Kitabı oku: «The Sun Maid: A Story of Fort Dearborn», sayfa 5
“See, Gaspar, Dark-Eye. I will fetch you a line and hook. Sit quiet and draw out our supper – when it bites!”
“But I have a far better hook than that in my pocket; and a line the Sauganash gave me, one day. I am a good fisher, Wahneenah. How many fish do you want for your supper?”
“You are a good boaster, any way, pale-face, like all your race; and I want just as many fish as will satisfy our hunger. If you had your bow here, you might wing us a bird. Though that would not be wise, maybe. Keep an eye to the Sun Maid, lest she slip in the brook.”
“This is a funny place. It is an island, isn’t it? Like the pictures in my geography; and there is a little creek through it, and another in a cave, and – I think it is beautiful. But you’re funny, too, Wahneenah. You say my Kitty is a ‘spirit,’ and ‘nothing can harm her,’ yet you watch out for her getting hurt closer than the other mothers did.”
“You see too much, Dark-Eye. But – well, she is a spirit in a girl’s body. If you let evil happen her it will be the worse for you. Hear me?”
“I wouldn’t let her get into trouble any sooner than you would, Wahneenah. I love her, too. She hasn’t any folks, and I haven’t any, except you, of course. She belongs to me.”
“Oh! she does? Well. Enough. We all belong to each other. We have made the bond.”
When the woman returned from her search in the cavern her face was very grave. Yet it should have been delighted, for she had found not only the corn and the other things she remembered, but a goodly store of articles, quite too fresh and modern to have remained there since she last visited the spot. There were dried beans, salted beef, cakes of sugar from her old maple trees – she knew her own mark upon them; and, besides these, were flour and tea in packages, such as had been distributed from Fort Dearborn among as many Indians as were entitled to receive them. It was both puzzling and disappointing to find her retreat discovered and appropriated by somebody else.
“It must be that Shut-Hand has, in some way, found this cavern out. All the other people would have eaten and enjoyed their good things, and not stored them up, like this. But he is crafty and secretive, and his name is his character.”
Had Wahneenah hunted further she would have found, in addition to the provisions, a considerable quantity of broadcloth, calico, and paint; which articles, also, had been among those recently secured from the garrison. But she neither examined very closely nor touched anything except that for which she had come to the recess; and she even forced herself to put the matter out of mind, for the time being.
“I have brought my children here to make a holiday for them. I will not, therefore, darken it by my forebodings. The young live only in the present or the future. I, too, will again become young. I will forget all that is past.”
From that wonderful pocket of his, Gaspar took a decent hook and line, and easily proved his skill among fish that were too seldom disturbed to have learned any fear; while Wahneenah made a tiny fire of dried twigs, in the mouth of the cavern, and boiled her prepared corn, that she had broken and ground between two stones, into a sort of mush. With Gaspar’s fish, broiled upon the live coals, the pudding sweetened by a bit of honey from a close sealed crock, and a draught of water from the underground stream, the trio made a fine supper; and afterward, when she had carefully cleared away the débris, Wahneenah rekindled the fire, and, sitting beside it, took the Sun Maid on her knee and drew the motherless Dark-Eye within the shelter of her arm.
Then she told them tales and legends of the wide prairies and distant mountains; and her own manner gave them thrilling interest, because she believed in them quite as sincerely as did her small, wide-eyed listeners.
“Tell it once more, Other Mother. That beau’ful one ’bout the little papoose that hadn’t any shoes, and the flowers growed her some. Just like mine”; holding up her own tiny moccasined feet, and rubbing them together in the comfortable heat.
“Once upon a time a little girl papoose was lost. The enemies of her people had come to her father’s village, and had scattered all her tribe. There was not one of them left alive except the little maid.”
“I guess that’s just like Kitty, isn’t it?”
“No. No, it is not,” replied the story-teller, quickly. For she had felt a shiver run through Gaspar’s body, and pressed it close in warm protection. “No. It is not like either of you. For to you is Wahneenah, the Mother; the sister of a chief who lives and is powerful. But this was away in the long past, before even I was born. So the girl papoose found herself wandering on the prairie, and it was the time of frost. The ground was frozen beneath the grasses, which were stiff and rough and cut the tender feet that a mother’s hand had hitherto carried in her own palm.”
“Show me how, Mother Wahneenah.”
“Just this way Sweetheart,” clasping the tiny moccasins in a loving caress.
“Tell some more. I guess the fire is going to make Kitty sleepy, by and by.”
“Sleep, then, if you will, Girl-Child.”
“And then?”
“Then, when the little one was very cold and tired and lonely she remembered something: it was that she had seen her own mother lift her two hands to the sky and ask the Great Spirit for all she might need.”
