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THE LONESOME TRAIL
[Illustration: _Drawn by F. E. Schoonover_
THE RACE WITH THE FIRE
_See “The Nemesis of the Deuces,” page 300_]
THE LONESOME TRAIL
by
JOHN G. NEIHARDT
“_In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud._”
New York: John Lane Company, MCMVII
London: John Lane, The Bodley Head
Copyright, 1907,
by
John G. Neihardt
TO
VOLNEY STREAMER
“_Friend of my Yester-age_”
_The stories in this volume have appeared in the following magazines:
Munsey’s, The American Magazine, The Smart Set, The Scrap Book,
The All-Story, Watson’s, Overland Monthly. The author gratefully
acknowledges permission to republish._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE ALIEN 11
II. THE LOOK IN THE FACE 31
III. FEATHER FOR FEATHER 45
IV. THE SCARS 58
V. THE FADING OF SHADOW FLOWER 75
VI. THE ART OF HATE 93
VII. THE SINGER OF THE ACHE 110
VIII. THE WHITE WAKUNDA 123
IX. THE TRIUMPH OF SEHA 143
X. THE END OF THE DREAM 151
XI. THE REVOLT OF A SHEEP 168
XII. THE MARK OF SHAME 182
XIII. THE BEATING OF THE WAR DRUMS 194
XIV. DREAMS ARE WISER THAN MEN 204
XV. THE SMILE OF GOD 219
XVI. THE HEART OF A WOMAN 229
XVII. MIGNON 239
XVIII. A POLITICAL COUP AT LITTLE OMAHA 255
XIX. THE LAST THUNDER SONG 276
XX. THE NEMESIS OF THE DEUCES 288
_THE OLD CRY_
_O Mourner in the silence of the hills,
O Thing of ancient griefs, art thou a wolf?
I heard a cry that shook me—was it thine?_
_Low in the mystic purple of the west
The weird moon hangs, a tarnished silver slug:
Vast, vast the hollow empty night curves down,
Stabbed with the glass-like glinting of the stars,
And, save when that wild cry grows up anon,
No sound but this dull murmur of the hush—
The winter hush._
_Hark! once again thy cry!_
_Thy strange, sharp, ice-like, tenuous complaint,
As though the spirit of this frozen waste
Pinched with the cruel frost yearned summerward!_
_I know thou art a wolf that criest so:
Though hidden in the shadow, I can see
Thy four feet huddled in the numbing frost,
Thy snout, breath-whitened, pointing to the sky:
Poor pariah of the plains, I know ’tis thou._
_And yet—and yet—I heard a kinsman shout!
Down through the intricate centuries it came,
A far-blown cry! From old-world graves it grew,
Up through the tumbled walls of ancient realms,
Up through the lizard-haunted heaps of stone,
Up through the choking ashes of old fanes,
The pitiful debris where Grandeur dwelt,
Out of the old-world wilderness it grew—
The cry I know! And I have heard my Kin!_
I
THE ALIEN
THROUGH the quiet night, crystalline with the pervading spirit of the
frost, under prairie skies of mystic purple pierced with the glass-like
glinting of the stars, fled Antoine.
Huge and hollow-sounding with the clatter of the pinto’s hoofs hung the
night above and about—lonesome, empty, bitter as the soul of him who
fled.
A weary age of flight since sunset; and now the midnight saw the
thin-limbed, long-haired pony slowly losing his nerve, tottering,
rasping in the throat. With pitiless spike-spurred heels the rider
hurled the beast into the empty night.
“Gwan! you blasted cayuse! you overgrown wolf-dog! you pot-bellied
shonga! Keep up that tune; I’m goin’ somewheres. What’d I steal you
fer? Pleasure? He, he, he, ho, ho, ho! I reckon; pleasure for the
half-breed! Gwan!”
Suddenly rounding a bank of sand, the pinto sighted the broad,
ice-bound river, an elysian stream of glinting silver under the stars.
Sniffing and crouching upon its haunches at the sudden glow that
dwindled a gleaming thread into the further dusk, the jaded beast
received a series of vicious jabs from the spike-spurred heels. It
groaned and lunged forward again, taking with uncertain feet the
glaring path ahead, and awakening dull, snarling thunder in the under
regions of the ice. Slipping, struggling, doing its brute best to
overcome fatigue and the uncertainty of its path, the pinto covered the
ice.
“Doin’ a war dance, eh?” growled the man with bitter mirth, and
gouging the foaming bloody flanks of the animal. “Gwan! Set up that
tune; I want fast music, ’cause I’m goin’ somewheres—don’t know
where—somewheres out there in the shadders! Come here, will you? Take
that and that and _that_! Now will you kick the scen’ry back’ards? By
the——!”
The brutal cries of the man were cut short as he shot far over the
pommel, lunging headlong over the pinto’s head, and striking with head
and shoulders upon the glare ice. When he stopped sliding he lay very
still for a few moments. Then he groaned, sat up, and found that the
bluffs and the river and the stars and the universe in general were
whirling giddily, with himself for the dizzy centre.
With uncertain arms he reached out, endeavouring to check the sickening
motion of things with the sheer force of his powerful hands. He was
thrown down like a weakling wrestling with a giant. He lay still,
cursing in a whisper, trying to steady the universe, until the motion
passed, leaving in his nerves the sickening sensation incident to the
sudden ending of a rapid flight.
With great care Antoine raised himself upon his elbows and gazed about
with an imbecile leer. Then he began to remember; remembered that
he was hunted; that he was an outcast, a man of no race; remembered
dimly, and with a malignant grin, a portion of a long series of crimes;
remembered that the last was horse-stealing and that some of the
others concerned blood. And as he remembered, he felt with horrible
distinctness the lariat tightening about his neck—the lariat that the
men of Cabanne’s trading post were bringing on fleet horses, nearer,
nearer, nearer through the silent night.
