Dances With Wolves

CHAPTER XXVI

The next few days were euphoric for Dances With Wolves and Stands With A Fist.

There were constant smiles about their mouths, their cheeks were flush with romance, and no matter where they went, their feet seemed not to touch the ground.

In the company of others they were discreet, being careful not to show any outward signs of affection. So geared were they for concealment that the language sessions were more businesslike than ever before. If they were alone in the lodge, they took the chance of holding hands, making love with their fingers. But that was as far as it went.

They tried to meet secretly at least once a day, usually at the river. This they couldn’t help doing, but it took time to find absolute seclusion, and Stands With A Fist in particular fretted about being found out.

Marriage was in their minds from the beginning. It was something they both wanted. And the sooner the better. But her widowhood was a major stumbling block. There was no prescribed period of mourning in the Comanche life way, and release could come only from the woman’s father. If she had no father, the warrior who was her primary provider would take on the responsibility. In Stands With A Fist’s case, she could look only to Kicking Bird for her release. He alone would determine when she was no longer a widow. And it might take a long time.

Dances With Wolves tried to reassure his lover, telling her that things would work out and not to worry. But she did, anyway. During one fit of depression over this issue she proposed that they run away together. But he only laughed, and the idea was not brought up again.

They took chances. Twice in the four days after their coming together at the river she left Kicking Bird’s lodge in the darkness of early morning and slipped unnoticed into Dances With Wolves’s tipi. There they would lie together until first light, whispering their conversations as they held each other naked under the robe.

All in all they did as well as could be expected of two people who had surrendered completely to love. They were dignified and prudent and disciplined.

And they fooled almost no one.

Everyone in the camp who was old enough to know what love between a man and a woman looked like could see it in the faces of Stands With A Fist and Dances With Wolves.

Most people could not find it in their hearts to condemn love, no matter what the circumstances. Those few who might have taken offense held their tongues for lack of proof. Most important, their attraction was no threat to the band at large. Even the older, conservative elements admitted to themselves that the potential union made sense.

After all, they were both white.

On the fifth night after the meeting at the river, Stands With A Fist had to see him again. She had been waiting for everyone in Kicking Bird’s lodge to fall asleep. Long after the sounds of light snoring filled the tipi, she was waiting, wanting to make sure her leaving would go unnoticed.

She had just realized that the smell of rain was strong in the air when sudden yapping of excited voices broke the stillness. The voices were loud enough to wake everyone, and seconds later they were throwing aside bedding to rush outside.

Something had happened. The whole village was up. She hurried down the main avenue with a throng of other people, all of them heading for a big fire that seemed to be the center of attention. In the chaos she looked vainly for Dances With Wolves, but it wasn’t until she had pushed close to the fire that she could see him.

As they sifted through the crowd to one another she noticed new Indians huddled by the fire. There were half a dozen of them. Several more men were sprawled on the ground, some of them dead, some of them horribly injured. They were Kiowas, longtime friends and hunting partners of the Comanche.

The six men who were untouched were wild with fear. They were gesticulating anxiously, talking in signs to Ten Bears and two or three close advisers. The onlookers were hushed and expectant as they watched the Kiowa story unfold.

She and Dances With Wolves had nearly closed the space between them when women began to scream. A moment later the assembly came to pieces as women and children ran for their lodges, careening into each other in their panic. Warriors were boiling around Ten Bears, and one word was coming from the mouths of everyone. It was rolling through the village in the same way that thunder had begun to tremble through the black skies overhead.

It was a word that Dances With Wolves knew well, for he had heard it many times in conversations and stories.

“Pawnee.”

With Stands With A Fist at his side, he pressed closer to the warriors crowding around Ten Bears. She talked into his ear as they watched, telling him what had happened to the Kiowa.

They had started out as a small group, less than twenty men, looking for buffalo about ten miles north of the Comanche camp. There they were hit by a huge Pawnee war party, at least eighty warriors, maybe more. They’d been attacked in the afterglow of sunset and none of them would have escaped were it not for darkness and a superior knowledge of the countryside.

