“I think it was two snows after this, and the Sans Arcs were traveling. It was in the Moon of Black Cherries again. The people with their pony-drags were crossing a deep creek and Hunkpapas were camped on the other side. Some Hunkpapa men were at the crossing to help if any should have trouble with the drags in the mud. One of these Hunkpapas was the brother of the girl’s father, and when Against the Clouds and his woman and Plenty White Cows came riding with their drag, this man looked very hard at the girl; and when they had crossed, he wondered and wondered. Then he went and told his brother, who was camping there, that he had seen a girl who looked just like the one who died, only maybe a little older. So when the Sans Arcs had camped not far from the Hunkpapas, the real father and his brother went over to see.
“When they had walked part way around the village circle, they saw Plenty White Cows helping her foster-mother at the fire in front of the tepee. And when the real father saw her, he just stood with his mouth open, looking, until the girl cried out and ran to hide behind her foster-mother. Just then Against the Clouds came from staking out his horses, and the real father said to him, ‘Kola, you have a little daughter here who looks just like the little daughter I had, but she died two snows ago just about this time. It was at Slim Buttes. My woman still cries hard whenever we talk about our daughter.’ But Against the Clouds and his woman looked down their noses and said nothing. Then the real father and his brother went away.
“In a little while, the real father came back with the girl’s real mother. And when the mother saw the girl, she screamed and hid her face with her hands. Then she looked again, with tears running through her fingers, and she wailed, ‘What do I see, O what do I see? My little girl is dead! My little girl is dead! What do I see?’ This time the girl did not run and hide. She looked with big scared eyes at the woman who was crying so hard, and then she ran to the woman and the woman seized her and held her, crying very hard.
“By now Against the Clouds and his woman were just standing there with tears running down their faces, and the real father was crying too. And Against the Clouds said at last, ‘Friends, it is true. This is your little girl. We saved her from the scaffold and made a story so that we might keep her.’ And the foster-mother said, ‘Yes, it is true, but we love her so much, and we are getting old and she is all we have.’
“Then the real father said to Against the Clouds, ‘Kola, we are men, and we can smoke a pipe and talk this over.’ So that is what they did, and this is how they agreed. The girl was born and had died. Then she was born again. So she had two mothers and two fathers, and the first parents would own her as much as the second parents, the second as much as the first. The girl would keep her second name because the first name died with her. She was born first in the Moon of Dark Red Calves [February], so in that moon she would go to live with her first parents. Then in the Moon of Black Cherries [August] she would go to live with her second parents, because it was then that she came back from the spirit land.
“And when this was agreed, the first father and mother and the second father and mother and their little girl were happy.”
XXVI
The Moon of Black Cherries
“Dho,” said Eagle Voice, approving the conclusion of his silent meditation. “I got used to the strange land. By the stories that came to us, home was not yonder any more. The sacred hoop of the people was broken, and old men said it could never be mended. If Sitting Bull went back, maybe the soldiers would kill him. They had killed Crazy Horse already. My brother-friend was gone. The people yonder were hungry around the agencies. Where we were, there were bison in plenty, and no soldiers to chase us. I was young and I liked to live. So I got used to the strange land; and I got married too.
“We were on a fall hunt with some people from different bands of the Lakota, and a few Cheyennes and Arapahoes, maybe ten or twelve lodges altogether, and we were camping by a creek. Three of my horses strayed away and I was out looking for them. They had strayed far, dragging their lariats, and the sun was getting ready to go down when I got back to the creek. I was on my horse, holding the others while the four were drinking.
“There was going to be frost that night. The air smelled good and it was still. The smokes stood straight from the tepees yonder in the flat. Leaves were changing color and some plums were red in a clump of brush. A little sound was big. I was just sitting there leaning on my horse and holding the others. There was a whiff of meat cooking. Maybe I was thinking about something a long way off, but I do not remember what.