the village of the woman’s people.
The man went before and the woman followed, bearing the burdens of the
trail. But when the dawn came the man did a strange thing. He took the
burdens upon his own shoulders, saying nothing. It seemed his heart had
been softened; but his face being hidden, the woman could not see what
was written there.
And the trail was long; but the man was kind. He seemed no longer the
Mad Buffalo. He made fires and pitched the tepee like a squaw. He spoke
soft words.
And after many days of travelling the two came, as the Night was
beginning to walk, to the brown brow of the hill beneath which lay the
village of the Omahas.
And the man said: “There are your people. Go!”
And the woman moaned, saying: “He will not take me, and the dream will
be true. Never on the long trail did my heart fail; but now I am weak.
My breast aches.”
But the man said: “Sun Eyes, had not Rain Walker ever a soft heart? He
will take you back. Look!”
And the woman, who had been gazing through tears upon the village of
her people, turned and saw that the man had torn the buckskin from his
face. She gave a cry and shrank from what she saw.
But the man took her gently by the hand.
“He will take you back,” he said; “dreams are wiser than men!”
XV
THE SMILE OF GOD
THE Omahas were hunting bison. The young moon had been thin and bent
like a bow by the arm of a strong man when they had left their village
in the valley of Ne Shuga. Night after night it had grown above their
cheerless tepees, ever further eastward, until now it came forth no
more, but lingered in its black lodge like a brave who has walked far
and keeps his blankets because the way was hard and long.
All through the time of the growing and dying moon, the Omahas had
sought for the bison. Upon a hundred summits they had halted to gaze
beneath the arched hand into the lonely valleys from whence came no
sound of lowing cows or bellowing bulls. Like the voice of Famine
through the lonesome air came the _caw-caw_ of the crow. Like heaps of
bleaching bones the far-off sage brush whitened.
This evening as the women busied themselves with the building of the
tepees, there was no crooning on their lips. The valley in which they
were placing their camp was still but for the clattering of the poles,
as they were placed in their conical positions, or the flap of the
blankets, which were being bound about the poles for a covering.
At dreary intervals a grazing pony would toss its weary head and neigh
nervously, as if wondering at the stillness of its masters.
The silent squaws gathered armfuls of scrub oak and plum twigs, and lit
fires that lapped the blackening air with ruddy tongues and sent their
voices roaring up the hills, to be answered by their echoes that came
back faintly like the lowing of a phantom herd!
The old men and the braves sat about the fires and no word was on their
lips. From lip to lip the fragrant pipe passed, yet even its softening
influence could not move to speech the lips it touched. Each face upon
which the firelight fell was hideous with the gauntness of hunger.
One by one the runners, sent out in search of the herds, came into
camp. With a slow, swinging trot these great lean men approached, as
the gaunt wolf approaches his lair in the cold light of the morning
when no prey has been abroad all night. Sullen and silent they took
their places in the cheerless circles about the fires. There was no
need for words from them. Their expectant kinsmen looked into their
faces and read the tale of their despair so readily from the drawn skin
and sunken eyes that they groaned.
The glow of the west fell into the greyness of ashes, as a camp fire
falls when all the women sleep. Then the dark came over the eastern
hills. Far into the night the braves and old men sat about the fires,
speechless. As they listened, they could hear the hungry children
whining in their sleep. Once a squaw, suddenly awakened from a dream
near the fires, leaped to her feet and cried “_Tae!_ _Tae!_ [bison]”
The hoarse cry beat against the black hills and came back like a
mockery. The men gazed at each other and grinned with twitching lips.
Again the lonesome air slumbered, save for a weird song that arose
from the tepee of the big medicine-man, Ashunhunga. He was calling to
Wakunda. The song droned itself into silence like the song of a locust
when the evening is quiet.
After some time, a sound of wailing came from the mysterious tepee; and
as the men turned their faces to the place, they beheld the half-naked
form of the medicine-man passing like a spectre amid the glow of the
fires.
The dry skin clung to his ribs and sinews. His head was thrown back and
the fires lit his face. Through his parted lips the white teeth shone.
Out of the hollows of his eyes a wild light glared. The dream was upon
him! With bony hands clenched, he beat his naked breast and cried:
“_Wah-hoo-ha-a!_ _Wah-hoo-ha-a-a-a!_ The curse of Wakunda is upon us!
