among the Poncas, for they said:
“Might it not be that this one whom we have spurned is stronger than we
thought?”
But Wa-choo-bay sang no medicine-songs; he performed no mystic rites.
With tender hands he nursed the sick. Also he knelt beside them and
said soft words that were not the words of the prairie.
And it happened that the invisible arrows of the Terror fell thicker
and thicker among the Poncas. The sickness spread, and the village was
filled with the delirious shrieks of the dying.
So a great, angry wail went up against Wa-choo-bay.
“The sickness grows greater, not less,” said those who were still
strong. “This Wa-choo-bay’s words are not true words. There is a black
spirit in him.”
So it happened that arms that were still strong seized Wa-choo-bay
and bound him with thongs of buckskin. Then he was led afar from the
village to the bleak, cold summit of a hill.
There they planted a post and bound Wa-choo-bay to it.
And the woman, whose name was changed to Mary, begged for him, and the
wolf, with its four feet huddled together in the snow, mourned with an
upward thrusting of the snout.
But Wa-choo-bay said:
“Do not wail for me. This is the place where my trail ends. This is
what was in the mist. Let these whom I love do as they will do.”
And when they had bound him to the post they whipped him with elkhorn
whips.
“Where is your white Wakunda?” they cried, and it was a hate cry.
“Here beside us stands the white Wakunda and His Son!” said
Wa-choo-bay; and his brow was wet with the sweat of agony. But the
whippers did not see, and the whips fell harder.
And after some time Wa-choo-bay raised his head weakly to the darkening
heavens, for the sun had fallen, and moaned soft words that were not
prairie words.
Then his head fell forward upon his breast.
The whips fell no more. The whippers departed.
The sky was like a sheet of frosty metal and the stars were like broken
ice.
Against the sky hung the thin figure of Wa-choo-bay lashed to the post,
and beneath him in the shadow huddled two who sent trembling cries of
sorrow into the empty spaces of the snow—a woman and a wolf.
IX
THE TRIUMPH OF SEHA
WHEN Seha had grown to be a tall youth, he said to the old men: “Now
I am almost a man; what shall I do?” For being a youth, he dreamed of
great things. And the old men answered: “That Wakunda knows; therefore,
take yourself to a high hill; there fast and pray until sleep comes,
and with it a vision.”
So Seha arose and laid aside his garments, and naked, went out on the
prairie. When he had gone far, he climbed to the top of a lonely hill,
bare of grass and strewn with flakes of stone that made its summit
white like the head of a man who has seen many winters.
Then he knelt upon the flinty summit, and raising his palms to the
heavens, he cried: “O Wakunda, here needy stands Seha!” Four times he
uttered the cry, yet there was no sound save that of the crow overhead,
and the wind in the short grass of the hillside.
Then he fell into an agony of weeping, and wetting his palms with his
tears, he rubbed them in the white dust and smeared his face with mud.
Then he cast his wet eyes to the heavens, and again raised his hands in
supplication.
“O Wakunda, Seha is a young man; he would do great things like the old
men; send him a vision!”
The night came down and still he held his eyes upon the darkening
heavens, crying for a vision. But only the coyote answered him. The
stars looked out of the east and steadily climbed upward, gazing upon
his tearful face. But when the grey of age began to grow upon the
forehead of the Night, he grew so weary that he fell forward upon his
face and slept.
And lo! the vision came!
It seemed that the skies were black and fierce as the face of a brave
in anger. The lightning glared; and the thunder shouted like a warrior
in the front of the battle! Then the cloud split, and through it rushed
a mighty eagle with the lightning playing on its wings; its cry was
like the shriek of a dying foe and its eyes were bright with the vision
that sees far. Its wings hovered over Seha, and it spoke:
“Seha shall be a seer of things far off. His thought shall be quick as
the lightning, and his voice shall be as thunder in the ears of men!”
Seha awoke, and he was shivering with the dews of morning. Then he
arose and walked back toward his village, slowly, for his thoughts were
great. Four days he went about the village, speaking to no one; and the
people whispered: “Seha has had a vision; do you not see that his eyes
are big with a strange light?”
One night after the four days had passed, Seha arose from his blankets
and, creeping stealthily out of his tepee, he went to the lodge of
Ebahamba, who was a great medicine-man, for Seha wished to tell his
vision into a wise ear.
