I said to him: ‘If so softly you should lay your fingers upon _my_
neck, I too could sing as sweetly!’ And he smiled, and it was like the
sun breaking through a cloud that has hung long over the day. And he
drew me close to him and said: ‘Do you see the leaves upon this tree,
and do you know how many?’ And I laughed, for I was glad, and in the
old days it had often been his wish to joke so. But he said: ‘So many
of the palefaces have listened to me making Vylin sing; and they wept
to hear. But now am I far away and strange peoples are about me.’
“And that was the last of my gladness for many moons; for more and more
he wished to be silent. And when the snows came again he went away.
And I was very lonesome and sad until I knew that I would be a mother.
Then my heart sang, for I said: ‘Now, my man will look upon me again
and speak soft words as in the old times. Does Vylin bring him _zhinga
zhingas?_’
“And all through the cold days I was glad; my heart was soft. I took
good care of Vylin; I was kind to her, for at last I thought that she
would be second in his heart. I pitied her as I thought this. I washed
her no more, but ever through the frosty nights I kept her warm with
many blankets, even though I shivered.
“And when the grass came my man came also. And another came, a _nu
zhinga_ [boy]. But my man looked with cold eyes upon my _zhinga
zhinga_; so I wept many nights, many, many nights. And much weeping
made me not good to see. So the man looked upon me no more; only upon
Vylin did he look. With very soft eyes did he look upon her; with such
eyes did he look upon me in the old days.
“My heart grew very bitter. Often I heard him talking soft talk to
her—such as he talked to me in the old times. And I wished to tear her
hair, her yellow hair from her head! I wished to kill her, to walk upon
her, to hear her groan, to see her die!”
The woman’s eyes flashed a battle light. Her hands were clenched, her
face was sharp and cruel. Very tall she grew in her anger—a mother of
fighting men.
“And that night,” she said, “I threw angry words at the man. I spoke
bad things of Vylin. I called great curses down upon her. And I said:
‘She sings, but does she bring you sons to feed you when you are old?’
And he laughed with a harsh sound.
“So that night when the man slept I got up very stealthily from the
blankets. My breast ached, and many black spirits pressed their fingers
into my heart. I took a knife—a very sharp knife. I uncovered Vylin
where she lay sleeping in her blankets. I felt for the place where her
heart should be. Then I struck, struck, struck! Very deep I sent the
sharp knife, and I laughed to hear the great groan that Vylin made as
she died.
“And also the man heard. He leaped from his blankets. He struck me with
his fist; he beat me. He called down all the big curses of his people
upon me. He gave me the _nu zhinga_. He pushed me from the door into
the darkness.
“‘Begone!’ he said, ‘for you have killed Vylin!’
“And I went into the darkness with my _nu zhinga_. Many days have I
walked with much hunger; and always the _nu zhinga_ was a heavy burden.
And now I am thin; my feet are weary; my breast aches.”
* * * * *
A deep sighing shook the young woman as she sat down. The old man
arose, and there was a sound of heavy breathing as he spoke to the
chiefs who sat to judge: “My girl has spoken of her bad deed. She has
killed the singing spirit that the paleface loved. How shall she be
punished?”
And after a long stillness the head chief spoke: “The heart of a woman
is a strange thing, a tender thing; who shall judge it?”
And one by one they who sat to judge arose and left the big lodge.
XVII
MIGNON
“BUT, Yellow Fox,” I protested, “no one understands them; they do not
understand themselves!”
Yellow Fox grunted and smiled, showing a very white set of wolfish
teeth. We two were sitting together outside the lodge, and, male-like,
we had hit upon the topic of woman. The locust-like cadences of the
songs and the shuffle of dancing feet came muffled to us. The scent of
boiling beef and the good smoke-tang of wood fires permeated the sultry
night air, lifting my not overcivilised fancy back into the spacious
star-hung feast rooms of the dead years, where big-boned, brawny,
fighting men indulged their lusts for steaming haunches. The full moon
lifted a Rabelaisian face of lusty red above the hills, and I saw by
its light the eager spirit of the story-teller bright in the eyes of
Yellow Fox.
“What they understand I do not know,” he began; “I only know I do not
understand. And I have travelled far. When I was a young man, many
strange valleys knew my feet, and from many hilltops my eyes looked
forth. For from my first moccasins my feet caught the itch for going.
