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R. Timothy Rush

A FULL CIRCLE

Professor Tim Rush teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in literacy education, humanities education, and linguistics at the University of Wyoming. Working closely with the tribes of the Wind River Indian Reservation, he has helped develop UW programs for certifying teachers of American Indian children. He was awarded the University of Wyoming Outreach School’s Holon Family Award and was recognized by the International Reading Association with its Jerry Johns Outstanding Teacher Educator in Reading Award. Tim Rush lives on the high plains west of Laramie, Wyoming, with Alice, his wife of fifty years, and an array of horses, dogs, cats, and regular guests from the wild kingdom.

First published by GemmaMedia in 2017.

Gemma Open Door

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Boston MA 02109 USA

www.gemmamedia.org

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

978-1-936846-60-3

Photo courtesy of Burnett Lee Whiteplume, Ph.D.

Cover by Laura Shaw Design.

Gemma’s Open Doors provide fresh stories, new ideas, and essential resources for young people and adults as they embrace the power of reading and the written word.

Brian Bouldrey

Series Editor

Open Door

This book is dedicated to all who know and live this truth:

Good returns to those who do good.

Characters

The Arapaho

Neiwoo “NAY-wah” (Grandmother)—An independent old woman and the hero of her family.

Hiieeniibei “Hee-AN-ee-bay” (Sings in the Light)—Granddaughter of Neiwoo and teller of the story. Wise and fearless, she is ten or eleven years old.

Nowoo3 “Nah-WATH” (Left Hand)—Hiieeniibei’s brother. He is a year or two older or younger than his sister.

Jade Stone—A mysterious green-eyed girl who sacrifices herself to save little children.

The Oglala Lakota

Tasina Sa “Tah-SEE-nah Sah” (Red Blanket)—A tall, pretty Lakota woman warrior.

Looking Glass—An Army scout and the partner of Tasina Sa.

The Norwegians

Arnulv Arentzen—Older of two bachelor brothers who emigrated from Norway.

Gunnar Arentzen—Like his brother, Gunnar takes great risks to help his friends and the children they protect.

A Full Circle

One morning, when I was a little boy, I sat between my mother and grandmother and listened to a very old Arapaho Indian woman tell a story. She sat across the table from us, sipping black coffee with a heavy woolen blanket around her shoulders.

The room was dark and smoky. She looked out the open door to a horse corral. There, my father stood talking with a very old man with long, white, braided hair. Between them stood a little gray horse named Flicka that would soon be mine.

“My brother is the horse tamer. Since he was a boy, horses have listened to him,” she said. “When we were young, the Fort Bob soldiers saw this in him. That is why we two Arapahos live here today, in Oglala Lakota country.”

She stood and refilled three coffee cups.

“But the story truly begins with another old woman and a great adventure we had when I was still a child . . .”

Chapter 1

1878

November

(Moon When the Leaves Fall Heavily)

My grandmother Neiwoo was sick the day that the Army’s horse soldiers herded us from the valley village into the place they called Fort Robinson. We were with nineteen other very young or very old—and all very hungry—Arapaho and Oglala Lakota people.

Grandmother had fallen. Her head hurt. She was very weak and moved slowly. For two days, she had stumbled along between my brother—called Nowoo3, or Left Hand—and me. She had always been strong and spry. Now she seemed ancient. Everyone thought she would die. Everyone but I, Sings in the Light.

We looked down from a ridge at Fort Robinson, the cavalry post about a mile away. Grandmother whispered hoarsely, “Niioo3o” (nee-AW-tha). Spider. The White Man’s place looked like a spider’s web. Streets were the silk web. Big houses, tents, and wagons were the spider and its visitors. I did not want to walk down into the spider’s web.

At “Fort Bob,” as the soldiers called it, there were many other Indian people. Cheyenne and Lakota and Arapahos, like us. And like us, they were thin and shabby. But they were happy to see us. Neiwoo, brother, and I were given a small, awkward tent made of heavy, once-white Army canvas. It was hung on a frame of too few and too short wooden poles. Instead of bright story-paintings, only the big black letters U.S. were painted on its walls.

