When the tree flowered

by John G. Neihardt

“I took him home to his father’s tepee among the Miniconjous. Big fires burned that night and the people were dancing the victory dance until morning. I did not dance. I remembered and remembered, and the power was gone from me. I cried all night.”

XXV
The Woman Who Died Twice

“It was a great victory,” the old man said at last. He had been sitting like the embodiment of the brooding stillness outside. Yesterday’s booming warm wind had died late in the night, and it had seemed that the still, soft dawn needed only a meadowlark to be April.

When he had filled and lighted his pipe, he drew a long draft and passed the pipe to me. “Dho,” he said, “that was a great victory; but you see us now. I do not like to think of it. We all went away from there towards the mountains, and there was feasting and dancing, for we had killed many enemies. But my heart did not sing when I danced. High Horse was my brother-friend, and he was waiting for me yonder in the world of spirits.” For a while the old man gazed in silence at the ground. Then he squinted at me with a pucker of suppressed amusement about his eyes, and said, “Maybe he will not know me when I come at last, bent low and walking on three legs.” He chuckled and was still again.

“But what about Tashina, Grandfather?” I asked, and had to wait for an answer.

“I saw her at the sun dance on the Rosebud,” he said. “She looked at me again the way she used to do, and I was glad she was not angry with me any more. But my head was full of war and great deeds to be done. I saw her once again after we had rubbed out Long Hair and his horseback soldiers on the hill. But then my heart was sick because of High Horse. It was the way I told you. There was a road I did not see until I had walked across the world.

“It was a victory, but now I can see that it was the end of the old days. The Wasichus were coming and coming, more and more Wasichus, and the bison would soon be gone. While we were camped near the mountains some of our people began to leave us, one iglaka, two, three iglakas at a time. They were going back to the agencies. We heard of many soldiers getting ready on Goose Creek south of us, many soldiers getting ready on the Yellowstone north of us. They would come together and surround us. So in the Moon of Black Cherries [August] the scattering of the people began. They always scattered in the fall after they had come together for the sun dance. But that time it was different. I did not know then that the hoop was breaking and would never come together again. When we broke camp, most of us started north together. Some were talking of Grandmother’s Land [Canada]. They said if we went there, the soldiers could not chase us any more, and Grandmother England [Queen Victoria] was kind to our relatives who were living in her country. But many said they did not want to die in a strange land far from home.

“The prairie burned behind us, wide as the sky. This made it hard for the soldiers’ horses to follow. We turned east towards Mini Shoshay [the Missouri River]. Then the rain came. Day and night it rained until the mud was deep and our horses could hardly pull the drags. There were still many, many of us, many, many horses; but some people were always leaving us—one iglaka, two, three iglakas, maybe a big party. Some would hunt awhile, but when they had made winter meat, they would go to the agencies.

“My grandfather and grandmother had some relatives in Grandmother’s Land, and when Sitting Bull turned north again with about a hundred lodges, we went along with him and crossed the Yellowstone. Crazy Horse, with many of the people, went on towards where the sun comes up. I never saw him again. The Miniconjous went on with him, and when I saw Tashina again after many moons, everything was different. My step-father, Looks Twice, said if we went visiting in Grandmother’s Land, afterwhile the soldiers might go away and we could come back home.

“Horseback soldiers came after us yonder, and there was a fight. It was not much. We got away in the night with Sitting Bull, and fled north. Then we camped and hunted and dried much meat. Soldiers did not come there. We had good tepees and plenty of papa.