And in many villages of strange peoples I have lived for little
spaces, until the feasts were tasteless and the maidens ugly. Then did
my moccasins itch my feet again, so that I went forth and sought new
feasts, other maidens.
“And I have known many maidens. None of them did I understand; and
least of all—Mignon.
“Even to-night something of the soft summer smell of her is in my nose;
and if I were not old I would walk far, walk far; for that smell is
like a voice calling over big waters and many valleys—a voice so far
away that the ear does not catch it—so thin that it is no sound, but a
feeling.
“Have I told you how that a white man came to our lands once and led
me on a long, strange trail? It happened so. He was a keeper of many
strange men and many horses and many strange animals, and for money he
showed these to many peoples, and so grew rich.
“And the man showed me much money; he told me of new lands and new
peoples; he spoke of feasts, of women that were as dreams. Therefore,
I felt the itch in my feet again, and I went with the man. And we came
at last to many big tepees, where the man kept the strange things that
he showed to the people for money. One of his tepees was as big as the
village of a tribe—and he had many.
“I had my place among all these strange things; for the white man said:
‘You are the wild man that growls like a bear and eats babies. I give
you money and you must look very wild and growl much when the boys
stick at you with straws.’ And this was good fun.
“So I stood twice every day fastened to a post by a thong of metal.
The people stood about me and stared. I growled, I pulled at the
fastenings, I ate raw meat; I was very wild. Many came to see, and when
I would have gone back to the lands of my people, the white man showed
me more money, so that I stayed.
“We travelled very far with the big tepees. We came to the Big Salty
Water, but we did not stop there; we crossed it—and were in another
land.
“And then there was a big village—a very big village. There we stopped,
and the people came to see.
“You know that vill’ge—Par’s—Par’s?” asked Yellow Fox, falling
momentarily into English.
“Yes, Paris,” I corrected, “and you were with Barnum.”
“Ah,” he assented, speaking his own tongue again; “and it is a village
of women that make the eyes glad and the blood quick! I stood many
days, growling for the people and eating raw meat. And one day Mignon
came. A young man of her own people was with her. They stared and
talked much together. Some of their talk I knew, for it was the talk
that the fur traders used, and my father’s father was a trader for furs.
“And Mignon made the eyes glad. She was tall for a woman and not thick.
The women of my people are short and thick. Her face was very white,
and her eyes were big and deep—like waters in a shadow.
“And the man made jokes at me that stung like elkhorn whips, for he was
thin and looked as one whose blood is half water. I could have choked
him with two fingers like a worm. _So!_”
Yellow Fox snapped his fingers viciously.
“And it pleased the young man to shove his finger into my ribs and
laugh. So I grasped his arm very hard. I put his finger to my mouth; I
bit it and the blood came. He cried _ow ow_; then I said to the woman,
using what speech of hers I knew: ‘Take this baby man of yours away or
I will eat him, for I am hungry. But you are good to see; I like you;
touch me.’
“And she, wondering that I spoke her speech, touched me!
“Ah—everything was changed!”
Yellow Fox suddenly passed into a subconscious mood. The moon, grown
pale with its ascent, illumined his masterful male features, over which
I could see the dream of old days flitting like a ghost. The song of
the women dancing about the feast fires within arose into a high and
tenuous minor of yearning, filling up the momentary gap in the story
like a chorus. In the wake of the passing gust of song, the voice of
Yellow Fox arose, soft, low, musical—the voice of memory.
“Her hands she laid upon me—soft and white and thin, they were. She
passed them over the muscles of my breast; she stroked my arms. Soft
as a mother’s touch was hers; like a mother’s touch—but I felt a fire
burning at her finger tips, that made me wish to fight big men for her,
and make them bleed and make them groan and make them die, slobbering
blood in the dust! Then afterward to take her far away, thrown across
my back like a dead fawn; to build a lodge for her in a lonesome place
where man’s face never was!
“Much hair she had—much hair that hung above her face like a dark
cloud upon a white sky at evening. And it brushed across my breast! I
shivered as in a wind that drives the snow before it—and yet I was not
cold.
“And then she was gone—swallowed up in the river of people. But not all
of her was gone. A smell sweeter than the earth-smell when the spring
rains fall was in my nostrils! A smell that gnawed within me like a
hunger—yet I did not wish to eat! A smell of soft, white flesh—oh, very
soft and white! And now in my old age I call that smell Mignon.
“And the people, like a noisy, muddy stream, flowed round me, past me.
