people when I was small. You wear the clothes of a Wasichu woman and stay with the Black Robe, but he tells me you are not his woman.”
“Priests have no women. And you should tell Whirlwind Chaser to return to school. White men rule here now. Learning their ways is all that can help you.”
“I have seen their ways. The Wasichus are mad. They hate the earth. A man cannot live that way.”
I said, “They are stronger than you.”
“You are only a foolish woman and know nothing. You teach our children to forget their fathers. You think you are a Wasichu, but to them you are only a silly woman they have deceived.”
“Why do you come here and speak to Father Morel?”
“He is foolish, but a good man. I tell him of troubles, of those who wish to see him. It is too bad he is not a braver man. He would beat your madness out of you.”
I strode away from Little Deer, refusing to look back, sure that I would see only scorn on his face. But when I glanced out my window, I saw that he was smiling as he rode away.
The children stayed away from school in the autumn. There were more soldiers in town and around the reservation and I discovered that few Indians had been seen at trading posts. I refused to worry. A young corporal I had met in town had visited me a few times, telling me of his home in Minnesota. Soon, I prayed, he would speak to me, and I could leave with him and forget the reservation.
Then Little Deer returned. I was sweeping dust from the porch, and directed him to the small room where Father Morel was reading. He shook his head. “It is you I wish to see.”
“About what? Are you people planning another uprising? You will die for it—there are many soldiers here.”
“The Christ has returned to us.”
I clutched my broom. “You are mad.”
“Two of our men have seen him. They traveled west to where the Fish Eaters—the Paiutes—live. The Christ appeared to them there. He is named Wovoka and he is not a white man as I have thought. He was killed by the Wasichus on the cross long ago, but now he has returned to save us.”
“That is blasphemy.”
“I hear it is true. He will give us back our land, he will raise all our dead and return our land to us. The Wasichus will be swept away.”
“No!” I shouted.
Little Deer was looking past me, as if seeing something else beyond. “I have heard,” he went on, “that Wovoka bears the scars of crucifixion. He has told us we must dance so that we are not forgotten when the resurrection takes place and the Wasichus disappear.”
“If you believe that, Little Deer, you will believe anything.”
“Listen to me!” Frightened, I stepped back. “A man named Eagle Wing Stretches told me he saw his dead father when he danced. I was dancing with him and in my mind I saw the sacred tree flower, I saw the hoop joined once again. I understood again nature’s circle in which we are the earth’s children, and are nourished by her until as old men we become like children again and return to the earth. Yet I knew that all I saw was in my thoughts, that my mind spoke to me, but I did not truly see. I danced until my feet were light, but I could not see. Eagle Wing Stretches was at my side and he gave a great cry and then fell to the ground as if dead. Later, he told me he had seen his father in the other world, and that his father had said they would soon be together.”
“But you saw nothing yourself.”
“But I have. I saw the other world when I was a boy.”
I leaned against my broom, looking away from his wild eyes.
“I saw it long ago, in the Moon of Falling Leaves. My friends were talking of the Wasichus and how we would drive them off when we were men. I grew sad and climbed up a mountain near our camp to be alone. In my heart, I believed that we would never drive off the Wasichus, for they were many and I knew their madness well—I learned it from my father and his friends. It was that mountain there I climbed.”
He pointed and I saw