XXVIThe Moon of Black Cherries
“Dho,” said Eagle Voice, approving the conclusion of his silent meditation. “I got used to the strange land. By the stories that came to us, home was not yonder any more. The sacred hoop of the people was broken, and old men said it could never be mended. If Sitting Bull went back, maybe the soldiers would kill him. They had killed Crazy Horse already. My brother-friend was gone. The people yonder were hungry around the agencies. Where we were, there were bison in plenty, and no soldiers to chase us. I was young and I liked to live. So I got used to the strange land; and I got married too.
“We were on a fall hunt with some people from different bands of the Lakota, and a few Cheyennes and Arapahoes, maybe ten or twelve lodges altogether, and we were camping by a creek. Three of my horses strayed away and I was out looking for them. They had strayed far, dragging their lariats, and the sun was getting ready to go down when I got back to the creek. I was on my horse, holding the others while the four were drinking.
“There was going to be frost that night. The air smelled good and it was still. The smokes stood straight from the tepees yonder in the flat. Leaves were changing color and some plums were red in a clump of brush. A little sound was big. I was just sitting there leaning on my horse and holding the others. There was a whiff of meat cooking. Maybe I was thinking about something a long way off, but I do not remember what.
“All at once the brush cracked. The horses snorted. The two young ones reared and broke away, running and kicking and making sharp wind when they kicked. It was just like the other time I told you about; that time after my first sun dance when the people were getting ready to scatter and my horses broke away at the creek.
“She was standing there at the edge of the plum brush, and my heart jumped in me; for all at once it was that other time backhome. Then I saw that it was Plenty White Cows standing there. She had red plums in a fold of her blanket, and she was looking at me and smiling. She was pretty.
“Our party was small, so I had seen her often since her family came to camp with us. Against the Clouds and his woman were dead, and she was living with her real parents. I had noticed her more than other girls because I knew the story about her and the strange power she had. That was not the only time she had smiled at me that way. The first time was when I was riding by her tepee and she was cooking out in front of it. She was bent over, stirring the pot, and she looked up at me surprised. Then she looked happy and smiled, and she was pretty, and she did not seem strange any more.
“Yes, it was like the time back home that I told you about. Maybe that is why I said it, or maybe I was bashful all at once. My mother and grandmother wanted me to get married, and they said I was too bashful because I did not notice girls much. Maybe I was bashful then. I said, ‘Hold this horse for me while I catch the others.’ So she took the lariat and I rode away on the run after my horses. While I was chasing them, I was wondering if the horse would be tied to the brush when I got back. The young horses felt good, and I had a long chase before I caught them in a bend of the creek against a high bank. It was dark before I got back with them, and I thought surely the other horse would be tied to the brush, just the way it was that other time.
“It was not so. She was standing in the same place, holding the horse. There was starlight.”
The old man fell silent and began fumbling in his long tobacco pouch. When he had filled the pipe and tamped it with a leisurely thoroughness, he said, “That is how it was, Grandson; that is how it was.” Then he lit the pipe, his lean cheeks hollowing.
When we had sat in silence for a while he began talking in a low voice, with little expression at first, as though remembering aloud with no thought of sharing.
“She was a good woman, and she made the strange land almost like home. She was always working and never angry. She would make low songs for herself when she was working. I think she could tan deerskin as soft as my grandmother could; and she made clothing of it, beautiful with beads and dyed porcupine quills. I always got plenty of tender meat for us, plenty for my grandfather and grandmother too. They would come to eat with us and bring other very old people with them. I could always get plenty, because she could tell me where to hunt. Sometimes she would be working and singing to herself; then she would stop singingand tell me where she saw some fat young deer drinking when the sun was going down. Maybe that would be in the morning, but she would see it. So I would be there waiting for the sun to set, and the fat young deer would come.
“She always looked after my moccasins, and when I had been hunting on foot and was tired, she would grease the bottoms of my feet by the fire. She was patient and wise, and sometimes she was more like my mother than my woman; maybe because she was older.
“She could see what others could not see, and what was going to happen, she could tell it. When someone was going to die, she would tell me, and it would be so. If somebody lost some horses, she could sit still with her eyes shut and dream, and in the dream she would go to where the horses were then; and when she opened her eyes, she would tell how she went there, and it would be so.
“She was a good woman, but not strong like other women, maybe because she had died once and come back for a while. No children came to us, and my mother said the women talked about this. I think they did not like her. Maybe they were afraid because of heryuwipi[spiritualistic] power. But sometimes when they wanted to know something hidden, they would come to her with little gifts.
“There were grasses and snows and the land was not strange any more. When Sitting Bull went back and surrendered to the Wasichus, we did not go back, for the stories that came to us from our people on White Clay Creek where their reservation [Pine Ridge] was were not happy stories, and we were used to the new land.
“There were more grasses and snows and more grasses. Then one day when the cherries were turning black Plenty White Cows did not get up in the morning. Her mother and mine came over to help and they made some soup for her, but she did not want to eat it. She did not talk to us, but sometimes she would talk to people we could not see. Afterwhile when she was sleeping hard and there was nothing to do, our mothers went home.
“When the sun was beginning to go down, she called to me, and I leaned close to hear. Her voice was far away. I thought she was dreaming and talking in her sleep. There were tears on her face, and she said, ‘A little girl is crying. Do you not hear her crying far away?’ And I said, ‘No little girl is crying. You are dreaming.’ Then she looked at me with a soft look from far away, and said, ‘It is the little girl you think about when you are alone. I hear her crying far across snows and grasses.’
“She closed her eyes and when she looked at me again, it was a farlook that did not see me, and she was talking about a great water reaching to the sunrise, and a long road across it and strange peoples yonder in a strange land. ‘It is a long road,’ she said, ‘but you will come back home. The little girl will grease your feet beside the fire, and she will not cry any more.’
“I thought she had gone to sleep and I sat there awhile listening to her breathing, and wondering. I went outside and while I stood there, the sun went under. Then I heard her call me again, and I went in and leaned close to hear what she would say. ‘Cherries are getting black,’ she said. ‘They are getting black.’ And I said, ‘It is so; they are blackening.’ At first I did not know what she meant. Then she looked at me from far away, and her voice was far away too, and she said, ‘The young moon is low yonder. It is time to go. They are coming to take me home again.’
“Then there was a sudden wide look in her eyes, and I knew it was not for me. All at once I knew it was for her foster-parents, Against the Clouds and his woman. They had come for her in the Moon of Black Cherries, the way they used to do before they died; but I could not see them. I knew this all at once, and there was a big ache in my breast; but I said, ‘Plums are beginning to ripen too. Soon they will be good to eat We will go and pick some,’ I was seeing red plums in a fold of her blanket. She closed her eyes and lay still, but I could hear her breathing deep.
“I was sitting there in the dark wondering and thinking many things with the ache in my breast. Her mother came back, but I did not tell her anything because I must not talk to her. I could see the old woman was leaning down over her daughter, and I think she was listening. Then she cried out and began mourning.
“My mother came and others too. They made a fire in front of our lodge, and there was mourning all night.”
Eagle Voice was silent for a while, looking at the ground. At length he turned a squinting gaze on me and said, “There is a strange road ahead, Grandson, a road that leads far. Let us walk on it tomorrow. I want to sleep now.”