American Museum of Natural History -- Fiction; Indians of North America -- Fiction; Nature stories, American; Western stories
"Carrying-the-Shield-in-Front said to those around him: 'Let him come on,
and do you move away from me so he can come close. If he possesses great
Medicine, I shall not be able to kill him; but if he does not possess
it, perhaps I shall kill him.'
"So the others fell back, and when Alights-on-the-Cloud rode near enough
so that Carrying-the-Shield-in-Front could hear the clinking of the iron
rings, he loosed his arrow and struck Alights-on-the-Cloud in the eye.
"Our men charged the Pawnees, trying to get the body back, but in the
end they succeeded in cutting the iron shirt into little pieces, and
carrying it away. This was a shame to us, for Alights-on-the-Cloud was
well liked, and for a year there was very little talked of but how he
might be avenged.
"Early the next spring a pipe was carried. Little Robe carried it along
the Old North Trail to Crows and the Burnt Thigh Sioux and the Northern
Cheyennes. South also it went to Apaches and Arapahoes. And when the
grape was in leaf we came together at Republican River and swore that we
would drive out the Pawnees.
"As it turned out both Mad Wolf and War Bonnet were among the first
scouts chosen to go and locate the enemy, and though we had no business
there, we three, and two other young men of the Kiowas, slipped out of
the camp and followed. They should have turned us back as soon as we
were discovered, but Mad Wolf was good-natured, and they were pleased to
see us so keen for war.
"There was a young moon, and the buffalo bulls were running and fighting
in the brush. I remember one old bull with long streamers of grapevines
dragging from his horns who charged and scattered us. We killed a young
cow for meat, and along the next morning we saw wolves running away from
a freshly killed carcass. So we knew the Pawnees were out.
"Yellow Bear, an Arapahoe Dog Soldier, who was one of the scouts, began
to ride about in circles and sing his war-song, saying that we ought not
to go back without taking some scalps, or counting coup, and we
youngsters agreed with him. We were disappointed when the others decided
to go back at once and report. I remember how Mad Wolf, who was the
scout leader, sent the others all in to notify the camp, and how, as
they rode, from time to time they howled like wolves, then stopped and
turned their heads from side to side.
"There was a great ceremonial march when we came in, the Dog Soldiers,
the Crooked Lances, the Fox Soldiers, and all the societies. First there
were two men--the most brave in the society leading, and then all the
others in single file and two to close. The women, too--all the bright
blankets and the tall war bonnets--the war-cries and the songs and the
drums going like a man's heart in battle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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