Murder at Medicine Lodge Read Online Free Page A

singing of many voices, they danced in skillful leg-swinging motions, trampling down the tall grasses. We had safely reached the wide valley of Medicine Lodge and the dance celebrated the end of tedious travel.
    In life, it is always the simple things which give us the most pleasure, and this simple thing of opening the camp lifted our spirits as nothing else could. Our voices grew stronger, filling the valley with our presence. We wanted the already-encamped Blue Jackets and various tribes to know that the true People, the Cauigu (Kiowa), had arrived. When our own voices came back to us from the surround of foothills, we knew the other camps had clearly heard.
    Next came the rush for the best places for individual family camps. Crying Wind wasted no time or words, for she had already decided on a shady place close to the creek. She was a canny woman but also somewhat lazy. She always set up our home close to a good water source and wood supply. That way she never had to walk very far for either. Taking my faster horse, she galloped off, racing against the other women who had designs on such a location themselves. With my wife’s departure I was left with the task of struggling with our temper tantrum–throwing son, as well as moving along our tiny herd, while guiding the horses pulling the travois containing everything we owned. The false summer was holding, the day was hot, and sweat poured from me as I coaxed and cajoled child and horses.
    The trouble was that both had understood the grass-dance ceremony, too. My son didn’t want to move another inch and the horses wanted to go immediately into pasture. The herd I grappled with consisted of five extra horses, Crying Wind’s mare, Favorite Son’s pony, and the three drag-horses. Not a great number, really, but enough to give me trouble. Pulling and tugging, I strained all of us forward. I couldn’t see the campsite my wife had gone for. The landscape rose a bit and all I had left of my wife’s determined direction was a faceful of dust. Impatient and cranky, I yelled at my horses and my son. My son began to bawl and Crying Wind’s mare wasn’t happy with me on its back. As I was heavier than it was used to, it responded by prancing sideways, nodding its head in a dangerous manner. To add to my worries, the old roan pulling one of the travois just stopped dead-still and began to graze, sending me one-eyed furtive looks.
    Now, I have never beaten a horse, and for two very good reasons. One, horses are sacred beings and must be treated with complete respect. Two, an angry horse can hurt you. That old horse was telling me in no uncertain terms that if I did not allow it a moment to replenish itself, that it would bolt, tipping the travois and leaving me to pick up our household goods, which it would spread all over the valley. Now, considering the heat, that really would have hurt me.
    Heaving a dejected sigh, I dismounted and went to my squawking son, pulling him down from his pony. Then I tried not to laugh. After many days of riding, his little legs stuck out oddly, for they were still too short to bend correctly around the pony’s belly. Favorite Son was having a hard time trying to pull his legs together and was being quite specific about the pains in his groin. Patting his head, I thought, Welcome to manhood.
    I did not have time to offer manly advice, for just then my wife came stomping over the rise. She stopped at the crest and waved an arm, her manner intolerant of our loitering. That she was on foot meant she had left my horse as a marker in the spot she had selected for our home camp. She then turned her back on us and, with her hands on her hips, she kept a sharp lookout for any unscrupulous woman that might take it into her head to move the marking horse. Housewives could be sneaky, worse than the Lakota, really, and even though some of the women she watched out for were her own sisters and aunties, when it came to prime