Episode Twenty-Four
From Book 2 of The Sacred Clown's Modern West Trilogy, Sitting Bull's Mutual Funds
When the Wind Sweeps the Grave
“When the last song fades and the grave is sealed, only the wind remembers who was rich and who was robbed.” ~ The Clown
Sitting Bull looked remarkably lifelike lying there. The scaredy cat in Bill fully expected the Old Bull to rise out of that pine box and holler at him to make good on the scrip he’d given him when he left the show in New York—scrip that promised $125 weekly but paid only 12½ cents a day. Hadn’t his old friend drawn 25% of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West ticket sales—$125 per performance? Those crowds had roared for the man who’d crushed Custer at Little Bighorn. Memories. Bill sighed, then smiled beatifically. He’d brought along a new, more generous IOU. Twenty grand now—enough to buy the agency town twice over, if only the dead could cash out. Perfect, chortled the Clown. The showman buries his own IOU with the prophet. Two dead letters for the price of one.
He felt Old Bull’s cold chest and was rewarded with another sharp shudder racing up his spine. Fumbling around the casket, he was surprised to find another note promising to pay the bearer $10,000 in new fangled mutual funds issued by DestinyTerra Plantation. My God, thought Bill. Fate has never been kind. If Bull had survived, he’d be living out his last years in style. But as it sits, or rests, Sitting Bull would now have to go to the Other Camp the same way he was born. Penniless.
The grave was already carved out of the frozen ground, and now it was time to commit the body to the earth. Lakota mourners and soldiers ringed the casket. Shrill wails pierced the sky. A quiet drum thudded beneath the subdued voices.
We sing no battle songs today
A Hunkpapa warrior has been taken from us
Oh, Wakan Tanka, hear our wailing and crying
Our chief was shot. He died how he lived. Brave.
Today we bury him at the white man’s town
We have no choice. Our families grieve
Nothing is as strong as gentleness, he taught us,
Nothing is as gentle as strength.
Now that he goes to the Other Camp
We wish we could follow him there today
He leaves this Earth as poor as when he was born
But he leaves wealthy in family and friends.
When the song ended, an Episcopal priest began to recite the funeral liturgy. “I am Resurrection, and I am Life…”. The priest’s words were swept away by the wind and the shouts and wailing of the Hunkpapa. No one noticed that a sly old soldier had leapt into the grave, opened the pine box, and poured lime from the tip of Sitting Bull’s toes to the crown of his head. In a matter of hours, there would be no chance of digging up the corpse. Future grave robbers and mutual fund trackers be damned. There would be no chance of digging up either bones or financial documents. Bill felt lighter, almost giddy.
Bill watched the clods of dirt fall back on the coffin shovelful by shovelful, the scrip and Sitting Bull’s mortal coil disappearing forever. The priest’s Bible flapped in the breeze. The lime soldier melted back into the ranks. And the wind laughs last, the Clown whooped from the hilltop, kicking up frozen dust. Two white men’s fortunes, fused in alkali darkness. Homestake would mine $5 billion from sacred lands while Lakota wait for commodity cheese—and today heir cousins still chase Sitting Bull’s ghost in mutual funds. Custer’s still talking from the horse’s guts, Buffalo Bill’s scrip eaten by lime, and Sitting Bull? He rides penniless and happy to the Other Camp, richer than both could ever know.
Ashes, Scrip, Dust, and Coffin Varnish
The only thing colder than the prairie wind is the truth buried with old friends and worthless promises.” ~ The Clown
Sitting in Major McLaughlin’s office and brushing the snowflakes off his duster, Buffalo Bill wasn’t his familiar self. He was subdued. It was time to clear the air with his old friend.
“Did you really have to do it?” Bill looked earnestly at the Major.
“Hell yes, Bill. No telling what sort of misery would’ve hit Standing Rock, the President, the whole blessed Order of Things—even God himself—if we hadn’t stopped him.”
“That’s not what I meant, Major. I meant did you really shoot Sitting Bull in the back?”
“Me personally? Well, hell no. All I said was to bring him in so we could talk some sense into that thick skull of his. You know. Sit around the fire here, talk about old times and what a good Indian he was. Maybe read a few books together. Chill. He loved Mark Twain—he could dissect Samuel Clemens better than any Harvard scholar. And then maybe, just maybe, when the fire burned low, we’d throw back a shot or two of coffin varnish. Say, I have a bottle in that cupboard over there. Like to try a shot?”
