Blood on the Republican by Jeff O'Donnell

Author:Jeff O'Donnell
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781590774038
Publisher: M. Evans & Company

Chapter Seven

Tall Bull sat alone on the hilltop. He sat in the vision pit, a hole dug into the hill, arms hugging his knees as he watched Standing Elk, the medicine man disappear down the slope. Soon he was gone.

This was not the first time he had sought a vision, a voice from Heammawihio, the Wise One. Many years ago, when he was sixteen winters and still had his boy’s name, he had sat in a pit much like this one. He sat there for four days and nights shivering with cold and fright, the nearest human being many miles away. When it was all over he had come out no longer a boy, but a man. He was given the man’s name Tall Bull because in his vision, a buffalo standing over ten foot tall appeared running across the sky. The old ones said he would be a great warrior, someone his enemies would fear, just like the buffalo.

Now here he was thirty summers later, seeking a vision he hoped would show a great victory for his people over the white man. He snuggled up the hanblechia around his naked shoulders, the warmth of the blanket given to him by his grandmother years ago comforting him. It was beautifully designed blanket, white with a large morning star made of brightly colored threads. The star was so big it covered most of the blanket.

A peace pipe and small bag of kinnikinnick, tobacco made of red willow bark, lay by his legs. The smoke from the peace pipe, he thought, would go straight up into the spirit world and power would flow down from the spirit world. It was made out of smooth red pipestone, red like his body and the color of his people. The pipe had belonged to his father and to his father before him. He fingered the pipe, touched it, feeling the smoothness that came from long use. He knew his forefathers, who had once smoked the pipe were with him on the hill, right in the vision pit, and he was not afraid.

Besides the pipe the medicine man had given him a gourd. In it were ten small squares of flesh which he had cut from Tall Bull’ s arm that afternoon. His arm was still red and raw from the cuts, but it was necessary to do if he was to have a vision.

He thought to himself. What if he failed? Or if he dreamed of the Thunder Beings, or lightning struck the hill? What if he failed to have the vision? He could not fail his people. It would be a great disgrace.

Night was approaching. Lightheaded and dizzy from the sweat bath in which he purified himself before going to the hill, he tried to sleep.

He remembered the sweat bath, the little beehive-shaped hut made of bent willow branches and covered with blankets to keep the heat in. Standing Elk and the other medicine men had been there with him. He remembered edging away from the red-hot rocks glowing in the center of the lodge.

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