The Holy Road

Chapter XVIII

The Kiowa country was not as mysterious as that of the Comanches. Nothing equaled the drama of Comanche grasslands flat as the sky. Or plunging canyons that stretched into labyrinths on a scale so great as to be capable of containing entire civilizations. There were waterways of every length and breadth, from rivers that men routinely risked their lives in crossing to tiny hidden springs in terrain where the presence of water seemed inconceivable.

Still, Kiowa country was magnificent, blessed with water of every miraculous form, oceans of rolling grassland, and a sense of self-containment not usually found in other worlds. Like its southern neighbor, the Kiowa country, by virtue of its size and variety, could have qualified as a continent.

Kicking Bird always felt as easy as if he were at home when passing through Kiowa land, especially on this trip at the head of a large delegation.

That the Kiowa seemed to hold him in greater esteem than his own people was a poignant irony. To be sure, there was variety of opinion among the Kiowa, too, but in comparison to the Comanches they were far more worldly. Their contact with the whites in recent years had been much greater than that of their powerful yet isolated allies to the south. And not all of it had been bad.

White scalps hung in the lodges of many Kiowa warriors, and there were many Kiowa women who no longer spoke the names of fathers, husbands, and brothers, men who had been sent on the long journey across the Milky Way by white bullets. But the Kiowa had traded with whites. They had attended big councils where they talked with hair-mouthed men called commissioners. Kiowa warriors had taken the hands of white soldiers whom they had already met in running fights or would meet in the future.

None of them cared much for the plentiful white-skinned people from the east whose behavior was so perplexing, but at least the Kiowa knew something of them — no one more than Touch The Clouds, who had attended almost every plains meeting the whites had asked for and had fought with distinction through every conflict. It was the village of this warrior, made legendary by his extraordinary height, that Kicking Bird sought.

On reaching the camp of Touch The Clouds, Kicking Bird and his delegation settled in as honored guests. The Kiowa insisted they pitch their lodges in an enviable spot adjacent to their own community with easy access to water, fuel, and forage. At once the Comanches were treated to the predictable orgy of visits and feasting. Interspersed with gorging and talking were rounds of horse racing — dominated, as usual, by the Comanches — gambling games that floated from lodge to lodge, and, because a large herd of buffalo had recently appeared just north of camp, daily hunting trips that kept the village supplied with fresh meat.

Yet amid this seemingly constant swirl of activity, Kicking Bird remained focused on the reason for the visit. Room had been made for his lodges in the center of the village, a few steps from Touch The Clouds' home, affording the two warriors the opportunity to conduct their meetings with neighborly ease.

Both men took full advantage, and through the first two days of Kicking Bird's stay, they were rarely seen but in each other's company. At any hour of the night or day they might be found talking over pressing matters of the moment with prominent warriors of both tribes.

The subject of the whites was never tabled for long and Kicking Bird quickly found that the sentiments of the Kiowa closely mirrored those of his own people. Some, like himself and Touch The Clouds, were open to more contact, while others were staunchly opposed.

A significant number of Kiowa, especially a tight-knit clique who followed a crafty, barrel-chested man named White Bear, were of both minds. If the wind shifted toward peace they stood ready to exploit it. If a call for war went out they were eager to participate. White Bear and his devotees, like many of their Comanche counterparts, viewed peace and war as part of a natural cycle, like good weather following bad, or vice versa.

However the teaming of Touch The Clouds and Kicking Bird gave them great influence. That two eminent men known for their levelheadedness constantly guided the discussion toward the subject of the whites led people to the conclusion that the problem was more timely than ever, and all the better if it could be solved in some amicable way.

But after two days of discussing the question in uncommon detail, the two warriors were losing some of their own resolve. Kicking Bird had received his peace medal as a ceremonial present and had never had what might be considered a true conversation with a white man. Touch The Clouds had met many whites in council but the talks never led beyond vague promises of friendship and, in the ten winters he had attended these parlays, he had never met with the same white man twice. Despite his long experience, Touch The Clouds didn't really know any white men.

By the third morning of Kicking Bird's visit the two friends had come full circle. They sat in Touch The Clouds' lodge making a show of keeping their discussions vital while in truth their talk had become moribund. They had met with every leading warrior and had explored every avenue that might lead to a decision as to what action to take. The most viable approach had come from the vacillating White Bear who had suggested they ride in force to the vicinity of the great Medicine Bluff, show themselves, and wait for a reaction.

The two friends discussed this idea once more and, in doing so, realized that it had little promise. The chance was too great that the white soldiers would open fire at the sight of armed warriors, thus defeating the goal of talks that might hold out some hope for conciliation.

