The Holy Road

Chapter XIII

Though he had never seen the Medicine Bluff he had been in the vicinity on several occasions and knew it resided somewhere in a string of queer, misshapen hills that rose out of the grassland on the eastern edge of the Kiowa territory. It was said to be the largest of the hills, no more than a mile in length, each end gently sloping upward to resolve in a distinctive hump that marked its center.

He did not doubt that he would find it. As he left camp with his ponies trailing behind, a mantle of confidence unlike any he had experienced before settled over him. Perhaps it was the freedom he felt in taking action. His ears and nose and eyes all seemed keener, and in the many miles he logged every ripple in the landscape stood out and every faint odor on the breeze seemed to speak to his nose. Even the footfalls of each pony, sounds he had always taken for granted, seemed separate and distinct.

When Smiles A Lot reached the region of the strange hills, on the afternoon of his fourth day out, he crossed and recrossed a shallow, winding creek as if guided by forces beyond his understanding, until suddenly he found himself facing a long, wide incline dotted with a few scrub oaks. The land pushed up before him and at its apex a smoothly formed hump stood out against the sky.

The winding creek flowed languidly at the base of the odd hill and he hobbled his ponies in its cover. He drank long and deep from the cool waters of the stream before setting off with a clump of sage, two pieces of flint, and the clothes on his back.

The day was fair and the climb so easy that his breathing was hardly labored by the time he reached the top. No trees of any kind grew at the summit and the ground was as smooth as it had appeared at a distance. Then the earth suddenly gave way as if it had been sheared and when Smiles A Lot peered down the drop-off was straight and steep as any true cliff, falling a hundred and fifty feet to the meandering creek that encircled the bluff. Looking from side to side, he could see that the claw-like marks Owl Prophet had described etched the whole of the formation's rock face.

Heights had never appealed much to Smiles A Lot. In the few times he had sat in the high limbs of a cottonwood, he felt a certain turning in his stomach and an instantaneous weakening of his arms and legs. He felt the same things now. Standing at the edge of the precipice, he felt his stomach climbing into his throat and his knees quivering, But the sensations were fleeting in comparison to the whole of his spirit, which seemed to have been grasped and flung into the ecstatic space ahead.

The horizon stretched before him in limitless glory so dazzling that for a time he was uncertain if he was still standing on the earth. The breeze rushed against his body in busy, little eddies, leaving in its wake a silence so profound that for a moment he imagined himself arrived at the top of the world. Without meditation he spontaneously raised his arms skyward in supplication.

At the same time he closed his eyes and immediately his head began to spin. Fearful that he might reel and fall, he tottered back, settling effortlessly on the ground. There he lay for several minutes, staring straight up. With the earth pressing against him and the sky looming over him, Smiles A Lot, for the first time in his short life, imagined that all he needed to know about existence was to know the place he now occupied, between the earth and sky.

When his rapture subsided, Smiles A Lot roused himself and set to work. He cleared a small patch of ground near the edge of the bluff and plucked a few handfuls of dry grass. Then he struck his flints until one of the sparks ignited the fuel. When tiny flames appeared he lit the tightly bound sage and passed the bundle over himself from head to toe and, satisfied that he was chaste in the eyes of the Mystery sat cross-legged on the ground. Owl Prophet had given him the barest of instructions. To sit and wait was all he had been told. But Smiles A Lot did not feel the slightest sense of bewilderment or apprehension or trepidation. He knew he was in the right place.

Halfway through his first full day at the top of the world his thirst became unbearable and he waited out the hours, fighting back the desire for water. The compulsion for relief became so great that he thought he might die. Then, by some miracle of will, it began to recede, until at last his thirst became a part of him, as common as breathing or feeling. The same thing happened with his hunger. At the end of his second day it, too, became so much a part of him that he no longer knew it was there.

His body, which rebelled at the stillness imposed upon it, caused him constant, excruciating pain. What began as mild discomfort grew like a fever, until his body was consumed with an array of cramps and cricks and throbs and kinks and aches and chafes. Fiery needles tortured his shoulders and spine and knees and hips. Even his head seemed to catch fire, and for a time he was certain that the pain would carry him away.

Then all at once it, too, disappeared, and, as his third night on the bluff began, the stars seemed close enough to be plucked and the moon that rose could have been picked out of the night sky as easily as taking an apple off a branch. He imagined rolling it back and forth on the ground from one hand to another. All was bliss and so great was his contentment that instead of fighting against sleep he could do no more than sweetly wish it away, thinking dreamily that he might somehow remain as he was for all time.

