“Twelve sleeps—water, water, water! Twelve sleeps! When the winds were asleep and the sun was showing, it was a flat blue prairie with no grass. Maybe it was like the prairie where the star nations live, and the sister in the story I told you fell through it! But no turnips on this prairie! The peyta watah shook itself and breathed hard, and smoke came out of its belly; but it did not move. The sun moved and the stars, and the sunrise was no nearer.
“The Thunder Beings came with lightning and a great wind that howled, and the flat blue prairie changed into dark hills that grew tall and fell, grew tall and fell. I was more afraid than I ever was before. All of us were afraid and the horses too. Sometimes I could hear them scream in the watah’s belly. I was not afraid to die in a battle with enemies I could kill. But there was no enemy to fight. Maybe the quirt could not help me. If I died there in the great water, maybe I could not find the way to the spirit land, and I would be lost always in the dark hills. That is what made me afraid. If I died in the hills of water, maybe I could never find my relatives again. But I had my pipe with me, and I remembered what my father said with the voice of the eagle in my vision, ‘Hold fast to your pipe, for there is more.’ So I held fast to my pipe. Also, Pahuska was like a father to us. He laughed and told us to be brave. He had a strong heart.
“We came to where the hills were smaller and the winds were asleep. Then we saw the sun again and the blue prairie; and the strange land came floating to us out of the sunrise.”
XXVIII
In the Village Called Pars
“There was another iron road,” the old man continued after a period of silence, “and we came to the village they called Pars. This village was so big that we could never see how big it was, and the tepees were made of stone. The Wasichus there could not be counted. They piled tepees on top of tepees and climbed up there so that they could have places to live. These places were full of people, all looking out like prairie dogs from their holes. There were big roads and little roads going everywhere in this village, and the people and the horses and wagons were always going everywhere with much noise and many cries. I do not know what they were doing.
“Pahuska wanted the people to see us, so he led us all on a big road made of stone where there were tall trees and green grass; and there the people came crowding like a bison herd to look at us. Pahuska went first, and he was riding a big white horse. He did not look like other Wasichus. His hair was long like a Lakota’s, but it was not braided and it was yellow. Also his clothing was made of buckskin. We followed him on our ponies, riding two together, and we were painted and dressed as for victory and our ponies were painted too. And after us were iglakas with their pony-drags. And after them there were Wasichu horsebacks with lariats on their saddles, riding two together. Then there were Wasichu wagons with tepee tops on them, and other wagons with four horses pulling them and people riding on top and inside. And there were horseback soldiers, and they were riding two and two.
“I think the people liked the Lakotas best of all. When we knew they were not enemies and were glad to see us, we were glad too, and we began singing a riding song all together. It was the way young warriors would do when they were going somewhere and there were no enemies around. When we stopped singing, the herd of people roared and crowded in to us, shouting and reaching up to touch us. A young woman took hold of my arm, but some horsebacks came and pushed the people back. These horsebacks looked like soldiers, but I think they were akichitas.
“When we started riding through this green place with the tall trees, I could see where water was coming up out of the ground, many streams of water rising and falling. I do not know what it was. I have heard there is shooting water like that over in Shoshoni country, but I never saw it.
“Afterwhile we came to a great high stone with a big hole in it, and we all rode through this hole. From that place I could see roads that led to the four quarters of the world. The stone was standing where the Sacred Tree should grow and bloom, the way Blue Spotted Horse told me when I was a boy. I wondered much about this. Maybe these Wasichus had the sacred hoop too; and maybe the Wasichus back home across the great water had forgotten about the hoop and so were not good any more. Maybe that was why Grandmother England’s soldiers did not chase us when we fled to Grandmother’s Land. Maybe they had the hoop too. That is what I thought then, but now I do not believe it.
“There was a place where all these people came in a herd to see us twice nearly every day. It was a little round flat valley with a steep hill all around it, and on this hill the people sat to see, and roared when they saw.