Cheyenne Madonna. Eddie MDiv Chuculate
back and forth, friendly-like. He told the others to do the same. They did, then an arrow flew by Whiteshield’s ear and slammed into the riverbank, buried to the feather.
They whirled and galloped down to where their spare horses were tied behind a cottonwood stand. Old Bull tried it again when the Indians appeared on the rise – waving, gesturing. No weapons, see? Friendly. Red Moon and Whiteshield had their bows out but were hidden behind the network of trees. Sandman rubbed his knife, made sure it was there. Old Bull walked out further into the open, arms up. He tried to signal that they had come from the north, were trying to go that way, to the big water, and that they meant no harm. His arms were wide-open; they could have shot him through the heart. Sandman came out as well, on his horse, followed by Red Moon and Whiteshield. They flanked Old Bull, showed no weapons. Wanted peace. The Indians lowered their bows and began downhill. Old Bull said, “Come on, let’s meet them halfway.”
They were odd, very odd, Old Bull thought, unlike any other Indians he had seen. They appeared smeared in some sort of grease, their faces half clay red and half black, nipples pierced with slivers of cane. The bows they held were as tall as they were. Red Moon untied his spare horse, the palomino, and went up and offered it to what he assumed was their headman, the one Old Bull was trying to deal with. That was the icebreaker. The group began to yell and chant and retreat. The headman signaled for them to come. As they were untying their horses, Old Bull said this Great Lake had better be worth it.
All night until dawn the Indians gave a big dance for them, the craziest dance Old Bull had ever seen. The women shook rattles made out of snapping-turtle shells tied onto sticks with leather straps, and some of the men played little flutes made out of reeds. The bird-like sounds made Red Moon smile. There were drummers and chanters, some of whom blew low mournful sounds from pinkish-colored shells. Of course it all made no sense to the Cheyennes, but it seemed to make their hosts happy. The dancers contorted around a big fire, bending backward or spinning sideways, seemingly without design or purpose, sometimes leaping through the flames. Some of them wore the strangest rainbow-colored feathers and necklaces of teeth. A spark flew into a dancer’s hair, and he jumped and yelped and slapped himself on the head as he continued around the fire. The Cheyennes assumed it was part of the dance. Platters of roasted scallops, shrimp, and oysters were passed along to the guests. The headman showed them how to shuck out the meat with a wooden, spoonlike device and dab it onto sea salt that had dried out in a depression on a stone slab. Sandman didn’t believe he had ever tasted anything as fine and ate so much his stomach protruded.
That night the Indian they had seen getting water that morning came up to Sandman and signaled that it was him who had been getting a drink, and that he saw them, in the reflection of the water. Sandman told the others, and they had a big laugh while the dancing and music played on.
The next day the headman and three others drug out four canoes, and they set off down the canal. Old Bull and the headman in one canoe, and Sandman, Red Moon, and Whiteshield in the other three with their guides. At the end of the narrow stretch, where it emptied into a broad bay, they rowed to shore. Each pair carried their canoes over their heads down a well-worn path, through palmetto and sawgrass. They had to put in once more and paddle across a wide tributary. The headman untangled a limber net constructed of vine and let it unfurl alongside in the water while Old Bull paddled. When they reached the opposite shore the net held three big fish and dozens of fat long-whiskered shrimp. They pulled the boats inland and flipped them upside down. The headman motioned, over there. While their hosts set about making a fire and gutting the fish, the Cheyennes hacked through some more sugarcane into an open clearing and there spread before them was a startling expanse of blinding blue and white, roar of surf, glimmer of sand. Old Bull showed no expression, but his heart leaped.
They walked together along the beach, saw gulls whirl and dip. Sandman picked up and blew loudly through a shell he had found. Almost immediately one of the Indians came trotting out of the thicket to investigate, then retreated. Old Bull walked to the edge of the water. He liked the way the little stick-legged shorebirds followed the water as it rushed out to sea, then tiptoed madly back in front of it as the surf came in again. “That’s how you run,” he joked to Whiteshield.
