Ho, ho! Ho, ho! But surely there was more!
There was; but No Water was not in a hurry to divulge it. Adding the emphasis of silence to the impact of his tale, he searched our faces for a while with narrowed, penetrating eyes.
“It was not a small war party that followed the little dog,” he continued. “The way I heard about it, there were forty-two. When they saw what they saw in that tepee and heard what they heard from Good Buffalo’s sister, and the little daughter crying and crying, their hearts were bad, and every warrior of them was like three. So eight of them started back afoot towards the village with six led horses and the dead across them, and the sister mourning with her hair cut off, and the daughter holding her little dog and crying. There was mourning in the village; but after six days the victory songs were louder. That was when the war party came back from following the enemies. The way I heard, they were Assiniboins, and they are like cousins of the Lakota! Caught them camping and feeling safe. Fifteen scalps that time! Fifteen, the way I heard! And all the horses, too! It is a true story. The old man who told it is living yet.”
When all approving comments had been made, I ventured a question. “Grandfather, I wonder why the little girl could understand and the others could not.”
“I have thought and thought about that, Grandson,” No Water replied. “The two-leggeds and four-leggeds are relatives. Maybe a long time ago they had one tongue. When people are still little, they are four-leggeds yet, just like their relatives. Maybe they have the same tongue too when they are little and four-legged. Then when they begin to be two-leggeds they begin to forget, and they forget more and more. Maybe the little girl could remember yet. This is only what I have thought. I do not know.”
Ah-a-a! It was clear that we all felt the cogency of the idea. “And maybe,” Eagle Voice suggested with his crinkled, quizzical look, “maybe then when we get three-legged, we are beginning to remember again! Next time I hear a dog, maybe I can learn something!”
Laughter dwindled to chuckling, and in the following silence the pipe went round again.
Finally, Moves Walking, regarding us with his self-contradicting gaze—fierce from the glaring off-eye and friendly from the other—ended the meditative silence.
“I want to tell a story, but it is not about a dog. It is about a woman who was four times widowed, because nobody would believe her—just the way they would not believe the little girl. This also is a true story. A Sisseton who was gan inhuni [come to old age] told it. I was over there and this old man told me. His father told him. They are both dead, and I cannot prove it, but it is true. All of the Sisseton Lakota know it, so I must be very careful to tell it right.
“This woman, I could say that I know her name, but I have forgotten it so I will give her the name of Sees-White-Cow. I could say that maybe she had a dream about seeing a white bison cow and it gave her a power to see more than other people, because a white cow is wakon. But I do not tell this because I do not know it. I must be careful.