“And if the new ways are unlucky,” exclaimed Red Hawk, “why do the tribes that follow them flourish so mightily? Shall they take everything, and we pick the carrion bones?”
Running Wolf frowned at his follower and beckoned for silence. Deathless sighed. His response was almost gentle: “I foreknew you would speak like this. Therefore I sought you out where nobody else can hear. It is hard for a man to admit he has been wrong. Together we shall find how you can set things right and still keep your pride. Come with me to the medicine lodge, and we will seek a vision.”
Running Wolf straightened, sheer against the sky. “Vision?” he cried. “I have had mine, old man, under the high stars after a day when we raced with the wind. I saw riches overflowing, deeds men will remember longer than you yourself have lived and will live, glory, wonder. New gods are in the land, fiery from the hands of the Creator, and— they ride on horses whose hoofs drum thunder and strike forth lightning. It is for you to make peace with them!”
Deathless lifted his wand and shook his rattle. Unease crossed faces. The mounts felt it and snorted, shied, stamped.
“I meant no offense, great one,” Running Wolf said quickly. “You wish us to talk free of fear and boasting alike, no? Well, if I got too loud, I’m sorry,” He tossed his head. “Nevertheless, the dream did come to me. I have told my comrades, and they believe.”
The magical things sank earthward in the shaman’s grasp. He stood for a little while unmoving, dark amidst the sunlight and grass, before he said low, “We must talk further and try to learn the meaning of what has happened.”
“Indeed we must.” Relief made Running Wolf’s tone kindly. “Tomorrow. Come, great one, let me lend you this, my prize stallion, and I will walk while you ride into the village, and you will bless us there as you have always blessed the returning hunters.”
“No.” Deathless went from them.
They sat mute, troubled, until Running Wolf laughed. He sounded like his namesake in wooded eastern country. “The joy among our people will be blessing enough,” he said. “And ah, for us the women, hotter than their fires!”
Most of them had to force an echo of his mirth. However, the act heartened them. He at the forefront, they struck heels to flanks and pounded whooping ahead. When they passed the shaman, they never glanced his way.
Upon his own entry, he found tumult. Folk seethed about the party, shouted, capered, exulted. Dogs clamored. The abundance was more than meat. It was fat, bone, horn, gut, sinew, all they needed to make nearly all they wanted. And this was the barest beginning. The hides would become coverings for tipis—those that were not traded eastward for poles—and then whole families could range as fax and as long as they wished, hunt, butcher, tan, preserve on the spot, before going on to the next kill and the next…
“Not overnight,” Running Wolf cautioned. Though he spoke weightily, his voice carried through the racket. “We have few horses yet. And first we must care for these that have served us.” Victory rang: “But we shall soon have more. Every man of us shall have his herd.”
Somebody howled, somebody else did likewise, and then the tribe was howling—his sign, his name, his leadership to be.
Deathless went around them. Few noticed him. Those looked away, abashed, before throwing themselves the more wildly back into jubilance.
The wives and youngest children of Deathless stood fast outside his house. There they could not see the crowd, but the cheers broke across them. Quail Wing’s gaze kept drifting yonder, wistfully. She was hardly more than a girl. He halted, confronted them. Lips parted but nobody had words.
“You were good to wait here,” he said at length. “Now you may as well go join the rest, help cook the food, share in the feast.”
“And you?” asked Rain At Evening low.
“I have not forbidden it,” he said bitterly. “How could I?”
“You counselled against the horses, you counselled against the hunt,” quavered Copperbright. “What madness is in them, that they no longer heed you?”