John Norman by Ghost Dance

Author:Ghost Dance
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-06-25T20:29:19+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

It was December 15, 1890.

On Medicine Ridge, above the camp of Sitting Bull on the Grand River, Drum and Running Horse met. It wasn’t long before dawn. Exchanging no sign of greeting or recognition, they sat facing one another, saying nothing.

Between them lay two golden chevrons, which Winona had torn yesterday afternoon from the sleeve of Corporal Jake Totter.

Drum, with his teeth and fingers, carefully, losing not even a raveling, separated the chevrons. He gave one to Running Horse and kept one for himself. Both of the young men put a chevron in their medicine bags.

Kicking Bear now made his way slowly up the side of Medicine Ridge. He was wrapped in his blanket and hunched against the cold. It was barely light in the east now.

The medicine man squatted beside the two young men and drew a small, dead animal from under his blanket. It was a badger, that had been caught in a string noose. It was still warm.

Kicking Bear took out his knife and slit open the animal’s belly. With an oval cut, not removing the knife from the animal, he loosened most of its organs and intestines from the furred skin, and then, wiping his knife on his leggings and putting it back in his belt, he took his hands and scooped out the organs and viscera.

The now-hollowed cup of the badger’s skin slowly filled with blood, the level rising in the cavity. Kicking Bear then took the heart and liver and kidneys of the animal and squeezed them between his hands, adding what blood and fluids they contained to the cup of fur.

The first clean streak of dawn made the cold prairie glisten like the blade of a steel knife.

The young men watched Kicking Bear, who was intent on the blood in the animal’s hollowed belly. He would not look on the blood directly, but only from the side. This medicine he made for others, not for himself.

The death smell of the badger was keen in the nostrils of the two, silent young men. They must wait to see if the badger would speak to them.

Kicking Bear had told them he knew how to do this thing, and he had prayed, and he had had no difficulty in snaring an animal. The signs were good. The badger had come promptly to the snare. Both Drum and Running Horse were grateful to the badger.

“He is ready,” said Kicking Bear.

Running Horse went to the badger and looked deeply into the shallow cup of blood.

He looked for a long time at his face, mirrored in the blood. His reflection stared up at him, and it seemed to Running Horse that it was gray and solemn.

Running Horse straightened and looked at Kicking Bear and Drum. “I have seen myself old,” he said.

Kicking Bear grunted with satisfaction.

Drum looked into the bowl of blood, into that tiny mirror, seeking for his image, and suddenly he had found it and his face jerked at what he saw and his lip trembled

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