“He always hears, doesn’t He?”
“He hears and answers. But sometimes the answers are what He sees is best, not what we want.”
“Don’t sigh that way, Other Mother! S’posin’ your little boy did go away. Haven’t you got Gaspar and Kitty?”
“Yes, little one.”
“Go on, then. About the little maid – just like me.”
“So she put her own two tiny hands up toward the sky and asked the Great Spirit to put soft shoes on her tired little feet.”
“And He did, didn’t He?”
“Surely. First the pain eased and that made her look down. And there she saw a pair of the softest moccasins that ever were made. They were of pale pink and yellow, and all dotted with dark little bead-spots; and they fitted as easily as her own dainty skin. Then the girl papoose was grateful, and she begged the Great Spirit that He would make many and many another pair of just such comfortable shoes for every other little barefoot maid in all the world. That not one single child should ever suffer what the girl papoose had suffered.”
“Did He?” asked Gaspar, as interested as Kitty.
“Yes. Surely. The prayer of the unselfish and innocent is always granted. He sent a voice out of the sky and bade the child look all about her. So she did, and the whole wide prairie was a-bloom with more pink and yellow ‘shoes’ than all the children in all the earth could ever wear. They were growing right out of the hard ground, reaching up to be plucked and worn. So she cried out aloud in her gratitude: ‘Oh, the moccasin flower! the moccasin flower!’ and ever since then this shoe-like blossom has been beloved of all the children in the world. But, because the heat burns as well as the cold pinches, it blooms nowadays at all times and seasons of the year. A few flowers here, a few there; but quite enough for any child to find – who has the right spirit.”
“Kitty must have had the spirit, mustn’t she, Other Mother? That day when her feets were so tired and the good Feather-man found her. ’Cause she had lots and lots of them; only she went to sleep and they all solemned down. And – ”
Gaspar started suddenly and held up a warning hand. His quick ear had caught the sound of approaching feet, crushing boldly through the cavern, like the tread of one who knows his way well and is coming to his own.
Wahneenah had also heard, though she had continued her story, making no sign that she was inwardly disturbed. But she now paused and listened whether this footfall were one she knew, either of friend or foe. Then a bush cracked behind them, and Gaspar’s heart stood still, as the tall form of an Indian warrior pushed past them into the firelight.
CHAPTER IX.
AT MUCK-OTEY-POKEE
Wahneenah did not lift her eyes. For the moment an unaccustomed fear held her spellbound, and it was the Sun Maid’s happy cry which roused her at length, and restored them all to composure.
“Black Partridge! My own dear Feather-man!”
With a spring, the child threw herself upon the Indian’s breast and clasped his neck with her trustful arms. It was, perhaps, this confidence of hers in the good-will of all her friends that made them in return hold her so dear. Certain it was that the chief’s face now assumed that expression of gentleness which was the attribute small Kitty ascribed to him, but which among his older acquaintances was not considered a leading trait of his character. Just he always was, but rather severe than gentle; and Wahneenah marked, with some surprise, the caressing touch he laid upon the Sun Maid’s floating hair as he quietly set her down and himself dropped upon a ledge to rest.
“You are welcome, my brother. Though, at first, I feared it was some alien who had discovered our cave.”
“It is not the habit of the Happy to fear. She who forebodes danger where no danger is but paves the way to her own destruction.”
Wahneenah glanced at her brother sharply.
“It is the Truth-Teller himself who has put foreboding into my soul. He – and the new-born love which the Sun Maid has brought.”
The face of Black Partridge fell again into that dignified gravity which was its habitual expression and he sat for a long time with the “dream-look” in his eyes, gazing straightforward into the embers of their little fire.
“Is you hungry, Feather-man? We did have such a beau’ful supper. Nice Other Mother can cook fishes and cakes and – things. Shall she cook you some fish, Black Partridge?”
“Will my chief eat the food I prepare for him?” asked Wahneenah, seconding the child’s invitation.
“With pleasure. For one hour he will let the cares of his life slip from him. He will have this night of peace, and while the meal is getting he will sleep.”
With a sigh of relief the tall Indian moved a few steps back into the cave and stretched himself at length upon the ground. His eyes closed, and before Gaspar had made ready his line to catch the fresh trout he had sunk into a profound slumber.
Wahneenah put her finger to her lip to signify silence, but she need not have done so. Gaspar had long ago learned the red man’s noiseless ways, and the Sun Maid immediately placed herself beside the prostrate chief, and clasping his hand that lay on his breast snuggled her cheek against it, and followed his example.
