Free Black Hills by Dan Simmons Page B

IMPS-A -L OT HAS NOT BROUGHT P AHA S APA TO THE R OSEBUD AND the Greasy Grass to be there for the battle with the
wasichu
or for the rubbing out of Long Hair. They’ve ridden alone to the gathering of Sioux and Cheyenne for the giant gathering that Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse have called. Even though Paha Sapa will not see his eleventh birthday for another two months and thus is not quite ready for the manhood ceremony, Limps-a-Lot feels it is time for the boy with such special abilities to be introduced to Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse and some of the
wičasa wakans
who will be at such a gathering.
    And Limps-a-Lot brings Paha Sapa to see the
wiwanyag wachipi
—Sun Dance—that Sitting Bull has sent word he will be performing.
    The time is more than two weeks before the battle. The place is not at the Greasy Grass, where Paha Sapa will be infected by the
Wasicun’s
ghost, but northeast of there, out on the dry, hot plains near the wide curve of the Rosebud River, near the Deer Medicine Rocks—odd, tall, freestanding boulders etched with carvings older than the First Man. Only the Lakota are to participate in this
wiwanyag wachipi
—the Sans Arcs and Hunkpapa and Minneconjou and Oglala and a handful of Brulé. There are some Shyelas—Cheyenne—there when Limps-a-Lot and young Paha Sapa arrive early in the Moon of Making Fat (the Shyelas also hold the Deer Medicine Rocks as
wakan
—sacred, powerful—but the Cheyenne are only observers for this event).
    Sitting Bull performs this holiest of holies—this
wiwanyag wachipi
Sun Dance—for the
Ikče Wičas´a
, the Natural Free Human Beings.
    That first day and evening at the Deer Medicine Rocks, Limps-a-Lot points out to the excited but nervous Paha Sapa the various great
Ikče Wičas´a
whom his
tunkašila wičasa wakan
wants the boy to know by sight and possibly to meet, but not to touch unless one of the men specifically asks for such contact.
    As young as he is, Paha Sapa understands that his
tunkašila
wants these famous men to know of his
small-vision-backward-or-forward-touching
, but not for him to use the seeing ability—even if he were able to do so at will, which he usually is not—unless asked to do so. Paha Sapa bows his head in understanding.
    All that day the famous men and their followers ride in from different directions. All the bands of the Lakota are present. From the Oglala come Big Road and Limps-a-Lot’s first wife’s famous cousin, Crazy Horse. From the Hunkpapa there are Gall and Crow and Black Moon and Sitting Bull himself. From the Sans Arcs has come Spotted Eagle. From the Minneconjou arrives Fast Bull and the younger Hump. Dull Knife has come up with the few Shyelas allowed to attend. (The other famous Cheyenne leader, Ice Bear, has chosen to stay at the larger village to the south.)
    When Limps-a-Lot tells Paha Sapa each of the great arrivals’ names, the older man cries out—
    —
Hetchetu aloh!
    It is so indeed.
    More than a thousand Lakota have already gathered. Paha Sapa thinks that this is the most magnificent assembly he has ever seen, grander even than the great gatherings at
Matho Paha
—Bear Butte—every second summer, but Limps-a-Lot tells him that this temporary village is only for Sitting Bull’s Sun Dance and that even more Lakota and Cheyenne will continue to gather during the ceremony, the nights of the full moon, and the days beyond.
    Paha Sapa watches the preparations for Sitting Bull’s
wiwanyag wachipi
with a young boy’s awe, but also with the strange sense of detachment that comes over him at such times. It is as if there are several Paha Sapas watching through his eyes, including a much older version ofhimself looking back through time while coexisting in the thin boy’s mind.
    First, an honored Hunkpapa
wičasa wakan
—but not Paha Sapa’s beloved
tunkašila
—is sent out alone to select the
waga chun
, the “rustling tree” or cottonwood, that will stand in the center of the dancing circle.
    When