Hart-Crown and the Victory

Hart-Crown and the Victory

 I was alone on the American plains. It was autumn now – the bladetips of grass were white in the mornings. The stems brushed my thighs up to my ears. I walked with untense arms, letting them drag over the frosted stalks of big bluestem, little bluestem and indian grass. I walked eastward where the grass blew more lowly along the wide lakes. I did not halt till I came to the Onandaga, the keepers of the Central Fire of Longhouse Nations. A White Woman fled out from them on a white horse, riding over sunset grass, their icy husks glowing red. She did not stop until her steed was motionless in front of me. I got up behind her on her horse, and we fled over streams and long rows of grass bowing over brooks. We dismounted in a grassland of oaks as I looked back east and saw a sea of horsemen filling the plain. I heard a pounding echo of their hooves, and their voices whooped like trumpets. They called with surround-sound and closed any distance with their gait of long practise.

          I turned to face their baritone voices, and my eyes shot camera like close to their cheeks. Their heads were like spiked towers above their mounts. Gnarled horns grew high out of each shoulder. The Iroquois leader, blood of my blood, tongue of my tongue, took up their rear, then circled to the front. He had a tall upright crown of hazel and hickory growing out of his shoulderblades and collarbones. The veins and bones of his chest were tissued with the wood. The limbs rose upward like forked spears, fingerlimbed and intertwined like wicker. His eyes glowed hazelbrown in the setting sun, and suddenly I was afraid. Around him echoed a growing crescendo of horn-voices: ‘Hiyen watha, Hiyen WATHA Hiyen WATHA, HIYEN WATHA! H I Y E N W A T H A.’

          The lens of my eyes trembled. I zoomed in to an army of thousands. And the man at their head could turn them with one motion of hand or foot or head. He dismounted and cleared the nearest stream, stepped over the bent-grass and came at us under our tree. I climbed up the oak with the White Bride, her garments silken and soft, her limbs round and alabaster. Once up the tree, we met a rival moiety, the people of the Bear. They told me that when this chief of Deerfolk – Deganawida of the Hadinioñgwaiiu – came at me up the tree, I must stab him through the throat and not be soft or hesitant in my thrust. ‘Do not be cruel as those slow to deeds are wont to be – be swift, or we shall kill you ourselves. Death is a mercy in both cases.’

          I looked into his eyes to read their gravity. No levity or cruelty shone in them. But he hunkered in the oaklimbs like a crouched cougar, eyes unfocused in scattervision. He continued, ‘Death is a mercy in both cases, as those with bare feet held under Long House coals know too well. Keep your White Bride, or we shall take her for ourselves. Take your knife. Here he comes beneath you – your friend and foe – Hart-Crown of the Stag.’  

          Hart-Crown’s copper arms grasped the tree-limbs like hard wire, and he slung himself up with ease. His people saw fight as holy rite more than enmity. This made him climb at me calmly – then he smiled, and reached a hand toward me to hail me. I took it, pulling him up, and his grip was terrible in its strength. Up thrust his head, and his crown of horns grew out of the sinews of his breastbones, taller than elk-antlers.

          And when I saw him, I loved him. I spoke to him ‘Friend!’ I wanted to worship him. He was the Great Peacemaker – Deganawida. That is their Immanuel, a Meshiach, heralding reign upon reign of peace.

          ‘If you are not brave enough to kill him, we are brave enough to kill you,’ the Bear men told me. I drew my long knife and thrust it downwards with a twist into Hart-Crown’s neck above his collarbone. The blood fell on my hand and red all over the White Bride.

          The White Bride trotted slowly beside me. I’d not given her the sanctuary she chased after, and I’d slain a leader I loved. But when I looked back, I saw the sun set over his high horns of hickory. I saw him hanging limp from the tree boughs. Then on the ground beneath the tree walked a man, and he circled the tree nine times. When done, he picked up a hazel fiddle and a willow bow strung with golden hairs, and he played my victory.

          I retreated. I retreated west from Longhouse Lands, and I did not see the White Bride again. I walked alone. Dusk fell deep on Lakota Savannah. I quickened my pace and began to lope on two legs, then on four. I bounded on my paws. Spent, I threw myself down and slept in a prairie oak-grove, and I dreamt. Rhythms of canines lolled over me:

Blacksky on frost field,

Shadowtree on slumber-den,

dusk over lakota savannah. 

I watched and I waited

under oak tree

on hunger-hill.

Lolled for bloodtooth and bloodcheek,

reddened with life.

So a big black wolf, a she-wolf, brought me food. 

Piece by piece, she fed me.

Loping, she-lupus came and went. 

Tossle-mane, raven-fell, tangle-thick, she lay near me. 

Side by side, we tore and ate.

She sought me, warmed me, braved me, outloped me. 

In dark of night, she shifted –

stood up wolven

and woman.

Thick black hair on whitesky skin.

Do not know her,

Never saw her awake.

With her I’ll share

and share alike

the carcass.