Dances with Wolves

Dunbar is invited to visit the Comanche camp. He goes there and sits with Kicking Bird in his tent; Stands With A Fist sits in the background. Kicking Bird shares a tobacco pipe with Dunbar—it’s acrid but richly aromatic—and the medicine man motions for Stands With A Fist to approach. Dunbar stands up politely in the white man’s way, which causes Stands With A Fist, thinking she is being attacked, to leap at him with a knife. Kicking Bird pulls them apart. Dunbar gestures with bows that he was being courteous; Kicking Bird understands; carefully, he signals to her to begin again. Dunbar remains seated.

Kicking Bird gestures to Dunbar to say something. Dunbar says, “Hello” twice. Stands With A Fist struggles to say “Hulo.” Kicking Bird is delighted. Dunbar tells her his first name, “John.” She replies, “Willie,” the name of her childhood friend. He repeats his name; Stands With A Fist says, “Jun.” They continue with simple words. She remembers them, but her tongue is rusty. Kicking Bird is called away to officiate at the sacred dance. Knowing he is not invited, Dunbar retrieves Cisco and rides away.

Two Socks now lives at the fort. As Dunbar returns, the wolf rises from under the awning and ambles over to sit in the yard. Dunbar finds, beneath the awning, a freshly killed prairie chicken, its neck damaged but otherwise undisturbed. Dunbar plucks and roasts it, then he eats, tossing pieces of the meat to Two Socks. Finished, he throws the remaining carcass toward the wolf, who takes it and trots off.

Late that night, Dunbar is awakened by a loud rumbling. He walks to the edge of the yard and sees a cloud of dust and the dim shapes of buffalo hurrying past. Dunbar jumps aboard Cisco and rides to the camp. He interrupts a sacred dance, his horse rearing, Dunbar calling out the Comanche word for “buffalo,” but warriors grab him and begin to beat him. Kicking Bird clears them away, and Dunbar, numb from the beating, whispers again and again the word for “buffalo.” Kicking Bird turns and shouts that the buffalo have returned; the villagers roar with joy. 

The entire village loads up at dawn and begins the journey toward where Dunbar had seen the buffalo. Dunbar, suddenly a hero, rides with them. They find the buffalo tracks, and scouts spread out to locate the main herd. Dunbar stops briefly at the fort to collect some gear.

Scouts report back; something is wrong. They continue toward the main herd; along the way, they find more than two dozen buffalo lying dead, their hides and tongues missing, ravens fighting each other for the remains. Wolves loom in the distance.

Late in the afternoon, the tribe reaches the hunting grounds and pitches camp. Dunbar accompanies the men as they climb a hill and peer over it to gaze upon a 10-mile valley covered with tens of thousands of buffalo. Dunbar blinks in wonder, his mouth agape. Finally the men pull away and ride back to their new camp.

At camp, people are celebrating; off to one side is a wagon. Dunbar approaches and sees on it the hides from the dead buffalo. Nearby warriors’ lances carry the scalps of white men. Dunbar realizes the tribe has caught and killed the men who butchered the buffalo. He can’t be a party to this, so he gathers his gear and rides some miles into the prairie, where he beds down, sobbing once again at his loneliness.

Early in the morning, something pokes at him. Dunbar wakens to find Wind In His Hair nudging him with his foot. The warrior sports a new rifle; he aims down it at the prairie, makes a gesture of eating food, and kicks at Dunbar again. The hunt is on.

Dunbar joins the hunters as they approach the buffalo from downwind in a wide arc that slowly closes around a section of the giant herd. Suddenly the beasts stampede. The men give chase, but Cisco is the fastest horse; Dunbar can’t slow him—his hat flies off—and soon he and the horse have left the others behind and are caught amid the stampeding beasts. A bull tries to gore Cisco, but the horse darts away; Dunbar fires at the beast and it goes down.

The buffalo thunder away; Dunbar and Cisco pull up. Dunbar watches as the other hunters fire arrows into buffalo. He dismounts and examines his own kill, pulling on the horns, running his hand along its back. His stomach growls; he’s hungry.

Wind In His Hair rides up, dismounts, cuts out the buffalo’s liver, and offers it to Dunbar. He accepts it, then coyly offers it back. Wind In His Hair takes a bite out of the liver, then hands it around. Stands With A Fist arrives with another woman and begins to skin the animal. Kicking Bear watches. The liver comes back to Dunbar, who gingerly takes a bite, expecting it to be nauseating, but he finds it delicious. He takes a second bite, then holds the liver up over his head in triumph. The others cheer. 

From the moment he eats the liver, Dunbar’s life changes. The old Army concepts of service and sacrifice suddenly become real and meaningful to him as he works alongside the Comanche. The villagers swarm over the dead beasts, their work messy but efficient: “They took everything: hides, meat, guts, hooves, tails, heads” (177). When they are finished, only blood stains remain on the prairie.

Their work done, the men loll about, eating and swapping stories of the kill. They ask Dunbar to relate his adventure, and he mimes what happened, which generates gales of laughter. He must repeat the performance several times to the rest of the hunters. Dunbar realizes that, despite the humor at his expense, he has become “one of the boys” (178).