Sandman threw down the shell, stripped his leggings, and sprinted into the ocean, screaming and scattering birds. He ran until he was up to his chest, then dove into the next incoming wave. He surfaced, swinging the hair from his face. He spat out a mouthful of water. “Salty!” he yelled. They all laughed. It was true, Old Bull thought, water as far as the eye could see. Absolute end of the earth.
The sun was sinking, a fat globe that laid down a watery orange stairway. The Johnson and sawgrass cuts stung when Old Bull entered the water, but he figured it was good for them. He tasted the water first on his palm then took a small drink. A little salt is good for you, he thought. It was warm near shore but grew cooler further out and was shockingly cold when he swam underneath and touched the sandy bottom. Surfacing, he saw Sandman showing Red Moon and Whiteshield a trick. When a wave curled in, creamy and white, Sandman would somehow float on his back and let the wave carry him closer to shore. They were all yelling and having a good time. Old Bull bobbed in the water, thinking. He wondered from what direction the white men had come and how many more would come. How big were their countries, and how far away? On what type of boats would they come over? How many days did it take? He carefully scanned the horizon for boats but saw none, blinded momentarily by a crescent of sun.
They ate boiled shrimp and roasted snapper and spent the night out on the sand around a fire on grass mats, which their hosts hastily arranged. Sandman braided his hair, looking into his little mirror occasionally. The Indians were fascinated by it, taking turns looking at themselves, but Sandman wasn’t about to give it up. In the morning the sky was mottled purple, and strong winds had created a rough, roiling surf. They all took wake-up dips and set off. At the camp, a crowd had gathered around two boys who had shot a big fish. Old Bull had never seen anything like the creature. With slick, leathery skin instead of scales, the fish was taller than either of the boys. An arrow protruded through the fish’s back and out the stomach. Its eyes were wide open, and one of the boys knelt down and pulled its jaws apart. “It’s got teeth like a bear!” Red Moon shouted.
Old Bull thought that it looked fierce, with its slanted eyes and rows of curving teeth. One of the boys signaled that the fish normally lives in the big water, but came up through the canal and got trapped, and they could see its fin poking above the shallow water, so they shot it. Old Bull told the headman that he and his friends would be leaving today, it would take seven days, they appreciated everything, they would be brothers.
Old Bull went to his horse and got a heavy knife with a sparkling beaded handle and gave it to the headman, and the headman took off the shark-tooth necklace he was wearing and gave it to Old Bull. The headman pointed at his mouth, then at the fish the boys were dragging off to the canal to clean. Soon, the dancing and singing began again, and the children rode the palomino around the periphery of the camp. “If we don’t leave now,” Old Bull said to Red Moon, “we’ll never get out of here. They’ll dance all night.”
They were dancing and singing even as the party rode off, four abreast, spare horses trailing. The headman and a few others stood on the top of a small hill and watched them, raising their hands once in farewell.
After a while, the sound of the Indians’ drums faded and blended with far-off thunder. Southerly winds picked up and brought gentle rain that wiped away the pressing humidity and ushered in cool air. Fat drops peppered Old Bull’s back. Flocks of honking geese went over, fleeing north in staggered V-formations. Looking behind them, Red Moon said it looked like storms, but that they’d probably blow over in an hour.
They found shelter under a thick cypress grove. Whiteshield passed around dried buffalo, delicious after their recent seafood diet. After an hour, though, the rain had intensified, and the treetops were bending north from a steady gale. They were all getting soaked. There was nothing to do but wait. Old Bull had weathered many storms before, but this one only grew stronger. It was dark, and they circled their horses and huddled between them. Blue lightning illuminated the horses briefly; their heads were lowered and eyes shut, as if to sleep through it all. The horizontal rain, the spooky howl of the wind, reminded Old Bull of a tornado he had experienced