Antoine shuddered and got to his feet, looming huge against the
star-sprent surface of the ice, as he turned a face of bestial
malevolence down trail and listened for the beat of hoofs. There was
only the dim, hollow murmur that dwells at the heart of silence.
“Got a long start,” he observed, with the chuckle of a man whom
desperation has made careless. “Hel-_lo_!”
A pale, semicircular glow, like the flare of a burning straw stack
a half day’s journey over the hills, had grown up at the horizon of
the east; and as the man stared, still in a maze from his recent
fall, the moon heaved a tarnished silver arc above the mystic rim of
sky, flooding with new light the river and the bluffs. The man stood
illumined—a big brute of a man, heavy-limbed, massive-shouldered, with
the slouching stoop and the alert air of an habitual skulker. He moved
uneasily, as though he had suddenly become visible to some lurking foe.
He glanced nervously about him, fumbled at the butt of a six-shooter
at his belt, then catching sight of the blotch of huddled dusk that was
the fallen pinto, the meaning of the situation flashed upon him.
“That cussed cayuse! Gone and done hisself like as not! Damn me! the
whole creation’s agin me!”
He made for the pony, snarling viciously as though its exhausted,
lacerated self were the visible body of the inimical universe. He
grasped the reins and jerked them violently. The brute only groaned and
let its weary head fall heavily upon the ice.
“_Get up!_”
Antoine began kicking the pony in the ribs, bringing forth great hollow
bellowings of pain.
“O, you won’t get up, eh? Agin me too, eh? Take that, and that and
_that_! I wished you was everybody in the whole world and hell to
oncet, I’d make you beller now I got you down! Take _that_!”
The man with a roar of anger fell upon the pony, snarling, striking,
kicking, but the pony only groaned. Its limbs could no longer support
its body. When Antoine had exhausted his rage, he got up, gave the pony
a parting kick on the nose, and started off at a dogtrot across the
glinting ice towards the bluffs beyond.
Ever and anon he stopped and whirled about with hand at ear. He heard
only the sullen murmur of the silence, broken occasionally by the whine
and pop of the ice and the plaintive, bitter wail of the coyotes
somewhere in the hills, like the heartbroken cry of the lonesome
prairie, yearning for the summer.
“O, I wouldn’t howl if I was you,” muttered the man to the coyotes;
“I wished I was a coyote or a grey wolf, knowin’ what I do. I’d be a
man-killer and a cattle-killer, I would. And then I’d have people of
my own. Wouldn’t be no cur of a half-breed runnin’ from his kind. O, I
wouldn’t howl if I was you!”
He proceeded at a swinging trot across the half mile of ice and halted
under the bluffs. He listened intently. A far sound had grown up in the
hollow night—vague, but unmistakable. It was the clatter of hoofs far
away, but clear in faintness, for the cold snap had made the prairie
one vast sounding-board. A light snow had fallen the night before, and
the trail of the refugee was traced in the moonlight, distinct as a
wagon track.
Antoine felt the pitiless pinch of the approaching lariat as he
listened. Then his accustomed bitter weariness of life came upon the
pariah.
“What’s the use of me runnin’? What am I runnin’ to? Nothin’—only more
of the same thing I’m runnin’ from; lonesomeness and hunger and the
like of that. Gettin’ awake stiff and cold and half starved and cussin’
the daylight ’cause it’s agin me like everything else, and gives me
away. Sneakin’ around in the brush till dark, eatin’ when I can like
a damned wolf, then goin’ to sleep hopin’ it’ll never get day. But
it always does. It’s all night somewheres, I guess, spite of what
the missionaries says. That’s fer me—night always! No comin’ day, no
gettin’ up, somewhere to hide snug in always!”
He walked on with head dropped forward upon his breast, skirting the
base of the bluffs, now seemingly oblivious of the sound of hoofs that
grew momently more distinct.
As he walked, he was dimly conscious of passing the dark mouth of a
hole running back into the clay of a bluff. He proceeded until he found
himself again at the edge of the river, staring down into a broad,
black fissure in the ice, caused, doubtless, by the dash of the current
crossing from the other side.
A terrible, dark, but alluring thought seized him. Here was the
place—the doorway to that place where it was always night! Why not go
in? There would be no more running away, no more hiding, no more hatred
of men, no more lonesomeness! Here was the place at last.
He stepped forward and stooped to gaze down into the door of night. The
rushing waters made a dismal, moaning sound.
He stared transfixed. Yes, he would go!
Suddenly a shudder ran through his limbs. He gave a quick exclamation
of terror! He leaped back and raised his face to the skies.
How kind and soft and gentle and good to look upon was the sky! He
gazed about—it was so fair a world! How good it was to breathe! He
longed to throw his great, brute arms about creation and clutch it to
him, and hold it, hold it, hold it! He wished to live.
_The hoofs!_
The distant muffled confusion of sound had grown into sharp, distinct,
staccato notes. The pursuers were now less than a mile away. Soon they
would reach the river.
With the quick instinct of the hunted beast, Antoine knew the means
of safety. His footprints led to the ice-fissure. He decided that
none should lead away. He could not be pursued under ice. Stooping so
that he could look between his legs, he began retracing his steps,
walking backward, placing his feet with infinite care where they had
fallen before. Thus he came again to the hole in the clay bluff, and
disappeared. His trail had passed within a foot of the hole, which was
overhung by a jutting point of sandstone. No snow had fallen at the
entrance; he left no trail as he entered.
