Chapter 41 Section five

It was a problem, a hallucinatory phenomenon, a subject that psychiatry had and still studies.People who are sick can get help, counseling and treatment. "It's all right, Ben," she said softly, rocking him like a child, "it's all right. It's going to be all right. It's all right if you think so. Come live with us in this castle this summer, We'll live the way people did a hundred years ago. You can come back to Bozeman with me in the fall, and I'll get someone to help you. You'll be fine, Ben. Trust me." She took a cotton handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped his face, feeling sorry for the troubled young man from the mountains.

They walked back to the castle together.Charlie felt relieved about the modern underwear she was wearing. In case of skin cuts, bruises or illnesses, there were modern medicines on hand to treat them in time, and it was only a few minutes away by helicopter to Billings Memorial Hospital. She came to like cotton frocks, the simple life, and days in frontier castles.And, now she knew, her doctoral dissertation was guaranteed to pass. When Major Ingalls lectures, the whole crew is required to be present.In the warm weather in late June, he set up the classroom on the parade ground. The students sat in rows of benches in front of him, and he prepared the blackboard stand and picture materials himself.As long as he talked about the history of the Old West, he became eloquent.

Ten days later, he spoke of the period of the Plains War.Behind him hung a large-scale photo of the Sioux leader.Ben Craig saw a close-up photo of Sitting Bull taken in his later years.The shaman of the Hookpaha tribe once sought refuge in Canada, but later surrendered with the rest of his tribe to the U.S. military and was granted amnesty.The photo on the blackboard shelf was taken before he was murdered. "But one of the strangest leaders of them all was Crazy Horse, the leader of Oglala," explained the professor. "He never, for his own reasons, would allow a white man to photograph him. He believed that the camera would take him away. So, he is also one of the many people who have not left a picture, and we have no way of knowing what he looks like."

Craig opened his mouth to speak but hesitated. In another class, the professor detailed another battle from the Battle of Little Bighorn Riverside.This was the first time Craig learned of what had happened to Major Raynor's three companies, and how Captain Bentyn had joined them on the besieged hills after returning from the moor.Most of the soldiers were rescued by General Terry, who was very happy. In the last class, the professor explained how the scattered Sioux and Cheyenne peoples had returned to their reservations after being rounded up in 1877.Craig raised his hand when John Ingalls asked students to ask questions.

"Go ahead, Ben." The professor was delighted that a student who had never read a book could raise his hand and ask a question. "Major, is there any mention of a tribal leader named Gaolu and a warrior named Walking Eagle?" The professor blushed.He has a truckload of reference books in the department offices, and most of the contents of the books are already printed in his head.He had expected to hear a simple question.He searched in his mind. "No, I don't believe anyone ever heard of them, and the Plains Indians didn't mention them afterward. Why do you ask that?"

"What I've heard is that the High Moose spent the winter here on Pryor Mountain, away from the Great Clan and away from General Terry's patrols, sir." "Oh, I've never heard of it. If that's what you say, their tribe must have been discovered in the spring. You'll have to go to Lymdeer, which is now the center of the Northern Cheyenne reservation. Someone at Darnave Memorial College might know." Ben Craig remembered the name.In the autumn he would go to Limdere, find it wherever it was, and ask there. On the weekend, the first group of tourists came.Since then, teams have arrived almost every day.They mainly came by bus, and some people came by private cars.Some groups are led by teachers, others are family groups.They all parked their cars half a mile out of sight, however, and rode in a covered carriage to the castle gates.This is part of the "realistic atmosphere" strategy advocated by Professor Ingalls.

It worked.The tourists, mostly children, were delighted to ride in a carriage, which was a novelty for them, and during the last two hundred yards of the carriage ride near the gate, they imagined themselves to be real frontier immigrants, and they jumped out of the carriage with joy. jumped down. Craig was assigned to process animal skins that had been stretched to dry on racks.He rubbed the pelts with salt and scraped them so they could soften into leather.The soldiers are practicing, the blacksmith is pulling the bellows in the iron shop, the girls are wearing cotton dresses, and are washing the clothes in the big wooden barrel, Major Ingalls leads the tourist group around and explains the functions of the castle to the tourists , and why these are necessary in life on the plains.

Two Native American students play friendly Indians who live in the castle, act as hunters and guides, and they serve as tip-offs to the troops when the settlers are attacked on the plains by expeditions from free preserves.They wore cotton trousers, blue canvas shirts with belts, and long wigs under top hats. The most intriguing ones seem to be the blacksmith and Ben Craig, who is fiddling with animal pelts. "Did you trap the animals yourself?" asked a boy from a school in Helena. "yes." "Do you have a permit?" "what?" "Why would you have a feather in your hair if you weren't an Indian?"

