Running Deer had been born in the year that the white man called eighteen hundred and sixty seven. He had been nine years old when his people wiped out the soldiers of Long Hair by the Greasy Grass River. That the white man spoke of as the Little Bighorn.
As a child he had known the excitement, heard the stories of the brave victory. He had seen the mighty war chief, Crazy Horse, as he rode back in triumph.
The drums of celebration and thanksgiving had beaten long into the night.
Since Running Deer had grown towards manhood there had been nothing to celebrate; no victories to feast, to recount in stories and song. When he had been nine years old he had been proud to be of the Oglala Sioux: now he was proud no longer.
He knew that a few of the young men of the tribe had broken from the reservation before the snows had melted from the hills. They had stolen ponies and ridden towards the north, towards the Badlands. Crooked Snake was one of them. He who had lain with Light-of-the-Stars under one blanket and whose child she now carried within her. Light-of-the-Stars was no older than himself. He had hoped, one day, to take ponies to her father and claim her. Many ponies, for she was beautiful.
But it was not to be.
Crooked Snake had taken her first and now he was no longer with her.
Light-of-the-Stars had left the reservation also, riding with Morning Cloud.
Not Running Deer. He had not gone with Crooked Snake and the other braves had thought him afraid. He had not gone with Morning Cloud and they had thought him even more afraid.
He was not afraid.
No.
Running Deer sat cross-legged on the ledge. It had taken him two days and nights to reach the mountain. He had run, slowly, always heading towards the setting sun, the mountain growing in his sight.
He had climbed high, almost to the highest crest, and taken his place. From there he could follow with his eyes the path of the sun, relentlessly, across the bright blue of the sky.
He was close to it, close enough to call it down.
Running Deer had not eaten since leaving the reservation; he knew that food would make his body impure during this time. He had drunk but little. In order to keep himself awake he had placed sharp stones between his toes and hard pebbles beneath his legs and buttocks. On the ground beside his right knee lay a bundle of sharp, thorned twigs tied together with a thin strip of hide. At intervals Running Deer lashed his body, drawing blood to the surface of his arms and chest, his legs and side. The marks were etched across his dark skin like some strange writing and Running Deer looked at it from time to time seeking for meaning.
But mostly he looked into the sun.
Stared into the raging heat of the ball of fire above him in the heavens.
His parched lips moved over and over but as yet no words would come; no pictures passed across his mind.
The sun’s rays burned his body, making the wounds on his flesh smart and sting.
His body swayed from side to side.
His head began to droop.
No!
He squeezed his toes together, forcing the sharp edges of stone through the already gouged skin.
Running Deer returned his eyes to the sun.
His eyes burned.
His head spun.
Still staring at the sun, Running Deer’s eyelids fell shut and a golden lake of fire swam over them, washing his eyes in liquid heat. His head seemed to float, expand. The gold upon his eyes darkened, became red.
Running Deer saw a field of grass and upon the grass blue bodies lay with severed limbs and gaping wounds that bled deep into the earth. The blood seeped down into the ground and as he watched. Running Deer saw the bodies of the men become buffalo. The beasts pushed themselves to their feet and began to thunder over the plain.
The sound of their hooves echoed and echoed around Running Deer’s brain until he thought his skull must burst.
But the sound faded and now there was an Indian riding through the field. The bodies were there again, bleeding and dead, and the Indian rode between them. In his right hand was an axe and the blade of the axe was bright with blood. In his left hand was a knife and the blade of the knife was bright with blood. He was a warrior with a round shield on his arm and at the center of that shield was fixed a single white feather. The white feather of an eagle. Purest white.
Running Deer looked at the face and saw that it was his own.
The face was proud, fierce, painted with jagged lines of white, red and black. His hair was scraped back and tied in a pigtail and from the pigtail hung another feather. The same. The white feather of an eagle.
Running Deer stared into the eyes and they stared back at him, burning, burning...
He slumped forwards, head and shoulders dropping against his thighs as his body slipped to the hard rock.
Running Deer lost consciousness.
When he awoke it was cold, it was night, and he knew that he was Running Deer no longer.
He had seen what he had come for. He had sought his vision and it had appeared. He had looked for the wisdom of the sun and it had been revealed to him.
No more Running Deer. Now he was White Eagle.
White Eagle waited patiently, watching while Red Oak selected from amongst the lengths of cherry and juneberry which he kept in a bundle and wrapped around with hide. The shoots had already been cut to length and now that they were seasoned Red Oak could apply his craft. Of all those arrow-makers among the Oglala Sioux he was the finest. Had he not made arrows for Crazy Horse at the battle with Long Hair?
Red Oak’s hands were bent inwards with rheumatism and their knuckles swollen to twice, their proper size. He worked slowly and with considerable pain. But his workmanship was still beyond question.
