They all piled into the pickup and drove every which way beyond the Ridge, looking for Wully. Now and then one of the kids yelled from the back of the truck, "there he is!" but it always turned out to be something else, and Jesiah swore in Chickasaw. The rolling land to the west, usually shades of pearl and pumpkin, was stained with vermilion, and the sun sank inch by inch. the pickup's shadow was forty rods long, racing in a silent glide across rose-tinted greasewood and a sailing jackrabbit. The kids stood up full length swaying dangerously and lifted their arms to make giant gestures that all but encompassed the earth. they saw someone walking a long way off that turned into Jana Penna, walking along dancing every few steps with a transistor radio held beside her ear.

She said, "I saw Wully with Granddaddy Thanko, going some place. Are you leaving right now?"

"Sure, but that might not be too far," Jesiah said. "Get in here in front."

Jana Penna climbed into the cab beside what looked like a rolled-up rag rug but was in reality Tapatopa, wearing two overcoats and topped off by a brand new blue bandanna tied around his head. She could hardly see him all shriveled mouth and burnished eyes inside the layer of coats and the starched bandanna, that looked like the bluebell crown purportedly worn by the King of the Fairies.

The two biggest boys crawled from the back of the truck onto the roof of the cab and hung their heads in at the window to ask Jana Penna to play her radio. Jana Penna turned it up loud playing rhythm and blues while Jesiah drove on.

When they reached the turn for Horny Toad Highway Jesiah began slowing up to stop but Jana Penna switched off her radio long enough to say, "I'll go along with you and see too, if you don't mind. I'm not in any big hurry to get to the Center." they both knew that if Granddaddy thanko had his medicine bundle then he and Wully would probably have been heading for Red Sandy Hill, that being the only thing that would pass for a high place within twenty miles.

They found Wully and Granddaddy Thanko on top of the hill behind the big red white and blue beer signboard there, Wully dancing around in a circle and Granddaddy Thanko singing.

Jana Penna turned her radio down low until they could hear Granddaddy Thanko's hoarse voice over the slam banging guitar from Tulsa.

"Tag yah he ah gap yah, tag yah he cattle yah," Granddaddy thanko sang, more or less. "Sahnn shnn, tag yay he tag yah heee, ah gap yah ah gap yah, atta atta yah yah atta atta yah yah, yah yah yah yah, atta atta yah yah."

Wully's cowboy boots, of which he was proud, stood off to one side leaning against each other like a pair of spectators. Wully's bare feet pressed delicately against the red sand, softly and quickly step by step as if kneading the earth. He was wearing his overall like a sort of turban. Irregular black blotches of sweat soaked the seat and belt-line of his pants.

The circle Wully danced went round and round like a turning wheel in front of Granddaddy thanko, who was sitting on the ground with his medicine bundle spread open on his knees. Occasionally Granddaddy Thanko would lift up with both hands some one of the sacred objects from the medicine bundle, and offer it to the four directions and to the sky and the earth, singing all the while.

"Should I hide?" Jana Penna whispered, there being many things considered improper for a woman, especially young and unmarried, to watch. "Now," Jesiah said. "There ain't anything private about it or Granddaddy Thanko would of put up his sticks. Anyhow, Wully's done his vigil. Just set still and Granddaddy Thanko'll let on he don't see you. This here is his buffalo- calling song. Wully's never learned this one, and he was wanting to."

Granddaddy Thanko stopped singing and gestured to Wully with both hands with a motion as if shooting a basketball. Wully turned to dancing back and forth across the circle in a straight line and then in another straight line that ran crossways to the first, and after the two lines were tramped sown enough to be visible he stopped in the center of the circle and turned up his face and sang, "Koogyah koogyah koogyah koogyah, koogyah koogyah koogyah." Then he danced to each of the four ends of the straight lines and each time he stopped and sang, "Koogyah," which was as near as he could pronounce the Kiowa word for grandfather, and sang it out seven times for the seven directions.

The sun had set. The rolling plain of vermilion had dried bone-gray. Afterglow drenched the sky with a wash of luminous green that drained slowly away, while a rising nearly-full moon became luminous at a corresponding rate so there was no darkness, only a shift of colors and shadows. Nighthawks appeared from nowhere, swooping through the tranquil air. Far away, in the direction of the willow-bordered river not visible beyond the horizon, a car's headlights twinkled and vanished like a spark.