"It was given to me by the Cheyenne." "why?" "Because I killed a big grizzly bear." "It's a wonderful story." The accompanying teacher said. "No, it's not a story," said the boy. "He's an actor like everyone else." Whenever a horse-drawn carriage arrived with tourists, Craig would look for a girl with shawl-length hair and big dark eyes in the crowd.But she didn't show up.July passed, and August arrived. Craig took three days off to go back to the wilderness.He set off on horseback before dawn.He found a cherry grove in the mountains, took out a hatchet he had borrowed from a blacksmith's shop, and set to work.He hewed the wood and whittled it into a bow frame, and since there were no animal hamstrings he fitted it with twine brought from the castle.

He whittled wood for arrowheads from straight, hard young ash saplings, and plucked feathers from the buttocks of a dull wild turkey to make arrow wings.He found flint by the side of a stream, hammered and polished it, and fashioned it into arrowheads.Both the Cheyenne and the Sioux used flint and iron arrowheads, embedded in the slits at the tips of the arrows, and held in place by ultrathin leather cords. Of the two types of arrowheads, the plainsmen are more afraid of flint arrowheads.Iron arrowheads can be pulled out by following the barb in the direction of the shaft, but flint arrowheads usually break and penetrate deep into the tissue, necessitating a surgical procedure without anesthesia.Craig made four flint arrowheads.On the morning of the third day, he hunted a stag.

