“But you will tell them of this place?”
“People do not lightly leave what they have always known. Our old ones are buried there. The young who died are buried there also. Our memories are there, and they will turn their eyes from danger.”
“And you?”
“Their place is my place also. I must be with them. I must lead and I must advise.”
“If the Great Sun dies while you are gone?”
“If I do not return in time, another will take his place.”
For a time we did not speak and then I said, tentatively, “It is lovely here, and in the spring—”
“When very young I went one time to the mountains. I went with my mother, my father, and the Ni’kwana. There were others, too. We went to trade. We went to a long valley with forest all about and a small stream. There was a stockade—”
“It was my home.”
She looked at me. “I do not know—”
“There was no other, except far away near the sea. We traded with the Cherokee, the Creek, and yes, the Natchee.”
“We walked for many days after the river. When I saw the mountains I could not believe. Ni’kwana had spoken of mountains, but—”
“These are higher, some of them.”
“I loved the mountains! Nobody understood but the Ni’kwana. I believe that was why he chose me to come here.”
“It was not an easy thing for a woman to do.”
“I am a Sun.”
The fire was burning low, the women worked, and firelight flickered on the walls, reminding me of the cave of the dancing shadows.
“Who knows what the Ni’kwana thinks? Long ago when I was small I used to tell him of my dreams.” She looked over at me. “Do you have dreams?”
“Sometimes.”
“We know there is a time after this because we see those who have died in our dreams. We are in the afterworld, and my mother is there and my father.”
She turned to me suddenly. “What will you do when the cold is gone?”
“Go into the mountains. I want to see what is there.”
“I told him of a dream. I told only the Ni’kwana. It was a dream of a boy. The boy walked on the mountains. He was alone, always alone.”
“What did the boy do? Where was he going?”
She shrugged. “He was in the mountains. He walked alone. He did not do anything. Oh, yes! Once he met a bear.”
“A bear?”
“A very large bear. I was afraid for the boy, but he spoke to the bear and the bear reared up on his hind legs to listen. The bear had a white streak on the side of his face, perhaps from an old wound. The bear peered at the boy who talked to him and then the bear got down on all four feet and went away.”
It was very quiet in the cave. One of the women was preparing a buckskin, rubbing bone marrow into the hide to soften it and then rubbing it with a piece of sandstone. She was very quick and skillful and I watched her work. The woman wore black moccasins. I spoke of this.
“She is a Ponca who married one of our men. She was returning from the east with her father, who had been seeking the home of his ancestors.”
“I have heard of them.”
“They are good people, a strong people.” She gestured away to the north. “Their home is there … far away.”
At Shooting Creek my father, who wished to know all, collected what information he could gather from the Indians who came to trade. He or Jeremy Ring would talk long with the old men and women about their lives and their neighbors. Several had told us of the Ponca and of their kinfolk the Omahas, Otoes, and Osages.
“Will you go home again?” she asked suddenly.
“I do not know. I do not think so. I have dreams, too, but my dreams do not come at night when I sleep. They come by day when I am alone upon a hillside or when I lie down before I sleep. I dream of what I wish to do, what I wish to be.”
“To be?”
“It is not enough to do, one must also become. I wish to be wiser, stronger, better. This—” I held out my hands, “this thing that is me is incomplete. It is only the raw material with which I have to work. I want to make it better than I received it.”
“It is a strange thought, but I like it.”
We sat without talking then until I arose and left the cave. Outside, darkness lay all about me, excepting only the dead white field of snow and the bright stars overhead. Looking about me, I shook my head. What kind of place was this? Shelter, yes, but no more than shelter. A man should have a home, a place of his own.
When I returned to the cave Keokotah was there. “He go, ver’ fast. He go south.”
“I wonder if he’ll make it?”
“He make it. He strong.” Keokotah looked up at me. “He will come back for her. Bring many mans. You see.”
“She will be gone before the first grass,” I said, shrugging.
He looked at me as if I were a child. “You think? Maybe you fool.”
Irritated, I replied. “She’s a Sun. They need her back yonder. And she wants to go back. Those are her people. That is her home.”
He gathered his blankets about him and lay back on the robes.
All through the night the silent snow sifted down, covering deep the land. Our tracks, his tracks, all tracks were gone and the snow piled deep around us.
The Natchee had returned from their hunt with only an antelope. Our meat supply was dwindling and they were not accustomed to hunting in the snow. Their eyes showed their fear, for the land and the weather were strange to them. There were no gentle forests here, no hanging moss, no bayous. These rivers were frozen hard, these forests deep with snow, and the animals were bedded down, waiting out the cold.
We had hung a buffalo hide over the cave mouth to keep the cold out and the heat in.
Building the fire to last the night, edging heavier chunks together, I lay back on my own blankets and thought of tomorrow. For the moment I was the leader here. I was the responsible one.
The snow was soft and deep. I would have to make snow-shoes. Turning on my side I stared into the fire. Outside the wind moaned, the buffalo-hide curtain stirred and a sifting of snow blew in.
Shadows moved upon the walls. Had I left those other shadows behind? Or had they come with me from the cave where I had discovered them?
If they were with me I hoped they could help round up some game. I hoped they were friendly shadows. After all, I had only paid my respects to the dead; I had not disturbed them.
Suppose an enemy came in the night? So soft was the snow there would be no sound of walking, no sound of movement. When one lies awake in the night one thinks of many things, and I thought now.
Tomorrow I must go out, and I must bring back meat. We were not suffering now, but the winter before us was long and cold.
What of that huge hairy animal of which Keokotah had spoken? The pasnuta, which looked like a hairy elephant? I smiled into the darkness. Well, if there were such a thing, I needed to meet it. It might provide enough meat to last out the winter.
Where could he have gotten such an idea?
The fire crackled, and the heavy curtain stirred in the outside wind. My eyes closed and I slept, only to dream of coming face to face in the snow with a great, awesome creature, three times the size of a buffalo, a huge, hairy beast with curling tusks and red eyes, coming toward me, coming at me—
I awakened in a cold sweat. The fire had died to coals and I lay shivering, thinking of the monster of my dream, those tiny eyes, red with fury, coming at me.
I added fuel to the fire and then laid back and shivered. Just a buffalo, or a couple of red deer. I wanted nothing more than that, for I wanted to come come back to—
My eyes flared open. To what? What did I have to come back to?
I wanted meat. I wanted a successful hunt. I turned over, trying to keep the cold from seeping under my coverings. I wanted nothing more … nothing more.
Then I slept, fearing the hairy monster would return, but he did not. Only dawn came, cold and aware. Icy cold and still.