The Holy Road

Chapter XXIV

Because his mother was a Kiowa, he had visited the Medicine Bluff country often as a boy and knew it almost as well as his own homeland.

Kicking Bird was thinking of his mother as he passed by the great bluff. He could not remember much of her now; but her cheerful nature came to mind, and suddenly he could see her doubled over in laughter at the telling of a funny story.

She had been killed, along with many others, in his eighth summer, when the Pawnee overran the village they were visiting, a site easily visible from the top of the bluff he was passing just then. Much of the village had gone out to cull buffalo from the first big herd of the season, but his mother had stayed behind to care for a dying aunt. The Pawnee killed them all, chopping off their heads, which they stuck in cooking pots.

These they lined up in front of the village, a macabre greeting for the hunters when they returned home. The attack was avenged, just as brutally, two years later, but Kicking Bird remembered that it had done little to assuage his loss.

Strangely, the bitter recollection of his good-natured mother's death spawned a host of other, more pleasant memories. At the top of the bluff above him he had first drawn a girl into his blanket, a girl whom he subsequently lost to a worthless man she later divorced. A stand of oak at the spot where the creek turned just ahead had yielded his first deer. A mile or two to the south he had won a hotly contested horse race, riding against the finest ponies on the plains. And a few miles ahead, eerily near his destination, Kicking Bird had first slain an enemy.

That so much of his own life had been played out in the area he was now passing through had meaning for him personally, but to the Kiowa nation the importance of the great Medicine Bluff and its environs was far greater. It was the beating heart in the body of a country they had dominated through all living memory. For the whites to have taken root in this of all places was practically inconceivable. That he, Kicking Bird, a Comanche warrior, was actually going to call on a white representative living within sight of the shrine-like bluff was so outlandish as to be hard to believe, even when the odd-looking box made of wood that the whites called a "house" came into view.

It was situated at the top of a rise, and to Kicking Bird's eyes it looked like a very square, very white rock. Surrounding it was a white fence made of stitched-together wood with tips shaped like arrowheads. He could see vegetation growing in a large plot behind the house. Nestled in several neat rows among the green mass he recognized a commodity called corn, which the Comanches sometimes traded for with tribes who lived far to the west.

The house was fronted by a long, shady porch. A group of white men, some of them wearing soldier coats, their faces sunk in the overhang's shadow, stood expectantly, and as he started up the hill, Kicking Bird saw the diminutive figure of Lawrie Tatum raise an arm in greeting.

The gesture, however, did little to reassure Kicking Bird. A group of armed soldiers were hanging around some wagons a few paces from Lawrie Tatum's house, and the presence of so many white men, including those clustered on the porch, had the effect of shrinking the Quaker down to nothing.

At the same time, Kicking Bird's sense of being Comanche expanded, and as they pulled up in front of the bright white box, the distinctiveness of the two races, and the gulf dividing them, seemed too enormous to ever be bridged.

Had he been alone, Kicking Bird would likely have been unable to come this far, and though he could not know their minds at this unprecedented moment, he took courage from the company of strong, wise warriors who surrounded him: Touch The Clouds and Little Mountain and Eagle Head and Pacer of the Kiowa, Sitting In The Saddle and Shield and Big Bow and Gap In The Woods of the Comanche.

In the face of the most perplexing situation they had ever encountered, the confederation of warriors approached the porch as a solemn, single body, and when the little Quaker with the ecstatic smile stuck out his hand, Kicking Bird took it.

Introductions were made all around, and despite not knowing who the hodgepodge of military and civilian hair-mouths were, or what their standing might be, Kicking Bird and his fellow peace-seekers took each white hand that was offered before being ushered off the porch and guided down the hill to an expansive tent that had been pitched in a shady spot to receive them.

Ever astute, Kicking Bird's mind worked furiously as they walked to the meeting place, rapidly sorting the bits of information that were flying into his head, but by the time they had begun to seat themselves in the big soldier tent, he realized it was useless to strain for enlightenment as to what role the strange men he was meeting with would play.

As he lit his pipe and passed it to Touch The Clouds, his deceptively impassive eyes trolled for any flicker of behavior in the whites that might throw light on what sort of men they were. The first thing he noticed, a thing so obvious that it was evident to all, was the configuration of the whites. The man who knew the Indian words was sitting off to one side while the rest placed themselves in two rows: a large grouping in the second row but only two men, a soldier and a civilian, in the first.

