Wheel to the stars
The white man called them buffalo.
We call them tatanka, the majestic ones.
Their story is the story of our people.
Tatanka lived in the underworld until he saw our people in a vision.
He saw that we were needy.
And for the love of us,
tatanka came up out of the earth and became flesh so that we could eat,
make our clothes and our dwellings from his hide.
Lakota Village 1825
The buffalo nation
[Speaking lakota language]
Soaring eagle, a medicine man,
could not accept the terrible vision of growling bear,
the buffalo would disappear, and the lakota would live in square houses.
[Speaking lakota language]
Wheelerton, Virginia
Man: I suppose the best place to begin our family's story is with grandsire abraham.
Many was the time as a boy I listened to his tale of
how a cannon subtracted a leg at the battle of yorktown.
I'd have wagered both mine to see what he saw.
My misfortune was to be born in a drab age and to have lived in the
stifle of a barn where a man was only as good as the things he crafted.
Wheelwrights we were, going back to the time when they invented the damn thing.
Wheelers made wheels, but in my day, we'd seen the wheels made the wheelers.
All the long day, I lived in my books, and by night,
I dreamed of a better life beyond the mississippi.
Morning, Enoch.
Hi, papa.
How are you?
Good.
Nathan.
Mornin'.
Now, that is a thing of beauty.
Man: Anybody see jacob?
Jacob?
At your age, I was repairing cannon wheels at valley forge.
At least you got to see a bit of the world, sir.
That was the war.
We had no choice.
Thank god you live in a time of peace.
Yes, sir.
Apply yourself to the anvil, and you're set for life.
It takes 10 years to make a journeyman wheelwright.
Another 10 for master.
You'll never lack for work.
They need wheels in time of peace, they need wheels in time of...
don't you sass me, young man!
Yes, sir.
You boys knock off for lunch now.
Except jacob.
You already had yours.
Plow horse needs shoeing out there.
Good morning.
Who do I see about replacing a rifle cock?
That'd be me, sir.
If I may, sir, how'd you come by that scar?
Difference of opinion with a Cheyenne warrior.
Savage thought my scalp might look better hanging from his belt,
but I favored where god put it.
But then I fancied his locks on my belt.
May I?
Sure.
My goodness.
What in the sam hill is that?
Ho.
Sacred.
Grizzly...
on its hind legs, about where that first rafter starts.
Goodness gracious.
Must be hell out there.
It's more like the garden of eden, son.
Come across some tribes'll give you the girls.
You got mountains covered with snow in summer and forests that go on forever,
rivers that you can't hardly see across.
Sometimes you wait half a day for a buffalo herd to run past.
Big shaggy beasts.
3 times a horse.
Horizon to horizon.
And the pacific, unsullied by human hands, as it was on the eighth day of the world.
See if that'll work for ya.
Thank you.
Did you finish shoein' that plow horse like I told ya?
Fine young man you got here.
If he doesn't get knocked into a cocked hat first.
And you let the fire burn down, too.
We could've turned out another wheel before the end of the day, but not now.
Think you can put a sharper edge on this for me?
Yes, sir.
Is that...
human blood?
Arkansas toothpick ain't for cuttin' your steak.
So where are you headed, sir?
St. Louis to meet up with Mr. Jedediah Smith.
The Jedediah Smith?
God made only one of him for all of us to look up to.
Who's that?
Mr. Smith opened up the deep west for trappers.
Lookin' for a few good mountain men to explore
the beaver populations around the great salt lake.
How much can a man make off a beaver?
They keep buyin' beaver hats in London and Paris, upwards to 4,000 or 5,000 a year.
It's time for you to get back to work now, all of ya.
5,000.
Oh, now, Margaret, that is a fine-looking goose.
Do you believe that beaver story?
Sunday dinner was another form of labor with my father and Nick...
my mother Margaret...
say grace first.
My brothers Ezra, Nathan, and Jethro.
For what we are about to receive...
Grandfather Abraham presided over the ritual with grandmother Hannah.
The wheelers pounded iron 6 days a week, but on the seventh, we pounded each other.
President Adams is saying to europe, "keep out.
It's all ours.
It needs another Jefferson to take it all.
But isn't the west just one vast desert?
That's a common untruth, Mama.
West is all kinds of terrain.
It's a veritable garden of eden.
Yes.
Jacob's just returned from the west wing of the house.
Jacob, in fact, has yet to discover the western side of the barn.
