The Holy Road

felt a welcome surge of renewal as he sat up on the travois to greet the coming twilight.

A beautiful day, this day, he thought to himself. How could it be so ugly? Nothing can be explained, old, worn-out man.

Better stop thinking like that, he admonished. Listen to your lungs. Hear them? What if your eyes are filling with night? What if your ears are getting smaller? Listen to those lungs! No rasping, no wheezing. They are working. Old or not, the Mystery wants you to live. Rejoice in that.

Deciding to give thanks for the good coming out of the bad, Ten Bears drew out his pipe and packed it before he realized that he had no way to light it on the bumpy travois. He held the pipe anyway, thinking, What does it matter whether or not my words travel to the Mystery on smoke? This is a special time. My heart is true. The things I'm thinking will get where they need to go.

He craned his head for a look at the women and children spread around him.

These are all good people, he thought. They know how to live when life is hard. They don't give up. Hunting For Something is up ahead somewhere, trying to find Dances With Wolves' trail. I'm glad that boy went with her, that Rabbit. He's tough like sinew. A very useful boy.

For a moment he thought he saw movement up ahead and hoped it was Hunting For Something coming back. But his old eyes were betraying him again. No one nearby showed any sign they had seen anything and Ten Bears reclined to face the sky, resolved that his granddaughter would come back when she would come back. No one could manipulate fate.

The clouds were laid out like bands of smoke against the deepening purple of nightfall and Ten Bears briefly wondered if he might be looking at the residue of the boiling pillars of black he and Hunting For Something had watched the day before from their hiding place in a stand of willows. Weary of heartache, he consciously turned his thoughts to the more pleasant subject of his only surviving grandchild's attributes. He was the only family she had now but it made him glad to think of her determination and bravery in the face of having lost her father, mother, brothers, and sisters.

She doesn't complain, he thought, she doesn't think of herself. She insisted on scouting the trail ahead. I don't doubt she'll pick up Dances With Wolves' tracks. She can do all of a woman's work and sit tall on her pony, too. The girl looks to be a warrior, she carries herself straight up and down. Now she's doing a warrior's work. She's just what a Comanche woman should be. She can do anything. And she's a good-looking girl, too. Any young man who puts his eye on her bad better be a good one.

Ten Bears looked over his nose at the last light in the east and thought of Smiles A Lot. Here, too, was something to make his heart glad in the midst of dejection.

A young man all by himself, thought Ten Bears, traveling into hostile country on an urgent mission. That boy has changed overnight. No one thought he could do anything. I didn't think so. But here we are, getting safer every mile because a boy who couldn't do anything stood up and took charge. How could I have been so wrong about him? I didn't give him credit because I couldn't see. I didn't hear his blood because I didn't bother to listen.

'Nobody knows anything,” the old man muttered out loud. He allowed himself a self-deprecating chuckle and gazed back down the trail again.

Why am I surprised at the strength of these two? he thought, shaking his head. Comanches are strong. Comanches can get through anything. The proof is in our children. That Smiles A Lot — he's proof. He'll find Wind In His Hair and the other men and bring them back to us. The boy has everything. All he really needs is a wife. Hunting For Something. . Hunting For Something and Smiles A Lot. Could there be a more perfect match? Oh, what do you know anyway, old man? You don't know if they like each other. Stay out of it. Why are you dreaming like this? Well, anyway, I hope he doesn't get killed. I don't care what anyone thinks or says. I don't care if it's not my business. I can think what I want to think, and I think they would be a couple to make people proud!

Chapter XVIII

The Kiowa country was not as mysterious as that of the Comanches. Nothing equaled the drama of Comanche grasslands flat as the sky. Or plunging canyons that stretched into labyrinths on a scale so great as to be capable of containing entire civilizations. There were waterways of every length and breadth, from rivers that men routinely risked their lives in crossing to tiny hidden springs in terrain where the presence of water seemed inconceivable.

Still, Kiowa country was magnificent, blessed with water of every miraculous form, oceans of rolling grassland, and a sense of self-containment not usually found in other worlds. Like its southern neighbor, the Kiowa country, by virtue of its size and variety, could have qualified as a continent.

Kicking Bird always felt as easy as if he were at home when passing through Kiowa land, especially on this trip at the head of a large delegation.

That the Kiowa seemed to hold him in greater esteem than his own people was a poignant irony. To be sure, there was variety of opinion among the Kiowa, too, but in comparison to the Comanches they were far more worldly. Their contact with the whites in recent years had been much greater than that of their powerful yet isolated allies to the south. And not all of it had been bad.

White scalps hung in the lodges of many Kiowa warriors, and there were many Kiowa women who no longer spoke the names of fathers, husbands, and brothers, men who had been sent on the long journey across the Milky Way by white bullets. But the Kiowa had traded with whites. They had attended big councils where they talked with hair-mouthed men called commissioners. Kiowa warriors had taken the hands of white soldiers whom they had already met in running fights or would meet in the future.

None of them cared much for the plentiful white-skinned people from the east whose behavior was so perplexing, but at least the Kiowa knew something of them — no one more than Touch The Clouds, who had attended almost every plains meeting the whites had asked for and had fought with distinction through every conflict. It was the village of this warrior, made legendary by his extraordinary height, that Kicking Bird sought.

On reaching the camp of Touch The Clouds, Kicking Bird and his delegation settled in as honored guests. The Kiowa insisted they pitch their lodges in an enviable spot adjacent to their own community with easy access to water, fuel, and forage. At once the Comanches were treated to the predictable orgy of visits and feasting. Interspersed with gorging and talking were rounds of horse racing — dominated, as usual, by the Comanches — gambling games that floated from lodge to lodge, and, because a large herd of buffalo had recently appeared just north of camp, daily hunting trips that kept the village supplied with fresh meat.

Yet amid this seemingly constant swirl of activity, Kicking Bird remained focused on the reason for the visit. Room had been made for his lodges in the center of the village, a few steps from Touch The Clouds' home, affording the two warriors the opportunity to conduct their meetings with neighborly ease.

Both men took full advantage, and through the first two days of Kicking Bird's stay, they were rarely seen but in each other's company. At any hour of the night or day they might be found talking over pressing matters of the moment with prominent warriors of both tribes.

The subject of the whites was never tabled for long and Kicking Bird quickly found that the sentiments of the Kiowa closely mirrored those of his own people. Some, like himself and Touch The Clouds, were open to more contact, while others were staunchly opposed.

A significant number of Kiowa, especially a tight-knit clique who followed a crafty, barrel-chested man named White Bear, were of both minds. If the wind shifted toward peace they stood ready to exploit it. If a call for war went out they were eager to participate. White Bear and his devotees, like many of their Comanche counterparts, viewed peace and war as part of a natural cycle, like good weather following bad, or vice versa.

However the teaming of Touch The Clouds and Kicking Bird gave them great influence. That two eminent men known for their levelheadedness constantly guided the discussion toward the subject of the whites led people to the conclusion that the problem was more timely than ever, and all the better if it could be solved in some