Occasionally he would consider discarding them for leggings and moccasins, but the reflection always told him that they belonged. In some way they were a part of the discipline, too. He would wear the pants and boots until they disintegrated. Then he would see.
On certain days, when he felt more Indian than white, he would trudge back over the bluff, and the fort would appear as an ancient place, a ghostly relic of a past so far gone that it was difficult to believe he was ever connected to it.
As time passed, going to Fort Sedgewick became a chore. His visits were fewer and farther between. But he continued making the ride to his old haunt.
Ten Bears’s village became the center of his life, but for all the ease with which he settled into it, Lieutenant Dunbar moved as a man apart. His skin and accent and pants and boots marked him as a visitor from another world, and like Stands With A Fist, he quickly became a man who was two people.
His integration into Comanche life was constantly tempered with the vestiges of the world he had left behind, and when Dunbar tried to think of his true place in life, his gaze would suddenly become faraway. A fog, blank and inconclusive, would fill his mind, as if all his normal processes had been suspended. After a few seconds the fog would lift and he would go about his business, not knowing quite what had hit him.
Thankfully, these spells subsided as time went on.
The first six weeks of his time in Ten Bears’s camp revolved around one particular place: the little brush arbor behind Kicking Bird’s lodge.
It was here, in daily morning and afternoon sessions lasting several hours each, that Lieutenant Dunbar first conversed freely with the medicine man.
Stands With A Fist made steady progress toward fluency, and by the end of the first week the three of them were having long-running talks. The lieutenant had thought all along that Kicking Bird was a good person, but when Stands With A Fist began to translate large blocks of his thoughts into English, Dunbar discovered he was dealing with an intelligence that was superior by any standard he knew.
In the beginning there were mostly questions and answers. Lieutenant Dunbar told the story of how he came to be at Fort Sedgewick and of his unexplained isolation. Interesting as the story was, it frustrated Kicking Bird. Dances With Wolves knew almost nothing. He did not even know the army’s mission, much less its specific plans. Of military things there was nothing to learn. He had been a simple soldier.
The white race was a different matter.
“Why are the whites coming into our country?” Kicking Bird would ask.
And Dunbar would reply, “I don’t think they want to come into the country, I think they only want to pass through.”
Kicking Bird would counter, “The Texans are already in our country, chopping down the trees and tearing up the earth. They are killing the buffalo and leaving them in the grass. This is happening now. There are too many of these people already. How many more will be coming?”
Here the lieutenant would twist his mouth and say, “I don’t know.”
“I have heard it said,” the medicine man would continue, “that the whites only want peace in the country. Why do they always come with hair-mouth soldiers? Why do these hair-mouth Texas Rangers come after us when all we want is to be left alone? I have been told of talks the white chiefs have had with my brothers. I have been told these talks are peaceful and that promises are made. But I am told that the promises are always broken. If white chiefs come to see us, how shall we know their true minds? Should we take their presents? Should we sign their papers to show that there will be peace between us? When I was a boy many Comanches went to a house of law in Texas for a big meeting with white chiefs and they were shot dead.”
The lieutenant would try to provide reasoned answers to Kicking Bird’s questions, but they were weak theories at best, and when pressed, he would inevitably end by saying, “I don’t know actually.”
He was being careful, for he could see the deep concern behind Kicking Bird’s queries and could not bring himself to tell what he really thought. If the whites ever came out here in real force, the Indian people, no matter how hard they fought, would be hopelessly overmatched. They would be defeated by armaments alone.
At the same time he could not tell Kicking Bird to disregard his concerns. He needed to be concerned. The lieutenant simply could not tell him the truth. Nor could he tell the medicine man lies. It was a standoff, and finding himself cornered, Dunbar hid behind a wall of ignorance, hoping for the arrival of new, more palatable subjects.
But each day, like a stain that refuses to be washed out, one overriding question always remained.
“How many more are coming?”
Gradually Stands With A Fist began to look forward to the hours she spent in the brush arbor.
Now that he had been accepted by the band, Dances With Wolves ceased to be the great problem he had once been. His connection with white society had paled, and while what he represented was still a fearful thing, the soldier himself was not. He didn’t even look like a soldier anymore.
At first the notoriety surrounding activities in the arbor bothered Stands With A Fist. The schooling of Dances With Wolves, his presence in camp, and her key role as go-between were constant topics of conversation around the village. The celebrity of it made her feel uneasy, as though she was being watched. She was especially sensitive to the possibility of criticism for shirking the routine duties expected of every Comanche woman. It was true that Kicking Bird himself had excused her, but she still worried.
After two weeks, however, none of these fears had materialized, and the new respect she enjoyed was having a beneficial effect on her personality. Her smile was quicker and her shoulders were squarer. The importance of her new role charged her step with a sense of authority that everyone could see. Her life was becoming bigger, and inside herself she knew it was a good thing.
Other people knew it, too.
She was gathering wood one evening when a woman friend stooping next to her suddenly said with a touch of pride: “People are talking about you.”
Stands With A Fist straightened, unsure of how to take the remark.
“What are they saying?” she asked flatly.
“They say that you are making medicine. They say that maybe you should change your name.”
“To what?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” the friend replied. “Medicine Tongue maybe, something like that. It’s just some talk.”
As they walked together in the twilight Stands With A Fist rolled this around in her head. They were at the edge of camp before she spoke again.
“I like my name,” she said, knowing that word of her wishes would quickly filter through camp. “I will keep it.”
A few nights later she was returning to Kicking Bird’s tipi after relieving herself when she heard someone start to sing in a lodge close by. She paused to listen and was astounded at what she heard.
“The Comanches have a bridge
That passes to another world
The bridge is called Stands With A Fist.”
Too embarrassed to hear more, she hurried along to bed. But as she tucked the covers under her chin, she was not thinking bad thoughts about the song. She was thinking only of the words she had heard, and on reflection, they seemed quite good.
She slept deeply that night. It was already light when she woke the next morning. Scrambling to catch up with the day, she hurried out of the lodge and stopped short.