When Kicking Bird departed, taking the staunchest advocates for peace with him, Wind In His Hair's war agenda, having nothing to blunt it, became the single topic of discussion in Ten Bears, village. As always there was debate, but the open, free-flowing talk of war with the whites seemed to invigorate everyone's spirits.
Talk alone, however, was not enough to pull people out of the stagnancy they had become accustomed to. A spark of ignition — some sign or event that would set off the frenzy necessary to take the war trail — was missing. There was nothing inside a village laden with grief to provide combustion, and the likeliest possibility for such impetus lay to the north. That was where White Bear would be coming from. But a week after Kicking Bird had gone, there was still no sign of them and war talk began to flag.
Wind In His Hair grew more and more frustrated. Though most warriors agreed that a war must be made, the majority had assiduously avoided the kind of blazing commitment that would galvanize the village, and seeing that his zeal alone would not be sufficient to move men out of their lodges, Wind In His Hair curtailed his advocacy of war. If he kept on and the talk did not boil into action, the idea of war would never amount to anything more and his standing would plummet.
The great warrior seemed to become more sullen with each day the Kiowa did not turn up. His conversations were curt and acerbic, and instead of spending his evenings calling on fellow warriors, he withdrew to his lodge. There he chewed bitterly on his fading prospects, wondering if the Mystery was abandoning the Comanche. It had been almost a moon since he had sent his runners north, and Wind In His Hair began to think that if he had stayed in the becalmed camp much longer his smoldering frustration might catch fire and consume him.
On a day when his restlessness was near the breaking point a runner appeared with the exciting news that the Kiowa were coming. A powerful line of horsemen from the north were sighted that afternoon, and an hour later the Comanche band that had suffered so terribly was in a delirium as nearly eighty solemn Kiowa fighters, led by the formidable White Bear, entered the village.
The heavily armed warriors were painted, many of them from head to toe, in the brilliant reds and blacks of war. Their ponies were decorated with symbols of hail and lightning and, as Ten Bears' people swarmed around the procession that snaked its way through the village, the Kiowa maintained the bellicose expressions of men determined to meet and vanquish any enemy.
For the remainder of that day and long into the night, fear and doubt were suspended as the village recalled the unchallenged supremacy they had enjoyed for generations. A huge group of women and children, carrying all that was needed for a temporary camp, had traveled in the van of the great procession, and a large Kiowa camp was erected adjacent to that of Ten Bears'.
Feasting and visiting were conducted almost as an afterthought as the combined camps exulted in a feverish daydream of a war against the whites that would bring honor to individuals and retribution for a whole people — a blow delivered straight to the heart that would send the enemy reeling, wounding him so vitally that all thought of further incursion would be forgotten.
Women worked with revitalized spirit as they made sure their men would lack nothing when they went into battle. Gangs of children staged mock battles all over the outlying prairie, and cells of warriors met constantly to trumpet their worthiness and compare strategic experience in fighting whites.
Toward twilight, women and children put finishing touches on the huge fire that would blaze in the center of the village while the war party's leaders, Wind In His Hair, White Bear, and a dozen others including Dances With Wolves, paid a visit to Owl Prophet.
The prophet handed out pinches of mole dirt to each man, instructing them to sprinkle the grains of freshly excavated earth over the withers of their ponies before engaging the enemy. Then he had them wait outside his lodge while he consulted with the Mystery.
Silhouettes of owl and man glowed behind the skin of the medicine man's tent and a long, indecipherable conversation commenced. Though they understood nothing, the warriors hung on every word until at last, in a cacophony of unearthly screeching, the outlines of man and bird fell out of view.
A few moments later, Owl Prophet emerged to give a short, exhausted account that told the warriors what had transpired.
"You will meet two forces of white men. The first you must let pass. Attack only the second. Attack the first and disaster will befall you. Attack the second and you will kill many whites. Attack the second and you shall have victory."
A chorus of unruly cheers erupted and, as Owl Prophet stumbled back into his lodge, the excited leaders hurried back to their homes to prepare for the great dance of bravado that was to begin shortly.
As darkness fell, the populace watched Ten Bears pause in silent prayer before applying a glowing faggot to the tinder at the edge of the great fire. At the same moment, as flames licked upward and sparks spewed into the blackness of the night sky, four Kiowa musicians sitting cross-legged around a drum began to beat out an ominous cadence that reverberated through the village like approaching thunder. The deliberate cadence grew stronger and stronger, its insistent pulse gradually insinuating itself into the bloodstreams of the waiting warriors.
Hears The Sunrise and a young Kiowa named Trotting Wolf, unable to resist the power of the drum, entered the empty circle first. The men alternated from one leg to another, lifting and dropping their feet in perfect unison with each ringing vibration of the echoing drum.
Many other warriors stepped methodically into the circle and it was soon crowded with dancers moving as one body to the irresistible, repetitive beat.
Imperceptibly, the rhythm picked up speed, gradually animating the dancers and driving some of them to utter spontaneous cries which seemed to spill not from their mouths but from hidden recesses of their viscera.
At a signal not so much seen as felt, the Kiowa drummers suddenly ceased and a waiting Comanche cadre took over, the new arms and hands and hearts seamlessly lifting the concussive rhapsody to new heights. Several drum groups had assembled and as one flowed into another, the furious climax of the last was carried to new heights by the next.
The dancers followed as the drummers led them unerringly toward a sublime oblivion where no pretense is brooked in the abandonment of self. Warriors transformed themselves into namesake animals. They unsheathed their knives and raised their lances and strung their bows and stalked the enemy. Always in time to the drum, they lifted war clubs and smote the enemy. They slashed and scalped and pierced him over and over and over with the points of their spears. All the while their battle cries grew louder and sharper as each warrior played out his destiny in what was more a dress rehearsal for war than a dance.
At unscripted intervals the drums would suddenly fall back to the single grave beat that had marked the beginning. Then the cycle was repeated, again and again.
After several hours, a few warriors began to withdraw. Others collapsed and were dragged, senseless, from the circle by their relatives. The majority danced on, stretching the limits of their stamina to unknown realms, surrendering every measure of energy they possessed in hope of achieving an unconquerable purity of purpose.
The stars were beginning to fade when the outpouring reached its climax. Comanche and Kiowa drummers, ignorant of fatigue, had mingled, feeding off the competitive power in limbs whose muscles were driven by indomitable will. Guided by like forces, the dancers had become a turbulent sea of gyrating bodies whose voices ruled the night with a tumult of howls and moans and cries and shrieks flying heavenward in a single, thunderous, rolling roar.
High-pitched trills of encouragement from the swaying women massed in a huge circle around the warriors joined the gigantic eruption of sound and motion that fused each heart and mind, creating a force free of earthbound constraints, a force straining with all its spiritual might to coalesce with the supreme power of creation.