Stopping upon his hands and knees, he listened and could hear
distinctly the sharp crack of hoofs upon the ice and the pop and
thunder of the frozen surface.
“Here’s _some_ luck,” muttered Antoine. He crawled on into the nether
darkness of the hole that grew more spacious as he proceeded. As he
crawled, the sound of pursuing hoofs grew dimmer. Antoine half forgot
them. His keen sense had caught the peculiar musty odour of animal
life. He felt a stuffy warmth in his nostrils as he breathed.
Suddenly out of the dark ahead grew up two points of phosphorescent
light. Antoine fell back upon his haunches with a little growl of
surprise in his throat. Years of wild lonesome life had made him more
beast than man.
The lights slowly came closer, growing more brilliant. Then there was
a harsh, rasping growl and a sound of sniffing. Antoine waited until
the expanding pupils of his eyes could grasp the situation with more
distinctness. “Can’t run,” he mused. “Lariat behind, somethin’ growlin’
in front. It’s one more fight. Here goes fer my damnedest. Rather die
mad and fightin’ than jump into cold water or stick my head through a
rawhide necktie!”
He crawled on carefully. The lights approached with a strange swaying
motion. Then of a sudden came a whine, a sharp, savage yelp, and
Antoine felt his cheek ripped open with a stroke of gnashing teeth!
He felt for an instant the hot breath of the beast, the trickle of
hot blood on his cheek; and then all that was human in him passed. He
growled and hurled the sinewy body of his unseen foe from him with
a blow of his bear-like paw. He was a big man, and in his blood the
primitive beast had grown large through long years of lonesome hiding
from his kind.
The dark hole echoed a muffled howl of anger, and in an instant man and
beast rolled together in the darkness. It was a primitive struggle; the
snapping of jaws, the rasping of hoarse throats that laboured with
angry breath, snarlings of hate, yelps of pain, growls, whines.
At last the man knew that it was a grey wolf he fought. He reached for
its throat, but felt his hand caught in a hot, wet, powerful trap of
teeth. He grasped the under jaw with a grip that made his antagonist
howl with pain. Then with his other hand he felt about in the darkness,
groping for the throat.
He found it, seized it with a vice-like clutch, shut his teeth
together, and threw all of the power of his massive frame into the
struggle.
Slowly, slowly, the struggles of the wolf became weaker. The lean,
hairy form fell limply, and the man laughed with a strange, sobbing,
guttural mirth—for he was master.
Then again he felt the trickle of blood upon his cheek, the ache of his
bitten hand. His anger returned with double fury. He kicked the limp
body as he lay beside it, never releasing his grip.
Suddenly he forgot to kick. There were sounds! He heard the _thump
thump_ of hoofs passing his place of refuge. Then they ceased. There
were sounds of voices coming dimly; then after a while the hoofs passed
again, and there was a voice that said “saved hangin’ anyway.”
The hoof beats grew dimmer, and Antoine knew by their hollow sound
that his pursuers had begun to cross the ice on the back trail. He
again gave his attention to the wolf. It lay very still. A feeling of
supreme comfort came over Antoine. It was sweet to be a master. He
laid his head upon the wolf’s motionless body. He was very weary, he
had conquered, and he would sleep upon his prey.
He awoke feeling a warm, rasping something upon his wounded cheek. A
faint light came in at the entrance of the place. It was morning. In
his sleep Antoine had moved his head close to the muzzle of the wolf.
Now, utterly conquered, bruised, unable to arise, the brute was feebly
licking the blood from the man’s wound.
Antoine’s sense of mastery after his sound sleep made him kind for
once. He was safe and something had caressed him, altho’ it was only a
soundly-beaten wolf.
“You pore devil!” said Antoine with a sudden softness in his voice; “I
done you up, didn’t I? You hain’t so bad, I guess; but if I hadn’t done
you, I’d got done myself. Hurt much, you pore devil, eh?”
He stroked the side of the animal, whereupon it cried out with pain.
“Pretty sore, eh? Well as long as I’m bigger’n you, I’ll be good to
you, I will. I ain’t so bad, am I? You treat me square and you won’t
never get no bad deals from the half-breed; mind that. Hel-_lo_! you’re
a _Miss_ Wolf, ain’t you? Well, for the present, I’m a Mister Wolf,
and I’m a good un! Let me hunt you up a name; somethin’ soft like a
woman, ’cause you did touch me kind of tender like. _Susette!_—that’s
it—_Susette_. You’re Susette now. I hain’t got no people, so I’m a
wolf from now on, and my name’s Antoine. Susette and Antoine—sounds
pretty good, don’t it? Say, I know as much about bein’ a wolf as you
do. Can’t teach me nothin’ about sneakin’ and hidin’ and fightin’! Say,
old girl, _hain’t_ I a tol’able good fighter now? O, I know I am, and
when you need it again, you’re goin’ to get it good and hard, Susette;
mind that. Hain’t got nothin’ to eat about the house, have you, old
girl? Then, bein’ head of the family with a sick woman about, I’m goin’
huntin’. Don’t you let no other wolf come skulkin’ around! You know me!
I’ll wear his skin when I come back, if you don’t mind!”
And he went out.
Before noon he returned bringing three jack rabbits, having shot them
with his six-shooter. “Well, Susette,” said he, “got any appetite?”
He passed his hand over the wolf’s snout caressingly. The wolf flinched
in fear, but the man continued his caresses until she licked his hand.
“Now we’re friends and we can live together peaceable, can’t we? Took
a big family row, though. Families needs stirrin’ up now and then, I
reckon.”
He skinned a rabbit and cut off morsels of meat.
