“When he had said this, my soul and I got on the horses. They were only the ghosts of horses. We jumped them off the edge of a cloud and they went down like birds. But when I looked before me, I could see a great distance away, because the sun was shining now. I saw the island. I saw my body lying on it, and I saw the flood coming down faster than we could go. I said to my soul . . . ‘What shall we do?’ He said to me . . . ‘Call to the white thunder.’ Then I called, and a terrible noise took hold of us, and white thunder wrapped us around, and suddenly we were standing on the island. I looked about me and found my body, and I got into it.
“When I opened my eyes, the flood was almost on the island. I looked around me. To the eyes of my spirit, the two horses and the new soul had been as real as this knife.” He snatched a long weapon from his belt and buried it in the earth with a powerful gesture. Then he went on: “But when I looked at them with the dim eyes of a man, they were no more solid than the shapes of mist that come out of the ground on a moonlight evening. But every moment they got thicker and more real. I sang a song to them and told them to hurry and help me, because I was too weak to move. All at once they turned into two real horses and a real man. He caught me up. Then the flood struck the island. It tore away almost all of it. It tore away the ground that I had been lying on. It made a noise like thunder, and I could hear the underwater devils groaning and shouting with anger because they could not have my body.
“Then White Thunder, which is the name of this man that the Great Spirit sent down with me, took me away and took care of me while I lay very sick, with all my blood turned into fire. After that, when he had made me strong again with his magic and his strong medicine, we rode back to my people.” He paused again, sat up to his stiffest, fullest height, and looked across at Rising Hawk.
“Friend,” he said, “this is a meeting of the great men of the Cheyennes. Everyone should hear only the truth. If you have seen the island, speak and let them know if I have said the thing that is not.”
Torridon waited, breathless.
Rising Hawk swallowed and then struck the arch of his chest until it resounded like a drum. “I have seen that island within seven suns,” he declared. “It was half as big as this village. There were many trees on it. But when I looked at it again, I saw that it was torn to pieces. All that was left of it was one tree standing, and even the roots of that one tree were washed bare on the north side. So I give my witness that we have heard the truth from our brother.”
IX
After the conclusion of this short speech from Rising Hawk everyone seemed to take it for granted that no further proof was needed. Rising Hawk had seen that the island at the fork of the river actually had been almost destroyed. That was enough, apparently, to verify all of the odd tale that Standing Bull had told.
He, like a hero overcome by the mere thought of what he had been through, allowed himself to sink against the backrest and fall into a profound contemplation, but the others chattered like birds. Torridon, who had in mind ten thousand tales of their taciturnity, was amazed to see them talking all at once, like enthusiastic women.
They never for an instant cast a doubt on the story of their companion, but they declared that undoubtedly he had brought a great blessing upon the entire Cheyenne people, because he had carried down from heaven an actual spirit. Upon Torridon they turned their eyes with the frankest curiosity. If he was something more than man, he was also something less than man, apparently, for they remarked frankly and openly on the slenderness of his hands and the lack of weight in his shoulders, and the delicacy of his features, which proved, they said, that he was not really a white man like those other bronzed ruffians who rode across the plains to traffic or fight with the red man.
What divine properties, then, would they expect him to have? Certainly they had seen that he ate food, cast a shadow, possessed a voice.
But they were all like Standing Bull. They never put facts against facts. They believed what they wanted to believe, and the story of Standing Bull was too good to be thrown away. It was such an exploit as gave distinction to an entire tribe. As for the hero, Torridon puzzled over him a great deal. At last he came to the conclusion that in the first place Standing Bull had made up the story out of ecstasy and a good bit of invention mixed together, but, after telling the tale a few times, it had become letter perfect—and convinced himself.
He had plenty of occasions to tell the story. For the first ten days after the return of Standing Bull there was an endless succession of feasts. Some old man would go through the camp, chanting the names of the guests who were invited to a certain teepee to feast. The feasts were all very much like that which High Wolf had given. There was no change in the food offered, there was a great deal of smoke raised after the eating ended, and then always Standing Bull was called on for his narration.
Each time he talked a little longer. He discovered new details that were worthy of development. For instance, when he declared that his spirit had issued from his body, he said that he had looked at his lifeless self with a great deal of interest. He had leaned and fingered the back of his skull. He had admired the breadth of his shoulders and the strength of his neck, and he had looked for a while at his face, for this was the only time he could see himself except by the treacherous help of standing water or a mirror. For the first time he knew himself.
There was a great deal more of this same sort of thing added by Standing Bull, but his auditors never were tired of listening. They were not all new faces at each feast. Indeed, some of the same men attended a dozen times and always listened with the same earnest, amazed attention. Rising Hawk grew so familiar with the story that he knew when the high points were coming, and he used to rise on his knees, and even whoop with delight when he heard the never-familiar marvels of the story.
As for Torridon, the Indians treated him with a certain respect and contempt commingled. He was regarded as a part of Standing Bull, and was significant simply because he was a gift from Heammawihio. He was a sort of fleshy shadow, in other words.
He was glad enough to be thus lightly regarded by these savage warriors. They were such men as he never had looked upon. There was hardly a warrior under six feet in height, and they were built like Romans, for war and effort. He saw no others quite up to the Herculean standard of Standing Bull, who was like his namesake in massive weight and power, but every man in the tribe was a powerful athlete who lived for one purpose—war. Torridon was glad to slip about among them, almost unnoticed.
Standing Bull treated him very well and made him at home in his teepee. It was a good big lodge, as befitted a man who had two wives and three children. There was a middle-aged squaw who had given her master two daughters; she was a sour-faced creature, but a strong and incessant worker. Her companion, the favored wife of Standing Bull, was called Owl Woman, although Torridon never learned why she should have been given the ugly title. She was the young and handsome mother who Torridon had seen lifting her baby son above her head so that the child might behold the return of his father. Ill-matched as the two wives seemed to be, they got on perfectly; there was never a voice raised in the teepee except when one of the children squawked. Torridon himself was equipped with a bed, a backrest, a post on which he could hang clothes and weapons.
He felt that Standing Bull might have gone on forever attending feasts and talking about his heavenly exploits, but now a cloud was hanging over this section of the great Cheyennes. Two days after the arrival of Torridon, the river that flowed past the encampment ceased running and thereafter no water was to be had except in standing pools, which shrank rapidly under the strength of the summer sun. There were plenty of other places to which they could remove to find water, but that would mean the definite abandonment of the corn crop that had been planted here. Already that corn had suffered from drought. The dusty look that Torridon had noticed had been a true sign of coming death, and, if the drought persisted, there might be cruel want in every lodge in the tribe during the winter to come.