But I growled no more; for I did not wish for fun. I hated them—they
stank! An ache like the ache for home was upon me; an ache like the
ache of a man who smells the home-smoke in a dream and wakes far off
from home.
“Two sunlights passed—and in the evening I stood under many lights,
bound with the iron thongs; and the noisy, stinking stream of people
was about me. Their staring eyes were as many bugs that swarmed about
and stung me. I strained at the iron thongs; I hurled the black curses
of my people in among them—and they were pleased. But this was no play;
I wished to rush among them and walk upon them; for I had seen, and now
no longer did I see.
“But suddenly the smell came back! It grew up like the smell of spring
when the ice makes thunder in the rivers and the flowers come out! And
she was there beside me.
“I forgot the people; I was no longer angry. I was in a big lonesome
prairie with the sunlight and the singing winds, and she was with me,
and all the air seemed soft and cool as when a black-winged raincloud
shuts out a day of heat.
“I can feel her hands upon me yet.”
* * * * *
Yellow Fox sighed. A passionate outburst of song from the dancers
within filled the quiet night with sounds of longing, through which the
cowhide drums throbbed feverishly, like a heart.
“And the words she spoke were soft. They made me wish to shout the
mating songs of my people. They made me very strong. And then I learned
her name—Mignon.
“Mignon! Mignon! Such a sound the spring winds make among the first
leaves; and yet—it is not all a sound; it is part a smell!
“And after that she came often; every evening she came, like a south
wind blowing over prairies sweet with rain at sunset. Many things she
asked me and I told her many things. I made with my mouth a picture of
my own lands; and some of it she put in a little book, and some she
only drank with all her face, as though she was thirsty.
“And they who had travelled far with us, the pitchers of the tepees and
the tenders of the animals, laughed softly in passing, showing their
teeth in mirth—for were they not jealous?
“One night she did not come. And it happened on that night that the big
tepees were folded up for another trail; and in the morning we were far
away. My breast cried out for her; my nose longed for the smell which
was Mignon.
“So I spoke of her to the pitchers of the tepees, and they laughed very
loud and long, sending forth breaths that stank as they laughed. They
said bad things of Mignon. They said, ‘Can you not understand? She is
of those that her people have cast out.’ And this made my breast cry
out for her again; for was I not also alone? Were not my own people
far away? But the rest of it I knew to be another white man’s lie! One
liar I struck very hard in the teeth; and when he got up from the dust,
slobbering blood and toddling like a baby, he laughed no more and said
no more bad things of Mignon. And was this not proof that he had lied?
“Is the first earth-smell of the spring bad? Had not many maidens of
the prairies longed for me; and were they not good? Was I not big and
of heavy muscles? Was I not young and good for the eyes of women?
“Since I am old and much withered, I can say this; for I have become
another man.”
* * * * *
The song of the women-singers within had ceased, but the sullen drums
kept up a throbbing snarl. At length the voice of Yellow Fox continued
in a low monotone:
“We stopped in many big villages; and my breast was sick. More and more
I wished for the prairies. At night I heard the dry winds singing in
the grasses. I spoke no more of Mignon, for I was afraid to hear again
the laughter of the pitchers of the tepees. One more laugh would have
made my eyes blind with blood, and I would have killed.
“I lost the wish to eat; I grew shadow-thin. So the owner of the tepees
said: ‘This wild man is dying for a sight of his prairies; I will send
him back.’
“I travelled far, and again I was in my own land. I saw the hills; I
smelled the smoke of the fires of my people. But this no longer filled
me. I had seen, and now no longer could I see.
“And the winter came. I sat alone much, and as I sat alone, I had big
thoughts. I said: ‘This that I have seen was a dream thing. It is gone;
and I cannot find the sleep trail that leads to it again. Therefore,
I will do as others. I will take a woman of my own people. I will eat
again; for this dream has only made me thin.’
“So I made a young woman of my people glad. I took her into my lodge.
But even through the time of driving snows, I smelled the smell of
spring. Mignon! Mignon! I heard the rain winds singing in the first
leaves! Mignon! Mignon! I heard the sighing of summer waters! Mignon!
Mignon! It was half a sound and half a smell—dream sound, dream
smell—so thin, so thin!
“And the time came when the big swift arrows of the geese flew
northward, spreading softness as of many camp fires in all the air;
and the River wakened and shook itself, shouting with a hoarse voice
into the south. The green things came, and there was a singing of frogs
where the early rains made pools. The smell, which was Mignon, breathed
up out of the earth; the sound, which was Mignon, lived in the trees
and grasses.