On the heels of this frustrating review, Touch The Clouds fired his pipe and the men lapsed into an awkward silence as they passed it back and forth. Neither man knew what to say.

At last Kicking Bird put into words what both of them were thinking.

“I have been thinking. . This question of what to do cannot be answered by ourselves.”

"I have been thinking the same,” Touch The Clouds confessed.

"Perhaps it is a question only the Mystery can answer.”

"Yes," Kicking Bird agreed. His eyes roved helplessly around the spacious lodge. "But nothing has been revealed. I wonder sometimes if the Mystery no longer looks on us as his children.”

"I wonder the same.”

Again the men lapsed into forlorn silence, but a moment later the stillness in the lodge was pierced by a cry from outside. Many other shouts followed in rapid succession, and by the time the friends had gotten to their feet, it sounded as if a general alarm was being raised.

They ducked through the lodge entrance to an explosion of action outside. Men were leaping onto their ponies. Women were hurrying children into their lodges. A great whooping filled the air.

Swinging onto their ponies, Kicking Bird and Touch The Clouds were able to make out through the dust and shouting words that told them what the pandemonium was about.

"White man on the prairie! White man coming in!"

Following thick clouds of dust, Kicking Bird and Touch The Clouds tore out of the village and had barely cleared the camp before they pulled up in disbelief at what lay before them.

A solitary man dressed in black, his hands thrust into the air, was sitting on a wagon pulled by a mule as dozens of warriors, yapping at the limit of their lungs, swarmed around him.

As they rode closer they saw White Bear's pony jostle the intruder's mule. The warrior bawled out words they couldn't hear, then struck the man hard with his bow and the cause of all the excitement toppled off the wagon and crashed to earth.

The impact of his fall sent the man's dark, broad-brimmed hat flying, and Kicking Bird and Touch The Clouds saw what everyone else saw. The sun reflected almost as in a mirror off his smooth, shiny head. Hair the length of a rabbit's ran in a band above his ears and low down along the back of his skull. Everyone drew back in disbelief. He had no scalp.

"I will kill this ghost!" White Bear shouted, pulling an arrow from his quiver.

Before he could string it, Touch The Clouds' hand was on his arm.

White Bear's expression said he resented the intrusion but Touch The Clouds' words flew in his face before he could protest.

"Great warriors do not waste arrows on mice. . shivering in the grass."

The squabble between White Bear and Touch The Clouds barely registered as Kicking Bird sat, trancelike, on his pony, watching with profound fascination as the white man scrambled after his hat and replaced it on his head. He was quite small for any man and was wearing something on his bearded face that Kicking Bird had never seen before: two tiny discs of what looked like glass suspended before each eye by a delicate framework of wire.

The man walked back to his mule, clasped a hand on one of its reins, and waited, almost childlike, for what might happen next. Who he was or what might be his mission in Kiowa country the Comanche could not guess. He was not a soldier nor did he have what Kicking Bird imagined to be the stature of an important emissary. That he might be lost was possible, but some indefinable sense told Kicking Bird this was not the case. His eyes seemed to have a special energy that was linked somehow with plaintive hope, and in the few seconds that Kicking Bird watched the apparition, he deduced that this being bore no one ill will.

Inspiration suddenly flashed in Kicking Bird's mind and the excitement it wrought tickled him from head to toe as he realized that he possessed a weapon of great power and that this was the opportunity he had been waiting for to use it.

He had pestered Dances With Wolves and Stands With A Fist to teach him the weapon from the day of their marriage. He had practiced it, in private, for years, checking and rechecking the accuracy of what he knew with the reluctant couple in the set-apart lodge. How much of it he remembered and how well he might pronounce it he could nor be sure, but an instant later he found himself dropping off his pony and walking through the grass toward the little man.

The Kiowa and Comanche warriors surrounding the scene were silenced at Kicking Bird's approach, and in an odd way they, too, suddenly realized that this white man represented no real threat. The Comanche they all knew as mild-mannered was of average height but to see him now, standing opposite the white man, he seemed a giant. The little man in black was a thing so puny that the wildest imagination could not have perceived him as an adversary.

Kicking Bird's confidence was reinforced by a close-up view of the stranger's face. He guessed that the diminutive figure must have had at least fifty winters, though his countenance was full of youthful innocence, and as he uttered the first words he had ever spoken to a white, Kicking Bird could not help thinking he was addressing a boy.

"I," he said, lightly tapping his chest, "Kicking Bird."

The white man's face opened as if a cloud had moved away from the sun. His lips pulled apart in a smile so wide that it seemed as if his eyes were smiling too.

