Chapter LXIV
There was strong talk of resistance to the sending of people to prison but it didn't lead to action. Those selected for punishment were shipped east, leaving only tears behind them.
Owl Prophet had been the most vocal of those who still wanted to oppose the whites but he aimed his wrath at Kicking Bird. The prophet counseled furiously with his owl, and after a climactic, public demonstration, declared, 'Kicking Bird is a betrayer. such a man cannot live. Kicking Bird will die soon.'
The prophecy quickly became common knowledge, but if it disturbed Kicking Bird, there was no evidence as he went about his multitude of public duties.
Yet Kicking Bird was changed. His eyes had widened perceptibly, as if some internal shock had frozen them in wonder. The look on his face made people so uneasy that a majority came to expect that the prophecy would be fulfilled.
Four days after the deportees left in chains for the east, Kicking Bird consumed his morning coffee and became violently ill. The pain heightened all day and by early evening had consumed him.
Though he had been nowhere in the vicinity, it was widely believed that Owl Prophet had somehow arranged Kicking Bird's death.
Kicking Bird loyalists might have murdered Owl Prophet in turn, but they didn't have to. Everyone knew that a Comanche who killed a fellow tribesman was certain to die himself, and those who watched for signs of Owl Prophet's demise did not have long to wait.
Three days later the prophet was found dead in his bed, and, like Kicking Bird, the cause of his passing remained a mystery.
Chapter LXV
Two years later, upon their release from an old Spanish prison in the humid place the whites called Florida, Smiles A Lot, Hunting For Something, their firstborn child, and Rabbit came back to Fort Sill. Some, like White Bear, never returned, dead from the shaking fever.
In their absence the reservation had lost all vestige of rebellion. Some of the people were living in white man houses and all of them were at least partially clad in white man clothes. The old ways were still being practiced but otherwise there was little to remind the returnees of the free life that had once been.
When a lodge had been erected for them Hunting For Something, her infant son, and Rabbit went off for a round of visiting while Smiles A Lot rode to the great Medicine Bluff on a borrowed pony.
He climbed the bluff as he had done before, in what now seemed a long-ago life. This time he would have no visions, for, as he stood on the crest and looked over the country, the view had changed. Spread before him, plain on the knolls of hills and partially visible in the thickets along the creeks, were the impoverished camps of subjugated people.
Smiles A Lot turned and looked to the west. It was blazing with light as the sun flattened on the horizon. The country was still there, limitless and empty save for the bones of warriors and buffalo and his beloved horses.
He gazed down the scarred face of the cliff and thought for an instant how little effort it would take to step into space.
Then he lifted his eyes once more and searched out the lodge that was his new home. The wide world had once been his domain but all that remained to him now was one of the many poor shelters scattered around the soldier fort. The idea that he would be returning to the same place over and over again seemed inconceivable to him, but he would return to it soon.
There was no place else to go.
