Red Tomahawk Read online

  They sat up then, slapping each other's backs.

  Chalk Face nudged Banded Eagle.

  "Girls," he said.

  The boys all laughed, all except Curly, who kept listening for the little beats of pony hooves that would mean Hump was coming.

  Instead he heard only the sound of a baby crying in its cradleboard, the whistle of a smoking pipe outside one of the lodges, the croon of a mother rocking a sick child to sleep.

  Pretty One, the son of Bad Face, came up, sat down. Unlike the others, he was wearing his clean buckskin shirt. He squatted among them, frowning.

  "I have heard your talk," he said. "You're all just talking big. You will never do any of those things. It is against the white paper marked on at the Big Council. You will not steal horses or go on any warpath. You will just live here in peace with your new friends, the white man."

  "Oh ho, listen to the Pretty One," they teased, calling him the name that had stuck to him because of the way he talked and dressed.

  "Listen to the pretty words he makes," taunted Chalk Face, glad to see someone else get the teasing.

  "Look at him in his paint and quilled buckskins," said He Dog, "like the show-offs from the woman's camp at the fort."

  "He is like those young Pawnees we heard about," said Banded Eagle, "dragging a whole skunk skin tied to their moccasins every day."

  "Laugh," said Pretty One, "but you forget I am Smoke's grandson, so you'd better be careful what you say about me."

  That was so. Bad Face was Smoke's son, but he had turned away from the warpath first. Some said it was because he had enough war in his own teepee from his lash-tongued wife. They called him Bad Face because of that and almost everyone had forgotten his true name.

  "You have turned away from the warpath without ever striking coup," said Red Tomahawk.

  And the other boys grunted hous of assent, for they were proud of Red Tomahawk who had killed a Crow enemy.

  The storm began to build in the mountains and there were slippery silver flashes of lightning. Distant thunder rumbled and Curly's heart soared. He loved the storms because they touched the mystical part of his mind that knew no earthly bounds. Red Tomahawk, knowing this about his friend, looked over at Curly and smiled.

  "Will the soldiers who come for Straight Topknot wear the red coats?" asked Chalk Face.

  Curly, who had been waiting for an opening in the conversation, answered.

  "No, they will be blue coats. The red is for the men of the wagon guns, for big fighting, not just for taking one brave from the camp of a white man's paper chief."

  "Ahh," said He Dog. "I saw the wagon gun speak once. Soldiers fired into a herd of antelope that were moving past the fort. Many animals fell, many were wounded. I saw the hurt ones trying to crawl away with legs broken or shot off clean as a snapped branch in winter. Some of the meat was so shot up, so torn and flew so far away there was no picking up the pieces."

  "Much meat for just one shot," said Red Tomahawk.

  "I would like to have such a gun," said Curly, surprising every one of them.

  "Such ammunition would be hard to get and the Lakota could not make it," said Red Tomahawk.

  "No," said Curly, "it could not be made."

  He worked the piece of hide from the Mormon cow in his fingers. He needed it to make new warclubs. Pretty One had thrown his good club into the Laramie River. It had been made for him by Hump from the hide of Curly's first buffalo. He was going to make one club for himself out of the green hide, and one for his friend, Red Tomahawk. But, no one knew that, not even Red Tomahawk.

  Suddenly, Curly put his ear to the ground.

  He heard the little beatings of pony hoofs in the earth.

  He stood up, gestured to Red Tomahawk.

  Red Tomahawk rose from the circle.

  "Where are you going?" asked Pretty One in his melodic voice.

  "High Back Bone comes."

  "Hump? How do you know this?"

  "I know," said Curly, drifting away from the group. Red Tomahawk followed, his stomach tingling with the flutter of moth wings. Hump was a great man and Curly's closest warrior friend. To be granted this privilege was a good thing.

  The two boys slipped away as the heat lightning blazed away overhead, bathing everything in a reddish mist.

  "What are we going to do?" asked Red Tomahawk.

  "There will be trouble over the Mormon cow. I want to talk to Hump about this thing."

  "Trouble?"

