Michael Blake - Dances With Wolves

Once again women and children flooded onto the plain for the butchering, and by late afternoon the temporary camp was overflowing with meat. Uncounted drying racks, sagging under the weight of thousands of pounds of meat, sprang up like toadstools after a downpour, and there was more feasting on fresh-roasted delicacies.

The youngest warriors and a number of boys not ready for the warpath organized a horse-racing tournament shortly after they returned to camp. Smiles A Lot had his heart set on riding Cisco. He made his request with such respect that the lieutenant could not refuse him, and several races had been run before he realized to his horror that the winners were being given the horses of the losers. He rooted for Smiles A Lot with the fingers of both hands crossed, and fortunately for the lieutenant, the boy had won all three of his races.

Later on there was gambling, and Wind In His Hair got the lieutenant into a game. Except for being played with dice, it was unfamiliar, and learning the ropes cost Dunbar his whole tobacco supply. Some of the players were interested in the pants with the yellow stripes, but having already traded away his hat and tunic, the lieutenant thought he should retain some pretense of being in uniform.

Besides, the way things were going, he would lose the pants and have nothing to wear.

They liked the breastplate, but that, too, was out. He offered the old pair of boots he was wearing, but the Indians could see no value in them. Finally the lieutenant produced his rifle, and the players were unanimous in accepting it. Wagering a rifle created a big stir, and the game instantly became a high-stakes affair, drawing many observers.

By now the lieutenant knew what he was doing, and as the game continued, the dice took a liking to him. He hit a hot streak, and when the dust of his run had settled, he not only had held on to the rifle, but was now the new owner of three excellent ponies.

The losers gave up their treasures with such grace and good humor that Dunbar was moved to reply in kind. He immediately made presents of his winnings. The tallest and strongest of the three he gave to Wind In His Hair. Then, with a throng of the curious trailing in his wake, he led the remaining two horses through camp and, on reaching Kicking Bird’s lodge, handed both sets of reins to the medicine man.

Kicking Bird was pleased but bewildered. When someone explained where the horses had come from, he glanced around, caught sight of Stands With A Fist, and called her over, indicating that he wished her to speak for him.

She was a gruesome sight as she stood listening to the medicine man.

The butchering had splattered her arms and face and apron with blood.

She pleaded ignorance, shaking him off with her head, but Kicking Bird persisted, and the little assembly in front of the lodge fell silent, waiting to see if she could perform the English Kicking Bird had asked for.

She stared at her feet and mouthed a word several times. Then she looked at the lieutenant and tried it.

“Tankus,” she said.

The lieutenant’s face twitched.

“What?” he replied, forcing a smile.

“Tank.”

She poked his arm with a finger and swung her arm toward the ponies.

“Hotz.”

“Thank?” the lieutenant guessed. “Thank me?”

Stands With A Fist nodded.

“Yes,” she said clearly.

Lieutenant Dunbar reached out to shake with Kicking Bird, but she stopped him. She wasn’t finished, and holding a finger aloft, she stepped between the ponies.

“Horz,” she said, pointing to the lieutenant with her free hand. She repeated the word and pointed at Kicking Bird.

“One for me?” the lieutenant queried, using the same hand signs.

“And one for him?”

Stands With A Fist sighed happily, and knowing he understood her, she smiled thinly.

“Yes,” she said, and without thinking, another old word, perfectly popped out of her mouth. “Correct.”

It sounded so odd, this rigid, proper English word, that Lieutenant Dunbar laughed out loud, and like a teenager who has just said something silly, Stands With A Fist covered her mouth with a hand.

It was their joke. She knew the word had flown out like an inadvertent burp, and so did the lieutenant. Reflexively they looked to Kicking Bird and the others. The Indian faces were blank, however, and when the eyes of the cavalry officer and the woman who was two people came together again, they were dancing with the laughter of an inside thing only they could share. There was no way to adequately explain it to the others. It wasn’t funny enough to go to the trouble.

Lieutenant Dunbar didn’t keep the other pony. Instead he led it to Ten Bears’s lodge and, without knowing it, elevated his status even further. Comanche tradition called for the rich to spread their wealth among the less fortunate. But Dunbar reversed that, and the old man was left with the thought that this white man was truly extraordinary.

That night, as he was sitting around Kicking Bird’s fire, listening to a conversation he didn’t understand, Lieutenant Dunbar happened to see Stands With A Fist. She was squatting a few feet away and she was looking at him. Her head was tilted and her eyes seemed lost in curiosity. Before she could look away, he tipped his head in the direction of the warrior’s conversation, put on an official face, and laid a hand against the side of his mouth.

“Correct,” he whispered loudly.

She turned away quickly then. But as she did, he heard the distinct sound of a giggle.

To stay any longer would have been useless. They had all the meat they could possibly carry. Just after dawn everything was packed, and the column was on the march by midmorning. with every travois piled high, the return trip took twice as long, and it was getting dark by the time they reached Fort Sedgewick.

A travois loaded with several hundred pounds of jerked meat was brought up and unloaded into the supply house. A flurry of goodbyes followed, and with Lieutenant Dunbar watching from the doorway of his sod hut, the caravan marched off for the permanent camp upstream.

Without forethought his eyes searched the semidarkness surrounding the long, noisy column for a glimpse of Stands With A Fist.

He couldn’t find her.

The lieutenant had mixed feelings about being back.

He knew the fort as his home, and that was reassuring. It was good to pull his boots off, lie down on the pallet, and stretch out unobserved. With half-closed eyes he watched the wick flicker in his lamp, and drifted lazily in the quiet surrounding the hut. Everything was in its place, and so was he.

Not many minutes had passed, however, before he realized his right foot was jiggling with aimless energy.

What are you doing? he asked himself as he stilled the foot. You’re not nervous.

It was only a minute more before he discovered the fingers of his right hand drumming impatiently at his chest.

He wasn’t nervous. He was bored. Bored and lonely.

In the past he would have reached for his cigarette fixings, made a smoke, and put himself to work puffing on it. But there was no more tobacco.

Might as well have a look at the river, he thought, and with that, got back into his boots and walked outside.

He stopped, thinking of the breastplate that was already so precious to him. It was draped over the army-issue saddle he’d brought from the supply house. He went back inside, intending only to look at it.

Even in the weak light of the lamp it was shining brilliantly. Lieutenant Dunbar ran his hand over the bones. They were like glass. When he picked it up there was a solid clacking as bone kissed bone. He liked the cool, hard feel of it on his bare chest.