Desjardins. He had a daughter—Paulette—by an Indian woman who died when
the girl was just a baby, and the old man raised her somehow—God knows
how—till she grew to be about the prettiest girl you’d see anywhere in
a year’s tramp, being a good walker. Old man doted on the girl, and
until she was full-grown there wasn’t anybody could come nigh enough to
her to make a sweet grin effective. But once Narcisse and his friend,
Jacques Baptiste, got snowed in there on one of their trips.
“Now them two, Jacques and Narcisse, was about the best friends you
ever saw, I reckon. They never had any secrets from one another; and
many’s the time they had split the last bit of grub on long winter
trails, and made a feast of that little; because there isn’t any feast
better than a little grub split between friends, is there?
“Now Paulette was a slender little creature with black eyes and lots
of black hair. Lots of hair! That makes a woman fetching, don’t you
think so? Well, Narcisse and Jacques sang old French songs during the
blizzard, and kind of got into the old man’s heart like. Nothing like
old-time songs to fetch a man when he’s got to that place where there
isn’t any way to look but back. So the old man made ’em welcome and
said for ’em to come back when they could.
“On the trip from old man Desjardins’ place to Pierre, them two friends
talked pretty frank, like they always did. Both of ’em was in love, and
neither of ’em was ashamed of it. Told each other so.
“When they camped the first night they talked it all over and Narcisse
said: ‘Jacques, we’ve always split even, but here’s where we can’t.
It’s for one of us all right, but one of us has to go without. How
about this?’
“And Jacques puffed at his pipe a long time, and after a while he said:
‘Let’s agree that we’ll always go up there together, and let her take
her pick.’ And Narcisse agreed; so that’s the way they fixed it.
“Managed to drop in pretty often after that. But there wasn’t any way
of telling which was it. One visit she’d smile more at Jacques than at
Narcisse, and they’d think it was settled; and then next time it was
t’other way.
“It was a game, and both of ’em played it like a game. They were too
good friends to slip a bower or ace up their sleeves. They let Paulette
deal the hands and they played ’em the best they could, same as honest
poker, you know. And all the time old man Desjardins looked on like the
man that runs the game, a-raking in the ante, which was the singing
and the laughing they did and the things they brought up with ’em, for
they never came empty-handed.
“Well, the next fall came; the game was still on and neither of ’em
had stole a hand nor a chip that wasn’t his. And along about the first
of September the factor of Pierre sent the two friends on a trip to
Benton. They went up on the last boat and were to drop down again in a
maciknaw before the winter set in, after doing a little business for
the Company.
“On the trip up Narcisse and Jacques had a quiet little game, which was
poker. They didn’t play for money—played for Paulette. Sort of made a
jackpot out of the girl, and it took Jacks or better to open. One deal
and a draw and the high hand could go to see the old man by himself and
close the game that had hung on so long.
“Narcisse insisted on having Jacques deal.
“‘Well,’ said Jacques, after the draw, ‘the jackpot’s mine!’
“Narcisse throws down three aces. Jacques gasps a little gasp and
throws his cards face up on the table, turns white and walks away. He
had two pairs—kings and queens!
“There wasn’t anything more said about it; but Jacques wasn’t the same
man at all. Acted like he was thinking, thinking all the time. Face got
that peaked look that comes of too much thinking; eyes always looking a
long ways off.
“How do I know this? W’y, Narcisse told me.
“Hurt Narcisse like everything to see this; but hadn’t he won fair?
Friends can split even on grub and follow the same trail for years, but
there comes a time when they must smoke their last pipe together at the
forks. But it’s all part of the game and a man oughtn’t to grumble if
he don’t get a pat hand, as long as the deal’s fair.
“Narcisse and Jacques got to Benton, and when they got ready to start
back, the river had frozen up, because the winter came down early that
year. So they had another winter trail to follow together before they
reached the forks. The factor at Benton gave ’em a couple of good dogs
to carry their bedding and they started out afoot.
“Jacques didn’t have much to say. With that peaked, set look on his
face he went a-trudging on in the snow from sunup to sundown. Narcisse
couldn’t help feeling a little happy, because Paulette was the
prettiest girl that ever haunted these parts since the river was dug.
It wasn’t any more than human, and he’d won fair.
“Well, they passed Union and they passed Les Mandanes and they passed
Roubideaux’, and then there was a long stretch of lonesome country
ahead of ’em till they got to Brown’s Landing, about two hundred miles
above Pierre.