The black spirits of the dead are about us! For Ashunhunga had a dream.
A black spirit came to him and its eyes were lightning and its voice
was thunder as it said: ‘Why do you shelter him whom Wakunda hates?’
_Wa-hoo-ha-a-a-a!_”
Blood fell from the mysterious man’s palms where the nails clenched
convulsively, and his arms and breast were smeared with blood. The
listeners shuddered as the wild voice began anew.
“Ashunhunga will talk to the black spirit! He will learn whom Wakunda
hates! Him we shall cast from us! Then Wakunda will smile and the
valleys shall thunder with herds!”
Beating his breast and gesticulating wildly with his long, bony arms,
the old man passed back amid the tepees.
Those who sat about the fires were frozen by the wild words into bronze
statues of Fear. Scarcely was a breath drawn; not a man moved. The
black spirits of the dead were about them! Not a hand was raised to
replenish the fires with faggots. The flames sank, and the embers sent
a dull blue light upon the circles of haggard faces!
As Ashunhunga passed on toward his tepee, he suddenly stumbled over
a shivering form, huddled in the shadow. Quickly regaining his feet,
he saw that upon which he had stumbled. It was a dwarfed, ill-shapen
body, with short, crooked legs and long emaciated arms with protruding
joints. The form raised itself upon its hands and knees and looked upon
the medicine-man with an idiot leer upon its face.
It was Shanugahi (Nettle) the cripple.
With a cry as of a squaw who sees a black spirit in her sleep,
Ashunhunga rushed into his tepee. His mystical songs wailed over the
camp for a while, then ceased. Overcome by his fanatical emotions, he
had fallen into a swoon. And he had a dream.
He was alone upon the prairie and hunger was pinching his entrails.
Then there came a bison bull toward him, roaring through the silence.
He raised his bow, and with sure aim, sent an arrow singing into the
heart of the beast. Then the air grew black, save for a blue light as
of dying fires. The bison began to change form! Its hind legs grew
short and crooked; its fore legs became long and lean and sinewy
like the arms of a starving man. Its body dwindled, dwindled—and it
was human! Its head became indistinct and wavered as in a haze. Then
it grew boldly up in the ghastly light and the face was the face of
Shanugahi with the idiot leer!
The vision whirled giddily and sank into the dizzy darkness.
With a cry as of one stabbed in his sleep, Ashunhunga sprang from
his blanket and rushed out of his tepee. Those who sat about the
smouldering fires, startled from their dumb terror by the cry, raised
their eyes and gazed upon the face of the medicine-man as he passed.
They did not speak, but the question on their faces was “who?”
“It is Shanugahi!” said Ashunhunga in an awing whisper. “It is
Shanugahi whom Wakunda hates! He has brought the curse upon us!”
The ill-shapen bronze mass of flesh that was Shanugahi lay curled up
in sleep in the shadow of a tepee. Suddenly his sleep was broken by a
heavy hand reaching out of the darkness. He shook himself, raised his
head and gazed about. He saw the faces of a number of braves indistinct
in the dim glow of the fires. Nearby a pony stood ready for a rider.
Then a strange voice close to his ear, whispered hoarsely: “Fly! Fly!
The black spirits of the dead are about you! The curse of Wakunda is
upon you! Fly! Fly!”
Shanugahi stared about him, then turned his meaningless eyes upon his
tribesmen and leered. Strong arms seized him and placed him astride the
waiting pony. Someone lashed the animal across the haunches, and it
plunged down the valley into the blackness of the night.
When the dazed rider had gone some distance, the meaning of the
whispered words came upon him. Cold sweat sprang out on his limbs. He
glanced about him, and the night was swarming with demons!
His shriek cut the stillness like a knife of ice! He grasped the mane
of the pony with a convulsive clasp. He dashed his heels into the
flanks of the terrified brute! The lone gulches thundered with the beat
of hoofs. Bushes flew past, and each was a pursuing black spirit!
Shanugahi clung closely to the pony’s back, hiding his face in its
tossing mane, clasping its neck with the strength of madness, pressing
its ribs with his knees until the straining animal groaned with pain
and fright. Through valleys, over hills, down gulches they fled!
Clumps of sage brush flitted past, and each was a heap of whitened
bones!
