“I’m waiting for Kicking Bird,” he said curtly. “What do you want?”
Wind In His Hair leaned forward a little. He was still smirking.
“There is talk that you want to get married.”
Dances With Wolves’s face began to change color. In the span of a few seconds, it went from a light rosy hue to the deepest, richest red.
Both his guests laughed out loud.
“To whom?” he croaked feebly.
The warriors shared expressions of doubt.
“To Stands With A Fist,” Wind In His Hair said. “That’s what we heard. Isn’t that the one?”
“She is in mourning,” he blubbered. “She is a—”
“Not today,” Stone Calf interrupted. “Today she has been released. Kicking Bird did it.”
Dances With Wolves swallowed the frog in his throat.
“He did?”
Both men nodded, more serious now, and Dances With Wolves realized that there was a legitimate move afoot to go forward with this marriage. His marriage.
“What must I do?”
His visitors glanced around the nearly empty lodge with dour expressions. They ended their brief inspection with a pair of sad head shakes.
“You are pretty poor, my friend,” said Wind In His Hair. “I don’t know if you can get married. You must give some things up, and I don’t see much in here.”
Dances With Wolves looked around, too, his expression growing sadder by the second.
“No, I don’t have much,” he admitted.
There was a brief silence
“Can you help me?” he asked.
The two men played out the scene for all it was worth. Stone Calf’s mouth twitched noncommittally. Wind In His Hair dropped his head and stroked his brow.
After a silence that was long and agonizing for Dances With Wolves, Stone Calf sighed deeply and looked him square in the eye.
“It might be possible,” he said.
Wind In His Hair and Stone Calf had a good day. They joked a lot about Dances With Wolves, especially the funny expressions on his face, as they walked through the village making deals for horses.
Weddings were normally quiet occasions, but the uniqueness of the bride and groom, uniting so close to the great victory over the Pawnee, had everyone bubbling over with goodwill and anticipation.
The people were eager to participate in the novelty of taking up a collection for Dances With Wolves. In fact, the whole village wanted to be part of it.
Those with plenty of horses were happy to make a contribution. Even the poorer families wanted to give up animals they could not afford. It was hard to turn these people down, but they did.
As part of a prearranged plan, contributors from all over camp began bringing horses at twilight, and by the time the evening star had appeared, more than twenty good ponies were standing in front of Dances With Wolves’s lodge.
With Stone Calf and Wind In His Hair acting as tutors, the groom-to-be took the string of ponies to Kicking Bird’s lodge and tied them outside.
The outpouring from his fellow villagers was deeply flattering. But wanting to give something dear of his own, he unstrapped the big Navy revolver and left it outside the door.
Then he returned to his own home, sent his tutors on their way, and passed a fitful night of waiting.
At dawn, he slipped outside for a look at Kicking Bird’s lodge. Wind In His Hair had said that if the proposal had been accepted, the horses would be gone. If not, they would still be standing outside the lodge.
The horses were gone.
For the next hour, he made himself presentable. He shaved carefully, polished his boots, cleaned the breastplate, and oiled his hair.
He had just finished these preparations when he heard Kicking Bird’s voice call from outside.
“Dances With Wolves.”
Wishing he were not quite so alone, the groom bent through the doorway of his home and stepped out.
Kicking Bird was waiting there, looking extraordinarily handsome in his finery. A few paces behind him was Stands With A Fist. Behind them the whole village had assembled and was watching solemnly.
He exchanged formal greetings with the medicine man and listened attentively as Kicking Bird launched into a speech about what was expected of a Comanche husband.
Dances With Wolves could not take his eyes off the tiny figure of his bride. She stood unmoving, her head bowed slightly. She was wearing the good doeskin dress with the elk teeth on the bodice. The special moccasins were on her feet again, and around her neck was the little pipe-bone choker.
Once, as Kicking Bird spoke, she looked up, and when he saw the whole of her striking face, Dances With Wolves was reassured. He would never tire of looking at her.
It seemed that Kicking Bird would never stop talking, but at last he did.
“Have you heard all that I have said?” questioned the medicine man.
“Yes.”
“Good,” Kicking Bird mumbled. He turned to Stands With A Fist and called her forward.
She came with her head still bowed, and Kicking Bird took her hand. He passed it to Dances With Wolves and told him to take her inside.
The marriage was made as they passed through the doorway. After it was done the villagers broke up quietly and drifted back to their homes.
All afternoon, the people of Ten Bears’s camp came in little groups to lay presents on the newlyweds’ doorstep, staying only long enough to drop off the gifts. By sunset, an impressive array of offerings was piled outside the lodge.
It was like a white man’s Christmas.
For the time being, this beautiful community gesture went unnoticed by the new couple. On the day of their wedding, they saw neither people nor their offerings. On the day of their wedding, they stayed home. And the lodge flap stayed closed.
CHAPTER XXVIII
Two days after the wedding, a high council was held. The recent heavy rains, coming late in the season, had renewed the withering grass, and it was decided to delay the winter move in favor of the pony herd. By staying a little longer, the horses would be able to put on a few extra pounds, which might prove crucial in getting through the winter. The band would dally another two weeks in their summer camp.
No one was more pleased with this development than Dances With Wolves and Stands With A Fist. They were floating carelessly through the first days of their marriage and didn’t want that special rhythm interrupted. Leaving the bed was hard enough. Packing up and marching hundreds of miles in a long, noisy column was, at the moment, unthinkable.
They had decided to try to make her pregnant, and people passing by rarely saw the lodge flap open.
When Dances With Wolves did emerge, he was relentlessly ribbed by his peers. Wind In His Hair was particularly merciless in this teasing. If Dances With Wolves dropped by for a smoke, he would invariably be greeted