He rode back, the stag slung across the saddle, the arrow still in the heart.He took the game into the kitchen, hung it up, disemboweled, skinned and cut it, and finally, in front of a dumbfounded castle dweller, offered sixty pounds of fresh venison to the cooks. "Is it my cooking skills?" asked the chef. "No, it's fine. I like the kind of cheese pie with the little colorful bits." "That's called pizza." "I just think we can still eat some game meat." While the scout was washing his hands by the manger, the cook hurried to the commander's office with the bloody arrow in his hand. "It's a fine work of art," said Professor Ingalls, examining it carefully. "I've certainly seen it in a museum. Those striped turkey feathers can tell it's a Cheyenne masterpiece. He is Where did you find it?" "He said he did it himself," said the cook. "Impossible. No one can polish flint like that anymore." "Well, he has four of those arrows," said the cook, "and this one hit a stag in the heart. We shall have fresh game to-night." The staff enjoyed a venison barbecue outside the castle with relish. Watching in horror through the firelight as Craig sliced ​​up the roasted venison with an extremely sharp hunting knife, the professor recalled Charlie's promise to him.Maybe it was superfluous, but he still had doubts.Will this bizarre young man turn out to be a dangerous man?He noticed that four girls were now trying to get the untamed lad's attention, but his thoughts always seemed to be far away. By mid-August, Ben Craig was beginning to feel depressed and hopeless.In his heart he was still trying to believe that the ubiquitous gods hadn't lied to him or betrayed him.Has the girl he loves been tricked by fate?None of the jubilant young men around him knew that he had made up his mind.If by the end of the summer, he still fails to find the love promised to him by the old man who can predict the future, he will ride into the mountains and reunite with her in the spiritual world by his own efforts. A week later, two more carriages rolled into the gate, and the drivers reined in the sweating horses.A group of chattering excited children jumped out of the first carriage.He sheathed his hunting knife, which had been sharpened on the stone, and stepped forward.A primary school teacher was facing away from him. She had long jet-black hair that fell down to her waist. She turned around.It's a Japanese American with a round baby face.The Scout turned and strode away.He suddenly felt very angry, stopped, raised his clenched fist in the air, and shouted loudly. "You lied to me, god. You lied to me, old man. You made me wait, but you threw me into the wilderness, cast out of man and God." On the parade ground between the buildings, everyone stopped and stared at him.Walking in front of him was a "tamed" Indian.Hearing his voice, the man also stopped. It was a shriveled brown face, like a roasted walnut, as old as the rocks of the Beartooth Mountains, with tufts of snow-white hair on either side of the cheeks, and two eyes under a top hat staring at him .There was endless sadness in the seer's eyes.Then he raised his eyelids, nodded silently, and looked behind the scout. Craig turns around, sees nothing, then turns back.Under the brim is the face of Brian Harveychild, one of two Native American actors.He was staring at Craig like he was looking at a madman.Craig went back to the gate. The tourists in the second carriage got out.A group of children gathered around their teacher.Female teacher in a plaid shirt and jeans, with a baseball cap on her head.She leaned over to separate the two boys who were fisting each other, then wiped her forehead with her shirt sleeve.The visor was in the way, so she simply took off her baseball cap, and her cascading black hair immediately rolled down to her waist.Feeling a little embarrassed by being stared at, she turned to him.An oval face, a pair of big black eyes.It's a breeze. His feet seemed to be nailed to the ground, and he was speechless.He knew he should say something, he should walk over, but he didn't speak, he didn't move, he just stared.Blushing and embarrassed, she quickly averted her eyes and called the students to start the tour.An hour later, they arrived at the stables.Charlie led the way and acted as their guide.Ben Craig is feeding Rothbard.He knew they would come, and the stables were one of the stops on the tour route. "This is where we keep our horses," said Charlie. "Some are cavalry horses, and others belong to frontier folk who live here or pass by. This Ben is tending his horse, Rothbard. Ben is A hunter, trapper, scout and mountain folk." "We want to see the horses," cried a child. "Okay, honey, we're going to see the horses. But please don't get too close, lest you get kicked by the horse's hooves," Charlie said.She led the students down the corral.Leaving Craig and the girl looking at each other. "I'm sorry I was staring at you just now, ma'am," he said. "My name is Ben Craig." "Hi, my name is Linda Pickett," she held out her hand.He held her hand, small and warm, just as he remembered it. "Can I ask you something, ma'am?" "Do you call every woman a lady?" "Almost. That's what I was taught. Isn't it good to call it that?" "Too formal. It's like an old-times title. What are you asking?" "do you remember me?" She frowned. "I'm afraid I don't remember. Have we met?" "long, long ago." She laughed.It reminded him of the laughter that once echoed around the campfire at the High Elk Shack. "It must have been when I was little. Where?" "Come on, let me show you." He leads the confused girl outside.Beyond the wooden fence, Pryor Mountain looms in the distance to the south. "Do you know what that is?" "Is it the Beartooth Mountains?" "No, Beartooth is farther to the west. That's Mount Pryor. That's where we met." "But I've never been to Pryor Mountain. My brother used to take me camping when I was a kid, but I've never been there." He turned and stared at the lovely face. "Are you a teacher at the school now?" "Well, in Billings. What's the matter?" "Will you come back here again?" "I don't know either. According to the plan, there will be other regiments coming in the future. Maybe I will be assigned to accompany them. What's the matter?" "I hope you come again, please. I must see you again. Promise me." Miss Pickett blushed again.She was so pretty, she must have gotten notes from boys.She usually smiles and pushes the note aside, which conveys the message that she is unimpressed without offending the other person.This young man was anything but ordinary.He didn't flatter, and he didn't flatter.He looked serious, sincere, innocent.Her heart swayed as she gazed into those direct cobalt blue eyes.Charlie came out of the stable with the children. "I don't know," said the girl, "I'll think about it." An hour later, she left with the student group. A week later, she came again.Her colleagues in the school were temporarily going to take care of relatives on the sick bed, and there was a vacancy in the escort of the tour group, so she volunteered to accompany her.It's a hot day.She was only wearing a cotton print shirt. Craig asked Charlie to check the tour directory for him, looking for a booking group from the school. "Who's your fancy, Ben?" she said playfully.She was not disappointed.A relationship with a girl who understands things can go a long way in bringing him back to the real world.She was genuinely pleased with how quickly he had learned to read and write.She had procured two simpler textbooks for him to read word for word.After the fall, she could help