It was like falling in a nightmare through an immeasurable black pit,
save for the scamper of the coyote as it sought the gulches, whining,
or the tumbling flight of the owl or bat, fleeing with wings that
whirred in the stillness!
The pace of the pony became slower and slower. Its breath came in
short, rasping gasps. Then with a last effort of its terrified limbs,
it took the long incline of a high hill, and upon the bare summit
tumbled to its knees. Shanugahi rolled off its back, and horse and
rider, worn out, swooned upon the summit.
When Shanugahi awoke, the pale light that foregoes the coming sun lay
upon the shivering hills. He looked about him and saw a circle of grey
wolves staring at him with eyes like small moons dawnstricken. He felt
about him for a weapon, but found only his stone pipe and a pouch of
red willow bark.
He filled his pipe and striking a spark from a bit of flint that
strewed the summit, he lit it. Then the sun peeped over the far sky
line and with its horizontal rays touched the hills with fire. Its
light warmed the frozen nerves of Shanugahi. He puffed grey rings of
smoke into the air.
At length, taking his pipe from his mouth, he reared his hideous body
in the glow of the morning, and with a long, bony arm, raised his pipe
to the smiling sun in silent invocation. For some time, motionless,
he stood like a being of the black depths praying for mercy from the
shining heights. Then he uttered two words.
“_Wakunda! Tae!_” (O God! Bison!)
The staring wolves, moved by the wild voice, raised their noses to the
heavens with a howl, and slunk away into the gulches. The sun rose
higher and higher, and Shanugahi breathed into his veins the laughing
gold of the morning. With all the simplicity of his nature, he forgot
the terror of the night. It was to him as some vague dream, dreamed
many summers past. Yet the one fixed idea of finding the bison swayed
his whole being.
His hunger had reached that stage in which it acts like a heavy draught
of some subtle intoxicant. The stupor of days past had been changed
into a joyous and even hopeful delirium. And as he looked upon the sun,
to him it was the smile of Wakunda! Now he would find the bison.
He caught his pony, grazing near by, and leaping upon its back, urged
its stiffened limbs into a jog and took the lonesome stretch of prairie
with song upon his lips. All day the pony jogged across the prairie
at an easy pace toward the west. At that time of the evening when the
coolness comes with the dew, and the bugs awake with drowsy hummings
among the grasses, Shanugahi caught a roaring sound as of some sullen
storm that thunders beneath the horizon.
He checked his pony and placing his hands to his ears, listened
intently. He knew the sound! Dismounting, he crawled to the top of a
hill and gazed into a broad valley.
As far as he could see, straining his eyes, the valley was black with
bison! For a moment he stood spellbound; then a great joy lashed his
blood into a frenzy. He rushed to his pony and mounting, turned its
head to the east. The night came down, and still Shanugahi held his
pony to a fast gallop. His brain whirled giddily. Now he had found the
bison! His people would not starve. He sang and shouted and laughed
until his voice broke into a cackle! The delirium of the rider was
caught by the pony. With all the might of long generations of prairie
herds, it sent the thundering hills and valleys under its feet.
At that time of the morning when the east grows pale, and sleep is
the deepest, the famished tribe, having moved a weary day’s journey
westward, was sleeping heavily. Suddenly a hoarse shout shattered their
dreams and made the hills clamorous with echoes!
The whole camp leaped from its blankets and stared with blinking eyes
in the direction of the shout.
There, upon the brow of a hill that overlooked the camp, stood a horse
and rider set in bold relief against the pale sky of morning. With a
long, bony arm the rider pointed to the westward and again he cried in
a weak, broken voice:
“_Tae! Tae!_” (Bison! bison!)
Then horse and rider collapsed like the figures of a dream that wavers
with the morning. A number of men rushing up the hill, found the bodies
of the pony and Shanugahi. Upon the lips of the dead rider lingered a
calm smile as of contentment.
“It is the smile of Wakunda,” said one old man in awe.
“Wakunda smiles! Wakunda smiles!” shouted the men. The whole camp
caught up the cry. “Bison! Bison! Wakunda smiles!”
And when the sun arose, they were moving westward on the trail of
Shanugahi.
* * * * *
Two nights afterward there was joy in the camp of the Omahas. Having
found the long-sought-for herd, they had feasted heavily, and now
they slept as the wolf sleeps when the prey has not escaped. Beside a
fire two old men were still awake, and as they smoked, they talked of
Shanugahi. He had found the herd. Wakunda had smiled upon him; and yet
Shanugahi was ugly and a cripple!