Pulling back the buffalo robe that hung across the entrance he saw the
great man sleeping in the moonlight that fell through the opening at
the top of the tepee. Entering, he touched the shoulder of the sleeper,
who awoke with a start, and, sitting up, stared at the young intruder.
Then Ebahamba being thoroughly awakened, spoke:
“Seha has come to tell his vision; I knew he would come; speak.”
“You are a great man,” began Seha, “and your eyes are like the sun’s
eyes to see into the shadow. Hear me and teach me.”
Then he told of his vision on the lonely hill.
As Ebahamba listened to the wonderful thing that had befallen the
youth, his heart grew cold with envy; for certainly great things were
in store for Seha, and might it not come to pass that the youth should
grow even greater in power than Ebahamba himself?
So, when the youth had ceased, breathless with the wonder of the thing
he told, the old man said coldly: “Wakunda will teach Seha; let him go
learn of the wind and the growing things!”
Then the youth arose and left the lodge. But the big medicine-man slept
no more that night, for jealousy is sleepless.
At that time it happened that the winds were hot from the southwest,
and the maize grew yellow as the sun that smote it, and the rainless
air curled its blades. And the old man Ebahamba cried to Wakunda for
rain; but the skies only glared back for answer.
Then a great moan went up before the lodge of the big medicine-man,
Ebahamba. “Ebahamba speaks with the spirits; let him pray to the
thunder spirits that we may have food for our squaws and our children!”
And Ebahamba shut himself in his tepee four days, fasting, crying to
the thunder spirits, and performing strange rites. But every morning
the sun arose glaring like the eye of a man who dies of fever, and the
hot wind sweltered up from the southwest, moaning hoarsely like one who
moans with thirst; and the maize heard the moan and wilted.
Then when the people grew clamorous before the lodge of Ebahamba, he
came forth and said: “The thunder spirits are sleeping; they are weary
and drowsy with the heat.” And the hooting of his people drove him back
into his lodge.
Then Seha raised his voice above the despairing murmur of the village,
saying: “Seha is a young man, yet the thunder spirits will hear him,
be they ever so drowsy, for Seha has had a vision. Seha will call the
rain.”
The murmur of the people ceased, for so strange a light was in the
eyes of the youth that they believed.
“Let Seha give us rain,” they cried, “and he shall be a great man among
his people!”
Then Seha strode out of the village and disappeared in the hills. His
heart was loud as he walked, for would he not be a great man among his
people? He believed in his power with that belief which is the power.
All day he walked, and when the red sun glared across the western hills
like an eye bloodshot with pain, he came to a clump of cottonwoods that
sang upon the summit of a bluff.
Now the thunder spirits love the cottonwoods, for they rise sternly
from the earth, reaching their long arms into the clouds, and they cry
back at the storm with a loud voice. Where the cottonwood sings, there
the thunder spirits sleep, and the thunder birds, the eagle and the
hawk, watch with keen eyes.
Under the trees Seha stood, and raising his hands and his eyes to the
heavens, he cried: “Hear Seha! For is he not a thunder man? Did he not
dream the thunder man’s dream? Then I command you, send the big clouds
boiling before the wind; send the rains, that my people may have food
for their children. Then I will be a great man among my people!”
The trees only tossed their branches above him, while they sang softly
in the wind.
“O Thunder Spirits!” he cried again. “You are not asleep! I hear you
talking together in the tree tops. Listen to me, for I am a thunder
man!”
Then a dead calm grew. The cottonwoods were still. Suddenly they
groaned with a cool gust from the east. The groan was like a waking
man’s groan when he arises, stretching and yawning, from his blankets.
Then Seha lay down to sleep; for were not the thunder spirits awake?
When the night was late, Seha was awakened by the howl of the thunder.
He saw the quick lightning pierce the boiling darkness in the east.
Then the rain drops danced upon the dry hills with a sound like the
unintelligible patter of many voices that are glad.
Seha was glad, and he answered the shout of the thunder. His people in
the village were glad, and their tongues were noisy with the name of
Seha. The maize was glad and it looked up to the kind sky, tossing its
arms in exultation.
When Seha returned to the village, he was the centre of a joyful cry;
he had become a great man among his people. And when they asked from
whence he had such great powers, he said: “I caught it from the blowing
wind; I heard it in the growing of the maize.”
