“I am going to seek a vision,” he said. “I must dance.”
“Not you,” said Lucia, “not the Ghost Dance.”
“No,” said Running Horse, “not the Ghost Dance.”
Lucia looked puzzled.
“An old dance,” said Joseph Running Horse, “a dance they do not dance any longer.”
Lucia stood in the doorway of the school, not understanding Joseph Running Horse, who no longer seemed a boy to her.
“I must learn the truth,” said Joseph Running Horse.
“What truth?” asked Lucia.
“About the buffalo, about the Hunkpapa-about Joseph Running Horse,” he said.
Lucia said nothing.
“I will dance,” said Joseph Running Horse, “until I know the truth.”
Then he was gone.
Lucia stepped from the school, and called after him, but only the wind answered her.
The door of the school banged shut behind her, caught in the rising Dakota wind, and she jumped.
I’m behaving like a little girl, she thought. And how abominably I acted in the schoolroom. I shall not allow myself to be frightened again. That rude Mr. Drum must be reported to the agent.
Then she cried out with fear. “Joseph!” she cried. “Joseph, come back!”
But Joseph Running Horse had disappeared, and Lucia was alone, and the wind suddenly seemed not only swift, but cold, very cold.
Winter, she thought.
“Joseph,” she called again.
But again only the wind responded.
I will dance, he had said, until I know the truth.
I will not stay another winter, said Lucia to herself, I will leave now.
Calmly she re-entered the school, arranged the benches in proper order, took the heavy metal key from the desk, and closed the desk, making sure each of the drawers was shut.
She left the school, and turned the key in the lock, and dropped it into the pocket of her dress.
She picked up Joseph Running Horse’s hat from the dust where he had dropped it.
She dusted off the hat and placed it on the small bench near the door of the school.
She saw the broomstick that she had carried that morning, to sweep the grass for rattlers.
She turned and looked out over the bleak prairie, over the brown grass bending under the huge, gray sky, and looked toward the Grand River, and listened for a long time to the desolate, persistent wind.
Then not fully understanding why Lucia Turner turned and began to run, her broomstick leaning forgotten against the wall of the school, began to run stumbling and falling under the windy, gray sky of Standing Rock toward the soddy, afraid, more afraid than she had ever been in her life.
Corporal Jake Totter was goddam mad.
He leaned on the bar in the one saloon in Good Promise, South Dakota, his heavy face in his stubby fingered hands, and glared into the bottom of the small, heavy glass that sat before him.
He cheated me, said Totter to himself. He had to of.
The squat glass, the inch of muddy amber fluid, the puddled rings on the mahogany bar from Chicago, all blurred and snapped back into focus with a fierce snort and shake of Totters yellow-haired, close-cropped head.
His heavy fist, yellow hairs bristling from the vague, freckled patches, closed on the small glass, hiding it, and he chucked down the last of the drink, bourbon from the bottle’s label, though what-in-hell it might really be he hadn’t figured out, and didn’t much care, not any more.
Totter squinted over the bar into the mirror across from him, studying his image over and among the bottles stacked against the glass. He was pretty much satisfied with what he saw. Not perfect, of course, but pretty damn good.
Totter’s blunt, heavy nose had once been broken to the left and never set. His face as a whole was squarish and freckled. The eyes were gray and narrow, the mouth big and loose. Two of his tobacco-stained teeth were missing on the left side of his face. That from the same barrack-room fight that had broken his nose, and cost him his sergeant’s stripes, for the third time.
Not perfect, Totter admitted, but pretty damn good. And nobody could deny he had a way with women. Nancy upstairs had admitted that.
It wasn’t right that a man like him should be done wrong to.
Goddam Southerner, he was, thought Totter.
Should’ve beat the hell outa him.
Will beat the hell outa him, thought Totter, the living tar.
Totter wiped his mouth with his sleeve, the blue of the army jacket scratching across the unshaven face, and turned to put his back to the bar, and look to the third table to his left, about ten yards from where he stood.
He cheated me, said Totter to himself.
He had to of, he thought.
The bland, nondescript gentleman in his wide-brimmed hat, string tie and white suit, sitting at the table, dealing the cards, happened to look up about the time Totter turned to face him. The gentleman’s noncommittal, smooth face read the signs aright, perhaps from long experience of such matters.
Payday, said Totter to himself, already broke, cheated me, had to of.
The gentleman signaled the bartender expertly, and Totter heard liquid sloshing into his glass behind him.
Totter wavered at the bar, and took one step toward the table, and stopped, and shook his head, and unbuttoned his holster, and took another step, and then turned back to the bar to seize the glass again.
I’ll beat the living tar outa him, said Totter to himself, the living tar.