Little Big Man

Almost simultaneous, I got a thump on the skull and had the thousandth of a moment to sense that something landed on my back, light of weight yet all-enveloping. I figured it was Death, and thought: you sneaky bastard, I might have knowed you would get me from behind.

CHAPTER 29 Victory

I SMELLED SOMETHING SPICY, followed by a host of other scents, then commenced to hear drums, first only the big one in the back of my head, the beats of which at length smoothed out into one continuous dull roar, and then the regular smiting of them a distance off. And the voices, frenzied and ranging from a deep-throated howling to the highest quavering falsetto screech, almost at the pitch of a whistle.

I opened my eyes real careful, naturally expecting to find myself down in Hell, and first thing I seen was the flames, all right, and the next was the Devil himself, looking exactly like I had always figured he would or maybe worse: two horns sticking up from his forehead and his face was crimson-colored, and he had two big white fangs and the nastiest eyes you could imagine: they was outlined in white.

He was crouching alongside me and peering at me, and as I expected he might bite or something, and I too sore and weak to move, I was a-fixing at least to spit into his face, for I believe demons must operate on the same principles as people: show them you are helpless, and you’ll get no mercy.

But before I had gathered enough spittle onto my tongue, the Devil says something to me in the Cheyenne language.

“Are you awake?” he says.

Well, that was fair: I had been killed by Indians, so had gone to the redskin Hell. I says: “Yes I am,” and let it go at that, for I would have liked to sass him, but as you know there ain’t no real curse words in the Cheyenne tongue, except to call a man a woman.

“All right,” he says. “Then you know that you and I are even at last, and the next time we fight, I can kill you without becoming an evil person.”

Then he leaps up with a whoop and runs out of the tepee—for that is where we was—and other than that buffalo hat, G-string, and moccasins, he was naked though painted from head to toe. For he wasn’t a devil but rather an Indian, Indeed, he was Younger Bear.

The flames was the little fire in the center of the lodge, of course, and the door flap was pulled back so I could see the glow of a bigger blaze outside, with the shadows of many moving bodies, the silhouettes of legs.

“He goes to dance,” says a familiar voice nearby, “but you had better stay here awhile.”

Old Lodge Skins sat there upon the buffalo robe, taking the fire-shine onto his walnut visage.

“Do you want to eat?” he says.

I struggled up to the sitting position, feeling like a sack of loose meal, then tested with my fingers the stricken portions of my being. My left shoulder was all tied up with leather, moss, and stuff having a sweetish odor; and there was something that felt like raw mud upon my cheek-wound. My head was O.K.: that is, it ached awful, but the skull didn’t have a break you could feel.

Finally, I says: “Grandfather, I did not expect to see you.”

“Nor I you, my son,” answers Old Lodge Skins. “Do you want to smoke?”

I says: “Then I guess I am not dead.”

He reaches over and pokes me with a finger hard as horn. “No,” he says, “if you were a spirit, my hand would go right through your arm as if it were smoke.” The fact that I was talking to him, see, wouldn’t make no difference neither way: he spoke a lot to the deceased, not only of humans but animals as well.

I asked him when it was as to time.

“The Human Beings and the Lakota rubbed out all those soldiers on the ridge,” says Old Lodge Skins, “by the time the sun was here.” He showed me on the horizon of his hand: looked like around five-thirty or six o’clock. “This,” he says, “is the night following that, and everybody is dancing to celebrate the victory. Tomorrow we are going to kill the rest of the bluecoats on the hill downriver. It was a great day.”

He sighs and goes on: “I am too old to fight any more, and as you know I cannot see through my eyes, but a boy led me up to Greasy Grass Ridge, which overlooks the place where the soldiers were. I could hear the battle and smell it and see a great deal in my mind, which is better than the eyes under those conditions, because I was told the smoke was very thick anyway.

“Almost the whole Lakota nation is here, and they are splendid warriors, the second best in the whole world. But naturally the Human Beings are foremost.”

He was getting excited, commencing to sweat on his bare old belly, with that ancient scar, and his blind eyes was shining.

“The Hunkpapas have a wise man named Sitting Bull. Some days ago they held a sun dance on the Rosebud, and he cut his flesh a hundred times and saw a vision of many soldiers falling into camp upside down. Then we moved to the headwaters to hunt buffalo, and some soldiers shot at us, so we whipped them.”