Chapter 20

"...again, Igmuwatogola, we cannot speak to the whims of waiscu, whatever firmament they are borne from."

"We are old, as Chikika says, and Wasula has gone blind--bring you visions for her, Chief? The sun has long set, the shadow long cast, yet we linger as the air grows chill, as the grasshopper's song grows solemn and dulcet and the river slows. All of us, I think, trust that you've kept your ear to the ground. Perhaps you're allowing your eyes to fool you."

"The eyes are there to trick the brain, Panther Sprung. What they reveal is but a fraction of what is there. Where is your daughter Black Heart?"

Panther Sprung dipped his head for reverence and he kept paralytically still for all focus before the matrons was for their wisdom and to move or fidget was to forget and to forget was to miss the absorption of that wisdom and against the damp chill permeating the lodge they kept of natural stone and earth and against the supplication of his soul to the crackling flames of a fire which never went out he kept himself as stiff as a corpse and let no creeping anxiety rise. Here was a day for a chief: when the followers of the White Buffalo Woman and the power of Wakinyan diverted against each other and went scattering to opposite ends for answers and guidance it fell upon the chief to rectify these schisms and fears and make good on their honor to shepard them upon the allotted path. The Matrons must establish this path.

"I ask of you no miracles. My own forethought has suggested the eminence of the waiscu--he makes himself known by subterfuge and surreptitious, dishonorable methods. A direct assault is soon to pass, this I know. There is no deceiving to be made, except by the seeing of what is desired, or hearing what one wants to hear. The truth is evident from a distance." He spoke clearly and slowly.

"The man Drake has made this inevitable. His intervention is to blame for our predicament. His perversion of our power has made it so. Perhaps he is to be answered, corrected, if we are to pursue our destinies across the border..."

"I mean to."

Young Robe Whispers, the newest and youngest matron, made herself known. "You were asked about Black Heart. Where is she?"

"She has fled to Drake--that same nuisance. Perhaps it is my fault--perhaps I have driven her out. But she yearns to die as her parents died. How could I convince her she is wrong?"

"She is not wrong. She has chosen a warrior's death, but she is no warrior. You know this. Go to her again, Panther. Your gift has been resotred to you--you must not dwell in fear."

"I dwell in fear. I dwell in powerlessness. Power is not wrapped around my neck but held above my head, just out of my reach. I could fetch Black Heart and slay Drake--I mean to now, as I've said. But power lies in conviction. My conviction is that we must leave, and forthwith! Not today but yesterday! We have failed in this delay."

"You look to Sitting Bull but forget that he is still tied to his Old Country. See what refuse awaits Crazy Horse's glorious upheaval. The fighting is never over. The erasure is never complete. We must strive towards the next day and that alone. Drake stands between all of us and tomorrow. Will you consider tomorrow?"

"That is all I consider." This was going horribly wrong. "If I can foster goodwill and trust then I will. If they would still look to me and see me--they must see me--then I will take them to tomorrow. Take us. All of us. Drake be damned."

"He is damned!" Chikika with her eyes aswirl in opalescence. "He is a creature of wizardry and deceit--an extension of the Hole, of those dark caverns within a soul, within every soul. Panther, these sweet things like candy are the fastest to rot--so is Drake's heart too meek and soft. It is rotted! Thus, his danger is in his Will to see himself as savior and warrior. Should you travail and begin our exodus from Hesapa, Drake will meet you at every path. He must be destroyed."

"Our sister speaks truth. He is an obstacle which cannot be deterred nor delayed. You must see."

"I told you all I have seen. I know. It will be done." Panther wanted more. "In the meantime, allow me to choose the mountain path. I have found one quite obsolete, leading past the Bear's Lodge. Should be a quite the favor of the stars...our choices are so limited..." He could feel the matrons' resistance in his own words...he forced them out, for he knew, he knew...and yet there was a chance...

"Drake has made that a cursed place. Young men and women go there wanting to become the next Drake, the next Igmuwatogola, power, power power. And it is a place of power, forever indulgent, forever tainted...I dread to think--"

"--we dread to think," Robe Whispers spoke loudly, bravely, for a young matron.

"--Yes, we dread to think on lighted spirits passing through the Bear's Lodge. A formidable shadow has been long draped over that way."