But there was one who did not greet the mysterious youth. Ebahamba
shut himself in his tepee, for had he not failed to awaken the thunder
spirits when a youth had succeeded? Ebahamba sat sullenly in his
tepee, thinking great and fierce thoughts; and after many days of
fasting, his magic came back to him. Then he summoned to his lodge one
by one, the men of his band, and he said to each: “Behold! Seha speaks
with evil spirits. May he not destroy his people? Then let us perform
the rite of _Wazhinadee_ against him that he may be forsaken by man and
beast and so die!”
The men of his band believed Ebahamba, for his magic was very great
now, and he forced them to believe. So each man went to his tepee, shut
himself in, feasted and thought sternly against Seha. For this is the
manner of the rite of _Wazhinadee_.
Then after his enemies had thought strongly for many days against
him, Seha was seized with a strange weakness. His eyes lost their
brightness, and he could not see far as before. All through the days
and the nights he went about the village, crying for his lost power;
and the people said: “The coyotes are barking in the hills.” They could
not see him for the mist that the terrible rite had cast about him.
Then Seha wandered out on the prairie, wailing as ever for his lost
power. And after many days, he laid himself down by a stream to die.
But he did not die. He slept; and the vision came again. When he awoke,
he was strong again and his eyes could see far as before.
Then he said: “I will cleanse myself in the stream and go back to my
people, for I am strong again.”
But lo! as he leaned over the clear stream, he beheld the reflected
image of an eagle far above him. Now a medicine man can change himself
at will into anything that walks or crawls or flies or is still; and as
Seha watched the eagle, he knew that it was Ebahamba!
So gliding into the stream, he quickly changed himself into a great
fish floundering temptingly upon the surface. The eagle, which was
Ebahamba, being hungry, swooped down upon the fish with wide beak and
open talons.
In a moment, Seha changed himself into a huge boulder, against which
the swooping bird dashed furiously, crushing its beak and talons. Then
it arose, and with bloody wings, fluttered across the prairie.
Seha stepped out of his rock and laughed a loud, long laugh, and the
eagle, which was Ebahamba, heard and knew.
So Seha returned to his village and was a great man among his people.
But Ebahamba hid himself in his tepee; and a rumour ran that his arms
were broken and his face crushed.
And there was much wonder in the village!
X
THE END OF THE DREAM
THE old woman Gunthai had nothing but a past over which she brooded and
a son upon whom she doted. Had she been able to write the latter in the
letters of that tongue which came to the prairie many moons after her
death, breaking with syllables of magic the spell of the centuries,
she would have written it with a “u”; for her son was as the day to
her; his coming was the morning and his going was the sunset. When he
laughed, there was summer in the wretched little tepee; when he cried,
the snows drifted about the mother-heart.
Winter and summer the old woman sat in her lodge, her back bent with
the burdens of many seasons and her face seamed with many memories; yet
stern and expressionless as of one who has followed a long trail and
cannot see its end though the sun be falling.
All day she would sit in her lodge, weaving baskets of willow, which
she exchanged with her tribesmen for meat and robes; for the father
of her child was dead. Her little boy, whom she tenderly called Nu
Zhinga (Little Man), would lie long hours before her with his chin
resting upon his little brown hands, watching the fingers of his mother
weave the pliant twigs into form with marvellous skill, as it seemed
to him; and often when the hours crept lamely, he would sing to her
a monotonous song like the wind’s, timing the irregular air with the
beating of his toes upon the floor.
And when the little singer would cease, the old woman Gunthai often
forgot the unwoven basket with gazing into his big black eyes, for in
them her hope could read great deeds that were to be done after many
unborn moons had waned.
Then she would tell him tales of his father; tales that were loud with
the snarl of war drums, the twang of bow thongs, the shriek of arrows,
the beat of hoofs! But there was no responsive glitter in the eyes of
the boy; his heart was not the warrior’s, and the old mother seeing
this, sighed and fell to work with nervous haste.
And the days of sun and snow wove themselves into years, until Nu
Zhinga had reached that time when boyhood begins to deepen into
manhood; and yet as the mother looked upon her son, she found him
scarcely taller than a weak man’s bow.
