She stood near him, her head lowered. “Your fire will need tending,” she said.
Running Horse tenderly took the blanket from his own shoulders and holding it about himself, opened it to the girl, and she stepped against him, and put her head to his shoulder, and he folded the blanket about her.
“One blanket,” he said.
“Yes,” said the girl, “one blanket.”
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 for an instant, and then he looked again, for a long time, into the blood, as though there must be no mistake in the sign he read.
“What do you see?” demanded Kicking Bear.
But Drum did not respond to him. It seemed he could not tear his eyes from the small image in the red mirror, that small image, red and terrible staring up at him from the secret of the badger’s blood.
“What do you see?” repeated Kicking Bear.
Drum, at last, lifted his head, and looked at both of the men, at Kicking Bear, prophet of the Ghost Dance, and at Running Horse, like himself a brave of the Hunkpapa.
“I will die as the son of Kills-His-Horse,” said Drum.
Once more Kicking Bear grunted, but this time his response was not of satisfaction, nor of fear, nor of commiseration, rather a noise that betokened only the acknowledgement of Drum’s words, and that he had not been surprised.
Drum was shaken, but he did not seem frightened. He sat back, cross-legged, breathed deeply.
“The medicine has been made,” said Kicking Bear. “It is over.”
Kicking Bear slowly poured the blood from the badger out onto the ground and with his hands and fingernails scooped a small hole in the scarlet mud, into which he placed the organs and viscera of the animal. Then he scooped dirt over the place and put some stones on it. The carcass of the animal itself he thrust in his belt.
Running Horse hesitantly put forth his hand and touched Drum’s arm.
Drum looked into his eyes.
“I will not forget again,” said Drum, “that we are both of the Hunkpapa.”
“I am glad,” said Running Horse.
Kicking Bear now stood up, his blanket wrapped about his waist, and raised his arms to the east, where the rim of the sun now burned over the prairie.
“Wakan-Tonka!” cried Kicking Bear. “Drum, the son of Kills-His-Horse, has made medicine. His death will be the death of a brave of the Hunkpapa. Until his death he will be strong, fortunate and victorious! There will be no medicine that can prevail against him!”
Kicking Bear lowered his arms and turned to Drum. “Let your heart be strong,” he said. “You cannot escape death, so live without fear.”
Drum rose to his feet, and Running Horse, too, got up.
Kicking Bear came to Drum and placed his hands on his shoulders. “What is there now to fear?” asked Kicking Bear.
Drum looked at him for a long time. Then he said, slowly, forming the words carefully, “Nothing. There is nothing left to fear.”
“The fearing is done,” said Kicking Bear. “It is finished!”
“Yes,” said Drum, slowly, “it is finished.” He looked at Running Horse. “I feel strong,” he said. “Strong.”
“I am glad,” said Running Horse.
Drum did not take his eyes from Running Horse. “So you will grow old, Little Warrior?” he said. “And you will have children and grandchildren?”
Running Horse looked down.
“Tell them of Drum,” said the young Indian.
A dog began to bark in the distance, down in the camp of Sitting Bull.
“Look!” cried Kicking Bear, pointing to the camp.