Bill Dugan by Crazy Horse Page B

solitary eagle feather in his hair, which hung long and straight. Light brown in color, it reminded Curly of his own hair. The man turned away for a moment, and Curly noticed a small stone tied behind his ear.
    Curly tried to get up, but his body wouldn’t work. His joints seemed to have dissolved in his skin, leaving only jelly where the bone had been. Gasping for air, he tried to speak, but the man raised a hand to silence him.
    “Don’t wear a warbonnet,” he said. “When you go into battle, leave your horse’s tail untied, free to balance him as he leaps across the stones. Before you ride into battle, sprinkle him with dust, let streams of it glide from your curled fingers in streaks and straight lines. Don’t paint your war pony.”
    “Who …” Curly croaked.
    But again the man raised a hand, cutting him off. “Rub dirt on your skin and hair. Dothese things before every battle, and you will never be killed by an enemy or a bullet. Your people must come first. Take nothing for yourself. Your people will know your worth. Know it yourself. Let them celebrate you. It is not necessary for you to boast or sing of your courage.”
    As the man spoke, he seemed to be doing battle with ghosts. He wheeled on his horse then androde as if into battle. Strange blurs and shadows swirled around him, darting close, darkening as ifabout to become solid, then vanishing when the man waved his hand to chase them off. Arrows swarmed around him in clouds, like angry bees, but none struck him. Bullets sang as they flew past, sometimes close enough to raise the fine hairs on his skin as they passed. Most disappeared as they were about to strike him.
    Curly felt his head spinning, his eyes bugging out. His throat was so parched that he could only rasp as he tried once more to speak, trying desperately to call out to the phantom warrior. A new wave of enemies swarmed around the strange man, and one of his own people, no face, just a shadow behind the strange warrior, grabbed his arms from behind, holding him back, preventing him from raising a hand to defend himself.
    Thunder cracked then, as if the sky had split in two, the earth about to follow, rumbling beneath Curly, his body swallowing the tremors whole, quaking with the rattling of the earth and with terror. It grew dark, then darker still. Lightning flashed across the dark face of the clouds and it began to storm. Huge drops of water spattered Curly’s face, swept in torrents across the sky, almost blurring the man, blotting him out as the wind howled and hail began to rattle on the rocks around him. The man rode past once more, his horse pounding the earth. His face seemed to loom up out of the storm, and Curly saw that it was painted with a single bolt of lightning. A handful of white hail spots was sprinkled on his chest and shoulders.
    Then, as suddenly as he had come, he was gone.
    Curly closed his eyes for a moment, then openedthem. He was gasping like a fish, his body sucking air in huge gulps. He closed his eyes again, still listening to the storm as it swirled around him. The clatter of hail was gone, but the hammering of the rain on his chest and skull sounded like drums. He opened his eyes to a brightening sky. A single hawk soared high above him, its cry distant and desperate.
    Then everything went black.
    When he awoke, his vision was blurred. Great shadows speared the ground beside him as he blinked away the sun. He thought for a moment the rider had come back. As he tried to move his arms, he realized they worked normally, and he pushed himself up. His vision cleared, and he found himself staring into his father’s scowl. Hump stood a little behind, as if to be out of reach of his father’s wrath.
    “What is wrong with you, boy?” his father shouted. “Conquering Bear is dying. You run off where no one can find you, except the Pawnee or the Crow.”
    Curly swallowed hard. “I was seeking a vision, Father.”
    “Without purification? Without instruction?