The girl gulped down a glass of milk and two cookies, then went back to bed. But instead of falling asleep again, she launched into a violent outburst against all the whites who had turned buffalo hunter for financial reasons, like Buffalo Bill or the employees of the fur-trading companies, or for sport, like the rich people who came out from New York or Washington on special trains and, without even stepping outside, unloaded their rifles into herds that beaters had pushed along the railway line; her most unflattering epithets were reserved for the Grand Duke Alexis of Russia, son of Czar Alexander II, who had come to hunt buffalo, complete with his retinue and his cases of champagne, in 1872.

Slowly she calmed down. Jack was sitting across from her, legs folded under him, back resting against the plywood wall, saying nothing. She apologized for having kept him up so long. She helped him get back into bed, then she lit a candle and, in her softest voice, read him the Sioux Prayer for the Return of the Buffalo.

SIOUX PRAYER FOR THE RETURN
OF THE BUFFALO (1889)
Father, have pity on us;
We weep for we are thirsty,
All has vanished.
We have nothing to eat;
Father, we are wretched.
We are very unhappy.
The buffalo are no more,
They have all disappeared.
Have pity on us, Father;
We dance as thou hast commanded
Because we follow thy will.
Though it causes us pain,
We dance and dance.
Have pity
Father, help us;
We are close to thee in the shadows;
Hear us and help us,
Send the white men away,
Bring back the buffalo,
We are poor and feeble,
Alone, we can do nothing;
Help us to be what we once were
Happy hunters of buffalo.

XIX. They Died With Their Dreams

XIX

They Died With Their Dreams

They got up late.

La Grande Sauterelle was in an excellent mood. She took the wheel and the man sat in the navigator’s seat. He glanced at the route they would follow along Interstate 80, then immersed himself in their favourite book, The Oregon Trail Revisited.

The girl turned on the radio. It was playing western songs, and she started to hum the tunes she knew. One of the songs was very old. It had been composed by Jimmie Rodgers. Entitled “Hobo Bill’s Last Ride,” it told the story of Bill, a sick and solitary wanderer who had gone to sleep in a freight car one cold, rainy night as the train was charging through the darkness. The last words went:

It was early in the morning when they raised the hobo’s head
The smile still lingered on his face but Hobo Bill was dead.
There was no mother’s longing to soothe his weary soul,
For he was just a railroad bum who died out in the cold.