The summer passed pleasantly in the village of the Cliff. When the men
went to the field to work the women often accompanied them, helping in
the cultivation of the crop and gathering the wild berries and edible
plants that grew in profusion in the fertile valley. In baskets swung
from their heads by woven and padded bands they carried the ripened
peaches up the steep stairs, spreading them out along the stone ledges
to dry.
There was other work, too, that must be done while the weather was
warm and pleasant. New earthenware bowls must be made while they could
be baked in the summer sun. Garments of soft, exquisitely wrought
feather-cloth, and of fur strips wound on heavy cords and woven into
fabric, must be made ready for cold weather. There were new rooms to be
built, too, for the rapidly increasing population of the village made
the old quarters too crowded for winter comfort. So the men brought
great gray and brown rocks from the slopes of the canyon, carrying them
suspended from head bands as the women carried their baskets. These
were carefully chipped and dressed with the great stone mauls, and set
evenly and squarely into place, held there by layers of mortar which
no one except old Honau knew how to mix. Then the women made a thin,
plaster-like cement from colored earths and spread it on with their
hands, smoothing it down with many careful pats which left the prints
of slender brown fingers in many places on the wet wall. Sometimes the
rooms were brightened by wavy red and yellow lines running bandwise
just below the ceiling; sometimes they were decorated with sacred
symbols such as might bring a peculiar blessing to the household
living in them. But always, whatever the inside might be, the outside
was cunningly wrought to look like the forbidding walls of the cliff,
gray, and dull yellow and brown, with here and there mottled patches of
subdued red, so that an enemy might have hard work to spy them out in
passing through the canyon below.
It was nearly harvest time, and the corn was already ripening. Day
after day the watcher in the field tower, keen-eyed Haida, had reported
everything well, until the last lurking fears of even the old men were
almost forgotten. The storerooms were being repaired and made ready for
the new crop, and the men were working on a larger granary, or storage
cist, some distance below the level of the cavern, where the heavy
baskets of corn might be emptied without carrying them up the last
steep third of the ascent.
Then, early one morning, a wild-eyed messenger from the field tower
came hurtling up the niche stairs in the gray light to report evil
tidings. A band of savages, of what race he could not say, had ridden
their fleet ponies down through the canyons that night, carrying off
and trampling down a considerable part of the precious crop. And
what was worse, they had raided the very tower itself and had left
Haida, whose practised eyes had failed to see them in the moon-blinded
lower trail, silent on his face with an arrow between his shoulders.
The messenger himself had escaped only by dropping quickly into the
farthest shadow of the adjoining shelter-room and lying motionless
against the darkest wall until the last sound of the ponies’ drumming
feet had died away in the distance.
Mosu quieted the panic-stricken people who crowded about him in the
early light as well as he could. One thing was sure, if the people of
the Cliff were not to starve when the cold days came, the rest of the
crop must be saved. Wisely seeing in vigorous action the best remedy
for fear, he hastily organized men and women into bands for taking care
of what was left of the grain, giving to the women the actual work of
gathering that the men might be left free to protect them.
So, leaving the old men and smaller boys to look after the village, and
with many cautions to Bimba to keep speedy messengers always ready to
carry news of danger, the harvest bands went silently down the steep
stairs and passed swiftly through the canyons to the great field.
Once there, no time was lost in stripping the ears from the stalks
and piling them into the wide-mouthed baskets which the women carried
on their backs, and in cutting down the stalks with keen-edged flint
knives to be carried home in bundles on the shoulders of the big boys.
The wheat-heads were hastily snatched from their stems, to be shelled
out by busy fingers in the leisure hours of winter. They worked in
nervous haste, casting fearful glances up and down the canyon at every
turn. From the tower the new watchman who had taken dead Haida’s place
strained his eyes anxiously into vague distances, intent upon guarding,
even to his own death, those lives so dependent upon his vigilance.
