Buffalo Before Breakfast (5 page)

Grandmother rose to greet them.

“You have been gone a long time,” she said.

Black Hawk looked her bravely in the eye.

“Grandmother, I tried to hunt the buffalo alone,” he said. “One charged at me, but Jack saved my life. Then Annie and White Buffalo Woman stopped all the other buffalo from a stampede.”

“Let this be a lesson to you,” Grandmother said sternly. “Your pride led you to show off. Showing off made you behave foolishly. Your foolishness frightened a buffalo. He frightened others. One thing always leads to another. Everything is related.”

“I am sorry,” said Black Hawk. He hung his head. “I have learned.”

Jack felt sorry for Black Hawk.

“I make mistakes sometimes, too,” he said softly.

“Me too,” said Annie.

Grandmother looked at Jack and Annie.

“Buffalo Girl and Rides-Like-Wind showed great courage today,” she said.

Jack smiled. He loved his new Lakota name:
Rides-Like-Wind
.

“We welcome you to our family,” said Grandmother.

The evening shadows spread over the camp. Someone began beating a drum. It sounded like a heartbeat.

“Come, sit with us in our circle,” said Grandmother.

They sat with her near the warm fire. A cool breeze blew sparks into the gray twilight.

An old man held a long pipe up to the sky. He pointed it to the east, the south, the west, and the north.

Then he passed the pipe to the next man in the circle. The man put the pipe to his lips and blew smoke into the golden firelight. Then he passed it on.

“The smoke from the sacred pipe joins all things to the Great Spirit,” Grandmother said to Jack and Annie.

“The Great Spirit?” asked Annie.

“The Great Spirit is the source of all things in the sacred circle of life,” said Grandmother. “It is the source of all spirits.”

“What spirits?” asked Jack.

“There are many,” said Grandmother. “Wind spirits, tree spirits, bird spirits. Sometimes they can be seen. Sometimes not.”

“What about the White Buffalo Woman?” said Jack. “Who is she?”

“She is a messenger of the Great Spirit,” said Grandmother. “He sent her when the people were starving. She brought the sacred pipe so that our prayers could rise to the Great Spirit. He answers by sending us the buffalo.”

“Why do you think White Buffalo Woman came to me?” asked Annie.

“Sometimes courage can summon help from the beyond,” Grandmother said.

She pulled a brown-and-white feather from a small buckskin bag.

She put the feather on the ground in front of Jack and Annie.

“This is a gift for you,” she said. “An eagle's feather for your courage.”

Arf! Arf!
Teddy wagged his tail.

Jack and Annie smiled at each other. The eagle's feather was their “gift from the prairie blue.”

Their mission was complete.

The chanting and drumbeats grew louder and louder. Then they stopped.

The old man held the pipe up to the sky.

“All things are related,” he said.

The pipe-smoking ceremony was over.

The sky was dark and filled with stars.

One by one, people rose from the circle and went to their tepees.

Jack put the eagle's feather in his bag and yawned.

“We better go home now,” he said.

“You must rest first,” said Grandmother. “You can leave in the dawn.”

“Good plan,” said Annie. She was yawning, too.

They went with Grandmother and Black Hawk to their tepee.

Grandmother pointed to two buffalo robes that lay to one side of the still-burning fire. Jack and Annie stretched out on them. Teddy snuggled between them.

Grandmother and Black Hawk lay on robes across from them.

Jack watched as the bluish white smoke rose from the fire. It went up through the tepee hole and into the endless starry sky.

Jack listened to the wind blowing through the grass:
Shh—shh—shh
.

It's the voice of the Great Plains
, he thought. Then he drifted off to sleep.

Jack felt Teddy licking his cheek.

He opened his eyes. Gray light came through the smoke hole.

The fire was out. The tepee was empty.

Jack jumped up. He grabbed his bag and hurried outside with Teddy.

In the cool light before dawn, everyone was taking down their tepees. They were loading them onto wooden platforms strapped to two poles. The poles were pulled by horses.

Grandmother and Black Hawk piled tools and clothes onto their platform.

Annie stuffed buffalo meat into a rawhide bag.

“What's happening?” Jack asked.

“It is time to follow the buffalo,” said Grandmother. “We will camp somewhere else for a few weeks.”

Jack pulled out his notebook. He still had many questions. But he tried to choose just a few.

“Can you camp anywhere?” he asked. “Even when you don't own the land?”

Black Hawk laughed.

“People cannot own land,” he said. “The land belongs to the Great Spirit.”

Jack wrote in his notebook:

“What about school?” said Jack. “Don't you have to go to school?”

“What is school?” Black Hawk said.

“It's a place where kids go to learn things,” Jack explained.

Black Hawk laughed again.

“There is not only one place to learn,” he said. “In camp we learn to make clothes, tools, and tepees. On the plains we learn to ride and hunt. We look at the sky and learn courage from the eagle.”

Jack wrote:

Grandmother turned to Jack and Annie.

“Will you walk with us toward the sunset?” she asked.

Jack shook his head.

“We have to go the other way,” he said, “toward the sunrise.”

“Thank you for the eagle's feather,” said Annie.

“Let your thoughts rise as high as that feather,” said Grandmother. “It is good medicine.”

“What does that mean?” Jack asked. “
Good medicine?
”

“Good medicine connects you to the world of the spirits,” she said.

Jack nodded. But he still didn't really understand.

“Good-bye, Buffalo Girl and Rides-Like-Wind,” said Grandmother. “We wish you a safe journey.”

Jack and Annie waved. Then they started walking back the way they'd come.

Teddy ran ahead of them.

At the top of the rise, they looked back.

Grandmother, Black Hawk, and the rest of the tribe were watching.

Jack and Annie both held up two fingers for “friend.” Then they took off down the slope.

They ran across the prairie … through the tall, whispering grass … all the way back to the tree house.

Annie put Teddy in the leather bag. She and Jack climbed up the rope ladder.

They looked out the window one last time. The ocean of grass was golden in the early sunlight.

By now, the Lakota are walking west
, Jack thought.

“Soon everything will change,” he said sadly. “The buffalo will vanish. The old way of life for the Lakota will vanish, too.”

“But the Great Spirit won't ever vanish,” said Annie. “It will
always
take care of Black Hawk's people.”

Jack smiled. Annie's words made him feel better.

Arf, arf!
Teddy barked, as if to say
Let's go!

“Okay, okay,” said Jack.

He picked up the Pennsylvania book and pointed at a picture of Frog Creek.

“I wish we could go home to our people,” he said.

The wind started to blow.

The tree house started to spin.

It spun faster and faster.

Then everything was still.

Absolutely still.