The Holy Road

Chapter XX

Dances With Wolves was as surprised as anyone when the girl Hunting For Something and the boy Rabbit rode into his camp. They had come out of a night storm, drenched and exhausted, like castaways washed miraculously ashore, and the tale of survival they had to tell easily fulfilled the promise of their dramatic entrance.

From the moment he saw them, Dances With Wolves knew there had been a disaster, and as he listened numbly to the details of the devastation and its aftermath, he felt his soul altered in ways that could only be compared with the upheaval that marks the coming of death.

When the girl and boy were finished, he felt as if split in two. A part of him was still alive in the world, comforting his children, making preparations for a night march, and speculating on all that would need to be done to salvage what was left of his community.

The other part of him, separate and distinct from flesh and blood, was floating and rolling as helplessly as a corpse in the currents of an ever-changing river. Past and future had ceased and the present in which he dwelt was curiously inert, devoid of thought or feeling or expression.

It was as if he had ceased to walk on the ground, relegated instead to float, rudderless, in the space between earth and sky.

Outwardly, he manifested none of this. In the three days it took for Hunting For Something and Rabbit to guide them back to the spot where Ten Bears and the survivors were sequestered, he clung to the warrior's performance of everyday duties: laying out routes of travel, grasping every opportunity to take game, helping other families with their loads, watching over his children, and maintaining a constant vigil for signs of enemies.

But, inwardly, Dances With Wolves no longer knew where he was. His disorientation was so complete that he himself could not describe it. The only evidence of his spiritual disengagement was a profound stoicism that gripped him and had even spread to his children. There was a dullness in their eyes, as if something vital inside had been extinguished, and while the three family members walked and talked like anyone else, they had become shadow people, people who neither came nor went, who stayed in one place no matter what they said or did.

There was much to do in the name of survival, and on reuniting with Ten Bears and the others who had escaped the attack, Dances With Wolves and his party of hunters threw themselves into the task of resurrecting what remained of their people. Though the hunters' packhorses were loaded with meat and untanned robes, there was not enough game to sustain them and the first order of business was to effect a move.

A day later they climbed onto the plains, secure in the knowledge that the practiced eyes of Kicking Bird and Wind In His Hair would be able to follow the tail. With so few horses most people were traveling on foot, but after two days of marching they reached a well-watered spot they had camped in before. Each heart was lifted by the presence of buffalo, whose sign was heavy and fresh in every direction.

There was no time to mount a long trek to the shining mountains for aspen but they were fortunate to find thick copses of cottonwood and elm within a few miles that yielded enough young trees to provide the framework for new lodges. Women and girls worked day and night, rubbing hides until every muscle ached, to provide the needed coverings, and in a few days' time a new village was rising on the plains.

The buffalo were found in such great numbers that at first glance it might have seemed like the old days, when all a man had to do was ride a few miles from his lodge to make meat. However, the animals to which the people of the plains owed their existence behaved oddly, as if they too had been scattered, but the bounty that flowed into the new village had the effect of a life-giving infusion, and by the time Kicking Bird and Wind In His Hair came in, both arriving on the same day, the village was remarkably well-established.

A week later, any prairie wanderer who happened by would have observed a strong Comanche village, perhaps a little shorter on horses than most, but well supplied with food and water, and a bustling population.

But if the same traveler had been able to scratch through the veneer of the picture Ten Bears' restored village presented, he would have found the wreckage of what had once been a tight-knit society. The imaginary passerby would not have failed, upon closer inspection, to be struck by the spiritual fractures that divided the Comanches.

Preoccupied with rebuilding the community and maintaining life, the members of Ten Bears' village did not actively grapple with the weighty issues that had rent their hearts, at least not at first.

When he thought about what the future might bring, Ten Bears now found every avenue he might take barricaded by the obstacle of old age. Through his long reign as a headman he had never sought war. In fact, he had unfailingly counseled against its ravages. But now, with so many winters behind him, his influence in such matters barely existed.

He felt as impotent on the subject of peace. If a roving band of rangers could inflict such carnage on Comanches, what would happen if hair-mouth soldiers flooded the plains with the far-shooting guns that rolled on wheels? The Comanche and all they knew would be reduced to dust so fine that it could only be seen in a shaft of light before it settled on the earth.

In all his life he had learned nothing of the white man. He could count on one hand the times he had seen them. How could he begin to pursue peace with people he had never met? How could he meet such people? How could he talk to them? How could he understand them? He might as well dream of reaching up and pulling the moon from its eternal mooring.

All that Ten Bears could do was what he was doing now: sit in the shade of the arbor that had been erected next to his lodge and observe as best he could through his foggy eyes and pick at the bowl of pemmican Hunting For Something had brought. The afternoon sojourns he enjoyed had been disrupted, and the old man decided that the little value left in his existence could best be served by exercising the gift of listening to people's blood.

