Chapter 4

Hassidius "Sidney" Drake took up the ride into the Hills on a crisp, dry morning with a warm breeze blowing. The summer rides through the dense greenery of New Attica's forests were always like rides back through time, for time echoed in the ponderosa columns sprung up across the vistas, and in the sweet nostalgic air beat the heart of an age, of a people made composite with the alluvium, the conifers and the rock.

He found the path leading to the Ixopaw village of Kuroctu in the morning shade of the Bear's Lodge, the towering mass of limestone surrounded by formations of red sandstone and mudstone, a tower which looked like a mountain, or volcano, standing tall and unique upon a sea of red rock. The tower, named after the Devil by white men but referred to by the Ixopaw as the Bear's Lodge, was a place of holy significance. In their adolescence Panther Sprung and Drake had climbed its summit together and had received their visions there. Drake felt its holy energy always, and when he came into the Hills and got near it the energy was ten times stronger.

He felt it surge through him now. He breathed it in calmly. He wondered if Panther Sprung felt the same.

He arrived in Kuroctu in time for lunch and went straight to Panther's teepee. The War Chief was not there and so Drake killed time smoking his pipe and showing off magic tricks with a group of village kids. When he dismissed them and made for the community lodge he was intercepted by the young warrior Black Heart. It was said in Kuroctu that the arrow which had sent Custer headlong and dead into the Little Bighorn had been shot from her bow.

She called out to Drake and he spotted her with her face unpainted--a rare sight for him. Her dark hair was braided into a long tail decorated with foliage and animal bone. Her outfit was a hide vest and she was wrapped in light robes despite the warmth. Her eyes were a striking violet set against her suntouched flesh. Drake thought to himself that she was a pretty woman.

"Are you looking for my father?" she asked him. Two women looking to be around her age turned and whispered to each other.

"But of course. He does like to keep me in suspense, doesn't he?"

She was not amused. "He was hunting this morning, and spoke of meeting with the encampment to the East. He should be back soon enough, I imagine."

Drake drew closer to her. A stream of young Ixopaw came in and out of the large teepee. Smoke spiraled out of its top.

"Soon enough I shouldn't attempt to ride out and meet him?"

Black Heart shrugged. "How should I know. The matrons aren't happy with you, Mr. Drake. I wonder what you have done now."

"Done? What could I have done? Those matrons are ever pernicious in regards to me," but he was smiling. He offered the warrior his pipe but she refused him, showing him her own. "I have nothing to do with them anymore," he continued.

"They believe everything has something to do with them. You know this. They, my father included, mean to send us all to Canada."

"White men have made themselves comfortable in New Attica. I cannot begrudge them their fear." He said this, a white man himself, without a hint of irony. He was close enough to them now he could hear singing and laughter coming from the communal teepee. "What's the matter in there?" he asked.

"Naming ceremony. Naomi of the Stars receives her name today. Conceited bitch."

"Such kindness in you! It's evident how you've earned your name."

At this, finally, Black Heart smiled. "Surely it has nothing to do with the men I've killed."

"Surely," confirmed Drake. "Perhaps I will leave you to your business then. Thank you for what you've told me."

Black Heart said nothing as he walked away, but he felt her violet eyes on his back, watching him.

His eyes were closed as he meditated within the center of the teepee. Sage and thyme burned round him. The fire lapped at his sweating skin. He had removed his coat, his shirt and his gunbelt. They made a clumsy pile along the rim of the teepee. In his mind he saw stardust and thunder, rolling hungry clouds and luminous rock. He heard screams and war cries, thunderous music and cascading hooves.

"Sid? By the name of--"

Drake opened one eye and smiled. "There you are. I was thinking your daughter had lied to me."

Panther Sprung stared at his old friend in disbelief. "My daughter? When were you talking to--oh, nevermind. So good of you to invite yourself in." He was a man just past the middle of his life. The edges of his almond eyes hid crow's feet, and the negligible dip of flesh about his jowls leant him an aura of bemused indifference and exhaustion. But he was barrel-chested and had arms as wide as oaks. He was more than capable of single-handedly beating even the most fearsome of the Ixopaw's warriors. In fact, there was no one in New Attica who could challenge him in single combat.