"I," he began in a light, high voice, pushing a finger up against his chest in the way Kicking Bird had done, "I. . Lawrie Tatum. Friend, friend."

"Friend," Kicking Bird nodded for that was a word he knew. "Hmmm. . where?. . from?"

"I'm from Iowa," Lawrie Tatum answered, speaking the words in a clipped, precise fashion that seemed to suit the latent energy pent up in his little body. "But I have come from Washington."

Kicking Bird knew the word Washington too. "Ahhh," he grunted, nodding again, "Washington." He pointed to the peace medal hanging around his neck.

Lawrie Tatum bobbed his head up and down happily. "That's right. . well, that's the man. I'm from the place. . Washington."

"Hmmm. . Washington."

"I. . Lawrie Tatum, want to be your friend. Lawrie Tatum and Kicking Bird. . friends."

At that he thrust a small hand forward, leveling it at Kicking Bird's waist.

At a conference he had once attended Kicking Bird had seen white men make the same gesture. He glanced into Lawrie Tatum's eyes once more, as if to reassure himself that no treachery lurked there, before lifting one of his bronze-colored hands in the stranger's direction.

The two hands closed on one another. Lawrie Tatum grinned and Kicking Bird, not quite believing what was happening, stared at the pudgy digits enveloped in his own long and elegant fingers.

A few other warriors, including Touch The Clouds, had slipped down from their ponies and drifted closer during the exchange. When Kicking Bird performed the intimate act of taking the white man's hand in his own, shock and curiosity drove them even closer.

There they remained for most of an hour standing on the open prairie, ringed by warriors on horseback, listening to the talk of Kicking Bird and the tiny visitor who had materialized out of nowhere.

Important information was obtained in that first interview, conducted with a patchwork of signs, Kicking Bird's rudimentary, untested English, and the curt translations for those who had gathered round.

Lawrie Tatum from Washington was seeking peace and friendship between Indian and white. He was offering himself to the Kiowa and the Comanche as what he called an "agent" for Indians who loved peace. He would serve those who sought peace in a variety of ways — as a procurer of food, clothing, and medicine, as a protector and intermediary between military and government authority and as a guide for those, especially the young, who wanted to take what he called "the white man's road.” Lawrie Tatum was some kind of holy man, and there were many others of his cult, called Quakers, who had spread across the country seeking friendship with all tribes. He had one wife, many children, and was one of those who drilled holes in the ground, put in seed, and took what grew to eat.

These revelations, passed on by Kicking Bird, were listened to with care by the other warriors. Many snickered at the idea of Lawrie Tatum protecting them against anything, but for most of the interview the free men of the plains gave their full attention to the exchange.

But more and more questions, some derisive and combative, were being hurled from the onlookers. Taking the white man's road was a baffling and useless proposition to most, and Kicking Bird and Touch The Clouds both sensed that the best way to delve deeper into the mission of Lawrie Tatum was not in a public forum. Nor was the open prairie proper. They had been standing all the while. They had not sat down, not smoked the pipe.

When the crowd's questions began edging toward ugliness Touch The Clouds addressed everyone with his usual firmness and finality.

"I am taking this white man into camp,” he began.

Hoots of surprise and some of derision arose from the crowd, but Touch The Clouds was not one to be swayed once his mind was made up, and he had already decided that he wanted to study this Lawrie Tatum man in more depth. Single-handedly he quelled all opposition.

"This white man is my guest," he commanded. "He will sleep in my lodge and no harm will come to him."

Lawrie Tatum then climbed onto his wagon and, escorted by most of the warriors of Touch The Clouds' village, rode back into camp, where the women and children and elderly could not wait to get a look at him.

The Kiowa leader ordered a small lodge to be erected between his own and Kicking Bird's, and Lawrie Tatum was made to understand that this would be the place to store his things and rest his body that night.

The little lodge was up in a matter of minutes and the stranger's gear was unloaded and brought inside. Food and water were given him. Kicking Bird and Touch The Clouds sat across from the little man, watching him eat and drink. Lawrie Tatum commented on the tastiness of his meal and the sweetness of the water, but otherwise the three sat in a fragile silence that was constantly broken by intrusions.

The chatter of villagers continued unabated all afternoon as they milled about the new lodge and its novel resident. Gangs of children clambered on and off the white man's wagon, prompting Touch The Clouds to step out and snap at them to go away and be quiet. He was forced to do this several times, but they did not retreat for long. The moment he sat down again, their presence outside could be heard once more, hushed murmurings that grew inevitably into unbridled shouts and laughter. Touch The Clouds would listen distractedly to the truncated attempts at communication between Kicking Bird and Lawrie Tatum before rising angrily to his feet for another short-lived scattering of the children.