The tent was empty, except for a crazy long-necked iron box on legs. Compared to our own tall, graceful tents, this one was low, sharp-edged, and unfriendly. But after two days in the open, we had no complaints. We were grateful for any shelter.

Our people knew some of the Oglala Lakota women, who brought us things we needed from a big house on a low hill. The Oglala Lakota had lived at the old Red Cloud Indian Agency, near this “Fort Bob,” for a long time. But then their brave young leader, Crazy Horse, was murdered. After that, almost all their people, and the Agency, were moved north of here, to a place called Pine Ridge Reservation.

The Oglala Lakota, along with the Northern Cheyenne tribe, were the Northern Arapaho tribe’s oldest friends. Their languages sounded like ours—when we tried hard, we could talk to each other. For making our beds, these women gave us blankets and robes left behind in the big Agency warehouses. Of course, the Arapaho women helped us, too. But, like us, they had just been brought to Fort Bob. They had little they could give.

Over a fireplace outside, I boiled soup in a black iron kettle. That soup was mostly broth made from the boiled bones of White Man cattle. Then a tall young Oglala woman brought some stew meat and added it to the pot. It would make us warm and stronger and able to remember. Arapahos are famous for their strong memories.

Now we were helpless and hungry. But only two summers before, before the big Greasy Grass fight with Yellowhair Custer’s Army, life had been good. True, for ten years before that, we’d had some fights with soldiers and Americans. But mostly our leaders stayed away from them. Our men and women warriors fought them bravely when fights could not be avoided. Some Arapahos had loved ones buried in secret places near Fort Bob. Loved ones including the parents of Left Hand and me.

When more and more Whites came, Neiwoo said we should “keep away from these Americans.” So we had joined a little band of old people and young orphans and followed the young Warrior Woman and the young man Gentles Horses. They led us far into the empty ocean of grass.

They were beautiful together. They found the warm, secret valley and the little buffalo herd. For a year, we lived well near a hidden spring below the first mountains.

Then, one dark day, came the thunder of long rifles, and we found all the buffalo lying dead. Many Army horse soldiers came. Our two young leaders rode out to meet them. We saw them no more.

The next morning, soldiers herded us toward the rising sun. Behind us, the flames from our few pretty painted tipis sent black smoke into the sky. Only the soldiers rode. Our fine ponies were all shot down. We wept for them and Gentles Horses, who had tamed them while Left Hand watched in wonder.

Neiwoo, my brother, and I were all of our family who had survived the Sand Creek Massacres and the Indian Wars. Tonight, we huddled in the too-low tent whose doorway did not correctly face the rising sun. And we remembered the rich buffalo meat. Meat we had eaten with the young woman and young man warriors. There, in our tall, graceful lodges on the endless grasslands.

Nowoo3 brought some wood and chips inside for the night. Friends had taught him how to make fire in the iron box he now called “stove.” Neiwoo had thanked Creator for sustenance and fire.

I sat on the flattened-grass floor beside Neiwoo. I fed her with the big spoon from the pot. I took some for myself between her sips.

“Hiieeniibei (Hee-AN-ee-bay),” my grandmother murmured my name. “Your hands make excellent soup.” Then she rolled her delicate brown face into the crook of my arm and slept.

In twenty other low, Army-canvas tents and a few Arapaho tipis, friends were with their families. They helped each other with fires, cooking, and laying out makeshift beds.

Soldiers in blue coats brought a wagon filled with firewood and dried buffalo chips. They piled the fuel in the center of this circle of odd little tents with doorways that looked in the wrong directions.

Chapter 2

Fort Bob

I lay down beside Neiwoo, sharing her covers. Listening to her soft breathing, I fell asleep. We dreamed. She dreamed of the happy years of freedom in the tall grass with our people. Neiwoo held memories of her long life living in the old way.

But my dreams were restless. I woke up remembering our ponies falling and our village burning. Everything was suddenly so terrifying and uncertain. So cruel.

Grandmother stirred, needing to go outside. I helped her shuffle out and back. She lay down and I covered her again.

“Granddaughter,” she whispered. “Tell me again a story of Warrior Woman.”

