Conquering Horse Read Online Free PDF

“I am naked.”
    “Your father has many horses,” she said.
    With soft downward strokes he rubbed her firm well-muscled arms. He was sick. Her father and mother wanted many horses in payment for her. Yet he had no horses. And, until a vision had been given him by the gods, he could not ask his own father and mother for horses.
    No Name sighed. Three times he had gone to a high hill in lonely fast to receive his vision, and three times nothing had happened, no protective spirit animal, no spirit wolf or spirit bear, had appeared to him to become his helper in war and peace. There had been only hunger, and very lonely nights, and much weakness after.
    His father Redbird had said nothing, though it could be seen in Redbird’s manner that he was disappointed in his son. Redbird was very old and afraid he would die before his son received his vision of life and performed a deed of valor. The village knew this, and wondered, and that was why some of the younger braves, taunting, had taken to calling his son No Name. The older warriors meanwhile shied from asking his son along on their war parties or inviting him to join their warrior societies.
    No Name sighed for a second time, deeply. He held Leaf close.
    Leaf guessed his thoughts. She looked up at his hair where he should have been wearing an honor feather. She asked, “Is not the fourth time the sacred time?”
    “But my god will not come,” he cried.
    “My father is restless,” she said. “Already he eats from the hand of Circling Hawk.”
    “Ai! Then it is Circling Hawk’s footsteps I see in the dust before your tepee.”
    “Circling Hawk’s breath stinks,” she said. “I do not favor him. Also he chews loudly.”
    “He is a brave man. He has a coup feather.”
    “He eats before my father has finished smoking the pipe. Also his face is rough. Like a toad’s back.”
    “What does your mother say?”
    “She looks in the pot and sees that it is empty.”
    No Name stroked her arms, lovingly. “What should I do?” he cried.
    “Have you spoken to your uncle Moon Dreamer?”
    He felt the touch of her hands. Her palms were like pads of leather. She was a hard worker and would make a good wife. He said, “My father does not much favor him.”
    “Your father is perhaps afraid of his brother-in-law’s medicine.”
    No Name trailed his slim fingertips over her wrists. “Oh, let us run away to my uncle Red Hail. Let us elope. Come.” He tugged at the fringes of her white tunic.
    She hid her eyes. “My father must have the horses first. The Pawnees have stolen his horses and he remains a poor man.”
    “Come. Let us run away. My uncle Red Hail will be kind to us.”
    “Also my brother Burnt Thigh is dead.” She wept a moment in memory. “We loved him very much, yet he was killed by the Pawnees when they stole our horses.”
    “I have seen a maiden who is very beautiful,” he said winningly, “and I feel sick when I think about her.”
    “And I see a young maiden crying alone on the prairies, bitterly. Her heart is broken because her lover has used her and then has thrown her away.”
    He tugged at her under his robe. “Come. Let us fly to my uncle Red Hail. He is a kind man.”
    She said archly, “My father says when a young man has known a woman too soon his god will shun him.”
    “What must I do?”
    “I wish to keep that which no man has yet touched.”
    “Has not Circling Hawk touched it?”
    “No man.”
    He saw stars reflected in her black eyes. He was almost beside himself. His nostrils flared on each breath. His shoulders, already high, lifted as if he were about to pounce. “What must I do?”
    She touched his hands. “When you return with the center feather of an eagle in your hair I will dance and make a song for you.”
    He brushed her arms downward, with free-flowing loving fingers. “Tonight, after your father and mother are asleep, I will come in the dark, silently, and slide under the back of the lodge and lie under the robe