“One day it came on to blow and snow, and they made a camp in the
bluff just like we did here. That’s what reminded me of the story.
Jacques made camp while Narcisse was chopping wood. He cut down a dead
cottonwood and when it came down, he tripped up in the deep snow and
the tree fell on him. Broke his leg above the ankle. Well, there he was
a couple hundred miles toward Nowhere in November with one leg.
“Pretty hard on Narcisse, wasn’t it? But Jacques all at once began to
be his old self again. Set the leg as good as he could and tied it up
so it would stay in place, and joked and was kind to Narcisse.
“‘Seems like old times, pard,’ said Narcisse to Jacques. ‘Danged if
I wouldn’t be glad it happened if we wasn’t so far from somewheres;
because we mustn’t let the trail fork, old pard. I knew you’d be the
same again when I was hard run.’
“And Jacques smiled and said there never was any hard feeling, he
guessed. But the peaked look didn’t go away, nor the far-away look in
the eyes.
“When the weather cleared up, Jacques said he’d leave a plenty of wood
and grub for Narcisse and he’d make a run for Brown’s Landing and come
back with dogs and a sled. And that made Narcisse’s heart warm toward
Jacques, because it was just like he was before the girl came between
’em.
“And Jacques left before sunup one morning, and when it came day
Narcisse went to fix him some breakfast, and there was only enough grub
left for five or six days. That scared him, because it was a long trip
to Brown’s and back, and he couldn’t walk.
“But he didn’t cuss Jacques. He just said to himself: ‘He didn’t go to
take so much, and it was dark when he left.’ And then he just took the
hand that was dealt him and began playing against a run of hard luck.
The grub lasted only about a week, and close picking at that. Jacques
had plenty of wood chopped up, and Narcisse sat all day by the fire
with his leg aching and his stomach a-gnawing, a-looking down the white
waste towards Brown’s. And night ’d come and no dog sled. Then day ’d
come and he’d begin looking, looking. And when the grub was all gone,
he soaked up all the leather there was about him and sucked that. And
then he’d begin looking, looking, looking into the white waste, till he
got so’s he could see dozens of dog sleds coming and vanishing, coming
and vanishing.
“But he didn’t cuss Jacques. He said: ‘The poor devil’s been killed
like as not; he wouldn’t go back on his pard.’ And one day he felt he
was getting too weak to watch much more, and so he set a pole in the
snow with a strip of blanket tied to it; and that tuckered him out so’s
he couldn’t hardly crawl back to shelter. And with the last strength he
had, he dragged the wood that was left up close to him where he could
reach it, because he knew that in another day he couldn’t get up.
“And then he began forgetting everything ’most, and having bad dreams
that scared him, all the time a-worrying about the fire like as if he
was half asleep, and hearing dogs barking, and trying to get up.
“And then at last he didn’t know anything, till he was on a dog sled
with the feel of hot soup in his belly. And when he came to, he said:
‘I knowed you’d come, Jacques; it was hard sledding without the grub,
though.’
“And then he found out it wasn’t Jacques at all; only some Jesuit
missionaries travelling from the North. They’d seen his signal of
distress a-flying, and had come and got him.
“And still Narcisse didn’t cuss Jacques. He said: ‘Poor devil’s got
killed or something.’
“And by and by the Jesuits got him to Brown’s Landing, and he laid up
there till the last of December, getting so he could walk. There wasn’t
anybody at Brown’s who had seen Jacques; and Narcisse’s heart ached; he
thought sure Jacques was dead.
“And when Narcisse got well, he borrowed a horse from the factor at
Brown’s and went south to Pierre. It was night when he got to the post.
He rode up to the cabin where he and Jacques bached together, and tied
his horse. There was a cheery light coming out of the windows, and
that seemed odd, seeing that Jacques was likely dead somewheres up the
trail. And what seemed stranger, there was someone singing inside, and
every now and then a woman’d laugh. God! man, did you ever hear a woman
laughing when your heart had been aching for weeks?
“‘Beats the devil!’ Narcisse thought, ‘how quick folks fill your place
when you’re dead!’ Gave him a tight feeling in the throat to think how
someone was laughing inside, and Jacques somewheres up trail with the
coyotes sniffing at him and the snow blowing over him all day and all
night!
“Then Narcisse slips up quiet as could be to the window and peeps in.
He falls back like someone had hit him hard in the face. But nobody
had. All he saw inside was Paulette and Jacques!
