“They will laugh at us if they see you do that,” he said. Then he added, bitterly, “You show your love where people can see. You must have pride. You are too much like a white woman.”
Tears crowded Winona’s dark eyes, and she dropped her head before this rebuke.
Drum contemptuously fingered the calico of her blue dress.
“Like a white woman,” he said, scornfully.
Winona trembled. “I have very little,” she said.
“Why should I bring horses for such a woman?” asked Drum. “I, the son of Kills-His-Horse?”
Winona could not answer his question, nor did she dare to try. It was incomprehensible to her that a brave such as Drum, the son of the great Kills-His-Horse, might want her. Often enough had her father lamented her lack of flesh, the want of skills that a woman should know, her diligence with the words and ways of the white man.
“I am unworthy of Drum, the son of Kills-His-Horse,” she said.
“I will come for you,” said Drum, “when I have made my honor strong.”
Winona flushed with happiness.
Lifting her eyes to his, unconsciously her arms, the fists closed, crossed themselves over her breast, as might have a woman’s who kept a man’s lodge in greeting him as he returned from the hunt or war.
This time Drum did not scowl.
“Good,” he said.
“What must you do to make your honor strong?” asked Winona.
“Shame Running Horse;” said Drum.
“But how?” asked the girl, the blue calico blowing about her ankles.
“I will wait,” said Drum, “and when the white man who is the friend of Running Horse leaves the Hunkpapa, I will kill him.”
Winona was startled.
“He has watched the Ghost Dance,” said Drum, “and I said that I would kill him.”
“He is not important,” said Winona.
“Drum, the son of Kills-His-Horse, has said that he will kill him,” said Drum, “and Drum, the son of Kills-His-Horse, does not lie.”
Winona shook her head. “Let him go,” she said. “He is not worthy to count coup upon.”
Drum seemed to consider this for a moment. Then he said, “Then I shall not count coup on him, but shall only kill him.”
“Let him go,” said Winona.
“Do you care for Running Horse?” asked Drum, sharply.
“No,” said Winona.
“When you see the scalp of the white man hanging from the poles of my lodge,” said Drum, “you will know that my honor is strong again.”
Winona looked away.
In her thinking there was little of the old way that was not dead. She did not like the white men nor the reservation but she knew, though only a woman, more of the meaning of guns and numbers and supplies than he, a warrior, who thought with his bravery and his medicine to turn the bullets of foes and would think nothing of pitting himself, his rifle and a paint pony against whatever odds he might find arrayed against him.
Drum was not wise, thought Winona to herself, but he was brave, and in her eyes he was beautiful.
For herself Winona did not want killing, for there had been enough of that and in the end she knew it would be the Indians, her people, who would suffer most, for this was the true, undeniable meaning of the arithmetic of guns and horse and soldiers and wagons of ammunition-and too she did not want the white woman who taught in the school to die, for the woman had been kind to her, nor did she want the strange white man with Joseph Running Horse to die, for he had done nothing to hurt her or her people, and he was the friend of Joseph Running Horse, who was of the Hunkpapa, and had once drawn a circle on a blackboard which had enclosed his name with hers.
But she knew that Drum would do as he wanted, for he always did.
The thought crossed her mind that she might be able to save the white man, if she could warn him, and he could run away before Drum came to kill him.
But Drum must never find out.
“I must go,” said Drum.
Awkwardly it seemed that he would reach out to touch her arm, but he did not do so, but turned and saying nothing more left Winona standing outside the cabin.
How fine is Drum, she thought, and how fortunate am I that he would think of bringing horses to the lodge of my father.
She could hear the Ghost Dance, the stamping of the feet, the rise and fall of the wailing chant.
But Joseph Running Horse, she thought to herself, he has danced the Sun Dance.
He has not ridden his pony in the high grass and painted his face. He has not stolen horses nor taken a scalp, nor counted coup nor burned the lodges of his enemies, nor fed their women bound behind his pony, but he has done more than all these things-more than all-he has been alone, and he has danced the Sun Dance.
Kicking Bear gingerly fished a piece of beef from the kettle with his left hand and began, his head thrown back, to feed it into his mouth.
Chance, with his knife, pinned a piece of beef to the bottom of the kettle and then pulled it out.
Sitting Bull, having satisfied himself, was smoking his pipe.
Running Horse, who had eaten rapidly and heavily, sat to one side. He did not speak much, as befitted a young man in the presence of older men.
In another part of the room Sitting Bull’s wives and children ate from another kettle, one long since removed from the fire.
The kettle before Chance rested on a platform of rocks, and bubbled over a small fire, set in a hole in the middle of the dirt floor. Chance’s eyes stung from the smoke. Not enough smoke, from Chance’s point of view, found its way out the smoke hole in the roof.
Chance looked at Kicking Bear.
“I would like to learn about the Ghost Dance,” said Chance to Kicking Bear.
Kicking Bear dropped the last of the beef down his throat and swallowed it.