I knew this was her way of distracting me from my bad dreams. It was also a kind of test. The more I told the story, the better I would remember it. I had listened to her tell it on many nights before. I think she knew that without the telling of the story, our people would forget that Arapaho and Oglala Lakota women once fought fiercely beside their men. Some, like Warrior Woman and Pretty Nose, were heroes and avengers. Maybe Neiwoo wanted me to be like them. Maybe she wanted all Arapaho women to be like them. I started the story:

“She was brave and strong. She rode and hunted and fought beside Fast Horses, her brother. Each one saved the other in buffalo hunts and fights with the enemy. Like him, she was calm and fearless at all times. They made good luck together . . . right up to the end.”

Grandmother smiled and sighed softly. “The bear story?”

I began. “When Warrior Woman and Fast Horses were young, they hunted game by waiting at dawn along trails where big animals traveled. Fast Horses took his deer first. He prayed thanks in the Arapaho way. Then he dressed out the deer where it had fallen to his arrow. Carefully, he separated the heart, liver, and other organs. These he placed inside the belly. He carried the deer to the trail, near the cliff wall. From there he could see that his sister had taken her deer, too. Their family would have meat to share with others.

“As he took a step in her direction, he heard the monster and inhaled its scent at the same instant. Leaping from the trail and turning in midair, he saw the giant yellow bear tearing at his deer. Before his feet touched the ground, he sent an angry arrow deep into its shoulder.

“For long seconds, the bear seemed not to notice. It tore a mouthful from the deer’s belly, then quickly stood tall. The bear roared the name of Fast Horses. That is what the boy thought.

“Fast Horses ran to the cliff wall and out along a narrow ledge. Fast Horses could wait here. The bear could not follow. There was no room. But the bear followed.

“The boy backed along the narrowing ledge of cold stone. To his left, the wall pushed against his shoulder. From his right came the echo of the river in the mists far below. In front of him, the snuffling, angry, yellow bear came closer and closer. The arrow in the creature’s shoulder dripped blood into the white mists.

“The girl who would become Warrior Woman heard the roar and turned just in time to see everything. Quickly, she came to help her brother. Now, she drew her bow and let its arrow go. The monster bear gave a startled ‘woof,’ turned, and fell silently into eternity.”

Neiwoo smiled and slept again.

Soon all three of us were sleeping.

Chapter 3

A Rumor

In the morning, we heard talk that in seven days the Army would move us and two hundred more of our Arapaho people to a new place in Wyoming Territory. Our chiefs, Sharp Nose and Black Coal, knew the place. They wanted to go there. It was green and well-watered. In winter, it was warm and sheltered from the wind. There was game of many kinds for our hunters. The Army wanted to take us to the south to Oklahoma Territory instead, but Washington said, “The Northern Arapahos go West.”

Our cousins, the Southern Arapaho, had been taken to a reservation in the Oklahoma Territory ten years before. Their reservation was shared with the Cheyenne people. It lay far to the south of our old homeland, which had been near the White Man town of Denver.

That afternoon, we saw Tasina Sa (Red Blanket), the tall, kind Oglala woman who had given us stew meat. She told us that the rumor was true. Her man was an Army scout and she knew a lot. We remaining Arapaho would live in Wyoming Territory with the Shoshone, our old enemies and new friends. The sick would be left behind. The Army doctor would give them White Man medicines from Fort Robinson. When the soldiers carried the Arapaho people and all they owned away to the unknown place, Grandmother would stay here—alone.

But Left Hand and I would not leave Neiwoo alone, and we told Tasina Sa so. Our healers knew the medicine herbs and roots and barks. These would make her quick and strong again. They knew, too, the prayers and songs.

We knew that Army forts held many sicknesses. We told our new friend that we must take Grandmother back to the valley by the hidden spring. Or we would smuggle her into a wagon and take her on the trip with us to Wyoming.

Tasina Sa knew the road through Wyoming Territory. She said she had a secret plan to help, but we must not ask or fuss. Just do as we were told.

Meanwhile, she prepared us to leave Neiwoo with her. Her man, Looking Glass, the scout, was away guiding some Texas cowboys and their two thousand cattle to the Pine Ridge. The herd would reach Fort Bob tonight.

Chapter 4

Separation

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