35
ON THE MORNING of the thirteenth sleep of sickness in the Lone Eater camp, Fools Crow and his father, Rides-at-the-door, walked through the village. They went from lodge to lodge and called to the people within. There were still many sick and dying, but the number of new victims had gone down. The rage of the white-scabs was subsiding. It seemed impossible that it would last such a short time and leave so many dead or scarred for life by the draining sores. Others were out walking listlessly in the warm sun or just sitting outside their lodges. There was none of the bustle that usually occurred on a morning of winter camp. The people did not greet each other. If they met on the path to the river, they would move off the path and circle warily until they were well beyond. If a child was caught playing with the children from a family hard hit by the bad spirit, he would be called inside and scolded. But it was one old woman, the only survivor of her lodge, who sat and wailed and dug at the frozen ground until her fingers were raw and bloody—it was this old woman who made the people realize the extent of their loss. Gradually they emerged from the deep void of sickness and death and saw that they had become a different people.
As Fools Crow and Rides-at-the-door continued their count, they passed the painted ermine lodge of Three Bears. Prairie Runner Woman knelt outside the entrance, her eyes closed, her face raised to the sun. Neither man spoke out in greeting, for she was still numb with the death of the old chief. Rides-at-the-door had been present when Three Bears died. During one of his last lucid moments, the old man had given Rides-at-the-door his red-stone pipe. In that way he chose the younger man as his successor. Young Bird Chief had died, so there would be no opposition.
“There are thirty-seven dead ones,” said Fools Crow.
“There will be more.” They were walking in the shadows of a grove of big-leaf trees. They stopped to watch a man leading two packhorses from camp. There were two robe-draped bundles across the horses’ backs. Rides-at-the-door pulled his capote tight around his neck. “The time before, the disease hit three different times. Just when it would appear to be over, a new wave of sickness would visit the people. I pray to the Above Ones that such a thing not occur again, but we must not allow ourselves to think we are out of it.”
“There are only five newly stricken.”
Rides-at-the-door grunted. After a time he said, “We must organize a hunt while some are still healthy. I’m afraid Cold Maker will visit any day and then it will go hard on us.”
“The blackhorns will be south of the Big River, maybe along the Yellow River, maybe farther south.” Fools Crow, even as he spoke, remembered the vision on the yellow skin, the vast plains empty of blackhorns. He had told his father and Three Bears—just before the old man got sick—of this vision, and of the others as well. After much deliberation, the two men had decided that the people should be kept ignorant of these designs until they grew stronger and were capable of deciding what should be done. But a feeling had been growing inside Fools Crow that there would be little deciding, that any decisions would be puny in the face of such powerful designs. He did not mention this feeling to his father.
“Go see the camp crier,” Rides-at-the-door was saying. “Tell him to announce a meeting of all the men’s societies for tonight. Our hunting parties will have a long way to go, and the sooner they start the better.”
As Fools Crow hurried off, he realized, that he was passing the lodge of Heavy Shield Woman. The only sign of activity was two dogs playing tug-of-war with a strip of deerskin. They were flattened almost to the ground and their low growling made a buffalo-runner, tethered in front of the next lodge, dance warily, his ears forward and eyes trained on the dogs.
Good Young Man had died the day after Fools Crow had performed his healing ritual. The convulsions had lasted a long time, and both Fools Crow and Heavy Shield Woman had breathed exhausted sighs when the end finally came. Fools Crow got directions from his mother-in-law and took the young body out to the quaking-leaf grove where Yellow Kidney rested. Heavy Shield Woman stayed behind to care for One Spot. And the boy survived. He came up out of his delirium and asked for soup. Because of his youth, he recovered rapidly. For the second time in three moons, he pulled back from the shadow of the Sand Hills. But he was changed, like all the Lone Eaters.
