THE MEDICINE-MAKING
When Lone Chief arrived that evening, an hour after sundown, Sitting-Always was worse. In spite of that, her spirit was not sufficiently broken to be pleased that Lone Chief should attend her. However, as Little Fish had refused to come, and Lone Chief was too great a person to offend, she had to disguise her dislike and fear of the medicine-man as well as she could.
The tepee was so crowded with people that any one not acquainted with Indian customs might have thought that Sitting-Always had fallen ill in order to give a party. Dusty Star was there, of course, because his grandmother's sickness was a very splendid entertainment, not to be missed; but he had taken care to keep well hidden behind a couple of parfleches, so that the sight of him might not exasperate the patient.
Lone Chief's arrival made Nikana very nervous. She wished she had not invited three other medicine-men to attend, without first waiting to see if Lone Chief would come. It would be so extremely awkward if they arrived in the very middle of his medicine-making. He might not mind. On the other hand, he might object, and be very angry. She devoutly hoped they would not come.
Hardly taking any notice of his patient, Lone Chief began his preparations immediately. First he placed four round stones in the fire to get hot. While they were heating, he remained seated, looking at nobody, with his eyes half closed. When he considered the stones were hot enough, he uncovered his medicine drum, and held it over the fire. Dusty Star, craning his neck round the parfleches, gazed at the drum with wonder. It was painted yellow to represent a cloudless sky. In the middle, a bright red ball indicated the sun. He wondered if Lone Chief intended to put it on his grandmother's head, for a hat. When the drum was sufficiently warmed, Lone Chief looked round on the company and declared that he could not begin his medicine till every one except Nikana went out. There was no use in arguing about it, because a great medicine-man's word is law. One by one, the visitors reluctantly withdrew. Dusty Star, in the deep shadow behind the parfleches, made himself as small as possible, humped upon the ground.
As soon as Lone Chief had seen the last visitor, as he believed, depart, he raised the drum, and began to sing a medicine-song, beating time, as he sang, upon the drum. It was a very peculiar song about buffaloes, wolves, and thunder, and at the end of every verse, Lone Chief barked like a coyote. When he had finished the song, he took an ember from the fire, and placed some dried sweet pine upon it. As the smoke rose, he held his hands in it, and prayed to the Spirits of the sun, and of the buffalo, that he might have power to find out with his hands the spot where Sitting-Always was ill. He then rose, and went across to the patient. Dusty Star watched his movements with such excitement, that it seemed as if his eyes would fall out of his head.
It was when Lone Chief was in the very middle of his examination that the event which Nikana dreaded took place. No fewer than four other medicine men stalked into the tepee. All were heavily painted, beaded and feathered, and each carried a drum. Dusty Star shrank, if possible into a smaller space than before.
Without uttering a word, the four sat down in a half-circle about the fire, and began to smoke their medicine pipes. Lone Chief continued to move his hands over his patient's body as if nothing extraordinary had taken place. He was annoyed at the intrusion of his rivals, but was too dignified to show it. He fully believed his power to be far greater than theirs, and was prepared to treat them with contempt.
Sitting-Always was relieved in her mind now that the other medicine-men had come. If it annoyed Lone Chief, so much the better. It would make him exert his medicine to the utmost.
When Lone Chief had finished his examination, he lifted his drum again, and re-commenced his song, sitting with his back to the newcomers, as if they were not there. As each one of them enjoyed great importance in his own eyes, Lone Chief's action made them determined to perform their medicine as loudly as possible. First one and then another drew his pipe from his mouth, and lifted his drum.
The first to do so was Kattowa-iski. His doctoring power came from the beaver.
Kokopotamix followed him. His medicine was from the grizzly bear.
Apotumenee came third. He took his medicine from the buffalo, and had two buffalo horns fastened to his head.
The last to begin drumming was Ohisiksim. The Thunder-bird had given him his medicine, which was very much sought after when the tribe was short of rain.
At first the drumming was slow and soft, growing louder by degrees. Then Kattowa-iski got up and began to dance, striking his drum in imitation of the beavers when they hit the water with their tails. Kokopotamix then rose and imitated a grizzly bear when he walks on his hind legs. Apotumenee and Ohisiksim began their performances at the same time. Apotumenee crouched with his head lowered, and dug his horns into the ground to imitate buffaloes digging wallows in the Fall, while Ohisiksim blew out a spray of water from his mouth to suggest a thunder shower.
All this time Lone Chief went on drumming as if nothing else was going on.