They’d covered the retreat as best they could, but with such a large army, it was only a matter of time before the Pawnee would locate this camp. It was possible they had moved into position even now. The Kiowas thought there would be a few hours at most to get ready. That there would be an attack, probably made at dawn, was a foregone conclusion.

Ten Bears began giving orders that neither Stands With A Fist nor Dances With Wolves could hear. It was clear from the old man’s expression, however, that he was worried. Ten of the band’s most distinguished warriors were out with Kicking Bird and Wind In His Hair. The men left behind were good fighters, but if there were eighty Pawnee coming, they would be dangerously outnumbered.

The meeting around the fire broke up in a curious kind of anarchy, lesser warriors marching off in different directions behind the man they felt would best lead them.

Dances With Wolves had an uneasy feeling. Everything seemed so disorganized. The thunder overhead was coming at closer intervals and rain seemed inevitable. It would help to cover the Pawnee approach.

But it was his village now, and he dashed after Stone Calf with only one thought in mind.

“I will follow you,” he said when he had caught up.

Stone Calf eyed him grimly.

“This will be a hard fight,” he said. “The Pawnee never come for horses. They come for blood.”

Dances With Wolves nodded.

“Get your weapons and come to my lodge,” the older warrior ordered.

“I’ll get them,” Stands With A Fist volunteered, and with her dress hitched up around her calves, she took off at a run, leaving Dances With Wolves to follow Stone Calf.

He was trying to calculate how many rounds he had for the rifle and his Navy revolver when he remembered something that stopped him in his tracks.

“Stone Calf,” he shouted. “Stone Calf.”

The warrior turned back to him.

“I have guns,” Dances With Wolves blurted. “In the ground near the white man’s fort there are many guns.”

They made an immediate about-face and returned to the fire.

Ten Bears was still questioning the Kiowa hunters.

The poor men, already half-crazed at the trauma of nearly losing their lives, shrank at the sight of Dances With Wolves, and it took some quick talking to get them calmed down.

Ten Bears’s face jumped when Stone Calf told him there were guns.

“What guns?” he asked anxiously.

“White soldier guns . . . rifles,” answered Dances With Wolves.

It was a hard decision for Ten Bears. Though he approved of Dances With Wolves, there was something in his old Comanche blood that didn’t fully trust the white man. The guns were in the ground and it would take them time to dig them up. The Pawnee might be close now and he needed every man to defend the village. There was the long ride to the white man’s fort to consider. And the rain would be coming any minute.

But the fight was going to be a close one, and he knew that guns could make a big difference. Chances were the Pawnee didn’t have many. Dawn was still hours away, and there was enough time to make the round trip to the hair-mouth fort.

“The guns are in boxes. . . . They are covered with wood,” Dances With Wolves said, interrupting his thoughts. “We will need only a few men and travois to bring them back.”

The old man had to make the gamble. He told Stone Calf to take Dances With Wolves, along with two other men and six ponies, four for riding and two for carrying the guns. He told them to go quickly.

When he got to his lodge Cisco was bridled and standing in front. A fire was going inside and Stands With A Fist was squatting next to it, mixing something in a small bowl.

His weapons, the rifle, the big Navy, the bow, the quiver stuffed with arrows, and the long-bladed knife, were laid out neatly on the floor.

He was strapping on the Navy when she brought the bowl to him.

“Give me your face,” she commanded.

He stood still as she daubed at the red substance in the bowl with one of her fingers.

“This is for you to do, but there is no time and you don’t know how. I will do it for you.”

With fast, sure strokes, she drew a single horizontal bar across his forehead and two vertical ones along each cheek. Using a dot pattern, she superimposed a wolf’s paw print over one of the cheek bars and stepped back to look at her work.

She nodded approval as Dances With Wolves slung the bow and quiver over his shoulder.

“You can shoot?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Take this then.”

He handed her the rifle.

There were no hugs or words of goodbye.

He stepped outside, jumped up on Cisco, and was gone.

They rode away from the river, taking the straightest line possible across the grasslands.

The sky was terrifying. It seemed as though four storms were converging at once. Lightning was flashing all around them like artillery fire.

They had to stop when one of the travois came loose from its rigging, and as it was being repaired, Dances With Wolves had a chilling thought. What if he couldn’t find the guns? He hadn’t seen the buffalo rib marker for a long time. Even if it was still standing where he’d driven it into the ground, it would be difficult to find. He groaned inwardly at his prospects.

