somewhere in a town north of Paris. Marseille was south of Paris, a different piece of country but on the same water. Rocky Bear had told them so. They could take a fire boat from here to America if they chose. Charging Elk’s spirit rose a little as he thought this. He wondered if Wakan Tanka had been testing him with such adversity. Sometimes the Great Mystery worked that way. The medicine people at the Stronghold had told him that while they prepared him for his four-day fast. Bird Tail, the oldest and most powerful, had told him, when they were purifying themselves in the steamy inipi, that he would see many things in his suffering, many frightening things, but to keep his eyes open for the real vision. He would know it. And Charging Elk did. When the badger came to him one night, he held out his hand and the badger placed its power there. They talked all that night, the badger sang to him and smoked with him, and when he woke up, the badger was gone. But Charging Elk had the badger power in his hand.
Charging Elk suddenly felt both apprehensive and hopeful. If this was all part of Wakan Tanka’s plan, he would have to see it through. He would have to listen carefully and make good decisions. Above all, he would have to pray for guidance. He no longer had his badger-claw necklace but he still had his death song. If he sang it well at the right time, his nagi would find its way home. But would he still have the power on this side of the big water? One way or another, time would tell.
He stepped away from the building and crossed the street. He felt warmth on his head and shoulders and he looked up to see the sun shining down on the street. He took that as a sign that the Great Mystery was watching him and he looked up and stared at wi for a moment. He felt its warmth bathe his face and he felt both powerful and small. And for the first time in many days, fully alive. He would not wish to die again, lest Wankan Tanka take him at his word.
On the other side of the street, in the shadows again, he studied the dressed-up tree. He knew about this tree. He had seen it in the gathering house in Pine Ridge on a visit to his parents’ shack, and another time in a miners’ town in Paha Sapa. He and Strikes Plenty had sneaked up to a big eating house there and had seen it through the window. In Pine Ridge, it had stood in a corner of the gathering house, and the Oglala children sang soft songs to it.
It was the season of the white man’s holiest of days and they worshiped this tree as though it were the sun. The white sticks were lit at night and the tree came alive and sparkled. Charging Elk decided that the little figures in the alley had something to do with the holy days. He had a vague recollection of seeing the woman in the blue cloth and the yellow-haired kicking baby, the men with the big hats; he knew they possessed much power but he didn’t know quite what they had to do with this season of the holy pine trees. He didn’t know what the policeman and the dark man with the eye patch had to do with it.
Charging Elk remained free for five more sleeps. Although he had no centimes, he managed to fill his belly a little with things he stole or picked out of trashbins behind restaurants. A couple of times he came upon a neighborhood open-air market and he walked among the stalls, smelling good things—rough dark bread, red glistening meat, stacks of oranges and nuts, trays of olives, and cheeses of every color and size and shape. He had seen such markets in Paris and he and the others often bought cones of the hard white nuts with the green meats. Charging Elk didn’t like the cheeses—some were dry, others smelly or sticky on his teeth, all gave him diarrhea. But the reservation Indians, who were used to the white man’s commodities, ate the cheeses whole and farted all night, much to their enjoyment.
That first day, in spite of attracting so much attention, Charging Elk did steal a small bag containing four apples from beside one of the stalls. And that night he found some bird bones behind an eating house that still had some of the pale meat on them. But after that the pickings were slim—orange peelings, cabbage leaves, pieces of hard bread, a few soggy pommes frites in a paper wrapper that had small white man’s words written on it. He decided not to try to steal anymore at the outdoor markets, because he was afraid of the many stares. He stayed off the large boulevards for the same reason.
He was growing weak again—he had to stop more frequently to rest. The days had been sunny and warm, but the nights were cold. Even the heavy coat was not enough to keep him from shivering when he stopped walking and tried to sleep. So he slept very little, but when he did he dreamed of the feasts when he was a boy on the plains. The Oglalas ate real meat then. There were still buffaloes around the Tongue and Powder rivers, along the Missouri and the Milk rivers, and the men would come back to camp with their pack-horses covered with meat and hides. Charging Elk dreamed of buffalo hump, of belly fat and boss ribs, of brains and marrow bones. But just as he was about to dig in, just as his mother passed him a bowl of sarvisberry soup, he would awaken to find himself on a stoop in an alley, or under some bushes in a park full of stark trees. Then he would walk again and look up at the darkness and recognize many star people, but they would be in the wrong place in the sky.
On the fourth day, he came upon a boulevard that he recognized and his heart jumped up. He couldn’t believe his good fortune. He forgot his weakness and homesickness for a moment. He and some of the others had ridden in an omnibus on this very boulevard in their only sightseeing ride. And he knew that the show arena was a couple of miles up the boulevard.
He looked the other way, and he knew that the omnibus turned onto another boulevard that he could even see in the distance. He recognized the spires of a holy building on the corner. That boulevard would take him down to the big water, where the fire boats rested.
But he began to walk out toward the arena. His ribs felt good now, and although he was aware of the tight knot in his belly, he seemed to have plenty of strength. And he dared to hope—foolishly, he knew—that there would be someone left at the arena site. Perhaps that was where the American in the brown suit lived. Perhaps some of the workers were still there, taking down the tents and the corrals. Charging Elk walked with purpose but he was light-headed from the hunger and weakness. He began to imagine that the show would be there, that he would soon hear the loud voice and the cheers of the audience. He imagined himself breaking free of the barrier and riding hard after the buffaloes. The audience was always thrilled at the excitement and danger of the event. But it wasn’t really very dangerous—the herd was small and young, most of them yearlings or two-year-olds. It would have been dangerous if all the animals were full-grown—given their bulk and speed, they could have made short work of a weaponless rider and his horse in such a confined space. It would have been just as dangerous to be in the audience. In Paris, one of the young bulls had climbed the barricade and hooked two people before it was shot by one of the handlers.
By now it was midafternoon and Charging Elk, while bemoaning his misfortune that night in the arena, began to notice something curious: There were hardly any people on the boulevard, and the stores, even the cafés and brasseries and tobacco shops, were closed. There were very few carriages on the street. Just the day before, Charging Elk had to stay on the small streets to avoid the crush of people. Just that morning, the shops had been open and people had sat outside in the cafés, soaking up the warm sun. He thought he must be on a dead street, that the people for some reason had decided this street was bad medicine, but when he came to a big cross street, it too was empty.
Charging Elk walked on, part of him happy that there were no people to stare at him, another part becoming fearful that he was alone. Maybe it was against the law for humans to be out just now. Maybe something had happened to the big town. But he did see the occasional humans—a shopkeeper locking up, a woman pushing a pram, a couple of young men turning a corner to disappear.
After a couple of rest stops, Charging Elk found himself at the big round square where the wagons and carriages went around and around to go to many streets—Rond Point du Prado. He knew the name because the interpreter had made him and the others say it before they left on their sight-seeing trip. If they got lost, they were to say it to a gendarme or an omnibus driver.
Now
