Old Bear turned to him. “Do you understand these things?”
“I think so,” said Chance.
“All men die,” said Old Bear, “but few men die with the feather of an eagle in their hair.”
Chance nodded. “I understand.”
Old Bear pointed to Drum. “He is young,” he said, “but he is such a man.”
“Yes,” said Chance. “He is such a man.”
Old Bear turned to Drum. “It would be better to let this man go.”
“I will not,” said Drum.
“Then you must fight,” said Old Bear.
A look of pleasure suffused Drum’s face. “Yes,” he said.
The two braves flanking Chance grunted their approval.
“It is sad,” said Old Bear, “that two of the Hunkpapa must fight.”
“He is a white man,” said Drum.
“He is the brother of Running Horse,” said old Bear.
“He does not even have a name,” said Drum.
Chance puzzled about that, for a moment, and then understood.
Old Bear was looking at him steadily. Then Old Bear looked at Drum and the two braves. “He killed two braves, and hurt one other,” he said.
“Yes,” said Drum.
“He has strong medicine,” said Old Bear. “The medicine of two peoples.”
“My medicine is stronger,” said Drum.
“And he is a warrior,” said Old Bear.
“I am a greater warrior,” said Drum.
“His name,” said Old Bear, “is Medicine Gun.” The old man pointed his finger at Chance. “Medicine Gun!”
And it was as simple as this that Chance received the name by which he would be known from that day forward among the Hunkpapa, with the exception of Joseph Running Horse, who always spoke of him as “My Brother.”
Without looking at Drum or the braves, Old Bear turned his pony back toward the Grand River settlement, and Chance followed him, and Drum, and the two braves.
As Chance rode with the Indians back to the settlement on the river he told himself how mad this was. He had run from Grawson-from the law-had not stood and fought, and now he must fight-for no reason that he understood-and kill or die.
There had been another duel, long ago, but with clean silken shirts, red sashes, seconds, a doctor in attendance, a measured set of rules to which gentlemen might be expected to adhere.
This time his opponent would be a young Indian man, swift, half-naked, fighting before his people, following what rituals or traditions Chance couldn’t guess, and whose honor would not be satisfied with a wound, or a touch, but only by death and Chance’s hair at his belt.
Chance wondered what the weapons would be.
They had seen him use his pistol.
Knives, Chance guessed, knives.
Behind the cabin of Sitting Bull there was a council fire, and about the fire, sitting in circles, were the hunched figures of Indian men, wrapped in blankets, some of them smoking.
Outside the rings of seated men there stood squaws and children.
Beyond them, when he came around the corner of Sitting Bull’s cabin, accompanied by the chief himself, the subchief Old Bear, and Running Horse, his brother, Chance saw, vaguely in the darkness, the shadows of several ponies, picketed, at hand.
There had been tales of soldiers coming to the camp, to stop the Ghost Dancing, to capture Sitting Bull and return him to the stone houses of the days after the death of Long Hair.
Here and there, in the flickering light, Chance could see loaded travois, lodge skins and provisions bundled across the poles.
Chance sensed that many of the men seated about the fire carried their medicine bags tied to their belts.
Chance could see that some of them had rifles under their blankets.
At the fire itself Kicking Bear stood, and behind him Drum, and the two braves.
“I will fight for you,” said Running Horse.
“No,” said Chance.
“Drum is very fast,” said Running Horse.
Chance had little doubt of it. “Thanks,” he said.
“You must be very fast,” said Running Horse.
Chance didn’t quite follow why Running Horse was saying this. They both knew that Drum was dangerous, and that he would move swiftly. “All right,” he said, “I’ll try.”
Chance did not feel, and was grateful, that there was particular hostility towards him in the camp, in spite of the fact that he was white, and that the women, as he had learned, had returned from the ration point empty-handed.
He had helped many of these same Indians in his stay in the camp.
And they knew that in some strange way he, too, was a stranger to the white world outside the boundaries of the reservation.
The Indians were bitter this night, but not towards him.