He passed several afternoons in this manner and had formed a number of useful conclusions. The people of the village, despite their industry, were still burdened by sorrow. They worked, but without the traditional gaiety that leavened labor. The children played, but joy was absent from their games. Coveys of women hauled water and tanned hides and cooked communal meals without the normal laughter. Impromptu gatherings of warriors were convened, but the manly spirit was missing.

Though he had always tended toward reticence, Kicking Bird had been positively mute since his return from Kiowa country. His way of looking forward had been a goad for activity but when Ten Bears saw him now, he was invariably alone. When he came close enough to offer a salutation, on one occasion squatting directly in front of Ten Bears for a brief inquiry as to his health, the old man had the opportunity to penetrate the mask of pain Kicking Bird wore in common with everyone else. What he saw were sparks and what he heard was a rushing of blood that made his ears ring. In the few seconds Kicking Bird sat before him, Ten Bears became convinced that the former medicine man was engaged deeply, turbulently, in thought. What he might be thinking Ten Bears did not know, but he was convinced that Kicking Bird was soon to leave the village again.

Wind In His Hair had come by a few times to acknowledge Ten Bears in the same fleeting fashion. The rangers had killed two of his wives and five of the seven children he had sired, but the great warrior made no mention of his family's demolition. Nor did he speak of his plans in their brief encounters, but the old man did not have to listen very hard to hear his blood-simply to know him was to know what Wind In His Hair would do. Like a cornered panther, Wind In His Hair would fight. When he might move, and with what force, was all that remained to be seen.

The blood of Dances With Wolves was the hardest to hear, and Ten Bears could only guess at the depth of his suffering. Just once had he stopped at the door of the lodge, and then he had barely spoken as he placed a prime cut of buffalo haunch inside the flap. Ten Bears had been sitting inside smoking and when their eyes met, Dances With Wolves had said, "For you, Grandfather," then ducked out of sight.

In subsequent days, Ten Bears saw him venture out to hunt only twice. The rest of the time he was indoors, and most often his children could be seen just outside their lodge, for they never went anywhere without their father. Snake In Hands no longer ran after snakes and Always Walking now stayed put, except in the company of their father. The boy and girl played with other children only if they came around, and Dances With Wolves had few visitors so far as Ten Bears could tell.

The old man viewed everything with the detachment of age. He had finally accepted what had come to pass, and the fretting he had engaged in so often before the ranger attack all but ceased. It was replaced now with a simple curiosity as to how everything might turn out, and nothing piqued his interest more than the goings-on in the lodge directly across the way from his own.

That particular lodge represented what was left of the joy in life for Ten Bears. It reminded him of the new growth that emerges from the prairie after the grass has been scorched to nothing by fire. He was thankful to be close enough to see the comings and goings there, and watching them was his only pleasure.

In normal times this family configuration could never have happened, but catastrophe had necessitated many odd jugglings of lives. The landing together of the three souls across the way violated more rules of tribal conduct than could be counted. In times past such a thing would not have been tolerated, and if a couple like the one living near Ten Bears had persisted they might face expulsion from the group, a punishment reserved for the most heinous public crimes.

But time and custom had been turned upside down, and not an eyebrow was raised against the union of Smiles A Lot and Hunting For Something and their surrogate son, Rabbit. Circumstance had deprived each of their families. She needed a provider and he needed a supporter. Together they were building something out of nothing and, far from being an embarrassment, they quickly became a prideful symbol of Comanche resilience. That the girl's grandfather, the venerable and unassailable Ten Bears, made no objection to the unsanctified union rendered it palatable to the strictest among them, and the young couple went about the business of life unimpeded.

As before, Hunting For Something came every day, making sure her grandfather had something to eat. Rabbit was in and out of the lodge at all hours, and most evenings Smiles A Lot kept the old man company for an hour or two, listening to stories of adventure and heroism and funny anecdotes.

The presence of this odd trio was a tonic for Ten Bears, invigorating him with a sense of belonging he had not felt since the last of his wives died. The old man sat in the shade of his arbor, his despair tempered by the closeness of his new, made-up family. Good coming out of bad, he often thought to himself, it always happens. What will come next? Who knows? This arbor is a good place — I know that. Kicking Bird and Wind In His Hair and Dances With Wolves. . does it matter what they are thinking? They are making up their minds. When they are ready they will come and talk with me. In the meantime, I am happy in this shade. There's a little breeze to make it just right. Is that her coming?. . How I miss my young eyes.

"Hunting For Something!"

"Hello, Grandfather."