Granddaddy Thanko leaned forward and beat with the palms of his hands on the earth, while he sand in his hoarse voice. Wully sang a response in English because he didn't know enough Kiowa words, and the Granddaddy Thanko sang the next line and Wully answered again.

"Grandfather buffalo in the east, white in the east, grandfather buffalo in the north, blue in the north," Wully sang, in his melodious young voice that soared up through the night like a marble column. He danced from compass point to compass point, stopping at each to sing. "Grandfather buffalo in the west, yellow in the west, grandfather buffalo in the south, red in the south."

Granddaddy Thanko arranged his medicine bundle on the ground and got laboriously to his feet and walked around and about, stretching his legs. He passed by the signboard and struck it several times with his fist, booming out he rhythm.

"Grandfather come down to us, grandfather," Wully sang. "Grandfather, we call, grandfather, we call to you, come to us, come to us."

"Granddaddy Thanko shouted out to prompt him, and Wully sang on without missing a beat.

"As the littlest calf, with yellow hair. As the growing calf, with dark hair. As the little buffalo, with gray horns. As the young bull buffalo, as the young cow, as the old buffalo bent with age, as all, grandfather with four legs, we call to you. Run to us, run to us, come to us, come to us, down to us, down to us, grandfather come to us."

Granddaddy Thanko came to the driver's side of the truck and stood there for a while watching Wully. then he spoke to Jesiah but he didn't notice Tapatopa and Jana Penna. Granddaddy Thanko wore his hair long, and part of it plaited into a pigtail that always fell in front of his left shoulder. A spot of red ochre, small and unobtrusive so people wouldn't make remarks, was on the lobe of his right ear. His shirt and his overall jacket were worn turned inside out but this didn't attract much attention either, one side of and old shirt and on old overall jacket being much like the other. All these things were part of the mystic vision by which Granddaddy thanko lived. He was as fanatical as a medieval saint about living in keeping with his vision. Most people thought he was crazy.

Wully sang:

From the world unseen to this world that we see
we see coming into being going into life
the cow buffalo and the bull buffalo
we see coming into being into life
the buffalo calf and the old buffalo

From the world unseen to this world we see
into the light of day we see
we see them coming into being
buffalo

going into life
into the light of day.

Granddaddy Thanko beat the rhythm on the truck with his fist until he hurt his hand and stopped to suck a knuckle. He was excited. He said, "Jesiah, look at that boy. Look at him."

"Yes sir I know," Jesiah said.

"He's no ordinary person," Granddaddy Thanko said. "He's different. Not only he feels more. He's different." He cupped his hands around his mouth to bellow instructions at Wully. "You listen to what I tell you, Jesiah. I tell you straight out. He's no ordinary person, that Wully. He's different."

"He is, yes sir," Jesiah said.

"I know pretty well," Granddaddy Thanko said mysteriously.

"I do too," Jesiah said. "Try to get him to carry in water some time, or the like of that."

"No no," Granddaddy Thanko said, in voice of dictum. "He's no ordinary person."

"Not that he don't want to," Jesiah said. "he just don't remember any longer than you're standing there talking. His head is off somewhere. For chores he's as worthless as tits on a boar."

"You hear what I tell you," Granddaddy Thanko said. "he's no body ordinary. That boy is somebody not ordinary."

Wully sang in a higher, wilder pitch, "The wind calls you, the grass the grass calls, the river the long river calls, oh wild buffalo." He sang so earnestly that his voice almost broke into a sob at the end of each line. "The earth calls," he sang, thudding his bare feet against the ground. "The earth remembers your footprints the earth remembers."

Granddaddy Thanko shouted out prompting again for the set piece about the tracks of the buffalo.

"In this way came the buffalo tracks," Wully sang, "the buffalo tracks that we see, that everywhere we see, for the tracks of those feet were made by life in this way, life that came in this way."

Granddaddy Thanko slapped his thighs to the beat and stamped a few solemn steps of the dance, shaking with excitement.

"Looka my adaykya," he said to Jesiah. "Look how he's got my adaykya to dance with him."

The dust hanging in the moonlit dance circle shifting with each movement of Wully in the dance and each quiver of the dust made it seem that the medicine bundle was also in motion, rising and falling with the steps of Wully's quick, caressing feet.