Rain was beginning to fall in big, heavy drops when they reached the fort. He led them to what he thought was the spot but could see nothing in the dark. He told them what to look for, and the quartet fanned out on their ponies, searching the tall grass for a long, white piece of bone.

Rain was coming harder now, and ten minutes passed with no sign of the rib. The wind was up and lightning was flashing every few seconds. The light it threw across the ground was countered by the blinding effect it had on the searchers.

After twenty dismal minutes Dances With Wolves’s heart had hit bottom. They were covering the same ground now and still there was nothing.

Then, over the wind and rain and thunder, he thought he heard a cracking sound under one of Cisco’s hooves. Dances With Wolves called to the others and leaped down. Soon all four were on their hands and knees feeling blindly through the grass. Stone Calf suddenly jumped to his feet. He was waving a long, white piece of the rib.

Dances With Wolves stood in the spot where it was found and waited for the next bolt of lightning. When the sky flashed again, he glanced quickly at the old buildings of Fort Sedgewick and, using them as a landmark, began moving in a northerly direction, going step by step,

A few paces later the prairie went spongy under one of his boots, and he cried out to the others. The men dropped down to help him dig. The earth gave easily as they scooped and minutes later two long wooden cases of rifles were being hauled out of their muddy tomb.

They’d been under way only half an hour when the storm hit with full power, sending rain down in great, running sheets. It was impossible to see, and the four men shepherding the two travois across the plains had to grope their way back.

But with the importance of their mission uppermost in each man’s mind, they never paused, and made the return trip in amazing time. When at last they were in sight of the village, the storm had died down. Above it, a few long streaks of gray had appeared in the turbulent sky, and through this first feeble light of day they could see that the village was still safe.

They had just started down the depression leading to camp when a spectacular barrage of lightning struck upriver. For two or three seconds the bolts lit the landscape with the clarity of daylight.

Dances With Wolves saw it, and so did the others.

A long line of horsemen was crossing the river no more than half a mile above the village. The lightning struck again and they could see the enemy disappearing into the breaks. The plan was obvious. They would come from the north, using the foliage along the river to move within a hundred yards of the village. Then they would attack.

In perhaps twenty minutes the Pawnee would be in position.

There were twenty-four rifles in each crate. Dances With Wolves personally passed them out to the fighting men clustered around Ten Bears’s lodge while the old man gave last-minute instructions.

Though he knew that the main assault would be coming from the river, it was probable that they would send a diversionary force from the open prairie, thus giving the real attackers a chance to overrun the village from behind. He designated two influential warriors and a handful of followers to fight off the suspected charge from the prairie.

Then he tapped Dances With Wolves on the shoulder, and the warriors listened as he spoke.

“If you were a white soldier,” the old man said wryly, “and you had all these men with guns, what would you do?”

Dances With Wolves quickly thought this over.

“I would hide in the village . . .”

Cries of derision flew from the mouths of the warriors who had been within earshot. Ten Bears quieted them with a raising of his hand and an admonishment.

“Dances With Wolves has not finished his answer,” he said sternly.

“I would hide in the village, behind the lodges. I would watch only the breaks and not those coming from the prairie. I would let the enemy show himself first. I would let the enemy think we are fighting on the other side and that taking the camp will be easy. Then I would have these men hiding behind the lodges jump out and shoot. Then I would have these men charge the enemy with knives and skull crackers. I would drive the enemy into the river and kill so many that they would never come this way again.”

The old man had been listening carefully. He looked out over his warriors and lifted his voice.

“Dances With Wolves and I are of the same mind. We should kill so many that they will never come this way again. Let us go quietly.”

The men moved stealthily through the village with their new rifles and took up positions behind lodges that faced the river.

Before he took his place beside them, Dances With Wolves slipped into Kicking Bird’s lodge. The children had been herded under robes. Sitting in silence beside them were the women. Kicking Bird’s wives were holding clubs in their laps. Stands With A Fist had his rifle. They said nothing, and neither did Dances With Wolves. He’d only wanted to see that they were ready.

