XXVII XXVII The wind had sharpened, shifting eastward in the night, and now it filled the dull gray morning with the prickling smell of snow. When I arrived, Eagle Voice was up and eager to continue, beginning where he had ceased the day before, as though there had been no interruption.
“Dho,” he said when I had placed a cottonwood chunk in the stove, “it is a road that leads across the world.
“After Against the Clouds and his woman came and took her home to the world of spirit the land was strange again. Sometimes I rode all day, but there was nothing. Everywhere the valleys were empty, and if I stopped to listen, they would be listening too. The hills looked, and did not know me. Sometimes I thought I would go back home; but there was no home yonder. Sometimes I thought I would ride down to see the Rosebud and the Greasy Grass again, and maybe I would go over to the Little Piney country where my father’s scaffold stood. Then I would think maybe there would be many Wasichus yonder, too many to kill. Or if there were no Wasichus, the valleys would be empty and I would be a stranger and the hills would stare. The bones of my father would be scattered and the blowing of the wind would be like mourning. So I did not go.
“The snow came and fell deep.
“Dreams came to me when I slept, and when I sat alone beside my fire and the wind whipped the smoke-flap, dreams came to me awake. Sometimes I would be sitting there looking at the fire, and she would be sitting yonder across the fire, maybe sewing quills and beads on a moccasin. Then I would look, and there would be nothing I could see; but when I looked away she would be there again sewing by the fire.
“I hunted much and got fresh meat for my grandparents and other old people. Often people invited me to come and eat with them, and there would be stories, so that I would be back in the good days awhile. But I liked to be alone too. I wondered much about the great water reaching to the sunrise and the strange people in a far land and the little girl crying far away. Maybe the little girl was Tashina when I was a little boy. But I was a man, and how could she grease my feet?
“One night when the winter was old, Plenty White Cows came while I slept, and I saw her clear. She was standing by the plum brush, and she was smiling at me. Plums were red in the thicket and there were some in a fold of her blanket. She smiled at me and said, ‘Shonka’ kan, you made me proud.’ Then I saw that it was not Plenty White Cows standing there. It was Tashina. And just as I knew her, horses snorted and broke sharp wind. Then there was only starlight and a voice that said, ‘Hold fast, there is more.’ And I was awake in the dark and the wind was whipping the smoke-flap.”
The old man paused, fumbling in his long tobacco pouch. After a leisurely tamping of the pipe, he lit it, passed it to me and sat gazing at the ground. When it seemed that he had lost me in his meditation, I prompted him, ‘And the long road, Grandfather?’
“Ah,” he said, his gaze slowly focusing upon me; “the long road. I started south before the young grasses appeared, going to see my people, the Oglalas, again. Maybe there would be soldiers, so I rode nights, slept days. No soldiers. I saw the new iron road [Northern Pacific] that the Wasichus had made, and for a while I was afraid to cross it My horse was afraid too; but we crossed it on the run. I was hiding when the great iron horse went by snorting smoke and pulling many big wagons. I rode down across the flat-lands, past the White Buttes and Bear Butte and Pa Sapa.
“When I came to Smoky Earth [White] River, my mind was forked. Maybe I would go over to the Miniconjous on the South Fork; maybe I would go to the Oglalas on White Earth Creek. I went to the Miniconjous, and I was a stranger. People were talking about the Wanekia [the Messiah] who was coming soon, they said. He was coming from where the sun goes down, and all the Wasichus would disappear like smoke when he came; and there would be a new heaven and a new earth for Lakotas. I did not believe it. I thought they were all witko.”
“And Tashina Wanblee, Grandfather,” I urged when he had been silent overlong. “Surely you went there to see her.”
“She was not there,” he said in a matter-of-fact manner, fixing his crinkled look upon me. ‘Too many snows and grasses. She had a Hunk-papa man. Living up on Grand River with Sitting Bull’s people; five shows ago, they told me.
“I came to the Oglalas here on White Earth Creek, and I was a stranger, at first, for I was not a young man any more, and they did not know me. It was not good. Red Cloud living in a square Wasichu tepee made of wood. Akichita wearing the blue coats of the Wasichu. All the people waiting for Wasichu food, like hungry dogs, and talking about the Wanekia. Some said he was coming right away, like a whirlwind across the prairie. No more Wasichus. The good days coming back and all the buffalo. I did not believe it. I thought they were all witko. There was a big ache in my breast and I wanted to go back to Grandmother’s Land; but when I thought I would go, the ache got bigger. Then Pahuska came. You know Pahuska?”