“And then the time came when it is no longer the spring, and not yet
quite the summer. One evening I sat before my lodge, smoking and
thinking big thoughts. And the sun was low. A dust cloud grew far down
the road that twisted like a yellow snake toward the village of the
white men. It was a waggon coming. It grew bigger; a white man was
driving it. It came near; there was a woman in it. I stared very hard;
I rubbed my eyes, for what I saw was as though it had all grown up out
of my pipe smoke.
“The woman was tall and not thick. Much hair she had—much hair that
hung above her face like a black cloud upon a white sky in the
evening. And in all the air about, there grew a smell sweeter than the
earth-smell when the spring rains fall. I sat very still; I did not
wish to frighten the dream away. And the woman came toward me with much
rustling of garments, like the speaking of green leaves in the wind or
the thin, small drumming of raindrops.
“Then, between the puffing of two smoke rings, the Spring had grown
big—and was the Summer! It was Mignon! It was Mignon!”
* * * * *
Yellow Fox lifted his face to the full moon, and his voice was raised
to a poignant cry as he uttered the word that was half sound, half
smell. Then for some time he brooded with his chin resting in his
hands, while the women-singers within filled the heavy air with
wailings. At length he sat up and leisurely filled his pipe. His face
had become a wrinkled mask again. He smoked awhile, then passing the
pipe to me, he continued, and his voice was thick as though he still
breathed smoke:
“After the snows have run away, the earth-smell rises and all things
grow drunk with it. The he-wolf sniffs it; he forgets his last year’s
mate; he takes another and forgets. The air and the earth and the water
are full of new loves, and nothing is ashamed.
“It was so.
“When the next sunlight came I made ready for the trail. I rolled up
my tepee. All the while my woman stared upon the woman who had come,
with eyes made sharp with hate. I called in my ponies from the grazing
places. I hitched a pony to the drag. I put upon the drag the tepee and
the food and the little box that Mignon had brought with her—a box of
many garments—garments that made songs when she walked, like the songs
of rain in the leaves. I lifted Mignon upon the drag-pony’s back, and
we rode away on the summer trail.
“I heard my woman wailing and crying out bitterly in my lodge, but a
spirit led me on—the spirit that calls the green things out in the
spring—the spirit that whispers into the ear of the sleeping River and
makes it leap up and shout and tear the thongs that bind it—the spirit
that makes the wolves cry out in the lonesome places that the mate may
hear. That spirit went calling down the trail I followed.
“And we came to a place by the river where the hills were high and many
leaves made coolness. There I pitched the tepee; and the days were as
little flashes of light, and the nights were as little shadows passing.
“Never before had I found it so good to live. Mignon made songs that
laughed and cried; and when she did not sing, the rustle of her
garments was a song. I became as a squaw; I brought the wood and water;
I made the fires; I cooked. I was bowed before her. Never before had I
bowed before anyone, for I was strong. I could not understand. She was
so soft and white and of so sweet a smell!
“But the time came when she no longer sang. She grew silent, and each
day gazed long upon the river. Her hands touched me no more with the
touch of soft fires. So I grew kinder still. I spoke soft words. I made
sweet sounds to call her. But she frowned and pushed me away.
“My breast ached much, so I said: ‘You think always of that baby man
whose finger I bit. I could choke him with my fingers—_so_!’ But she
laughed in my face, making sharp jokes to fling at me. I was stung as
with whips when the whippers are angry. I said: ‘Go back to your baby
man!’
“I did not wish her to go; they were the words of my anger. But she got
up very straight and tall. There was lightning in her eyes. Thunder
slept in her face. And her hair seemed as a black cloud that blows up
angrily out of the hot south!
“She went to the tepee; she made ready to go; and all the while I
watched with fires in my breast. Then suddenly she turned upon me—her
face was a flame. She flung words at me: ‘You are all the same!’ She
spit in my face! I have been struck in the teeth by strong men, but
never have I felt so hard a blow. I sat as a man in a dream. I heard
the angry song of her skirts as she fled up the back-trail. And then
I was as one who wakens with a great hunger, and smells raw meat! I
leaped up; I ran after her; I meant to kill her!
“I caught her; I struck her with my fist, even as I struck the man who
lied. I put my fingers at her throat and pressed very hard. I carried
her back to the tepee. I thought I had killed her.