him find housing in the city and a job as a store clerk or waiter in a restaurant, while she wrote a dissertation on his recovery. He was waiting when a group of students and teachers dismounted from the carriage. "Can you come with me, Miss Linda?" "Follow you? Where?" "Go out on the prairie. It will be easier for us to talk." She demurred, saying the children needed her care, but her older colleague smiled at her and whispered in her ear that she could follow the admirer away if she wanted to.Of course she would. Together they went out of the castle, found a pile of rocks in the shade of a tree, and sat down.He was silent. "Where did you come from, Ben?" she asked.She noticed that he was shy and liked it.He nodded towards the distant mountain. "Where did you grow up, in the mountains?" He nodded again. "Then did you go to any school?" "I haven't studied." She tried to imagine this life.To have spent all of my boyhood hunting and trapping wild animals and never set foot through the gates of school...it was weird. "It must be very quiet in the mountains. No traffic, no radio, no TV." He didn't understand what she was talking about, but guessed she was referring to something that made noise, something different from the rustling of leaves or the chirping of birds. "That's the voice of freedom," he said. "Tell me, Miss Linda, have you ever heard of a Northern Cheyenne?" She was startled, but relieved by the change of subject. "Of course. My grandmother's mother was actually a Cheyenne." He turned his head to her suddenly, the eagle feathers fluttered wildly in the hot wind, and his dark blue eyes stared at her unblinkingly, begging her to continue. "Please tell me about her." Linda Pickett recalled a photo her grandmother had shown her of a shriveled old woman who was her mother.Despite her age, the faded black-and-white photo shows the woman's large eyes, delicate nose and high cheekbones suggesting she was beautiful in her youth.She told what she knew, what her now-deceased grandmother told her when she was a little girl. The Cheyenne woman married a warrior and gave birth to a boy.Around 1880, however, a cholera epidemic swept through the Indian reservation, claiming the lives of soldiers and boys.Two years later a frontier missionary married the young widow over the objections of his white companions.He is of Swedish descent, tall, blond and blue-eyed.They had three daughters.The youngest daughter was Miss Pickett's grandmother, born in 1890. The grandmother married a white man again and had a son and two daughters.The youngest daughter, Mary, was born in 1925. When she was eighteen or nineteen, she came to Billings looking for a job as a clerk at the newly opened Agricultural Bank. At the counter next door to hers was an earnest and hard-working clerk named Michael Pickett.They married in 1945.Linda's father did not join the army because of myopia.Linda had four older brothers, all tall, blond, blue-eyed lads.She was born in 1959 and is eighteen years old this year. "For some reason, I was born with black hair and dark eyes, nothing like my parents. That's all. Now it's your turn to tell your story." He ignored her request. "Is there any mark on your right leg?" "My birthmark? How do you know that?" "Please show me." "Why? This is my privacy." "I beg you." She hesitated for a moment, then pulled up her cotton skirt, revealing a golden brown slender thigh.The imprint is still there.The two crumpled dents were holes pierced by a cavalry bullet on the banks of the Rosebud River.She let down her skirt a little sullenly. "What else?" she asked with a hint of sarcasm. "One more question. Do you know what 'Emos—est—se—haa'e' means in Cheyenne?" "My God, how could I know." "It means soft-talking wind. Breeze. May I call you Breeze?" "I don't know. I suppose so. If it pleases you. But why?" "Because it used to be your name. Because I dreamed about you. Because I was waiting for you. Because I love you." She stood up, her face flushed. "It's crazy. You don't know me, and I don't know you. Besides, I'm engaged." She walked away and returned to her group, never wanting to speak to him again. However, she returned to the castle.She was engaged in a fierce ideological struggle, telling herself more than a hundred times that she must be crazy, a fool, and confused.But in her chaotic mind, with those quiet blue eyes fixed on her, she was convinced that she should go and tell the lovesick young man that they should never see each other again, that it was pointless.At least, that's what she told herself. On the Sunday before leaving school for a week, she caught a tour bus in the city center and got off in the parking lot outside the castle.He seemed to know she was coming.He waited on the parade ground every day, and Rothbard beside him had a full harness. He put her on the horse, sat her behind him, and rode out into the prairie.Rothbard knew the way to the stream.By the sparkling stream, they dismounted.He told her about his parents who died when he was young, and how he was raised by a mountain dweller as his adopted son.He explained that he had never been to school, but he would recognize the sights of various animals in the wilderness, the calls of different birds, and the shape and characteristics of each tree. She explained that her own life was very different, with a long formal and traditional education and a thoughtful approach.Her fiancé was a young man from a wealthy family who, as her mother said, could provide her with everything a woman could ever want or ask for.So, it makes absolutely no sense for them to meet again...so he kisses her.She tried to push him away, but when their lips met, her arms lost strength and wrapped around his neck instead. Her fiancé's taste of wine and bad cigars was absent from his mouth.He didn't grope her body.She smelled him: buckskin, cooking smoke, pine. She broke away excitedly and walked towards the castle.He followed, but did not touch her again.Rothbard stopped grazing and followed behind. "Stay with me, Breeze." "I can not." "We are meant to be together. That's what the gods said a long time ago." "I can't say yes to you. I have to think about it. This is crazy. I'm engaged." "Tell him he'll have to wait." "This is impossible." A large carriage was leaving the gate and heading for the parking lot out of sight.She walked over and jumped into the carriage.Ben Craig mounted Rothbard and followed the carriage. At the parking lot, the passengers jumped out of the carriage and boarded a big bus. "Breeze," he called, "will you come back?" "No, I'm going to marry someone else." Several women cast disapproving glances at the rough-looking young equestrian, who was clearly pestering a nice young girl.The driver closed the door and started the car. Rothbard let out a terrified whinny and raised his front hooves.The big bus moved and started to accelerate on the dirt road leading to the asphalt road.Craig clamped Rothbard's double ribs and rode him after him.After the car accelerated, Rothbard also changed from a trot to a fast run. This mare is a little scared of the monsters around her.The car spouts and roars at it.The wind speed increased.Passengers in the carriage heard a yell. "Qingfeng, go to the mountains with me and be my wife." The driver glanced in the rearview mirror, saw the horse's fluttering nostrils and rolling eyes, and stepped on the gas.The big bus was bumping and rushing forward on the dirt road.Several women screamed and hugged the children beside them.Linda Pickett got up from her window seat and pushed open the sliding window.