“Paisano! No!”
Many times I had yelled, but this time he seemed to hear me and he stopped, lowering his great head. Blood dripping in great, slow drops, he watched for his enemy to move. Now, no more than twenty feet from the mammoth, I could see the cause of its fury, its vicious attack.
It had been hurt. There was an arrow imbedded in its shoulder, and a great festering wound was there.
“Paisano. It is all right. Come now.”
He would not move. Head lowered, he watched the mammoth, ready for it to rise.
Walking over I put a hand on his shoulder. “It is all right now, Paisano. It is finished. Come!”
Slowly, reluctantly, he turned and followed. Once he stopped and looked back, head up, peering. The mammoth lay where it had fallen, head up, but whether alive or dead I did not know.
As we sighted our camp a man was coming from it with a spear in his hand. I dropped my hand to the pistol, but he lifted a hand and called out.
It was Unstwita.
“You came back!”
“I say I come. I come.”
“Alone?”
“Four other come. They come to walk behind Daughter of the Sun. To guard.”
Five more, and that made eight fighting men. Five more to feed, but five more to hunt.
With water from the creek I bathed the long gash on Paisano’s side. It was not deep. A nostril was torn. He had come from his fight in good shape. Rubbing his ears, I talked to him, softly. He rubbed his head against me.
Unstwita walked over to see the mammoth. The huge hairy monster had died where he had fallen, his head up, braced by his tusks.
He was huge, but old. Had he been alone, or were there others like him close-by? I had seen no tracks. Perhaps he had been migrating, searching for others of his kind. There was compassion in me for the great beast. How must it feel to be alone, with no others of your kind anywhere?
Perhaps there were others, but they were being hunted out of existence. Each had too much meat to offer, and the Indians had learned how to kill them. Someday I would tell the story of this monster, but who would believe me? It had coarse, shaggy hair as Keokotah had said, and which I had not believed. He was a fugitive, probably, from some much colder place.
Komi was beside the fire. She held out a cup of the coffee, which had not quite bubbled away. “Drink,” she said, and I drank.
We stood together and looked up at the mountains that towered above us. Someday soon I would go up there. I had a feeling something waited for me, something I must find. There were caves up there, perhaps more than were known.
Long ago a voice in a cave had seemed to say, “Find them!” And something within me said that what I was to find was here, close-by.
My arm went about the waist of Itchakomi Ishaia. Perhaps this was what I was to find. Whether or no, I was content.
“Do you remember,” I asked, “long ago when you told me of a dream you had? Of a boy who spoke to a bear? A bear with a splash of white on his face?”
“I remember.”
“I was that boy.”
“I know,” she said.
The aspen leaves made a slow dance in the sunlight. A brief wind stirred the ashes of our fire.
“It grows late,” Unstwita said. “We must go.”
We stood, waiting a little, reluctant to leave. Unstwita said, “The Ponca woman has found your yellow earth. She will show you.”
“Tomorrow we will come back for the tusks,” I told Unstwita.
Now there were shadows in the valley, but sunlight on the mountain. My eyes followed a dim trail upward into the peaks where lay the secret lakes, the caves I must explore, and what else?
“Find them!” The voice had said.
Were “they” up there now, waiting?
Between Itchakomi and Paisano, I started walking back. Unstwita lingered, drinking the last of the coffee.