THE KILLING SPIRIT: Sign of the Dead Man (105)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
SIGN OF THE DEAD MAN



Leaving Coyote Paradise, weakened and still recovering from their ordeals, Little Hawk wanted nothing more than to go home and rest but Jerico was determined to visit Wounded Knee. He wanted to pay tribute to the ancestors, to those who sacrificed in the days of genocide, to Big Foot, the Lakota chief who embraced the white man’s peace and was betrayed, to Sitting Bull who was betrayed by the white man’s agency Indians, and to Crazy Horse, who never danced until he danced the Ghost Dance at Wounded Knee.

His ghost is dancing there still.

Having seen what he had seen, Little Hawk would not stand in his way. He had gone to Coyote Paradise with doubts but he shed them all. Wherever Jerico led, he would follow.

The air was clear, bright and golden, not a cloud in an expansive sky, when in the distance before them a shadowy figure appeared and grew into a dead man walking. Within minutes, the sky was swollen with dark clouds and the dead man – a double twister that resembles the legs of a hanged man as it skirts along the ground – grew and bore down on them with a raging vengeance.

Little Hawk slowed and stopped in the middle of the road. The dead man towered above them and the ground rumbled in horror. Wind whirling, rocks and branches flying by, Little Hawk panicked, grabbing the door to run for it but Jerico locked on to his arm. They saw whole trees uprooted as garage doors, windows, cars and fences shot by and the dead man’s legs passed by on both sides. They saw mail boxes and sheds rise into oblivion. They saw the dead man slowly recede beyond their view and they remained where they were, frozen, unable to process what they had experienced.

It was gone as quickly as it appeared. The sky was once again filled with the brightness of a midday summer sun.

“I would have been dead,” gasped Little Hawk, “if you hadn’t grabbed my arm.”

“This was not the work of the killing spirit,” said Jerico as he got out of the car to survey the damage. Except for a scattering of debris and trees lying on their sides, it was as if nothing had happened. It was as if it was a dream.

Little Hawk joined him, dazed and confused.

“The killing spirit does not command the four winds,” said Jerico. “This was the voice of our mother and father. This was a warning.”

“What does it mean?” asked Little Hawk.

“We cannot go to Wounded Knee,” replied Jerico. “It isn’t time. We have to get back to camp and ask for guidance.”

They resumed their westward journey, choosing a path that took them well around Wounded Knee.

Back in the Black Hills, the dreamers had already received word of Jerico’s courage in the Sun Dance. In their dreams, they had seen the dead man walking and they knew the two events were tied together. A dead man walking had not been seen on Lakota land since the days of the black robes and blue coats. Though it was barely noted in the white man’s media (no one had died), it was seen in Indian Country as a powerful sign.

When Little Hawk and Jerico rode into camp, they were greeted with cautious and mixed emotions. Jerico had completed the fifth spoke of the great wheel but the sign of the dead man clouded their spirits with worry.

As they recalled the story, it became clear that grandfather was deeply troubled. How was it that his grandson was blocked from the most sacred site on Lakota land? How was it that the designated one could not walk upon soil made rich with Lakota blood?

Jerico spoke of seeing a darkness surrounding the sun at the moment of his release from the Sun Dance ordeal. Was he vulnerable? In his weakened state, had a window to his soul opened to a darkness waiting in silence for that very moment?

There are times when a man must seek answers alone and for grandfather this was such a time. While the others ate and tended to the dancers’ wounds, he went into the woods to lament and pray for the knowledge he needed. When the white wolf came to him in the dead of night, the answers entered his mind and drew pictures in the smoke of his pipe. He stayed through the night in the company of spirits, singing, chanting and howling at the moon.

In the morning, he returned to camp where the dreamers greeted him. He returned their greetings and called Jerico aside to reveal what he had learned. They climbed into grandfather’s tipi and shared a ceremonial pipe.

Grandfather looked hard and long into his grandson’s eyes until he was certain the darkness was not hiding within. Jerico felt his grandfather’s scrutiny as an innocent would an inquisitor’s probe but he did not resist. It pulled at his heart and scraped the inside of his skull but he trusted grandfather and would have cut off his hand if grandfather said it was necessary.

