Heartsong by James Welch Page A

French could honor their five generations of freedom from cruel kings. All the surrounding buildings and fountains and gardens were part of this honoring ceremony. He said the white men of America had a similar honoring. They had defeated a cruel king many years before. Featherman had wondered aloud if all kings were cruel, but Sees Twice couldn’t answer that. He only knew that the Grandmother England was kind. Maybe only woman kings were good to their people.
    Charging Elk almost smiled at this recollection—he had begun to enjoy his memories more than his life. He looked into the window again and he recognized black men with naked chests and big red lips. He had seen black men in Paris and New York but he didn’t think they had red lips. And the sheep. And the small horse with big ears. He had seen these big ears first in the gold camps of Paha Sapa, and later in the Wild West show. They were part of an act that made people laugh.
    But his eyes were again drawn to the big figures in the middle ofthe window. All of the animals and men were looking at a man and woman and baby. The man wore a brown cape and was sitting on a rock. He held his hands out, as though he wanted something from the others. The woman was dressed in a long blue dress and a white cloth that covered her head. She was looking down at the baby with just a hint of a smile. The baby lay on some straw that filled a wooden box. Its hair was yellow like the straw and its naked body was bright pink. Its arms and legs were sticking up and it had no expression on its face.
    Charging Elk ate one of the four pieces of bread as he walked along the street. His stomach was constantly growling now as he smelled food everywhere he turned. The longbread filled his stomach but he wanted more than bread. He wanted one of the sticks of meat from the charcuterie . He wanted pejuta sapa and a flaky chocolate bread.
    He passed through a narrow street that was lined with outdoor tables. Many people crowded the alley and he found he could move only by slipping through a narrow passage in the center. He was almost glad for the crush of healthy humans after the many days in the sickhouse. He noticed that all the tables were filled with the little figures of animals and various people. He was surprised at how lifelike some of them looked. He was especially struck by a figure of a policeman with its blue high-collared tunic and round flat cap. He stopped to look it over, although he had been avoiding real ones all day. A child next to him was holding one of the yellow-haired, pink babies. This one too had its legs in the air as though it were kicking. The girl, of perhaps four winters, was looking up at her mother with a hopeful smile, but the mother shook her finger and said some words, and the girl put the figure back on the table. Then she looked at Charging Elk, and he saw her mouth go wide open. She looked up into his face, then turned and buried her own face into her mother’s coat.
    Charging Elk suddenly remembered how different he was fromany of these people and he grew tense. He had earlier let his hair fall free from under the cap, although he kept the cap on his head. He was at least four hands taller than the tallest of them and his wrists stuck out beyond the coat sleeves. He looked down and he saw that his ankles were exposed, his bare feet covered only by the woolly slippers. He noticed how much darker his skin was than the little girls. She had black hair and dark eyes but her face was the color of snow-berries. But Charging Elk was dark even for an Oglala. Many of his friends had teased him about his color when he was a child. He was embarrassed and even ashamed of his darkness, until his mother, Doubles Back Woman, told him it meant that he was the purest of the ikce wiccua , that Wakan Tanka favored him by making him so dark.
    He now began to notice the people glancing at him as he squeezed through the crowd. They looked him up and down, starting