“They are closer than before. They are going over now and it will be finished.
“No! They cannot go over. They cannot make the horses go, and they are coming out of the smoke, circling back towards the creeks. Many, many are riding double.
“It is still again out there, and the smoke begins to get thin. The women on the hill over by the sun have seen, and you can hear them mourning. It is like a little wind high up in pine trees. Now our own women have seen, and they are crying and mourning. I am crying too—because I want to kill Wasichus and I cannot.
“There are many more horses down now, scattered around the ring of boxes. Some of our men are lying at the top of the creek bank below us, shooting with guns and bows at the Wasichus. Fire arrows are falling in the ring, and the mule dung there begins to burn and smoke.
“There is not much shooting from the boxes when the brave ones ride back to save the wounded that are left out there and to pick up the dead. Maybe the Wasichus are getting tired; maybe they are blinded by the mule dung smoking, I do not know. The women are not making the tremolo now. The hills are sending forth a great voice, but it is a voice of sorrow for their men and boys down there.
“We waited. What could we do if the horses would not go over? The ring was little, the Wasichus were few, we were many; but we could not go over. Our people had never seen anything like it before. The Wasichus did not shoot and then wait to load their guns. They kept on shooting—br-r-r-r—just like tearing a big blanket all around the ring. It was some new medicine power they had, and it made their few like many. Afterwards we learned about the new guns that were loaded from behind, and that is why they could shoot so fast. It was the first time they had such guns, and we could not understand.
“The sun was high and hot, and we were waiting. The prairie was asleep. The dung smoke rising from the ring of boxes looked sleepy too, and that was all that moved down there. The dead horses scattered around looked lazy, all stretched out and resting in the hot sun.
“Afterwhile we could see some horsebacks galloping both ways from the hill over towards where the sun comes up. Maybe Red Cloud was telling the warriors what to do. Then, as far as we could see, everything was waiting and sleeping under the high sun.”
For some time Eagle Voice waited too, his eyes closed, his chin on his chest. I put a chunk of cottonwood in the sheet-iron stove, and still he sat motionless. It seemed that he had lost interest in his story, or had fallen asleep.
“And then what happened?” I asked at length.