  Curly seemed to look beyond his friend, to something in the far mountains that Red Tomahawk could not see.

  "There will be war. Between the whites and the Lakota, I think."

  "Over a cow?"

  Curly did not answer, for two horses burst through the mouth of a dark gully at that moment. Curly was already running before Red Tomahawk thought to move his feet.

  CHAPTER THREE

  To Red Tomahawk's surprise and envy, Curly leaped up behind Hump, wrapped his arm around the warrior's waist. The other rider slowed and Red Tomahawk saw that it was Long Chin, a friend of Conquering Bear.

  "Well, young brave, do you want to ride or walk?"

  "Ride."

  "If you can jump up behind me without knocking me off, then I will carry you to your camp."

  Red Tomahawk backed off, ran toward the pony. He jumped and hit the horse's back. He grabbed for Long Chin's waist, nearly slipped off as the warrior clapped moccasined feet to the pony's flanks. Hump and Curly were already at the edge of camp, flying like the leaves before the wind.

  Long Chin caught up to Hump, his horse like an antelope, second-winded now as a horse about to go into battle.

  Red Tomahawk waved to Curly, grinned. It was good to ride on the pony of such a brave and respected warrior and to be in the company of High Back Bone. He clapped his legs with glee, hung onto Long Chin's waist until they stopped before Hump's lodge.

  "Hou, young brother," Hump said to Curly, "you ran fast tonight, but you are thin as a shadow."

  "That is my medicine. If I turn sideways my enemies cannot see me."

  "Ho, you speak sharp as a knife, too, quick."

  Curly slid from Hump's pony, looked up at his admired warrior-friend with unabashed respect.

  "Did you hear about the Mormon cow? About Wyuse and Conquering Bear, about Straight Topknot and . . ."

  "Hold on, young Curly, we will talk of these things with the pipe between us. Come on Long Chin, bring that other long-legged shadow with you. Who is this, Blind Mole?"

  "I am Red Tomahawk," said the boy, wishing afterwards he could have bitten his tongue in two instead of speaking out like that.

  "Oh, yes, Red Tomahawk. I have heard," laughed Hump. "You struck a rabbit, thinking it was a Crow brave. Come into my lodge and do not be noisy or eat too much. You may have to run after tomorrow and you don't want to be fat."

  Hump had a special feeling for Curly, Red Tomahawk knew. The warrior had watched over the young man ever since he picked up his first bow, watching him grow, teaching him the hunt, the ways of the warpath, even though many thought young Curly would be a holy man like his father and all the men in the Crazy Horse family.

  They went into the lodge, Hump and Long Chin carrying fresh meat from small deer they had killed that day. The old woman cried out her joy and thanks, took the meat from them to divide among the hungry in camp. She took the horses away as Hump sat in his favorite spot behind the kettle and the glowing fire. He was a man who could have had anything he wanted, even another adopted younger brother, any woman, married or not, better honors in his akicita, the warrior society, but he did not bother with these things. He chose Curly, who had the light skin, the light fine curly hair and the sharp dark eyes, did not look at other women, nor boast of his exploits like others who looked for glory among their fellow warriors.

  They all sat down, watched as Hump made his smoke, offering the tobacco to the four directions, lighting his pipe with a small stick he stuck into the fire. Then, he took the horn spo
on and ladled fresh meat from the boiling kettle and offered some of it to the sky, the earth, and the four sacred directions. He then began to eat noisily as the others took their turns, spooning up meat and broth into turtle-shell bowls.

  "Can the soldiers really take a Lakota from his lodge?" Curly asked Hump after the meal was over and the lodge was thick with pipe smoke. Shadows from the flickering fire danced on the teepee walls. Hump's chest, scarred from the hooks of the sundance, glowed red as he sat close to the coals.

  "Last summer, when the Minneconjous were in trouble," said Hump, "Man Afraid told the soldier chief that this could not be done. He said that the paper of the Big Council said that only the head chief could arrest a man who caused trouble between the Indians and whites. The soldier chief agreed and went away."

  "Then, that is what will happen tomorrow," said Red Tomahawk.

