Little Big Man

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN men and women is very important to the Cheyenne—more so than the distinction of the dead from the living, as a matter of fact—and they was satisfied to have established it insofar as my sister went. Besides, the antelope was all ate up at that moment and the dog wasn’t quite ready. So the rest of the Indians come crowding round us to exercise their curiosity.

This was mannerly by their lights. They restricted themselves to peering, for the most part; and some handled our clothing, but never touched flesh. I believe could we have understood Shooting Star’s remarks, we would have heard her in so many words apologize to Caroline for the laying on of hands—which was justified by the facts derived from it. I mention this because, being white, it always seemed marvelous to me that savages was not inconsiderate except through ignorance.

Particular attention was of course paid me by the kids. Little Horse, that boy who had cared for the ponies—I sure made a big hit with him from the first. As I have said, I did not take to him; but even at that age I was shifty, had to be, else I wouldn’t have survived a decade let alone more than a century, and so when I saw him admiring my boots, I stripped them off quick and offered to hand them over. But the thought of confining his feet in such fashion is one of the many things that scares an Indian, so he pretended not to get the purpose.

The dog was served up directly. Fortunately it was a small animal and had to go around to many eaters, although as guests me and Caroline got the largest chunks. The Cheyenne proceeded to stay up to midnight, it must have been. When I say that, I mean various of them came and went, new individuals entered the lodge and inspected my sister and me, certain Indians rolled up in their buffalo robes and went to sleep right alongside groups of others chattering and laughing (for contrary to white opinion nobody is more sociable than a redskin when among his own). Some sort of activity continued for hours during which the fire continued to blaze: the women, for instance, went about their chores and Old Lodge Skins smoked four or five pipefuls with divers of his cronies. One of the latter was Hump, of all people, who other than a big scab on his nose looked very fit and grunted at me and Caroline in a friendly manner. I don’t know whether or not he recognized us from the day before, but he was very decent about not blaming us for his having committed rapine and murder—which is how an Indian would look at it.

As to Caroline, she sat on her robe in pretty much of a daze from the time of Shooting Star’s investigation and even ate her dog in the same spirit. Old Lodge Skins paid her no more attention at all. He wasn’t insulting, just not interested.

At length the fire dwindled because Buffalo Wallow Woman wasn’t throwing any more chips on it, having gone to a well-deserved bed if I ever saw one. As I found out the next day, me and Caroline had hers, next to that of Old Lodge Skins; so she displaced one of her kids further on, and so it went around the circle like musical chairs until my admirer Little Horse was short man and had to go next door to the tepee of his brother, who was none other than Burns Red in the Sun.

Eventually my sister and me was sitting there alone looking at the dying fire, from which the smoke clumb in a skinny thread to the hole at the junction of the lodgepoles and there met the night, a sky colored dark blue, rather than black, by virtue of a dust of yellow stars.

Next to us, Old Lodge Skins was taking his murmurless rest, his hat dangling overhead from a rawhide line, the silhouette of his big beak pointing up in the perpendicular. You could hear a number of strong breathings but no snores, on account of Indians are trained from birth not to make noise when there ain’t a purpose to it. Also a faint sifting now and again as a last piece of buffalo dung dissolved into ash.

It was queer to be there, but speaking for myself no longer scary. You may think the worse of me, away from my home such as it had been and my father killed and all, but I had begun to feel as thoug hit wasn’t so desperate. It was warm in that lodge and the people had turned out to be tolerant. If they hadn’t offered us violence that night, I couldn’t figure them doing it next day: you don’t feed a fellow by dark and then murder him next morning. On the other hand, though, you couldn’t get away from the fact they wasn’t white.

“A penny for your thoughts, Caroline,” says I to the slumped figure of my kin, whose jaw was in her splayed hands and whose hat was way down to her fanned ears. She appeared very glum in the shadow, and her voice sounded in the same vein.