“Here, Susette, I’m goin’ to fill your hide first, ’cause you’ve been
so good since the row that I’m half beginnin’ to love you a little.
There, that’s it—eat. Does me good to see you eat, pore, sick Susette!”
The wolf took the morsels from his hand and a look almost tame came
into her eyes. When she had eaten a rabbit, Antoine had a meal of
raw flesh. Then he sat down beside her and stroked her nose and neck
and flanks. There was an air of home about the place. He was safe and
sheltered, had a full stomach, and there was a fellow creature near
him that showed kindness, altho’ it had been won with a beating. But
this man had long been accustomed to possessing by violence, and he was
satisfied.
“Susette,” he said in a soft voice; “don’t get mean again when you get
well. I want to live quiet and like somethin’ that likes me oncet.
If you’ll be good, I’ll get you rabbits and antelope and birds, and
you won’t need to hunt no more nor go about with your belly flappin’
together. And I know how to make fire—somethin’ you don’t know, wise as
you be; and I’ll keep you warm and pet you.
“Is it a bargain? All you need to do is just be good, keepin’ your
teeth out’n my cheek. I’ve been lonesome always. I hain’t got no
people. Do you know who your dad was, Susette? Neither do I. Some
French trader was mine, I guess. We’re in the same boat there. My
mother was an Omaha. O Susette, I know what it means to set a stranger
in my mother’s lodge. ‘_Wagah peazzha!_’ [no good white man], that’s
what the Omahas called me ever since I was a little feller. And the
white men said ‘damn Injun.’ And where am I? O, hangin’ onto the edge
of things, gettin’ ornry and nasty and bad! I’ve stole horses and
killed people and cussed fer days, Susette. And I want to rest; I want
to love somethin’. Cabanne’s men down at the post would laugh to hear
me sayin’ that. But I do. I want to love somethin’. Tried to oncet;
her name was Susette, jest like your’n. She was a trader’s daughter—a
pretty French girl. That was before I got bad. I talked sweet to her
like I’m a talkin’ to you, and she kind of liked it. But the old man
Lecroix—that was her dad—he showed me the trail and he says: ‘Go that
way and go fast, you damn Injun!’
“I went, Susette, but I made him pay, I did. I seen him on his back
a-grinnin’ straight up at the stars; and since then I hain’t cared
much. I killed several after that, and I called ’em all Lecroix!
“Be a good girl, Susette, and I’ll stick to you. I’m a good fighter,
you know, and I’m a good grub-hunter, too. I learned all that easy.”
He continued caressing the wolf, and she licked his hand when he
stroked her muzzle.
Days passed; the winter deepened; the heavy snows came. Antoine nursed
his bruised companion back to health. Through the bitter nights he kept
a fire burning at the entrance of the hole. The depth of the snow made
it improbable that any should learn his whereabouts; and by that time
the news must have spread from post to post that Antoine, the outlaw
half-breed, had drowned himself in the ice-fissure.
The man had used all his ammunition, and his six-shooter had thus
become useless. With the skill of an Indian he wrought a bow and
arrows. He made snowshoes and continued to hunt, keeping the wolf in
meat until she grew strong and fat with the unaccustomed luxurious life.
Also she became very tame. During her weakness the man had subdued her,
and through the long nights she lay nestled within the man’s great arms
and slept.
When the snow became crusted, Antoine and Susette went hunting
together, she trotting at his heels like a dog. To her he had come
to be only an unusually large wolf—a masterful male, a good fighter,
strong to kill, a taker of his own.
One evening in late December, when the low moon threw a shaft of cold
silver into the mouth of the lair, Antoine lay huddled in his furs,
listening to the long, dirge-like calls of the wolves wandering inward
from the vast pitiless night. Susette also listened, sitting upon her
haunches beside the man with her ears pricked forward. When the far
away cries of her kinspeople arose into a compelling major sound, dying
away into the merest shadow of a pitiful minor, she switched her tail
uneasily, shuffled about nervously, sniffing and whining.
Then she began pacing with an eager swing up and down the place to the
opening and back to the man, sending forth the cry of kinship whenever
she reached the moonlit entrance.
“Night’s cold, Susette,” said Antoine; “tain’t no time fer huntin’.
Hain’t I give you enough to eat? Come here and snuggle up and let’s
sleep.”
He caught the wolf and with main force held her down beside him. She
snarled savagely and snapped her jaws together, struggling out of his
arms and going to the opening where she cried out into the frozen
stillness. The answer of her kind floated back in doleful chorus.
“Don’t go!” begged the man. “Susette, my pretty Susette! I’ll be so
lonesome.”
As the chorus died, the wolf gave a loud yelp and rushed out into the
night. A terrible rage seized Antoine. He leaped from his furs and
ran out after the wolf. She fled with a rapid, swinging trot over the
scintillating snow toward the concourse of her people. The man fled
after, slipping, falling, getting up, running, running, and ever the
wolf widened the glittering stretch of snow between them. To Antoine,
the ever-widening space of glinting coldness vaguely symbolised the
barrier that seemed growing between him and his last companion.
“Susette, O, Susette!” he cried at last, breathless and exhausted.
His cry was dirge-like, even as the wolves’; thin and sharp and
ice-like—the voice of the old world-ache.
She had disappeared in the dusk of a ravine. Antoine, huddled in the
snows with his face upon his knees, sobbed in the winter stillness. At
last, with slow and faltering step, he returned to his lair; and for
the first time in months he felt the throat-pang of the alien.
He threw himself down upon the floor of the cave and cursed the world.
Then he cursed Susette.
“It’s some other wolf!” he hissed. “Some other grey dog that she’s gone
to see. O, damn him! damn his grey hide! I’ll kill her when she comes
back!”
