The Holy Road

Chapter LVII

Dances With Wolves and a man named He Who Does Not Listen To Them were the first to get to Wind In His Hair. Together they lifted him off his pony, and when they were clear of the wagons, Dances With Wolves pulled the mortally wounded warrior up behind him.

"I am fighting no more!" Dances With Wolves screamed, and as he broke off the battle to carry Wind In His Hair back to the camp, most of the holdovers from Ten Bears' village followed.

White Bear and his Kiowas wanted no more, either, and though a few pockets of young Comanche and Kiowa pestered the wagon train with sniper fire until dusk, the main force of fighters left the field without fulfilling their last, desperate hope. If the whites could kill Wind In His Hair, there was no point in fighting.

The one-eyed warrior was still alive when they reached the temporary camp, but the bullet that had lodged in the bone of his back made it impossible for him to move his legs or even feel them.

As he was carried to bed, Wind In His Hair heard Dances With Wolves calling for Owl Prophet.

"No," he commanded, “I do not want to be doctored. I will not live like this. I am dying now. . let me die."

Propped against a backrest, he lingered until moonrise. Then he closed his eyes and let his chin slump against his chest as the last trace of breath passed out of him.

In his last hours of life the leader had made but one demand. He wanted his body secreted from the enemy, and as soon as he was dead, his remains were carried away from camp, buried in a deep hole, covered with earth, and carefully camouflaged with brush and stones.

No ponies were killed over him and only a few personal items, hastily grabbed up by his friends, were placed in the grave with him. One Braid Trailing cut her hair and slashed herself, but she was the only one who mourned. There was no time for the others.

Word came that yet another column of soldiers was coming, this one from the east. Some families had already started for the reservation and many others were making ready. Those who felt compelled to stay had no idea what to do next. White man soldiers whom they could not hope to fight were converging on them from all directions. If they stayed where they were, they would be annihilated. But where could they go?

In the council convened shortly after the return of Wind In His Hair's burial party, it was decided that a single option was left. They must flee west before the soldiers could catch them, surmount the great caprock barrier, cross the trackless wilderness of the Staked Plains, dive into the Great Hole In The Earth, and hide.

But they would have to escape the net closing around them before they could hope to hide, and, on the night Wind In His Hair passed over the stars, his heirs started west-three hundred men, women, and children pushing almost a thousand ponies, frantic to make themselves invisible.