He stole past the arbor and stopped behind his own lodge. It was one of the closest to the river. Stone Calf was on the other side. They nodded at each other and turned their attention to the open ground in front of them. It sloped for about a hundred yards before it met the breaks.

The rain was much lighter, but it still served to obscure their view. Clouds hung thickly overhead, and the halflight of dawn was almost no light at all. They could see little, but he felt sure they were there.

Dances With Wolves glanced up and down the line of tipis to his left and right. Comanche warriors were packed in behind each one, waiting with their rifles. Even Ten Bears was there.

The light was stronger now. The storm clouds were lifting and the rain was going with them. Suddenly the sun broke through, and a minute later steam was rising off the ground like fog.

Dances With Wolves squinted through the fog at the breaks and saw the dark shapes of men, sifting like spirits through the willows and cottonwoods.

He was starting to feel something he had not felt in a long time. It was that intangible thing that turned his eyes black, that turned on the machine that could not be shut down.

No matter how big, how many, or how powerful the men moving in the mist were, they were nothing to fear. They were the enemy and they were on his doorstep. He wanted to fight them. He couldn’t wait to fight them.

Gunshots rang out behind him. The diversionary force had hit the small group of defenders on the other front.

As the noise of the fighting increased, his eyes checked the line. A few hotheads tried to break away and run to the other fight, but the older warriors did a good job of holding them in check, and no one bolted.

Again he scanned the mists clinging to the breaks.

They were coming up slowly, some on foot, some on horseback. They were inching up the incline, shadowy, roach-haired enemies dreaming of a slaughter.

The Pawnee cavalry was behind the men on foot, and Dances With Wolves wanted them at the front. He wanted the mounted men to take the brunt of the fire.

Bring up the horses, he pleaded to them silently. Bring ‘em up.

He looked down the line, hoping they would wait a few more seconds, and was surprised to see many eyes riveted on him. They kept watching, as if waiting for a sign.

Dances With Wolves raised an arm over his head.

A fluttering guttural sound came up the slope. It rose higher and higher, blasting through the quiet, rainy morning, like hot air. The Pawnee were sounding the attack.

As they charged, the cavalry surged ahead of the men on foot.

Dances With Wolves dropped his arm and sprang out from behind the lodge with his rifle raised. The other Comanches followed suit.

The fire from their guns hit the horsemen at a distance of about twenty yards, and as cleanly as a sharp knife cutting skin, it wrecked the Pawnee charge. Men tumbled from their horses like toys shaken off a shelf, and those not actually hit were stunned by the blistering concussion of forty rifles.

As they fired the Comanches counterattacked, streaming down through the screen of blue smoke to pounce on the dazed enemy.

The charge was so furious that Dances With Wolves crashed square into the first Pawnee he met. As they rolled awkwardly on the ground he thrust the barrel of the Navy into the man’s face and fired.

After that he shot men where he could find them in the turmoil, killing two more in rapid succession. Something large bumped him hard from behind, nearly knocking him off his feet. It was one of the surviving Pawnee war ponies. He grabbed its bridle and swung onto its back.

The Pawnee were like chickens being set upon by wolves and already they were falling back, desperately trying to make the safety of the breaks. Dances With Wolves picked out a tall warrior running for his life and rode him down. He fired at the back of the man’s head, but there was no report. Flipping the barrel around, he clubbed the fleeing warrior with the butt end of the revolver. The Pawnee went down right in front of him, and Dances With Wolves felt the pony’s hooves strike the body as they passed over. Just ahead of him another Pawnee, his head turbaned with a bright red scarf, was picking himself off the ground. He, too, was going for the breaks.

Dances With Wolves kicked viciously at the pony’s flanks, and as they pulled abreast of the runaway, he threw himself at the turbaned man, taking him in a headlock as he slid from the pony’s back.

Momentum sent them careening across the last of the open space and they slammed hard against a large cottonwood. Dances With Wolves had the man by both sides of his head. He was bashing his skull against the tree trunk before he realized that the warrior’s eyes were dead. A broken branch low on the trunk had skewered the Pawnee like meat.