“Ugh!” they both grunted after a thoughtful silence, shaking their
heads in wonderment at so incomprehensible a thing.
Then they wrapped themselves in their blankets, and slept.
XVI
THE HEART OF A WOMAN
THE council of the fathers sat in the Big Lodge with very grave faces,
for they had come together to pass judgment upon the deed of a woman.
As they passed the pipe about the circle, there were no words; for in
the silence the good spirits may speak, and well they knew that it is a
big thing to sit in judgment.
And after a time of silence and deep thought, the door-flap of the
lodge was pushed aside by two who came—an old man bent with many loads,
and a woman in whose eyes the spring still lived. And when the two had
sat down without the circle, the head chief spoke: “Let the man speak
first.” Then the old man, who had brought the woman, arose.
“Fathers, you see a man with a sad heart, for I have brought my
daughter before you for judgment. The things which she has told me I
could have buried very deep in my breast; but I am old, and the wisdom
of the old is mine. Who can bury a bad thing deeper than the spirits
see?
“And so I am here to make sharp words against myself, for the father
and the child are one.
“You remember that the season of singing frogs [April] has passed
three times since one of the palefaces came among us. He was a
paleface, but he was not like his brothers who find gladness in doing
deeds that are bad. You have not forgotten how his words and deeds were
kind, his voice very good to hear, nor how his face had the beauty of a
woman’s, though it was not a woman’s face. Also his hands were white as
the first snow fallen on a green place; and his hair was long like the
hair of our people, but it clung about his head like a brown cloud when
the evening is old.
“He was hungry and lean when he came among us. His pony was hungry and
lean. And we took him in with glad hearts; we lit the feast fires for
him; his pony we staked in our greenest places: for he was not like his
brothers.
“And we called him ‘the man with the singing box,’ for he brought with
him a thing of wood and sinews; and over this, while we feasted, he
drew a stick of wood with the hair of a pony’s tail fastened to it,
making songs sweeter than those of our best women singers, and deeper
than the voices of men who are glad.
“Much we wondered at this, for the magic of the paleface is a great
magic. And as he made the wood and sinews sing together, we forgot to
eat and the feast fires fell blue; for never before had such a singing
been heard in our lands. And once he made it sing a battle song that
snarled like a wounded rattlesnake in a dry place, and cried like an
angry warrior, and shrieked like arrows, and thundered like many pony
hoofs, and wailed like the women when the band comes back with dead
braves across the backs of ponies. And as he made it sing this song,
even we who were wise leaped to our feet and drew forth our weapons
and shouted the war cry of our people—so great was the song. And when
our shouting ceased, the man made the medicine box sing low and sweet
and thin like a woman crying over a sick _zhinga zhinga_ [baby] in the
night. And we forgot the battle cries; we gave tears like old women.
“Do you remember? This is the man of whom I speak.
“Many young moons grew old and passed away, and still he lived among
us, until, lo! he was even as our kinsman, for he learned the tongue of
our people, being great of wit.
“And he told us of a wanderer whose own people were unkind to him; a
tale of one who was not of the people of whom he was born, because he
loved the spirits that sing, more than a very rich man loves his herds
of ponies blackening many hills where they graze. And it was of himself
he told; he was the wanderer. So we loved him because of this and
because of his kind words and because of the song which he made in his
medicine box.
“And all the while my girl here was growing taller—very good to see.
Many times I said to my woman, ‘There is something growing between
these two.’ And we both saw it with glad hearts, for he was a great
man.
“And one night in my first sleep I was awakened by a crying of sorrows
better to hear than laughter—a moan that grew loud and fell again into
softness like a night wind wailing in a lonesome place where thickets
grow. And my woman beside me whispered, ‘It is the spirits singing.’
But the girl here only breathed very hard. I could hear her breathing
in the darkness.
“And I got up; I pushed the skin flap aside; I stood as though I were
in a dream. For there by the tepee stood the man with the singing box
at his neck. His long, white fingers worked upon the sinews; his arm
drew the hair-stick up and down. His face looked to the sky and the
white fires of the night were upon it. Never had I seen such a face;
for it was not a man’s face nor yet a woman’s. It was the face of a
good man’s spirit come back from the star-paths. I looked at his lips,
for it seemed that the singing grew up from his mouth; but his lips
were very still.