Even the few minutes of peace from the children Touch The Clouds' chiding bought did not free the lodge from invasion. Heads were constantly appearing at the hems of the lodge's covering which had necessarily been rolled up on account of the heat of the day. Curious eyes constantly appeared; prominent warriors dropped by in a steady stream, offering some pretext of other business in order to get some idea of what was going on inside. Shadows of eavesdroppers pressed against the hide-covered walls of the tent, and on several occasions, the whole tent sagged as an unseen interloper lost balance and fell against it.

At last the exasperated hosts and their guest went for a walk but were stymied by a throng of followers who paraded behind them, growing in number until it seemed they had the whole village in tow.

Recognizing the futility of their efforts, the men returned once more to the lodge, and it was only with the coming of twilight, which impelled all but the most inquisitive to return to their homes, that the two Indians and the white man were able to converse with some semblance of peace.

Touch The Clouds lit his pipe again and, though reluctant, Lawrie Tatum was prevailed upon to smoke, his pale complexion turning paler with each pass.

Finally able to concentrate, Kicking Bird's mind kept returning to a single question, one that had nagged at him since he first heard the Cheyenne story of the white man's "holy road." Not knowing enough of the white man's language to frame the question properly, he began with the word he knew, hoping it might lead him to construct what he really wanted to ask.

"Train?" he asked, looking intently at Lawrie Tatum.

"Train?"

"Uhh." Kicking Bird nodded.

"Well, yes," Lawrie Tatum sputtered in his high voice, "what about it. . train?"

Kicking Bird searched for words that kept flying away. "White man train," he said at last.

"Uh. ." The white man's hand stroked the hair on his face.

"You. .," he started, pointing at Kicking Bird, "like train?. . no like train? You. . go on train?"

Kicking Bird shook his head. He did not understand the words but their gist told him he was not moving toward the point. He gathered himself again.

"Train road?" he said.

"Yes, I understand. . train road," came the reply.

"Holee?"

"Holee?"

"Holee?"

Recognition flashed on Lawrie Tatum's face. "Holy? Is that what you mean?" he asked, glancing heavenward.

"Holy. Train road holy?"

Lawrie Tatum winced. "I'm not sure what you're asking," he said pleadingly.

"All white man road. .” Kicking Bird said and made a circling motion with both arms. "All white man road holy?"

"Is the white man's road holy?"

"Hmmm," nodded Kicking Bird.

Lawrie Tatum thought to himself a few moments, and the more he thought the more he realized how profound Kicking Bird's question was. The Comanche was asking if what the white man had to offer was righteous, and in the Quaker's mind there could only be one answer.

"Yes," he answered firmly, "I believe it is. The white man's road is holy."

"Hmmm," Kicking Bird grunted. The exact outlines of the question and its answer were something he had yet to grasp fully, but he was quite satisfied with the exchange.

Lawrie Tatum had questions, too. He wanted to know where Kicking Bird lived, how many people were in his village, if he was married, if he had children. When Kicking Bird told him he was married to three women, Friend Tatum's eyes grew big and he held up three fingers to make sure he understood. Kicking Bird nodded and a look of concern passed over the Quaker's face.

"Wives bad?" Kicking Bird asked.

"No," Lawrie Tatum replied. "White man have one. . one wife. . no more.”

Kicking Bird nodded that he understood but was perplexed at the idea. How any race could prosper under such a harsh restriction he could not understand.

The line of questioning ended there as did many others. Given the limit of words and signs there was no way to delve deeper and the remainder of the talk was a battle of simple questions.

Lawrie Tatum was by nature more aggressive and animated, and though Kicking Bird burned to ask about many important things, like the buffalo and the soldier fort and how it might be that Comanche or Kiowas could follow the white man's holy road, his deliberations were often cut short by the little white man's persistent questions.

He wanted to know if Kicking Bird and Touch The Clouds were for peace between Indian and white. Kicking Bird translated this for Touch The Clouds, who laughed and said, "If we were not this man's body would already be turning black out there in the grass." Both men laughed as Lawrie Tatum gazed at them blankly.

The Quaker wanted to know if they were chiefs and Kicking Bird explained that Touch The Clouds was a headman but that he was not. A man named Ten Bears, an old, wise man with bad eyes, was the leader of his band.

But the more Kicking Bird and Lawrie Tatum questioned each other the more aware they became of their inadequacies, and what had begun as a conversation quickly devolved into the more practical pursuit of vocabulary building. For another hour the names of everyday items found about the lodge and on their persons were translated back and forth in Comanche, Kiowa, and English.

