Michael Blake - The Holy Road

Before the sun was up the next morning they had taken the trail, making haste for the safety of white settlements in the east. She thought constantly of grabbing one of the ranger's guns and pressing the barrel against her head or of lifting a knife from its scabbard and drawing it swiftly across her throat, but the little girl sitting in front of her made such action impossible.

Every step the big American horse she was riding took seemed to drive her deeper into the bottomless depths of a misery that could only be tolerated through the preservation of hope. But she was unable to construct even the flimsiest hope, and as the country became more and more unfamiliar, she found herself facing a future of unrelieved despair she was powerless to oppose.

From his vantage point, far out on an ocean of grass, the world was flat as the cloudless sky and the horizon was of a length and straightness only the Mystery could make.

Smiles A Lot had seen the same grand picture every day of his life and the enormity of its simple components never failed to stir his feelings. Unaware of any presence but his own in such vastness made him small and large at the same time, a combination that infused his spirit with an incomprehensible blend of fear and fearlessness.

But on this day as he sat on his pony, gazing across the infinity that led to home, there was something amiss, something tiny but distinct that disturbed the picture before him. curling almost imperceptibly at the limit of his sight was a thin, black column of smoke. Pushed by the breeze it angled to one side as it rose like a wisp on the horizon.

The smoke was so out of place that he studied it for several minutes. Smiles A Lot doubted that the grass was on fire. The weather had been too still to start something like that, and even if it had, a wildfire would have spread out across a wide swath of country. This smoke was rising into the sky from a single spot, and for reasons he could not decipher, it gave Smiles A Lot a bad feeling. Though the black funnel was several hours' ride away it lay in the general direction of the village and he pressed on, hoping that his feeling was wrong. His ponies were fresh and he jumped from one to the other as he rode, certain that if he forced the pace he could reach the village before twilight.

The sun was dipping toward the horizon and the column of smoke had long disappeared when he finally neared the village, puzzled at the absence of lodge tips against the darkening sky. A natural berm he knew well lay in front of the village and as he crested it Smiles A Lot saw what had happened.

At first sight none of it seemed real. The village was gone, its place taken by half a dozen still-smoldering piles of refuse. In the heavy twilight haze of dust and smoke, some people were moving without discernible purpose. Others were clustered in small groups at the fringes of camp, huddled as though they were shivering against the cold. Few took notice of him, and those who did regarded him without expression. He could see a handful of ponies near the stream behind the village. Like the people, they were bunched together still seeking safety long after the danger had passed.

The blackened piles of debris were larger than he first thought, and, coming near, he understood that it was corpses, most of them now burned to ash, that had fueled much of the dark column he had seen hours before. Now there was nothing left but shards of bone, the tips of lodge poles, a cook pot or two, and the lingering heat of the recent conflagration. Only then did Smiles A Lot fully realize that the village and the people in it had been annihilated.

He straightened on his pony to survey the survivors again and was struck this time at the paucity of men. Everywhere he looked he saw the bedraggled forms of women and children. The fired corpses were in the main unrecognizable, but the few he had seen which still resembled people were definitely women or children. Unable to believe that men had not been killed, he scanned the survivors again, more carefully this time.

One of the forlorn groups of women was sitting in a loose circle and now he noticed a prostrate form, lying facedown. He rode closer and discovered the Owl Prophet family. The form at the center of their circle lay with arms and legs spread wide. The nose of its face was pressed squarely into the earth. It was Owl Prophet.

“Is he dead?" Smiles A Lot asked calmly.

Bird Woman turned her gaze to her husband and watched him awhile before looking once again at Smiles A Lot.

“He's meditating.”

“What happened?” Smiles A Lot demanded. “Where are the men?”

“They were gone.”

“Are any men here?”

Bird Woman glanced around aimlessly.

“Ten Bears is here. . I don't know where. He's alive.”

It was now too dark to see and Smiles A Lot rode about calling out the old man's name. A stirring in one of the shadowy groups drew his attention and a girl's mournful voice sent the word here through the stillness.

Ten Bears was still being helped to his feet as Smiles A Lot slid off his pony.

“What has happened?” he gasped.

“White rangers,” Ten Bears replied. The old man was lucid as always, but he seemed winded, as if her were recovering from a blow to the stomach.

“Where are the men?”

“There were very few here. I was out of camp. And Owl Prophet.”

“How many people are dead?”

“Maybe half. I don't know how more did not die.”

At this Ten Bears visibly winced and Smiles A Lot leaned toward him.

“Do you have a wound?”

“No,” answered Ten Bears and he stared suddenly into his questioner's eyes with a look so pitiful that Smiles A Lot felt a startling, unfamiliar impulse to cry.

“Where did they go, the men?” Smiles A Lot asked.

“Kicking Bird took some people north to the Kiowa. There are white soldiers up there.”

“Yes, I saw them.”

“Wind In His Hair has a large party in the east, looking for scalps. Dances With Wolves is hunting in the west. . Do you have any food? Everyone is hungry.”

“It isn't much,” said Smiles A Lot, turning back to his pony. “I'll give you what I have.”

He pulled his little bag of jerked meat off the pony and, lifting the flap, offered its contents to Ten Bears. As the old man's hand disappeared into the bag other hands reached out of the darkness to join it and Smiles A Lot noticed that one of them belonged to Hunting For Something.

It had been a long time since he had turned his thoughts to her but the realization that she had survived threw open the door to his heart. The old feelings that rushed in were as intense as before, yet strangely different.

He still thought she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. The shape of her lips, the way she carried herself, the slender frame, the timbre of her voice — all these attributes and many more had retained their full power. But he viewed her differently now. Perhaps it was his experience at Medicine Bluff or perhaps it was the sobering effect of catastrophe. Whatever the reason might have been, the fact that something had changed inside Smiles A Lot was indisputable. He felt straighter, taller, stronger, self-contained, and at peace. The fat of his emotion had been miraculously pared away, and, if anything, he loved and admired her more deeply than before. However, this was no time to be lovesick.

“Are my mother and father here?” he asked Ten Bears.

The old man swallowed what he was chewing. “I think they are dead,” he said.

Smiles A Lot didn't gasp or cry. Ten Bears had confirmed what he already sensed, and though his heart sank with the knowledge that they were gone, loss was a part of life that every Comanche understood. As he stood over the crouching survivors, the sole sign of grief Smiles A Lot displayed was silence.