Fools Crow (Contemporary American Fiction) Read Free Page B

the ice-that-looks-back, carrot and twist tobacco, a few blankets. All the chiefs got Napikwan saddles to go with their medallions. Then the Napikwans gave the people some of their strange food: the white sand that makes things sweet, the white powder, the bitter black drink. The people were happy, for they knew these white men would come often to hand out their goods. Even Yellow Kidney had been happy. Along with the others, he agreed with the white big chief that the Pikunis should raise the puny whitehorns and dig and plant seeds in the breast of Mother Earth. Along with the others, he knew that the Pikunis would go away and hunt the blackhorns as they always had. But their agreement had made the white chiefs happy, for now the Napikwans could move onto the Pikuni lands. Everyone was happy.
     
    Yellow Kidney watched the young men as they chopped down some small spear-leaf trees. These are good human beings, he thought, not like Owl Child and his bunch. His face grew dark as he thought this. He had been hearing around the camps of the Pikunis that Owl Child and his gang had been causing trouble with the Napikwans, driving away horses and cattle, and had recently killed a party of woodcutters near Many Houses fort. It would be only a matter of time before the Napikwans sent their seizers to make war on the Pikunis. The people would suffer greatly.

    At last the young men had enough logs to make a small raft. They lashed the logs together with rawhide and dragged the raft into the water. The men yelped and hooted when the flimsy logs began to float. Then they stripped and piled their clothes, weapons and packs on the raft. They pushed off and swam with the raft, kicking and pushing to the opposite shore. The current carried them downstream, but soon they beached the raft in an eddy behind a sandbar. That night they built a fire in a stand of willows and roasted the rest of the deer meat. There was little talk.
     
    The ninth day they didn’t move. They were in the land of many enemies, and so they would travel only at night. They spent the day in a grove of alders by the Sweet Grass River. A short distance to the west, the Unfaithful Mountains loomed black against the blue sky. While some of the men dozed, others did the small chores that had been neglected during their journey. Eagle Ribs cut some rawhide soles and sewed them with awl and sinew to his two pairs of walked-through moccasins. Medicine Stab, the silent one, had noticed a small tear in his bowstring and sat twisting a piece of wet rawhide into a new string. He watched Yellow Kidney run a greasy rag over the working parts of his repeating rifle. He studied the designs of the brass studs in the stock of the gun. He would have to hunt hard this winter. The many-shots cost ten head-and-tail cow robes. He was determined to get them but first he needed a strong buffalo-runner. He looked over at White Man’s Dog, who lay back against a downed alder. The day was warm and White Man’s Dog was stripped down to his breechcloth. His eyes were closed but he was not asleep. He was thinking about a dream that had come to him three nights running: He was in the middle of an enemy camp and it was a bright winter night and the snow creaked beneath his moccasins. A black dog approached him and then walked away. Again it came up to him and turned to go. This time it looked back to him as though it wanted him to follow. The dog led the way through the camp until they came to a lodge on the far side. It was simply decorated with a star cluster on either side of the ear flaps. He pulled back the entrance skin and saw several dark shapes around the perimeter of the lodge. As his eyes adjusted, he saw that the shapes weren’t breathing. Then, opposite him, one of the shapes lifted its sleeping robe and he saw that it was a young white-faced girl. She beckoned to him, and in fright he turned to leave. But as he turned away he looked back and saw that the girl’s eyes desired him.