He took out his knife and began whetting it viciously upon his boot.
“I’ll cut her into strips and eat ’em! Wasn’t I good to her? O, I’ll
cut her into strips!”
He whetted his knife for an hour, cursing the while through his set
teeth. At last his anger grew into a foolish madness. He hurled himself
upon the bunch of furs beside him and imagined that they were Susette.
He set his teeth into the furs, he crushed them with his hands, he tore
at them with his nails. Then in the impotence of his anger, he fell
upon his face and sobbed himself to sleep.
Strange visions passed before him. Again he killed Lecroix, and saw the
dead face grinning at the stars. Again he sat in his mother’s lodge and
wept because he was a stranger. Again he was fleeing, fleeing, fleeing
from a leather noose that hung above him like a black cloud, and
circled and lowered and raised and lowered until it swooped down upon
him and closed about his neck.
With a yell of fright he awoke from his nightmare. His head throbbed,
his mouth was parched. At last day came in sneakingly through the
opening—a dull, melancholy light; and with it came Susette, sniffing,
with the bristles of her neck erect.
“Susette! Susette!” cried the man joyfully.
He no longer thought of killing her. He seized her in his arms; he
kissed her frost-whitened muzzle; he caressed her; he called her
a woman. She received his caresses with disdain. Whereat the man
redoubled his acts of fondness. He fed her and petted her as she ate;
whereat the bristles on her neck fell. She nosed him half fondly.
And Antoine, man-like, was glad again. He contented himself with
touching the frayed hem of the garment of Happiness.
He ate none that day. He said to himself, “I won’t hunt till it’s all
gone; she can have it all.” He was afraid to leave Susette. He was
afraid to take her with him again into the land of her own people.
Antoine was jealous.
All day he was kind to her with the pitiful kindness of a doting lover
for his unfaithful mistress.
That night she consented to lie within his arms, and Antoine cried
softly as he whispered into her ear: “Susette, I hain’t a goin’ to be
jealous no more. You’ve been a bad girl, Susette. Don’t do it again. I
won’t be mean less’n you let _him_ come skulkin’ round here, damn his
grey hide! But O, Susette”—his voice was like a spoken pang—“I wisht—I
wisht I was that other wolf!”
The next morning Antoine did not get up. He felt sore and exhausted. By
evening his heart was beating like a hammer. His head ached and swam;
his burning eyes saw strange, uncertain visions.
“Susette,” he called, “I hain’t quite right; come here and let me touch
you again.”
Night was falling and Susette sat sullenly apart, listening for the
call of her people. She did not go to him. All night the man tossed and
raved. After a lingering age of delirious wanderings, dizzy flights
from huge pitiless pursuers, he became conscious of the daylight. He
raised his head feebly and looked about the den. Susette was gone.
A fury of jealousy again seized Antoine. She had gone to that other
wolf—he felt certain of that. He tried to arise, but the fever had
weakened him so that he lay impotently, torn alternately with anger and
longing.
Suddenly a frost-whitened snout was thrust in at the opening. It was
Susette. The man was too weak to cry out his joy, but his eyes filled
with a soft light.
Susette entered sniffing strangely, whining and switching her tail as
she came. At her heels followed another grey wolf—a male, larger-boned,
lanker, with a more powerful snout. He whined and moved his tail
nervously at sight of the man.
Antoine lay staring impotently upon the intruder. “So that’s him,”
thought the man; “I wisht I could get up.”
A delirious anger shook him; he struggled to arise, but could not. “O
God,” he moaned; it was an unusual thing for this man to say the word
so; “O God, please le’ me get up and fight!”
A harsh growl stopped him. The grey intruder approached him with a
rapid, sinuous movement of the tail. His jaws grinned hideously with
long sharp teeth displayed. The rage of hunger was in his eyes fixed
steadily upon the sick man.
Antoine stared steadily into the glaring eyes of his wolfish rival,
already crouching for the spring.
On a sudden, a strange exhilaration came over the man. He seemed
drinking in the essence of life from the pitiless stare of his
adversary. His great limbs, seeming devitalised but a moment before,
now tingled to their extremities with a sudden surging of the wine of
life. His eyes, which the fever had burned into the dulness of ashes,
flamed suddenly again with the eager lust of fight.
He raised himself upon his haunches, beast-like, and with the lifting
of a sneering lip that disclosed his grinding teeth, he gave a cry that
was both a snarl and a sob. In that moment, these many centuries of
artificial life were as a vanished dream. From the long-slumbering dust
of the prehistoric cave-man came a giant spirit to steel the sinews of
its far removed and weaker kin.
Antoine met the impetuous spring of the wolf with the downward blow
of a fist, and sprang whining upon his momentarily worsted foe. Never
before had he fought in all his bitter pariah life as now he fought for
the possession of his last companion.
His antagonist was larger than Susette, the survivor of many moonlit
battles to the death in the frozen, foodless wilderness of hills.
Antoine struggled not as a man; he was now merely the good, glorious,
fighting beast—masterful, primitive, the keeper of his own. Lacerated
with the snapping of powerful jaws, bleeding from his face and hands,
the man felt that he was winning. With a whining cry, less than half
human, he succeeded in fixing his left hand upon the hairy throat,
crushed the wolf down upon its back, and with prodigious strength,
began pressing the fingers of his right hand in between the protruding
lower ribs. He would tear them out! He would thrust his hand in among
the vitals of his foe!
All the while Susette, whining and switching her tail, watched with
glowing eyes the struggle of the males, and waited for the proof of the
master.
At this juncture she arose with a nervous, threatening swaying of the
head, approached the two cautiously, then hurled herself into the
encounter. She leaped with a savage yelp upon him who had long been her
master.