“Sure would, Major. Hit me! You’re a true son of the frontier—just like me. Anyone ever mention that to you before?”
“Just you. Just you.”
“Anyways, while we’re making all things good here, you knew about his mutual funds, correct?”
“I did. He showed me some trumped-up paper written in the Amazon promising him money if a rubber plantation turned a profit. He told me that you also paid him in worthless paper.”
“He did? How much did he say I owed him?”
“Ten thousand dollars but he told me that he’d hoped you would double that since he didn’t think that he’d ever get the full amount and twenty thousand sounded much better than ten.”
“Well, I bumped that scrip up to twenty before I tucked it in his coffin—as a tribute to our old friend, you might say. I also saw the mutual fund document. I buried both with him.”
The Major began to choke on his whiskey. “You did what? You buried them with him? You knew about the lime? You knew that within minutes those documents wouldn’t be retrievable? You’re a true son of a bitch, Bill—worse than I am, and I sign the all the orders around these parts.”
“Relax, Major. Neither of those phony pieces of paper could be redeemed anywhere. You can’t cash what isn’t real. One of his people told me after the funeral that you swindled him, too. Something about Western Union money orders being converted to IOUs under your signature. So, it takes one thief to know another, Major.”
“Our secret then. Dust to dust. Ashes to ashes. Scrip to shit.” Print that in the financial pages, the Clown crowed. Today’s market: treaties, scrip, and prophets, all trading below zero.
A Carnival of Colors for the Old Bull
“When the rocks start singing, you know you’ve eaten well and traveled far.” ~ The Clown
“You haven’t bought your ticket yet, Old Bull,” the voice said. “You’ve got a small amount of work to do before we punch it for the last time.”
“Who’s that?”
“Mayantu. Remember? We met in the Amazon. I handed you your very first bag of Little Ones. You do recall, right?”
“Who could forget the shafts of light, the cascading colors bouncing off the tops of my cerebellum, the thousand eyes in the forest? Praise be to the Little Ones!”
“Even more excitement is coming your way.” Handing Old Bull a freshly woven sack, he said, “Eat these critters and follow me.”
Sitting Bull thought these Little Ones tasted a trifle stale. But they did the trick. Mayantu smiled as they began the climb up Elk Horn Butte. Being dead—or a deity—didn’t make climbing a tall hill any easier. The psilocybin was amping up and joy was just a few yards ahead. The butte’s top turned from prairie brown to brilliant orange, to purple, to aquamarine. That’s cool, he thought.
The rocks lining the trail were singing,
He’s on his way, that Sitting Bull.
He’s suffered and paid his dues.
Now he joins us forever,
A stoic’s eternity, hard as a rock.
Mustn’t tread on any rocks when they have such a powerful vocal range, the Old Bull thought. Mayantu didn’t have to worry; he skimmed up the butte on a hovercraft that had not yet been invented. Machine levitation chuckled the Clown. No scuff marks on the rocks for him. No friction. The only sparks were those flying from his fingers. Feathers dropped on the trail. The summit was now deep ochre and the breeze welcomed the two as they arrived on the top.
“See that?” Mayantu asked.
“I see mourners, my wives, my murdered son. I see my people worried about what they’ve done. I see Major McLaughlin in Fort Yates wondering what he unleashed. I see Buffalo Bill galloping toward my camp.”
“Lift your eyes further, my son.”
Leveling his eyes with the horizon, Sitting Bull was not surprised, “I see my beloved Hunkpapa resisting the white ways. I see my beloved Hunkpapa resisting the white ways. By New Year’s 1891, Standing Rock’s rations cut 25%—starvation winter after their “troublemaker” went in a pine box. I see a World War starting in Europe and our young men volunteering to serve. I see the Germans I used to entertain in Berlin with spiked helmets and marching like geese. I see doughboys. There are Lakota among them. I see the Great White Father letting us become United States citizens. Isn’t it ironic to think that the people who removed us from our land have now given us permission to vote for their thieves. But we’ll never let them choose our chiefs.”
“There’s more. There always is,” sighed Mayantu.
Across the yawning expanse, both heard another voice. “Hallelujah! Made it and, man alive, it’s too cool for school!” It was Wovoka, his singing and rejoicing bouncing off the rocks.
“They killed you, too, Wovoka? Holy moley, their fear of the Ghost Dance was just the excuse they needed to do what they’d always wanted to do to all of us.” Dance long enough, cackled the Clown, and the bullets remember their orders.
