When the tree flowered

by John G. Neihardt

“Pahuska would ride into the middle of the round flat valley and make his tall white horse stand on its hind legs. Then he would take his big hat off and wave it at the people on the hill all around him; and the hill would roar. Sometimes he would throw shining balls into the air, and he would shoot at them, and always they would break. The people liked him, but I think they liked us more. We did many things the way we used to do at home. Sometimes we would dance and sing. Sometimes we would attack Wasichu wagons, going up Shell River [Platte], maybe, or maybe up the road to Pa Sapa. Or we would chase the other kind of wagon with people sitting on top and inside and four running horses pulling it [stage coach]. There would be shouting and war-cries and a great dust of hoofs, and many guns going off; but there were no bullets in the guns. Some of us would get killed and roll in the dust, and our brothers would ride by and lean to pick us up and take us out of the fight. We did many things, and always a roaring wind blew across the hill of people when they saw. It was fun; and sometimes when we were alone together and the dead ones were alive again, we would laugh about it.

“We stayed there while moons came and went, and always the hill of people was there to see us and roar.

“Washtay! It was good! Pahuska had a strong heart and he was like a father. He gave us plenty of fat papa, all we could eat; and there was plenty of paezhuta sapa [black medicine, coffee] with plenty of chun humpi [tree juice, sugar] to put in it.”

The old man ceased and fell to brooding. “Dho!” he said at long last, slowly fixing his crinkled look upon me. “It was the same young Wasichu woman. When Pahuska led us through the place of grass and trees to show us to the people, it was the same young woman who came crowding with the other Wasichus and took hold of my arm. She looked up at me then and I saw her face, but the horseback akichitas came and pushed the people back. I wondered about this, and sometimes I would think about her face and the way she looked up at me. Then I wanted to see her again. I am wearing the white war bonnet now, and it is thin. My teeth are uprooted and I am bent so that I am not even as tall as you, my grandson. But then I was straight and tall and strong, and maybe I was good-looking. Also I was a good dancer.

“It was the time when leaves would be falling in my country; and when I thought about this I would feel sad, because it was far across the dark hills of water. It was in the night when she came back. Some of us Lakotas were standing outside, for it was not our time to play war in there. Sometimes we heard the hill of people roar. There was a light that flickered in a cage where we were, and Wasichus came close to look at us. They would look and look, and we were making jokes about them, but they did not know it because we made our faces stone. Sometimes we would growl and the people near us would push back, and we would look angry, but we were laughing inside. They were funny, the way they looked and looked and peeked around each other to see us.

“She came out of the shadow. One of her hands was on my naked arm and one upon my naked breast—thin white hands—and she was looking up at me.”

The old man ceased again and gazed awhile upon the ground with half-closed eyes. “Leaves were falling at home,” he said in a low voice, still looking at the ground. Then, raising his eyes and fixing upon me a squinting gaze that had a question in it, he continued. “She had much hair. Sometimes I think about it yet, and I see a bright cloud when the sky is white in the morning and the sun is just beginning to come. Her look was soft and kind. There was a power that went through me from her hands. Sometimes when I think about this, I remember when I was a boy and Blue Spotted Horse gave me the sacred pipe to touch, and the power went through me.”

Again the old man paused, and the focus of his gaze fell beyond me. “If it was good or bad,” he continued, “I do not know. It is far away and I am old; but sometimes when I think about it, I am a boy in the night and the moon makes him want to sing, but something is afraid in the shadows. She pulled me with her look and with her white hands. I went into the dark with her. There was laughing and there were voices back there, but they were far away, far as across the hills of water.

“Out in the dark was a little wagon with two wheels, and one horse pulled it. These were always going up and down the many roads in that village, and a man sat high on top to make the horse go. We got in there and the whip popped and we went fast. Her mouth was on my face; her hair was on my eyes; her hands were about my neck. I did not know what she was saying again and again, but it was like singing; and I could smell young grass when rain has fallen and the sun comes out.

“There was a place where two dark roads crossed, but some little fires burned in cages on poles and made shadows. That is where we got out of the wagon, and the man on top laughed and popped his whip and went away. We climbed twice to where she lived and we were alone in that high place.”