As with all rituals, nothing ever much changed.
Until that sunday, when I looked around the table
and said my silent good-bye to each and every wheeler.
[Speaking lakota language]
Old indian: Heyoka, the clown, tried to lift
their spirits after growling bear's dark vision.
For the boy, white feather, there were only questions.
He sought answers among his family.
[Speaking lakota language]
White feather was determined to discover the meaning of growling
bear's vision and if the future it predicted could be changed.
[Speaking lakota language]
White feather did not have words to match what he knew to be true.
But he knew that a vision was a dangerous thing.
He knew a vision could kill a man.
Jacob!
You hold up!
Jacob!
Hyah.
Jacob!
Hyah.
Jacob!
Hyah, hyah, hyah!
Wait.
What do you figure?
Just run out and not tell nobody, hope your fool scheme works out?
I don't expect Mr. Smith and Mr. Fletcher are gonna tarry long in St. Louis.
And Ma and Pa... what do we tell them?
Tell 'em I love 'em.
I ain't got time to lose.
I made my last wheeling wheel.
Why would a frontiersman accommodate you?
Ask and you shall receive.
Mr. Eternal optimist.
Nathan, I thought you had more enterprise in ya.
Jethro, you always been a blade of grass bends with the wind.
Wait up.
No.
You'll be the first wheelers to give up the trade.
You'll stay behind and pound on dead iron till you become dead as iron.
come on, Jethro.
Now or never.
Aw, come on.
Hyah!
Yahoo!
White Feather could not accept growling bear's
vision that the buffalo would not return.
A ceremony was performed.
The people danced to give gratitude to tatanka and pray that
he would live again and again in the great circle of life.
[Men and women singing in lakota language]
To lead the buffalo to the jump was to taunt death.
White Feather knew that his brothers, Dog star and
Running Fox, were chosen for their ability and courage.
He was proud of them, but afraid also.
[Speaking in lakota language]
Aah!
Tatanka spared the boy,
so on the day the boy's mother was put to rest
White Feather was renamed loved by the buffalo,
and all agreed that he had been called to walk the road of the medicine man.
[Chanting in lakota language]
[Speaking in lakota language]
And so loved by the buffalo took no food or drink in 4 days.
He cleansed his body and mind to open his spirit for a vision to enter.
Hey.
Let's stash the horses over there.
Wait till dark.
Oh!
Mmm!
What the...
hey!
Hey, get your black hands off of me!
Let go of him!
When you let go of me, when you let go of me!
You're dead as mutton if you don't.
And so is your friend.
All right, I'm gonna let go.
Let go.
Who's in there?
You answer me, by god!
Just a couple of hungry boys out for some eggs, sir.
How many are you?
Just two of us in here stealing eggs, sir.
Regret to say the wolf in our stomachs overcame our god-fearing souls.
Well, you only had to knock on my door to discover christian charity.
Had your fill of eggs to boot.
We only took enough to keep the wolf at bay, sir.
Well, go on. Take a few.
I had my hopes up.
What with a big reward for a runaway slave.
You don't say.
How much is that reward?
100 silver dollars.
Sir, with your permission, we'll be on our way.
What about the...
Nathan, let the good christian man go back to his warm bed.
Thank you.
Thank you heartily, sir.
God bless, boys.
What objection do you have to 100 silver dollars when the
only thing that stands between us and ruination is $7.00?
Man kept his word, Nathan.
I intend to keep mine.
What man?
He's a runaway.
That money's mine.
Not with my rifle!
Poor as Job's turkey, you won't even bend
down to pick up $100 just laying on the ground.
Man's gotta draw a line somewhere, Nathan.
He did the honorable thing.
You're a damn dreamer.
Let go, Nathan.
No!
Who made you captain of this enterprise, huh?
You won't be alive when I catch you, boy!
There goes our 100 silver dollars.
Damn you, Jacob.
Stop running!
Ha ha ha!
Not soon, farmer boy!
See you!
St. Louis, Misouri
We'd been in St. Louis long enough to see the sights and then some,
but it took us more than a fortnight longer to find what we'd come for.
Mr. Fletcher.
Jacob Wheeler.
You remember my brother Nathan?
Yeah, I remember.
You said you needed men, sir.
Yeah, I said I needed men.
Mountain men.
Well, we'll pull our weight, sir.
Do you suppose you could introduce us to Mr. Smith?
We've surely come a long way.
St. Louis is raining mountain men, Jacob, my boy, Nathan.