"Yes, and it curries our favor, I say."

"Yours is a wise soul, and it knows. Let us not pollute your thought, but rather enlighten it. If you say the trek is worth it then we will bless it. But know what forces you are tempting."

"Those which reside in Drake, those which preserve him. If I am to dispatch him anyway, that shadow looms ever quicker, ever closer."

"Be it so, Panther Sprung. You have tapped our knowledge and heard our wisdom, now you must act."

"Think of Black Heart. Rescue her if you can."

"She is your daughter. Not Drake's. Do not lose her."

"Not for pride."

"Not for shame."

"Save her."

"I humbly offer my gratitude for your council, that you should so freely give of your knowledge and experience bears good fortune for our next steps."

"Be well Panther Sprung."

"Be well." Smoke and discoloration as he left--high roaring winds through the higher altitudes, pursuing the delta stream, and harassing the populous fir and black oak. Afterwards the brightness of the sun, its sentimental warmth and the soft crunch of the ground, its soft reliable touch. The words spoken remained in his mind, as did the voices which put them there.

He made for his sanctuary. He wanted to see Ojinjintka.

Sarsparilla was made to repair the cattle barn while the cattle drive was on. There was a whole wall riddled with bullet holes and breaking apart as the nails curled and dropped out of the swelling wood and as the strain of the collapsing wall pulled against the joists Sarsparilla saw that the job would constitute much more than repairing a single wall since as soon as the wall was replaced and a new one installed the ceiling joists would need realignment and the opposing wall subsequently would need to be rebuilt and so for most of the afternoon when Sass should have been tearing out the bullet-riddled wall he was rather preoccupied with measurements. He wasn't much of a carpenter.

"Put the negro to it," they'd said, laughing. That Mexican, Gutierrez, laugh of a buzzard, eyes of an ox, body of a lizard...he'd got in a lash or a beating or a dry insult and then, examining the wall with his ranch hands, had duly nodded and acquiesced: "Put the prowler ape to work."

Prowler Ape. Even for Sass, that was new.

Since winding up here on this godforsaken ranch he'd spent much time contemplating his life. The beatings, the torture: in a way it had come full circle, hadn't it? From Big Farm in Louisiana to the Buffalo Riders to Major Wales and Fort Labrador and back to servitude, toiling over dirty, rank livestock belonging to a baron wearing, ironically, black. The one thing about it was that Drake was now demystified in Sass's eyes. To see him operate in the flesh was to dispel any otherworldly rumors attached to his name. Drake was just another rich cocksucker.

He had a bucket of nails and a pile of lumber. The sun bore down with a subtle heat, the wooden slats before his very eyes blistering and cracking so he shook his head saying no, no, nevermind--he wanted out.

"I thought you was out on the cattle drive to Henry," said a boy's voice.

Sass had seen him around and knew the face that the voice belonged to. Molet's kid, he'd heard. "They wouldn't take a prowler ape. No sir. I'm stuck here. Now kindly fuck off."

The kid had the guts to laugh at him and he would have killed him outright if he were in tbe mood. As it happened he didn't feel like doing much of anything.

"I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm bored. Dad says you're no good, and I asked if it was cause you were colored: he said no. He said it was cause you were a killer. A no-good killer. I figured I'd take a look at you."

Sass was surprised to feel his anger subside to bemusement. "And what do you think?"

"You're an old man."

"Damn straight. You seen a lotta colored folk?"

"Not your color. Not often. But I seen em enough, like that Julius Rice. I heard you shot him, funny enough."

The anger came back. Sass spat and turned back towards his chore. The fading paint gave off a funny smell--he felt nauseous. A strong urge for violence rushed through him, nearly sprung him to some random action but for a last-second ebb, a temperamental dropoff he wasn't proud to experience. His balled fists loosened. He noticed he had been staring at the hammer lying near the bucket of nails.

"I said fuck off, didn't I?"

"Can I help?"

"No. Fuck off before I kill you. I'm being kind, can't you see?"

"I'm just bored. What do you want? You must have war stories, don't you? You must've seen a lot, right? Old man like you..."

"I don't think you're supposed to even talk to me."

"Who's around? I ain't got nothing to do."

"You're daddy is. Now for the last time..."