“Narcisse leans against the cabin, dazed like, for quite a spell.
Seemed like he couldn’t get it all through his head at once. Then he
saw it all—the cards had been stacked on him. He should’ve been dead
and he wasn’t. That was the trouble.
“Didn’t cuss Jacques even then, Narcisse didn’t. Wasn’t mad—just ached
in his chest like. And by and by he goes up to the window and taps
on it with his fingers. And Jacques comes out into the starlight,
whistling.
“When he runs into Narcisse a-tottering around the corner like a
drunken man, he gasps and leans against the cabin, a-holding on to it
and staring.
“‘Good God!!’ he wheezes. ‘Good God!’
“‘Old pard,’ says Narcisse; and his voice was like it had smoke in it,
‘you win; I pass; mine’s a bob-tail flush; but you stacked the deck!’
“‘For Christ’s sake, Narcisse,’ whispers Jacques, ‘don’t let her see
you! Don’t let her hear you! Come on!’
“And he takes down toward the river, a-walking like the devil was after
him; but it wasn’t anybody but Narcisse, limping a little with the bad
leg.
“And when they came to the river Jacques didn’t seem to have anything
to say but ‘O, it’s a devil of a mess! A hell of a mess!’ Said it over
and over like he was half crazy. And Narcisse said: ‘Last fall I’d have
killed the man who’d said this about you, Jacques. It isn’t the girl so
much, Jacques; but you and I have starved and frozen together many’s
the time, and we always split fair till now. It was hard sledding up
there without the grub and with only one leg. You stole the cards on me
this deal, Jacques; but I’m not going to call for a new deal. I’ll play
the hand.’
“Just that way Narcisse said it. And with Jacques muttering, ‘O, it’s
a devil of a mess,’ they came to an air hole where the black water was
gurgling and chuckling.
“And all at once Jacques flared up and snarled: ‘Why in hell didn’t
you die?’ And slashing out with a long knife, he made a long gash in
Narcisse’s scalp, and gave him a shove toward the hole. But he didn’t
go in, Narcisse didn’t. He’s got that scar yet, but he’s got a deeper
one where nobody sees.
“And then Narcisse somehow forgot the long trails they’d tramped
together and the starvings and the freezings together. Couldn’t think
of anything but the sting of the knife and the trickle of the blood.
And the white starlight swam round him like water in a suck hole, and
got red like blood, and buzzed and hummed. And he was a better man
than Jacques—better fighter. And when the light quit swimming around
and got white again and the stillness of the frozen night came back,
Narcisse found himself sobbing and turning his heel round and round in
somebody’s mouth. And it was Jacques.
“And what does Narcisse get?”
The man, after finishing his tale, took a handkerchief from his pocket,
carefully placed it about his throat like a halter, threw his head to
one side and simulated strangulation.
* * * * *
We didn’t tell any more stories after that. When night came we rolled
up in our blankets, after having made a rousing fire. I did not sleep
much that night. The man did, however. He was the coolest I ever saw.
Went to sleep like a child, knowing full well that he too had a noose
awaiting him.
When I was sure that he was sound asleep, I got up and carefully took
off his bearskin cap, which he had not removed night or day since we
had been together.
I saw by the blue glow of the falling embers that which I had expected
to see—a long, ugly gash running across his scalp. It was not yet quite
healed.
In the morning, as the storm had died in the night, we saddled up. “You
take the mule and go on ahead,” I said; “I’ll probably catch up with
you by noon.”
The man obeyed. I did not expect to catch up with him, but along about
noon I overtook him.
“You seem determined to travel my way,” I said. He stared at me for
some time, and then said quietly: “I’m not a coward just because I’m
going to hang.”
And we rode on together.
The next morning when we had saddled up, I said: “_Narcisse_, here is
one of my six-shooters and some ammunition. There is the grub. If you
travel west far enough, you will come at last to the gold country. Ever
think of going to the gold country?”
The man gasped and placed his hand to his head. “When did I have my cap
off?” said he.
“You have a good mule there,” continued I, evading his question. “You
have grub, a gun and ammunition. Why don’t you go west?”
“Why are you saying that?” he said.
“Because,” I answered, “because I have seen _both scars_!”
A light came into his eyes.
“And you?” he questioned.