Lawrie Tatum was insinuated in the back row of hair-mouths and, seeing him there, Kicking Bird realized at once that the genial Quaker did not possess the power of the two men sitting at the forefront.

A heavy, gray-flecked beard covered the whole of the civilian's face. It circled his lips, accenting the dark, moist cave of his mouth. His skin — what little could be seen of it — had an unhealthy-looking, reddish hue, his eyes were small, and it was impossible to ignore the pitted, corpulent nose that seemed less a part of his countenance than it did an attachment. His belly filled his shirt to bursting, his fingers had the appearance of fatty stubs, and he wheezed audibly with each breath, as if something were stuck in his throat.

The other white man, the soldier, had a smooth, unblemished face. His soldier clothes were as trim as his body and the buttons and bars clinging to his coat gleamed golden even in the murky summer light filling the tent. He had dark, shiny hair that covered his head like a cap, and his light-blue eyes were partially crossed and seemed not to move. Exceedingly thin lips were drawn neatly over hidden teeth, and his nose, in sharp contrast to that of his counterpart, was long and sharp as a fox's.

Taken together, these visual details conveyed a sense of quiet command, but for Kicking Bird and his friends one salient feature of the soldier's appearance outstripped all others combined. Three fingers of his left hand were no longer fingers but uneven stumps which peeked out angrily from the sleeve of his coat.

Even more intriguing was the fact that the ruined fingers made sounds. At irregular times during the talk that afternoon, at the prompt-ing of some hidden cue in the soldier's heart, they were rubbed together to produce an odd, clicking noise. Where this sound came from, whether from skin or mangled joints, one couldn't say. The quirk impressed the Indian delegation for it deepened the mystery of the delicate, cross-eyed soldier, and though he remained Mackenzie to the whites, from that day forward the aboriginal people of the plains knew him as Bad Hand.

When the smoking, which every white man respectfully took part in, was finished, the white civilian whose name was Hatton rose to make a talk, which, owing to the labor of translation, took most of an hour. Hatton explained that he had been sent by the Great Father in Washington to seek peace with Indian people and outlined in general terms what the Kiowa and Comanche could expect from concord with the whites.

He then laid out the key elements of the offer. The initial inducement was a promise of presents by the wagonload. Among the incredible array of items offered was tobacco, clothing, cooking utensils, weapons, mirrors, trade cloth, farming implements, sugar, coffee, building materials, candy,for children, hats for men, combs for women. Hatton told them there was more but that the list of goods that would flow unceasingly from the cornucopia of white civilization was too long to recite.

Washington was also offering to set aside a vast tract of land called a reservation that would constitute a permanent sanctuary for the Kiowa and Comanche. In this place they and their families could peacefully prepare to take the white man's road, a road which was open to all the red children of God.

Education would be open to everyone, especially children. The standing of headmen would be preserved. Food would be provided in the form of rations, including the fresh meat of cattle. People could camp together in traditional bands. Soldiers would be garrisoned nearby with the twin tasks of keeping order among Indian residents and protecting them against white incursion. Interpreters, agents, merchants, and many others working for the welfare of Indian people as they assimilated were already being mobilized to support the effort.

By a single action, all these things could be made available to peace-loving people. Those who touched the pen to a thing called “enrollment" would find themselves free to pursue a new life in which no one would go hungry and no one would be attacked by enemies.

The Kiowa and Comanche had listened to all this with mute attention and the abject silence continued for a few moments after Hatton had finished, Then Touch The Clouds rose, his nearly seven-foot frame requiring the white emissaries to gaze upward at an uncomfortable, neck-bending angle.

"I have heard this talk," he began. "It is good to hear and makes me glad I have taken your hands."

When this was translated, the white emissaries, sensing acceptance, smiled at one another in congratulation. But as Touch The Clouds continued, their smiles gradually faded with the realization that their feelings of satisfaction were premature.

"Touch The Clouds is only one man," he said. "I have but one voice, but I think we do not need what you want to give us. I love my country. The bones of my ancestors are everywhere in it. It has everything we need. Kiowa people are happy to walk on it. Why should we give up something we love so much? I can see no good reason for me or my people to throw away happiness."

The faces of the whites turned blank. Some of them had become restless and there was a persistent shifting in the two rows of listeners.

