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swift and strong as the bird of prey,
as fierce as the thunder that could shake the plains.
    Another year passed, and he danced the Sun Dance. The Sioux,
the many factions and bands, met together once a year every year for the Sun
Dance. It was the most important of the ceremonies prescribed to them by the
White Buffalo Woman, who had come at the beginning to teach l hem their morality
and their way of life. It took place in June, the month of the chokecherries,
and lasted twelve days, requiring great strength of body and mind.
    At nearly fourteen Thunder Hawk was a tall boy, almost six
feet, taller than many of the grown warriors, though his height was not that
unusual, since he knew a Miniconjou Sioux, Touch-the-Clouds, who was nearly
seven feet and truly towered over other men. Thunder Hawk wanted to be both a
great warrior and a wise one. He wanted the guidance of Wakantanka, the Great
Mystery, so he danced with skewers piercing his back muscles, praying for his
people mid for strength against all his enemies until he fell. He was honored
among his people as a young warrior who showed promise of greatness.
    Then his father had suddenly come back into his life.
    He hadn't known the blond, green-eyed stranger who had come
into their village, but he had known that something was different about him,
and he had known that change was coming, and he had hated that change. He had feared it, but a boy newly
become a warrior with the name Thunder Hawk could not betray fear.
    The stranger who came to them was welcomed
by the older warriors. He was an old friend who had lived among them before.
    A white, who had danced the Sun Dance with the skewers
through his chest, who had fought the Crow with them and counted coup.
    He was still stunned to discover that the white man had come
because his white wife had died—and because he wanted to make Flying Sparrow
his wife now in his white world as well as in the Indian world. The Sioux did
not think badly of him for having two wives—most Sioux warriors had more than
one wife, though their wives were often sisters.
    The man who came spoke the Sioux language very well. He was
liked; he was called brother by the warriors. Thunder Hawk learned that the
man had come here years before as a representative of the American government,
as a man called a topographical engineer, a mapmaker. The Sioux had come upon
him while scouting. He had fought bravely and been wounded. He had been taken
captive, and Flying Sparrow had nursed him back to health. Then he had been the
younger son of a wealthy British chief. Now he was no longer the younger son
because illness had taken his brother. And now he wanted to make sure that his
son by Hying Sparrow could be a legitimate heir to his vast estates. He had
another son himself, an older son by his white wife. But that son did not mind
having a brother.
    Hawk minded. He didn't want to leave the band. He had many
friends who were just becoming men, who had also counted coup, killed their
first buffalo, and killed their first enemies. He had a kola, or best friend, Dark Mountain, who planned
strategies for the hunt with him.
    He had gone to the foot of the hills for his vision quest.
For a Sioux boy, the vision quest was the center of his life. In his vision, a
Sioux touched something sacred: he learned what road he must follow, what path
he must take.
    After three days without food or water, Hawk had col-
    I   ipsed and his vision had come to him. He had ridden a Mack pony between
a herd of buffalo to his left and a flight nt eagles to his right. The animals
had cried out to him, tried to tell him something, yet he could not understand,
lie had to ride harder and harder. Then he was able to understand the eagles
while the buffalo could not, and likewise, he was able to understand the
buffalo while the eagles could not. A rain of arrows had come over him as he
had udden, but no matter how close they came, he knew that lu- had to keep
riding. In the end, he saw