The Holy Road

Chapter XXVI

The valley was long and flat, broken occasionally by oak trees in various stages of growth and a few stunted mesquites. It was covered with tawny grass a few inches high. Etched along its center were the twin depressions set close together that indicated a white man road. Scouts had crept down the night the main war party reached the area and, after close inspection, pronounced the road frequently and heavily used.

Hills rose like shoulders on each side of the valley and it was on the westernmost of these, on the upper slopes overgrown with ash and scrub oak and sumac, that the great party of Comanche and Kiowa warriors awaited their prey.

Just after sunrise, scouts had come in from the east to report that white men had taken the road and were coming their way. A council was immediately convened. The admonitions of Owl Prophet were remembered and it was decided that the,very small party of soldiers and one wagon would be allowed to pass unmolested, while a fresh group of scouts was sent east once again with orders to look for the next white people that might be coming along.

The whites who had been spotted, though they were to be granted life, would be passing very close, and this prospect of proximity to the enemy stirred the warriors. All of them, trained from birth to risk their lives in battle, were aware of the end of existence, and for some the moments they were living now would be their last.

Who might fall could not be known, but it was likely that some of the younger men would not come home. Young men were often foolish. They wanted honors and they wanted to impress young women. They weren't afraid of death, but few, if any, thought they would be killed. They were teenagers who had ridden on few raids and the finality of life was an abstract idea to them. Youth had ordained them bulletproof.

Yet in each there was a mysterious trembling that often led them into peril. The trembling made for an odd sort of giddiness that none was able to confront. They had to ignore the fear rattling up and down their bodies, because those who paid fear too much attention were sure to die. Every boy marshaled his fighting spirit in hope that he might survive.

For men like Wind In His Hair and Iron Jacket and White Bear, men who had fought the enemy a hundred times and survived, the emotions were much the same, though years of combat in every imaginable circumstance had reduced the mysterious trembling they felt before battle to a barely perceptible palpitation. Experience had taught them that the death they courted with every engagement was a thing so sudden and random that to fear it was an unaffordable indulgence.

The responsibilities of people like Left Hand and Whirlwind and Hears The Sunrise and Little Raven, distinguished warriors who had lived to see middle age, left no room for contemplating mortality. They would be charged with seeing to the execution of strategies, to rallying young men at decisive moments, and to fighting a delaying action in the event of a retreat.

At mid-morning the little covered wagon with a red cross first came into view. Half a dozen mounted soldiers were escorting the wagon and it was only through the repeated admonitions of leading warriors that the young men were held in check.

Still, it was something of a miracle that the temptation of the single wagon and its insignificant escort was avoided. All the white men would have died within minutes and in less time than it takes to skin a rabbit their scalps would have been waving from the coupsticks and lances of warriors. But the whites passed in full view, the creak of wheels, the snorting of horses and casual human utterances all clearly heard in the self imposed silence along the wooded slopes of the hill.

When the slow-moving prize finally disappeared from sight a scout from the east pounded in with the exciting news that a second group of white men, the group Owl Prophet said they would be successful in attacking, had taken the road.

Perhaps twenty white soldiers were in the lead, followed by a dozen big wagons driven by hair-mouths. Each wagon was filled with yellow cargoes of corn and in the rear a herd of fifteen good horses was being tended by only three blue-coated soldiers.

Wind In His Hair, White Bear, and a dozen others quickly devised a simple plan for attacking the enemy. The small horse herd in the rear would be hit first as a ruse to lure the main body of soldiers. Most likely they would give chase to the handful of warriors trying to drive off their animals. Once the soldiers had cleared the line of wagons, Wind In His Hair and a large contingent of warriors would swoop down, cutting them off from the corn train, leaving it vulnerable to an overwhelming assault from White Bear and the remaining fighters.

There was no talk of anything going wrong. Neither Wind In His Hair nor White Bear had ever gone into battle wondering what might go wrong. Both men had known bad feelings before riding against an enemy in an ill-advised fight, but there was nothing of that kind in the backs of their minds on this day. They were supreme warriors of unexcelled bravery, and once the plan of attack had been struck, both gave full rein to the innate instincts, polished fine with time, that had carried them so far in life.

Immediately after the council broke up, the hillside that hid the warriors became active as a hive as final preparations were made. Those not in mourning touched up or reapplied the paint they had chosen for themselves and their ponies. Everyone stripped to breechclouts and moccasins to afford maximum freedom of movement. Hair was oiled and heads were adorned with the proper number of feathers set at the proper angle. Scalplocks and the amulets braided into them, a grizzly claw taken in an individual encounter, the talons of a hawk snatched bare-handed from the sky, the canine tooth of a wolf who had entered a lodge-all these charms were fingered repeatedly to make sure they were secure. Warhorses were charged back and forth, made to back up, spun in circles, and guided in all directions to assure the riders who would shortly risk their lives that their animals were sound.

In some cases, horses were switched. Late additions or deletions were made to accoutrements. Lances were changed from one hand to the other. Primary weapons were shuffled, and last-minute changes were made in the fighting units as men jumped from group to group according to the power of intuition.