When Touch The Clouds sat down, Kicking Bird rose, and in his imagination he felt his upward motion carrying him into the sky and beyond. The well-being he had felt when he got off his pony in front of Lawrie Tatum's house had been growing all afternoon. Now, as he paused to look over the crowd of whites he was about to address, Kicking Bird's psyche expanded and rose until it was floating over the heads of the hair-mouths, and his natural curiosity was displaced by a stone-hard resolve to speak exactly what lay in his Comanche heart.

"Touch The Clouds has spoken as I would speak. His words are good and it makes my heart glad to hear them. I love my country as a child loves its mother. I love my people in the same way a father loves his son. I was born out on the plains and that is where I want to die."

Kicking Bird detected a small smile in the beard that covered most of Lawrie Tatum's face but the slight expression of support barely registered. The words poured from his mouth with a fluency that made it seem as though someone else might be speaking them, and as he stood before the white men, he imagined that what he was saying was rolling over his listeners like some magical vapor.

"It is good that the Great Father in Washington looks for peace. It makes me happy to take the hand of white men in friendship, because I seek peace as well. But we do not need what you are offering. All we need from white people is to be left alone. We need white people to stop killing the buffalo. I have been told many times that the white man loves money above all things. Maybe you can understand when I tell you that the buffalo is our money. What would white men feel if all their money was taken away? The buffalo was given us by the Great Mystery to feed and clothe ourselves. The buffalo is more than money. . he is our brother. . blood-related to all of us. When he is carried away, our hearts go with him. This must stop before there can be peace between us."

Commissioner Hatton wriggled his sizeable bottom from side to side and cleared his throat.

"The Great Father and all his people decreed several summers ago that no one can hunt buffalo south of the Red River."

"Then it must be that the Great Father's promises are no stronger than any other white man's, because there are more of these hunters in our country than ever before. They are hard to kill because they have far-shooting guns, but we do what we can. What does the Great Father do to stop people he has forbidden to come into our country? I have never seen them punished."

What Kicking Bird said begged a response and, in the silence that followed, all eyes turned toward Bad Hand. Moments before his soft, thin voice sounded, the mangled digits of his left hand made the odd clicking sound.

“My soldiers cannot be everywhere at once," he said flatly.

Kicking Bird met Bad Hand's stare with equal force, never averting his eyes through the response and translation.

"What the soldier chief says is true," he began, his gaze still unwavering. "The country of the Kiowa and Comanche is vast. It makes all men puny. The country of the Texans is as big, but when one of our warriors kills a single, bony cow to feed his starving children, soldiers saddle their horses and come after him to avenge the white man whose worthless cow was lost. Your white hunters come without permission. They kill our buffalo. . more than can be counted. . as fast as they can, taking the robes and tongues and leaving the rest to fester on the plains. No soldier saddles his horse or blows his trumpet when this is done."

Bad Hand remained still during Kicking Bird's talk, so still that the Indian delegation, who were impressed with his warrior-like bearing, could not be certain if he had blinked during all that time. But beneath this tranquil surface were currents of emotion that were expressed once again in the clicking of his ravaged fingers.

"Tell me when you find them and I will send soldiers to punish them."

"If we make a ride of one or two sleeps to tell you this what good can it be? The hunters will have quit their camps when your soldiers arrive. These men must be stopped before they come into the country.”

Bad Hand shook his head.

"That is not my job," he said. "I am a soldier, not a politician.”

Kicking Bird turned his head and looked down on Hatton. But the commissioner also gave a little shake of his head.

"I do not have the power to keep people from going where they want to go."

Kicking Bird looked from Hatton to Bad Hand and back again but nothing more was forthcoming.

"Our young men will kill as many hunters as they can," he declared. "So long as these men take our money without asking, there will be trouble. That is all I have to say."

In the hours that followed, warriors rose again and again to address unfulfilled promises, while the whites, with equal obstinacy, returned unfailingly to their plan for peace that would deny the aboriginals all freedom of movement. It was nearly dark before the meeting broke up.

Nothing of substance had been achieved, yet by virtue of having met, a certain progress had been made, and there were handshakes all around as the deadlocked delegations took leave of each other in front of the lodge tent.

The warriors said little as they followed Lawrie Tatum back up the hill to their horses, having decided only that since the moon was up they would travel awhile rather than camp close to the whites. Though none of them said so, each man was hungry for open space after the grueling talk in the stuffy tent.

If Lawrie Tatum was disappointed with the meeting he didn't show it, for he was his usual ebullient self as he took each man firmly by the hand, making it clear to all that he was glad they had come and would continue to pursue the friendship he so eagerly desired.

