V
He had been wounded in the knee. He could not understand it. He had been promised that his body would be like stone. He had worn his feather at the back of his head, as in every fight since the time of his vision, yet his kneecap had been shattered in a skirmish with the Dakota. And it was an ugly injury. Red-eye had salved it with bear root, but the cure-all had failed. Bullsnake, foremost of doctors, blessed by the buffalo, had waded into the river to wash his knee, but all in vain; he remained crippled. Then he knew that he had unwittingly broken his guardian spirit’s rule; there had been a feast before the fatal battle and then he must have eaten of the forbidden food.
Soon there came surety. In a dream appeared the man on the bay horse and said: “I told you not to eat kidney, you have eaten it. You shall never be chief.” Takes-the-pipe had now struck many coups and captured guns and carried the captain’s pipe. His record surpassed that of any man of his age, but he lacked the honor of cutting a picketed horse. How could he ever gain it now? Horse-raiders started on foot, and he could only painfully limp across the camp.
Young women, drawn by his fame, often visited him in his tent, but their attentions soon palled on him. His mother tried to console him. “Of all the young men you are the best-off; you have struck more coups than the rest and own plenty of horses; the young women are crazy about you. You ought to be the happiest man in camp.” But he would watch the bustle of preparations for new raids that he could not join; he would ride about of an evening and chance upon the foot-soldiers setting out from their trysting-place, and would look after them, wistful and envious and sick at heart.
Sharp-horn, the aged sage, advised him to go for another vision; possibly the guardian spirit would relent. So Takes-the-pipe started out on horseback and rode far away towards the mountain where he had prayed before. At the foot he hobbled his horse and painfully climbed to the summit. He lay down, with outstretched arms, facing the sky. “Father,” he wailed, “I am miserable, take pity on me.” He lay there during the night but at the first glimmer of dawn there was still no message from the mysterious powers. All day he stayed about the jagged bowlders without drink or a morsel to eat.
Long after nightfall a muffled tread became audible and as it came closer it was the tramp of a buffalo. Then a bull was standing over him, scenting his breath and caressing his naked breast with shaggy fur. At last he spoke in Crow. “I will adopt you my son. I have seen you suffering from afar. What other Indians have prayed for shall be yours. Look at the inside of my mouth.” He looked and there was not a tooth to be seen. “So long as you have teeth, my son, you shall not die. You shall marry a fine, chaste, young woman and beget children and see your grandchildren about you. When you die you shall be so old that your skin will crack as you move from one corner of the lodge to another.”
But Takes-the-pipe shook his head and said, “Father, it is not because I crave old age that I am thirsting; I want to be a chief like Shinbone.”
“My son, what you ask is difficult. As I hurried to you from my home, I overtook another person traveling towards you; perhaps you will still be able to get what you desire.” Takes-the-pipe sat up to ask further counsel, but the bull was gone and nothing but a bleached buffalo skull was gaping at him in the gloaming.
All next day he fasted and prayed on his peak, addressing now the Sun, then the Thunder, then again the Morningstar. His throat was parched when he lay down at dark in his old resting place. He did not know how, but of a sudden the darkness was lifted and the hilltop shone with a gentle radiance. An old woman was standing at his feet, resting on a digging-stick; she wore a splendid robe with horsetracks marked on it in porcupine-quill embroidery. “My child,” she said, “you have not called me, nevertheless I am here. I heard your groans and started towards you but another person passed me on the road. I am the Moon. When children fall sick, doctor them with this root; their parents will give you horses. I will make you the wealthiest of all the Crows.”
But Takes-the-pipe shook his head and answered, “Grandmother, I am not suffering to gain wealth, I want to become a chief like Shinbone.”