beside the River of the Double Bend? Remember the little children who wait for you to return in glory!”

“It is my helper!” he whispered, touching his braid. “Now I know.”

Gradually, hardening himself to it, he overcame the weakness in his limbs. His hands steadied on the branches. His vision cleared. And by looking a little below and to one side of the stallion, he began to pick out its various points.

The white stallion stood with his pink ears shot forward. His mane and tail were as scarlet as the down of a woodpecker. When he moved, his mane flowed like a flame. His mane was very long, reaching almost to his knees, completely hiding one side of his high proud neck. His tail trailed over the grass like a leaping prairie fire.

No Name considered. If his dream mare spoke true, he would soon cut himself a new fetish from the red mane hanging down from the stallion’s broad forehead, that place of great thoughts. Ae, and the new protector would help make him a great leader of his people, would help him grow old without becoming feeble or racked with the pains of age, would enable him to desire maidens until the day he died.

The white stallion pranced on the bluff, tail an arching red
comet, mane a flashing cascade. The white stallion turned his wide brow first to the west, then to the east, then to where No Name lay hidden in the cottonwood.

Presently the stallion left his post and ran down the trail in the ravine and came toward the river. He ran with a scornful lofty mien, strongly, a fearless monarch. He smelled and tested the ground as he came on. He snuffed the river. He looked west. He looked north. He looked east. Then he turned and looked up the trail. He whinnied at the young white sentinel mare on the east bluff, received a certain neigh in reply. He whinnied in query at the young sentinel on the west bluff, again received a certain neigh in reply. Then he reared, high, pawing the air, mane and tail toothy saws of fire. He wheeled completely around and bugled a loud command. Instantly the melee of mane and tails further back on the bluffs parted and half of the bunch ran at an easy trot toward the cedar-filled ravine. A wise old buckskin mare loped at their head.

A couple of playful colts broke away. They whirled off to the right and climbed to the white stallion’s lookout. The white stallion spotted them instantly. In a flash he beat up the draw. With great pumping buttocks he mounted the middle bluff. He was suddenly upon the usurpers, showing vicious teeth to one, bumping the other with his bluff chest, driving them down to the rest of the band.

The lead mare trotted quietly on, leading the way under the cedars and then across the hard shale. In a moment the horses were all in the river, drinking, splashing, whinnying with joy.

No Name peered down at them. They were immediately below the old cottonwood. He counted twenty mares and fourteen colts. He was pleased to see the fine alert heads, the well-shaped bellies, the bluff shoulders and solid hips. He saw too the fine-boned yet strong legs, the quick small feet. But what pleased him especially was their coloring. Most were creams and paints. The special whiteness of the stallion was in every one of them. Ae, the white horse was truly a strong stud. He would breed many fine spotted
horses for the Yankton people. With his wakan blood in them, the Sioux horses would soon be invulnerable in battle.

Occasionally one or another of the horses would toss up his head with a wild and startled look. Mane erect, eyes blazing, nostrils distended, the horse would look to all sides for a time as if scenting danger. Then, reluctantly sure all was safe, the horse would go back to sipping water.

No Name lay enraptured on his high perch. He exulted in the wild free motions of the horses. Their whistling tails filled the air with sparks of light. Waves of glossy brilliance shimmered across their sleek coats.

At last they left off drinking and began to nip each other in play, splashing and squealing in the water. At that the old buckskin mare, having had her fill too, drove them out of the river and up the trail.

The while master stood above them on the middle bluff, watching them go by, one by one, as if reviewing a parade held especially for his benefit. When all were safely back on top of the plateau, he lifted himself on two feet and for a second time shrilled a signal. Another mare, a light gray with white feet, and heavy with foal, came out leading the second half of the bunch. The white stallion dashed up to her full of play, made as if to nip her in love. She accepted this token of affection placidly. White feet twinkling, she trotted dutifully down the shadowed ravine, the others following.

No Name decided the light gray mare was the stallion’s favorite wife, while the old wise buckskin was probably his mother and the two white sentinel mares his sisters. “Ae, with his many wives and relatives, he is like a true Yankton father.”

When the horses in the second group began to squeal and play in the water, they also were driven up the trail to the plateau above.

The white stallion whistled a third time. The white sentinels whistled a reply and ran back to where their bluffs joined the hogback and then, passing below the master, proceeded down
the trail and into the water. They quickly drank their fill, played a moment, then promptly returned to their positions on the bluffs. Only then, after all had been watered, did the white monarch trot down to get his drink.

Parting the leaves carefully, No Name stared down at the great horse directly below him. The whiteness of the horse, in contrast to the pale ocher waters of the river, now glowed more than it glinted. Head arched down, mane afire in the sunlight, tail slowly whistling back and forth at flies, the stallion drank in easy measured draughts. Water wrinkled in little eddies around each of his legs.