His legs were short and bowed, his hips narrow, and upon shoulders of
abnormal breadth sat his monstrous, shaggy head. It was as if he were
the visible body of a black spirit’s joke, save for his lustrous eyes,
that were like two stars that burn big in the air of evening through a
film of mist.
And thus it was that when Nu Zhinga passed through the village, those
who were still foolish with youth jeered at the lad, calling his name
in contempt; but the old men and women who had grown wise, only shook
their heads and pitied Gunthai in silence.
But the boy would take no notice of his tormentors, walking on sullen
and silent. He lived in a little world of his own, which was isolated
from the great world by the unkindness of his people, like a range of
frozen hills; and in this small world there were but three dwellers:
Gunthai, a tame grey wolf, and one other. That other was a despised
little cripple and her name was Tabea (Frog).
These three, and about them the chromatic glory of dreams like a
sunrise that lingers—this was the world of Nu Zhinga. All day amid
the quiet of the summer hills Nu Zhinga and Tabea played together;
he telling of the great indefinite things that he would do in that
big mysterious sometime when the days would be pregnant with wonders!
For in his soul the pulse of uncertain but lofty resolve bounded, and
as he peered into the future, lo! it was vast, yet dim with misty
possibilities like a broad stretch of prairie expanding under the new
moon! And she, with all of her crooked little body attentive, listened
and believed even more than she heard; which is the way of those who
love.
And then these two, after the manner of children, would play at life,
building a tepee with willows from a convenient creek; and Tabea would
groan as she bore the heavy burdens, thus showing how she would toil
for him and suffer. Then when the tepee was built, she would go about
droning a song, with her back bent as with the weight of an infant,
thus showing how she would carry the child of Nu Zhinga in that big and
sunlit sometime.
One day when the last white footstep of the winter had vanished from
the coldest valley, the old woman Gunthai laid aside a finished basket
and called her boy to her side.
“It is the time,” she said; “the time is ripe with summers. Nu Zhinga
must eat no meat for four days; then he must go to the hill where the
visions come, that he may know what is to be for him in the light of
the unborn moons.”
So Nu Zhinga ate no meat for four days, and when the fourth evening
came, as the fires roared upward among the circled lodges, he passed
through the village and took his way to the high hill of dreams. It was
the time when the valleys are loud with the song of frogs and when the
Earth begins to learn anew the pleasant lesson of the Sun.
When he had stopped, breathless with toiling up the long incline, for
he was weak with hunger, he turned and looked back upon the jumbled
village and saw, indistinctly through the mist of the evening, his
mother standing before the door of her lodge, straining her gaze that
she might see her boy for the last time, climbing to the height where
the dream awaited, that should send him back a man with a future big
in deeds.
Then Nu Zhinga climbed on to the summit of the hill and watched the
west pass from brilliant colours into dun, and the darkness come with
the stars. In the light of a thin moon the far hills whitened. The
big stars glowed kindly like the camp fires of a friendly people. The
night wind talked to itself in the gulches; and attentive to these, Nu
Zhinga forgot the reason of his coming, and lulled by the many pleasant
sounds, fell asleep and was awakened by the pale damp Dawn.
Then he ran down the hill, and as he passed through the village, the
old women, some busy about the steaming kettles, others bent beneath
the loads of fuel, shook their heads and said: “Gunthai’s boy has had
no vision; not so do they return who dream great dreams.”
In the doorway of her lodge Gunthai stood awaiting the approach of her
son. Her body that was wont to be bent like a bow upon which a heavy
hand is laid in anger, was erect and quivering as is the bow when the
arrow has sped like a purpose. Upon her leathery, wrinkled face dwelt
the glimmer of an inner illumination. Only the flesh was old, the light
was young; for Hope is a youth.
As the lad approached, the tenseness of expectation held the old
woman’s tongue and her question came from her eyes. “What has Nu Zhinga
dreamed?”
“I saw the stars that were like the eyes of a friend,” said the boy,
“and I heard the wind as it sang to itself in the gulches. I slept and
woke and the Sun was laughing on the hills!”
Many seasons sit lightly upon a form when Hope sits with them; but
Despair is heavy, and again the weight of many years bent the shoulders
of the mother. When the sun leaves a cloud of glory, it leaves a mass
of murk; thus passed the light from the wrinkled face of Gunthai.
