Michael Blake - Dances With Wolves

An hour later he could barely hold his eyes open, and when they met at Kicking Bird’s, the medicine man rose up from his seat. He took the white soldier into the lodge and led him to a pallet that had been specially made up for him against a far wall.

Lieutenant Dunbar plopped down on the robe and began to pull off his boots. He was so sleepy that he didn’t think to say good night and only caught a glimpse of the medicine man’s back as he left the lodge.

Dunbar let the last boot flop carelessly on the floor and rolled into bed. He threw an arm over his eyes and floated off toward sleep. In the twilight before unconsciousness his mind began to fill with a steady-flowing stream of warm, unfocused, and vaguely sexual images. Women were moving around him. He couldn’t make out their faces, but he could hear the murmur of their soft voices. He could see

their forms passing close, swirling like the folds of a dress dancing in the breeze.

He could feel them touching him lightly, and as he drifted, he felt the press of bare flesh against his own.

Someone was giggling in his ear and he couldn’t open his eyes. They were too heavy. But the giggling persisted and soon he was aware of a smell in his nose. The buffalo robe. Now he could hear that the giggling was not in his ear. But it was close by. It was in the room.

He forced his eyes open and turned his head to the sound. He couldn’t see anything and raised up slightly. The lodge was quiet and the dim forms of Kicking Bird’s family were unmoving. Everyone seemed to be asleep.

Then he heard the giggle again. It was high and sweet, definitely a woman’s, and it was coming from a spot directly across the floor. The lieutenant raised up a little more, enough to let his gaze clear the dying fire in the center of the room.

The woman giggled again, and a man’s voice, low and gentle, floated across to him. He could see the strange bundle that always hung over Kicking Bird’s bed. The sounds were coming from there.

Dunbar could not guess what was going on and, giving his eyes a quick rub, raised himself a notch higher.

Now he could make out the forms of two people; their heads and shoulders were jutting out of the bedding, and their lively movement seemed out of place for so late an hour. The lieutenant narrowed his eyes, trying to pierce the darkness.

The bodies shifted suddenly. One rose over the other and they settled into one. There was a moment of absolute silence before a long, low moan, like exhaled breath, swept into his ears, and Dunbar realized they were having sex.

Feeling like an ass, he sank quickly down, hoping neither lover had seen his stupid, gawking face staring across at them.

More awake than asleep now, he lay on the robe, listening to the steady, urgent sounds of their lovemaking. His eyes had grown accustomed to the dark and he could make out the shape of the sleeper closest to him.

The regular rise and fall of her bedding told him it was a deep sleep. She was lying on her side, her back turned to him. But he knew the shape of her head and the tangled, cherry-colored hair.

Stands With A Fist was sleeping alone and he began to wonder about her. She might be white by blood, but by all else she was one of these people. She spoke their language as if it were her native tongue. English was foreign to her. She didn’t act as if she were under any duress. There was not the slightest hint of the captive about her. She seemed to be an absolute equal in the band now. He guessed correctly that she had been taken when young.

As he wondered his way back to sleep, the questions about the woman who was two people gradually wove together until only one remained.

I wonder if she’s happy in her life, he asked himself.

The question stayed in his head, comingling lazily with the sounds of Kicking Bird and his wife making love.

Then, without any effort, the question began to spin, starting a slow whirl that gained speed with every turn. It circled faster and faster until at last he could see it no longer, and Lieutenant Dunbar fell asleep again.

They spent less than three full days in the temporary camp, and three days is a short time in which to undergo extensive change.

But that’s what happened.

Lieutenant Dunbar’s course in life shifted.

There was no single, bombastic event to account for the shift. He had no mystic visions. God did not make an appearance. He was not dubbed a Comanche warrior.

There was no moment of proof, no obvious relic of evidence a person could point to and say it was here or there, at this time or that.

It was as if some beautiful, mysterious virus of awakening that had been long in incubation finally came to the forefront of his life.

The morning after the hunt he woke with rare clarity. There was no hangover of sleep, and the lieutenant thought consciously about how long it had been since he’d woken like this. Not since he was a boy.

His feet were sticky, so he picked up his boots and crept past the sleepers in the lodge, hoping he would find a place outside to wash between his toes. He found the spot as soon as he stepped out of the tipi. The grass-covered prairie was soaked with dew for miles.

Leaving his boots next to the lodge, the lieutenant walked toward the east, knowing that the pony herd was out there somewhere. He wanted to check on Cisco.

The first rosy streaks of dawn had broken through the darkness and he watched them in awe as he walked, oblivious to the pant legs that were already sopping with dew.

Every day begins with a miracle, he thought suddenly.

The streaks were growing larger, changing colors by the second.

Whatever God may be, I thank God for this day.

He liked the words so much that he said them out loud.

“Whatever God may be, I thank God for this day.”

The heads of the first horses appeared, their pricked ears silhouetted against the dawn. He could see the head of an Indian, too. It was probably that boy who smiled all the time.

He found Cisco without much trouble. The buckskin nickered at his approach and the lieutenant’s heart swelled a little. His horse laid his soft muzzle against Dunbar’s chest and the two of them stood still for a few moments, letting the morning cool hang over them. The lieutenant gently lifted Cisco’s chin and blew breath into each of his nostrils.

Overcome with curiosity, the other horses began to press in around them, and before they could become annoying, Lieutenant Dunbar slipped a bridle over Cisco’s head and started back to camp.

Going in the opposite direction was just as impressive as coming out. The temporary village was tuned perfectly to nature’s clock, and like the day, it was slowly coming to life.

A few fires had started, and in the short time he’d been gone, it seemed as though everyone had gotten up. As the light grew brighter, like the gradual turning of a lamp, the figures moving about the camp did, too.

“What harmony,” the lieutenant said flatly as he walked with one arm slung over Cisco’s withers.

Then he lapsed into a deep and complex line of abstract thought concerning the virtues of harmony, which stuck to him all the way through breakfast.

They went out again that morning, and Dunbar killed another buffalo. This time he held Cisco well in check during the charge, and instead of plunging into the herd, he searched the fringe for a likely animal and rode it down. Though he took great care with his aim, the first shot was high and a second bullet was needed to finish the job.

The cow he took was large, and he was complimented on his good selection by a score of warriors who rode by to inspect his kill. There wasn’t the same kind of excitement that attended the first day’s hunting. He didn’t eat any fresh liver this day, but in every way, he felt more competent.