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Every July, when Eli was growing up, his mother would close the cabin and move the family to the Sun Dance. Eli would help the other men set up the tepee, and then he and Norma and Camelot would run with the kids in the camp. They would ride horses and chase each other across the prairies, their freedom interrupted only by the ceremonies. Best of all, Eli liked the men’s dancing. The women would dance for four days, and then there would be a day of rest and the men would begin. Each afternoon, toward evening, the men would dance, and just before the sun set, one of the dancers would pick up a rifle and lead the other men to the edge of the camp, where the children waited. Eli and the rest of the children would stand in a pack and wave pieces of scrap paper at the dancers as the men attacked and fell back, surged forward and retreated, until finally, after several of these mock forays, the lead dancer would breach the fortress of children and fire the rifle, and all the children would fall down in a heap, laughing, full of fear and pleasure, the pieces of paper scattering across the land. Then the dancers would gather up the food that was piled around the flagpole—bread, macaroni, canned soup, sardines, coffee—and pass it out to the people. Later, after the camp settled in, Eli and Norma and Camelot would lie on their backs and watch the stars as they appeared among the tepee poles through the opening in the top of the tent. And each morning, because the sun returned and the people remembered, it would begin again.
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