Dances With Wolves

CHAPTER XXI

In a quiet way it was one of the most satisfying days of Lieutenant Dunbar’s life.

Kicking Bird’s family greeted him with a warmth and respect that made him feel like more than a guest. They were genuinely happy to see him.

He and Kicking Bird settled down for a smoke that, because of constant but pleasant interruptions, lasted well into the afternoon.

Word of Lieutenant Dunbar’s name and how he got it spread through camp with the usual astonishing speed, and any nagging suspicions the people might have harbored toward the white soldier evaporated with this inspiring news.

He was not a god, but neither was he like any hair mouth they had encountered. He was a man of medicine. Warriors dropped by constantly, some of them wanting to say hello, others wanting nothing more than to lay eyes on Dances With Wolves.

The lieutenant recognized most of them now. At each arrival he would stand and make his short bow. Some of them bowed back. A few extended their hands, as they had seen him do.

There wasn’t much they could talk about, but the lieutenant was getting good with signs, good enough to rehash some of the recent hunt’s high points. This formed the basis for most of the visiting.

After a couple of hours the steady stream of visitors trickled away to no one, and Dunbar was just wondering why he hadn’t seen Stands With A Fist, and if she was on the agenda, when Wind In His Hair suddenly walked in.

Before greetings could be exchanged, each man’s attention was drawn to the items they had traded: the unbuttoned tunic and the gleaming breastplate. For both of them it was a subtly reassuring sight.

As they shook hands Lieutenant Dunbar thought, I like this fellow; it’s good to see him.

The same sentiments were foremost in Wind In His Hair’s thoughts, and they sat down together for an amicable chat, though neither man could understand what the other was saying.

Kicking Bird called to his wife for food, and the trio soon devoured a lunch of pemmican and berries. They ate without saying a word.

After the meal another pipe was packed and the two Indians fell into a conversation that the lieutenant could not divine. By their gestures and speech, however, he guessed they were dealing with something beyond idle chitchat.

They seemed to be planning some activity, and he was not surprised when, at the end of their talk, both men stood up and asked him to follow as they went outside.

Dunbar trailed them to the rear of Kicking Bird’s tipi, where a cache of material was waiting for them. A neat stack of limber willow poles was sitting next to a high pile of dried brush.

The two men had another, even briefer discussion, then set to work. When the lieutenant saw what was taking shape, he lent a hand here and there, but before he could contribute much, the material had been transformed into a shady arbor four or five feet high.

A small portion had been left uncovered to afford an entrance, and Lieutenant Dunbar was shown inside first. There wasn’t enough room to stand up, but once he was down, he found the place roomy and peaceful. The brush made good cover against the sun and was sheer enough to allow for a free flow of air.

It wasn’t until he’d finished this quick inspection that he realized Kicking Bird and Wind In His Hair had vanished. A week ago he would have been uncomfortable with their sudden desertion. But, like the Indians, he was no longer suspicious. The lieutenant was content to sit quietly against the surprisingly strong back wall, listening to the now familiar sounds of Ten Bears’s camp as he awaited developments.

They were not long in coming.

Only a few minutes had passed before he heard footsteps approaching. Kicking Bird duck-walked through the entrance and seated himself far enough away to leave a full space between them.

A shadow falling across the entrance told Dunbar that someone else was waiting to come inside. Without thinking, he assumed it was Wind In His Hair.

Kicking Bird called out softly. The shadow shifted to the accompaniment of tinkling bells, and Stands With A Fist stooped through the doorway.

Dunbar scooted to one side, making room as she maneuvered between them, and in the few seconds it took her to settle, he saw much that was new.

The bells were sewn on the sides of finely beaded moccasins. Her doeskin dress looked like an heirloom, something well cared for and not for every day. The bodice was sprinkled with small, thick bones arranged in rows. They were elk’s teeth.

The wrist closest to him wore a bracelet of solid brass. Around her neck was a choker of the same pipe-bone he wore on his chest. Her hair, fresh and fragrant, hung down her back in a single braid, exposing more of the high-cheeked, distinctly browed face than he had seen before. She looked more delicate and feminine to him now. And more white.

It dawned on the lieutenant then that the arbor had been built as a place for them to meet. And in the time it took her to sit, he realized how much he had anticipated seeing her again.

She still wouldn’t look at him, and while Kicking Bird mumbled something to her, he made up his mind to take the initiative and say hello.

It so happened that they turned their heads, opened their mouths, and said the word at precisely the same time. The two hellos collided in the space between them, and the speakers recoiled awkwardly at their accidental beginning.

Kicking Bird saw a favorable omen in the accident. He saw two people of like mind. Because this was exactly what he hoped for, it struck him as ironic.

The medicine man chuckled to himself. Then he pointed to Lieutenant Dunbar and grunted, as if saying, “Go ahead . . . you first.”