The Black Partridge, like most of his race, could sleep anywhere, at any time, and for as long as he chose. He had elected to wake at the end of a half-hour, and he did so on the moment. Sitting up, he gently placed the still slumbering Sun Maid upon the ground and moved forward to the fire. While he ate the food she had provided for him, Wahneenah continued standing near, but a little behind him; ready to anticipate his needs, and with a humility of demeanor which she showed toward no other person.
Gaspar watched the pair, wondering if they could really be of the same race which had destroyed his childhood’s home, and now again that second home of his adoption – the Fort. He liked, and was impelled to trust them both, and was already learning to love his foster-mother. But when they began to converse in their own dialect, and with occasional glances toward himself and the sleeping Kitty, the native caution of his mind arose, and made him miserable. He remembered a byword of the Fort:
“The only safe Indian is a dead one”; and with a sudden sense of danger leaped to his feet and ran to bend above the unconscious maid.
“If you harm her, I’ll – I’ll – kill you!” he shouted fiercely.
Wahneenah looked amazed, but the Black Partridge instantly comprehended the working of the boy’s thoughts, and a smile of satisfaction faintly illumined his sombre features.
“It is well. Let every brave defend his own. The Dark-Eye is no coward. His years are few, but he has the heart of a warrior and a chief. He must begin, at once, to learn the speech of his new tribe. He that knows has doubled the strength of his arm. Draw near. There is good and not evil in the souls of the chief and his sister. We are Truth-Tellers. We cannot lie. We have pledged our faith to the Dark-Eye and the Sun Maid – though she needs it not.”
The sincerity and admiration in the Indian’s eyes compelled the lad’s obedience; and when, as he stepped into the firelight, the chief indicated that he should sit beside himself, and also nodded to Wahneenah to take her own place opposite, his heart swelled with pride and ambition. So had the white Captain trusted and counselled with him. He had been faithful through all that dreadful day of massacre, and he had felt the man’s spirit within his child-body. Now again, a commander of others, the wise leader of a different people, was honoring him with a share in his council. There must be good in him, and some sort of wisdom – even though so young – else they had paid him no heed. His cheek flushed, his breast heaved, and his beautiful eyes shone with the exultation that thrilled him.
“Let the chief pardon the child – which I was, but a moment ago. I am become a man. I will do a man’s task, now and forever. If I suspected evil where there was none, is it a wonder? I have told Wahneenah, the Happy, the story of my life. The Black Partridge knew it already.”
Quite unconsciously, Gaspar dropped into the Indian manner of speech, and he could not have done a better thing for himself had he pondered the matter for long. Black Partridge nodded approvingly, and remarked:
“Another Sauganash is here! Well, while the Sun Maid sleeps, let us consider the future. The evil days are near.”
“What is the evil that my brother, the chief, beholds with his inner vision?” questioned the woman.
“War and bloodshed. Still more of war, still more of death. In the end will our wigwams lie flat on the earth as fallen leaves, while the remnant of my people moves onward, forever onward toward the setting sun.”
Wahneenah kept a respectful silence, but in her heart she resented the dire forebodings of her chief. At last, when her brooding thought forced utterance, she inquired:
“Can not the wisdom of the Black Partridge hinder these days of calamity? If the great Gomo, and Winnemeg, and those white braves who have lived among us, as the Sauganash, take counsel together, and compel their tribes to keep the peace, and to copy of the pale-faces the arts which have made them so powerful – will not this avert the evil? Why may there not in some time and place, a mighty grave be digged in which may be buried all the guns that kill and the knives that scalp, with the arrows which fly more swiftly than a bird? Over all may there not be emptied the casks and bottles of the fearful fire-water, that, passing through the lips of a warrior, changes him to a beast? Then the red man and his pale brother may clasp hands together and abide, each upon the earth, where the Great Spirit placed him.”
“It is a dream. Dreams vanish. Even as now the night speeds, and we are far from home. It avails us not to think of what might – but never will – be. Occasional friendships bridge the feud between our alien races, but the feud remains. It is eternal. Endless as the years which will witness the gradual extinction of the weaker, because smaller, race. Let us dream no more. Has Wahneenah, my sister, observed how the store she left in the old cave has grown? How the few sealed jars have become many, and how there are heaps of the good gifts which the Great Father sent to his white children at the Fort for the red children’s use?”
“Yes. I thought it was the miser, Shut-Hand, who had placed them here in our cave.”
“It was I, the Black Partridge.”
“For what purpose, my brother?”
“Against the needs of the time I have foretold. It is a sanctuary. Here may Wahneenah, and the young son and daughter which have been given her, find shelter and sustenance.”