"Now take my adaykya for an example," Granddaddy thanko said. "He don't care for it, wully many adaykya did there used to be, in the real old time religion? I got just the one, and it's used for everything. Whatever I sing for, I use it, and I got a something for everything in it, all the objects. Wully don't care for that. It ain't the way it ought to be to be true, is what he says. Oh, he's not ordinary."

"He don't mind abusing the truth when it comes to laying out of school," Jesiah said.

"That boy better not be in no school," Granddaddy Thanko said ominously. "You get him right out of there."

"He's out already."

"It's sacred things and thinking that's got to be true for him," Granddaddy Thanko explained. "I expect he couldn't stand it if he was made to do a thinking thing untrue. Like say a word. Like in Kiowa we call toadstool thunder-turds and of course nobody thinks so, but Wully, he wouldn't even say so without saying such as are called thunder-turds, he don't ever stop to think about it he just says it or such as that whenever he talks Kiowa words on in English either or far as I know in Chickasaw too, but I reckon you know better that I do what i mean anyhow."

Jesiah had completely lost his way in whatever granddaddy thanko was trying to explain. He said, "I don't guess I do, but it's all right."

"These things are unknown," Granddaddy Thanko said.

"Ah gap yah, ah gag yah, sahnn sahnn ah gap yah," Wully sang. "Ah gap yah gah tag yah hee...ah gap yah gah, ah gap yah gah..."

"You would say he was Ki-kya," Granddaddy Thanko said proudly. He shouted out to Wully to sing now the buffalo bull songs, and Wully sang of how the earth rumbles to the running feet of buffalo bulls and how a buffalo bull sticks his tail straight up in the air when he is angry and then curves it lashing over his back and how terrible is his humped shoulder and how he shakes his mane when he is wounded and enraged and how his curved horns are like knife blades.

"I never knew any person like him all my life," Granddaddy Thanko said. "Ary boy or man either. Why, he could do anything, you know, I mean, in the old time religion."

Wully's voice, singing ululated like a leaping brook.

"Just listen to that there," Granddaddy Thanko said, in such admiration that he wept, and had to wipe his eyes with the back of his hand and bend over and blow his nose with a thumb to one side and then the other.

"Buffalo, buffalo, let them see," sang Wully's clarion voice. "Buffalo, buffalo, wild buffalo, come to us come to us, let us see."

"You are still fixing to go to Dallas Texas," Granddaddy Thanko said suddenly to Jesiah. Jesiah had gotten so interested in listening to Wully that he didn't understand, and so he didn't answer. "You know best what you want to do," Granddaddy Thanko said.

He sounded truculent. Jesiah said in bewilderment, "What I want to do about what?"

"About going away from here. Away from here he will be no good at all."

Jesiah said is despair, "Oh, hellsfire."

"You know best," Granddaddy Thanko said humbly.

"I don't want to argue with you or nobody, Granddaddy Thanko. Wully 's big enough. He can do whatever he wants to. But he don't want to stay here by his ownself."

"He ought to stay her, though. You believe me, Jesiah. But he feels too much about the rest of you."

"Listen, I don't want to argue about it," Jesiah said, gently pounding the steering wheel for emphasis, unconsciously in the same rhythm as the beat of Wully's dance.

"Now the little calf is born, filled with life and motion," Wully sang, correctly weaving in the final verse of the song of the buffalo tracks. Born filled with life and motion, born the newborn yellow calf standing on its feet and walks, leaving footprints, buffalo, buffalo, leaving tracks."

"Away from here all his power will be gone," Granddaddy Thanko said. "In a city it will all be shut up in squares and gone."

Jesiah turned in exasperation to face him through the open cab window and said, "What the hell are you doing trying to make and argument?"

"Now on the road of the people, now on the road of the nation," see the road, buffalo let them see."

"Maybe he'll just go crazy and die," Granddaddy Thanko said, his eyes glittering. Jesiah was shocked, and Granddaddy Thanko hurriedly raised both hands as if in prayer. "you know I don't want but only good for him. And you too, Jesiah. Now don't say nothing, Jesiah. You're getting mad, so don't say nothing."

Something loomed up near the truck and then whirled and bucked and trotted away down the hillside, startling the little kids in the back of the truck so that one of them cried for a minute. Jesiah half-opened the door of the cab and looked away down the hill. He said, "Somebody's old cow. I thought at first it was a buffalo."

"Maybe so," Granddaddy Thanko said. He was standing extraordinarily tall and straight in the silver moonlight and looked bewitched, like a kingly knight in shining armor still dazzled at being suddenly materialized.

