Lakota Read Free Page B

and Hinhan Hota, the Gray Owl, often fought mock battles with the boy or wrestled with him in the deer meadows. Hinhan Hota showed Mastincala a fine new bow cut from the sacred wood of the ash.
    "This bow will be yours, my son," his uncle said, for in the Lakota way, a father's brothers are one's fathers also. "When you can pull the bowstring, then we will set off into the thickets after deer."
    "Will that be soon?" Mastincala asked.
    "Soon," Hinhan Hota answered, lifting the boy onto one shoulder. "The moon will be born whole and be eaten many times before you have the arm to pull the string. Your heart would pull it now."
    "I'm but a rabbit among boys," Mastincala complained.
    "Remember, little one, rabbit is clever. And the arm will grow larger and stronger. Others may pull it before you, but they won't have the true aim that lies in your eye. Who among them struck bear? Hau! Whose heart is greater than Mastincala?"
    The boy grew warm in the glow of such praise. It wasn't often the Owl spoke such words, for it was Hinhan Hota of all the men who undertook Mastincala's education in the ritual and rule of the Lakota camp. Too often Gray Owl sternly scolded Mastincala for teasing his sister or speaking to his mother.
    "You are old enough to begin walking a man's path," Hinhan Hota declared. "From this time you must address Tasiyagnunpa, your mother, only through others. Your sister, Wicatankala, must be treated much the same. It is hard for one without brothers. But Tasiyagnunpa, your mother, is young. Perhaps one day you will call someone Misun."
    Brother? Mastincala considered the matter cautiously. After all, brothers had been born before, but the light quickly left their eyes.
    "Yes, Hinhan Hota," Mastincala finally said. "A brother would help with the labors. I could teach him many things, even as you have shown me. I have no friends among the other boys. They say I am white, like a winter rabbit, even after my skin has grown dark and brown from the summer's sun."
    "The spirits send trials to make you strong."
    "Ah, so many?" the boy asked. "When the time of the hunt is over, maybe Hinkpila Le Doux can come to our camp. There is room in my father's lodge."
    "Perhaps," Hinhan Hota agreed. "When the eagle chief has no more anger against our people, we will surely visit the fort again. You and he can teach each other much."
    "And I can wrestle Hinkpila to the ground," Mastincala boasted. "As one day I will do with you."
    "Ah, when Tatanka has crushed my bones and time has wrinkled my hide. Only then!" Hinhan Hota declared. "Only then."
    Talk of Louis warmed the Rabbit. He looked fondly upon the end of the hunting days. The camp was forever on the move, and everyone was weary from work. There were so many hides to work already, and the meat was still drying on the racks, those strips not snatched by prank-playing boys or prowling animals. And he, Mastincala, rabbit boy, was forever in the company of his jeering fellows, boys like Capa who stood half a head taller. Ah, Mastincala thought, how sharp the tongues of boys can be!
    The hunt was over soon, but it ended in far from the ordinary way. The Lakota were camped on Blue Creek, in a place the white men in their wheeled lodges called Ash Hollow. Fools they were, those whites, Mastincala thought as he tended his father's horses. There were not ash trees there at all!
    It was a well-traveled spot, however, for there the wagon trains descended a high bluff in order to follow the North Platte to Fort Laramie. Many of the whites seemed ill at ease, seeing Little Thunder's Lakotas camping so near, and they often shot off their guns to warn away Lakotas who went to trade for tobacco or lead. Sometimes a young man's blood would rise, and he would steal a horse from the wagon people.
    Such unauthorized raids were a bad business. The whites grew angry, and perhaps they would shoot more often as they passed through this Lakota country. Le Doux said the soldier chiefs were angry and sent