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  “I understand.”

  “The track of the deer is sacred. Do not step on it, or let your pony step on it, for it angers the spirits for you to act as if you should walk where they walk. When you see the track of a deer at the edge of the water, step aside and drink at another place along the bank.”

  “Yes, Grandfather.”

  “The horn of the deer is sacred, as you have seen.” Spirit Talker motioned for Shaggy Hump to hand him the two antlers the seeker had found as he returned from his quest. “You must protect these horns and keep them with your weapons, safe from things that make them unclean.”

  “When I have enough hides, I will make a lodge just for my weapons and sacred things,” Horseback said, “to keep them clean and out of the weather.”

  “Good. Now, when you find a small antler, you will grind it with rough stones to make a sacred dust. A woman may do this for you, unless she is in the time of unclean bleeding. You will carry the sacred dust in a pouch in your quiver and throw it on the fire in times of prayer.” At this, Spirit Talker pinched another morsel of powder from his bag and flicked it at the fire in the center of the lodge.

  “Now I understand,” Horseback said.

  “The spirit who guards and protects you—the one only you have seen and only you will know—the spirit you have spoken of, named Sound-the-Sun-Makes—this spirit speaks of the Sacred South, where many horses rise from the ground. The same spirit tells you that the horse is your gift—the gift of your people—given to you on the day of your birth by the spirits. And so, Horseback, you will seek this land of the Sacred South where horses rise from the ground, and buffalo number like drops of rain, and elk feed the ancient enemies of the True Humans. You will seek this land.”

  Horseback found himself looking south, through the open flap of the lodge, where the land was black under the gray sky. “What shall I do when I find this land, Grandfather?”

  Spirit Talker threw another pinch of antler dust into the fire. “You will know. Seek wisdom, and you will know.”

  Horseback remembered a pony he had once owned—his first pony, killed on the day his uncle and grandfather died at the Canyon of Red Rock whence he would never return. He remembered the signs burned on the hide of that pony. Now somehow he knew those signs were the medicine of strange people in the Sacred South. His stomach felt full of things that fluttered and crawled, and he longed to ride hard to the south. Yet, he knew he must seek wisdom and pray about this before riding. Already, his medicine felt like a burden to him, making his thoughts swarm and hum like flying bugs.

  “I have collected sacred things for your medicine pouch, Horseback.” The old puhakut gestured toward a square piece of soft tanned deerskin at his feet. On this small skin several items lay, neatly arranged. “The tooth is from the skull of a deer. The tuft of hair from the tail of a deer. The feather is from the turkey, who sometimes walks with and watches out for the deer. This strip of fur is from a weasel, to keep evil spirits away. The pebble is one found in the track of a deer. The claw is from a great humpbacked bear and will bring you courage.”

  Spirit Talker motioned for Shaggy Hump to bundle the sacred items in the piece of deer skin. Taking the bundle, he sprinkled powder from his pouch upon it, then held it high and chanted a song to which only he knew the meaning, for it had no words—only sounds taught to him by his guardian spirit:

  “Ya-hi-yu-niva-hu,

  Hi-yu-niva-hi-yu-niva-hu,

  Ya-hi-yu-niva-hi-na-he-ne-na,

  Hi-yu-niva-hu.”

  As he sang, the puhakut wrapped a long rawhide thong around the closed bundle and drew the edges tight together with a jerk, tying it off with a hard knot. When he had finished the task and his song, he passed the medicine pouch to the young warrior newly named Horseback.

  Knowing what must be done, Horseback untied the belt that held his loin skins on, and let the skins fall between his feet. He tied the rawhide thong of the medicine pouch around his hips and let the pouch itself hang down in front and lay against his penis. Now he stooped to pick up his skins and replaced them under his loins, tying them fast with the belt. The men chuckled at the way he hiked his legs up and prodded at his groin, trying to get accustomed to the new bundle in his loin skins.

  Spirit Talker sang again and threw magic powder on the fire, and Horseback saw his father’s herd of horses through the open flap, faintly against the slate sky.