The man’s grip relaxed. He fell back and threw out his arms in which
once more the weakness of the fever came.
“Susette!” he gasped; “I was good to you; I——”
His voice was choked into a wheeze. Susette had gripped him by the
throat, and the two were upon him.
She had gone back to the ways of her kind—and the man was an alien.
II
THE LOOK IN THE FACE
IT was after one of the Saturday night feasts at No-Teeth Lodge that I
drew my old friend, Half-a-Day, to one side where the shadows were not
broken by the firelight.
“Tell me another story, Half-a-Day,” I said.
He grunted and puffed at his pipe in silence.
“Have I not given much cow meat to the feast and did I not throw silver
on the drums?”
“Ah,” he assented.
“Then I wish to hear a story.”
“You are my friend,” he began with majestic deliberation, speaking in
his own tongue; “for we have eaten meat together from the same kettle
and looked upon each other through the pipe smoke. It will therefore
make me glad to tell you a story about buffalo meat——”
“Ah, about a hunt?”
“And a _me-zhinga_ [girl]——”
“Oh, a love story!”
“And a man whom I wished to kill.”
“Good! And did you kill him?”
“My brother is like all his white brothers, who leap at things. Never
will they wait. If I said yes or no, then would I have no story.”
“Then give me a puff at the pipe, Half-a-Day, and I will be patient.”
Half-a-Day gave me the pipe and began, with eyes staring through the
fire and far away down the long trail that leads back to youth.
“Many winters and summers ago I was a young man; now I am slow when
I walk and my head looks much to the ground. But I remember, and now
again I am young for a little while. I can smell the fires in the
evening that roared upward then, even tho’ they are cold these many
moons and their ashes scattered. And I can see the face of Paezha
[flower], the one daughter of Douba Mona, for my eyes are young too.
And Douba Mona was a great man.
“Paezha was not so big as the other squaws, and could never be so big,
because she was not made for building tepees and bringing wood and
water. She was little and thin and good to see like some of your white
sisters, and there was no face in the village of my people like her
face. Her feet touched the ground with a light touch like a little wind
from the south; her body bent easily like a willow; I think her eyes
were like stars.”
I smiled here, because the simile has become so trite among us white
lovers. But Half-a-Day saw me not; he looked down the long trail that
leads back to youth, leading through and beyond the fire.
“And I looked upon her face until I could see nothing else—not the
sunrise nor the sunset nor the moon and stars. Her face became a
medicine face to me; because I was a young man and it was good to see
her. And also, I was a poor young man; my father had few ponies, and
her father had as many as one could see with a big look.
“But I was strong and proud and in the long nights I dreamed of Paezha,
till one day I said: ‘I will have her and I will fight all the braves
in all the villages before I will give her up. Then afterwards I will
get many ponies like her father.’
“So one evening when the meat boiled over the fires, I went down to
the big spring and hid in the grass, for it was the habit of Paezha to
bring cold water to her father in the evenings, carrying it in a little
kettle no bigger than your head covering, for she was not big.
“And I lay waiting. I could not hear the bugs nor the running of the
spring water nor the wind in the willows, because my heart sang so loud.
“And I heard a step—and it was Paezha. She leaned over the spring,
and looked down; then there were two Paezhas, so my wish for her was
doubled and had the strength of two wishes.
“I arose from the grass. She looked upon me and fear came into her
eyes; for there was that in my face which wished to conquer, and I was
very strong. Like the _tae-chuga_ [antelope] she leaped and ran with
wind-feet down the valley. I was without breath when I caught her, and
I lifted her with arms too strong, for she cried.”
Half-a-Day reached toward me for the pipe and puffed strongly. His
eyes were masterful, with the world-old spirit of the conquering male
in them.
“Then as I held her, I looked upon her face and saw what I had never
seen before: a look in the face that was sad and weak and frightened,
begging for pity. Only it was not all that; it was shining like the
sun through a cloud, and it was stronger than I, for I became weak and
could hold her no longer. A little while she looked with wide eyes upon
me; and then I saw what makes the squaws break their backs carrying
wood and water and _zhinga zhingas_ [babies]; also what makes men fight
and do great deeds that are not selfish.
“Then she ran from me and I fell upon my face and cried like a _zhinga
zhinga_ at the back of a squaw—I know not why.”
Half-a-Day puffed hard at his pipe, then sighing handed it to me.
“Have you seen that look in the face, White Brother?” he said, staring
upon me with eyes that mastered me.
“I am very young,” I answered.
“But when you see it, it will make you old,” continued Half-a-Day; “for
when I arose and went back to the village I was old and nothing was the
same. From that time I could look into the eyes of the biggest brave
without trembling, for I was a man and I had seen the look.
“And it was in the time when the sunflowers die, the time for the
hunting of bison. So the whole tribe made ready for the hunt. One
morning we rode out of the village on the bison trail; and we were
so many that the foremost were lost in the hills when the last left
the village. And we all sang, but the ponies neighed at the lonesome
lodges, for they were leaving home.
“Many days we travelled toward the evenings, and there was song in me
even when I did not sing; for always I rode near Paezha, who rode in
a blanket swung on poles between two ponies, for she was the daughter
of a rich man. And I spoke gentle words to her, and she smiled—because
she had seen my weakness in the valley of the big spring. Also I picked
flowers for her, and she took them.
“But one day Black Dog rode on the other side of her and spoke soft
words. And a strange look was on the face of Paezha, but not the look
I had seen. So I drove away the bitterness of my heart and spoke good
words to Black Dog. But he was sullen, and also he was better to look
upon than I. I can say this now, for I have felt the winds of many
winters.
