Michael Blake - Dances With Wolves

He slumped forward, letting his shoulders bunch up at first, and his tears fell without a sound. But when he began to sniffle, the floodgates swung wide. His face twisted grotesquely and he began to moan with the abandon of a hysteric. In the midst of these first convulsions he gave Cisco his head, and as the miles piled up unrecorded, he let his heart bleed free, sobbing as piteously as an inconsolable child.

He never saw the fort. When Cisco stopped, the lieutenant looked up and saw that they had halted in front of his quarters. The strength had been wrung from him, and for a few seconds it was all he could do to sit comatose on his horse’s back. When he finally lifted his head again, he saw Two Socks, stationed at his usual place on the bluff across the river. The sight of the wolf, sitting so patiently, like a royal hunting dog, his face so sweetly inquisitive, brought a new lump of sorrow into Dunbar’s throat. But all of his tears had been spent.

He tumbled off Cisco, slipped the bit out of his mouth, and lurched through the door. Dropping the bridle on the floor, he flopped onto his bunk, pulled a blanket over his head, and rolled into a ball.

Exhausted as he was, the lieutenant could not sleep. For some reason he kept thinking of Two Socks, waiting out there so patiently. With a superhuman effort he dragged himself off the bed, staggered into the twilight, and squinted across the river.

The old wolf was still sitting in his place, so the lieutenant sleep-walked his way to the supply house and carved a big hunk of bacon off the slab. He carried the meat out to the bluff and, with Two Socks watching intently, dropped it on the grassy ground near the top of the bluff.

Then, thinking of sleep with every step, he threw some hay for Cisco and retreated to his quarters. Like a soldier hitting the dirt, he pitched onto the pallet, pulled up the blanket, and covered his eyes.

A woman’s face came to him, a face out of the past that he knew well. There was a shy smile on her lips and her eyes shone with a light that can only come from the heart. In times of trouble he had always called upon the face, and it had come to comfort him. There was much more behind the face, a long story with an unhappy ending, but Lieutenant Dunbar didn’t get into that. The face and the wonderful look it wore were all he wanted to remember, and he clung to it tenaciously. He used it like a drug. It was the most powerful painkiller he knew. He didn’t think of her often, but he carried the face around with him, using it only when he was close to scraping bottom.

He lay unmoving on the bed, like an opium smoker, and eventually the image he held in his mind began to take effect. He was already snoring by the time Venus appeared, leading a long parade of stars across the endless prairie sky.

Minutes after the white man’s departure, Ten Bears called another council. Unlike the recent meetings, which had begun and ended in confusion, Ten Bears knew exactly what he wanted to do now. He was set on a plan before the last of the men had seated themselves in his lodge.

The white soldier with blood on his face had brought back Stands With A Fist, and Ten Bears was convinced that this surprise was a bright omen, one that should be followed through on. The issue of the white race had troubled his thoughts too long. For years he had not been able to see anything good in their coming. But he wanted to desperately. Today he’d seen something good at last, and now he was determined not to let what he considered a golden opportunity slip past.

The white soldier had showed extreme bravery in coming alone to their camp. And he had obviously come with a single intention . . . not to steal or cheat or fight but to return something he had found, something that belonged to them. This talk of gods was probably wrong, but one thing was abundantly clear to Ten Bears. For the good of everyone, this soldier should be investigated. A man who behaved like this was bound to be positioned high with the whites. It was possible that he already carried great weight and influence. A man like this was someone with whom agreements might be reached. And without agreements, war and suffering were sure to come.

So Ten Bears was encouraged. The overture he had witnessed that afternoon, though it was only a single event, appeared to him as a light in the night, and as the men filed in, he was thinking of the best way to put his plan into action.

While he listened to the preliminaries, throwing in an occasional comment of his own, Ten Bears sifted through a mental roster of reliable men, trying to decide who would be best for his idea.

It wasn’t until Kicking Bird arrived, having been held up by attending to Stands With A Fist, that the old man realized it should not be a one-man job. He should send two men. Once that was decided, the individuals came to him quickly. He should send Kicking Bird for his powers of observation and Wind In His Hair for his aggressive nature. Each man’s character was representative of him and his people, and they complemented each other perfectly.

Ten Bears kept the council short. He didn’t want the kind of protracted discussions that could lead to indecision. When the time was right, he made an eloquent, beautifully reasoned speech, recounting the many stories of white numerical superiority and white riches, especially in terms of guns and horses. He concluded with the notion that the man at the fort was surely an emissary and that his good actions should be cause for talking, not fighting.

There was a long silence at the end of his speech. Everyone knew he was right.

Then Wind In His Hair spoke up.

“I do not think it is right for you to go and speak to this white man,” he said. “He is not a god, he is just another white man lost in his way.”

A tiny twinkle flashed in the old man’s eyes as he made his reply.

“I will not go. But good men should. Men who can show what a Comanche is.”

Here he paused, shutting his eyes for dramatic effect. A minute passed, and some of the men thought he might have fallen asleep. But at the last second he opened them long enough to say to Wind In His Hair:

“You should go. You and Kicking Bird.”

Then he closed his eyes again and dozed off, ending the council at just the right place.

The first big thunderstorm of the season came that night, a miles-long front marching to the hollow boom of thunder and the brilliant crackle of forked lightning. The rain it brought swept over the prairie in great rolling curtains, driving everything that lived to shelter.

It woke Stands With A Fist.

The rain was drumming against the lodge’s hide walls like deadened fire from a thousand rifles, and for a few moments, she didn’t know where she was. There was light, and she turned slowly on her side for a look at the little fire that was still popping in the center of the lodge. As she did, one of her hands drifted over the wound on her thigh and accidentally brushed against something foreign. She felt carefully and discovered that her leg had been sewn.

Everything came back to her then.

She glanced sleepily around the lodge, wondering who lived here. She knew it was not hers.

Her mouth was dry as cotton, so she slid a hand from under the covers to explore with her fingers. The first thing they bumped into was a little bowl half-filled with water. She lifted herself to one elbow, took several long swallows, and lay back down.

There were things she wanted to know, but thinking was difficult now. It was warm as summer under the robe. The fire’s shadows were dancing happily above her head, the rain was singing its strong lullaby in her ears, and she was very weak.