For every man of the pack that went down, a new throng of pursuers sprang up on the side of the Wasichu. It is said it was obvious to Sleeping Rabbit, and he saw fit to tell the others, that it was like a man’s corpse and a thousand maggots. It is said the others nodded. When Sleeping Rabbit fell, they didn’t mourn much, remembering what he’d said about man and his maggots, and their lips curled back in a smile. They bared their teeth to the leaves of the forest and the sand of the pits and the rocks among which they hid. And they say the things of the trees and the soil adopted the wolfish smile as their own and helped the people of the pack.
Chief Joseph and Necklace brought up the rear. Circling. The others rode on the flanks and in front, protecting the women and children, who obeyed the words of Pte-San-Waste-Win, Buffalo Calf Sister, Many Baskets, and Yellow Woman. Most of the women were from different tribes, but they abridged their vocabularies and mixed their alphabets in order to understand one another. Supposedly they were upset that they couldn’t use many adjectives, given that they lived in such a wild and colorful time. But they had to give things names on the run. Sometimes a couple of nouns were enough to name the things you had to dodge. Often the most urgent sentence was nothing but a muffled cry. A whisper and a gesture. Dull Knife’s people knew that as long as one warrior and at least one of the Protected Ones survived, the seed of the pack would not perish. But Ollokot, Bear Head, and Heap of Meat had fallen. Crooked Lightning and Carrying Pumpkin had passed on. The people with those ridiculous and incomprehensible names in a tongue that almost no longer existed, even as it was being created, were dying one after the next. By now they had lots of weapons, so the old women, or anyone else who didn’t want to live anymore, rode on the flanks and at the head, putting enemies to death. Some cavalrymen boasted to their companions of the distinguished decorations they’d won in their war with the tribes. They carved out women’s private parts and slung them on their saddlehorns. The decorations quickly dried in the air and never turned moist again, except in the rain.
On receiving this old information, the man of the time of reading, swallower of a full spectrum of data flows and deaths, the cripple of today’s age when there are no rules and all is permitted, should conceal any potentially unwarranted and pseudohumanistic indignation. And not just because of the fires all around us. Because when the women of the pack got to the hostages, they tested their manly strength with instruments. In the scholarly volumes and history books it is written that it lasted a long time and that it hurt. No one knows who started it.
It was the cavalry versus Dull Knife’s people, bullet to bullet and knife to knife. That it was a hundred knives to one, and then a thousand, is a different matter, but there were rules. Then something happened. Chief Joseph told Necklace: Ahem, ahem. Respectable citizens joined the hunt from every village, every town, every farm where cows or chickens were raised in slavery. Sheriffs, bosses, chefs, bankers, psychoanalysts, jailers, teachers, politicians, voters, brake-men, and eurojournalists all flipped through the channels and, finding no reruns of Dallas or Denver, grabbed their rifles, said goodbye to their wives and little ones, and walked out the door. Chief Joseph caught a lot of them. But then he fell too. The citizens ran the pack out of their backyards, then went home and told stories and wrote screenplays and drew up assessments, convening peace conferences and printing moving accounts. Some even produced resolutions calling for an end to the hunting of subhumans. They made lots of resolutions, right up to the end.
The land of animals and people was transformed into an unbroken tract of cottages, one great big never-ending chicken farm, and wherever there wasn’t a building someone had a backyard. Nothing lay fallow or untamed anymore. And new citizens were constantly coming along who hadn’t learned their lesson yet. The ones who had could no longer speak. Their experience was incommunicable. Some only wanted to get a snapshot of the savages, but their incomparably dull subjects couldn’t tell the difference and took their scalps along with their cameras.
Winter set in. The pack found itself in its usual situation: encircled. But this time there were settlers gathered in droves behind the string of cavalrymen. Holding carnivals, raffles, and peace conferences. Having fun. Bloody Knife thought they were out of their minds. Let’s slaughter them, he said. But then others will come, said Wolf Cub. Too late. Bloody Knife had ridden off. The grandstands fell silent, his singing the only sound until he came into shooting range. The pack charged. Some fell under the hail of bullets. They say Bloody Knife caught the bullets in flight and deflected them into his chest, many shots were fired. Thunderbolt, who prided himself on his singing, couldn’t take it and decided to outdo Bloody Knife. Their voices crossed in the night, catching bullets. They couldn’t afford to waste time killing settlers. Their pride was too great to make meat out of them, they measured their strength by their songs. But many shots were fired. Afterward, at the agreed spot, Dull Knife counted his people. Only thirty of them remained, they say, a few braves, plus old people and children. Just three women were left now: Pte-San-Waste-Win, Armadillo Sister, and Yellow Woman.
It was winter. They dug a ditch and hid inside it. Fortunately the people of the pack still had the old free animals’ hides; those snowflakes weighed a lot. That night they were heavier than bullets. Many old people froze. Some of them threw their furs over the ones who were asleep and crept out of the ditch to go look for their time, thinking it had disappeared. Next morning the ones who were left had to kill the horses and eat their flesh. The horses’ blood was the warmest thing they had. The spirits surrounded them, but this time they broke the rules: they didn’t kill; they waited. A couple of journalists with Camerama, Inc. snuck across the line to Dull Knife’s people and began shooting footage; they’re still shooting there to this day. Then shrapnel began to fall on the trench. I shall not surrender another one of my men to the scalping knives of the inhumans, declared General Sherman. It is said that some of his men vomited on seeing the shredded bodies fly from the trenches. They no longer felt like warriors. They say some refused that method of warfare and were punished. When the head of Pte-San-Waste-Win rolled across the snow, it cried out Natanis’s name; she had taken away her brother’s freedom and now feared to meet him. Dull Knife’s remaining people climbed on their horses and charged the cannons. It is said the clouds carried them, releasing an avalanche. Few were the horses not shredded by grenades. The next day the survivors found out how strong the frost was. They cut open the horses’ bellies and put the little children inside to hide them from the cold. They knew they were going to die but still hoped the spirits might spare at least the littlest ones. They wanted the new tribe to live on in their songs. But soon there was no one left to sing them.
But it is said … Yellow Woman tethered Wolf Cub to her horse and broke through the encirclement. They couldn’t tell which way they were going, the snowstorm blinded them. But they reached the mountains and spent the winter there. Yellow Woman tied branches to Wolf Cub’s broken arms and the bones grew back together. They hunted. Somehow they survived. Wolf Cub saw that Yellow Woman’s belly was growing. She wanted to go on though, high into the mountains. The Earth is full of graves, she told him … the Earth is a grave, c’mon, you know … we have to go as high as we can.