Michael Blake - Dances With Wolves

So as Dunbar lifted the liver to his mouth he told himself how easy this was, that it would be no more difficult than forcing down a spoonful of something he hated, like lima beans.

Hoping he wouldn’t gag, he bit into the liver.

The meat was incredibly tender. It melted in his mouth. He watched the horizon as he chewed, and for the moment Lieutenant Dunbar forgot about his silent audience as his taste buds sent a surprising message to his brain.

The meat was delicious.

Without thinking, he took another bite. A spontaneous smile broke across his face and he lifted what was left of the meat triumphantly over his head.

His fellow hunters answered his gesture with a chorus of wild cheers.

Like many people, Lieutenant Dunbar had spent most of his life on the sidelines, observing rather than participating. At the times when he was a participant, his actions were distinctly independent, much like his experience in the war had been.

It was a frustrating thing, always standing apart.

Something about this lifelong rut changed when he enthusiastically lifted the liver, the symbol of his kill, and heard the cries of encouragement from his fellows. Then he had felt the satisfaction of belonging to something whose whole was greater than any of its parts. It was a feeling that ran deep from the start. And in the days he spent on the killing plain and the nights he spent in the temporary camp, the feeling was solidly reinforced.

The army had tirelessly extolled the virtues of service, of individual sacrifice in the name of God or country or both. The lieutenant had done his best to adopt these tenets, but the feeling of service to the army had dwelled mostly in his head. Not in his heart. It never lasted beyond the fading, hollow rhetoric of patriotism.

The Comanches were different.

They were primitive people. They lived in a big, lonely, alien world that was written off by his own people as nothing more than hundreds of worthless miles to be crossed.

But the facts of their lives had grown less important to him. They were a group who lived and prospered through service. Service was how they controlled the fragile destiny of their lives. It was constantly being rendered, faithfully and without complaint, to the simple, beautiful spirit of the way they lived, and in it Lieutenant Dunbar found a peace that was to his liking.

He did not deceive himself. He did not think of becoming an Indian. But he knew that so long as he was with them, he would serve the same spirit.

He was made a happier man by this revelation.

The butchering was a colossal enterprise.

There were perhaps seventy dead buffalo, scattered like chocolate drops across a great earthen floor, and at each body families set up portable factories that worked with amazing speed and precision in transforming animals into usable products.

The lieutenant could not believe the blood. It soaked into the killing ground like juice spilled on a tablecloth. It covered the arms and faces and clothing of the butcherers. It dripped from the ponies and travois transporting the flesh back to camp.

They took everything: hides, meat, guts, hooves, tails, heads. In the space of a few hours it was all gone, leaving the prairie with the appearance of a gigantic, recently cleared banquet table.

Lieutenant Dunbar passed the butchering time lolling around with the other warriors. Spirits were high. Only two men had been hurt, neither of them seriously. One veteran pony had snapped a foreleg, but that was little to lose when compared with the abundance the hunters had produced.

They were delighted, and it showed in their faces as they hobnobbed through the afternoon, smoking and eating and swapping stories. Dunbar didn’t understand the words, but the stories were easy enough to pick up. They were tales of close calls and broken bows and the ones who had gotten away.

When the lieutenant was called upon to relate his story, he mimed the adventure with a theatricality that drove the warriors crazy with laughter. It became the day’s most sought-after testimonial, and he was forced to repeat it a half-dozen times. The result was the same with every telling. By the time he was halfway through, his listeners would be hugging themselves, trying to hold back the ache of unbridled laughter.

Lieutenant Dunbar didn’t mind. He was laughing, too. And he didn’t mind the role that luck had played in his deeds, for he knew that they were real. And he knew that through them he had accomplished something marvelous.

He had become “one of the boys.”

The first thing he saw when they returned to camp that evening was his hat. It was riding on the head of a middle-aged man whom he did not know.

There was a brief moment of tension as Lieutenant Dunbar strode directly over, pointed at the army-issue hat, which fitted the man rather badly, and said, in a matter-of-fact way, “That’s mine.”

The warrior looked at him curiously and removed the hat. He turned it around in his hands and placed it back on his head. Then he slipped the knife off his belt, handed it to the lieutenant, and went on his way without saying a word.

Dunbar watched his hat bob out of sight and stared down at the knife in his hand. Its beaded sheath looked like a treasure, and he walked off to find Kicking Bird, thinking he’d gotten much the best part of the exchange.

He moved freely through the camp, and everywhere he went he found himself the object of cheerful salutations.

Men nodded acknowledgments, women smiled, and giggling children tottered after him. The band was delirious with the prospect of the great feast to come, and the lieutenant’s presence was an added source of joy. Without a formal proclamation or consensus they had come to think of him as a living good-luck charm.

Kicking Bird took him directly to Ten Bears’s lodge, where a little ceremony of thanks was being held. The old man was still remarkably fit, and the hump from his kill was being roasted first. When it was ready Ten Bears himself cut away a piece, said a few words to the Great Spirit, and honored the lieutenant by handing him the first piece.

Dunbar made his short bow, took a bite, and gallantly handed the slab back to Ten Bears, a move that impressed the old man greatly. He fired up his pipe and further honored the lieutenant by offering him the first puff.

The smoking in front of Ten Bears’s lodge marked the beginning of a wild night. Everyone had a fire going, and over every fire fresh meat was roasting; humps, ribs, and a wide array of other choice cuts.

Lit like a small city, the temporary village twinkled long into the night, its smoke trailing into the darkened sky with an aroma that could be smelled for miles.

The people ate like there was no tomorrow. When they were stuffed full they took short breaks, drifting off into little groups to make idle talk or to play at games of chance. But once the last meal had settled, they would return to the fires and gorge themselves again.

Before the night was very far along Lieutenant Dunbar felt like he had eaten an entire buffalo. He’d been touring the camp with Wind In His Hair, and at each fire the pair was treated like royalty.

They were en route to still another group of merrymakers when the lieutenant stopped in the shadows behind a lodge and told Wind In His Hair with signs that his stomach was hurting and that he wanted to sleep.

But at this moment Wind In His Hair wasn’t listening too closely. His attention was riveted on the lieutenant’s tunic. Dunbar looked down his chest at the row of brass buttons, then back into the face of his hunting pal. The warrior’s eyes were slightly glazed as he stuck out a finger and let it come to rest on one of the buttons.