“And my eyes made tears; for many forgotten sorrows came back to me at
once, and I felt a great kindness for all things, which I could not
understand.
“And when he dropped his arm and looked at me, his eyes threw soft,
white fire into my breast, and then I knew the singing was not for me.
Once when my woman was young and still in the lodge of her father, I
looked upon her with such a look.
“So I gave the girl to the paleface; and for a time the singing box was
still; for they made a silent music between them. And before the first
frosts made the hills shiver, the palefaces who trade for furs came to
our village, and the man went with them; and with him went the woman.
No man can be deaf to the call of his kind; so he went. And now the
woman shall speak, and you shall judge her deed.”
The old man sat down and rested his face in his hands. The young woman
arose to her feet. With lips parted the chiefs bent forward to catch
the words which should fall from her mouth. Tall and thin she was,
and shapely. But the shadows of a great toil and a great sorrow clung
about her lean cheeks and under her black eyes, grown too big with much
weeping.
“Fathers,” she began, “I will tell you how my bad deed grew upon me;
and you shall judge. I will take the punishment, for I have felt much
aching of the breast and I can stand yet a little more.
“Three summers ago I followed the man of the singing box into the
North. This you know—but the rest you do not know. It is the way of
the paleface to toil for the white metal. They showed my man the white
metal, and it led him into the North among strange peoples, where there
is much gathering of furs. And I went with him, for a woman is weak and
must follow the man.
“Far into the North we went where the Smoky Water runs thin so that a
very little man can throw a stone across it. And the singing box went
with us.
“And we built a lodge of logs, after the manner of his people, near to
a great log lodge where the big pale chief lived and said words that
should be obeyed. And for a time our hearts sang together. But when the
snows had come, it happened that the big pale chief spoke a word, and
my man went with his brothers, driving many dogs further into the North
where there are furs of much worth.
“And when my man left he said, ‘Take good care of Vylin while I am
gone, for she is dearer to me than my life.’ And I stared at him
because I did not understand. It was the singing box of which he spoke;
as though it were a person he spoke of it; he called it Vylin; and much
I wondered.
“But because my heart was warm toward the man, I did acts of kindness
to the singing box, which he called Vylin; for I had not yet learned
that it was no box of wood, but the spirit of a dead woman of the
palefaces.
“Through the long cold nights I held it close to me under the blankets.
And often in the night I was awakened by its crying when in my sleep
I touched it strongly. Like a _zhinga zhinga_ [baby] it cried; and my
heart was softened toward it, for I had no child then. Through the days
I talked to Vylin. I washed it much that it might be clean and of a
good smell. And often it made soft sounds like a _zhinga zhinga_ that
is glad. Then would I hold it to my dry breasts and sing to it.
“But more and more I learned that it was no box of wood, but a living
thing. For I began to see that it had the shape of a woman. Its neck
was very slender; its head was small; and its hair fell in four little
braids across its neck and breast down to its hips. And the more I
learned, the more my breast ached; for he loved Vylin, and her voice
was sweeter for singing than my voice. And I thought much of how she
sang for him alone. And I said, ‘She does not sing for me—only for him
does she sing; therefore she loves him well.’
“When the grass came again and the ice broke up, my man came back with
the furs and the dogs and the men. They came floating down the river
on big canoes. And I sang when he came again into his lodge, for the
winter had been long. Also, I showed him how kind I had been to Vylin;
I thought he would be very glad. But he frowned and spoke sharp words.
He said it was wrong to wash Vylin. My breast ached; I could not
understand. Does not a good mother wash her _zhinga zhinga_, that it
may be clean and of a good smell? I had no _zhinga zhinga_ then, and so
I had been a mother to Vylin.
“And when I told him this, he laughed a very harsh laugh, and said it
was Vylin, not a _zhinga zhinga_; so that I was sad until he spoke a
very soft word, then I forgot for many days.
“But as the grass grew taller and the scent of green things blew in
every wind, my man grew strange toward me. Like a man with the ache for
home he was. And more and more it became his mood to be very silent
while he made Vylin sing to him—O such strange, soft songs, like
spirits weeping!
“And more and more my heart grew sore toward Vylin, for when I sang
that he might forget her to look upon me, he frowned and spoke sharp
words.