Dan Simmons - Black Hills

But, he reminds himself as he rushes to the men’s bathing tent shared by the soldiers and Indians, it’s not a date.

Paha Sapa just happened to be dropping something off in the outer office that morning when Mr. Cody and his friend the Reverend Henry de Plachette stepped out and continued their conversation. The Reverend de Plachette, whom Paha Sapa had met, was explaining that his daughter was here to watch the afternoon Wild West Show but wanted to go to the Fair proper afterward and needed an escort. He, the Reverend de Plachette, would be meeting her near the entrance to the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building at the Grand Basin at six p.m. but would be busy until then. Mr. Cody said that it would be no problem; he would escort the young lady over to the Fair. Then Cody remembered that he had an appointment in Chicago after the afternoon matinee.

— I would be honored to escort Miss de Plachette to the Court of Honor and wait until you arrive, Reverend de Plachette.

For the rest of his life, Paha Sapa will not believe that he actually said those words at that moment.

Mr. Cody and the Reverend Henry de Plachette turned slowly to look at the small, thin twenty-seven-year-old Sioux they knew as Billy Slow Horse. Cody, who was wearing an expensive tan suit and had just put on his wide-brimmed Western-style tan hat in preparation to step outside, cleared his throat.

— That’s generous of you, Billy. But I’m not sure you would have time between the matinee performance and the evening performance, and perhaps it would be better if…

— No, no, William. I’ve talked to Mr. Slow Horse a few times and he has met my daughter, as you know, and I believe it’s an excellent idea. I will, as I said, be meeting Rain no later than six o’clock, and that should give Mr. Slow Horse ample time to return and to get into his… ah… costume.

Paha Sapa’s costume consists of a breechclout, a bow and arrow, and a single white feather that he puts in his braided hair, his small way of honoring Crazy Horse’s memory. But it made him blush that afternoon as he rode around the arena, thinking of Miss de Plachette looking at him almost naked, visible bruises and all.

Cody continued to look doubtful that morning, but the minister (and father) had obviously made up his mind.

— Be so kind as to meet my daughter here as soon after your performance as possible, Mr. Slow Horse. I will inform her that you will escort her to the Fair. And I thank you again for your courtesy.

The Reverend de Plachette nodded rather than offering his hand. Paha Sapa knew at the time that the man had decided to allow him to escort his daughter the short walking distance to the World’s Fair out of a minister’s liberal (and almost certainly shallow) sense of equality-of-all-men-in-God’s-sight, but Paha Sapa did not care the least bit what the reason was.

After washing up as quickly as he can—all the while thanking the wasichus’ god and the actual Wakan Tanka (the All who seemed so much larger, so much more complex, and so infinitely much more present than the Fat Takers’ white-bearded deity) that he didn’t fall on any horse apples when he fell dead off his horse in that afternoon’s show—Paha Sapa rushes back to his tent and changes into the only formal clothes he brought on this trip east: a black, pinstriped, thick-wool, ill-fitting, and completely inappropriate-to-July suit coat and baggy trousers that he purchased in Rapid City.

He realizes, with some small shock, as he tries for the third time to knot the ribbon of the string tie, that his hands are shaking. Paha Sapa cannot remember any time when his hands shook, except when he was sick with fever as a boy.

While he is near a mirror, Paha Sapa tries on the straw boater he purchased during his second trip into Chicago proper the previous month. The little summer hat looks absurd with his black winter suit coat and his long black braids sticking out. He tosses the cheap hat onto his cot and returns to the washing tent to pomade the tips of his braids. Between every action, Paha Sapa nervously checks his pocket watch, kept in the pocket of his suit coat, since he has no waistcoat.

Finally it is time. His heart pounding in his ears, Paha Sapa walks to the main administration tent.

Miss de Plachette is waiting in the foyer and smiles in recognition as he approaches. Paha Sapa is sure that he has never seen any single sight so absolutely beautiful or so infinitely unobtainable. He also notices that he has already sweated through his shirt.

Miss de Plachette is wearing a silky tan blouse waist with the usual balloon sleeves, the blouse gathered at her waist, as almost all women’s fashions seem to be these days. Even Paha Sapa has noticed that. Her skirt, which reaches the floor, is also a relatively light, summer, silky weight (for so much fabric), with stripes that continue the expensive tan of the blouse, the tan stripes alternating with rich green stripes bordered in thin gold. She is wearing a narrow-brimmed straw hat that looks as perfect on her as Paha Sapa’s boater had looked absurd on him. She also is wearing thin tan gloves and is carrying a parasol.

Paha Sapa is glad to see the gloves. He has had fewer of the small-vision-forward-touching experiences as he has grown older, but those that have occurred, he knows, always happen when he touches bare skin. He is absolutely resolved not to touch Miss de Plachette’s bare skin in any way even though he is wearing his only pair of dress gloves. He is pleased to see that she is also wearing gloves. Now no accidental touch will…

— Mr. Slow Horse, it is a pleasure to see you again and I cannot thank you enough for escorting me to the Fair this afternoon so that I can meet my father. I apologize, but is it… Mr. Slow Horse? Or just Mr. Horse?

Her voice is as soft and modulated as he remembered from their brief meeting two days earlier, when she’d toured the Wild West Show with her father. Mr. Cody introduced Reverend de Plachette and his daughter, it seemed, to most, if not all, of the hundred former US Cavalry soldiers and ninety-seven full-time Sioux, Pawnee, Cheyenne, and Kiowa that had come east with Buffalo Bill.

Paha Sapa finds himself tongue-tied first thing out of the chute. He expected it sometime during his escorting of Miss de Plachette into the fairgrounds, but not upon first encounter. He finds, insanely, that he wants to explain to her that “Billy Slow Horse,” the name he’s been known as to whites for seventeen years now, was a foul, stupid, insulting name that the Seventh Cavalry gave to him when he was their captive… scout… prisoner, and that his real name is…

He shakes his head and manages…

— Billy, ma’am. Just Billy.

His face is burning, but Rain de Plachette smiles and slips her arm through his, causing Paha Sapa to jump slightly.

— Very well… Billy… then you must call me Rain. Shall we go?

THEY STEP OUT THROUGH the Wild West Show’s main gate into the heat and sun of high July. To the right of the gate a tall banner shows a full-color illustration of Christopher Columbus and proclaims PILOT OF THE OCEAN, THE FIRST PIONEER. The next-door World’s Fair is, after all, officially known as the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, even if it has missed the four hundredth anniversary of the Italian sailor’s landing by a full year.

The banner on the other side of the gate, with an even larger and more colorful illustration of Mr. Cody in full, fringed western regalia, announces PILOT OF THE PRAIRIE, THE LAST PIONEER. But it is an even larger sign above and to one side of the wide entrance gate that says it all—BUFFALO BILL’S WILD WEST AND CONGRESS OF ROUGH RIDERS OF THE WORLD.