The Holy Road

ability to “hear blood” and that for him to maintain the gift it was necessary that he be free of distraction. When people saw him stride stiffly out of camp they let him go, in the knowledge that surely he was sifting weighty and mysterious thoughts.

No one could have guessed that Ten Bears' primary objective was to find a secluded spot where he could nap uninterrupted. But by the time he reached his place of peace the idea of napping usually gave way to a sense of wonder that his old legs had been able to carry him this far from camp yet again.

If he was lucky he would find a small grove of cottonwoods situated next to running water. He would finger the medicine in the pouch hanging from his neck or perhaps he would light his pipe as he sat listening to the breeze make music in the cottonwood's leaves, and to the eternal trickle of the stream. At times he would lie flat like a corpse and gaze as best he could at the clouds overhead, opening his mind to anything that wished to enter.

That scalp at Wind In His Hair's. . no one likes it. I don't like it. But who is to blame? Not Wind In His Hair. Not the Comanches. The Comanches didn't fire first. The white woman had a gun that shoots twice. She shot out Wind In His Hair's eye. He took her scalp and brought it back and hung it in his lodge. That's his right. He's a warrior.

Kicking Bird doesn't like it. He doesn't go to Kicking Bird's home anymore. He wants peace. How can there be peace? If I got up now. . I won't get up now, I'm happy on the ground. If I were on my feet at this moment, if I looked in the four directions, perhaps I would see them. No, I wouldn't see them, not here. But they are out there somewhere. They are in the east and the west, in the north and south. They are all around us. They are closer every day.

This country is good. It gives us everything we need. It will last all summer. But where will we go when the leaves die? Where will we go that doesn't carry us closer to them? How could you forget, old man! The great hole in the earth. You were born there. The Comanches will go down into the earth this winter as they always have. The Kiowa will be there, and the Cheyenne, too. And the buffalo. Food and water and space for everyone in a place where no white person has ever walked. We will sleep as the snow banks up against the lodges. Hunting For Something will bring be treats and tend my fire. .

Those hawks circling the sky. . perhaps they are vultures. Maybe they are two vultures trying to decide to come down. If they fly down here I'll close my eyes and lie still. I'll wait while they land, wait until I hear the rustle of their wings come closer. Then I'll sit up and give them a shock. . ha!

I can't see them anymore. Must have been hawks. No white person has walked this country either. Oh, I hope they never will. But Wind In His Hair's scalp says they will. What is to be done? A whirlwind might come and carry that scalp beyond the stars. Maybe there is a whirlwind big enough to carry all the white people there too. I have never seen one that big. Maybe there is a song that could be sung, a dance that could be danced. There must be something. The Kiowa always want us to join their? Does it matter?. . What am I doing?

It was always the same. Ten Bears' mind would wrestle the unending line of questions clamoring for answers and invariably the mental exercise would wear him out. Then the old man would succumb to sleep, sometimes dozing until the chill of twilight woke him. He would roll onto his stomach, pull his wrinkled hands close by his shoulders, and, using all his strength, raise himself onto hands and knees. He would lift one knee up, plant a foot, and, trembling with effort, get to his feet,

He would stand still for a few moments, reacquainting himself with the elements while he regained his bearings. Then he would start back for the village, his step firmer than when he had left, confident that he would have the strength to deal with any development that had taken place in his absence. On the way back he would think, I am Ten Bears, still walking the earth, the oldest of us all, wondering at the same time if he might find something good to eat when he got home.

Chapter III

Of all the people dwelling in Ten Bears' village none was more perplexed by the red-haired scalp than Kicking Bird. The scalp nagged him with possibilities for the future that he did not want to think about. It depressed him in ways that his brethren could not conceive, making him still more a stranger to his people than he already was. It was no coincidence that Kicking Bird's long face seemed to grow even longer and stay that way about the time of the scalp's arrival. For him the scalp told an old story of revenge and retribution that never led to anything new, and newness was the one thing that Kicking Bird truly craved. In the years since Dances With Wolves had come, the craving led him away from his traditional calling as a medicine man and into an ever-expanding, self-made role as a Comanche statesman.

Kicking Bird spent as much time away from camp as he spent at home. He traveled with his large family to the boundaries of the immense Comanche territory and beyond, attending ceremonies, councils, seasonal feasts, and trading get-togethers.

Twice he had ranged very far to the east for treaty talks called at the behest of exotically clothed, hair- mouthed representatives from the faraway place called Washington. He was the only member of the great Comanche nation at the inconclusive meetings, and since he had no authority to speak for any of his people, he stayed on the fringes of the sessions, content to listen and observe and learn whatever he could of the wider world.

To his surprise he was pursued by the white men, and though he told them curtly he had nothing to say, they singled him out at the end of the talks, presenting him with a heavy silver medal bearing a likeness of the one they called the Great White Father.

On their return, Kicking Bird and his family were confronted by an excited group of warriors from his own village ready to do battle. From a distance they had spied a persistent flashing, which they took to be the reflection of some ornament, or, more ominously, the glint of a weapon being borne toward the village. They quickly gathered their ponies and, fully armed, galloped onto the prairie to meet the intruder. One young man loosed an arrow which whistled a few feet above Kicking Bird's head before his identity was discovered.

From the day of his return, the white man's peace medal was regarded as a prize of the highest order by the people of Ten Bears' village. It was a constant feature of Kicking Bird's costume, and no eye could resist the dazzle of the metal disk with the white people's chief emblazoned upon it. When Kicking Bird was at home the medal could often be found hanging on the shield stand just outside his lodge, a magnet for the attention of anyone passing by.

But the effect it had on people went deeper than curiosity. Like the woman's scalp that dangled from Wind In His Hair's lodge poles, it, too, served to remind the Comanches of the threat that prowled the borders of their country. It made people nervous, not only about he whites but about Kicking Bird himself. He was one of them yet he was always looking beyond camp. The presence of the medal, so prominent in Kicking Bird's appearance, made him seem stranger. None of this diminished his status among them, however. The wearer of the medal remained one of Ten Bears' closest advisers, standing shoulder to shoulder with the old man in every council and ceremony. The former medicine man's far-reaching journeys had endowed him with insights and information no one else possessed. On matters that extended beyond the village itself, people naturally looked to Kicking Bird for advice.

Still, there was talk about him, and though these doubts never

reached him directly, the impeccable man whom the former John Dunbar had once described as 'a magnificent-looking fellow” knew that his thirst for the future set him further apart from the life and people he loved.

Kicking Bird himself did not know what was to come. He knew only that a collision with the white people was inevitable, and that when it came, he wanted to be ready to lead, to help his people navigate in any way he could. Perhaps it would cost him his life, but he didn't worry. He was bound to the path he had taken.

Wisely, he chose not to speak of the future or what it might bring. He went about the business of being a Comanche, providing meat, visiting with his wife, investing himself in the life of his six children, keeping his lodge flap open to all who needed his counsel, and acknowledging the Great Mystery with daily prayer.