He remembered when he was a child and grandfather confronted him about a missing object. Jerico had taken it, thinking only that it was a pretty thing. He gave it to Marie who promptly threw it into a stream. He lied. He told grandfather he did not know where the object was and he spent the next three days swimming in the stream, looking for the shiny thing he would later learn was a crystal given to his grandfather by a medicine woman of the Crow tribe. He never found it. He confessed and grandfather forgave him.

Grandfather knew he had lied but he never scolded him. He never told Jerico’s mother or father. He forgave him.

“I’m sorry,” grandfather said.

The words were foreign to Jerico’s ears. In all their years together, he had never known grandfather to have reason for speaking them though he sometimes used them to ease someone’s suffering or to bring peace to a divided house.

“I had to be certain,” he explained. “We do not know the limits of the killing spirit’s powers.”

“I understand,” replied Jerico.

“My teacher the wolf came to visit me last night,” said grandfather. “He told me you should never walk alone. You have walked alone too long.”

“I was not alone,” said Jerico.

“One man is not enough to shield you from this spirit. It is a single warrior against an army. No matter how brave, how strong the warrior, it is not enough. The white wolf has given me a vision: You must never walk alone again.”

Grandfather rose and Jerico followed him out of the tipi. He assembled the dreamers in a circle and spoke to them in the clear, fresh air of morning.

“We must go to Wounded Knee. We must walk as men and women who have no homes, no horses, and no vehicles. Many will choose to follow. We must welcome them. But none must walk ahead of my grandson. He must lead us. This is a vision that was given me by the spirit world. It should not be questioned and cannot be altered.”

It did not sit well with Jerico. He had seen the worshipping eyes of those who gathered in Pine Ridge. They looked to him for answers he did not possess. They looked to him for forgiveness when he could only forgive himself. They looked to him for miracles but he was only a man. He did not wish to lead his people. He wished to live among them in peace.

“Crazy Horse never wanted to be a war chief,” said grandfather. “He wanted to remain in the spirit world but there came a time when the needs of the people called to him. As it came to Crazy Horse, so it has come to you, my grandson.”

Jerico nodded in reluctant ascent. He would not go against the vision of his grandfather or the spirit world. He would lead if only to follow.

“We must welcome all who wish to join us,” continued grandfather. “If they wish to march with us, they are welcome. If they wish to chant with us, pray with us, even dance with us, our arms must be open. None will be turned away. Even the white man must be welcomed.”

The dreamers nodded. They had all absorbed the lesson of false divisions. They knew that the lines were not drawn by the color of one’s skin.

Clouds drifted overhead, filtering streaks of sunlight around the camp. Crows tossed sticks and stones, shifting playfully among the trees. Squirrels gathered pine nuts, standing to gaze at the gathering of curious humans.

It was a day that spoke of hope and wonder, a day when the glory of nature reigned with benevolent grace, a day of promise and sweet dreams, a day when all creatures were free to roam and prance without fear, and the dreamers breathed it in.

Grandfather spoke to Jerico.

“Though it goes against your nature, you must speak to all who wish to hear your words. You must sacrifice your silence. You must clear your mind so the words flow through you like water through stones. Many will gather to hear your words. Some will wish to discredit you while others will seek your blessing. You must speak to all.”

Of all the things he would ask, none would be more difficult. Like Deganawida of the Iroquois, his tongue was tied when he spoke to many. Like Crazy Horse, his nature turned away from crowds, yet he would learn.

“When we reach Wounded Knee,” grandfather concluded, “there will be a Ghost Dance like no other since the beginning time. Circles will form around the dancers and they too will begin to dance. More circles will surround them and more and so on until the land is filled with dancers as far as these eyes can see. We will be its center.

“This I have seen in the vision the white wolf gave to me. Let it be so.”

The dreamers smiled and nodded as if he had told them what they already knew. A woman of the Paiute, whom they knew as Little Crow Woman, stood to speak.

“We have also had a dream: A march to Wounded Knee and a dance of many circles.”

They would spend the day in preparation and the night in endless discussion, asking Jerico questions, questioning his answers, preparing him for his role as leader and spokesperson. In the morning, they would march.

As the evening gave way to a red moon night, as the wolf moaned and coyote cried, as owls took flight and creatures too small for names pounded drums out of sight, they wondered at the meaning of the dead man walking.

It was a sign but what was its meaning?

They decided that just as it had pushed Jerico away from Wounded Knee, it pulled them all to that same destiny. They decided that if Jerico had gone to Wounded Knee, he would not have made it back to camp.

The earth, the sky and the four winds were his guardians.