“Go away,” said the girl.
“I have some white man’s money,” said Running Horse. “My brother is Medicine Gun, who knows the medicine of the white man. I saved my brother from men who would kill him. I fought with Drum and he did not kill me.”
“Leave me,” begged Winona.
“I am brave,” said Running Horse. “I am strong. Even the spotted sickness of the white man could not kill me. I have a steel knife. I have a white man’s pipe given to me by my brother. I have blankets and corn and beef and a fire in my lodge which needs tending.”
Winona raised her head and turned slowly to face Running Horse, her eyes glazed with tears, her body miserable with pain.
“What are you saying to me?” she asked.
Running Horse dropped his head.
Suddenly without warning she hissed at him. “You are a fool and a short hair. I am only a white man’s woman.”
“The fire in my lodge,” said Running Horse, “burns low.”
“I would shame you,” she cried.
“No,” said Running Horse. “I am not ashamed.”
“That is because you are only a short hair,” said the girl, contemptuously.
“I have danced the Sun Dance,” said Running Horse.
Winona huddled even closer to the ground, rocking in her misery, her arms folded around her.
“On the other hand,” said Running Horse, speaking as he did because he had no male relative to do this in his stead, “you are not very much, and are probably not worth many horses.”
Winona looked up. “I am the daughter of a chief,” she said.
“That is true,” said Running Horse, “but he is old and has only one horse.”
“He was a great warrior,” said Winona.
“That is true,” said Running Horse, “but it is not he who would tend my fire.”
Winona looked at him angrily.
“He has a daughter,” said Running Horse, “who should feel grateful if a man would look at her.”
Winona bit her lip.
“She is a stupid girl,” he said, “who does not know how to sew or dress skins, and she cannot bead moccasins or make belts.”
“But she is very beautiful,” said Winona.
“No,” said Running Horse, “she is like a stick, like a she-coyote, not like a buffalo cow, fat and strong.”
“A man would be a fool to want such a girl,” said Winona.
“Yes,” said Running Horse, “I suppose so.”
For a long time neither of them spoke, and then Winona laughed.
“I have heard,” said Running Horse, “that Running Horse is a fool.”
“That is not true,” said Winona.
“He is no good,” said Running Horse. “He is only a short hair.”
Winona looked at him shyly. “I have heard,” she said, “that he has danced the Sun Dance.”
“Maybe,” said Joseph Running Horse, “I do not know.”
“A girl,” said Winona, “would be honored if such a man might think of her.”
“That is true,” said Running Horse.
Winona looked down. “Could the heart of such a man be pleased with a girl who is stupid and ugly?”
“Maybe,” said Joseph Running Horse, “I do not know.”
He looked at her.
“Could the heart of the daughter of a chief be pleased with a fool who is only a short hair?” asked Running Horse.
Winona looked down, not meeting his eyes. “Maybe,” she said, “I do not know.”
“Well,” said Running Horse, getting to his feet, “when you find out, you will let me know.”
Winona, too, rose to her feet, and knotted the dress over her left shoulder.
Running Horse began to climb up the bank, slipping a bit, and then he was on the level.
He waited for Winona to climb up after him, not helping her.
“I am going to my lodge,” he said.
She stood near him, her head lowered. “Your fire will need tending,” she said.
Running Horse tenderly took the blanket from his own shoulders and holding it about himself, opened it to the girl, and she stepped against him, and put her head to his shoulder, and he folded the blanket about her.
“One blanket,” he said.
“Yes,” said the girl, “one blanket.”
Chapter Thirteen
It was December 15, 1890.
On Medicine Ridge, above the camp of Sitting Bull on the Grand River, Drum and Running Horse met. It wasn’t long before dawn. Exchanging no sign of greeting or recognition, they sat facing one another, saying nothing.
Between them lay two golden chevrons, which Winona had torn yesterday afternoon from the sleeve of Corporal Jake Totter.
Drum, with his teeth and fingers, carefully, losing not even a raveling, separated the chevrons. He gave one to Running Horse and kept one for himself. Both of the young men put a chevron in their medicine bags.
Kicking Bear now made his way slowly up the side of Medicine Ridge. He was wrapped in his blanket and hunched against the cold. It was barely light in the east now.
The medicine man squatted beside the two young men and drew a small, dead animal from under his blanket. It was a badger, that had been caught in a string noose. It was still warm.
Kicking Bear took out his knife and slit open the animal’s belly. With an oval cut, not removing the knife from the animal, he loosened most of its organs and intestines from the furred skin, and then, wiping his knife on his leggings and putting it back in his belt, he took his hands and scooped out the organs and viscera.
The now-hollowed cup of the badger’s skin slowly filled with blood, the level rising in the cavity. Kicking Bear then took the heart and liver and kidneys of the animal and squeezed them between his hands, adding what blood and fluids they contained to the cup of fur.
The first clean streak of dawn made the cold prairie glisten like the blade of a steel knife.
The young men watched Kicking Bear, who was intent on the blood in the animal’s hollowed belly. He would not look on the blood directly, but only from the side. This medicine he made for others, not for himself.
The death smell of the badger was keen in the nostrils of the two, silent young men. They must wait to see if the badger would speak to them.
Kicking Bear had told them he knew how to do this thing, and he had prayed, and he had had no difficulty in snaring an animal. The signs were good. The badger had come promptly to the snare. Both Drum and Running Horse were grateful to the badger.
“He is ready,” said Kicking Bear.
Running Horse went to the badger and looked deeply into the shallow cup of blood.
He looked for a long time at his face, mirrored in the blood. His reflection stared up at him, and it seemed to Running Horse that it was gray and solemn.
Running Horse straightened and looked at Kicking Bear and Drum. “I have seen myself old,” he said.
Kicking Bear grunted with satisfaction.
Drum looked into the bowl of blood, into that tiny mirror, seeking for his image, and suddenly he had found it and his face jerked at what he saw and his lip trembled for an instant, and then he looked again, for a long time, into the blood, as though there must be no mistake in the sign he read.
“What do you see?” demanded Kicking Bear.
But Drum did not respond to him. It seemed he could not tear his eyes from the small image in the red mirror, that small image, red and terrible staring up at him from the secret of the badger’s blood.
“What do you see?” repeated Kicking Bear.
Drum, at last, lifted his head, and looked at both of the men, at Kicking Bear, prophet of the Ghost Dance, and at Running Horse, like himself a brave of the Hunkpapa.
“I will die as the son of Kills-His-Horse,” said Drum.
Once more Kicking Bear grunted, but this time his response was not of satisfaction, nor of fear, nor of commiseration, rather a noise that betokened only the acknowledgement of Drum’s words, and that he had not been surprised.