Dances With Wolves was thankful his intuition had been silent, because he did not want to make any changes. The men under White Bear were all Kiowa but his wish to ride with them had been granted. The wagon drivers presented an easy chance for scalps, but everyone understood that the light-skinned Comanche was after something other than scalps, something only the drivers could provide.

Unfortunately, the arrangement did little to help him apply the single-mindedness so vital to fighting, and even as he smeared blue paint on Smiles A Lot's chest and back, doing his best to create the semblance of an owl, Dances With Wolves struggled to keep his mind from racing off elsewhere.

It was hard to think of killing the enemy while a higher mission consumed him. Added to that was the ever-present distraction of the children who had so disobediently followed him. The anger he first felt at the enormous complication of their presence had subsided but he still felt pangs of irritation at having to constantly consider their welfare, making certain at the same time that nothing he did for his children would compromise the war party. Even in the chaos of going to war, he could not help glancing up the slope for a glimpse of them through the trees where they were helping a handful of older boys watch the reserve horses.

Dances With Wolves agreed with his brothers in arms. It was no good to have a woman — much less a little girl and her nine-year-old brother — with a war party. But everyone also agreed that nothing could be done under the circumstances and they had been permitted to stay with the tacit understanding that Dances With Wolves would be responsible for keeping them out of the way. So instead of singing a silent mantra of courage he was looking up the hill for them every few minutes, or shuddering at the prospect of failing to get his wife and daughter back, or wondering if he was going to die in battle and make it all moot.

Miraculously, these trepidations vanished as three returning scouts were suddenly sighted. The riders flew up the valley at a full run, quirting their lathered horses up the slope, and announced excitedly that the enemy, still unaware of their presence, was just behind them. The war party erupted in a near-soundless frenzy of action as a hundred men swung onto their ponies and galloped in different directions to join their respective groups.

As he leapt onto his pony, Dances With Wolves caught a last glimpse of Smiles A Lot, the azure outline of an owl standing out against the red that coated his legs, torso, and face as he hurriedly guided his pony through the trees.

Thinking of his friend Smiles A Lot and the amazing transformation he had undergone, Dances With Wolves took up his position in the line of Kiowa warriors hidden among the trees. A few yards ahead, poised under a large elm near the tree line, Dances With Wolves could see the broad back of White Bear. He and the two warriors flanking him had gone ahead for a better view of the action.

Suddenly, the big warrior turned his massive head and scanned the warriors behind him. Then his wide, thick-lipped mouth opened as he barked out a name in Comanche and Dances With Wolves rode forward. One of the warriors next to White Bear sidled his horse and Dances With Wolves drew even with White Bear.

"Ride with me," the Kiowa signed.

Dances With Wolves nodded.

A grin broke on White Bear's face as he signed again.

"Some of these young Kiowa," he said and gave a backward tip of his head, "they get lazy when they fight. We are older. We should stay together."

Dances With Wolves grunted mirthfully but a more elaborate reply was interrupted by the sudden whispering of one of White Bear's lieutenants. The man lifted a finger and every eye followed.

White soldiers had appeared at the far end of the valley. No flankers seemed to be out, and when Dances With Wolves counted heads, he saw twenty-one, just as the scouts had reported.

Behind the soldiers appeared the ears of mules, and in a few moments a line of open-topped wagons moved into view. Nine of the big wagons entered the valley and Dances With Wolves was heartened to see a wide gap between the loads of corn and the dawdling horse herd bringing up the rear. Now there were four soldiers minding the trailing horses, but one more man, unless he was very good, didn't matter much. It seemed the whites were doing all in their power to accommodate the plan of attack.

The soldiers had yet to come abreast of the Kiowa position when White Bear slipped from his pony, an action mimicked by his entire force, and pinched the animal's velvet nostrils closed to stifle whinnying. Like slowly turning screws every muscle in every warrior tightened as the soldiers passed below them and under the trees blanketing the slope stillness was absolute.

Moments after the first wagon began to go by a shrill whistle split the silence and Dances With Wolves leaned forward, looking toward the horse herd farther up the valley. He could hear the whooping of warriors, and seconds later they burst into view; charging the loose horses. A few animals broke free but the soldiers were disciplined enough to try to hold most of them as the handful of warriors raced toward them. When the Comanche fighters hit the flats, the horse herders opened fire, causing them to zigzag to avoid being hit.

But one warrior took no evasive action. Never flinching, he rode straight on, quirting his pony furiously. A hundred yards from the enemy, the solo warrior astonished all who saw him by rising to a standing position on the back of his running horse. As if his extraordinary horsemanship were not enough, the warrior, still standing, began waving a blanket over his head. Dances With Wolves could make out a splash of blue against the red of his back and realized the rider was Smiles A Lot.

The main body of soldiers was already heading down the wagon line, racing to give aid to the horse herders. When they were clear of the teamsters another whistle blew, and with catastrophic screams Wind In His Hair and the Comanches flooded down the slope to attack the soldiers from behind.