And now the noise of the drums, louder than ever, made the tepee throb with sound. It maddened Sitting-Always who screamed out again and again that it was driving the pain into her head; but as no one paid the slightest heed to her cries, she put her hands over her ears, and moaned in despair.
And now the medicine-men, as if excited by their own drumming, grew wilder in their movements. Kokopotamix's walk became a dance in which he clawed the air like a grizzly sharpening his claws upon a tree. Kattowa-iski banged his drum like a beaver with a hundred tails. Apomumenee made terrible roarings and bellowings in his throat, like a bull buffalo; while Ohisiksim sprayed his thunder-showers so far from his mouth that they moistened Sitting-Always in her bed.
Dusty Star, looking out upon it all from his hiding-place, felt a strange excitement growing within him. To him, the antics of the medicine-men became so life-like that, more and more, they seemed to grow like the things they represented; and in the flicker of the fire, on which, from time to time, Nikana put more fuel, the shadows on the sides of the tepee danced and balanced, as if they also were alive. He did not understand the new feeling; only it seemed to have to do with Kiopo; almost as if Kiopo himself were crouching by his side. And the wolf that was in Kiopo seemed to urge the wolf that was in Dusty Star so that he felt that he must shoot his body in amongst the dancers, and make, with Kiopo, the medicine of the wolves.
The movements became wilder, and the drumming louder. The figures swaying round the fire, appeared to have lost themselves in the medicine and to feel nothing but the dance. It was not Kokopotamix only who was there, or Kattowa-iski, or Apotumenee, or Ohisiksim; nor even a Grizzly bear, a Beaver, a Buffalo, or a Thunder Bird; but all the spirits, and the beasts, and the birds, of the lonely places, and the great silences of the enormous West. Either it was the tepee which had expanded into the prairie, or the prairie which had crowded into the tepee. Dusty Star crouching behind the parfleches could not tell which. All he knew was that the wild dance of the prairie was tingling in his feet, and the voices of the prairie calling in his head.
Suddenly, with a ringing cry, he leaped from his hiding-place, and landed on hands and knees in the middle of the tepee. Then, with head thrown back, and eyes glittering, he gave the hunting-call of the wolves.
If the Thunder-bird itself had suddenly alit with flapping wings in their midst, the medicine-men could not have been more utterly taken by surprise. The dance came to an abrupt stand-still. Even Lone Chief stopped his drumming, and stared in astonishment. Sitting-Always, not being able to see clearly, because of her position, thought a wolf had entered the tepee, and screamed aloud with fear.
Before any one could move, Dusty Star, now barking like a coyote, began to run on hands and feet round the fire. Quicker and quicker he went, barking and leaping up and down as if all the madness of the Mad Moon were in his blood, and he were forgetting to be Indian, and remembering to be wolf.
If Lone Chief had given the order, Nikana would have seized her son; but Lone Chief was disturbed. Dusty Star as the grandson of his patient was one thing, but Dusty Star as this leaping madness crying like a wolf, was totally another. He did not approve; yet he did not dare to interfere. What he had felt vaguely in the afternoon, he knew for a certainty now. There was medicine in the boy. It was the true medicine—the medicine of the lonely barrens; of the lairs in the glooms of the spruce forest; and of the wolfish crags where the air throbbed with the thunder of the streams. Great Medicine-man though he was, it was a power he would have given many buffalo robes to possess. He knew himself to be in the presence of a medicine more mighty than his own. And because he knew it, he did not dare to answer the expectancy of his companions by ordering that Dusty Star should be turned out of the tepee.
As for Dusty Star himself, he knew nothing at all about possessing "medicine." All he knew was that he felt very splendidly mad, with an uncontrollable desire to throw his body in the air, and cry wolf calls with his throat. And the fact that none of these important medicine-men, nor even his mother, made any effort to stop him, encouraged him to an adventure of great antics which he would not have believed possible in his most tremendous dreams.
Moment by moment, a wilder spirit of mischief seemed to enter into him. The occupants of the tepee looked on in amazement, as the lithe crazy shape, leaped and crouched, howled, barked and sang.
Rising suddenly to his full height, he took a flying jump and landed close beside his grandmother's couch. Sitting-Always terrified, out of her wits, uttered a piercing cry.
Up to the present, Nikana had sat rigidly still as if mesmerised by her son's madness. But her mother's cry of fear broke the spell, and she darted forward to seize him. But Dusty Star was too quick for her. Springing back across the fire, he gave, with a full throat, the hunting cry of the wolves. Then, before any one could stop him, he tore back the door-flap and fled laughing from the tepee.