“Oh, the smell of her flesh as she lay very still—as though I had
stepped upon a flower!
“And then after a long time, when my breast was growing sick, she
opened her eyes and looked upon me. O tender, tender were her eyes and
full of soft fires! It was the old look, only it was stronger. She
raised herself to her knees; she put her arms around my neck; she put
her lips on my lips; she called me soft names!
“I thought this was some woman’s trick. I pushed her from me. I said:
‘I am hungry; you are my squaw; cook my food!’ And she brought wood
and water; she made a fire; she worked for me. All the while her eyes
were soft, and often she touched me with finger tips that burned as of
old with soft fires. I could not understand. When I was kind, then was
she not kind. And now, with the blue marks of my angry fingers at her
throat, she worked for me, her eyes were soft for me, her finger-tips
were warm for me. I cannot understand.”
Yellow Fox took the pipe from my hands and smoked long in silence. He
sighed deeply, breathing in great breaths of smoke. At length, growing
impatient, I ventured a question: “And what became of Mignon?”
He laid down his pipe and said in a low voice: “The woman who wailed
in the lodge had not forgotten!
“The plums ripened,” he continued, “and the flowers that bloomed upon
our summer trail were heavy with seed. The hills grew brown. A greyness
like smoke was in all the air. The grapes hung thick and purple.
“And it happened one night when the first small pinch of frost was in
the air, that Mignon would sing soft baby songs, such as the mothers of
her people sang, she said. Oh, such soft, low songs! I hear them yet.
A kindness was in her face, like that in the face of a young mother. I
saw it by the light of the wood fire that held the frost away. And when
she had sung much, as to a child, she put her hands upon my shoulders
and she said a strange thing. This is what she said, I remember:
‘Sometime, Yellow Fox, I will sing to your _zhinga zhinga_ [baby]; will
you be glad?’
“And I wondered much, for her eyes were wet when she said it.
“And that night she fell to sleep with her soft hands clutching my arm.
And something made me wish to sing. I watched her sleeping, and there
was an ache in my breast when I remembered the feel of my angry fingers
at her throat. And then I slept.
“But in that time when the night is deepest and sleep is like a weight
upon the eyes, a sharp cry woke me. I leaped up. The fire was almost
dead. I heard feet flying through the dead leaves into the darkness.
One hand felt warm and wet; I raised it to my nose and it was blood.
And then I heard a gasping for breath and a sound of gurgling. I put my
hand upon the breast of Mignon—and it was wet with blood!
“I scraped the embers together and made a little flame. I looked upon
her face and it had the look of death. Eyes that ached she turned upon
me. I stopped the blood with torn garments. I called her soft names and
she clutched my fingers. Then she was very quiet. I could hear leaves
dropping out in the night.
“And when the face of the night turned grey, she opened her eyes that
were hot and dry. With very weak hands she drew my ear close to her
lips. She breathed a little broken piece of song—a baby song—a song of
the mothers of her people. And when I looked upon her again, her face
was pinched, her eyes stared.”
* * * * *
Yellow Fox lapsed into another prolonged silence. The dancers and
singers in the lodge had ceased. A heavy, sultry silence filled the
night. When he spoke again his voice came low and muffled:
“I buried her after the manner of my people. I sang the songs of the
dead. Above her grave I killed the pony that she rode. And then I
went away upon the trail that was no more the trail of summer. But
the winds in the grasses sang her name. Mignon! Mignon! I heard the
rain winds singing in the first leaves. Mignon! Mignon! I heard the
sighing of summer waters. Mignon! Mignon! I smelled the smell of
spring. Everywhere it was—Mignon!—half sound, half smell—dream-sound,
dream-smell—so thin—so thin.”
XVIII
A POLITICAL COUP AT LITTLE OMAHA
THE struggle for Congressional honours in the Third District of
Nebraska was to be a hard one. The white voters of the District were
about evenly divided between the two parties, and therefore the
necessary elective majority was to be found among the Omaha Indians,
whose reservation lies in this district.
So this remnant of the Dark Ages became of pivotal importance in
Twentieth Century politics; and it was here, in the wildest land of the
district, that the decisive battle of strategy must be fought.
For practical purposes, the intelligent white voter ceased to exist,
and there was only a slothful, ignorant band of semi-savages who should
choose by chance the national representative of educated thousands.