“Everybody knew him, Grandfather,” I said. “We called him Buffalo Bill. He was a great Wasichu chief, great hunter, great warrior. And you went with his big show to Paris.”
“Ah,” the old man agreed. “It is so. Pars, Pars; it is what they called that country. It is so. He wanted Lakota warriors to ride and play war and dance, so that the strange people across the great water could see. He would give us maza ska [white metal, money] to do this. When I heard about the great water and the strange peoples yonder at the sunrise, I knew I must go, for it was what she told me before she went home.
“The Wasichus had made another iron road along the Minitonka [Niobrara]. It was the way Wooden Cup said before my grandfather was born. A strange people would come from the sunrise, too many to be counted. They would kill all the bison and take the land and bind it with iron bands. I was going to see where all the Wasichus came from. We started for the sunrise on this iron road, and went faster than our horses could run. I was afraid, but I held on tight and looked at the land I knew since I was a boy. It was running away, and the hills looked scared. After a while it was dark, and I slept. Then I awoke and there was a big moon outside. The land was still running away. The wagon under me was jumping fast and crying, ‘yea-hay, yea-hay, yea-hay,’ like warriors fleeing from too many enemies; and I could hear the iron horse running and snorting and puffing all out of breath. Sometimes he screamed like a war-pony shot in the guts. I held on tight, and the morning came.
“Then I saw the Mini Shoshay [Missouri River], and there was a big Wasichu village [Omaha], bigger than all the Lakotas camped in one hoop. Then there were more iron roads in a land I never saw before, and Wasichu villages—many, many. And the iron horse went on running as fast as before, snorting and puffing all out of breath and screaming.
“I wanted to go back, but I could not. Afterwhile I got used to it, but my heart was not strong in me. When I was a boy we used to say that some time we would kill all the Wasichus; but now I knew there were more of them than grasshoppers. When Red Cloud went to see the Great Father, and we heard the big stories he told about the Wasichus and their villages yonder where the sun rises, we did not believe. We said he turned into a Wasichu when he put on their clothing, and his tongue was forked like theirs. But I could see his words were straight. And when we came to the biggest village of all where the great water begins [New York], I knew his stories were not big enough. Wasichus! Wasichus! They came crowding like a bison herd to look and look at us when we got on the big peyta watah [fire-boat] that was there.
“I cannot tell how big this watah was. They put all the horses and tepees and wagons in its belly; and the fire that made it go was in there too. When it started for the sunrise with us, it bellowed like bison bulls sending forth voices together when they paw the young grass and tear it with their horns. I saw the land begin to move. It did not run away fast. It floated away, and afterwhile it was all gone, and there was the great water to the sky. It was sleeping arid breathing, up and down, up and down. I got sick, and I was afraid. Maybe I would die. I remembered what old men said, ‘It is not good to grow old.’ But I wore the quirt down my back, and you see I am alive yet.
“Twelve sleeps—water, water, water! Twelve sleeps! When the winds were asleep and the sun was showing, it was a flat blue prairie with no grass. Maybe it was like the prairie where the star nations live, and the sister in the story I told you fell through it! But no turnips on this prairie! The peyta watah shook itself and breathed hard, and smoke came out of its belly; but it did not move. The sun moved and the stars, and the sunrise was no nearer.
“The Thunder Beings came with lightning and a great wind that howled, and the flat blue prairie changed into dark hills that grew tall and fell, grew tall and fell. I was more afraid than I ever was before. All of us were afraid and the horses too. Sometimes I could hear them scream in the watah’s belly. I was not afraid to die in a battle with enemies I could kill. But there was no enemy to fight. Maybe the quirt could not help me. If I died there in the great water, maybe I could not find the way to the spirit land, and I would be lost always in the dark hills. That is what made me afraid. If I died in the hills of water, maybe I could never find my relatives again. But I had my pipe with me, and I remembered what my father said with the voice of the eagle in my vision, ‘Hold fast to your pipe, for there is more.’ So I held fast to my pipe. Also, Pahuska was like a father to us. He laughed and told us to be brave. He had a strong heart.
“We came to where the hills were smaller and the winds were asleep. Then we saw the sun again and the blue prairie; and the strange land came floating to us out of the sunrise.”