“Many sleeps we rode toward the places of the evening. The moon was
thin and small and bent like a child’s bow when we started, and it hung
low above the sunset. And as we travelled it grew bigger, ever farther
toward the place of morning, until it was like a white sun. Then at
last it came forth no more, but rested in its black tepee after its
steep trail.
“And all the while we strained our eyes from many lonesome hilltops,
but saw no bison. Scarcer and scarcer became the food, for the summer
had been a summer of fighting; we had conquered and feasted much,
hunted little.
“So it happened that we who were strong took less meat that the weaker
might live until we found the bison. And all the time the strength of
Paezha’s face grew upon me, so that I divided my meat with her. It made
me sing to see her eat.
“One day she said to me: ‘Why do you sing, Half-a-Day, when the people
are sad?’ And I said: ‘I sing because I am empty.’ And Black Dog, who
rode upon the other side, he did not sing. So she said to him: ‘Why do
you not sing, Black Dog? Is it because we do not find the bison?’ And
Black Dog said: ‘I do not sing because I am empty.’
“All day I was afraid that Paezha had judged between us, seeing me so
light of thought and deed.
“One evening we stopped for the night and there was not enough meat
left to keep us three sleeps longer. The squaws did not sing as they
pitched the tepees. They were empty, the braves were empty, and the
_zhinga zhingas_ whined like little baby wolves at their mothers’
backs, for the milk they drank was thin milk. No one spoke. The fires
boomed up and made the hills sound as with the bellowing of bulls, and
the sound mocked us. The dark came down; we sat about the fires but we
did not speak. We groaned, for we were very empty, and we could not eat
until we had slept. Once every sleep we ate, and we had eaten once.
“That night the wise old men gathered together in the tepee of the
chiefs and sang medicine songs that Wakunda [God] might hear and see
our suffering; then might he send us the bison.
“I heard the songs and I felt a great strength grow up out of my
emptiness. Then I said: ‘I will go to the fathers and they will send
me in search of the bison; and I will find the bison for Paezha that
she may not starve.’ I had forgotten myself and my people. I knew only
Paezha, for that day I had heard her moan, having nothing more to give.
“And I went to the big tepee. I stood amongst the fathers and lifted
a strong voice in spite of my emptiness: ‘Give me a swift pony and a
little meat and I will find the bison!’
“And the old men sighed as they looked upon me. And Douba Mona, her
father, being one of the wise men, said: ‘I see a light in his eye and
hear a strength in his voice. Give him the swift pony and the little
meat. If he finds the bison, then shall he have Paezha, for well I see
that there is something between them. Also he shall have many ponies; I
have many.’
“And these words made me full as though I had sat at a feast.
“So the next morning I took the swift pony and the little meat and
galloped toward the evening. The people did not take the trail that
day, for toil makes hunger.
“Two sleeps I rode, singing songs and dreaming dreams of Paezha. And
on the evening of the third sunlight I stopped upon a hill, and turned
my pony loose to feed. I was sick and weak because my emptiness had
come back upon me and I had not yet found the bison. I fell upon my
face and moaned, and my emptiness sent me to sleep.
“When I awoke, someone sat beside me—and it was Black Dog. He breathed
soft words. ‘I have come to watch over Half-a-Day,’ he said, ‘because I
am older and a bigger man.’
“I spoke not a word, but my heart was warm toward Black Dog, for my
dreams of Paezha had made me kind.
“‘Well I know,’ he said, and his voice was soft as a woman’s; ‘well I
know what Half-a-Day dreams about. And I have come to watch over him
that his dream may come true.’
“Then being a young man and full of kindness, I told Black Dog of the
look I had seen in the face of Paezha. And he bit his lips and made a
sound far down in his throat that was not pleasant to hear. And I fell
to sleep wondering much.
“When I awoke, the ponies were gone, the meat was gone, Black Dog was
gone. I grew strong as a bear. I shrieked into the stillness! I shook
my fists at the sun! I cursed Black Dog! I stumbled on over the hills
and valleys, shouting, singing, hurling big words of little meaning
into the yellow day.
“Before night came I found the body of a dead wolf, and I fell upon it
like a crow. I tore its flesh with my teeth. I called it Black Dog. I
ate much. It smelled bad. I found a little stream and drank much. It
was almost lost in the mud. I slept and dreamed of Paezha. I awoke,
and it was day again. I found the dead wolf again. I ate. Then I was
stronger and I went on into the empty yellow prairie.
“Toward evening I heard a thundering, yet saw no cloud. It was the dry
time. Still it thundered, thundered—yet no cloud. I ran to the top of a
hill and gazed.
“Bison! Bison! The prairie was full of bison, and they were feeding
slowly toward the camp of my people.
“I turned, I ran! I did not make a sound, tho’ I wished to cry out. I
needed all my strength for running, for I had no pony. I ran, ran, ran.
I fell, I got up, I fell. Night came; I walked. Morning came; still I
walked. Night came; I stumbled. And in the morning I was creeping.
“I do not know when I reached the camp of my people, I remember only
a shouting and a sudden moving of the tribe. And then, after many bad
dreams, I was awake again and the people were feasting. They had found
the bison.
“Then, when we were on the home trail, I learned of the treachery of
Black Dog. He had told my people how he had found Half-a-Day dead
upon the prairie, but was too weak to bring him back. And the people
believed for a time. And Black Dog spoke soft words to Paezha, brave
words to Douba Mona, until I was almost forgotten.
“But now I was a great man among my people, and Black Dog could not
raise his head, for he had seen hate in the people’s eyes.
“And in the time of the first frosts we reached our village and Paezha
became my squaw. Also I got the ponies.”
Here Half-a-Day paused to fill his pipe.