"My grandfather the buffalo," Wully sang, really singing now in a prayer. "Sing welcome my grandfather, into the visible world, my grandfather, into this visible world, grandfather the buffalo."

"Maybe you Chickasaw people just don't feel all these things so much," Granddaddy Thanko said boldly.

Jesiah, closing the cab door, leaned out and said, "You better take that back."

"I take it back, Jesiah," Granddaddy Thanko said equably.

"You're going to end up making me get mad."

"All right, Jesiah. But what did I say so terrible? Different people can need all kinds of different things, that's all I said. All right, Jesiah. I'll let up on it."

"I hope to holler you will," Jesiah said.

"Into the visible world come along," sang Wully's voice, neither breaking nor out of breath but as easily and warmly as if by no effort at all, and with a not of impetus that stepped up line by line as steadily as walking up a flight of stairs. "Come forth come forth appearing, appearing in this world we see, my grandfather the buffalo, buffalo buffalo let us see."

The biggest boy, Henry, hung over the edge of the roof and said, "Look, Dad, Wully's called one."

Jesiah stuck his head out of the window of the cab and looked back and saw a buffalo standing no more that six or eight feet behind Granddaddy Thanko. It was a giant buffalo, its hump hunching up higher than Granddaddy Thanko's head. Moonlight sprinkled its forelock and mane with straws of silver and made the buffalo's eyes look white and blind, so that the buffalo, standing so still, had the appearance of a statue. It was enormous, it was half again bigger than any horse or cow Jesiah had ever seen. Then it moved its lower jaw, that had a beard hanging down, its lower jaw moved from side to side in a placid chewing motion.

"Granddaddy Thanko," Jesiah said, "there's a big buffalo right behind you."

"I been having my eyes on another one across," Granddaddy Thanko said, without turning around.

A little way beyond the other side of the dance circle, beyond the hanging veil of silver dust, a shadow moved, looking as big as if the billboard was walking, and a buffalo there ambled part way around the circle of Wully's dancing and strolled off down hill, switching its tail and rolling its hipbones and hind legs with immense stateliness.

"Back to us now in this world on you road, you come again to us now in this world on your road, you come again to us see, Buffalo cow in this world on you road, buffalo calf look and see, look and see, look and see," sand Wully, and his dancing body, flinging silver drops of sweat, pointed and pointed this way and that way in the cloud of shining dust. "Running with bounds and leaps, buffalo calf, whirling from side to side, buffalo calf, bounding, turning, running straight, little tiny buffalo, look and see."

Jana Penna said in a whisper, pulling Jesiah's sleeve, "There's some kind of things moving around all over the flats out there. It must be more of them. Can you tell?"

Wully sang exultantly:

Buffalo bull, great and tall,
Come here, come here, come this way

Buffalo cow, mother, mother
Buffalo calf, little one, yellow one
Come here, come here, come this way
See them, hear them, hear their voices
Come her, come here, come this way.

The rolling plain in the moonlight was stirring with motion as far as the eye could see, and the sound of lowing, and the distant bellow of a bull and bleat of a calf.

"It's little bunches of buffalo all over everywhere," Jesiah said.

The great buffalo behind Granddaddy Thanko wandered away, but now there were other buffalo near enough to the hilltop to be in plain sight in the moonlight, not far from the truck and the circle of Wully's dance, bring a strong dusty smell and a rustling undercurrent of sound, like a hundred thousand restless sleepers turning and muttering just beneath the grass.

Wully left the straight lines and went back to dancing around the circle, stopping at each compass point to cup his hands around his mouth and sing peal on peal at the top of his voice, "See them coming, this way that way, see them coming everywhere, see them, hear them, hear their voices, buffalo buffalo seven directions, buffalo buffalo everywhere."

There was a crack like a rifle shot and some of the buffalo jumped and ran in a rapid trot or gallop a little way, the quick bursts of their running beating the earth like practice flourishes of drums. The crack came from the signboard, swaying as a buffalo scratched himself by rubbing against it. A young bull running and bucking banged the signboard with a tinny crash and the signboard toppled and collapsed with a violent metallic clang, and a few more buffalo leapt and ran for an instant, accelerating the drum beats.

One of the little kids in the back of the truck began to laugh. From the top of the cab Henry said, "Boy, there must be a million of them." The silver of the rolling plain was by now dissolved under the black sea of moving buffalo.