The pony Winona was leading snorted uneasily, but Winona did not notice.
Warriors should not come to gather rations.
That was woman’s work.
If you had to hunt something, that was different. But why should a warrior come to the ration point, just to pick up a piece of meat and put it on a travois? A squaw could do that. But you will not get your rations, had said the half-breeds, unless your men come.
The men would be angry when the squaws came back without rations. They might beat them with sticks or they might bring out the little clay bowls hidden in the cabins, with paint, and their hidden feathers, and come for the rations themselves, on their ponies with knives and guns.
Maybe that was what the soldiers wanted.
In the past few months, in an effort to make the Sioux more independent, the amount of rations distributed to them had been steadily decreased; now there were no rations distributed at all; and supplies were low in the Standing Rock camps. Although the decrease in the supplies distributed was apparently a violation of treaty arrangements, the rationale of the action was apparently to make the Sioux more independent.
The Sioux themselves, of course, took the words of treaties seriously, and furthermore regarded the diminishment of supplies as a deliberate attempt on the part of the white men responsible to starve them into submission, to make them be what the white men wanted them to be, for example, to be good Indians and stop the Ghost Dancing, but the Ghost Dancing was the wish of Wakan-Tonka, Who was greater by far even than the Great White Father himself, who was only as dust beneath the feet of Wakan-Tonka, or little noises in the trees when the wind blew. The dancing was holy, and must not stop. White men did not know the prayer of the dance. What would they do if the Indians told them to take down their churches and stop singing their own holy songs? They would not like it. They would be angry.
One Indian woman at the ration point had tried to steal a piece of meat and one of the soldiers had thrust a bayonet into her hand. She had stood in the dirt, her feet planted wide, sucking her hand, making obscene gestures at the soldier with her other hand.
How could the Sioux grow their crops when the white farmers could not do so themselves, and that was their way of life, as buffalo had been to the Indians?
The Sioux had asked for their own cattle and horses, like the white ranchers, but this had been refused. Indian cattle would overload the market and white men, for some reason, were unwilling to give the Sioux horses.
How could the Sioux be farmers?
They were hunters, and warriors, not farmers.
And it did not rain, nothing grew. The white farmers could leave the land, get on wagons and iron trains, and go away. But the Indians could not leave.
They must stay, and now there were no rations.
Did the Great White Father wish his children to die?
Maybe the buffalo will come back in the spring, thought Winona to herself, as Kicking Bear has said, if the dancing does not stop.
Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, had said the woman with a nose and head like a chicken at the ration point, with bright eyes and scrawny hands, bear your crosses, blessed are the poor in spirit, live not by bread alone. And then the woman, with her black hat wrapped about her face, in her black dress, had pressed a little book into her hands, telling her to love all men.
I am hungry, thought Winona.
She had dropped the little book at the ration point, leaving it behind in the dust under the hoofs of the ponies, the poles of the travois, the milling feet of the angry squaws.
The pony snorted, and shied a bit, this time lifting his head and looking about, jerking on the nose rope, but Winona paid the animal no attention.
I am hungry, she thought.
Then she was angry. How could she have Old Bear come to the ration point? How could she ask him to stand beside the travois, an old man, scarcely able to see, a warrior, while she dragged the white man’s beef, meat from the spotted buffalo, to the travois?
Winona was in no hurry to reach home.
She was alone on the prairie. The other women, even those who had stayed overnight at the ration point, had by now hurried on ahead to tell their men that the white men and the bad Indians at the ration point would not give them their rations.
How could she tell Old Bear? What would she say to him?
He might take up his bow and call for his pony, and ride away, saying only, “I will hunt buffalo,” and she might never see him again.
Winona wondered if the men would come in war to claim their supplies. It would not be good. The Sioux no longer told their children that courage was enough, and medicine. In these days Wakan-Tonka seemed to decide the fortunes of war like a common merchant, adding the weight of guns and men and giving victory to the heaviest side.
It was strange that Wakan-Tonka should act so. Perhaps He was testing His children and, in the spring, as Kicking Bear and the others said, His Son would come to slay the white men and live among them, bringing back the old Indians and the antelope and the buffalo as His gifts.
But, Winona asked herself, how will the Hunkpapa live through the winter?
This time the pony stopped, shook its head, and snorted explosively, and nearly pulled the nose rope from Winona’s hand. She cried out angrily in Sioux, jerking back on the nose rope and then, startled, cried out as Corporal Jack Totter’s hand closed on her arm.
“She’s got a horse,” Totter told Grawson.
Already Grawson was cutting the quilted rope of the travois from the pony’s body.
“My horse!” cried Winona.
“You stole it,” said Grawson.
Winona struggled but could not pull away from his grip, and Totter now held her by both arms, facing him, looking into her face with pleasure.
“My horse,” said Winona.
Totter’s face was thrust close to hers and she saw the rough yellow stubble on the heavy jaw, the pale blue eyes, the swollen, cut bruise that was the right side of his face. He had been kicked by a horse or struck in the face by a gun butt. He was grinning at her, holding her tight.
“Where’s your man?” asked Totter.
Grawson slipped his knife back in his belt. The travois poles lay in the dust. His hand tore the nose rope from Winona’s hand.
“She’s alone,” said Grawson.
He leaped to the back of the pony and it reared, and he retained his seat on the animal’s back without a saddle, and jerked savagely back on the nose rope, and then rode the animal back to its haunches, and tore its head from one side to the other until it bled and stood still, trembling beneath him.
“What camp you from?” asked Totter.
Winona said nothing, her arms numb, her fingers numb. She shook her head.
“What camp?” repeated Totter.
“No comprendo,” said Winona, using the common Spanish phrase. There had been a time when many Indians had been familiar with Spanish, more so than English. She had heard the phrase from some of the old Indians. Old Bear had used it sometimes when he did not wish to speak with a white man.
“Girl,” said Grawson, from the pony’s back, “did a white man come this way?”
“No comprendo,” said Winona.
“When did you see a white man last?” asked Grawson.
Winona shook her head. “No comprendo,” she said.
Totter shook her savagely, and her head flew back and forth on her shoulders and her teeth struck together and the world seemed to jerk back and forth and the sky turned red and then black.
“No comprendo,” she said.
Totter’s arms let her go and she fell at his feet, her hands reaching out for the ground, stumbling like drunken feet, and she found the ground and then her hands would not hold her and she fell between Totter’s boots, lying on her side, her eyes closed, sick.