A woman screamed above the din. She was a young squaw, holding an infant boy high above her head, a naked little statue of red-gold in the flash of the sun. Standing Bull did not so much as turn his head, and yet Torridon knew, by instinct, that they had passed one of the wives of the brave.
Before them the crowd began to split; there were warriors working with a sort of organization to push the rest to either side, and so a way was opened to the front of the biggest teepee that Torridon yet had seen. It was painted yellow below, and black above, spotted with little yellow crosses, and on either side of the doorway buffalo bulls were painted with a good deal of skill, and above the doorway a green crescent moon.
In front of the lodge stood a very old man. The arm with which he held his buffalo robe about him was withered like the arm of a mummy. The flesh was gone from his face, but, instead of making him look wrinkled and old, the skin was stretched a little, like parchment. It gave him rather the look of a starved boy than of an old man, and the eyes were bright and bold as the eyes of a child.
Standing Bull dismounted before this ancient, greeting him with the greatest respect. Torridon himself was motioned from his horse and dismounted. His knees sagged under him. A breath would have staggered him, so completely was he unnerved. He felt reasonably sure of death. He would almost have welcomed such an ending, but it was the means that he had in his mind like a nightmare. He had heard the great Roger Lincoln tell of Indian tortures, of splinters thrust under the nails of the victim, and then lighted, of the tearing and shaving away of flesh, of slow roasting over fires.
Those were the images that drifted rapidly between the eyes of Torridon and the strange forms around him. He hardly knew how he was brought into the teepee. But there he found himself seated, with Standing Bull beside him. The old chief, called High Wolf, who seemed to be the head of the tribe, sat facing the doorway. Presently others entered. Finally ten men had come in, each carefully passing behind the backs of the others, avoiding moving before anyone, until they came to a place where they could sit. They were like ten senators at council. Torridon did not need to be told that the ten chief men of the tribe had gathered here for deliberation of some sort. The youngest among them were Standing Bull and that graceful brave, Rising Hawk, who first had come out to meet them.
Outside, the noise was dying down, but when the lodge flap was dropped, the dust clouds were still rising. It was hot in the lodge, although the lower edges had been furled to admit the passage of a draft. It was hot because of the intense sun beating down from above, and because, also, of the fire that burned in a heart-shaped excavation in the center of the lodge with a steaming kettle on it.
“Everything is here,” said High Wolf. “You may eat.”
Standing Bull raised his hand, big as a shield, heavy as metal. “First we must be purified,” he said. “Everyone here must be purified. There is a great medicine in this lodge, High Wolf.”
The old man glanced at Standing Bull. The turning of his eyes was like the stirring of two red lights, but Torridon guessed shrewdly that it was pleasure that moved the great chief.
He himself then took wisps of sweet grass, ignited them, and, waving the smoke to the earth, to the sky, to the four corners of the heavens, he muttered a chant so rapidly that Torridon could not understand the words. Then he carried the smoke to all the guests. They washed their hands in it. This, apparently, was a degree of purification.
Still the ceremonies were not ended. Five small pieces of meat were taken from the pot, and one placed in the palm of High Wolf’s hand, and the other four at the four points of the compass. Then, inverting his hand upon the palm of his left, he allowed the meat to remain there and offered it to the four directions.
The eating began after that. Torridon found a large portion of unsalted buffalo flesh before him. He ate it greedily. He hoped that food would give him sufficient strength to put an end to the faint tremor that was running steadily through his body.
It did not take long to consume the food. After that the pipe was produced by High Wolf. He filled it with a preparation of tobacco and dried leaves of the sumac, flavored with buffalo grease. After that he blew smoke to the earth, to the heavens, and to the four points of the compass, murmuring a phrase with each puff. Then he passed it to his left. So it went to the door, but apparently it could not cross the doorway, and was passed rapidly back from man to man so that it could begin again on the farther side.
This smoking was done with absorption, without speech, and each man held the pipe in a way that differed slightly from that of others.
At last it was empty.
High Wolf turned to Standing Bull. “Brother,” he said, “Heammawihio is a stern master, but he always is just. We were all sorry when you lost your medicine bag. We wondered what you had done that was wrong. Now we hope that it was taken away from you only in order to inspire you to do some great thing. I think you are about to tell what the great thing may be. We are all ready to hear. We all are your friends. To me you are as a child. Therefore, open your heart and we will receive all your words.”
After this courteous invitation all eyes turned upon Standing Bull, and Torridon saw that the braves were in an actual fever of excitement.
That huge warrior, however, remained silent for some time, staring at the ground, and then raised his head on its bull neck and glared up through the smoke hole toward the sun-whitened sky above them. Then he picked from the floor of the teepee just before him a small handful of little pebbles and grains of sand. This he spread smoothly on the flat of his palm, and then puffed it away. There remained two little glittering pebbles, and these he carefully put away in his pouch.
It seemed to Torridon that this was the maddest sort of nonsense, but all the other braves watched it with the most absorbed attention and respect.
“Now,” said Standing Bull, “I have asked the spirits of the air and the under the earth spirits to listen to me. If I say anything that is not true, may they strike me with as many knives as there are grains of dust in that which I have just blown off my hand. If I say the thing that is not true, may they strike me with as many arrows as there were grains of dust, also.”
He paused and looked about him from face to face, and every one of those dignified warriors inclined his head a little as though acknowledging the tremendous force of this oath.
“For the thing I am about to tell,” said Standing Bull, “is hard to understand. I am going to tell you how I sent my soul up to the Sky People, and how my soul came back again with this man and the two horses and all that was with them besides.”
VIII
Up to this point Torridon had remained more interested in the possibilities of his future fate than in the talk around him, but at this prodigious lie he could not help glancing down sharply to the ground, prepared to hear the outburst of laughter that would greet the statement of Standing Bull. But there was not a sound.
And when he glanced up again he saw that there was not the slightest indication of mirth in any face. With eyes overbright, the warriors listened, hanging on the words that were next to be spoken. Standing Bull was in no hurry. As one prepared to allow his audience to grow expectant because he had plenty with which to satisfy that expectation, Standing Bull was again looking down to the ground. Or perhaps it might be said that his attitude was that of a man rapt in thought, forgetting those around him while he called up again a vision from the past.