Swiftly as they worked, and quickly as the many trips to and from the
village were made, it was many days before all the crop was safe and
the people could breathe more easily in their well-guarded cavern home.
But the old air of careless gayety was gone, and in its place was a
constant atmosphere of apprehension. No one knew when the bold savages,
encouraged by their success in the valley, might not undertake even so
difficult a task as the storming of the cliff fastness. Rumors, too,
were constantly afloat of murderous attacks on smaller outlying cliff
dwellings, and once a small party that had been down the canyon to look
for wild gourds came upon the body of a Cliffman, apparently from one
of those distant houses, lying stiff with a Ute arrow in his breast.
In a consultation of the old men it was at last decided that the best
thing to be done was to send messengers to the Rainbow and Bear Clans
on the south, which were probably so far free from attack, and to the
Seven Cities on the North, asking them to be ready to send aid should
the threatened danger fall. Mosu, standing stern and tall in the middle
of the court, told the people of this decision and asked for messengers.
“The Walpi road is a dangerous one,” he said, “to be undertaken by no
one who is afraid to lose his life. He must go alone, for one is as
safe as ten, and we have no lives to risk without great reason. I would
not willingly send any forth to such chance of death, but if one will
offer himself--”
Before he could finish the sentence fifty men and youths had stepped
forward. Mosu looked at them with proud sadness.
“Your lives are precious to us,” he said, his eyes kindling, “and there
are many among you who cannot be spared. Let those who have wives and
children step back, for them we cannot lose.”
Reluctantly more than half of those who had come forth drew back again.
There remained only the young men, straight, supple, earnest-eyed lads
who were the very flower of the village. In their brown faces was no
sign of fear. Mosu scanned them, one by one, his lips set in a thin
line, his eyes tenderly kind.
“It is danger we offer you,” he said slowly, “but it is also the
greatest honor we can give. Choose among yourselves who shall be sent,
for you know your own worth.”
Kwasa stepped forward eagerly.
“Let us toss the dice,” he begged, “and hang our fortunes on the first
who shall throw the whites.”
Mosu thought a moment. The idea appealed to him in two ways; for one
thing, it removed from anyone the responsibility of sending a comrade
forth to possible death, and for another he knew the gambling spirit
was strong in every Cliffman’s breast and the decision of the dice
would never be disputed.
“Who has dice?” asked Mosu, turning to the onlookers.
Kwasa undid a fold of his belt and gave the priest the three sticks of
cane he had carried so long.
Mosu handed them to the boy who stood nearest. He tossed them
nervously, amid a breathless silence. As they came down showing two
reds and one white, a woman on the lower terrace gave a sobbing cry.
Turning toward her, his lip quivering with disappointment, the lad saw
his mother, and bounded across the court to where she sat.
“The gods be praised--they have not taken my son from me,” she said,
throwing her arms about his neck.
“But I would have served them well,” he cried, trying hard to keep back
unmanly tears.
One after another the youths came forward to try their fortunes with
the dice. But no one threw the whites together. Wiki, trembling with
eagerness, found them at his feet with all the red sides up, and gave
place to Kwasa, who came next.
Carefully placing the sticks in his fingers, and with a quick glance at
old Honau, who stood watching with much interest, Kwasa spun the dice
high in the air. And when they came down every one knew that the danger
and the honor had fallen to Kwasa by the favor of the gods. Tcua, his
old grandmother, scorning the weakness that fought its way to her moist
eyes, called him proudly to her side and touched the turquoise at his
throat.
“You will come back safe--it is a charm,” she said confidently.
But once more Kwasa hid the cane strips carefully in his belt.
“Yes, I will come back safe--for I have a charm,” he said, smiling.
So Kwasa took the long trail toward the Seven Cities alone and in the
dark, for so it was thought best, since he knew the first part of the
way well and would need daylight more after coming to the unknown
country. And because he had thrown the chance of next value, Wiki was
given the place of lesser honor, because of lesser danger, that of
messenger to the Clans of the Rainbow and the Bear.