Читать книгу The Book of Duels - Michael Garriga - Страница 37

Mitch Bouyer, 39,

Custer’s Chief of Scouts, Half French & Half Sioux

When Custer went down, I hopped from my rack-of-bones pony and ran in after him, my heart tight as a fist in my throat, yet fore I could reach him he rose and charged into the hornets’ nest and still I followed and the warrior stood awfully still with clumps of earth and prairie grass clinging to his skin like Wakantanka’s own revenge—bullets and dogs are everywhere and Custer’s head explodes against my face, a chip of bone blinding my right eye, and I catch his falling corpse and some bastard calls to me, Let him go, you goddamn half-breed, and kicks me loose and takes him away—the earth under the water trembles as the braves thunder by on horseback, routing the whites who scatter like blackbirds, and I am kneeling half blind in the water when a chill-shadow covers me, a silhouette horse rearing, its stockinged hooves thrashing, and I make out its belly and chest and neck and giant head, and I know I should not be here and I know I should not have befriended Custer. I should not have translated the Blue Coat treaties, which I knew to be lies and, because they came from my lips, became my lies too. I should have stayed with Magpie as she suckled our newborn and I should have chased our children about the teepee, laughing, and I should have roasted them rabbits on spits as the moon crested the hills and the ponies whinnied in the distance. I should have made clear to Custer that Sioux and buffalo are not two but one and that slaughter of the animal is slaughter of the man. I should have killed Custer in his sleep. I should have braided my horse’s mane with feathers and colored twine, put my blue clay handprint on its haunch and ridden alongside this warrior here who now sets his pinto down, the man rising in sight like something come over the horizon, yet he remains only a shadow, a shade, with his hatchet held high.

I put my arms across my bloody face as if to block a brilliant light but then drop them by my sides and rise to my feet and raise my chin and say in my purest Lakota, Go ahead, tanhanši, and try to cleave me in two any more than I already am.