All three were eager to learn and the lessons might have continued all night were it not for the arrival of several Indian wives, whose insistent voices demanded that their husbands break off the meeting and see to the children, who were asking for them.

Kicking Bird and Touch The Clouds made Lawrie Tatum to understand that he was safe. Then they each took the white man's hand and bid him good night.

The Comanche listened as his wives related the events of the day. He played games, visited with each of his children, and generally tried to discharge his duties as husband and father. But his heart wasn't in it that night. His head was too ripe with thoughts that pulled him, from recurring impressions of the white man Lawrie Tatum to the new English words that begged to be remembered to the crowded world of possibility that had flowered in his consciousness. When he slipped under the covers he was still too excited to sleep, and once the other bodies in the lodge were hard asleep he snuck outside to give free rein to his galloping mind.

The moon had risen full and Kicking Bird sat in the inky shadow of his lodge, wondering at the incalculable mystery hidden in the white man's lodge only a few steps from where he sat.

To his surprise there was a sudden movement of the little lodge's flap, and an instant later Lawrie Tatum was stepping into the bright, blue light of the moon. He wore no coat and the sleeves of his tight-fitting shirt were rolled past his elbows. The glass discs no longer fronted his eyes and there were no shoes on his feet. He looked around warily and, satisfied that he was alone, lifted one of his hands which was holding what looked like a small stick several inches long. In the other hand he held what looked like a canteen. He tilted the canteen over the object in the other hand and a little stream of water dribbled over the strange stick.

Having no idea what the ritual might mean, Kicking Bird's curiosity gave way to astonishment as the white man's mouth suddenly admitted the stick and a violent scouring commenced inside.

The best Kicking Bird could deduce was that, though it lacked any hint of elegance or sanctity, Lawrie Tatum must be performing some kind of purification ceremony. Perhaps there was some evil entity residing in his mouth.

After repeating the action several more times, the stick was withdrawn and shaken. Lawrie Tatum lifted the canteen to his lips, sloshed the water around in his mouth, and, bending forward, spat all of it onto the ground. Then he turned as casually as if he had just urinated and disappeared into the lodge.

Any chance Kicking Bird might have had for sleep was doomed by what he had witnessed. Seeing such inexplicable conduct reinforced and sharpened all that was different between Indian and white, and as he continued to sit in the shadow of the moon, contemplating Lawrie Tatum's bizarre behavior he felt the cloud of euphoria he had been riding all afternoon slowly dissipate.

Exchanges of information and negotiation that might determine how the two peoples could coexist were nothing when compared to the gulf in ways of being that existed between the races, and it was with that mindful realization that Kicking Bird finally went back to his bed.

What little rest he at last achieved was more akin to intermittent catnapping than it was to real sleep: His hopes had sobered but not died, and he floated through a queer twilight of consciousness in which he reminded himself that even if it would be prudent to go slower the prospect of more interplay with Lawrie Tatum the following day was an exciting one.

It never occurred to him that he would not see Lawrie Tatum the following day. Nor did it occur to him that one of the men who had gone hunting with Dances With Wolves would be standing at his lodge door in the predawn chill.

The weary voice calling for him to come out belonged to Lone Young Man, and when the Comanche statesman looked into his face he knew something terrible had happened.

The lodges of the Kicking Bird delegation had been struck, their horses gathered and loaded, and the entire party had already ridden clear of Touch The Clouds' camp when Lawrie Tatum stepped timidly out of his guest quarters half an hour after sunup.

At first he was disoriented, because he was certain that the man called Kicking Bird had been living in a spot that was now bare. As soon as he saw Touch The Clouds, the Quaker agent tried to clear up the confusion, and after a few minutes of fitful signs and words and playacting, the suspicion was confirmed. The Comanche Lawrie Tatum thought of as intelligent and levelheaded had simply picked up and left, presumably for home, without saying good-bye and without any agreement to meet again.

It wasn't as if Lawrie Tatum hadn't been warned. Anyone who had ever dealt with Indians had told him they could not be trusted — that understanding the Indian mind was about as easy as figuring out the meaning of life, that depending on an Indian to do what he said he would do was like a dry farmer depending on rain in a drought.

Lawrie Tatum remembered these admonitions when he glanced again at the vacant ground lately occupied by Kicking Bird's lodge. He still liked the Comanche and it was not in his constitution to give up — whether it be on a patch of skimpy corn back home or the ambitious peace policy the government was hoping he and scores of other Quakers would find a way to implement.

And yet there was bristling in a remote corner of his mind. As he stared at the ring where Kicking Bird's lodge had lately been, Lawrie Tatum couldn't help feeling that in some way he had been played for a fool.