Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Spring comes and renews everything around, except my soul stays frozen. Squaws set up teepees with happy faces while little children run, playing games and teasing their fathers like they’re supposed to. Why did I think things would be any different? Hanska forgot Mika. Wakinyan forgot me. And the whole world forgot Paytah. Why did I ever think the world held some promise?

Chayton comes and sits next to me. He looks so well, and his chubby little boy climbs up his back by pulling his hair. “Ouch!” he yells playfully, and the boy scampers off, giggling. I resent anyone who has moved forward. Apawi also comes and sits by my side as I wonder what joke he’ll try to make of me.

I stay quiet as he talks to both of us, and I’m not listening. Chayton must have asked me a question since he repeats it again.

Apawi jumps in. “He doesn’t speak to anyone anymore.”

Chayton asks his question again, loud, as though I’m deaf, “Are you going to volunteer for the Sundance?”

Apawi slaps his knee, jumps up, but leans over Chayton’s shoulder and says, “Beware of the man who does not talk, and the dog that does not bark.”

He saunters off. I look back toward where he’s heading and see some of the warriors already begin to paint themselves since the dancers have already collapsed.

“I might,” I say, getting back to my thoughts.

“I am going to. If you are too, we better go now to prepare ourselves.”

He points to the feather men. One jumps up and down, getting ready. I think about the pain and strangely welcome it. I nod and head over to the paint jars, taking black instead of my usual red. I cover myself from head to toe in black, and I make a large red symbol of the white man. The crossed symbol that lured Wakinyan away from me. Chayton, seeing what I’ve painted, gives me a tired look. He finishes his yellow and blue marks and leads the way to line up in the sacred circle.

Weayaya appears surprised to see me at first but then squints, wondering if I’m ready. He passes to look Chayton up and down and then measures the rest of the warriors who I give no time to getting to know anymore. He walks a few steps away and chooses. Chayton and I are among those picked, and he whispers in my cutter’s ear, “Back cuts.”

I am glad.

They cut Chayton first, and he stands strong. Then I’m next. I brace for the pain of the cuts, but I’m surprised by how numb I am. When the cutter reaches in with his toggle to loosen the flesh, the burning is a great relief. I feel something for the first time in months, and I want to feel more. We all stand, waiting for the drums. Once they start, I close my eyes and walk as far as my rope will reach. I put my arms out and lean forward, allowing my skin to keep me flying. I feel every muscle tear, and the skin stretches like well-beaten deer skin until—snap—I fall to the ground. Many people cheer for me, and I get back up see that Chayton and all the rest still struggle. I walk to the river and dive in. My wounds sting at the cold. I’m not even afraid of the water any longer.

When you have nothing to lose, fear has no power.

I sit back on my knees in the sandy dirt on the river bottom and watch the warriors jump and twist over the heads of onlookers. How ridiculous it all looks. Mother comes to the river’s edge. “Come now, Kohana. I will clean your wounds.”

I know she sees me disappearing the same way I watched Paytah. I get up and follow her back to our teepee without another word.

I look up at the man on horseback. He smiles down at me from his large brown horse. His face is angular, with a large cleft in his chin that makes his beady eyes seem sharper. He kicks his horse with a loud, “He-yah!” and the horse leaps into the air off the cliff’s edge and then falls front feet forward.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

The next day, when I’m walking through camp, Hanska runs up to me, which he has not done for months. “Chayton has fallen ill.”

“Did he free himself last night?”

“Yes, he was the next to free himself after you, but a terrible infection has set in and not even Weayaya can bring his fever down.”

I go straight to the medicine lodge and pass Apawi, who stands in the center of a large gathering with a great kettle boiling away before him. I know immediately that he boils a dog, for the only thing higher than Weayaya’s medicine is the Heyota’s Cleansing Ceremony. I arrive just as Apawi furiously chews and rubs tapejuta all over his arms and hands. The drums get faster, and Apawi reaches up into the air and then plunges his bare arms into the scalding pot, pulling out the dog’s head, smiling as he holds it up for us all to see. He pulls the rest of the meat out and cuts it up into pieces, making a powerful medicine a Heyota only gives to the sick and the poor. Apawi goes to Chayton, who is lying on his buffalo blankets with sweat beading on his skin, and puts pieces of meat into his mouth. Chayton can’t chew, he is so weak. Apawi pulls the piece back out and stuffs it into his own mouth. He chants as he keeps chewing the piece, then bends down and feeds him from his mouth: the most sacred medicine someone can receive.

The next morning, a great lament can be heard. The old women of the village tell us all that Chayton is dead. The other camps pack up immediately, and no one speaks of the terrible omen a death at the Sundance means for us all. There will be no war, no raids, in the midst of such bad medicine. The crying goes on for days as his closest relatives cut themselves in anguish. Ponies are sacrificed in great number for Chayton’s burial rite as everyone desperately scrambles to sacrifice something to appease the Great Spirit.