In this unusually long chapter, Black Elk has a vision at the age of nine. There is nothing to report from his life between the ages of five and nine. During this time, the white men had moved away from Indian encampments to live along the newly built Union Pacific Railroad. The building of that railroad and its subsequent expansion into the Transcontinental Railroad (1869) had divided the huge grazing ground of the bison into a north and south half. Half of the herd was more than Black Elk's people could use anyway.
Black Elk is eating when he hears a voice telling him to hurry because his Grandfathers are waiting. He grows sick and cannot walk. His legs, arms, and face swell up. The Indians are moving camp, but he is so ill he has to be carried. When he is laid down to rest in his parents' tepee, he sees through the opening in the top the same men he had seen in the sky four years before. They call to him that his Grandfathers are waiting for him. A cloud takes him, following the men, to a place made of cloud in which he beholds an extraordinary, highly symbolic vision. Black Elk describes it in precise detail.
In cloud world, a bay horse greets Black Elk and tells him that he will tell Black Elk the life history of himself and others. The bay horse makes a circular turn in the four directions, north, south, east, and west. Twelve horses are in each direction, each group of 12 matching in color: the horses to the north are white, those to the south are buckskin, to the east, sorrel, and to the west, black. The bay tells him that the horses will take him to his Grandfathers. The sky then fills with dancing horses who change into diverse animals and flee as the bay and Black Elk walk on, leading a formation of the horses from the four directions. They come to a cloud that changes into a tepee with a rainbow for a door. Inside the tepee the six Grandfathers are waiting.