  “I have seen a vision,” Spirit Talker said. “In this vision, I am going blind, for I see like one looking through a blizzard. Yet, I know it is Horseback that I see in this vision, and he hunts, and fights, and goes to strange places. I cannot see how he does all of these things—only that he does them riding a good pony. He does everything astride a pony.”

  And Horseback felt a fire grow in his chest, making the things that fluttered and crawled in his stomach move even faster, as along his back a chill finger of wind crept, tickling the nape of his neck, making his hair stiffen upon his whole scalp, and he held his breath and swallowed hard, for he had seen Spirit Talker’s very same vision in a dream just last night.

  13

  They found the buffalo three sleeps south of Sometimes Water, flocks of ravens having led them to the herd. Watching through the leaves of a saskatoon bush in a draw where the land dropped off to the valley of a place called Two Rivers, Shaggy Hump and Horseback plotted the strategy for the hunt.

  “The wind is ours, Father,” Horseback said, optimistically.

  “Yes,” Shaggy Hump replied, “but the ground is the buffalo’s.”

  Horseback noticed the ripe berries on the saskatoon bush, and almost reached for one out of habit and the memory of winter hunger. Then he remembered his medicine and a pang of dread coursed his soul, thinking of how he might have eaten this food of the sacred deer, ruining the chances for a successful hunt.

  He turned his concentration back to the herd, in the river valley below, moving slowly upstream along the north bank, like a shadow of speckled brown against the green lowlands flanking the river. It changed shape like a cloud as it passed.

  “I have not seen a herd this large on our hunting grounds since I went on my first hunt,” Shaggy Hump said. “But we must be ready. The Yutas may know of these buffalo and come down from the mountains to hunt them. That is a good place to camp, down there in the timber where the two rivers become one, and there have been fights there before.”

  “If the Yutas come, will we attack them?” Horseback asked.

  “Do not think of these things, my son. Trust your medicine to guide you as times come for other things. Now, we are hunting, not making war.”

  Horseback watched a distant pack of wolves emerge and vanish along the timber at the river’s edge, silver like trout rising in a brook. “Here the ground is the buffalo’s,” he said, putting his mind back on the hunt, “but ahead of them, a ridge reaches close to the river. If we ride far around, to the other side of that ridge, the buffalo will not see us come down close to the timber. Then, we can crawl near with our buffalo robes over our shoulders, and shoot them with arrows.”

  Shaggy Hump followed the strategy with his eyes. “Hah, good.” He put his hand on his son’s shoulder. “Now we will see if your bow shoots straight, like your medicine.”

  “My bow shoots straighter than straight,” Horseback replied, more out of confidence than bluster.

  Easing back from the saskatoon bushes, they crept up the draw and over the brink of the river breaks, back to high ground, where their horses waited out of sight of the buffalo.

  Shaggy Hump had trained these ponies not to run from him by catching them and tying a long strip of rawhide to one front foot. Then he would walk briskly toward them, and if they ran, he would jerk the rawhide, tripping them—time and time and time again—until they learned. Now they would not shy away from a man who approached even at a dead run. To Horseback, this way his father had of teaching horses things was medicine beyond hope of possession, yet he too was learning.

 
; After getting thrown from the black colt in front of all the Corn People and Burnt Meat People while showing off for Teal, Horseback had given much thought to ways he could make himself stick to the back of a pony. In a dream one night, he had seen a rope wound four times, loosely, about the barrel of a pony, just behind the forelegs. Waking the next morning, he had found a rope and made four wraps with it around a gentle mare, as he had seen in his dream. Mounting the mare, he found that he could slip his knees under the four loose coils of rope, the thickness of his thighs tightening the coils and holding him fast to the back of the mare.

  Soon, he was able to ride even a wild colt and stick to its back as if he possessed lion claws. Yet if the colt slipped or stumbled, he could quickly and easily remove his knees from the coils and fall away from the pony. On long rides, he could let his legs dangle comfortably, yet the moment he needed to run hard over rough country, he could slip his knees under the coils and dash away as if he and the pony had become one.