After he and Kicking Bird clasped hands, the Quaker pulled the Comanche aside and showed him into the place he called a "house." Passing over the threshold, Kicking Bird was astounded to find that a single footstep could transport him into a foreign, confounding world.

As he stood fixed to a floor of wood, his head turned slowly, allowing his uncomprehending eyes to absorb fully the numbing wonder of what he saw. This was the box that Lawrie Tatum lived in, and the sight of four walls, a roof, and a floor sent a tremor of horror up Kicking Bird's spine.

How a person could exist in such a place was difficult to believe. The Quaker was completely sealed inside the box. The air inside did not move, and although the things called windows admitted the moon's light, they seemed completely unnecessary. The whole world was only a few feet away! Who could possibly want to look outside when the opportunity of being outside was as easy as walking?

Tables and chairs were placed in the room, as if in wait for a large child. A heavy piece of soft material obscured much of the floor's planking. The fire was hidden in a metal box, where it could not be enjoyed. But most startling of all, macabre images of hair-mouths hung in several spots on the walls. For a beat or two of his leaping heart Kicking Bird thought they might be living beings whose faces had somehow been manipulated onto the sides of Lawrie Tatum's box. Then he thought they might be representations of slain enemies, but he quickly realized that Lawrie Tatum could not be capable of killing anything more than a rabbit. . maybe a deer.

The blur of visions was further complicated by the little white man's frenetic behavior. The moment he entered his box, Lawrie Tatum began gesturing and talking in a vain effort to explain every item to a man who had never seen them before, nor even knew of their existence, and what little Kicking Bird learned of the objects the Quaker was describing was canceled out by the haste with which he drew his visitor across the floor to a far wall, where a tall, dark box, fronted by a similarly colored chair, stood.

His host sat in the chair, reached up, and opened the box. The inside was littered with pieces of paper stuffed into holes that had been carved into the box's top. The Quaker reached down, took hold of something with two fingers, and pulled out another, smaller box. As he began to dig through it, Kicking Bird interrupted his search to ask what the tall box might be.

"Oh," chirped Lawrie Tatum, looking up earnestly. “Forgive me. . desk. . this is a desk. Make words here."

Still unsure what it might be, Kicking Bird could manage only an affirmative grunt as the Quaker laid out several small cases on the desktop and began to inspect them. Inside were the glass discs suspended by wire and, as Kicking Bird stared down on them in awe, Lawrie Tatum suddenly turned to him again.

“The man. . old. . Ten Bears. . Ten Bears."

"Uhhh," Kicking Bird snorted. "Tin Bares."

"For his eyes," Lawrie Tatum said eagerly, pointing to his own.

“Eyes. . Ten Bears."

"Uhhh," Kicking Bird answered, lifting a finger to one of his eyes, “aye.”

"See far," Lawrie Tatum asked, holding a cupped hand at arm's length before drawing it quickly to his face, "or close?"

He repeated the motion and a moment later Kicking Bird took the Quaker's hand and brusquely stretched his arm straight.

“Thisss,” he said, shaking his head.

“Ah, nearsighted!" Lawrie Tatum grinned. He turned once again to the desk and went on with his examination.

The Comanche and Kiowa warriors rode far onto their beloved prairie that night before finding a shelf of sandy soil where they could stretch out and sleep a few hours in the shadow of a looming cut bank.

Wrapped in a blanket, his head resting on the occasional bag he used for a pillow, Kicking Bird lay awake, his mind crowded with all he had heard and seen. It was thrilling to think of the surprise for Ten Bears wrapped in deerskin just behind his skull but, as he watched the orange trails of stars streak across the heavens, he gave the surprise the same passing attention that other, vivid impressions of the previous day received.

They were pushed aside by a single, overwhelming question. It was a question about the whites he had long contemplated and had always believed a firsthand encounter like the one in the Quaker's home would provide a simple answer to. Instead, a hundred different potential answers whirled in his mind, while the question itself continued to float in his consciousness, heavy and persistent as a pendulum.

How could Lawrie Tatum, or any other man, in exercise of free will, eschew the sun and stars and wind, spurn the earth itself, to sleep and eat and laugh and cry and bathe and smoke and procreate in a box?

Kicking Bird thought to himself, I am glad I have never dreamed of such a thing.

But then he thought, Now that I have seen it, perhaps I will dream about it. That would be bad.

He shut his eyes and tried to push the possibility of dreaming out of his head.