leading a string of ten handsome ponies, some black, some red, a few spotted. Nose high, puffed up with haughty pride, casting a scornful look in No Name’s direction, she paraded by. A troop of handsome young men followed her, trailing elegant elkhorn quirts, fluttering, chuckling, favoring the ladies with sheep’s eyes.All came from Circling Hawk’s warrior society. She waddled up to Leaf’s tepee and with a stone hammer pounded a stake into the ground near the door. She picketed all ten of the horses to it and then spoke into the door. “We put our kindness before you so that you will remember it. We have a son who wishes to marry your daughter. We are poor, humble, therefore we have but ten horses. We know the value of your daughter and would, had we the wealth of a great chief, give a hundred horses for her. Remember us. I have said.” Then, with a final look of haughty triumph in No Name’s direction, she walked back to her tepee.
No Name was sick. Ten ponies! Leaf’s father and mother would surely accept the offer of marriage.
No Name turned. Quickly grabbing up his lunch, he ran around behind the tepee, loosened the picket rope, and leaped bareback on Swift As Wind. The red-spotted pony needed but a touch of the heel and they were off with a gathering clatter of hooves.
4
He sat alone on a high hill. It was noon, and as warm as summer again. Below him, in the bend of the river, the ponies grazed, some two hundred of them, sleek blacks, sun-burnished bays, lively sorrels, here and there a gray, with only a dozen or so of the most prized of all, spotted horses. Further along the bluff, northwest, sat another Yankton lad, No Name’s friend White Fingernail. He too sat watching a herd of horses. All the horses had just had their fill of water and were back to cropping grass in the meadow.
Far off to the north, where the River of the Double Bend made its last big turn before finally heading south to the Great Smoky Water, stood their camp. No Name could just barely make out the smoke-blackened tops of the tepees, all tilted slightly to the west the better to slip the prevailing winds. There was a shimmer in the hazy air, and sometimes the whole camp seemed to shift back and forth, as if the earth beneath were quaking. Sometimes too he could make out the children playing in the streaming red cataracts.
Like a wild animal ever alert for signs of danger, he watched on all sides. The Pawnees were known to make raids even in broad daylight. They were experts in picking exactly the right moment in which to sweep off a band of horses. He savored each bird call in his ear to make sure it was a true bird call. He studied every puff of wind in the tall grass. He examined with close attention the whistling of the gopher and the soft rustling passage of the rattlesnake.
After a while he felt sleepy. His lunch lay heavy on his stomach. He waved to his friend White Fingernail to watch both herds while he took a nap.
No Name placed his bow and quiver near to hand and lay on his belly on the hard ground. Eyes focusing up close, he spotted a red ant trying to drag the husk of a beetle four times its size through a clump of short grass. No Name watched the red ant for a while, finally decided it was stupid. A little to the right or the left and it could have had a clear path.
The shimmer of a fragile web next caught his eye. It hung just above where the red ant struggled in the clump of grass. He decided a spider was probably lurking nearby, set to pounce. He ran his eye up and down each blade of grass, finally spotted it. The spider had drawn itself up into a tiny ball in imitation of a head of seed.
He waited. He watched through half-closed eyelids. The spider stirred once, its movement resembling the twitching of an opening seed bud. He waited. And waiting, fell asleep.
A sound coming by way of the ground gradually woke him. Something was wrong. His eyes opened on the shimmering spider web, now but the length of a
No Name was sick. Ten ponies! Leaf’s father and mother would surely accept the offer of marriage.
No Name turned. Quickly grabbing up his lunch, he ran around behind the tepee, loosened the picket rope, and leaped bareback on Swift As Wind. The red-spotted pony needed but a touch of the heel and they were off with a gathering clatter of hooves.
4
He sat alone on a high hill. It was noon, and as warm as summer again. Below him, in the bend of the river, the ponies grazed, some two hundred of them, sleek blacks, sun-burnished bays, lively sorrels, here and there a gray, with only a dozen or so of the most prized of all, spotted horses. Further along the bluff, northwest, sat another Yankton lad, No Name’s friend White Fingernail. He too sat watching a herd of horses. All the horses had just had their fill of water and were back to cropping grass in the meadow.
Far off to the north, where the River of the Double Bend made its last big turn before finally heading south to the Great Smoky Water, stood their camp. No Name could just barely make out the smoke-blackened tops of the tepees, all tilted slightly to the west the better to slip the prevailing winds. There was a shimmer in the hazy air, and sometimes the whole camp seemed to shift back and forth, as if the earth beneath were quaking. Sometimes too he could make out the children playing in the streaming red cataracts.
Like a wild animal ever alert for signs of danger, he watched on all sides. The Pawnees were known to make raids even in broad daylight. They were experts in picking exactly the right moment in which to sweep off a band of horses. He savored each bird call in his ear to make sure it was a true bird call. He studied every puff of wind in the tall grass. He examined with close attention the whistling of the gopher and the soft rustling passage of the rattlesnake.
After a while he felt sleepy. His lunch lay heavy on his stomach. He waved to his friend White Fingernail to watch both herds while he took a nap.
No Name placed his bow and quiver near to hand and lay on his belly on the hard ground. Eyes focusing up close, he spotted a red ant trying to drag the husk of a beetle four times its size through a clump of short grass. No Name watched the red ant for a while, finally decided it was stupid. A little to the right or the left and it could have had a clear path.
The shimmer of a fragile web next caught his eye. It hung just above where the red ant struggled in the clump of grass. He decided a spider was probably lurking nearby, set to pounce. He ran his eye up and down each blade of grass, finally spotted it. The spider had drawn itself up into a tiny ball in imitation of a head of seed.
He waited. He watched through half-closed eyelids. The spider stirred once, its movement resembling the twitching of an opening seed bud. He waited. And waiting, fell asleep.
A sound coming by way of the ground gradually woke him. Something was wrong. His eyes opened on the shimmering spider web, now but the length of a
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