Whether or not he slept that night Smiles A Lot did not know. It seemed as if he had, for there were stretches of time he could not account for. But when he heard the call of a bird and saw that the sun was up, he realized that the peace he had reached the day before was still with him. He had no thirst and no hunger. There was no complaint from a body that, aside from subtle, nearly imperceptible shifts, had stayed in the same position for hours, maybe days.

But something was different. He opened his eyes a little and discovered that the skin of the earth had come alive. It was moving.

He turned then, swiveling his head and twisting his spine, first one way, then another. The skin of the entire hill was moving and in an instant he became cognizant of what was causing the phenomenon. Crows, multitudes of them, were milling back and forth over the ground. Every oak on the slope behind him was heavy with the big black birds. Their voices came to him, a raucous din of screeches and mutterings.

He knew he must be dreaming. They inhabited every inch of ground. Through the masses of strutting birds he could glimpse little sparks of earth in the same way one might see an occasional flash of light reflecting off a field of stones.

As he watched the fantastic assembly of birds, Smiles A Lot began to wonder at their purpose. Had they come to feast on him? Were they trying to contact him, trying to show him something? Was he now in the Crow nation? Would he have to remain?

As he teetered on the verge of panic a sudden fluttering made him swivel his head once more. A commotion was going on in the oak closest to him. A crow took wing, flapping heavily into the air. The first was followed by a second and a third. The whole tree came to life as the crows pushed into space.

The birds on the ground began to hop into the air and the sky turned black as they climbed toward heaven, thousands upon thousands of them calling to one another.

Smiles A Lot watched, stupefied. How much time had passed since the flight began he did not know. Nor did he know what compelled him to tilt his head back and raise his eyes. When he did he saw that they had formed a gigantic funnel directly over him. The great mass of birds was circling lazily, their huge, hollow column reaching for infinity.

It came to him then that crows were thought to have a direct connection with the dead, and Smiles A Lot wondered if he himself might have passed over. He raised his arms to see if he was still alive, and to his astonishment felt himself lifting off the ground. He ascended, still sitting cross-legged, and when he reached the cloud of crows he, too, began to circle in the same lethargic way, revolving slowly upward. As he went higher the speed of his revolutions grew. He turned faster and faster until at last he was spinning crazily through space.

All at once he felt a jolt. He was sitting on the ground again but was so disoriented that he could not help but fall back. On his way to earth his spine struck something solid, something alive. He felt it burrow under the small of his back and suddenly he was rising again. As he was lifted into the air he felt himself sliding down something he knew well. He could smell a familiar smell too and in the time it takes to blink he had completed his slide to find himself straddling the back of a horse whose flesh was hard as metal.

He let a hand drop to the animal's withers. Its coat shimmered black as onyx, and when Smiles A Lot glanced up he saw that the horse had craned its neck for a look at who might be sitting astride its back. A dark eye, its pupil black as its coat, stared back at him with inscrutable intent.

The next thing Smiles A Lot knew, a stallion's scream rent the air and the animal below him was diving and leaping, corkscrewing frantically to unseat him. It plunged and reared as if it were some monster of the deep, alternately sounding and surfacing the length of the bluff and back again. All the while, its rider sat as easily as a man might sit against the willow backrest in his lodge, enjoying a tranquil smoke.

At the zenith of the bluff the magnificent horse abruptly halted his gyrations and gazed once more at its rider. With a long-winded sigh it raised and lowered its handsome head as if in agreement with some unposed question. It spread its front legs, dropped its head between them, and exploded backward.

At the same instant Smiles A Lot's perspective shifted. He was watching himself at a distance, watching himself ride this great engine of a horse as it powered backward down the long approach to the top of the bluff.

In a flash he was atop the horse again, looking up the slope. Debris from their descent, chunks of earth floating in silt, were raining down on the ground, and as it slowly settled, he could feel the animal beneath him gather itself. It bounced up and down on its,front legs and shook its neck and head as a stallion does before it charges. It took deep breaths, each one more rapid than the last.

Whether the force came from behind or below or in front Smiles A Lot could not tell but in a single stroke they were blasted up the hill, though the horse under him did not appear to move. An unseen power had flung them forward and the energy it generated seemed to grow as the cliff ahead rushed up to meet them. They were already in the air when they soared over the abyss, climbing as smoothly into the sky as an eagle sails on an updraft.

