His hands were painted red and black, in a pattern as if he had stuck them in a fire until they were scorched. Large black circles surrounded his eyes, and red tears were dabbed among the paint. He paused, turning to face the pole and leaning back, the bone pulling on the covering muscle and skin until they were four inches out from his body. The flesh held, even as he pushed backward.
He was on the fourth day of his private sun dance. Normally held by a tribe during the summer, Crazy Horse had come here alone, traveling far from his village. He could not wait for the next summer. Nor did he wish to dance with others, for he was seeking a vision, and he knew, deep inside, it was not a vision that could be shared.
Anger drove him.
He had chosen the center pole tree carefully. Straight and strong. He’d carefully cut off all the branches and stripped off the bark, a job usually done by elaborately dressed maidens. Then he’d fasted for a night before “attacking” the tree in the morning, firing several arrows into it to symbolically kill it. After that he cut it down and brought it to this open Spot. He placed a large buffalo skull that he had found on a hunt three years earlier on the top, tying off the lariats through the eye sockets. Then he placed it upright, sliding the other end into a hole he’d dug.
He’d arranged the rest of the skulls he’d brought, all from beasts he’d killed over the past several years, in five parallel lines facing east. The buffalo skull was on the top, facing west. The pole represented the center of the world, a connection between the heaven and earth, between the dancer and Wakan- Tanka, the Great Spirit. The skulls represented the powerful spirit of the buffalo, the beast on which the survival of the Plains Indians depended.
Once all was set he had taken two arrows and broken off e point with six inches of shaft. He’d pinched one breast between his fingers and skewered the point through on one side, then the other. Then he’d attached the lariats. He’d been dancing ever since.
The goal was two-fold: to have a vision while dancing and then ultimately to break free of the skewers by ripping them out through his flesh. But in the process, one was supposed to be reborn as the torture represented death. And Crazy Horse desperately wanted to be reborn.
His throat was parched, as he had long since drained the leather flask of water he’d carried within reach. His stomach was a tight knot, empty for days.
Crazy Horse stopped. Not from the pain, but because he sensed something. He took a step closer to the pole and slowly turned outward, the lariats sliding over his shoulder, fresh blood dripping down his chest unnoticed over dried blood.
For a moment he became aware of his surroundings, The pole was set in the center of a glade next to a river. It was ten feet high, a cottonwood stripped of branches and bark. A scattering of snow covered the ground and surrounding trees. Through the trees came a woman. She wore tan pants of some fine material and a leather jacket that was tattered and torn. She had a staff in her right hand that she used to support tom herself.
Crazy Horse took an angry step forward as he saw the woman more clearly and was jerked back in pain by the skewers. She was white, with curly brown hair, like the woman his mother had described who had visited at his birth, the one who had made the terrible prophecies and taken away the other who had been born with him.
Crazy Horse blinked, not certain if this was the vision he had been seeking during his four days of self-torture, or if she was real. She paused at the tree line. Returning his gaze. Her face was lined with. Anxiety, and she appeared as exhausted as he felt.
He shook his head and blinked once, but she was still ere, although now he could see there was a fog behind her, slowly moving down the hillside toward the glade, passing through the trees. She raised her left hand, her palm open toward him. Then slowly she turned her hand until the back faced him. Then she gestured with her fingers for him to come to her.
Without hesitation he stepped forward. The lariat tightened. The arrows jamming against the covering layer of muscle and skin. He took another step and the arrows tore through muscle and skin, the blades ripping free. The pain was distant, a dull throbbing, the blood flowing down his chest now unnoticed like the snow that still fell.
‘’Warrior,’’ she said in perfect Sioux, even though from her skin and dress he knew she was not of his tribe. You are the one who was named Crazy Horse after your father and born)f Nahimana, the mystic one.”
Crazy Horse knew it was a statement, not a question.
“You seek a vision from the spirits,” she continued, “something to guide you in battle against those who encroach on your land. You seek to be reborn as someone who does not have the fate your mother foretold hanging over you.”
“Are you the one called Earhart?” Crazy Horse asked. He reached down and picked up his hatchet. Feeling more secure with the weapon in his hand. With the other hand he grabbed a spear.
“Yes.” She was looking over her shoulder at the encroaching fog that was now fewer than a hundred feet away. For the first time Crazy Horse noticed there was something strange about the white mist. Its front was a uniform straight line, and he could not see far into it. There were swirls of yellow on the leading edge. A disconcerting odor preceded the mist, something that made Crazy Horse take an involuntary step back.
“Danger comes,” she said. “I will help you with the vision you seek-and more-if you will help me.”
“What help do you need?” Crazy Horse was confused. Should he help her? She was not of his tribe. And according to his mother she was the one who had foretold of his people’s ultimate doom.
She pointed to the fog. “You must come with me to meet someone. It is part of your destiny as your mother foresaw.”
Crazy Horse looked at the fog and knew it was dangerous, like a bad patch of snow high on a mountainside that hid unseen crevices.
“Go!” The woman shoved him in the back, and Crazy Horse bristled at her manner. ‘’There is not time to stand here and think about it.” She turned toward the fog, leading the way.
He followed her with his spear at the ready, his hatchet tucked into the leather belt around his waist. His shoulders hunched involuntarily as he entered the mist. It felt strange against his bare skin, unlike anything he had ever experienced before. He felt an almost overwhelming sense of dread and fear, but the warrior in him ignored those feelings and continued forward. He could see barely a few feet, but he could sense movement all around. His stomach rumbled and he staggered, nauseous. He wretched, spitting out acid.
Crazy Horse twisted and turned nervously. The woman was now at his side, nudging him to move. A scream echoed through the fog. Someone was in extreme fear and pain, worse than Crazy Horse had heard when they’d burned captives at the stake. He tightened his grip on the shaft of his spear.
Something leapt toward him from the right, and he reacted as he had been trained to since he could walk, spinning, the point of the spear leading. A bizarre animal was spitted on the spear, one he had never seen before and didn’t have time to study, as it struck at him with a scorpion like tail. He twisted the spear, staring at a mouth full of three rows of razor-sharp teeth, the head mounted on the body of — the only thing he could think of was a mountain lion. He let go of the whipping out the hatchet and slamming the edge into the creature’s skull. It collapsed to the ground, but still the barbed tail jerked spasmodically, seeking a target. Crazy Horse gave the body a wide berth.