"How about you just talk then. Dad won't say nothing, excepting maybe he was glad to see me at work. He likes it when I'm working, but I can listen even easier. I'll sit back and--"

Sass picked up the hammer and whirled about to charge the boy. No sooner had he looked round then the kid was running back towards the bunkhouses. There was some old tree there where he often saw the boy lounge. For all the hell his father had caused him, Sass wished he had taken his chance to kill him. Suddenly he was filled with regret. His was a life of violence, of continual retribution through violence, a cycle far out of his control by now because he only ever learned one thing and that one thing was also the only response he had to the intrusions of the world around him. If he could only simply remove himself...if he were only away from it...but it would come again, that same cycle, since it dwelt inside of him and not outside as he wished to believe.

He began with no enthusiasm to dismantle the planks of pinewood and to pile them off to the side. From within the barn he hammered upon the boards and once he frees them from their lower anchors he climbed the loft and knocked them out from the top. They fell in identical manners, dropping straight with a heavy thud and falling back away from the barn. His work was methodical and rather easy. His mind wandered.

When the heat of day faded with sun bleeding and dipping viscous shadows of evening reached and cooled as Sass put up from the pile of lumber new boards and hammered them in he was able to pause and look and see where the gray tarnished parts of the barn gave way to the brighter new boards and with that he was satisfied and so he picked up the hammer and placed it in the metal tool box that presumably belonged to Gutierrez and after that pocketed some nails. They were six inch nails made of iron and he took eight of them and wrapped them in his kerchief and stuffed them away.

Not long after some ranch hands came by drinking already with their work done and bobbling some and laughing and shouting out slurs at the "prowler darkie" building them a new barn.

"Let's return him to his cage," said one of them, a young white man.

The other, darker in tone and with a long, flat face with tiny mean eyes said, "Come with us grandpa Tom, come with us. We got stories need telling and a bath to give ya."

"A bath!" howled the other. "Ah yes, a bath. Nothing purges the flesh of dirt and malfeasance like a nice hot bucket of tar."

"You like hot tar, grandpa?"

The nails were tucked between each finger on each hand and he deftly moved the kerchief, patting at his forehead, from one side to the other, collecting the nails and folding them into his fist so that the pointed ends stuck out and he had two fists like maces. "I hope you bastards ain't got wives here on the ranch."

"You asking about our wives for?"

"Who says we got wives? I like me the colored women."

The other was serious. "I said get over here didn't I? That's better, keep coming. I oughta smack the backtalk right outta your--"

He screamed bloody murder when the first strike connected and was forcefully yanked back, sticking to his face some and ripping flesh with blood oozing as his hands came shaking upwards.

"Sonufabitch!" screamed the next, "someone c'mere! This crazy ni--"

Sass clocked him on the side and the hand stumbled and fell over. As Sass pummeled his face, turning it from a pale white in the fading light to a dark, purplish color, he could smell the booze on the man while he murdered him. He assailed with punches until he heard gurgling and the man's feet stopped kicking.

He went back and finished off the other.

When he was done he went and tried first the boots of the flat-faced dolt and finding them too small went to the dead drunkard and fit into those boots decent enough if a bit roomy before taking the drunkards hat and gunbelt with the Army revolver and left the nails and quickly crossed the ranch to the stables.

There was nobody around to stop him. He went in to the stables and found a nice big white standardbred that he saddled and climbed onto. He rode out of the stalls and started down the path heading West, away from the ranch and Henry and eventually out of the Dakota territory.

He thought he'd head for California.

He rode out back the way he'd escaped and glimpsed the barn he'd spent the day working on and the two forms lying there in the growing dark. Again and again, a cycle. Something within him, something unavoidable.

His exit took him past the bunkhouses and cabins and as he passed them the boy was out again walking away from a house that must have been Molet's. The kid didn't even see him yet, his head was down. Sass could stop and get down and head over to take his retribution. He could kill Molet and then his idiot son.

He didn't. He couldn't say why but he simply didn't. Enough bloodshed in the day, he was getting older...whatever excuse. He just didn't want to.

He was freed again, and that was all that mattered. His poster would be up in time. Bounty hunters would memorize his name. That was all to come.

He would survive, he always did. He rode out of Glory's Dawn that night at a good pace, determined to never see any of this stretch of country again.