The Changing Wind Read Free

not run in straight lines as a custom. They sometimes zig and zag, taught to do so at the time of creation to escape the strike of the hawk or the lunge of the coyote. In this case, the escape trick proved the rabbit’s undoing. It bobbed to the left just as the whirling stick bounced to the right. There was an audible crack as the hard wood met the skull of the animal.
    “Aiee!”
exclaimed Crow softly.
    Small Elk rushed forward to grab the kicking creature, wriggling in its death throes. He picked it up and watched the large brown eye lose its luster and become dull with the mist of death. It was his first kill, and he should have felt good. It should have been a glad and proud moment,but that was not what he felt. There was a letdown, a disappointment. The rabbit had been more pleasing to look at in life than it was now, its eyes glazing and a single drop of blood at the tip of its nose. He was confused. Why had he wanted to kill the rabbit? For meat. Yes, for its flesh, he thought. That is the way of things. The rabbit eats grass and in turn is eaten by the hawk, the coyote, or man. That is the purpose of a rabbit. He watched as a flea crept into sight from the thick fur of the rabbit’s cheek and burrowed into another tuft.
    Then he remembered watching his father at a buffalo kill early in the spring. The medicine man had stood before the head of a massive bull… yes, of course. He would perform such a ceremony. He placed the rabbit on the ground, arranging it in a natural position. Then he stepped back, faced the head of the dead creature, and addressed it solemnly.
    “I am sorry to kill you, my brother,” he stated, trying to remember his father’s words of apology, “but I am in need of your flesh to live.”
    He felt a little guilty for such a statement, because he was not hungry or in need at the moment. What had White Buffalo said next?
    “Your flesh feeds us as the grass gives your life to you.”
    Yes, that was it. Small Elk felt better now, and forged ahead. How was it?…
    “May your people be fat and happy, and be plentiful,” he told the rabbit.
    Feeling considerably better about the incident, he picked up his kill and moved on toward camp. In his preoccupation, he did not notice the expression in the eyes of the girl beside him. It was an intense look of surprise mixed with admiration and approval.
    A similar expression might have been noted on the face of the man who had watched the whole scene from behind a thin screen of willows. White Buffalo waited, perfectly still, until the children had moved out of sight. Then he rose, a satisfied smile on his face. He must share this with Dove Woman.
    “It is good,” he said quietly to himself. “And Small Elk performed the apology well.”

3

    I t was in their seventh summer that the Head Splitters came. Among the People, youngsters were warned against this threat from the time they were small.
    “Don’t go too far from the lodges. The Head Splitters will get you.”
    Sometimes, even, it became a tool for discipline.
    “If you don’t behave, the Head Splitters will get you!”
    Usually that sort of threat was not used because it was not necessary. The loosely organized instruction of the Rabbit Society was carried on by nearly all adults. The shared parenting made all adults responsible for the welfare of all children, and after all, the future of any group lies in its children. On the other hand, such a system makes all children responsible to any adult, and misbehavior is difficult. So the threat of the Head Splitters was rarely used for discipline, except perhaps in a joking way.
    Actually, the danger was quite real. For many lifetimes, past the memories of the oldest of the band, these enemies had staged sporadic raids against the People. Both tribes hunted buffalo, and both were partial to the Tallgrass Hills, so their paths occasionally crossed.
    Small Elk had seen them, as the People moved from one camping area to another. They would