He decided then to make a great trial of his spirit. He built a raft, anchored it in the midst of a lake, laid himself naked on it. For two days he suffered without shade, food, or water. He lay there with the sun scorching him, his empty belly howling for food, his tongue and lips thirsting for a taste of water, knowing all he needed to do was reach out, cup his hand, and drink. But he did not. Instead, he called to the One Above, his mouth moving like blowing dust, his eyelids glowing red as hot iron from the heat of the sun. And when night fell, he shook like a reed in the cold wind blowing off the lake.
On the second night of this ordeal, a terrible thunderstorm began to gather, the clouds rolling like black boulders down a hill, boulders which struck sparks of lightning all around him. At first the Thunderbird shot only splinters of lightning at the raft, but the darkness of Strong Bull’s mind was so deep that these were not enough. So the Thunderbird struck his chest with a blue-yellow bolt, splitting him, opening him wide with a fierce burning. From this wound nothing flowed out but much flowed in. All his other power-dreams were as nothing compared to it.
Strong Bull stopped then and a long, worshipful silence followed. At last, Fine Man found the courage to ask what it was he had seen.
Strong Bull shook his head. What was given to him, he said, was the knowledge of things to come, a knowledge which had filled him with sadness. Perhaps it would be better not to speak of it. “I will only say this,” he told Fine Man. “Everything changes. There was a time the Assiniboine had no guns, no steel hatchets or knives, no glass beads to decorate our clothes.” He paused. “There was even a time there were no horses. My grandfather told me that when his grandfather’s father first saw horses the people did not know what name to give them. Some called them big dogs, some hornless elk. The new beings puzzled the people. But when the Assiniboine studied their natures, we learned they were neither dogs nor elk; we understood that the One Above had given us horses to hunt the buffalo and to carry us wherever we wished to go.”
“Yes,” agreed Fine Man.
“Everything changes in this world,” Strong Bull repeated, “but in the Mystery World all things live as they were before death. In the Mystery World all things wait for us – our grandparents, our dead brothers of the Soldier’s Society, our infants who died at birth. And the horses, the deer, the elk, the birds of the air, the buffalo wait for us, too. Someday you will go to the Mystery World and see these things for yourself.”
Fine Man nodded this was true.
Strong Bull smiled to himself. “Sometimes I think of our people long ago, how strange it must have been for them to see horses for the first time. Were they frightened of them? Did they suppose horses ate meat like dogs? Everything changes. Perhaps these beings will pass out of this world the way they came into it. Maybe some day there will be no more horses. Or elk. Or buffalo. You and I have seen these beings, but what if our grandchildren have no knowledge of them? I do not want the grandchildren to be frightened when they pass into the Mystery World and encounter beings which may be strange to them. Of course, the black robes who wear the man on the sticks say the spirits of animals cannot enter the Mystery World, but that is foolish.”
“Yes,” said Fine Man, “very foolish.”
“And I have thought something else,” said Strong Bull. “If the grandchildren do not recognize these beings, perhaps they will not recognize us either.” He reached behind him and lifted up a bundle wrapped in the hide of an unborn buffalo calf, undid the bindings, took out a trader book, passed it to Fine Man. “That is why I draw the pictures – so the grandchildren will recognize us,” he said.
Fine Man began to carefully turn the pages of the book. Here was a picture of the women dancing, he knew each one by her dress. Here men were skinning buffalo in the snow. Here was a feast in which Left Hand could be seen passing his plate of meat to Broken Horn with a token stick. This signified Left Hand was bursting with food, and if Broken Horn would eat his portion so as not to insult the host, Left Hand would repay his kindness by giving him a horse. Last of all, he found a picture of himself, Fine Man in his best black leather shirt embroidered with green and white seed beads.
He handed Strong Bull the book and thanked him for the honour he had done him by showing him the pictures. Strong Bull said, “No one has seen this book but you. I have shown it to you because the One Above has given my old dreams, the dreams of horses, to you. Perhaps when I die and pass on to the Mystery World, the dreams of what is to come will also pass to you. When I am dead, my wife will put this bundle in your hands because you know its meaning. It will be for you to keep it safe for the sake of the grandchildren.”
Fine Man could hear Broken Horn stirring restlessly behind him. Horn was an impatient, proud man, and he was eager to ride to the band and tell the story of how they had lifted these horses from under the noses of the white men, to hear the acclaim of the people, and eat the fat pup which his Sits-Beside-Him wife would cook to welcome him home. Only the cannons of the blue horse’s hind legs needed to be done, but Fine Man did not hurry, he worked on attentively, with precision. Then, when he was finished, he stood and signalled to Horn it was time to go.
They rode out, Fine Man on a paint horse and Broken Horn on a sorrel he had picked because it was the colour of the white man’s new penny. Each man managed a string of eight ponies, the tail of the horse he led knotted to the halter shank of the horse that followed, its tail knotted in turn to the shank of the horse behind it, and so on. The sun was bright and sweet on the skin, but Broken Horn couldn’t stop watching the blue horse running beside them, anxious it might escape in the last moments of the long journey. But the winter horse only trotted a short way off, nickering to his brothers and they nickering back. For two miles they rode in this fashion before glimpsing the teepees of Chief Talking Bird’s camp. So close to the promise of home, Broken Horn could not contain his excitement and broke into the lead, swinging his file of ponies back and forth in the zigzag by which an Assiniboine party announced a successful raid. A boy on the outskirts of the camp spotted him and ran back to the village calling out their names to the people. Hearing this proclamation, Broken Horn urged his string of horses into a gallop, cracking the line from side to side so that the dust boiled up under their hooves in a cloud which, lit by the sun, glowed in celebration of their arrival.
People began to spill from the camp, shouting; dogs barked and howled while children laughed and galloped in zigzags like Broken Horn and his horses. Fine Man smiled and held his ponies to a trot, the blue horse close, snowflakes gleaming. The sun was a hot blanket across his shoulder and his feet jogged up and down in time with the life of the horse which bore him. Broken Horn had halted now and Fine Man could see the people crowding in to praise the ponies’ beauty and strength, crowding in to caress them. A little way back from the crowd he could see his Sits-Beside-Him wife holding the little one in her arms, and his second wife, her sister, waiting to greet him.
He was very near now, his heart big in his breast with pride as the blue horse flew into the surprised eyes of the people, moving like a snow squall too strong for the hot sun to melt. When he reined in behind Broken Horn, the winter horse did not hesitate, but kept moving, head carried high, ears pricked as he trotted by all those who had fallen into silence, awed by the picture he made. Even the jaws of the snarling, snapping dogs snapped shut at the sight of the horse pushing into the ring of teepees, a blizzard with a purpose, hooves sure and certain as they skirted cooking fires.
Then Fine Man understood his power-dream, completely, perfectly, understood why the winter horse had summoned him across all those miles to come to him, understood who it was the horse had wished to give himself to from the beginning.