  As he mounted now, in this place near the valley of the two rivers, he checked the knot in the coils he had tied around his pony. Even his father, Shaggy Hump, had admired this new way to ride and had begun to equip his mounts with the coil of rope whenever he expected hard riding ahead.

  They trotted away from the river, crossed over two high rolls, and returned to the main body of the hunting party. Seven good hunters of the Corn People and the Burnt Meat People had agreed to come on Shaggy Hump’s hunt, bringing their women to set up the camp and butcher the meat. Each had a horse, owned or borrowed, while Shaggy Hump and Horseback had each brought two—one for riding and one for harnessing to the pole-drags.

  After hearing the scouts’ plan, the other hunters loosed their horses from their lodge poles and mounted, their bow cases and quivers slung over their shoulders, hairy buffalo robes rolled and thrown across withers of their mounts. Shaggy Hump and two others also carried lances, to use in finishing wounded animals.

  They circled to the finger of high land that reached for the river, and rode into the draw beyond it, still out of sight of the buffalo. The horses plunged through low brush in this draw that widened near its mouth. Here the hunters found wispy soohoo trees and sohoobi trees large enough to conceal their horses, so they dismounted and tied the animals. Carrying robes and weapons, they hastened to the tip of the finger of high land that still shielded them from the buffalo.

  Horseback stayed close behind his father, hoping the buffalo had continued upstream and would be very near around the rise. In his life, he had seen few live buffalo close up, and never as close as a bow might fling an arrow. He had hunted nothing larger than rabbits with success. The thought of a whole herd of large beasts coming very soon within range made his heart pound.

  Shaggy Hump motioned him forward, and the young hunter came to crouch behind a clump of birch scrub. Through the foliage, he saw the leaders of the herd, their heads down, busily grazing tall grass in the river bottom. The finger of high land seemed to point to a bulge in the stream-side timber, both of which served to funnel the herd, crowding the animals, and bringing them near.

  Shaggy Hump carefully dragged his buffalo hide over his shoulders and head, and Horseback did the same. Looking back, he saw the other hunters preparing. They would ease out of the mouth of this draw, passing as buffalo themselves, until they were near enough to send a volley of flint and iron points into the big animals.

  “When you shoot your arrow,” Shaggy Hump whispered, “do not aim at the herd. Do not aim at a single animal. Aim for the soft flank behind the last rib. Choose a curl of hair for a target.”

  Horseback signed his understanding and began to crawl into view of the big beasts, trying to move like a grazing calf. He wondered if the buffalo would notice how small he was. It would be well to appear the size of the buffalo, and this gave him the idea to cover himself with a wooly robe while mounted on his horse. Hadn’t he and Spirit Talker had the same vision of him hunting horseback—doing everything on horseback? But this was just his first hunt, and there would be time to try new things later.

  For now, he continued to lumber closer to the approaching herd. A large cow raised her head, and he was close enough to see her eye shine, but she kept chewing the grass that disappeared into her mouth, then lowered her head and stepped forward for another mouthful before the last one was even gone. He could hear the sound of many beasts tearing grass away from the good rich earth of the river bottom.

  They held their arrows and inched closer to the herd. The leaders of the herd grazed past Horseback and Shaggy Hump and finally came within range of the last hunters along the line. Moving cautiously, Shaggy Hump notched an arrow on his bowstring, and the other hunters followed. Horseback’s heart was beating so hard that he wondered if he would have the strength to draw the bow. But he thought of Sound-the-Sun-Makes, which filled him with confidence, and he easily drew the bowstring back and touched it to his cheek.

  Looking beyond the arrow’s shaft and point, he found a cow that quartered away from him. He lined the arrow shaft with the animal, then remembered to aim behind the ribs. This cow happened to have a tuft of shedding hair hanging from her flank right where the arrow should hit, so the hunter chose this as his target, feeling the exact trajectory through much practice.

