MAKU AND SHE WOLF
When the night, the day following, and the next night had passed, She
Wolf took her son in the hollow of her arm and went to look for No
Man. It was beginning to be autumn in the forest, the veins of the big
mosswood leaves were already scarlet; the sassafras were yellow and red;
the beeches yellow and crimson; the birches white and gold; the sky
thinly blue, with wispish puffs of cloud gusting over it. The air was
fine and keen.
She Wolf ran in a great circle, but slowly for she was very hungry, and
came upon No Man’s stale track in the thicket where he had lain in wait
for Strong Hand.
The track tho’ stale was very plain, for no rain had fallen on it, and No
Man had been running with all the weight of despair. She Wolf followed a
little way, and stooping picked up No Man’s bow and ten arrows which he
had dropped in his flight.
Here the track was joined by Strong Hand’s track, and She Wolf was
puzzled and did not understand any of it.
“Why did he drop his weapons?” she said.
And she went on. But she sat down in a sunny place by the brook to nurse
her son, who had begun to pipe aloud and clutch at her breasts with his
tiny paws. As he snuggled and sucked and gasped, she crooned a song over
him, making it up as she went along.
“We went into the forest,
The Man and I
We were looking for No Man
Who had not come back from the hunting
We came on his track
The Man and I
And we found his weapons strewing the ground.
And we do not understand—”
She stopped in the middle, quivering and twitching for she heard
footsteps behind her. It was Maku carrying her little daughter and out to
look for Strong Hand.
“Have you seen anything of Strong Hand?” she said.
“His track is with No Man’s,” said She Wolf. “I have followed them both
to this place.”
“The tracks are of the same age,” said Maku. “They were doubtless running
together on the same hunt.”
“Then let us follow them together,” said She Wolf. “Have done suckling,”
and she looked up and smiled at Maku. “He would drain me as dry as a bone
if I would let him,” she said.
“The girl, too, is always hungry,” said Maku with pride.
“They are of an age,” said She Wolf. “It may be that one day—”
And so talking and gossipping pleasantly, as women will, even when
anxious, they waded across the brook and followed the broad trail of No
Man and Strong Hand.
But when the trail ended they found nothing but bones, and not the whole
of a skeleton at that, for the wolves snarling, had carried away many of
the lesser bones. They found Strong Hand’s bones under the tree where he
had died, but some wolf had carried off the blood-smeared arrow that had
killed him. When the women knew that they were alone in the world, they
beat their breasts and howled, and threw themselves repeatedly upon the
ground.
[Illustration]
All day they wailed for the hunters who would not come any more, and in
the dark they scraped out a hollow on the hill side, and collecting the
bones of No Man and Strong Hand, placed them therein like the bones of
brothers and covered them with earth and stones and tears.
All this time the babies, curled like hedgehogs, and twitching, had slept
nose to nose in a sheltered place. They gripped each other with tiny
paws, and would not let go.
“See,” said Maku, thro her tears, “the little ones are already friends.”
“Let them be so,” said She Wolf, “and in order that we may not all
perish, let us all go to your cave to live. You shall tend the cave and
look to the children, and I will be the man and find food, for I am good
at hunting.”
So they went to Maku’s cave.
“What is the girl’s name?” asked She Wolf.
“We—she is not yet named,” said Maku.
“The man’s name is Sunrise,” said She Wolf, “because he came with the
sun. Let us therefore call the girl Dawn, for I am minded to think that
when they are well grown the sunrise will still follow the dawn.”
[Illustration]