from Dream Horses

PROLOGUE:

A chorus of Ponca women wail their Mourning Song.

(Jason Labell enters. He is nude, clutching only a blanket. It is wintertime.)

JASON

Standing Bear,
Standing Bear,
Where are you?

I still don't know
If I can draw a bow
And make my tongue say
Everything my heart wants to say.

Standing Bear,
Standing Bear,
Where are you?

I'm White Man's Coyote
The Dog of Dogs
Who crawls in his belly
Over the half-dead hills
And up the green valleys
Like night fog,
Wailing in the night.

Standing Bear,
Standing Bear,
Where are you?

Help me stop the hate
And end this old debate
Deep down in my soul
Help me to name
The names and embrace tomorrow
Help me find a place
Beyond the shame
And the sorrow.
So, I may travel
Beyond blood on the grass
And the first snow,
Toward a future in the past.

Standing Bear,
Standing Bear,
Where are you?

The cold wind blows
Against my skin
As if it knows
I can see all that I have lost.
I gaze down and see my son,
I gaze down and see Saxon
When he was only a boy.
When he was only a boy.

SCENE 1

(The sound of horses riding away.)

(A light comes up on DELORES and SAXON (eight or nine years old) walking in a circle.)

SAXON

The White man's agent
And his men
Moved us from our land.

DELORES

But, Saxon,
Where did they take us?

SAXON

Mama,
They drove us away—
They drove us
From our land.
They drove the Ponca from the Niobrara
Into Oklahoma.

DELORES

They marched the Ponca
Into a waterless land,
A barren land
Where nothing grows.
And in no time
Prairie grass grew into snow.
And the night sun gazed down
As they rode each snowy hill.

SAXON

And we ate ears of corn
Drying in the winter fields.

DELORES

And sad faces and bowed heads
Made their footsteps grow shorter.
And they made the day birds
And the night stars their guides.
But the People remembered
The old ways,
The old ways of our land.
And only the dreams of their loved ones,
The living and the dead,
Could bring them out of Oklahoma,
Could let them make their journey home.

SAXON

And the snow-trees began
To move faster than the Ponca.

Standing Bear enters; the Ponca dancers freeze.

STANDING BEAR

When the soles of our moccasins wore out
We walked barefoot in the snow.
We were nearly dead
When we reached Nebraska.
Our journey had taken us fifty days
We rested ten day to grow strong.

SAXON

And the White man's agent
Received a telegram.

DELORES

(One-by-one, the Ponca dancers exit the stage.)

And the telegram said:
The Ponca chiefs have run away—
STOP—
Do not give them any shelter—
STOP—
Do not give them any help—
STOP.

SAXON

And the White man's agent said:
"What can I do?
What can I do?"

STANDING BEAR

When we walked out of the office
We left footprints,
Footprints of blood on the floor.

(SAXON grabs DELORES' hand, and they stop.)

SAXON

It was here, Mama.
Right here, Mama.

DELORES

There's nothing here,
Saxon.

SAXON

It was right here.

(Points into the air; STANDING BEAR drops a feather on SAXON's head.)

Mama, I told you
I saw a feather
Falling from the sky.
A voice calls me
Like a wind blowing
From far away.

DELORES

Did you tell anyone else?

SAXON

No.

DELORES

Don't tell anyone,
Not even your father.
No one will understand.

SAXON

Can I tell my friends?

DELORES

No. Not even them,
Besides,
Your friends might laugh.

(DELORES and STANDING BEAR exit.)

(SONNY, LAURA and JIMMY enter.)

SONNY

Someone has to play
An Indian.

JIMMY

I said cowboy
First.

SONNY

I said cowboy
Second.

SAXON

I said cowboy
Third.

LAURA

I'll be an Indian.

JIMMY

You...