Michael Blake - Dances With Wolves

It seemed clear that I was the reason for this conference. I was certain that I had been produced for the sole purpose of allowing the old man a close look at me.

A pipe appeared and the men began to smoke. It was long-stemmed, and from what I could tell, the tobacco was a harsh, native blend, for I alone was excluded from the smoking. I was eager to make a good impression, and being in want of a cigarette of my own, I took out the fixings and offered them to the old man. The quiet one said something to him, and the chieftain reached across with one of his gnarled hands and took the pouch and papers. He made a careful inspection of my things. Then he looked at me sharply with his heavy-lidded, rather cruel-looking eyes and handed the fixings back. Not knowing if my offer had been accepted, I rolled a smoke anyway. The old man seemed interested as I went about it.

I held the cigarette out and he took it. The quiet one said something again and the old man handed it back. With signs, the quiet one asked me to smoke and I complied with his request.

As they all watched, I lit up, inhaled, and blew out the smoke. Before I could have another puff the old man was reaching out. I gave it to him. He looked at it with some caution at first, then inhaled as I had done. And as I had done, he exhaled in a stream. Then he drew the cigarette close to his face.

To my chagrin, he began to roll his fingers to and fro in a rapid way. The ember fell off and the tobacco spilled out. He rolled the empty paper into a ball and carelessly tossed it into the fire.

Slowly he began to smile, and in short order all the men around the fire were laughing,

Perhaps I had been insulted, but their good humor was such that I was swept up in the contagion of it.

Afterwards I was shown to my horse and escorted a mile or so from the village, where the quiet one bid me a curt goodbye.

That is the essential record of my first visit to the Indian camp. I do not know what they are thinking now.

It was good to see Fort Sedgewick again. It is my home. And yet, I look forward to another visit with my “neighbors.”

When I look at the eastern horizon I rarely fail to wonder if a column might be out there. I can only hope that my vigilance here and my “negotiations” with the wild people of the plains will, in the meantime, bear fruit.

Lt. John J. Dunbar U.S.A.

A few hours after Lieutenant Dunbar’s first visit to the village, Kicking Bird and Ten Bears held a high level talk. It was short and to the point.

Ten Bears liked Lieutenant Dunbar. He liked the look in his eyes, and Ten Bears put great stock in what he saw in a person’s eyes. He also liked the lieutenant’s manners. He was humble and courteous, and Ten Bears placed considerable value on these traits. The matter of the cigarette was amusing. How someone could make smoke out of something with so little substance defied logic, but he didn’t hold it against Lieutenant Dunbar and agreed with Kicking Bird that, as an intelligence-gathering source, the white man was worth knowing.

The old chief tacitly approved Kicking Bird’s idea for breaking the language barrier. But there were conditions. Kicking Bird would have to orchestrate his moves unofficially. Loo Ten Nant would be his responsibility, and only his. Already there was talk that the white man might be responsible in some way for the scarcity of game. No one knew how people would take to the white soldier if he made repeated visits to the village. The people might turn against him. It was entirely possible that someone would kill him.

Kicking Bird accepted the conditions, assuring Ten Bears that he would do everything in his power to conduct the plan in a quiet way.

This settled, they took up a more important subject.

The buffalo were way overdue.

Scouts had been ranging far and wide for days, but so far they had seen only one buffalo. That was an aging, solitary bull being torn apart by a large pack of wolves. His carcass had hardly been worth picking over.

The band’s morale was sinking along with its meager food reserves, and it would not be many days before the shortage would become critical. They’d been living on the meat of local deer, but this source was playing out fast. If the buffalo didn’t come soon, the promise of an abundant summer would be broken by the sound of crying children.

The two men decided that in addition to sending out more scouts, a dance was urgently needed. It should be held within a week’s time.

Kicking Bird would be in charge of the preparations.

It was a strange week, a week in which time was jumbled for the medicine man. When he needed time, the hours would fly by, and when he was intent on time passing, it would crawl, minute by minute. Trying to balance everything out was a struggle.

There were myriad sensitive details to consider in mounting the dance. It was to be an invocation, very sacred, and the whole band would be participating. The planning and delegating of various responsibilities for an event of this importance amounted to a full-time job.

Plus there were the ongoing duties of being a husband to two wives, a father to four children, and a guide to his newly adopted daughter. Added to it all were the routine problems and surprises that cropped up each day: visits to the sick, impromptu councils with drop-in visitors, and the making of his own medicine.

Kicking Bird was the busiest of men.

And there was something else, something that nipped constantly at his concentration. Like a low-grade, persistent headache, Lieutenant Dunbar preyed on his mind. Wrapped up as he was in the present, Loo Ten Nant was the future, and Kicking Bird could not resist its call. The present and the future occupied the same space in the medicine man’s day. It was a crowded time.

Having Stands With A Fist around did not make it easier for him. She was the key to his plan, and Kicking Bird could not look at her without thinking of Loo Ten Nant, an act that inevitably sent him wandering down new trails of speculative thought. But he had to keep an eye on her. It was important to approach the matter at the right time and place. She was healing fast, moving without trouble now, and had picked up the rhythm of life at his lodge. Already a favorite with the children, she worked as long and as hard as anyone in camp. When left to herself, she was withdrawn, but that was understandable. In fact, it had always been her nature.

Sometimes, after watching her a while, Kicking Bird would heave a private sigh of burden. At those times he would pull up at the edge of questions, the main one being whether or not Stands With A Fist truly belonged. But he could not presume an answer, and an answer would not help him anyway. Only two things mattered. She was here and he needed her.

By the day of the dance he still had not found an opportunity to speak to her in the way he wanted. That morning he woke with the realization that he, Kicking Bird, would have to put his plan in motion if he ever wanted it to happen.

He dispatched three young men to Fort Sedgewick. He was too busy to go himself, and while they were gone he would find a way to have a talk with Stands With A Fist.

Kicking Bird was spared the drudgery of manipulation when his entire family set off on an expedition to the river at midmorning, leaving Stands With A Fist behind to dress out a fresh-shot deer. Kicking Bird watched her from inside the lodge. She never looked up as the knife flew along in her hand, peeling away hide with the same ease that tender flesh falls away from the bone. He waited until she paused in her work, taking a few moments to watch a group of children playing tag in front of a lodge across the way.