Seasoned men.
Men more Indian than White.
Men who can speak Apache, Cheyenne, Mexican.
Nathan, hold on.
I'm sorry, Jacob, maybe next time.
Where the hell you been?
St. Louis loves the brothers Wheeler.
I couldn't lose a hand.
10 times I tried to quit,
10 times they made me stay.
I have won this.
This is an escritura.
That's spanish for deed.
I won that at poker, too.
It's a mere 100 acres in Tejas.
You, 25.
Me, 75.
What do you say about that, brother Jacob?
Tejas ain't even in the united states, Nathan.
So what?
Well, they don't speak English and their catholics.
We have 100 acres, son, who cares?
I've made up my mind.
I'm going with Jedediah Smith.
You see that furry creature?
That's the kind of man Jedediah Smith wants.
But who cares beans?
We found our fortune in Tejas.
I want to see the Pacific Ocean.
And then what?
I don't know.
I've got a bird in the hand in Tejas.
You're after the will o' the wisp out west with adventurers and criminals.
Well, I say we stick together.
Yeah, well, why should I stick with you?
There's a reason why our father gave you the grunt
work and me the precise measurements of wheelmaking.
It's 'cause you never had a head except for dreaming, and here you go again.
Are you coming or not?
I thought of our mother vexed by her perfidious sons,
always consoling herself with the notion that we had each other,
but we didn't allow her even that much comfort.
I'll be leaving from the steamboat within the hour if you change your mind.
Nathan went south, and I went west.
I put my best foot forward and bought a new old suit of
clothes for the occasion of meeting the great Jedediah Smith.
It was not easy to find Mr. Smith because he endeavored to stay upwind of me.
And then suddenly he stood in front of me.
Well, sir, I just want to see what no white man has ever seen before.
And if a horse throws a shoe, I'm a first rate ferrier.
Been at it since i could pick up a hammer.
Can you shoot?
Why, sir, I'm a hunter.
This is my rifle.
Exactly what kind of game do you hunt?
Rabbits and deer, sir.
You ever kill a man?
No, sir.
I admire your spirit, boy, but only the best of the best will be chosen.
So you go on home.
Nobody here'll think the worst of you.
Maybe next time around.
With all due respect, sir, you ever kill man?
My friend, Mr. Smith cannot count the savages that fell to his hands.
Well, you know what?
It's pretty easy to kill a savage out to scalp you.
But you ever hunt down an innocent rabbit,
done you no harm, cut it down in cold blood and eat it?
Nobody in wheelerton would've believed that I was riding with a legend.
Hearty as buck, a crack shot,
a walking encyclopedia of indians and their strange habits.
Mr. Smith was like no man I ever knew,
and I would never be the same.
The buffalo jumpers,
Running Fox and Dog Star, had their eyes on two sisters,
but had to prove themselves to a more dangerous opponent than stampeding buffalo.
A small skinned rabbit did not impress the girls' protective father.
[Speaking lakota]
Two brothers married two sisters and walked the path of old tradition.
Loved by the buffalo studied the power of plants, of roots, and herbs.
He learned how to cure the body and the spirit using songs and ceremonies.
[Speaking lakota]
But the holy man did not know all the powers the boy was given.
Loved by the buffalo discovered he had the power to take another's pain upon himself.
He knew the power was not his own,
but that of wakan tanka.
[Speaking lakota]
Watch this.
See?
Now watch this.
See?
Pot.
[Speaking lakota]
Thunder heart woman would carry the medicine
wheel that growling bear gave to her brother.
In it she would keep her family and her memories, and that gave her comfort.
Days passed into months until I lost track of time altogether.
Riding with Mr. Smith,
I saw the grandeur and majesty of the west as few white men had ever seen it.
Colorado
Mr. Fletcher, is that path passable?
That path ain't even jackassable.
Everywhere I looked I saw treasures of immeasurable beauty,
and I longed for my brothers to share them.
Get back.
Give me some room.
Shoot him!
Praise the lord for providing our supper tonight.
Amen.
Praise the lord.
Put me down there, boys.
Fetch my bag, Mr. Wheeler.
Yes, sir.
What do you need from it, sir?
I've done it.
Here we go.
Put my scalp, Mr. Wheeler.
Yes, sir.
Thread the needle...
sew it back on, son.
Go ahead.
Sir, I ain't never done nothing like that before.
Neither have I, son.
Uh, perhaps Mr. Fletcher could...