  Long Chin shook his head. Pipe smoke curled from his nostrils.

  "If they bring Jim Bordeaux to interpret, it will be better. But if Wyuse comes, he will say the bad Lakota words and there will be anger and confusion."

  They all knew Wyuse, who was an Iowa, had married into the Lakota tribe. He drank from the burning cup and knew only a few bad Lakota words. He had a white man's name now, Lucien, and he drank much whiskey with the money the whites gave him for interpreting.

  "The whites do not understand the Lakota," said Curly, showing a wisdom that Hump had often noticed, beyond his years, "It is not for the chiefs to watch over the young men as the whites do, to see that they do not get into trouble. The chief must lead his people in council and along the warpath."

  Hump and Long Chin grunted approval.

  "There is Grattan, a soldier chief at the fort, who has a bad heart," said Hump, who knew of such things. "If he comes to the Brule camp to make Conquering Bear arrest Straight Topknot, there might be trouble. He does not like Indians much."

  "No," agreed Long Chin, "but he may follow the peace paper's bird tracks of words and listen to my brother, Conquering Bear."

  "Straight Topknot will not go to the fort in chains," said Curly. "He only killed a cow and it was not worth much." He held up the piece of hide he had gotten from the Minneconjou.

  "My brother had offered to pay for the cow with ponies," said Long Chin. "He will make a bigger offer tomorrow, although the Mormon cow was old and its meat stringy and tough. It was not worth even one pony."

  "Then, there must be another reason the soldiers want Straight Topknot," said Red Tomahawk.

  Long Chin and Hump grunted, used the silence to think about what the young man had said.

  Curly, too, was thinking, and his anger showed on his pale face, even though he sat back away from them, wrapped in shadows.

  "Who is there," said Curly slowly, with much thought behind his words, "to punish the white soldiers who go out from the fort to shoot our people who hunt deer in the breaks above the river?"

  "Hou," assented Hump, "this is so. They hunt mostly the old men whose ears have grown thick with years, whose eyes have blurred with the water weep of old age. It is a bad thing and goes unpunished by the white soldier chiefs."

  "I think now of old Little Eagle," said Curly, "the Cheyenne who came to visit with his son who married into the Oglalas. The white soldiers took his hair."

  "Yes, that is so," said Hump. "The people from the woman's camp saw the soldiers with his scalp. It had the blue stone tied into it, so it was Little Eagle's hair all right. These soldiers made big talk and shook the scalp in front of the coming-through people of the heavy wagons. The white women looked at it with big eyes and they made hurt little cries with their shaking voices."

  "I have heard that too," said Long Chin, "and more. It is said that the soldiers go to a lot of trouble to shoot the old men and take their scalps. They borrow Indian ponies so that there will be no iron hoof tracks and wear moccasins so that people would think they were Snake or Crow. That is pretty sneaky, but it is so."

  Red Tomahawk winced at this talk as if he was in much pain. He looked at Curly's face and wanted to turn away. His friend's eyes were dark in their sockets as if he might want to kill the white soldiers and drive them all away.

  He wondered why his friend was so different, not only with his light skin and light curly hair, but with the strange look that made his eyes burn dark like a brush fire hidden by smoke. You could feel the heat and see the flames flicker every so often. Every time he thought of these things, Red Tomahawk's skin rippled with little bumps and his hairs stood on end, crackling with the same tickling current that he felt in the winter when the air was dry.

  There was something deep inside his friend that Red Tomahawk could not see. He knew it was secret and magical, powerful. Curly always seemed to stand a little bit away even when he was close. He was like a man searching under rocks for something of value.

  "I have heard the old chiefs make long speeches," said Curly. "They tell us we must live in peace. They say that we must be friends to the white men. Why do they do this? Can they not see what is happening to our people? The whites bring the burning cups and make us weak. They build forts and say that the land all around belongs to them.

  "My heart fills up and beats hard in my chest. My ears open and listen for the questions my heart asks. When will all the young men turn their faces away from the chiefs? What will happen then? What will happen when the soldiers come to talk to Straight Topknot tomorrow?"