Rather, there was almost no one.

Drake, who appeared ever the same age and immutable by time, had long locks of wavy chocolate hair and the fierce brown eyes of his mother, who was Ixopaw. From his father he received the pale skin and gentlemenly crudelity. "She has a good head on her shoulders, Panther. You should be proud."

But the Chief was more concerned with the state of his home. "Really Sid, you disrespect me. What is this ritual? It stinks in here!"

With a wave of his hand Drake extinguished the burning sage and thyme. With another wave the smoke wafted in one cloud up and out of the teepee. It was suddenly dark and quiet.

Such displays made Panther Sprung uneasy, and he was slow to sit and gather his legs underneath him.

"Apologies to you," Drake said. "I am a bit peeved, though, if I'm honest."

Panther began lighting his own fire in the pit between them. "And when aren't you peeved? I have much to ponder this day, Drake. My scouts give me bad news. I'm open to another invasion, from any side, and am down more than 300 men. Yes, I am peeved as well."

"You would not be in such a precarious position if you would only honor my offers," Drake pointed out.

"Please don't start with this again, Sid. This goes beyond what I want, or even what I can accomplish. Your aid comes in the form of chaos and death, as we have seen."

Drake balked and folded his arms. "Kuroctu would be smote and ruin if not for my 'chaotic' aid, wise Panther Sprung."

The Cheiftan gave but a sideways glance and said no more about it. He wondered if it was bad luck even to entertain the company of Drake. "Find another way to help and I will listen. I have not told you yet, but the Agency sent that no-account again, wanting to bargain for gold."

"Oh, what was his name?"

"He has come before, many times. He is corrupt and misguided but we can use those to our advantage. I rejected the terms he presented, but urged him to draw up new ones. There may yet be hope for a peaceful transition--"

"Hope! What is it you call hope? Compliance, cowardice, clothed in the guise of empathy and concern for your charges?"

"Watch your tone, Drake."

"My tone? Panther, we are old friends! I was just thinking this morning, on my ride up here, how we climbed the House of the Bear together, together! It is not everyone who can say the same. You are a living Achilles in the Americas, greatest and most clever warrior in all the West, yet you sit here bleating on about hope for clemency? Clemency? I do hope the White Buffalo Woman can hear you, for you are in a bad way."

"Shut up, will you? You sound like you always have, Sid. You sound like Black Heart. You and I love different things, and that I am glad for. But you must allow me to love what I have in my way, as I allow you the same."

"Why can't we love each other, as brothers? As we once did? This fight is frail and mundane, useless! We saw what power can do in just our last skirmish! What can the Army muster to meet the might of--"

"Please, Sid." Panther had stood up and made his way to the entrance. He held it open and looked at Drake with soft eyes.

Drake sighed and rubbed his face. "Panther, I've waited all morning to speak to you. I meant only to tell you, well ironically enough, about the Indian Agent. That is, that Wills man. We came upon his party at the edge of New Attica, riding the Trail out of the Race Track..." his lips pursed beneath his mustache. "Well, I wanted to warn you, I suppose..."

"You fool. You can't be serious, Sid. Am I correct in assuming..?"

"Yes, you are correct. It had to be done!"

"Ah, well if you say it is so, Drake, than it must be. You have put no thought, I am sure, into what this will mean for us."

"But I have! Hence my visit today."

"Right, your visit which is now over. I am betrayed, Sid. I wish not to see you until the next moon, if we live to see it. If you or your Army should seek to undermine this imposition, I will personally seek to answer that transgression. Is this clear?"

"We are old friends, Panther."

"Am I clear or not?"

Drake somberly nodded, stood up and left the teepee. The day was as bright as it had been in the morning, though now long shadows rested over the village like slumbering beasts. Drake looked for Black Heart as he made his way to his steed but could not spot her.

As he rode back down and out of the Hills he fought back his feelings of despair. He hated to think that Panther Sprung would actually listen to the Matrons and flee. He hated to think that his once noble and proud warrior was becoming a pitiful, fearful victim.

It was almost like it was he and the Ixopaw and all of New Attica who had lost the great battle against Custer, and not the other way around, Drake mused.

When he came about the interior bounds of the Race Track evening was racing to meet him.