LITTLE BIG MAN

Old Lodge Skins wiped his knife blade on his legging and belched like a trumpet call.

I asked him then what he had meant by his remarks up on the ridge. For I saw it as queer that he had turned more pessimistic after the Indians had won than upon the many occasions when they lost.

“Yes, my son,” he says, “it is finished now, because what more can you do to an enemy than beat him? Were we fighting red men against red men-the way we used to, because that is a man’s profession, and besides it is enjoyable-it would now be the turn of the other side to try to whip us. We would fight as hard as ever, and perhaps win again, but they would definitely start with an advantage, because that is the right way. There is no permanent wi

“The buffalo eats grass, I eat him, and when I die, the earth eats me and sprouts more grass. Therefore nothing is ever lost, and each thing is everything forever, though all things move.”

The old man put his knife into its beaded scabbard. He went on: “But white men, who live in straight lines and squares, do not believe as I do. With them it is rather everything or nothing: Washita or Greasy Grass. And because of their strange beliefs, they are very persistent. They will even fight at night or in bad weather. But they hate the fighting itself. Wi

“They will not be content now to come and take revenge upon us for the death of the formerly Long Hair, which they could easily do. Indeed, if we all return to the agencies, they probably would not kill anyone. For killing is part of living, but they hate life. They hate war. In the old days they tried to make peace between us and the Crow and Pawnee, and we all shook hands and did not fight for a while, but it made everybody sick and our women began to be insolent and we could not wear our fine clothes if we were at peace. So finally we rode to a Crow camp and I made a speech there. ‘We used to like you when we hated you,’ I told those Crow. ‘Now that we are friends of yours, we dislike you a great deal.’

“ ‘That does not make sense,’ they said.

“ ‘Well, it wasn’t our idea.’

“They said: ‘Nor ours. We used to think you Cheye

“So it was an emergency, and we had a big battle.”

Old Lodge Skins shook his head. “Those Crow,” he said. “They were good fighters in the olden time, but nowadays they are full of shame, riding with white soldiers. I heard they ran off at the Greasy Grass, and it did not surprise me.”

Well, speak of shame, there was me. I still had not commenced to explain my presence with Custer. If indeed it could be explained. I had to try.

I says: “Grandfather, few people have your great wisdom. The rest of us are often caught in situations where all we can do is survive, let alone understand them. So with me, Little Big Man-” I realized my error soon as I said it.

“Ah,” says Old Lodge Skins, “a person should never speak his own name. A devil might steal it, leaving the poor person nameless.”

I apologized and started in again, but the chief yawns and says he was going to sleep, so he did.

Next morning when we had woke and took a wash in the cold, crystal stream that come down from the mountains, Old Lodge Skins stripping to the buff, immersing his ancient body, and splashing like a sparrow, and I was a-fixing to lay into a big breakfast, the chief dried himself on a blanket, wrapped another around him, and said: “My son, I have to go up to a high place and do something important today. Will you lead me there?”

He told me I could eat first if I needed to, but he could not. From which I knowed that the thing he had in mind was sacred; and though I might not be involved in it, I didn’t want to mock his gods with a full belly. So I took no food either, and we started off.

Well, I regretted that decision after walking uphill for hours, for the place he had chose to go was a considerable peak. By noontime we had gained only about half of it, and had not brung along even a drink of water, and the higher we went, the less chance of finding one. I was still not thoroughly recovered from my wounds, and the air was thi

Old Lodge Skins climbed with a firm, powerful, even eager stride. He wore a single eagle feather and that red blanket, with nothing but a breechclout underneath. Far enough away so you couldn’t see the seams of his face, I reckon you would have thought him a young brave.

Well, on we went, hour after hour, and I was so dizzy by time we reached the timber line that I thought I’d see double the rest of my life. Occasionally we’d stop so I could rest, but the chief never sat down then, just stood there impatiently, and soon he would say: “Come, my son, there are times to be lazy and times to be quick.” So I’d drag myself off again.

It was late afternoon when we reached the summit. It was fair rocky up there, and only one peak among many in the range. I saw a bighorn sheep over yonder, leaping from crag to crag. To the west, the whole world was mountains, all the way to where the sun hung low over the final eminences. I don’t think I ever seen a sky as big as that one, or as clear. Real pale blue it was, like a dome made of sapphire, except to say that makes you think it was enclosed, but it wasn’t: it was open and unlimited. If you was a bird you could keep going straight up forever, fast as you could fly, yet you would always be in the same place.

Looking at the great universal circle, my dizziness grew still. I wasn’t wobbling no more. I was there, in movement, yet at the center of the world, where all is self-explanatory merely because it is. Being at the Greasy Grass or not, and on whichever side, and having survived or perished, never made no difference.

We had all been men. Up there, on the mountain, there was no separations.

I turned to Old Lodge Skins to tell him I had got his point, but he had drawn off from me, dropped his blanket, and standing with his scarred old body naked to the falling sun, he yelled in a mighty voice that sounded like thunder echoing from peak to peak.

“HEY-HEY-HEY-HEY-HEY-HEY-HEY!”

It was the great battle cry of the Cheye

“Come out and fight!” he was shouting. “It is a good day to die!”

Then he started to laugh, for Death was scared of him at that moment and cowered in its tepee.

Then he commenced to pray to the Everywhere Spirit in the same stentorian voice, never sniveling but bold and free.

“Thank you for making me a Human Being! Thank you for helping me become a warrior! Thank you for all my victories and for all my defeats. Thank you for my vision, and for the blindness in which I saw further.

“I have killed many men and loved many women and eaten much meat. I have also been hungry, and I thank you for that and for the added sweetness that food has when you receive it after such a time.

“You make all things and direct them in their ways, O Grandfather, and now you have decided that the Human Beings will soon have to walk a new road. Thank you for letting us win once before that happened. Even if my people must eventually pass from the face of the earth, they will live on in whatever men are fierce and strong. So that when women see a man who is proud and brave and vengeful, even if he has a white face, they will cry: ‘That is a Human Being!’

“I am going to die now, unless Death wants to fight first, and I ask you for the last time to grant me my old power to make things happen!”