As he stepped back from this unnerving sight, the dead man slumped forward, his arms flopping pitifully against Dances With Wolves’s sides as if he wanted to embrace his killer. Dances With Wolves skipped back farther and the body fell flat on its face.

In the same instant he realized that the screaming had stopped.

The fight was over.

Suddenly weak, he staggered along the edge of the breaks, picked up the main path, and trotted down to the river, sidestepping Pawnee bodies as he went.

A dozen mounted Comanches, Stone Calf among them, were chasing the dregs of the Pawnee force up the opposite bank.

Dances With Wolves watched until the skirmishers disappeared from sight. Then he walked slowly back. Coming up the incline, he could hear yelling. When he reached the slope’s crest, the battlefield he’d lately occupied opened wide to him.

It looked like a hastily abandoned picnic site. Refuse was scattered everywhere. There were a great number of Pawnee corpses. Comanche warriors were moving among them excitedly.

“I killed this one,” someone would call.

“This one still breathes,” another would announce, prompting the arrival of whoever was close by to help finish him off.

The women and children had come out of the lodges and were scurrying down to the battlefield. Some of the bodies were being mutilated.

Dances With Wolves stood stock-still, too fatigued to retreat into the breaks, too repulsed to move forward.

One of the warriors saw him and then cried out.

“Dances With Wolves!”

Before he knew it, Comanche fighters were all around him. Like ants rolling a pebble uphill, they pushed him onto the battlefield. They were chanting his name as they went.

In a daze he allowed himself to be carried along, unable to comprehend their intense happiness. They were overjoyed at the death and destruction lying at their feet, and Dances With Wolves could not understand.

But as he stood there, hearing them shout his name, understanding came to him. He had never been in this kind of fight, but gradually he began to look at the victory in a new way.

This killing had not been done in the name of some dark political objective. This was not a battle for territory or riches or to make men free. This battle had no ego.

It had been waged to protect the homes that stood only a few feet away. And to protect the wives and children and loved ones huddled inside. It had been fought to preserve the food stores that would see them through the winter, food stores everyone had worked so hard to gather.

For every member of the band this was a great personal victory.

Suddenly he was proud to hear his name being shouted, and as his eyes focused again, he looked down and recognized one of the men he had killed.

“I shot this one,” he yelled out.

Someone shouted in his ear.

“Yes, I saw you shoot him.”

Before long, Dances With Wolves was marching around with them, calling out the names of fellow Comanche men as he recognized them.

Sunshine spilled across the village, and the fighters began a spontaneous dance of victory, exhorting each other with back slaps and cries of triumph as they cavorted over the field of dead Pawnee.

Two of the enemy had been killed by the force defending the front of the village. On the main battlefield there were twenty-two bodies. Four more were found in the breaks, and Stone Calf’s team of pursuers managed to kill three. How many had gotten away wounded, no one knew.

Seven Comanches had been wounded, only two seriously, but the real miracle was in the number of dead. Not a single Comanche fighter had been lost. Even the old men could not remember such a one-sided victory.

For two days the village reveled in its triumph. Honors were heaped on all the men, but one warrior was exalted above all others. That was Dances With Wolves.

Through all his months on the plains the native perception of him had shifted many times. And now the circle had closed. Now he was looked on in a way that was close to their original idea. No one came forward to declare him a god, but in the life of these people he was the next best thing.

All day long young men could be found hanging around his lodge. Maidens flirted openly with him. His name was foremost in everyone’s thoughts. No conversation, regardless of subject, could run its course without some mention of Dances With Wolves.

The ultimate accolade came from Ten Bears. In a gesture previously unknown, he presented the hero with a pipe from his own lodge.

Dances With Wolves liked the attention, but he did nothing to encourage it. The instant and lasting celebrity pressured the management of his days. It seemed that someone was always underfoot. Worst of all, it gave him little private time with Stands With A Fist.

Of all the people in camp, he was perhaps the most relieved to see the return of Kicking Bird and Wind In His Hair.

After several weeks on the trail they had yet to engage the enemy when sudden and unseasonable snow flurries caught them in the foothills of a mountain range.

Interpreting this as a sign of an early and savage winter, Kicking Bird had called off the expedition and they had flown home to make preparations for the big move south.