  Hump finished his pipe and looked into the coals of the fire.

  Long Chin cleared things in his throat.

  Red Tomahawk knew that Curly had said something important. He could feel the little bumps move the hairs on his skin. The back of his neck bristled as if small insects had found a nest there and were walking around with scratching claws.

  Outside the lodge, the thunders boomed and scattered droplets of rain rattled on the skins. Someone thumped a drum at the far end of camp, emphasizing the silence that crept through the camp at that hour.

  Hump rose from his place and put his pipe away.

  Red Tomahawk was disappointed.

  He knew that the two men would go to the council lodge. He and Curly would not be allowed to go there.

  No one said anything.

  He and Curly followed the two men from the lodge, watched them walk away, Hump a little bit ahead of Long Chin.

  "I wonder what they will talk about tonight," said Red Tomahawk.

  "Did you ever see the soldiers take their own men down the coming-through road in the wagons? The men in the wagons had heavy chains of iron on their hands and feet. These men do not ever come back."

  "I have seen a white man leave like that and I wondered what the soldiers would do to him."

  "I saw this once, with Hump," said Curly, "and I asked him about it. I asked him why the whites did such things to men of their own people. He did not know why, but he said that sometimes they did this to Indians, too. He asked me if I would ever let the soldiers do this to me."

  "And what did you say, Curly?"

  "I told him I would not let anyone put chains on me."

  "I would not do this either."

  "The white man is strong. He has sneaky ways. He does not always use iron chains to hurt the people. He uses firewater and forts just like chains."

  "I do not understand."

  "Hump said it was good that I spoke the way I did."

  "Yes, I think it is good what you say about this."

  "Tomorrow, when the soldiers come to Conquering Bear's camp to get Straight Topknot, the Lakota will have to make a big choice."

  "To give Straight Topknot to the soldiers?"

  "That is part of the choice, but not the biggest part."

  "What is the biggest part?"

  "It will be as Hump told me on the day we saw the soldier prisoners going away in the wagon. He said it was better to die fighting than to live in the irons of the white man."

  Then there will be war, thought Red Tomahawk.

  And when he went to hi
s lodge, and crawled into his blankets, he knew he had to go to Conquering Bear's camp tomorrow to see what the soldiers would do about Straight Topknot and what the Lakota would do if the whites tried to put the son of Iteyowa in iron chains.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Red Tomahawk peered through the lodge-flap at the morning sky. The eastern horizon was smeared with a fiery red and already the blackbirds were rattling the bullrushes down by the river. The sun struck the lodge-tops, made them pink, and dogs began to prowl through camp. The rain had been only a smattering and the ground was wet with dew that would burn off when the sun was high.

  Snow Wolf snorted in his blankets. Red Tomahawk's mother, Lady Walking Crow, was already outside, whacking at the dogs with a club as she emptied a parfleche of meat into the kettle. Other women called to their daughters to fetch water and wood for the morning fires. Boys streamed out to relieve those who had stayed awake with the pony herds, their moccasin soles softening on the dew-wet ground, turning slick.

  Snow Wolf stirred as his son began to pull on his moccasins.

  He looked out through the open teepee flap at the eastern sky.

  "It is a bad red sky," he said. "This will not be a good day."

  "I am going to the Brule camp with Curly."

  "Ahh, yes. A bad day. The council was not good." Snow Wolf took a long time getting out of his blankets. He was a thin, wiry man, who had more than forty summers and his bones made sounds when they were stiff from sleep. His eyes had water in them, but he was still strong. His chest bore the scars from the sundance. His eyes, close-set, seemed lost behind his large nose that was rounded at the end like a miniature gourd.

  "What do you think will happen?" asked Red Tomahawk.

  "I do not know. I will go to the lodge of Bad Heart Bull with Crazy Horse, the father of Curly. There is to be a bad thing done at the Brule camp today and we want to talk about it some before we go to see for ourselves."

  "Yes."

  "Do you have hunger?"

  "My stomach swarms with bees at what will happen today."