I gave you an order, boy.
Thread that needle and sew my scalp back on.
Yes, sir.
Isn't this gonna hurt, sir?
I believe it will, son.
But I think it'll hurt the person being sewed more than the sewer.
Mr. Fletcher?
Yeah?
Fetch my bible, please.
Hold still, sir.
Thank you kindly.
Unh!
Oh, goodness.
I'm sorry it hurts you so much, son.
That's right, darling.
Stretch 'em nice, you get a good price.
Loved by the buffalo began to walk the path of a holy man.
The way was long and dangerous,
but for one who communes with Wakan Tanka, many things are possible.
In the medicine wheel, loved by the buffalo learned the mysterious realities of life.
He saw the sun and moon and seasons come and go in a circle.
He saw that all true power moved in a circle.
[Speaking lakota language]
When we descended from the high sierras, we came across a friendly tribe.
They called themselves mohave: The people who live along the river.
And they called us beaver-eaters.
Mr. Smith purchased horses to replace those we consumed.
One blanket, 2 knives.
A gift.
Thank you.
Maricopa.
Maricopa?
Maricopa.
Maricopa...
is just dandy.
Dandy
Maricopa.
Women!
Very dandy.
Dandy.
Maricopa.
Want some maricopa?
you are a most unusual young man.
Afraid not, sir.
Well, there they are down there.
What are you doing up here?
Seems like there was this tiny Jedediah Smith standing on my shoulder,
telling me to come up here with you.
I want to be like you, sir.
Much obliged, son.
You do me great honor.
Ah, but you see, sir, I'm just an ape of Jedediah Smith.
I want to be like you.
I really want to be like you,
but there's a part of me that I feel inside...
I want to be back down there with them.
What does that make me?
Makes you a human being.
Just like the rest of us.
Are you tempted, too, sir?
Come over here. Sit down, boy.
Come over here.
Jacob...
we're as human as the least of 'em down there,
but we're also more than that.
"As a man thinketh, so he is. ¡°
What do you think you are?
The lord fashioned us a little above the beast,
a little below the angels, but he gave us the choice.
And it's great, son.
Some of these men, they come west,
they lose their souls.
West is a place on the map, not a way to live.
Don't forget that.
A man has to know his own mind.
You might begin your own journal.
Crow
[Speaking lakota language]
California
[Speaking spanish]
He says that we are his prisoners.
Tell him that maybe it escaped his notice that he's outnumbered 3 to 1.
He said he would arrest us if there was 1,000 of us.
San Gabriel Mission, California
Dismount!
They're gonna take you to the governor.
All right, Fletcher, you look after the men.
The captain took Mr. Smith away...
"to make the governor's acquaintance," he said.
Under ordinary circumstances,
we might've welcomed the hospitality of the san gabriel padres,
[Speaking spanish]
but there was no mistaking the fact that we were prisoners.
[Speaking spanish]
Our time among the mohave was to cost us both dearly.
The soldados wanted to set an example.
It didn't matter to them if the men they brought
in as horse thieves were innocent or guilty.
Indians were indians.
It was a powerful trial to watch the sun set day after day
over the horizon I had sacrificed home and family to reach.
Whether any of us would live to see the wide ocean that had
been the object of our expedition now depended on Mr. Smith.
Gentlemen.
Mr. Smith.
Gentlemen, gather around.
I got some news for you.
Where you been?
The governor has given us most generous but strict instructions.
We must depart as we came and never return on pain of death.
We were forced to return east.
I looked back and made myself a solemn promise
that one day I would see california again.
Loved by the buffalo knew that a vision from
Wakan Tanka would direct the course of his life.
White buffalo woman brought us the sacred ceremonies
so that we could ask for help in our troubles
and give thanks for the gifts from wakan tanka.
She taught us the Sun Dance.
Once we drank maricopa with the mohave and shared their women.
But after we had left them,
A party of beaver-eaters had attacked their village and left it in flames.
Now we were forced to run for our lives.
Move.
Move, Jake, come on.
There.
Get in.
Hurry up.
You OK?
Hey, you all right?
Stay low.
Fire!
Bully for you, young man.
That should hold 'em off for a while.
Mr. Fletcher.
Yeah.
The smoke is drifting.
What does that mean?
It means there's a way out of here.
I got a pang tellin' me it's time to hang up the fiddle.
Listen, you two just follow the smoke,
and I'll... I'll keep our friends amused.
Ok?
Jacob, bring me my gun.