“It is a good story, Half-a-Day,” I said. Half-a-Day lit his pipe,
stared long into the glow of the embers, for the fires had fallen, and
sighed.
“I have not spoken yet,” he said; “for one day in the time of the first
snow, Paezha lay dead in my lodge, and my breast ached. Black Dog had
killed her at the big spring. At the same place where I had first seen
the look, there he killed her.
“I remember that I sat beside her two sleeps and cried like a _zhinga
zhinga_. And my friends came to me, whispering bitter words into my
ears. ‘Kill Black Dog,’ they said. And I said: ‘Bring him here to me,
and I will kill him; my legs will not carry me.’
“But the fathers of the council would not have it so. And when they had
buried her on the hill above the village, I awoke as from a long sleep,
a very long sleep, and I was full of hate. They kept me in my lodge.
They would not let me kill. I wished to kill! I wished to tear him as I
tore the stinking wolf with my teeth! _I wished to kill!_”
Half-a-Day had arisen to his feet, his fists clenched, his eyes
shining with a cold light. He made a tragic figure in the dull, blue
glow of the embers.
“Come, Half-a-Day,” I said, “it is long passed, and now it is only a
story.”
“It is more than a story!” he said. “I lived it. I wished to kill!”
He sat down again, and a softer light came into his eyes.
“And the time came,” he went on with a weary voice, “when Black Dog
should be cast forth from the tribe, according to the old custom. I
said, ‘I will follow Black Dog, and I will see him die.’ And he was
cast forth. I followed, and it was very cold. The snow whined under my
feet, and I followed in the night.
“But Black Dog did not know I followed. I was ever near him like a
shadow. I did not sleep; I watched Black Dog. I meant to see him die.
“In his first sleep I crept upon him. I stole his meat; I stole his
weapons. Now he would die, and I would be there to see. I would laugh,
I would sing while he died.
“In the cold, pale morning I lay huddled in a clump of sage and I saw
him get up, look for his meat and weapons, then stagger away into the
lonesome places of the snow. And I sang a low song to myself. The time
would come when I would see Black Dog die. I did not feel the cold; I
did not grow weary; I was never hungry. And in the evenings I was ever
near enough to hear him groan as he wrapped himself in his blankets.
Often I crept up to him and looked upon his face in the light of the
stars, and I saw my time coming, for his face was thinner and not so
good to look upon as in the time when the sunflowers died.
“I could have killed him, but then he could not have heard me sing, he
could not have heard me laugh. So I waited and followed and watched. I
ate my meat raw that Black Dog might not see my fire. Also I watched to
see that he found nothing to eat; and he found nothing.
“One day I lay upon the summit of a hill and saw him totter in the
valley. Then I could be quiet no longer. I raised my voice and shouted:
‘Fall, Black Dog! Even so Half-a-Day fell when Black Dog stole his meat
and his pony!’
“And I saw him get up and stare about, for I was hidden. Then his
voice came up to me over the snow; it was a thin voice: ‘I know you,
Half-a-Day! Come and kill me!’
“‘Half-a-Day never killed a sick man nor a squaw,’ I shouted, and
then I laughed—a cold, bitter laugh. Then Black Dog shook his fists
at the four corners of the sky and stumbled off into the hills, and I
followed. Now my time was very near, for Black Dog felt my nearness and
he knew that he would die and I would see him.
“And one evening my time came. Black Dog was in the valley by a frozen
stream, and he fell upon his face, sending forth a thin cry as he
fell—thin and ice-like. He did not get up. He lay very still.
“I ran down to where he lay—and I laughed, laughed, laughed. I heard
him groan. I rolled him over on his back and looked upon his face.
“I wish I had not looked upon his face!
“He opened his eyes and they were very dim and sunken. His face was
sharp. I sat down beside him. I said, ‘Now die, and I will sing about
it.’
“Then his face changed. It became a squaw’s face—_and it had the
look_!—a look that was sad and weak and frightened and begging for
pity. And it seemed to me that it was not the face of Black Dog any
more. _It had the look!_ I had seen it in the face of Paezha by the
spring!
“Now since I have many winters behind me, I wonder if it was not a
coward’s face; but then it was not so. I grew soft. There was a great
springtime in my breast. The ice was breaking up. I wrapped my blankets
about him. I gave him meat. He stared at me and ate like a wolf. I
spoke soft words. I made a fire from the brush that was on the frozen
stream. I warmed him and he grew stronger. All night I watched him and
in the morning I said: ‘Take my bow and arrows, Black Dog; I wish to
die. Go on and live.’ For I had lost the wish to kill; I only wished to
die. And he said no word; but his eyes were changed.
“I staggered away on the back trail. I had no meat, I had no blankets,
I had no weapons. I meant to die.
“But I did not die. When I lay down at night, worn-out and half
frozen, someone wrapped blankets about me and built a fire by me. In
the mornings I found food beside me. And so it was for many sleeps
until at last I came to the village of my people, broken, caring for
nothing. And I was thin, my face was sharp, my eyes were sunken, my
step was slow.
“And the people looked upon me with wonder, saying: ‘Half-a-Day has
come back from killing Black Dog.’
“But the truth was different.”
* * * * *
When Half-a-Day had finished, he stared long into the fire without
speaking.
“Do you think Black Dog was all a coward?” I asked at length. “Perhaps
he only loved too much.”
“I do not know,” said Half-a-Day; “I only know sometimes I wish I had
not looked upon his face.”
III
FEATHER FOR FEATHER
TUM-UM-UM, tum-um-um, went the drums beaten by the hands of the old
men—too old for wars, but now grown momentarily youthful with the
victory of the young men who were returning from battle.