The Holy Road

Chapter V

The love she had for Dances With Wolves was abiding. They suffered through divisions as any man and woman would, but most days she counted herself lucky to have found such a considerate and faithful husband. That in itself would have been plenty but Stands With A Fist also enjoyed a special status accorded her by his achievements.

And he was a perfect rudder for her emotions, for Stands With A Fist was not a woman who walked the middle of the trail. She had always found herself to one side, blowing hot or cold, and she often wondered what might have become of her were it not for her husband's ability to love her through unpredictable swings of temperament.

But even with all they held between them, Stands With A Fist knew that the one thing in this world she could not be without was her children. It was the children who had smoothed the rawness of her edges. Motherhood had entwined the disparate strings of her personality and forged her into a whole person, moving her through life with a freedom from doubt and fear she had not known before.

It was difficult to believe that Snake In Hands was in his ninth winter. Was it possible he could have come out of her so long ago? And was it possible that a being who came into the world so helpless could now be a boy racing toward manhood? He was taller and stronger than any boy his age and was blessed with an ability to retain everything he learned. Information, of whatever sort, seemed to stick in the inquisitive boy's head forever.

Their firstborn had been slow to show himself, and for a long time they had been unable to name him. His skeptical expressions hardly changed in the first year of his life, as if he knew his own vulnerability. As an infant people had marveled at his fine, fair hair and his white skin, and more than one made the practical suggestion that they call him White Boy. It was an amusing thought and for a time it circulated as a joke in the village. The parents took the ribbing good-naturedly, and when prodded to find a name they offered the same reply again and again, a reply the boy's godfather, Kicking Bird, was the first to make: "Let's see what happens."

The child's physical development was astounding and when the moon of his birth was marked for the first time, he was already standing on a pair of thick, beautiful legs, legs that would soon be propelling him around camp and onto the fringes of the grassland. One summer morning he trundled back into the lodge holding a young garter snake in both tiny hands. His mother was not fond of snakes but her son was so happy that she could not bring herself to discourage him and soon he was gently cradling every harmless, legless serpent he could find.

The only real falling-out he had ever experienced with his father took place when Dances With Wolves killed an obstinate rattlesnake outside the lodge entrance. His son had upbraided his father for days after, and from then on Dances With Wolves was forced to gingerly remove all dangerous snakes to a place of safety.

The boy's affection for these special animals never lagged, and even now he would jump down from his pony whenever he saw something slithering through the grass. Intent as any hunter, he would creep after the wriggling object of desire and, at just the right moment, clamp a pair of fingers on its tail and lift it off the ground. If the snake was agreeable, he would take it with him, and it was not unusual to see the head or tail of his find poking out of a shirttail or trouser leg as he rode along.

The second child, a girl, was born less than two years later, and the Comanches, who had gotten over the surprising whiteness of Snake In His Hands' skin, were jolted again when they found that not a single hair could be seen on the little girl's head. An infant without hair was as inconceivable as a sky without stars, and the strange being that dwelt among them was constantly discussed. Again the parents looked to Kicking Bird and again he gave the same reassuring advice.

"Let's see what happens."

The naming of the second child, as with the first, was put off and in the meantime a growth of light, extremely fine hair began to appear on her head. That and the passage of time put an end to many wild speculations.

Though smaller and less sturdy than her brother, the new arrival grew just as rapidly, and in her own way just as strongly. She, too, was walking early. whatever she might have lacked in boyish strength she more than made up for with a singular sense of purpose that dominated every aspect of the little girl's personality.

From the time they could carry her, the girl's legs were moving her fearlessly around the village and she was forever popping up in the homes of people she didn't know. These solo flights were taken without warning at odd hours, and it became routine to see Stands With A Fist going from lodge to lodge, her boy in tow, searching for her little girl.

Although the wayward child was repeatedly lectured about the importance of obtaining permission for her daily jaunts, the admonitions did little to deter her, and on one mild winter day the worst fears of her parents were realized when it was discovered that she was missing. After the village had been searched twice, from end to end, all available men and boys went to their horses and fanned out across the prairie in all directions. She was found more than a mile from camp, striding resolutely across the open grassland.

When the horsemen came alongside she refused to break stride, acknowledging them with an irritated glance before turning her right blue eyes forward again. And when one of the men laughingly inquired, "Where are you going?" the toddler replied curtly, “I'm walking.”

She complained loudly when one of the warriors plucked her off the grass, and kept up her squawking all the way back to camp. After that she was known as Always Walking.

Always Going would have suited her just as well, because being on the move was how she wanted to be. She loved helping her mother, and she was good at entertaining herself. She could spend all morning with a doll and a toy lodge. But if her father went outside to relieve himself she wanted to go along, and Dances With Wolves' generosity toward his children was such that he found it hard to deny them.

Instead of diminishing, Always Walking's penchant for action swelled as she grew, along with a flinty obstinacy for getting her way. When her mother reminded her that a girl should be a girl and that she should pay more attention to her place, Always Walking would reply, “I am a Comanche, Mother. Comanches can be anyplace they want to be.”

If the logic of her arguments was overruled, Always Walking stubbornly sulked, refusing to be herself until the next opportunity to exercise her will was realized. So deep was her determination, that by her eighth summer there was almost nowhere that her father and Snake In Hands went that she didn't go, too.

Stands With A Fist's third child, a girl, was now nearing two summers and had yet to demonstrate anything beyond the reticence that marked her older brother's early years. She was neither meek nor bold, neither leader nor follower, seemingly content to take in the life swirling all about her. Perhaps she was awed by the individuality of her older brother and sister. Or perhaps she was slow in developing. Or it might have been that cautious observation was simply her nature. They called her Stays Quiet.

The greatest satisfaction Stands With A Fist took as a mother was to see her children healthy, happy, and growing. She still slept with them, and feeling those three warm bodies that carried her blood breathing next to her was the ultimate pleasure, her hope and salvation rolled into one.

Motherhood also represented her greatest fear, the same blinding fear she had experienced when Lieutenant Dunbar made his appearance so long ago. Her first life had been torn away from her when the Comanches seized her as a little girl. The thought that her life as a Comanche, too, might be taken away was a bad dream that dogged her day and night.

After the disastrous raid into Mexico it was impossible to keep it in the back of her mind. Dances With Wolves had already fought the whites. Wind In His Hair had taken the white woman's scalp. She could not escape the conclusion that more contact was inevitable. What would happen if the whites discovered her? What would happen to her children?

The possibilities made her mind buzz so chaotically that sometimes the rattle of it made her faint. Since the men had walked in from Texas in the middle of the night, each day had become a trial. When her children asked questions about the whites the best answer she could make was, "The whites are none of our business, that,s why we stay away from them. They have nothing to do with us.”

In sleep she sometimes lost her children. Once she had a horrifying dream of soldiers riding through camp, killing everyone in sight. She ran onto the prairie, dragging the children behind, but still they were pursued. When she stopped and looked back all of the soldiers' eyes were red and they were breathing fire. With her own hand she cut the throats of her children, each of them hysterical with fear. Then she drove the same knife deep into her own heart and fell back. Face up on the ground, she realized she was not dead. Unable to open her eyes, she lay vibrating to the power of horses' hooves pounding the earth, listening to the screams of the soldiers and the explosions of their guns as they bore down upon her. She cried so hard that tears ran in streams down the length of her body.

She was sobbing when she woke and frantically checked her sleeping children to make sure they were still alive. Drawing them close calmed her enough to stop her tears.

But still she could not sleep.