The Holy Road

Chapter LVIII

When Lawrie Tatum and Kicking Bird disembarked at a large spring wagon to the terminus of the train line, they were given a large spring wagon to carry Ten Bears overland to Fort Sill.

At mid-morning of their journey's second day, Lawrie Tatum mentioned that he had been thinking of a suitable site for Ten Bears' interment and had concluded that a place of prominence at the post cemetery would be the best solution.

"Not at Fort Sill," Kicking Bird replied flatly.

"Then where?"

"On prairie. . old way. You go Sill. Me. . Ten Bears go on prairie.”

For a time Lawrie Tatum tried to talk his friend out of it, reminding him that they had much to accomplish on the reservation. But Kicking Bird was unmoved and the two parted, Lawrie Tatum angling north on his mule as Kicking Bird swung south, then west, to Comanche country.

He had been told of the heavy, unremitting rains, but though the earth was still soggy, he encountered nothing but fair weather. The sun was bright, the breeze stiff, and the wagon's two mules had little difficulty navigating the trackless plain.

The deeper Kicking Bird penetrated his homeland the more he wondered how it could be that the free ways were gone. The country looked the same as it always had-vast, ever-changing, and empty. It was hard to believe that white people were taking over the country and that their soldiers were chasing his friends.

He hit a stream swollen by the recent rains, and instead of trying to cross, he followed it, trusting that the Mystery would lead him to the right place.

He had camped but twice when he happened on the perfect spot, an exquisite glade of high grass and soft soil surrounded by sentinels of cottonwoods whose leaves were tumbling.

As he stood watching the place, Kicking Bird heard a thumping in the air, and with only the strange sound as warning, he felt waves of motion suddenly crash over his head. He ducked reflexively, and a split second later saw the forms of two golden eagles sailing across the glade at low altitude. Simultaneously, they arched into an effortless, elegant climb and landed their big bodies with ease on the uppermost reaches of one of the cottonwoods.

He could not believe they had passed so close to him, and as he watched the eagles get their bearings with quick twists of their heads, Kicking Bird understood that since his parting with Lawrie Tatum, the Mystery had been guiding his progress.

For the rest of the afternoon he constructed a burial scaffold under the vigilant eyes of the eagles. When all was in readiness, Kicking Bird pulled apart the wooden box, lifted out the old man's corpse, and laid it on a blanket.

Ten Bears was quite stiff, so there was little Kicking Bird could do to make him more presentable, but he gave the body a cursory inspection anyway. As his eyes traveled to one of the old man's hands he was surprised to see the white man spectacles. They were held in the fingers and Kicking Bird's first reaction was to give the alien apparatus a tug. A second thought quickly seized him, however, and he relented. The hand and the spectacles seemed perfectly at ease. They were welded together in the same delicate way Kicking Bird had observed on so many occasions when Ten Bears was alive.

He rolled the old man up in the blanket, hoisted him onto the scaffold, tied the body fast to its moorings, and stepped back to see if all was right. Then he tossed a few offerings of tobacco into the air and thought of leaving.

But his body would not move. Kicking Bird stood transfixed, trying to understand what might be happening to him.

Perhaps I am meant to stand here awhile longer, he thought.

The breeze rose. Soon it was whistling through the burial scaffold, and as he listened to the eerie music, Kicking Bird realized the full depth of what he was saying good-bye to. He looked over his shoulder and the white man wagon was suddenly more than just a wagon. It was the life awaiting him, and, to his horror, Kicking Bird understood with crushing finality that he could never live successfully in a world of wagons. He looked again at the scaffold swaying in the wind and the pair of eagles high in the cottonwood and realized that he was saying good-bye to the country that had been his whole life.

Feeling a rising in his stomach, he said to himself, It is a beautiful country. . the most beautiful. . and a torrent of sadness flooded in on him. It permeated his skin and swamped his heart, and with his next conscious thought Kicking Bird found himself sobbing on the ground.

Wiping his face with his hands, he stumbled back to the wagon and climbed onto the seat. He kept his eyes down as he picked up the team's reins and didn't look up until they were turned around and headed out of the glade.

He drove many miles that night before finally making camp.