Michael Blake - Dances With Wolves

They rolled over the ground in a chaotic ball. Dunbar was screaming “Buffalo” as he fought against the punches and kicks. But no one could understand what he was saying, and some of the blows were now finding their mark.

Then he was dimly aware of a lessening of the weight pressing against him. Someone was shouting above the tumult, and the voice sounded familiar.

Suddenly there was no one on him. He was lying alone on the ground, staring up through half-stunned eyes at a multitude of Indian faces. One of the faces bent closer.

Kicking Bird.

The lieutenant said, “Buffalo.”

His body was heaving as it sucked for air, and his voice had been a whisper.

Kicking Bird’s face leaned closer.

“Buffalo,” the lieutenant gasped.

Kicking Bird grunted and shook his head. He turned his ear to within a whisker of Dunbar’s mouth and the lieutenant said the word once more, struggling with all his might for the right accent.

“Buffalo.”

Kicking Bird’s eyes were back in front of Lieutenant Dunbar’s.

“Buffalo?”

“Yes,” Dunbar said, a wan smile flaring on his face. “Yes . . . buffalo . . . buffalo.”

Exhausted, he closed his eyes for a moment and heard Kicking Bird’s deep voice bellow over the stillness as he shouted the word.

It was answered with a roar of joy from every Comanche throat, and for a split second the lieutenant thought the power of it was carrying him away. Blinking away the glaze on his eyes, he realized that strong Indian arms were bringing him to his feet.

When the erstwhile lieutenant looked up, he was greeted with scores of beaming faces. They were pressing in around him.

Everyone went.

The camp by the river was left virtually deserted when the great caravan moved out at dawn.

Flankers were sent in every direction. The bulk of mounted warriors rode at the front. Then came the women and children, some mounted, some not. Those on foot marched alongside ponies dragging travois piled with gear. Some of the very old rode on the drags. The huge pony herd brought up the rear.

There was much to be amazed at. The sheer size of the column, the speed with which it traveled, the incredible racket it made, the marvel of organization that gave everyone a place and a job.

But what Lieutenant Dunbar found most extraordinary of all was his own treatment. Literally overnight he had gone from one who was eyed by the band with suspicion or indifference to a person of genuine standing. The women smiled openly at him now and the warriors went so far as to share their jokes with him. The children, of which there were many, constantly sought out his company and occasionally made themselves a nuisance.

In treating him this way the Comanches revealed an altogether new side of themselves, reversing the stoic, guarded appearance they had presented to him in the past. Now they were an unabashed, thoroughly cheerful people, and it made Lieutenant Dunbar the same.

The arrival of the buffalo would have brightened the lagging Comanche spirits in any event, but the lieutenant knew as the column struck out across the prairie that his presence added a certain luster to the undertaking, and he rode a little taller at the thought of that.

Long before they reached Fort Sedgewick, scouts brought word that a big trail had been found where the lieutenant said it would be, and more men were immediately dispatched to locate the main herd’s grazing area.

Each scout took several fresh mounts in two. They would ride until they found the herd, then come back to the column to report its size and how many miles away it was. They would also report the presence of any enemies who might be lurking around the Comanche hunting grounds.

As the column passed by, Dunbar made a brief stop at the fort. He gathered a supply of tobacco, his revolver and rifle, a tunic, a grain ration for Cisco, and was back at the side of Kicking Bird and his assistants within a matter of minutes.

After they’d crossed the river, Kicking Bird motioned him forward and the two men rode beyond the head of the column. It was then that Dunbar got his first look at the buffalo trail: a gigantic swath of torn-up ground a half mile wide, sweeping over the prairie like some immense, dung-littered highway.

Kicking Bird was describing something in signs that the lieutenant couldn’t fully grasp when two puffs of dust appeared on the horizon. The dust swirls gradually became riders. A pair of returning scouts.

Leading spare mounts, they came in at a gallop and pulled up directly in front of Ten Bears’s entourage to make their report.

Kicking Bird rode over to confer, and Dunbar, not knowing what was being said, watched the medicine man closely, hoping to divine something from his expression.

What he saw didn’t help him much. If he’d known the language, he would have understood that the herd had stopped to graze in a great valley about ten miles south of the column’s present position, a place they could easily reach by nightfall.

The conversation suddenly became animated and the lieutenant leaned reflexively forward as if to hear. The scouts were making long, sweeping gestures, first to the south and then to the east. The faces of their listeners grew markedly more somber, and after questioning the scouts a few moments more, Ten Bears held a council on horseback with his closest advisers.

Shortly, two riders broke away from the meeting and galloped back down the line. while they were gone Kicking Bird glanced once at the lieutenant, and Dunbar knew his face well enough now to know that this expression meant not all was as it should be.

Hoofbeats sounded behind him, and the lieutenant turned to see a dozen warriors charging to the front of the line. The fierce one was leading them.

They stopped next to Ten Bears’s group, held a brief consultation, and, taking one of the scouts with them, flew off in an easterly direction.

The column began to move again, and as Kicking Bird came back to his place next to the white soldier, he could see that the lieutenant’s eyes were full of questions. It was not possible to explain this thing to him, this bad omen.

Enemies had been discovered in the neighborhood, mysterious enemies from another world. By their deeds they had proved themselves to be people without value and without soul, wanton slaughterers with no regard for Comanche rights. It was important to punish them.

So Kicking Bird avoided the lieutenant’s questioning eyes. Instead, he watched the dust of Wind In His Hair’s party trail off to the east and said a silent prayer for the success of their mission.

From the moment he saw the little rose-colored bumps rising in the distance, he knew he was coming on to something ugly. There were black specks on the rose-colored bumps, and as the column drew closer, he could see that they were moving. Even the air seemed suddenly closer and the lieutenant loosened another button on his tunic.

Kicking Bird had brought him to the front with a purpose. But his intention was not to punish. It was to educate, and the education could best be served by seeing rather than talking. The impact would be greater in front. It would be greater for both of them. Kicking Bird had never seen this sight, either.

Like mercury in a thermometer, a bilious mixture of revulsion and lament climbed steadily in Lieutenant Dunbar’s throat. He had to swallow constantly to keep it from coming out as he and Kicking Bird led the column through the center of the killing ground.

He counted twenty-seven buffalo. And though he couldn’t count them, he figured there were at least as many ravens swarming over each body. In some cases the heads of the buffalo were covered with the battling black birds, screaming and twisting and flopping as they fought for the eyeballs. Those whose eyes had already been swallowed played host to larger swarms, which pecked ravenously as they strolled back and forth on the carcasses, defecating every so often as if to accent the richness of their feast.