Dan Simmons - Black Hills

When he speaks, it is in fluent Lakota with a strong Cheyenne accent.

— Welcome, boy. I did not hear you arrive. My hearing is not what it used to be.

Paha Sapa lowers the lance a little more but does not set it down.

— Greetings to you, uncle. You are of the Shahiyela?

— Yes, I am Cheyenne. But I have spent much time with the Lakota. I have never been the enemy of your people and have taught many.

Paha Sapa nods and does set the lance down, against the wall of the cave. He still has his knife, there are no signs of other men having been here—the sleeping hides and cooking utensils are all for one—and he doubts if the old man could rise quickly from his cross-legged posture. Paha Sapa, whose stomach is now actively rumbling at the sight and smell of the two browning rabbits on the spits, remembers his manners.

— I am called Paha Sapa.

The old man smiles, showing long, yellowed but strong teeth, with only one missing on the bottom. It is a lot of teeth, Paha Sapa thinks, for a man who looks so old.

— Welcome, Paha Sapa. Odd for the Lakota to name a boy-child after a place. We shall have to talk about that. My name is Robert Sweet Medicine.

Paha Sapa blinks at the sound of the man’s name. He has never heard “Robert” before, even with Cheyenne names. It sounds wasichu .

The old man gestures to a hide unrolled across the fire from him.

— Sit down. Sit down. Are you hungry?

— I’m very hungry, uncle.

The sudden smile again.

— That is why I cooked two rabbits tonight.

Paha Sapa has to squint at this.

— You said you did not hear me approaching.

— I did not, young Black Hills. I simply knew there would be another with me here tonight. There, it should be ready—there’s a wooden bowl over there beneath that clutter. Just use your knife to cut what you want. The whole rabbit is yours. There’s water in that jug there…. The smaller jug holds mni waken, and you are welcome to it as well, as long as you do not drink it all.

Holy water. The wasichus’ whiskey. Paha Sapa has never tasted it and, despite his curiosity, knows he should not taste it now.

— Thank you, uncle.

He chews some steaming-hot rabbit, his face and hands instantly becoming greasy, and drinks some of the cold water. After a while, he wipes his mouth and speaks.

— I have been to Bear Butte many times, uncle, but I did not know there were caves here.

— Of course you did. It was in a cave here that Maiyun gave my ancestor Mustoyef the Gift of the Four Arrows. It was in a cave here, before time was counted as it is today, that the Kiowa received from their gods the sacred kidney of a bear and the Apache the gift of sacred horse medicine. You Lakota—and I know you have heard this, Paha Sapa—say that it was in a cave here that your ancestors received the gift of the sacred pipe from Wakan Tanka.

— Yes, I have heard all of this, uncle—except about the Kiowa and the bear kidney—but I have never seen this cave or any other, although we boys have climbed and played all over and around Matho Paha.

The old man smiles again. Each time he does that, a thousand deep wrinkles deepen around his eyes and mouth.

— Well, then, Bear Butte still has secrets from us, does it not, Black Hills?

Paha Sapa speaks through another mouthful of rabbit. It is excellent.

— Did my people receive the gift of the sacred pipe, and your people the Gift of the Four Arrows, here? In this cave?

Robert Sweet Medicine shrugs.

— Who’s to know? Or who knows if any of that actually happened? Once a place is considered sacred by any tribe, the other tribes hurry to find—or make up—some story of its sacredness to them as well.

This shocks Paha Sapa. He assumed, when Robert Sweet Medicine said that he’d taught Lakota as well as Cheyenne, that the old man was a wičasa wakan like Limps-a-Lot and Long Turd and the others. Paha Sapa has never heard a real holy man admit that the old stories of the gods and grandfathers might be made up. Just the thought of that makes the boy dizzier. The gabble of his ghost and the awful memories of Crazy Horse buzz louder in his aching head.

— Are you all right, Paha Sapa? You look ill.

For a second, Paha Sapa has the wild urge to tell the old man the truth about everything—about his ability to touch people and to see into them and their pasts and futures sometimes (he has no urge at all to touch Robert Sweet Medicine), about the ghost of Long Hair (if it is Long Hair) talking and talking and talking in that ugly and endless babble of wasichu sounds, about Crazy Horse wanting to kill him, about his own fear (almost a certainty) that he will fail in the coming hanblečeya —tell the old man everything.

— No, uncle. I have a little fever is all.

— Take off your clothes, boy. All of them.

Paha Sapa’s hand creeps to the hilt of his knife in its scabbard on his belt. He knows that some of these wičasa wakan , especially the recluses, are winkte .

Some winkte dress and act like women throughout their lives; some are rumored to have the organs of both men and women; but most winkte , according to what the older boys told Paha Sapa, prefer putting their stiff child makers up young boys’ behinds rather than in lovely winčinčalas’ winyaˇn shans where they belong.

Paha Sapa does not want to know what that feels like. He decides that he will have to kill Robert Sweet Medicine if the old winkte comes any closer.

The old wičasa wakan sees Paha Sapa’s expression and looks at the shaking hand on the knife hilt and then Robert Sweet Medicine laughs. It is a deep, rich, long laugh, and it echoes slightly in and around the bend of the cavern beyond where they sit by the fire.

— Don’t be stupid, boy. I’m not after your unze. I have been married—to women—eight times. That’s eight different women, little Black Hills, not eight wives at once. So unless you brought one with you, there are no winkte in this cave tonight. You’re feverish and flushed. And shaking hard. All your layers are soaked through, and I think you’ve been soaked like that for days and nights. Get dry and stay near the fire.

Paha Sapa squints at the old man, but he lets his hand fall away from his knife.

— Pull those two blankets up, boy. Get out of your clothes—behind the blankets if you wish—and set your wet things on this empty spit to dry. Moccasins as well. Keep your knife if it makes you feel safer. The blankets are clean and free of vermin.

Paha Sapa blushes but does what the old man suggests, realizing as he does so that he’s shaking so hard he can barely put his clothes on the drying rack. He clutches the blankets around him. They are scratchy against his wet skin but infinitely warmer than the soaked clothing he’s just surrendered. He has kept the knife.

Robert Sweet Medicine wipes his mouth and sets the spit holding his browned rabbit, barely touched, on Paha Sapa’s Y sticks. The boy is down to the bones of his rabbit. Few things, Paha Sapa has always thought, look as reduced and vulnerable as a rabbit without its skin and head.

— Here, boy. I’ve eaten all I want. Help yourself to this.

Paha Sapa grunts his thanks and begins cutting pieces off and into his bowl.

Robert Sweet Medicine looks to his right across the flames, toward the cave entrance.

— How long has it been raining? Two days and nights?