Chapter VI
The Four Arrows
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Chapter I, Chapter II, Chapter III, Chapter IV, Chapter V
Chapter VI
The Four Arrows
I listened to Jack ride off. Asiago and I stood there looking at Old Injun for a moment, and then I piped up.
"You two know Jack; you two know each other."
"Well," said Asiago, "Jack has a reputation. I run into him from time to time, listen to him brag on his Indian killing. One time he was going on and on, and I told him to change the subject. He snarled something about me liking Indians. I was about to punch him when some of his fellow soldiers got between us and took him out. We've had unfinished business for awhile. I was very close to finishing it tonight."
"Too much history," I said. "And you," I looked at Old Injun, "what do you know about Jack."
Old Injun stared into his coffee cup. Then he looked at me with judgment: of me for being so rude in asking the question; but also of himself. Then he looked back into the cup.
"I watched him kill my wife and daughter."
For the second time that evening, Old Injun's words sucked all of the air out of the room. I pulled a chair next to Old Injun as if to comfort him but daring not to touch him. Asiago pulled up a chair also. I would look at Asiago; he would look at me; we would grab a glance at Old Injun, and then look to each other for counsel because neither of us new what to do or say. Silence. Silence. Silence. The spaces between each tick of the clock on the wall seemed to grow longer as time passed. Heinz walked out from the kitchen with a coffee pot in his right hand, and a bottle and three glasses in the left. Filled Old Injun's cup with coffee, then plopped the pot, the bottle, and the glasses on the table. He joined the silence at the table, broken only by the three of us slurping whiskey into our glasses.
Old Injun rose, and for a moment I thought he was going to offer some kind of toast. He turned slowly and hobbled into a little storage area toward the back of the saloon. He disappeared into it, and I heard boards creaking and nails screeching while being pried out. After a few moments, the noise stopped, and Old Injun walked out with a buffalo roll in his hand. He asked Heinz to move around to leave a space at end of the table, and then carefully took the roll in both hands, as if he were going to offer it to the heavens. He laid it carefully upon the table. It was decorated all over with Injun stuff. Old Injun took his chair.
He slowly unwrapped the roll.
"I will tell you the story of the four arrows."
Before he got started, I blurted, "the arrows that killed your family?"
"No. The arrows my family died for."
The roll contained arrows like I had never seen before. A yard long with thick shafts tipped with flintstone points, decorated with eagle feathers, painted red with figures of blue.
Old Injun began. "In the earliest days of my people was born a great prophet known as Motzeyeuff. The people chased him away and he went away. After many years he returned with these four arrows. The contain great medicine and are the source of my people's strength. Two of the arrows are buffalo arrows for hunting, and two are man arrows for war.
"Throughout time, one man keeps these arrows and sees that no harm comes to them."
He paused. "I once lived with my people in the place you know as Colorado. We tried to make peace with the whites. We moved to a place known as Sand Creek where we were to live in peace. We thought our wars were ended; we thought our women and children were safe; we thought we had a home.
"Then one morning, our hope ended. I woke up to hear screaming and gun fire. Blue soldiers on horses rode through our village shooting and burning. I ran from my home, looked back at my family and then ran to where the four arrows were hidden. I grabbed them. I was the one to save them. I ran out and up a hill. As the sun came up I looked back and saw my people being killed. I saw Jack go into my home and pull my wife out by her hair. My daughter ran after them. He killed them both, shot my wife in the throat and bayoneted my daughter. I stood and watched. These arrows were all that were to be left of my people. To save them, I couldn't save my family."
****
Heinz, Asiago, and me just sat. We looked at Old Injun, and he just stared at the arrows. Heinz got up and began to walk around the table back toward the kitchen. Suddenly Old Injun yelled just as Heinz was to cross in front of the arrows. "Stop. Don't move."
"What."
"I-SAID-DON'T-MOVE!!"
Heinz froze. Old Injun then took the arrows and wrapped them carefully back into the roll. "Now, go ahead."
"What the hell was that all about," I burst out.
Old Injun sighed, sapped of patience and having to explain something to someone who was so thick.
"As I told you, two of these are man arrows. A man walks in front of them, he dies. I didn't want Heinz to die. I like his coffee."
"Damn decent of you," said Heinz, then he huffed into the kitchen.
In the brouhaha of the last few moments, the thud of Old Injun's story was lost. He got up and put the buffalo roll back in the storeroom and came back to the table.
"Okay," I said. Pointing toward Old Injun: "I know how you know Jack." Then pointing toward Asiago: "I know how you know Jack"; how do you know each other, and don't tell me your friendship comes from a common love of Heniz's shitty coffee."
"I heard that," yelled Heinz from the kitchen.
Asaigo leaned back in the chair. "Like Old Injun here, my father was Cheyenne, a Cheyenne warrior, a Buffalo Warrior. My mother was white, the widow of a French trapper. Old Injun is my father's brother, my uncle. It was long ago; I didn't remember him when I came here. He knew me."
"So how do you know who he says he is."
"He knew things about me that only my uncle would know."
"Like what?" I asked
Old Injun broke in. "Enough stories for today."
To be continued