  When he heard his father’s bowstring sing, he did not even have to think to let his own slip between his fingers. All down the line, arrows flew, each hitting its mark, though two of the hunters had unknowingly chosen the same animal to shoot.

  Horseback watched his own flint point arch high—too high he feared—then saw it slant down and disappear in the cow’s flank just over the tuft of hair that served as his target. The wounded animal jumped straight up to a height that seemed impossible for an animal her size and came down on legs that were already running. Veering toward the river, she ran into a yearling calf, knocking it down as she fled in pain and terror.

  The other wounded animals acted the same way, sending an instant scare through the herd, as a whole flock of blackbirds would suddenly move almost as one in the sky by some spirit’s power. Only two of the wounded buffalo fell in view of the hunters, one of them being the cow that had been shot twice. The others scattered with the fleeing herd, making the whole valley tremble and livening the air with sounds of snapping branches down in the timber.

  Flinging his robe aside, Horseback started sprinting back up the draw as the other hunters watched the herd run. There were sounds of splashing water coming faintly now through the timber.

  “Where are you going?” Shaggy Hump shouted.

  “To my horse!” the young hunter replied. “Maybe some will sink in the mud, where I can kill them with a lance!”

  “Ride my horse! He was caught running with buffalo and will not be afraid to run with them again!”

  Horseback reached the buffalo pony winded, his legs aching from the charge uphill. He grabbed his father’s lance and mounted quickly, knowing the horse would do his running for him now. Excited by the familiar noise of the herd below, the horse would barely wait for the rider to swing across his back. The instant he had mounted, Horseback slipped his knees tightly under the coils of rope his father had tied around the barrel of this pony, and this too seemed to alert the horse to a hard ride.

  Plunging through soohoo clumps and weaving around the larger sohoobi trees, Horseback came galloping onto the grassy bottom lands between the slopes and the river timber. He thundered beyond the hunters, who watched him pass like a thing they had never seen. He rumbled past the two dying cows on the ground and entered the shadows of the timber. Dead falls and low branches slowed him down, but the buffalo had trampled a broad path for him to follow.

  Suddenly he saw a big dark mass of fur moving strangely through the trees and rode that way, finding a young bull with a broken leg flopping piteously. He thought of dismounting and rushing the bull with his spear, keeping behind trees to protect himself from the horns. But something made him lean forward over the neck of
his mount, as he reined toward the crippled bull.

  The animal tried to turn away, but Horseback rode hard against the side opposite the broken foreleg, knowing the young bull would not be able to push against the broken limb to wheel and hook him. The lance was firm in his grip, the shaft clamped hard between his arm and ribs. The horse acquired some magic that made him rush the bull with neck outstretched and teeth popping.

  Horseback lowered the broad flint point of the lance as he galloped forward and stuck it in the bull behind the ribs. Once through the tough hide, the lance went easily into vitals. The buffalo bellowed, tried to whirl, but fell on the broken leg, his weight yanking the lance from Horseback’s tight hold. The hunter veered away, then spun his mount to face the dying beast. His eyes were large, thinking of what he had done. Never had a tale been told of a warrior lancing a buffalo bull from the back of a horse. The muscles across his shoulders writhed, and power consumed him.

  Sucking in much air, he loosed a joyous cry, “Ye-ye-ye-ye-ye!” so his father and the other hunters would know he had ridden well.

  The sound of splashing water came from lower down, so Horseback reined his mount close enough to grab the shaft of his lance, angling up from the heaving bull. He pulled and pulled at it, finally using both hands and a wrap of the horse’s mane to dislodge the flint point. Finding the point unbroken, he spun his horse toward the river.

  Riding out of the timber, Horseback saw one cow bogged in quicksand, then saw a stray bunch of seven animals crossing back to his side of the river, fleeing insensibly from unknown terrors. Across the river, buffalo were scattering everywhere. He remained still until the seven had come out of the water on his side of the river, then he reined his excited mount in behind them.