For two days Wind Maker howled from the north and kept the hunters in camp. The snow drifted into Two Medicine valley, until in some places it was as high as a man’s waist. It covered the debris of the camp and filled in the prints of man, dog and horse as soon as they were made. Soon, nothing moved and only the smoke from the tops of the lodges gave away the existence of life in the village.
Each day at midmorning Fools Crow made his round of the camp, taking count of the sickness. Two of the five newly afflicted had died, and there were three new cases, including one of Boss Ribs’ wives. She had been very active during the height of the plague, going from lodge to lodge, bathing the sick ones, feeding the others, caring for the children. Now she lay in her own robes, the disease sucking the life from her breast in spite of Boss Ribs’ desolate songs.
Fools Crow reported his findings to Rides-at-the-door, then returned to his lodge. He drank a cup of broth and watched Red Paint, who had been quiet for the last couple of sleeps. He thought it was because of the death of her brother, and he thought she would get over her sadness in time, maybe when the weather broke, when she could safely visit her mother’s lodge. But something about her made him think of Feather Woman and the way she looked that morning in the clearing, shoulders slumped, chin on her breast, oblivious to everything but her failed plea to Morning Star. Fools Crow picked up his many-shots gun and ran a greasy rag over the action. He had not shot it in a long time.
The third day dawned clear and cold. The sun was pale and high and the air was gray. The snow had ended and the hunters stood ready at the edge of camp. There were to be three groups of seven each. One group would go south, another southeast, and the third, of which Fools Crow was a member, would go directly east, following the course of the Two Medicine and Bear rivers until they reached the country between the Sweet Grass Hills and the Bear Paws. Although there would be hunters from other camps, maybe even from the Entrails People and the Cutthroats, the herd that often wintered there was large. The thought of encountering an enemy was almost welcome to the hunters after the ordeal within their own camp. They were mostly young and restless and, in spite of the intense cold, ready to risk anything out on the ground-of-many-gifts.
Fools Crow and the others made good time down the valley of the Two Medicine River. They kept to the open ground where the wind had scoured the snow away, and the packhorses drove easily before them. Sits-in-the-middle, who had a reputation as a good meat provider, led the party, and the others had great faith in his power to lead them to the blackhorns. By the time Sun was behind them, they had reached the confluence of the Two Medicine and Bear. They saw a winter camp and recognized it as that of the Hard Topknots. They drove the horses around the southern edge of the camp and Sits-in-the-middle and Fools Crow galloped over to the lodge of Crow Foot. Fools Crow rode apprehensively, several paces behind Sits-in-the-middle, for he remembered the design on the yellow skin. Again, he saw Little Bird Woman, Crow Foot’s daughter, lugging the bucket of guts from the agency compound. He shuddered as he thought that at one time she had been chosen to become his wife.
Crow Foot welcomed them but he did not offer them a smoke. Although he had not been affected by the white-scabs, the hunters were almost frightened to see how thin he had become. Then he began to talk of the empty lodges in his camp—over half of the Hard Topknots had been carried away. He spoke the names of the dead as though he had memorized them. He told of the suffering and the desertions and the falling apart of the band. He spoke rapidly and he signed as he talked, as he would to strangers. And then he stopped talking and stared out at the camp, as if in a trance. Fools Crow looked around and he didn’t see any of the Hard Topknots. This was unusual, for visitors brought the curious from their lodges to look, to laugh and point, to come join in the conversation. Now there was none of that. Not even dogs. The two hunters wished Crow Foot well and promised him meat on their return, but he didn’t seem to hear them. They left him there, still staring in disbelief at the quiet camp.
That night they made camp in a thicket of willows on the north side of the Bear River. They had seen no game all day and so they ate handfuls of pemmican before sleeping. Fools Crow awoke twice during the night to the howling of the little-wolves, and each time he felt the cold sense of dread that had accompanied him since the party left their camp. When he finally slept, he dreamed of enemies.
