Strikes Plenty had looked down at his moccasins that were drying beside the small fire. In the silence, Charging Elk thought himself wise to bring up such a far-seeing concern. He pitied his friend for dashing his excitement. But then, Strikes Plenty had looked up and said, “What if we don’t come back?” He had a grin on his face.
It was a great shock when the Buffalo Bill bosses did not choose Strikes Plenty to accompany the show to the land across the water. Charging Elk and Strikes Plenty had looked at each other in disbelief when Strikes Plenty’s name wasn’t called. They had participated in the horsemanship contests and they were both good, the best. They had been riding hard for ten years, while the reservation Indians only rode for work and pleasure. They had the fastest horses, they rode bareback while the others used saddles made of sheepskin and leather. They were both lean and hard from the years of living on meat and turnips and sometimes with nothing.
The people who had come to watch the contests at the powwow grounds cheered them, the women trilling, the men shouting. There was a recklessness about the way the two friends rode, as though they had not been tamed by the white bosses. Even their soiled, ragged deerskin leggings and shirts seemed to suggest a life lived the old way. The other riders wore their best clothes, beaded and fringed buckskins, blue felt leggings, calico blouses, some even full headdresses. They painted their faces and their horses and they rode their woolly saddles with a practiced recklessness. Charging Elk and Strikes Plenty grinned at each other.
But when the twenty-five names were called, Strikes Plenty’s wasn’t among them, and so Charging Elk decided not to go. He would persuade his friend to return with him to the Stronghold. Whatever that life lacked, it was better than living among these reservation people.
The two friends rode out of Pine Ridge and rode for another couple of hours in silence. Strikes Plenty had fallen several paces behind and Charging Elk glanced back once in a while to make sure he was still there. It saddened him to see his kola slumped on his horse, with his head down, thinking how miserable he was. But after a time, Charging Elk heard Strikes Plenty’s horse break into a trot, and soon his friend rode up even.
“I’ve been thinking, brother,” said Strikes Plenty, with his familiar grin. “You must go back and say goodbye to your mother and father. They won’t be seeing you for a long time and they need to remember you clearly.”
Charging Elk looked at his friend’s grin and he felt his own jaw drop in disbelief.
“When you go across the big water to the land where the sun comes from, they will miss you.”
“I’m not going. Right now I’m going to the Stronghold.”
Strikes Plenty looked at his friend for a moment, his grin gone now, replaced by a look of resigned determination. “No. You must go with Buffalo Bill. You have been chosen and if you do not go, you will become doubtful and melancholy. In one sleep’s time, or seven sleeps, or two moons, you will wish with all your heart that you had gone. You will be at the Stronghold but your thoughts will be in the faraway land. I will not like to be around you.”
“My thoughts will be here,” Charging Elk said. He was angry that his friend presumed to know so much about him. His red horse gasped and lunged forward with the force of the kick in its ribs. Then it began to trot with an easy gait that it could maintain for hours at a time. Many times High Runner had carried Charging Elk through the badlands to the Stronghold at just such a pace.
But Strikes Plenty rode up and grabbed the twisted rawhide rein just behind the horse’s neck, turning its head. Both riders stopped then and looked at each other. For the first time ever, something crackled in the air between them. Charging Elk started to say something he would regret, but Strikes Plenty held up his hand to stop him.
The two friends were alone on the plain. There was nothing around them but the rolling hills and swales. There were no trees, no shacks, no animals. Only a lone hawk, circling to the north of them, a speck of a bird that caught Charging Elk’s eye for an instant, then was gone into the space of blue sky.
“I am not going back to the Stronghold,” said Strikes Plenty, looking away, his voice soft but determined. “I have been thinking this for a long time. It is no use for me out there anymore. At first, it was fun, for a long time it was good to be free, to have good times, but last winter, during the Moon of Snowblind, I went out hunting and I saw one of the older ones—he was hunting beneath another ridge far off—and he was dressed in coyote skins with a wolf cap on his head and his dunka wakan was gaunt beneath him, and I thought, That will be me. My brother, Charging Elk, will be married, he will have a warm lodge and children, and I will be out here alone with others like me, starving and cold in the winter, wandering in the summer.” Strikes Plenty was now looking off toward the long-setting sun. His eyes were narrowed against the yellow glare and his lips were tight, as though he had said what he wanted to say and was waiting for a response.
But Charging Elk didn’t know how to respond. He suddenly felt unsure of himself. Strikes Plenty was right—not about Charging Elk being married and his friend wasting his life at the Stronghold, but about the past couple of years not being fun. The two kolas had become increasingly concerned with filling their bellies with meat and surviving the winters. If they went back out now, they would lose touch with their relatives for another winter. Charging Elk didn’t want that either.
“If I go with Buffalo Bill, what will you do?”
Strikes Plenty brightened, his grin returning. “Find a woman, settle down. There are plenty of women out at Whirlwind.”
“But what will you do? After you find your woman? Plant potatoes?”
Strikes Plenty laughed. “Maybe. Maybe I’ll have my woman plant potatoes. They say the wasichu makes his woman do the planting. He plants something else when he goes to town.”
Charging Elk’s horse grew restless beneath him, alternately trying to graze and hopping around, making great shuddering snorts. High Runner wanted to return to the Stronghold. There were mares out there.
“It is for the best,” said Strikes Plenty. “You will see the land where these white men come from. You will see many great things, make money, enjoy yourself. Me, I will become fat with potatoes, and maybe I will have a winy an and many children when you return.”
“I will miss you too much. I will miss our good times, brother-friend.”
“Those times are gone, Charging Elk. We must follow our eyes and see what lies ahead. Today we go our separate paths and we are not happy about this. When you come back, things will be changed. But we will not be changed. We have been brothers together for many years, we have raised ourselves from children, and we are still young. Much lies ahead for us, but we will be strong brothers always.” Strikes Plenty rode closer and leaned over and hugged his friend. “When we are old tunkadhlicu together, we will laugh at this moment.”
Charging Elk stood in the alcove and remembered how he had felt when he watched his dear friend ride away that early spring day in the direction of the Whirlwind Compound. It was the end of nine winters of brotherness and he felt a great emptiness, as though Strikes Plenty had taken away half of him.
Two days later, he had ridden High Runner in the procession of riders and wagons down to the iron road in the town of Gordon, Nebraska. His parents had ridden in a wagon, and while the young men were unloading their bundles of clothing and equipment, Charging Elk had handed the reins to his father. “He is yours.”
In return Scrub lifted a bundle out of the wagon. He unrolled the blanket and lifted up the hairpipe breastplate. Charging Elk recognized it. His father wore it when the Oglalas were free on the plains. He wore it when he took the horses of the Snakes and Crows. He wore it during ceremonies. He wore it when he fought the soldiers at the Greasy Grass. And he wore it when