“Hello,” he said pleasantly.

She lifted her head. Her expression was businesslike, but he could see nothing of the hostility that had been there before.

“Hulo,” she replied.

They sat a long time in the arbor that day, most of it spent reviewing the few simple words they had exchanged at their first formal session.

Toward sundown, when all three had wearied of the constant, stumbling repetitions, the English translation for her Indian name suddenly came to Stands With A Fist.

It so excited her that she began immediately to teach it to Lieutenant Dunbar. First she had to get across what she wanted. She pointed to him and said, “Jun,” then pointed to herself and said nothing. In the same motion she held up a finger that said, “Stop. I will show you.”

The pattern had been for him to perform whatever action she asked for, then guess the action’s word in English. She wanted him to stand, but that was impossible in the arbor, so she hustled both men outside, where they would have full freedom of movement.

Lieutenant Dunbar guessed “rise,” “rises,” “gets up,” and “on my feet” before he hit “stands.” “With” was not so hard, “a” had already been covered, and he got “fist” on the first try. After he had it in English, she taught him the Comanche.

From there, in rapid succession, he mastered Wind In His Hair, Ten Bears, and Kicking Bird.

Lieutenant Dunbar was excited. He asked for something to make marks, and using a sliver of charcoal, he wrote the four names in phonetic Comanche on a strip of thin, white bark.

Stands With A Fist kept her reserve throughout. But inwardly she was thrilled. The English words were showering in her head like sparks as thousands of doors, locked up for so long, swung open. She was delirious with the excitement of learning.

Each time the lieutenant ran down the list written on his scrap of bark and each time he came close to pronouncing the names as they should be pronounced, she encouraged him with the suggestion of a smile and said the word “yes.”

For his part, Lieutenant Dunbar did not have to see her little smile to know that the encouragement was heartfelt. He could hear it in the sound of the word and he could see it in the power of her pale brown eyes. To hear him say these words, in English and Comanche, meant something special to her. Her inward thrill was tingling all about them. The lieutenant could feel it.

She was not the same woman, so sad and lost, that he had found on the prairie. That moment was now something left behind. It made him happy to see how far she had come.

Best of all was the little piece of bark he held in his hands. He grasped it firmly, determined not to let it slip away. It was the first section of a map that would guide him into whatever future he had with these people. So many things would be possible from now on.

It was Kicking Bird, however, who was most profoundly affected by this turn of events. To him it was a miracle of the highest order, on a par with attending something all-consuming, like birth or death.

His dream had become reality.

When he heard the lieutenant say his name in Comanche, it was as though an impenetrable wall had suddenly turned to smoke. And they were walking through. They were communicating.

With equal force his view of Stands With A Fist had enlarged. She was no longer a Comanche. In making herself a bridge for their words, she had become something more. Like the lieutenant, he heard it in the sound of her English words and he saw it in the new power of her eyes. Something had been added, something that was missing before, and Kicking Bird knew what it was.

Her long-buried blood was running again, her undiluted white blood.

The impact of these things was more than even Kicking Bird could bear, and like a professor who knows when it is time for his pupils to take a rest, he told Stands With A Fist that this was enough for one day.

A trace of disappointment flashed on her face. Then she dropped her head and nodded submissively.

At that moment, however, a wonderful thought occurred to her. She caught Kicking Bird’s eye and respectfully asked if they might do one more thing.

She wanted to teach the white soldier his name.

It was a good idea, so good that Kicking Bird could not refuse his adopted daughter. He told her to continue.

She remembered the word right away. She could see it, but she couldn’t speak it. And she couldn’t remember how she had done it as a girl. The men waited while she tried to remember.

Then Lieutenant Dunbar unwittingly raised his hand to brush at a gnat that was bothering his ear, and she saw it all again.

She grabbed the lieutenant’s hand as it hung in space and let the fingertips of her other hand rest cautiously on his hip. And before either man could react, she led Dunbar into a creaky but unmistakable memory of a waltz.

After a few seconds she pulled away demurely, leaving Lieutenant Dunbar in a state of shock. He had to struggle to remember the point of the exercise.

A light went off in his head. Then it jumped into his eyes, and like the only boy in class who knows the answer, he smiled at his teacher.

From there it was easy to get the rest.

Lieutenant Dunbar went to one knee and wrote the name at the bottom of his bark grammar book. His eyes lingered on the way it looked in English. It seemed bigger than just a name. The more he looked at it, the more he liked it.

He said it to himself. Dances With Wolves.

The lieutenant came to his feet, bowed shortly in Kicking Bird’s direction, and, as a butler might announce the arrival of a dinner guest, humbly and without fanfare, he said the name once more.

This time he said it in Comanche.

“Dances With Wolves.”