Thank you.
Whoa.
Listen, jacob, I want you to have that.
No use a mohave getting it.
They won't appreciate it.
Learn to use it, son.
Things can get pretty personal...
Out west.
Thank you, Mr. Fletcher.
Jacob, light!
Jim.
Yeah.
You're a man of unfailing rectitude.
Remember me...
to all the boys at the rendezvous.
Now get gone.
Get gone.
Aah!
Mr. Smith, I can't do this.
Of course you can.
It vents.
Now I'm stuck.
I can't do this!
I don't wanna die like this!
Oh, God! No!
Jacob!
Old indian: The dancer stares into the sun, sun-up to sundown,
moving with the sun, dancing, tugging at his tether, pulling, twisting,
trying to tear the skewer through his skin.
And when he sets himself free, he is reborn to the world.
He lays on a bed of sage and recites his vision to the holy man.
If we never found this cave, it would be over.
But in here like this,
we'll die by inches and nobody will ever hear from us again or know what happened.
The lord revealed the cave as he sent a fish to save Jonah.
Jonah was drowning.
I don't need a sermon when I'm so afeard!
"The fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom. "
And take hold my boot, move with me!
The fish swallowed up Jonah.
Jonah did not know it was god who sent the fish to save him.
And Jonah cried out to the lord from the belly of the beast
"lord, I do not want to die like this!"
Now let us pray jonah's prayer.
"I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the lord, and he heard me. "
"Out of the belly of hell cried I and thou heardest my voice. "
Now repeat after me, Jacob.
"But I will sacrifice unto thee... "
"I will sacrifice unto thee... "
with a song of thanksgiving...
" thanksgiving!
"Salvation is of the lord.
" Unh! "Salvation is of the lord.
Loved by the buffalo had seen how a vision could kill its seeker.
Now he, too, had a terrible revelation.
[Speaking lakota language]
The sickness of the spotted face came to the lakota.
Some believed it came from the white man.
Some were not as certain.
[Speaking lakota language]
When loved by the buffalo fell ill,
Soaring eagle told the people
it was loved by the buffalo that brought the pox to them.
[Speaking lakota language]
He told them to send the boy away,
and only then would the sickness leave.
But deep inside his dark thoughts,
he hoped the sickness would take the boy.
[Speaking lakota language]
Growling bear made a song to fight the sickness.
He gave it to loved by the buffalo to cure
his brother running fox and any who believed.
Utah 1829
Mr. Smith and I had stared death in the face and lived to tell the tale.
We'd said our good-byes and gone our separate ways.
So I decided to attend the rendezvous that
Mr. Fletcher had spoken of with such fondness.
Rob any chicken coops lately?
Ben franklin.
Jacob wheeler!
Ain't this some pumpkins!
Look at ya!
Look at you!
Where in the sam hill you been?
I been all over.
Come here!
I remember.
I never forget that.
I been treed by grizzly bears and tracked by blackfeet,
but I never was so scared as when I heard that
farmer tell you about a reward for a runaway slave.
No, sir!
I sat in that coop waitin' for you to give me up.
Sho' enough...
you never did.
I thought about that every day since.
I wanted to give you a hundred beaver pelts as a token of my thanks.
Come on, join us over here for a drink!
Whiskey's just fine.
Yeah!
We've got a young lakota girl.
Her name...
is thunder heart woman.
She cooks and...
she knows the fur trade.
And...
she speaks good english!
She's pleasant and agreeable.
Well, sometimes!
Bidding starts at $100.
100!
What we got here?
Look here!
Looks like love at first sight to me!
I see my old friend Johnny Fox survived another year in the sierra nevada!
All right, boys.
Anyone else in the biddin' here?
200.
Who's the greenhorn?
300.
4.
What you doing?
Ben, you better talk to your friend.
What was you thinkin'?
Johnny fox can whips your weight in wildcats.
You tryin' to buy a sister, peach fuzz?
You even know what to do with her?
I'm gonna set her free and send her back to her people.
Whoa!
Sets her free?
Why?
You of all people know why.
I thought different, you'd be back on that plantation.
You backin' down?
Not for flapjacks or french ladies.
Then it's rifles at 20 paces.
Hah!
There you go!
Look what you done got yourself into now.
Come on, little coward.
Come on.
Now, you keep on the move, even when reloading.
Make yourself small.
Get on it, lad.
You still stand back-to-back with unloaded rifles.
And after 10 paces, well...
anything goes.
