Michael Blake - Dances With Wolves

The woman coughed. She stirred against his chest and Dunbar tenderly patted the back of her head.

He made a short kissing sound with his lips, and Cisco started down the slope. They’d only gone a few feet when he saw a woman and two children come out of the breaks along the river.

And they saw him.

The woman screamed as she let go of the water she was hauling, scooped up her children, and broke for the village, crying, “White soldier white soldier,” at the top of her lungs. Scores of Indian dogs went off like firecrackers, women shrieked for their children, and stampeded around the lodges, neighing wildly. It was full-scale pandemonium.

The entire band thought it was under attack.

As he drew closer to the village Lieutenant Dunbar could see men running everywhere. Those who had gotten hold of weapons were going for their horses with a whooping that reminded him of game birds in a panic. The village in upheaval was just as otherworldly as the village in repose. It was like a great nest of hornet people into which a stick had been poked.

The men who had reached their horses were swarming into a force that would momentarily race out to meet him, perhaps to kill him. He had not expected to create such a stir, nor had he expected these people to be so primitive. But there was something else that weighed on him as he moved close to the village, something that blotted out all else For the first time in his life Lieutenant Dunbar knew what it felt like to be an invader. It was a feeling he didn’t like, and it had a lot to do with the action he took next. The last thing he wanted was to be regarded as an intruder, and when he reached the bare ground of a clearing at the mouth of the village, when he was close enough to see through the curtain of dust that had been raised by the clamor and into the eyes of the people inside, he squeezed the reins once more and came to a stop.

Then he dismounted, taking the woman into his arms, and walked a pace or two in front of his horse. There he stood still, his eyes closed holding the wounded girl like some strange traveler bearing a strange gift.

The lieutenant listened hard as the village, in stages that lasted only a few seconds each, grew oddly quiet. The dusty curtain began to settle, and Dunbar perceived with his ears that the mass of humanity that had raised such a fearful howling only moments before was now creeping toward him. In the eerie quiet he could hear the occasional clank of some item of gear, the rustling of footsteps, the snort of a horse as it pawed and jostled impatiently.

He opened his eyes to see that the whole band had gathered at the village entrance, warriors and young men in front, women and children behind them. It was a dream of wild people, clothed in skins and colored fabric, a whole separate race of humans watching him breathlessly not a hundred yards away.

The girl was heavy in his arms, and when Dunbar shifted his stance, a buzz rose and died in the crowd. But no one moved forward to meet him.

A group of older men, apparently men of importance, went into a huddle as their people stood by, whispering amongst themselves in guttural tones so foreign to the lieutenant’s ear that they hardly seemed to be talking.

He let his attention wander during this lull, and when he glanced on a knot of about ten horsemen, the lieutenant’s eyes fell on a familiar face. It was the same man, the warrior who had barked at him so ferociously on the day of the raid at Fort Sedgewick. Wind In His Hair was staring back with such intensity that Dunbar almost turned around to see if someone was standing at his back.

His arms were so leaden that he wasn’t sure if he could move them anymore, but with the warrior’s glare still fixed on him, Dunbar lifted the woman a little higher, as if to say, “Here . . . please take her.”

Thrown by this sudden, unexpected gesture, the warrior hesitated, his eyes darting about the crowd, obviously wondering if this silent exchange had been noticed by anyone else. When he looked back, the lieutenant’s eyes were still on his and the gesture had not been withdrawn.

With an inward sigh of relief Lieutenant Dunbar saw Wind In His Hair leap off the pony and start across the clearing, a stone war club swinging loosely in his hand. He was coming over, and if the warrior had any fear at all, it was well masked, for his face was ungiving and uncaring, set, it seemed, on doling out a punishment.

The assembly fell silent as the space between the immobile Lieutenant Dunbar and the fast-striding Wind In His Hair shrank steadily to nothing. It was too late to stop whatever was going to happen. Everyone stood still and watched.

In the face of what was closing on him, Lieutenant Dunbar could not have been braver. He stood his ground unblinking, and though there was no pain in his face, he wore no fear there either.

When Wind In His Hair was within a few feet and slowing his pace, the lieutenant said in a clear, strong voice:

“She’s hurt.”

He shifted his load a little as the warrior stared into the woman’s face, and Dunbar could see that he recognized her. In fact, Wind In His Hair’s shock was so plain that, for a moment, the awful idea that she might have died flashed through his head. The lieutenant looked down at her, too.

And as he did, she was torn from his arms. In one strong, sure motion she’d been ripped from his grasp, and before Dunbar knew it, the warrior was walking back toward the village, hauling Stands With A Fist roughly along, like a dog would a pup. As he went he called something out that prompted a collective exclamation of surprise from the Comanches. They rushed forward to meet him.

The lieutenant stood motionless in front of his horse, and as the village swirled around Wind In His Hair, he felt the spirit run out of him. These were not his people. He would never know them. He might as well have been a thousand miles away. He wanted to be small, small enough to crawl into the smallest, darkest hole.

What had he expected of these people? He must have thought they would run out and throw their arms around him, speak his language, have him to supper, share his jokes, without so much as a how-do-you. How lonely he must be. How pitiful he was to entertain any expectations at all, grasping at these outlandish straws, hoping hopes that were so far-flung that he could not be honest with himself. He had managed to fool himself about everything, fool himself into thinking he was something when he was nothing.

These terrible thoughts were going off in his head like a storm of incoherent sparks, and where he stood now, in front of this primeval village, mattered not at all. Lieutenant Dunbar was swaying under the crush of a morbid personal crisis. Like so much chalk wiped from a board with one swipe, his heart and his hope had deserted him all at once. Somewhere deep inside, a switch had been thrown and Lieutenant Dunbar’s light had gone out.

Oblivious to all but the hollowness he felt, the unhappy lieutenant swung onto Cisco, reined him around, and started back the way he had come at a brisk walk. This happened with so little fanfare that the already occupied Comanches didn’t realize he was going until he had covered some distance.

Two teenage braves started after him but were held back by the cool-headed men of Ten Bears’s inner circle. They were wise enough to know that a good deed had been done, that the white soldier had brought back one of their own, and that nothing was to be gained by chasing after him.

The ride back was the longest and most agonizing of Lieutenant Dunbar’s life. For several miles he rode in a daze, his mind churning away with thousands of negative thoughts. He resisted the temptation to cry in the way one resists vomiting, but self-pity bore in on him relentlessly, in wave after wave, and at last he broke down.