There was a sigh in her voice as she spoke; a sigh like that of a wind
that is heavy with rain: “There should have come a dream loud with the
noises of battle and shrill with the flight of arrows! Thus did your
father dream.”
So Nu Zhinga went a second and a third and a fourth time to the hill of
dreams, and the last answer that his mother heard was like the first.
And on the fifth day the heart of the old mother was sore with sorrow,
and all that night she did not sleep, but wept and moaned: “How shall
Gunthai be comforted when her eyes are dim and her fingers stiff? Her
son shall not be mighty in the hunt and battle, for he has had no
dream.”
The lad, awakened in the night by the moaning of his mother, knew in
an indefinite way that he was the cause of so much grief; and in his
breast grew a great pang of soul hunger that would not pass away. Even
with the giant joy of the sunrise it did not pass away.
In the early light Nu Zhinga passed out of the village, for his heart
was heavy. As he walked, lo everything was sad except the sun, and the
light of its gladness deepened the shadow of his sorrow. The sound of
the wind moving in the bunch grass of the hillside was like a faint cry
of a great pain. At length he threw himself down and buried his face in
the grass. The despair of those who dream daydreams was upon him. There
was night in his heart; his small body shook with sobs. A long while he
lay thus, nor did he hear the soft step that stopped beside him.
At length Nu Zhinga raised his head from the grass and saw Tabea
sitting beside him with pity in her eyes and in the attitude of her
crooked little body. Without a word they stared each into the face of
the other; and as Nu Zhinga looked, the desolate grey of the world
began to develop its wonted brilliance of colour, as though the union
of their tears had produced a prism.
At length these two arose and walked among the hills, dreaming as was
their wont, and again the sunlight entered the heart of Nu Zhinga. When
the two outcasts entered the village, even though the youths trooped
behind them shouting “Peazha!” (no good), yet the sunlight did not
pass; for upon one hand walked the dreams of Nu Zhinga and upon the
other, Tabea.
One day in the time of the gathering of the maize, when the brown hills
shivered with the first frosts, the voice of a crier was heard through
the village calling the braves to battle; for the big chief of the
Omahas would lead a war party against the Sioux.
So the old woman Gunthai took down the weapons of her fallen brave from
the side of the tepee where they had hung in idleness for many moons.
She strung the long unbent bow with a thong of buckskin and retipped
the arrows with the feathers of the hawk. Then she wept over them,
and blessed them with weird songs; and calling Nu Zhinga to her side,
placed them in his hands, and said: “Bring them back red with the blood
of the Sioux!”
And the youth took them, wondering why it was so very great a thing to
kill.
Then the war party rode out of the village and Nu Zhinga rode with it.
And there were two who climbed to the highest hill and, shading their
eyes with their hands, watched the braves disappear into the distance.
They were Gunthai and Tabea, and the hopes of each were great. For
might not even Nu Zhinga do great deeds? Such things had been.
After many days the returning band rode up the valley that rang with
the song of victory. But when it rode into the village, a great cry
went up against Nu Zhinga, the squaw-hearted. For in the battle with
the Sioux his pony had fallen with an arrow in its breast, and when the
Omahas returned from the pitiless pursuit of their flying foes, they
found him crying like a squaw over the carcass of the animal.
When the people heard this concerning Nu Zhinga, an angry cry, like
that of a strong wind in a thicket, passed over the multitude gathered
about the braves. “Let him go work with the squaws!” they cried. And
the unanimous cry of a people is a law.
So Nu Zhinga, the squaw-hearted, carried water and wood with the women
and was patient. At least he had Tabea ever near him, which was like
living in the light of perpetual sunrise, and hope, like an incurable
disease, would not leave his breast.
The old woman Gunthai seeing how more than squaw-hearted her son had
grown, sat in her lodge weaving the baskets of willow. But the hope of
her heart was gone. How she had dreamed of the prowess of her little
man! How he would be mighty among his people; mighty with the arm that
is pitiless and strong—a slayer of enemies! But now—and the old woman’s
thought would check itself at that barren gulch in the hills through
which Death comes like a blast of bitter winds, for she could see no
further.
So the suns came and went; but there was night for her in the brightest
noon; the seasons passed, but for her heart there was cold, even in the
kind midsummer.