The hunting party was up and on the move long before daylight. If they pushed hard this day, they would be in the blackhorn country within two more sleeps. Fools Crow rode beside Sits-in-the-middle at the head of the small group. Behind them, the others drove the pack animals. After a long period of silence in which the only sound was the rubbing of cold leather and the steady clopping of the horses’ hooves, Fools Crow told the hunt leader of his dream of enemies. He had not seen them clearly in his dream, and in the darkness before dawn, the vision seemed less significant.
But Sits-in-the-middle listened and then he said, “This dream of yours does not make me happy. I am responsible for these young men and I must return them to their families. But the Lone Eaters need meat, that is our first concern, and so we must chance an encounter with our enemies.”
Fools Crow, glanced at Sits-in-the-middle. The light had increased enough so that he could see the dark frown on the hunt leader’s face. It was a round, almost puffy face. Many in the camp secretly ridiculed Sits-in-the-middle, for his mother was a Snake woman who had been captured by the Lone Eaters many winters ago. She had been a slave until the Pikuni Hears-in-the-wind took her as a wife. Sits-in-the-middle was her only offspring. Fools Crow felt pity for him, for he was barely listened to in councils and was deemed capable only of leading a small party of young hunters.
“Perhaps our enemies are also down with the white-scabs,” said Fools Crow. “My dream was less than clear. I do not attach much importance to it.”
By midmorning the sun was high to the southeast and the hunters stopped to stretch their bodies and to slap the circulation back into their calves and thighs and arms. Again they had seen no sign of game, but they hadn’t expected to. Because of the winter camps in the valley, the animals were scarce and moved only at night. After eating a handful of pemmican, Fools Crow mounted his black buffalo-runner. He felt the animal’s warmth beneath his thighs and was grateful for it. Although there was no wind, the air was as cold as it had been that winter. He pulled his robe up over his capote and sat, waiting for the others to finish their cold meal. He gazed absently down the valley.
At first he didn’t believe what he was seeing. He jumped up and stood on his horse’s back and he could see more clearly the patches of color beneath a cutbank far in the distance. It took a while to see their movement, but soon he saw that the patches were people, on foot, and they were coming toward the hunters.
“What is it you look at?” said Sits-in-the-middle. He began to hurry to a piece of higher ground. The others followed, suddenly alert and expectant.
“Human beings. On foot. They are coming our way.” He jumped down to the ground. He could only think of enemies. Only horse stealers traveled on foot in the winter.
After a quick look, Sits-in-the-middle ran down the small rise. The others followed, breathing hard, their excitement causing the horses to move restlessly. One of the pack animals began to whinny until a hunter reached him and clamped his hand over the muzzle.
“We must be ready,” said Sits-in-the-middle. “They are coming straight down the river beneath the cutbank.” There was no cover near, but the swale they were in hid them from view. The hunt leader instructed one of the young men to drive the pack animals back upstream and into a gully that opened out onto the river bottom.
Then the hunters waited, Fools Crow and Sits-in-the-middle lying below the lip of the rise. Both had repeating rifles, but the others had only bows. None of them had encountered an enemy before. Fools Crow looked back at them and they looked like prairie birds, crouched together, facing up at him. They are too young, he thought. If the raiders are experienced warriors it will go hard on us. He almost expressed his fear to Sits-in-the-middle, but as he looked down the valley at the approaching party, he felt his apprehension leave him.
“There are children among them,” he whispered. “Little ones. And some of them move slowly, like old people.” He lifted himself from the ground and knelt. “They carry nothing with them—no weapons.”
Soon the people were close enough for Fools Crow to count. There were three old people, two young women, a youth of twelve or thirteen winters and two children. One of the young women was limping badly. The other was helping her. They were Pikunis. Fools Crow recognized the wounded one—White Crane Woman, a member of Heavy Runner’s band. He looked downstream, in the direction the group had come from, but there were no others.
“Something has happened, something bad!” Fools Crow ran down the rise and threw himself on his horse. The others still crouched motionless, their mouths open like birds.