It almost shocked Charging Elk to remember that he had gone to the school at the agency for nearly a year. He had sat in one of the rows of long tables watching the freckle-faced white woman write her words in white chalk on the black board: Boy. Girl. Cat. Dog. Fish. She showed them colored pictures of these creatures. The humans were pink, the cat yellow, and the dog black-and-white. The fish were orange and fat, unlike any he had ever seen. But he was most interested in the cat. He had seen the long-cat and the tufted-ear-cat, but they were wild and only once in a while seen. The cat in the picture was small and had a happy look. He had just seen his first small-cat right there at the agency but it had been rangy with frostbitten ears and it ran away from people and dogs. Still, it lived among humans.
He remembered the word “Indian.” She had pointed directly at him, then at the board, and said “Indian.” She made all the children say “Indian.” Then she showed them a picture of a man they could not recognize. He had sharp toes, big thighs, and narrow shoulders; he wore a crown of blue and green and yellow feathers and an animal skin with dark spots. His eyes were large and round; his lips tiny and pursed. The white woman said “Indian.”
Charging Elk and Strikes Plenty were three years older than the other students, a fact that made them ashamed. All the things they had learned out in the buffalo country were of no use here, and their smaller classmates had to help them spell, and add and subtract the red apples. About the only thing the two older boys—they were thirteen winters then—were good at was art. The woman gave them colored sticks and they drew pictures of the life they had just left—villages of lodges, men on horseback, buffaloes, mountains, and trees. Charging Elk once drew a picture of himself, Strikes Plenty, and Liver cutting off the finger of the dead soldier at Little Bighorn to get his agate ring. The woman had scolded him and torn the picture into little pieces, which she made him pick up and put in the wood stove. He didn’t bother to explain, even if she could understand, that the soldier’s knuckle was too big to slip the ring off. Instead, he remained silent, and when the Moon of the Red Grass Appearing came, he and Strikes Plenty took off for the Stronghold. And that was the end of his white man’s learning.
Charging Elk looked out and watched the rain bounce and puddle on the rough cobblestones of the street. The arcade was dry and the night was warmer than it had been the last four sleeps. He looked up at the shuttered windows in the buildings above the shops. Most of them leaked slivers of yellow light, and he imagined the rooms filled with people, eating roasted meat, talking their strange tongue, laughing, smoking tobacco, playing dominoes. Charging Elk liked the game of dominoes. He liked the feel and design of the tiles and he liked to pu t them together in the proper way. But the poker games were more exciting. He and some of the other performers played poker and dominoes every night in Paris after the evening performance. They weren’t supposed to play for money, so they played for matchsticks. Ten matchsticks equaled one centime. Late at night when they cashed out, some of the Indians went to bed with no centimes in their purses. When this happened to Charging Elk, he was grateful that the white bosses were sending most of his money home to his mother and father.
One night, not long after they arrived in Paris, Charging Elk and Featherman and three others were outside their lodge playing poker by lantern light when they heard a loud commotion across the compound where the wide trail from the arena entered the village. Several people were shouting and rushing toward the path. Charging Elk saw Rocky Bear and his wife come out of their lodge and turn to the sound of the excitement. Then Rocky Bear let out a great yell.
The young men scooped up their matchsticks and stood, watching a group of people coming toward them. Buffalo Bill was in the center of the crowd. He was wearing the fancy black clothes that the rich men of Paris wore in the evening, with a stiff white shirt and a little white tie with wings. His goatee looked yellowish against the shirt.
Rocky Bear and his wife were on one side of him, with big grins on their faces. On the other side, an Indian man, dressed in a rough suit, smiled sheepishly.
“Black Elk,” whispered Featherman. “It is Black Elk.”
Charging Elk couldn’t believe it. Even out at the Stronghold, the word had gotten around that Black Elk and three other Oglalas had been lost in Mother England’s home a couple of years earlier. They hadn’t come back to Pine Ridge with the other performers when the show season ended. Most thought they must be dead, that they had met a treacherous end across the big water. There were even ceremonies to release their spirits and people mourned them in the old way. And in a new way—In the white man’s holy house at Pine Ridge, where the white pejata wicasa, wearing his golden-and-white robes, said many solemn words about their lost brothers and sons. When Doubles Back Woman told Charging Elk about this ceremony, and praised it, he had become angry that she and his father had even entered this holy house, much less believed what the blackrobe said. He had ridden back out to the Stronghold and vowed never to enter such a flimsy house.
And now here was Black Elk, two years later, looking surprisingly thin and pitiful under Buffalo Bill’s arm. Charging Elk hadn’t really known Black Elk, who was three years older, because they had grown up in different places. But he had known of him when they were out in the buffalo country many winters ago. Both were boys then, but the three-year difference in their ages meant they played with their own peers. At the big fight on the Greasy Grass, Charging Elk had seen him and his friends wandering among the dead soldiers, looking for things to take. But after the surrender at Fort Robinson, he didn’t see much of the older boy.
The big fire in the center of the camp was built up and two women came with a large pot of coffee, which they put on a stone on the edge of the flames. Somebody brought Buffalo Bill a stool and the others sat on their blankets. It was a warm spring night and the fire felt good and so did the cool air on their backs. Charging Elk and the other young performers sat on the opposite side of the fire and studied both Buffalo Bill and Black Elk. The women passed cups of hot coffee to the leaders.
Buffalo Bill talked to Rocky Bear, glancing from time to time at Black Elk. He had a big voice that seemed to include all the Indians around the fire.
Rocky Bear turned to Black Elk and said, “Our leader, Pahuska, welcomes you back to his family. He has been sad these past two years that his brother has been lost. But he never gave up hope that one day he would find you. He was a great scout in his younger days and he had no doubt that he would track you down. But now it seems that you have found us. Welcome to our camp, Black Elk.”
Black Elk seemed almost dazed that he was sitting at the fire with Buffalo Bill and his people once again. He looked at all the faces as he thanked Buffalo Bill and Wakan Tanka for bringing him here. Then he said, “Pahuska knows that Black Elk is an honorable man who would aspire to become a wichada yatapika, perhaps even a wicada wakan. I have lived in the wadichu world for two years and I do not like what I see. Men do not listen to each other, they fight, their greed prevents them from being generous to the less fortunate, they do not seem to me to be wise enough to embrace each other as brothers. I have learned much from this experience, much that will help me teach our people the right road when I get back to my country. I am glad to see Pahuska and my brothers and sisters, but now I am tired of this land and my heart is sick for home.”
Rocky Bear translated for Buffalo Bill, but the showman seemed to have heard the gist of it in the Lakota tongue. He nodded at Black Elk and said, “Yes, yes,” as he listened. Even after Rocky Bear had stopped, Buffalo Bill continued nodding. Then he spoke more words in his own tongue, occasionally signing to Black Elk. He was a decent sign-talker and all the Indians watched for the signs. He made the sign for friend, for travel; later, he signed for big water and iron road.
Then Rocky Bear said to Black Elk, “Pahuska understands you. He too gets sick for home. This night he was with the big royals and the big bosses of this great nation. He drank their wine and ate their food, but all the time he thought of his home and his relatives at North Platte.