‘Hold these tight together.’
Red Oak gave White Eagle two pieces of sandstone. When they were held against each other a small hole showed at the center. Through this hole Red Oak pushed and pulled the shoots of wood, smoothing it down until it was silken to the touch.
Then he looked along each one and picked up a bone tool with a hole set in it; gradually he corrected the line of the arrow until it was perfectly straight. Red Oak’s hands had suffered with age, but not his eye.
‘There,’ he said, pointing.
White Eagle unwrapped the piece of sharpened flint from its leather covering and passed it to the old man. Red Oak used the flint to cut lightning lines down the shafts of the arrows. They would keep the wood from curving; help it to fly like lightning to its target.
Red Oak cut a cleft at either end of the arrows.
The arrowheads were kept in a doeskin pouch, the sides of which were decorated with blue and green beading. Red Oak unfastened the leather around the top of the pouch and let the beads fall out on to the ground.
Some were of flint but most were of metal—iron arrowheads fashioned and sharpened with infinite care.
It was for White Eagle to choose which he wanted.
Red Oak would once have heated the glue made from buffalo hooves in a container which had been cut from the lining of a buffalo’s stomach. Now he used a tin pan purchased from a white trader.
The arrowheads were fitted into the clefts and glued, then bound round tight with thin strips of hide. Into the opposite end, Red Oak fastened three buzzard feathers.
White Eagle stared at the finished arrows with a sense of expectation and excitement.
‘You have a bow for me,’ he said. It was not a question.
Red Oak stared at the young brave’s face for several minutes, as if deciding. Then he clambered to his feet and fetched a length of patterned blanket. He unrolled the blanket and exposed a bow case made from light buckskin. Attached to the case was a quiver of the same material.
Quiver and case were decorated with white and red beads in the shape of stars; fringes of leather had become folded into one another at the ends.
Red Oak drew the ash bow from the case and held it out in front of the young brave.
‘In the fight against the Long Knives. With Crazy Horse as War Chief. This was used many times. Also before. But never since that day.’
White Eagle took it from his swollen hands. ‘It shall be used again.’
Red Oak nodded but there was no joy in his face. He took the bow and strung it with a pair of buffalo sinews which had been twisted tight together. White Eagle took the bow back from him and fitted one of the new arrows into place.
It felt perfect, different from any time that he had held a bow before.
‘You must use these arrows with wisdom,’ counseled Red Oak.
White Eagle nodded. ‘It shall be so. I have seen what I must do in the sun. It is not the way of Crooked Snake who hides in the dry hills to the north and does not come out. It is not the way of Morning Cloud who is old and feeble and who leads his people nowhere and will not fight. It is the way of White Eagle who will destroy the white man and drive him from our lands so that we may ride as a free people once more.’
‘You will take our young men with you?’ asked Red Oak.
‘Yes.’
‘And if they will not listen and follow?’
‘They will listen for I have looked into the sun and seen the truth. Even Crooked Snake may ride down from the hills and join our fight. Even Morning Cloud.’
He threw out his strong, young chest.
‘I have looked into the sun.’
There was one more thing White Eagle had to do and he had to prepare for it well. He watched the flames as they licked about the stones, red flickering to yellow and back again. When the stones were truly hot, he stood and removed his breech cloth. Now he was naked.
White Eagle poured water on to the stones and they hissed and sizzled and threw up clouds of almost scalding steam. He stepped over the stones, washing his body clean in the steam, purifying himself.
When that was done, he lifted the elkhorn container and poured grease over his shoulders, on to his back and chest, his thighs and hands. He rubbed the grease carefully into the skin, missing no section of his body, making it so smooth that it shone and glistened.
He dressed himself again in a plain breech cloth and moccasins. Slowly he unrolled the shirt. Only now could he wear it and when he did his people would know what he had done. They would understand and they would listen: believe.
The buckskin of the shirt was dyed scarlet and at the bottom there was the curve of yellow that showed the rising sun.
White Eagle took up his bow and quiver of new arrows and began his journey to the west, following the waters of the river that the white man called Grand. He knew that he must travel until he was within sight of the mountains once more, then wait.
He did all these things because they had been part of his vision and there was nothing else that he could do.
He waited for so long that he thought the muscles of his body would cease to obey his commands. But finally it was there. He heard its jagged cry before he saw it. Looked then in wonder at the bulk and ugliness of its beauty. Strength. Freedom. Power.
White Eagle slotted the first-chosen of his arrows into the bow and lifted it towards the sky, watching the white tail feathers as the huge bird soared above him.
With a sudden pain in his heart White Eagle heard the ‘kri, kri, kri’ of its call as he pulled the arrow back against his shoulder.