“I?” said I; “well _I_, while conducting a prisoner southward, was
attacked by Indians. The prisoner was killed while defending me with
unusual bravery. I lost all my grub, one gun, some ammunition and a
mule. I barely escaped with my life, and rode like the very devil to
get to the next post. _Go!_”
I pointed west. The man slowly fastened the grub sack on his mule,
mounted, gave me a look which I have never forgotten, and rode west.
I have never seen him since. As for me, I got into the next post that
evening with a worn-out horse and a tale of calamity.
V
THE FADING OF SHADOW FLOWER
SHE was only a timid little Omaha maiden with a pair of pensive eyes,
dark like the thunder clouds, and like them, fraught with a potential
fire that seemed ever about to spend its fury in the weakness of tears.
She passed her childhood hours beside the singing streams and in the
lonesome places where the silence lingered. The sunrise and the sunset
found her where the wild flowers clustered, or where the noises of the
nesting birds disturbed the stillness of the thickets. For hers was a
timorous soul, and the dumb kindness of the green things was sweet to
her.
So, as she grew in this wise toward that mysterious time when the
immaturity of the girl bursts into the magic of the woman, her people
said: “She talks with the things that talk not; she plays with the wind
that sleeps and moans in the shadowy place.” And that is why they named
her Shadow Flower.
In the long, mysterious nights of the winter, Shadow Flower wept with
fear at the mournful cry of the coyotes, and often through the droning
days of the summer did the harsh warning of the startled rattlesnake
send her trembling in terror to her mother’s breast. Yet, huddled
close to the group about the evening fire, she loved to listen to the
warriors’ tales of the strong arm and the fierce heart; and her eyes
glowed with an unwonted light as her kinsmen recounted the wild swoop
of the ambushed foe or the silent pursuit, swift and relentless.
All the glowing ideals of manly prowess that her maiden heart had
conjured, were centred in the person of the fearless brave, Big Axe;
for had he not the eagle glance that went to the heart of an enemy like
an arrow? Was not his the shaggy head of the buffalo bull that strikes
with fear the boldest hunter? The breath of his sinewy breast was like
a whirlwind when the battle cry awakened in his throat! There was no
arm in all the circled tepees that could hurl a tomahawk so straight
and far; and none that could heave above the anger of the battle a war
club more ponderous!
“Ah,” she would say to herself, while wandering alone with her musings,
“Big Axe is so great a man!”
When a band of warriors rode out of the village, bent upon some petty
conquest somewhere beyond the blue hills that undulated the horizon
with their summits, Shadow Flower would become very lonely, and she
would stand for long hours upon some larger hill, scanning the dim sky
line for the returning warriors; for where the battle was, there was
Big Axe. And when at last she would catch sight of the returning band,
shouting with the great joy of a battle won, how proudly she stared,
and with what a light in her eyes, at her graceful warrior astride his
swift pony! How anxiously would she search the headdress of her brave
for the fresh eagle feather that should speak of some late deed done by
the strong arm—her strong arm!
Yet her timorous little soul alone knew of the great overflowing
passion that she treasured for Big Axe; unless, perhaps, the birds and
the green things understood her, for hers was a passion that little
words could not carry.
Thus did the frail flower long for the golden kisses of the sun!
There was war between the Omaha and Ponca tribes. So it happened one
morning, in the time when the deer tear the earth with their horns,
that Shadow Flower, hunting late blossoms upon the sere hills where the
young Dawn danced, heard below her the impatient stamp of ponies, and
beheld the mounting of braves, for Big Axe was leading a party of a
hundred warriors against the enemy.
The purple spikes of the ironweed and the yellow plumes of the
golden-rod dropped from her fingers as she gazed upon the sight below
her. What a sight! It was as the marshalling of the incarnate Winds
from the circle of the heavens. Out of the dust cloud that arose from
the dry earth where four hundred nervous hoofs fretted with impatience
beneath the restraining thongs, she caught the dazzle of the sleek and
vari-coloured hides of the ponies; some white with the brilliance of
the summer sun when it glares upon the false lakes of alkali; some
spotted and wiry as the wild cat; some tawny as the mountain lion; some
black like the midnight when the storm clouds fly.
Their gaunt flanks were heaving with the joy of speed and power. Their
nostrils were distent with the influx of prairie winds that know no
restraining hand save that of the great invisible Master. They snorted
and reared as if about to plunge in a wild heat down the winds. Their
neighing was the shout of the tempest in the rocks, and their gusty
manes were as clouds that tatter in the storm.