But the Kiowas and Dances With Wolves barely noticed, for as soon as the soldiers had cleared the wagons, all eyes settled with calm, predatory intent on the objective below White Bear turned and bellowed, "Brave men to the front, cowards to the rear!” and the trees exploded with a full-throated roar of humanity as the Kiowas surged from their cover and streamed riotously down the slope.

Dances With Wolves was side by side with White Bear as they reached the bottom of the hill. From the corner of his eye he saw a pony go down, cartwheeling headfirst over the prairie as his rider catapulted into space. Whether the pony had tripped or taken a bullet from the sporadic fire commencing in front of them he did not know. Nor did he know what was happening farther up the valley. The pop of heavy fire in the distance was swamped by the rush of wind in his face, the straining of his pony as it dug across the level valley floor, and the panic he could see, between his horse's ears, unfolding before him.

Most of the hair-mouths had jumped down to take cover behind their vehicles and were firing their guns with all the effect of spittle against a gale. A few of the drivers, horrified at the wave of death about to engulf them, had broken out and, like leviathans struggling in a bog, were trying to raise enough speed from their lumbering wagons and panic-tangled teams to escape.

Dances With Wolves saw these things without any real awareness, for he was barely cognizant of the fight. He no longer felt the pony under him or heard the cries of his fellow fighters. He heard, yet did not hear the high, metallic whine of a slug passing near his head, for every sense he possessed was concentrated on the search for a man his size.

Reaching the wagons seconds ahead of the unbroken line of warriors charging in behind him, Dances With Wolves fired at an enemy crawling under one of the beds. Before he could fire again, however, he spied what he wanted farther out on the prairie, and as men swarmed in around him, he wheeled his pony out of the tumult of wailing and shooting to pursue a tall, rangy white man trying to drive his heavy wagon to safety.

As he closed the hundred yards that separated him from his quarry Dances With Wolves began to yip as a coyote does when running down a rabbit, and the tall man turned in his seat. The whites of his eyes shone clearly as Dances With Wolves raised his rifle, but before he could squeeze the trigger his prey took flight.

Plunging over the side of the wagon, the white man landed awkwardly, buckling his ankle, and Dances With Wolves could have killed him then with a single shot. Instead, he tossed his rifle to the off hand, drew a long-shafted club from his belt, and pressed his pony forward.

Cantering slowly alongside his victim he swung the stone-headed club in a lazy arc and brought it down on the crown of the driver's head. It was a glancing blow, for the skull did not open, but it was enough to knock the man senseless. Ashe crumbled in t-he grass, Dances With Wolves vaulted off his pony, rolled the driver over, and began to peel off his clothes, taking the jacket and shirt first.

He gripped the heel of the man's boot and noticed that a shard of ankle bone had pierced the leather. When he ripped the boot free with a powerful jerk, the man screamed himself awake. In any other circumstance Dances With Wolves would have killed him immediately but the white man was helpless and, wanting nothing more than the remaining boot and trousers, he focused on removing them. The last boot seemed to take forever to pull off, and when he tugged the pants leg over exposed bone the driver screamed once more and tried to crawl away.

Still in no hurry to kill him, Dances With Wolves picked the light cotton jacket off the ground, slipped his arms into the sleeves, and found that it fit perfectly. In turn, he held the shirt and trousers up to his body and was certain they, too, would serve him. He was starting to give the boots a try when he heard White Bear's deep, distinctive voice barking commands.

A few yards away, the driver he had clubbed had apparently gotten back on his feet only to be roped, and he was presently being dragged back to the other wagons by a pair of mounted Kiowa warriors. White Bear was riding alongside the man, striking him over and over with his coupstick.

Beyond them, Dances With Wolves could see the fight was over. Warriors were scampering over the wagons and cutting away the teams. Some were swirling around, still mounted, raucously displaying the scalps they had taken.

The reserve ponies had been brought up and were grouped near the bottom of the hill. He could see Snake In Hands and Always Walking sitting quietly on their ponies, watching the aftermath of victory. Farther up the valley and out of sight he could still hear firing, but now it was intermittent and he wondered if Wind In His Hair had managed to finish off the soldiers.

Whether he had or not, all seemed well and, cradling the driver's outfit, he remounted and trotted back the way he had come. Passing by the scene at the wagons, he saw several mules lying dead in their traces. The bodies of drivers, already stripped and hacked open, were strewn about in the grass. Several of the wagons had been set afire and the flames sent roiling clouds of black smoke skyward.

The bulk of Kiowas had massed at a single wagon. There, two white men, still half-alive, had been tied to separate wheels and were about to be roasted, to the immense satisfaction of the jeering warriors. As the tinder around them was ignited the unlucky white men made plaintive, sobbing cries for mercy and Dances With Wolves, who had not heard a white man speak in many years, was shocked at how well he understood the words. He trotted on to where Snake In Hands and Always Walking were waiting and the three rode back up the slope, intending to push east as fast as possible.

There was no time for good-byes. Everyone knew that Dances With Wolves had but one ambition and that was to rescue his wife and child.