1...
2...
3, 4...
5, 6...
7, 8, 9, 10!
Now, jacob!
Run!
Come on, jacob.
Now, jacob, now!
Aah!
You want more?Got your ear!
Get up!
Shoot him, jacob!
To hell with him!
Come on!
Move, Jacob!
Time to go home, little boy.
Time to go back to mama!
Hey, hey!
Thunder heart woman!
Get ready to feel some of Johnny Fox's lightning.
Come on, Johnny!
Ohh...
Sold, boys!
We must...
take out metal.
Who are you?
I'm Jacob Wheeler, ma'am.
Well, now...
by rights...
his stuff is yours.
Is there enough there to cover what I owe ya?
Oh, yeah.
And then some.
What's so funny?
Oh, A...
true southern gentlemen seeing a lady to her daddy's front door.
Even if it is a thousand miles across cheyenne, crow, and blackfoot country.
A great man once told me that the west is just a place on the map, not a way to live.
Benjamin.
You take care.
Ma'am.
What's wrong?
I have...
a baby somewhere on earth.
Crow took her.
I pray she is not yet on ghost path.
Where spirits go
[Speaking lakota language]
Jacob.
Loved by the buffalo knew he had been given the sign he'd asked for.
He no longer questioned his sanity and understood that Wakan Tanka was guiding him.
Whoo!
Ha ha ha ha!
It's heyoka.
Heyoka makes us see Wakan Tanka, makes us laugh.
Arriving in Thunder heart woman's village was like stepping into a dream.
I had looked to find my destiny in California.
But it was in this place among these people that
my life was to take a course I'd never imagined.
I could not understand their words,
but I could see the love for a long-lost daughter
and sister and feel her relief in their embrace.
Jacob.
She told them about her captivity,
the fight with Johnny Fox,
how I'd risked my life to free her.
I thought I understood her to say the spirits had brought us together.
And I figured, well,
she must have been right about that.
My father offers his possessions.
Well, tell him I just want to marry you.
Sometimes...
2 people go to wilderness for 2 weeks,
and they return as husband and wife.
We kinda already did that.
Woo-ha, woo-ha, woo-ha!
This is making of relatives.
Take small bite.
This meat I place in mouth.
From this day, my home your home, and you his son.
At first, I didn't understand the pain in my heart for thunder heart woman.
Then it hit me.
Her family was making me a relative while I know
full well my folks would never do the same for her
They'd call her a savage, a soulless heathen.
Why do I feel so at home here among these people?
Grab the wheel.
It's heavy.
Help me unwrap it.
Take the rope off...
[Speaks lakota]
Take the rope off...
then you go around, just like that...
You can save the rope.
When I saw loved by the buffalo,
I could not escape the strange sensation that I knew him and he knew me.
[Speaks lakota]
He saw my scar,
and I saw his,
and I imagined the force of the beast that thrust its head in his chest.
In the wheel,
loved by the buffalo saw the threat,
the danger coming from the people of the wooden wheel,
but he could not say why.
He began to understand what growling bear meant,
the webs made by spiders to catch flies.
Something would entangle the lakota in a time yet to come.
You trick the iron to subdue the wood.
Your magic wrongs Wakan Tanka.
Wakan Tanka.
Does your god give you the wheel of wood and iron?
No, no.
Just the intelligence to make it.
He will show you a wheel made by Wakan Tanka.
Great spirit gives one gift at birth.
We are born somewhere on the medicine wheel.
We are born with one of the great powers.
Wisdom...
Strength...
Big heart...
Braveness.
Loved by the buffalo left me wondering what I was born with...
and what I had yet to acquire on the wheel.
I would spend most of my life looking for the answer.
[Speaking lakota]
The time had come to move the camp.
The grandparents of thunder heart woman chose to
remain behind to make their final journey together.
Why?
Why can't she come with us?
She will not leave her husband.
We must respect their wishes.
For the first time,
I stood in awe of everything that god made.
I couldn't look at a tree anymore and see so many board feet of timber...
couldn't look at a beaver lodge and see so many pelts.
Now I saw little miracles.
We have a wheel that takes you from here to there.
But they have a wheel that takes you to the stars.
[Speaks lakota]
Soaring eagle knew he had lost his place.
For the first time in his life,
he knew the true meaning of fear.
And loved by the buffalo left his family so that he might live for all the people.
This was the price of his gift...
to pursue his journey to change the terrible vision of growling bear.