Back at the camp, Dunbar sees one of the men wearing his hat. He approaches him and points to the hat. The warrior removes from his belt a knife in a beautifully beaded sheath and hands it to Dunbar, then walks away; the exchange is done. Other villagers greet him warmly; kids follow him around. They see him as a walking good-luck talisman.

Kicking Bird brings Dunbar to Ten Bear’s lodge, where the chief offers the lieutenant the first slab from his own kill. Dunbar takes a bite, then politely proffers it back, which impresses the leader, who lights a pipe and gives the first puff to Dunbar.

The feast lasts into the night; the villagers gorge themselves. Wind In His Hair presents Dunbar to the various campfires; the young soldier is treated royally and stuffed with food. Late in the evening, Wind In His Hair expresses interest in the shiny buttons on Dunbar’s tunic, touching them to see if the shine comes off. Dunbar offers the shirt to his new friend, who promptly removes his elegant breastplate and hands it to Dunbar. With signs, they argue pleasantly for a moment, each thinking he has gotten much the better deal, but the trade is made. They help each other don their new adornments.

A group of women pull him into a dance, and Dunbar loses himself in the steps. The women move closer until they are pressing themselves against him and running their hands over his body. Suddenly they shy and melt away, and Dunbar looks up to see Kicking Bird watching. The medicine man turns and walks off; Dunbar follows. They visit a campfire and Dunbar is treated to yet more meat.

Stuffed again and sleepy, Dunbar is led away by Kicking Bird, who takes him to his lodge and guides him to a bed carefully prepared for him. Exhausted, Dunbar falls asleep to memories of the dancing women. He awakens in the middle of the night to the sounds of Kicking Bird and one of his wives making love. Nearby, Stands With A Fist sleeps quietly. Dunbar wonders about her: She seems like two people in one. 

Dunbar wakes early; as dawn brightens, he walks barefoot across the dewy grass to the horses, where he gathers Cisco and leads him back. The camp is waking up, and Dunbar is overwhelmed by the sense of beauty and harmony there. That day, the buffalo hunt continues, and Dunbar bags a large cow, which garners compliments from the other warriors. In the evening, drying racks groan under the weight of yet more meat, and the villagers feast again.

A dice game is under way, and Dunbar loses all of his pouch tobacco learning how it’s played. He gets better at it—he even wagers his rifle—has a streak of luck, and ends up the owner of three ponies. Dunbar gives one to Wind In His Hair and offers the other two to Kicking Bird, who brings out Stands With A Fist and tells her something. She turns to Dunbar and explains, in halting but improved English, that Kicking Bird thanks him but can accept only one pony. Dunbar repeats her explanation, and she says, “Correct.” They both laugh at the formal word.

Dunbar takes the remaining horse to Ten Bear’s lodge and gives it to him. Without knowing it, Dunbar has neatly reversed the Comanche tradition of the wealthy giving to the less-well-off. The chief thinks this white soldier is “truly extraordinary.” At dawn, the temporary camp closes up, and the villagers begin the trek back to their permanent camp, dragging huge piles of buffalo flesh with them. As they pass Fort Sedgewick, they unload hundreds of pounds of jerked meat into Dunbar’s storage hut and say goodbye.

Dunbar relaxes, but before long he begins to itch with boredom and loneliness. In the evening he walks along the river, wearing his new breastplate, which glints brightly under the full moon, and enjoys the natural world around him. The next day, his chores done, Dunbar pulls off his sweaty clothes and goes for a late-afternoon walk naked through the prairie grass; at one point, he lies down for a nap as puffy clouds wheel above him in an azure sky.

The next morning, on waking, he decides to return to the Comanche village. Two Socks awaits him in the yard. Dunbar departs on Cisco, wearing his new Comanche breastplate. The wolf follows at a distance. With the success of the first buffalo hunts, Kicking Bird can concentrate on learning more about the white people. He gathers two warriors and rides off toward the white soldier’s fort.

Four miles into Dunbar’s ride, Two Socks still accompanies him. The lieutenant, concerned that the wolf will be an unwanted guest at camp, dismounts and approaches him, assuming the wolf will run off, but he doesn’t. They stand three feet apart. Dunbar tries to shoo Two Socks away, but the creature darts to one side and howls plaintively.

Dunbar chases him, then turns and runs toward Cisco, hoping to escape, but Two Socks catches up and lopes next to him. Dunbar reaches down and pinches Two Sock’s tail; the creature jumps and bolts ahead. Dunbar laughs at the wolf’s embarrassment, then jogs over to Cisco. Something bites his ankle, and he spins around in alarm: It’s Two Socks. With a shrug, Dunbar gives up. The wolf can tag along if he pleases.

Two Socks suddenly alerts on something in the distance and slinks away. Dunbar turns and sees Kicking Bird and two other warriors on horseback. They have watched the display between wolf and man. Dunbar waves. Kicking Bird rides toward him, finally knowing what the white soldier’s Comanche name should be: “Dances With Wolves” (202).