"My friends and relatives," he began, "thank you for coming into our lodge. I have been honoured to share this lodge with my wife for nearly fifty winters. In that time we were given a fine son and a fine daughter and many grandchildren. Our people saw difficulty as well as good. We took to the path of war now and then and good men were hurt or died. We are feared and respected by our enemies. The number of our lodges and villages has grown in that time. We are a strong people; our ways are good. I am thankful to the Great Mystery for bringing me into this world as a Lakota! I have lived a good life and I am ready for the next. Before I leave I have a story to tell, and I ask that after the sun comes up tomorrow you tell this same story to all the people gathered here. This is why I have asked you to come today. Here is what I want you to know.
"When I was a young man I traveled south from my mother and father's village to hunt. I came to a village that was encamped for the summer just north of the Running Water River. There was great feasting and a dance at that time, for there had been a fight and a great victory over enemies to the south. I was invited to join the celebration. It was a good time. There was much food and we danced far into the night. I awoke the next morning beside the trail to the water and looked into the largest and most wonderful eyes I had ever seen. A young woman was gazing down at me. She said, 'It is funny what suddenly grows beside this trail.' I jumped to my feet and followed her to the water and carried the water skins back to the village for her. That was the best chore I have ever done in my life.
"The next evening I stood in line outside the lodge of this young woman, with all the other young men who had come to court her. Her name was Carries the Fire and she did put the fire in my heart. I was very surprised when she asked me to come again the next evening. You will not be surprised when I tell you I remained in her village until the autumn hunts. By then, for reasons I still cannot understand but for which I am grateful, she had decided that I might be a good husband. So I went back north to tell my family so they could prepare the gifts to her family for the bride price.
"We were married the following spring. In between was the longest winter of my life. So I left my family and became a part of her village, as is a custom among us. Not long after that, enemies came among us from the south on a revenge raid for the defeat they had suffered before. They killed a man and took two young women. A war party went south on their trail. I went along.
"We trailed them for half a moon, it seemed, going far into country I had never seen. We traveled fast and caught up with them as they rejoined their village. We hid and watched. We saw where they had put the two young women. Later we saw where their night sentinels were and made a plan.
"There were six of us. That night two of us would set a fire to the east of the village, and two of us would do the same to the west. While the men of the village were busy putting out the fires, two of us would sneak in and take back our young women. The plan worked, except for one thing: I was one of the two who sneaked into the village, and I was captured.
"By dawn all of our war party had escaped back to the north with the two young women, and I was glad to pay the price of a good raid. As you might think, my captors were very angry. They made me a slave. All my clothing was taken from me - everything. I was lead around naked; everyone laughed. I was made to work. I pulled drag poles like a dog until my hands and knees were bleeding. They teased me; they threw dirt in my face. Women pulled up their dresses in front of me and laughed, showing me that I was no longer a man. They gave me no food so I had to fight with the dogs for scraps. At night they bound me hand and foot and stretched me between two stout poles. There was no way to escape. I began to feel lower than a dung beetle.
"I lost count of the days, but I looked for ways to escape. But lack of food and water made me very weak, and I knew that before I was too weak I had to escape. After a time they stopped putting a guard to sit and watch me at night. Night after night I pulled at the poles which held me, and little by little I loosened them. But someone saw what I had done and pounded the poles in deeper. I was discouraged.
"I am not ashamed to tell you that one night I prayed to the Great Mystery to give me a quick death. I could not escape; I was too weak.
"One night it was cold and rainy, and I was naked and shivering. There was no one about; it was too cold. Even the dogs curled up out of the rain. My heart was sad as I thought about my young wife and that I would never, ever see her again. I thought about her so much that her face appeared to me. After a moment, I realized that it was real; she was there! While I lay there in disbelief she cut my bonds with her knife, pulled me to my feet, and guided me out of the enemy's village.
"I was weak from hunger and my mind was not clear. But I know we walked through the night and by dawn we arrived at a hiding place she had prepared. The rain had fallen through the night and washed out our tracks. She could not have found a better time to come.