And amid this _mêlée_ of dust and noise and dazzle trembled the gaudy
headdresses of the warriors, bright with the painted wing feathers of
the eagle and the hawk.
Now a shout drowns the neighing and the snorting. A hundred braves
leap to the backs of the plunging ponies. The dust cloud thickens and
sweeps down the valley like a whirlwind. A far glint of brandished
weapons; a dying shout; the band swoops about the base of a hill. Then
the sultry day drones and drowses on the prairie. The grasshopper
breaks the slumber of the stillness with his snapping noise; a lone
hawk skirts the ground with slow, circling flight. But Shadow Flower
stands and stares beneath a shading hand into the brilliance where the
warriors vanished. Her ears hear not the snarl and hum of the drowsy
bugs, nor the shrill chatter of the sly gopher as it rears its striped
body from the grass and peers about. She sees not the circling hawk and
scarcely does the glitter of the yellow grass hurt her eyes. For her
ears are filled with the shout that has died, and in her eyes a sinewy,
masterful brave urges a black pony down the valley.
After a while her hand dropped from her eyes, and catching sight of the
circling hawk, she cried: “O you who are so keen of eye, tell me, can
you not see into the heart of Muzape Tunga [Big Axe]? O you who are so
keen of thought, tell me, does he think of Pazha Hu [Shadow Flower]?”
But the hawk circled far away and the day droned on.
Among the hills, hidden from one who looked and saw not, the war party
rode on with the noses of its ponies to that portion of the sky from
which the red sun of summer springs, for in that direction lay the
village of the Poncas, perched upon the yellow bluffs of the great
muddy river.
On the evening of the second day the air grew soft with the scent of
flowing waters, and the Omahas, checking their ponies upon the brow of
a hill, beheld to their right the swirling stream, red with the last
light of the day; and before them, across a deep hollow, the village of
the Poncas, upon the summit of a bluff.
But while their eyes wandered over the misty stretches of the river,
a wild shout startled the calm of the scene, while from the village
on the opposite summit a line of mounted warriors issued, taking the
precipitous hillside at a brisk gallop.
The sudden shout and the beat of flying hoofs hurled the weary ponies
of the Omahas back upon their haunches. Yet scarcely had the echoes of
the shout cried their last among the distant bluffs, when a hundred
Omaha bow thongs twanged and a hundred arrows shrieked their shrill
death-song in the quiet evening air. A second and a third flight of
arrows, and the rushing Poncas were thrown into confusion. Those in the
rear were thrown by the floundering bodies of the wounded ponies in the
front, the fury of their momentum hurling them pellmell into the valley
below. Then the Omahas swept down the valley, as the eagle sweeps, with
the battle cry upon their lips, and the remnant of the attacking Poncas
turned and fled up the steep hillside to their village.
The village of the Poncas, in addition to its strong position, was
further fortified by stockades, constructed of saplings driven into
the ground with their tops sharpened. The fugitives having gained
the protection of this barrier, were safe from further pursuit, and
emboldened by their protection, they hurled such a flight of arrows
into the ranks of the enraged Omahas that the latter were obliged to
withdraw beyond arrow flight, contenting themselves with taunting their
besieged foes by displaying the dripping scalps of the fallen.
Now the influence of the fading evening cooled the anger and hushed
the shouting. From the height whither the assaulting band withdrew to
camp, one could hurl the triumphant gaze unnumbered bowshots westward,
athwart the brown hills that seemed to have been stricken motionless in
liquid turbulence by the enchantment of the sunset, marvellous with the
pomp of streamers, violet, purple, saffron, sanguine, dun!
Far up the river the blue haze of the sky-fringed woodland blended
into the purple shadow beneath the contrasting yellow of the bluffs,
that looked down into the smooth waters, upon their own scarred and
wrinkled images crowned with golden crowns by the last scant sunlight.
The cottonwoods placed their long shadows like soothing fingers on the
muddy madness of the central stream. The Night awakened in the east and
stretched its long black arms into the west, and the glory vanished.
The distant woodland and the bluffs grew into indistinguishable masses.
The river became a faint film above a lower concave of dawning stars.
The camp fires in the village reared long towers of light into the
darkness, then fell back into a sleepy glow.
One dreaming out a sunset on the prairie cannot wonder at the exquisite
hyperbole of the Omaha language; that tongue nurtured amid marvellous
possibilities of fury and calm, of beauty and terror, all within the
sight-tiring circle of stupendous distance.