But the sky was not the sky. It was filled with enemies. Pawnee horsemen charged them, each with a war club poised to strike a fatal blow Smiles A Lot and his mount swept through them with the precision of a blade. He could see them rolling off through space like particles in the wind. Utes were rushing toward them on foot, knives raised in one hand, bloody scalps in the other. They, too, went down. A regiment of Mexican lancers was vanquished as effortlessly as a hand passes through smoke.

A cluster of wagons came next. Kneeling behind the wagons were blue-coated soldiers, the smoke of their rifles hanging like tiny clouds in a windless sky. As horse and rider reached the wagons they rocketed straight up, leaving the white soldiers far below. It was amazing to see the bullets they fired race up from the ground, then waste themselves, then begin a long descent, the spent slugs finally bouncing off the heads of soldiers darting for cover.

When Smiles A Lot looked down he saw the horrifying sight of a white people's thunder gun and its dark mouth. He and his mount sped into its black maw. Asthey raced down the enormous barrel, Smiles A Lot could see the silvery contours of its rifling.

Far in the distance there was an explosion and an enormous round ball hurtled toward them. It was pushed by a flowering orange flame which crashed like water against the sides of the barrel. At the moment of impact Smiles A Lot closed his eyes and to his great surprise felt nothing. He did not reopen his eyes but somehow he could see. They were flying down the barrel in a shower of metal fragments from the exploded black ball. Some of it had been reduced to orange and black dust. He could taste it. It tasted like earth.

The earth was in his mouth. He could feel gritty particles of it grating against his teeth. Smiles A Lot tried to open his eyes but only one lid raised. The other eye was pressed against the familiar skin of the bluff. The drop-off was only a few feet in front of him.

He could hear voices, happy, human voices shouting words he did not understand. He could hear the faint sound of splashing, too. Dazedly, he pulled himself over the ground and gazed down the cliff face. Wagons were parked at the side of the stream below. Blue-coated soldiers were standing next to the wagons. There were men, their bare skin glinting snow-white in the sun, cavorting in the water.

Smiles A Lot hung over the cliff, trying to decide if he was dreaming, when a fly landed under his eye. When he brought a hand up to brush it away, every joint in his arm throbbed. Then he realized that his entire body was aching, that his tongue was swollen and dry as cloth, that he was faint with hunger.

He wriggled a few feet back from the cliff face and tried to stand but was barely up before his legs collapsed. Again and again he tried before he finally gained his feet. He wobbled a few steps and collapsed again, pitching forward on his face. Too weak to walk, he straightened his legs, tucked his arms against his sides, and rolled slowly down the slope, finally bouncing to a stop against the willows that flanked the creek at the base of the bluff. He crawled into the cool water and immersed himself there for almost an hour rolling onto his face, then onto his back, repeating the action over and over. He wet his swollen lips and dabbed drops of water on his parched tongue. Before he got up he allowed himself a few sips from the stream.

Barely able to stand, he staggered through the undergrowth and finally found his hobbled horses, standing together on the open grassland. Fumbling weakly at the flap of his traveling pouch, he at last succeeded in retrieving a stick of jerked meat, which he ate in tiny bites, sucking all the juice out before he swallowed.

Repeatedly he tried to pull himself onto one of the ponies but when he finally gained its back he fell off the other side and had to rest another hour before trying again.

When he was finally able to climb up and sit, the sun was dipping toward the horizon and he rode south, clinging feebly to his horse's mane. Several hours after sunset he came across a spring at the mouth of a ravine. He tumbled down, turned on his back, and slept as if he would never wake.

When he opened his eyes again it was at the behest of one of the horses, which had been nudging him in the ribs with its soft muzzle.

Smiles A Lot drank as much as he could hold, chewed up half a dozen strips of jerked meat, and continued south. He was feeling much better now and was anxious to get home. He wanted to tell Owl Prophet about what he had experienced on Medicine Bluff. Surely the prophet would have something to say when he told him about the crows and the horse and the enemies falling before him and the white men in the stream.

It was possible of course that the prophet would recoil, thinking that Smiles A Lot had lost his mind. It could be, he thought to himself as the country flattened out ahead of him. My mind is in pieces. Maybe in the ride ahead they will come back together.

It was true that the young man who wanted to die a warrior had undergone a fragmentation of the mind. Yet as he rode home with the breeze in his face one thought stood out in the jumble that was floating freely in his head. Whenever danger found him, he had better make sure he was on the back of an all-black horse. If he couldn't find one, he would do well to steal one from an enemy. No prophet needed to tell him that from here on out, a black horse was essential to a long and happy life.