Spirit Warriors: The Concealing

Part 7

We spent Saturday basking in the sunshine, splashing in the creek, eating s’mores, and playing Custer’s Last Stand. After the sun set on Saturday, Archie called us together in front of the fire. “Tonight, I am going to teach you my ancestors’ war dance and rain dance.” He had us pile more wood on the fire until it was huge. Then he showed us how to paint our faces and arms and legs. We searched for bird feathers to put in our hair. I found a tiny meadowlark feather that I wove into my hair. We carried pieces of wood that we imagined as our scalping knives.

Archie led the way around the fire and we followed him, dragging our feet at first, and then dancing with a toe to heel movement faster and faster. Archie chanted and sang. “We are coming, we are coming to get the pale face scalp. We are coming, we are coming on the war trail.” We all joined in singing until we were too short of breath to both sing and dance.

I watched our faces in the light from the fire as we circled the fire. Charlie was intent and focused. Lilly was a graceful ballerina floating around the fire. Bets had her nose crinkled ready to tell the rest of us exactly how it should be done. Ollie was all lanky and awkward and hanging close to Archie. I followed behind Lilly and in front of Charlie. I turned and found Charlie’s beautiful eyes on me, and I stared back, lost in the emotion between us. I felt like Charlie and I had done this before, that we had been here before doing this same dance in this same place. That was not possible, and I shook my head and hurried to catch up to Lilly.

We danced and sang for over an hour. We learned the rain dance as well, and Lilly was the best at it. Archie beat on his big drum. He beat it slowly at first, and then faster and faster as we danced about.

As we were doing the rain dance, it started to thunder and began to pour rain! Archie yelled at us, “Head to your tepees it’s time for bed anyway.” We ran laughing and dashing between the rain puddles to our tepees. After all that dancing and singing, we fell onto our pallets, too tired to even take off our boots and wet jackets.

The next morning after breakfast, Lilly asked Archie, “Did we really make it rain?”

Archie nodded. “Yes, but we shouldn’t waste what we don’t need. We can only do the rain dance when we really need the rain.” Lilly nodded seriously as Bets rolled her eyes and snorted.

Archie asked us to ride to the clearing and come back when we heard his drum. He said he would beat on the drum when he wanted us to come back to the tepees from the clearing. The signal was first slow warning beats, and then beat faster until we came back to the tepees.

We rode out to the clearing and after about five minutes, I heard the drum. I looked around. “Let’s head back. I hear the drum.”

The others looked at me. Charlie said, “I don’t hear it.”

“Really?” I answered. I looked around. “Does anyone else hear it?” They all shook their heads no.

As we crested the hill back toward the tepees, the others said they finally heard Archie’s drum. He was beating the drum fast at that point. We galloped the horses to the tepees.

Archie stopped beating the drum, “Did you hear it in the clearing?” he asked. “I am the only one who could hear it there,” I told him. Archie said, “If you lay your head on the ground when I am beating the drum, Em, you can hear what I need to tell you.” He had me ride out to the hill. I jumped off of Gus and put my ear to the ground. I heard the drum, but I couldn’t hear the message.

Archie yelled out to me, “You hear it?”I yelled back, “No.”

Archie yelled, “You have to concentrate.” I tried for several minutes but it didn’t work. I rode back to the others.