Night of the White Buffalo: A Wind River Mystery by Margaret Coel

black eyes. He wore a black suit with a white shirt buttoned to the collar and no tie, like the chiefs in the bronzed photos from the Old Time. Dropping his gaze, he took his time checking the papers on the podium in front of him. Turning over one page, then the next. The audience was still.
    Finally the professor looked up, cleared his throat, and began speaking:
    When I think of the sacred white buffalo calf, I think of the beautiful young woman with the yellow-and-red scarf tied around her bald head. She stood at the fence next to the pasture on a farm in Wisconsin. Hundreds of people milled about, and I remember how this beautiful woman waited her turn to get close to the fence. She leaned against the post and stared out at the herd of buffalo. Off to the side was the new white calf, about the size of a lamb, sheltering in the great, protective shadow of her mother. The beautiful lady did not take her eyes away. I saw that she was crying.
    Later she told me that she had heard about the birth of the white buffalo calf as she finished chemotherapy. She got into her car and drove from Houston to Wisconsin because, as she said, she believed the sacred calf would be a blessing on her life.
    When I looked at the other visitors lined along the fence, staring off into the pasture, I saw that most had tears in their eyes. All kinds of people, not just Indians, although Indian people had come from across the country, Mexico, and South America. Whites, African Americans, Asians—a microcosm of the whole world. In some way, all these people understood that what they saw out in the pasture—a smallish, unassuming animal—was the most sacred creature they would ever see.
    I first learned about the sacred white buffalo calf from my grandfather. I remember sitting in a circle inside the tipi that Grandfather kept in his back yard. The government had built frame houses on the Pine Ridge Reservation, but many of the old Lakotas preferred to sleep and eat in their tipis. It was rumored that some of the old ones stabled their horses in the houses while they continued living in their tipis. Anytime Grandfather began a story about the Old Time, the circle inside the tipi became very quiet. We knew the story was about us.
    In the very long ago time, Grandfather told us, when the people were alone and hungry, a beautiful woman came from the West. She was dressed in a white deerskin dress decorated in beads and quills. Her moccasins did not touch the earth. She floated toward the village, and the people knew she was a spirit. She was Wakan. She came from the Creator. The woman taught the people many things. To be respectful of creatures, the four-leggeds and the wingeds, who are our relatives, and to be respectful of the living Earth. She told us to be in a holy way. She spoke to the women especially and said their work was as great as that of the warriors who procured food for the people. It was the women’s work and the children they bore that kept the people alive. She taught us the sacred ceremonies and gave us the sacred pipe. The smoke from the pipe is the breath of the Creator.
    Before she left, the beautiful woman promised she would return in times of trouble so that we would know the Creator remained with us. She started off in the direction of the setting sun, then stopped. She rolled over and became a black buffalo. She rolled a second time and became a brown buffalo. The third time, she became a red buffalo, and the fourth time she became a white buffalo calf.
    After her visit, the plains were filled with buffalo. Enormous herds stretched as far as the eye could see. The ground rolled and shook like thunder under their hooves. The buffalo gave the people everything we needed to live. Food, clothing, shelter, tools. Today archeologists say seventy million buffalo once existed. The ancestors saw the herds and said the people would live forever. When the wars of the plains ended and the people were sent to reservations,