Wounded Knee

(Please click on the title for a reading aloud by the author.)

I tell the fellow from Nebraska I have never seen an eagle and would be unsure if I could distinguish it from a hawk. He says, “When you see an eagle you will know.” Bald Eagles have wingspans approaching seven feet.

I sit on the edge of the hill where a mass grave exists at Wounded Knee, South Dakota looking to the south, to the creek, the site of the massacre. As many as 300 Lakota Sioux died here at the hands of the U.S. 7^th Cavalry on a winter day in 1890. Now cottonwood trees are in full green leaf, the leaves quiver and rustle in the wind. It is peaceful but it is not. I close my eyes and sit, it is as though I can hear the din and inexplicably I nearly collapse. This takes me aback. This is a sad and powerful place.

A man approaches me, his jet black hair pulled back in a pony tail. His name is Lawrence and he asks if I would like to buy a dream catcher he has made. He tells me he is Oglala Sioux and is very polite. Yes, I would like to buy it and when he does not have change for the bill I have I give it to him and tell him to keep it. Lawrence thanks me and goes away. I sit for a while longer. I sit and feel what I can.

Walking back to my truck parked at the base of the hill, a hard worn pickup with three men squeezed into the cab and two men in the back races into the lot spitting gravel and stirring a big cloud of dust. One of the men in the back holds up an eagle’s foot with beads and feathers tied to it and screams at me, “Eagle’s foot! You want to buy it?” He and his companions are all drunk. I say, “No. I do not want to buy that.” The man looks at me for a long moment gathering comprehension. He pounds his fist on the back of the cab. The driver of the truck hits the gas and it roars off, gravel sprays, the men in the back sway and lurch nearly falling out. I get into my truck, shaken, and sit for a moment.

Driving back to where I am camped in the badlands I look ahead and see a man and woman on the other side of the road. They are stumbling down drunk, they are trying to walk. The woman falls into the ditch and the man falls trying to assist her. They gather themselves as best they can and start the process anew. As I pass I see their faces, flushed, and they barely keep their balance and grin and wave. I wave back.

My peripheral vision catches a motion in the field to my right. I glace over. A Bald Eagle has fallen from the sky. It pounces once, a spatter of blood and fur fly into the air. The dive, the strike and the ascent are fluid, unbroken motions. The bird flaps its great wings and rises with a jack hare dangling from its talons and flies away. The Nebraska man is right. There is no mistaking this bird for anything but an eagle.

At dusk, before getting into my sleeping bag on the cot I have built into the back of the truck, I tie the dream catcher to the frame of the window. I undress and get into the sleeping bag and stretch out. It has been quite a day. I lay there and watch the light fail and think and fall to sleep. When I wake in the morning I do not remember my dreams.

Gordon Bunker