"She had hidden food and weapons. As my mind cleared I saw that she was wearing men's clothes - mine - to disguise herself for the journey. We hid, and we ate and rested. She told me that the other men had returned home with the news that I had been killed. She grieved for a time, she said, but she found herself not believing I was really dead. One night she made preparations and left the camp. The others had told her where the enemy camp was located. She knew where to look. After many days of hiding and watching she came into the camp on that rainy night.
"Though our tracks were washed out by the rain, the enemy knew we had to travel north to come home. So they sent out a war party.
"After a few days of resting and hiding we were eager to start home. We knew to be cautious, of course, and we looked often at our back trail. This is how we saw others heading in the same direction; six of them moving fast. I knew they had to be from the village where I had been a captive and that those six men were the best of their warriors. I had escaped when they were certain I could not. They could not know that I had help. Because my escape was an insult they could not let pass, they sent out their best trackers, their fiercest warriors.
"We covered our trail as best we could but it did not matter. They were running and I could not. Carries the Fire and I decided that we should hide so that we would not leave a trail they could find. But they had to be thrown off somehow. I thought about that but I could do nothing, so I did not speak that thought to her. But she had thought the same.
"We made a good hiding place in an old bear's den. That afternoon while I slept she slipped away. She returned that evening, wet and barefoot. She had placed her moccasins near a creek to lay a false trail for our pursuers. Later she told me that when they nearly spotted her, she hid in a beaver's lodge. She had to go into the creek and come up inside the beaver's house. I teased her, saying that she should have a new name - No Moccasins.
"After two days we left our hiding place and struck out west and traveled in that direction for three days, then north. I began to call her No Moccasins because it was a name of honour for what she had done. That is why my wife is called No Moccasins. Though I grew stronger each day it was not an easy journey home. We had to watch for enemies, find food, and a shelter each night. But it was her quiet courage, more than anything, that was our greatest strength.
"The people were surprised to see us. They believed that I had been killed and that my wife had gone off and killed herself. That is not unknown. My wife did not want me to tell our story and would only let me say that I had escaped from my captors. The people honoured me for that, but it was not my victory.
"I have asked you old ones to our lodge to witness for me. It is time to repay the great debt I owe my wife. Throughout my life I was fortunate as a warrior and somehow I was able to win some honours and gain a reputation. Yet all those honours are not mine because I could not have achieved them if my wife had not risked her life. I have not heard of any man in my lifetime who has done a braver deed. She traveled alone into enemy country and sneaked into an enemy's village. Few men can say they have done that.
"Because of her deed I took to the warpath each time with one thought in mind: to be worthy of my wife. For my life long I have tried to be worthy, but I am afraid I am not. So I must give all these honours to the one who truly deserves them. I give them to my wife. I ask that my warrior weapons and my eagle-feather staff be moved from the man's place in our lodge to the woman's place, where they rightfully should be.
"I will leave this world soon and I ask that another thing be done. I ask that my burial scaffold hold only my body wrapped in my burial robe. I will leave this world as the man I was before I met my wife; poor and unadorned. All that I appeared to be would not have been if not for this woman."
Three Horns sighed deeply and settled back. No Moccasins silently wiped away her tears and pulled a robe up over her husband.
"I have known good people in my life," Three Horns continued. "Many were wise, honourable, generous, and brave. But none, except this old woman who sits beside me as always, had the one strength that gives true meaning to all others - humility.
"She did a brave thing, and no one - not the strongest warrior among us - has yet to do the same. Yet she cared not if anyone ever knew. It is time that everyone knows. Thus I have spoken."
The old ones who gathered with Three Horns gave their word to tell the story of No Moccasins' courage and humility. Through the days and nights that followed, young and old alike crowded around the campfires to listen to those old ones. Before long No Moccasins' name rose with the smoke from many campfires.
Days later Three Horns died in the arms of his beloved No Moccasins. Though her loss was great she comforted others. As he wished, Three Horns' burial scaffold was unadorned. Those who mourned for him also honoured his widow.
No Moccasins died in her seventieth winter. On her burial scaffold were hung her husband's shield, his weapons, and the eagle-feather staff. On the ground below were piled hundreds of moccasins so she would not have to journey to the other side in bare feet.
Joseph M. Marshall III
"The Lakota Way" - 2001