Something of her old tribal exultation seized the woman, who was a great chief’s daughter. Rising to her fullest height, her fine head thrown slightly back, she demanded, indignantly:
“Is the heart of my brother become like that of the papoose upon its mother’s shoulders? Was it not to the red men that the victory came, but so brief time past? What were all the pale-faces, in their gaudy costumes, with their music and their guns and their childish way of battle? The arrows of our people mowed them like the grass upon the prairie when a herd of wild horses feeds upon it. But yesterday they marched in pride and insolence, scorning us. To-day, they are carrion for the crows overhead, or they flee for safety like the cowards they were born. The Black Partridge has tarried too long among such as these. He has become their blood brother.”
The taunt was the fiercest she could give, and she gave it from a full heart. In ordinary so gentle and peace-loving she had been roused, for a moment, to a pitch of emotion which astonished even herself. Yet when, as if she had been a fractious child, the chief motioned her to again become seated, she obeyed him at once. She had set her thoughts free, indeed; but she would never presume to fight against the conditions which surrounded her; and obedience to tribal authority was inborn.
“The Snake-Who-Leaps will be at the tepee of my sister each day when the sun climbs to the point overhead. The three horses will be always ready. The children who do not know, and Wahneenah who has, maybe, forgotten how to ride, will practise as he instructs, until there will be no horse they cannot master, or no spot to which a horse may be guided that they do not know. But here first. That is why the store of food and cloths. At the first assault upon our Muck-otey-pokee, mount and ride. Ride as no squaw nor papoose ever rode before. Here the Black Partridge will seek them, and here, if the Great Spirit wills, they may be safe. Enough. Let the Dark-Eye go forward and make the horses ready.”
The Black Partridge rose as he spoke, and striding toward the sleeping Sun Maid, took her in his arms and left the spot. Gaspar, already darting onward toward the beloved Tempest, paused, for an instant, and regarded his chief anxiously. But when he saw that the little girl had not awakened, he sped forward again, and by the time Wahneenah had disposed of the remnants of the chief’s supper and followed, he had loosed the animals and led them to the nearest point for mounting.
Still holding the Sun Maid motionless upon his breast, the Black Partridge leaped to the back of his own magnificent stallion, which whinnied in affectionate welcome of his approach. Then he ordered Gaspar:
“Ride behind me on Tempest, and lead the Snowbird. Wahneenah will follow all on Chestnut.”
By the time they were out upon the prairie the wind had risen and the sky was heavily clouded. It was so dark that the boy could not see beyond the head of his own horse, but he could hear the steady, grass-softened footfall of the stallion as, with unerring directness, the Indian chieftain led the way homeward to the village.
When they rode into it, all Muck-otey-pokee seemed asleep; but the perennially young, though still venerable, Snake-Who-Leaps, had been prone before Wahneenah’s wigwam, and silently rose from the ground as they drew rein beside him.
“Ah, the Sleepless! The Wise Man. Did he think his pupils had ridden away to their own destruction?” asked the squaw, as she stepped down from her saddle.
“No harm can happen the household of my chief save what the Great Spirit wills.”
“And you think He will not waste time with three wild runaways?”
“Wahneenah, the Happy, is in good spirit herself. I remembered her not, save as the message may concern. That is for the ear of my friend and the father of his tribe, the Black Partridge.”
Handing the Sun Maid into his sister’s embrace, he for whom the message waited slipped the bridles of two horses over his arm while the Snake-Who-Leaps led the others. Whatever they had to say was not begun then nor there, and if Wahneenah had any curiosity in the matter it was not to be gratified. Yet she stood, for a moment, listening to the receding sounds as the darkness enveloped the departing group; and in her heart was born a fresh anxiety because of the little one she carried, and for the orphan lad who followed so closely at her skirts as she lifted her tent curtain and entered their home.
But nothing occurred to suggest that the message of the Snake-Who-Leaps had been one of warning. He was at his post of teacher exactly on the hour appointed on the following day, and this time all his pupils conducted themselves with a grave propriety that greatly pleased him; and thereafter, for many days, and even weeks, while the dry season lasted, did he instruct and they perform the marvellous feats of horsemanship which have made the red man famous the world over.
“But,” said Osceolo one day, tauntingly: “you were the pale-face who would learn nothing from an Indian!”
“Because a person is a fool once, need he remain so always?” answered Gaspar, hotly.
“You were a fool then? I thought so. Once a fool always one.”
“Only an Indian believes that.”
“How? You taunt me? Fight, then!”
Gaspar Keith was a curious mixture of courage and timidity. His courage came by nature, and his timidity was the result of the terrible scenes through which he had passed now twice, young though he was. The impress of this terror would remain with him forever; and if ever he became a hero in fact, it would be because of his will and not his inclination. At present neither the one nor the other inspired him; and though he eyed the larger boy scornfully, and felt that he could easily whip the bully, if he chose, he now turned his back upon him and walked away haughtily.
But Osceolo’s sneer followed him:
“The One-Who-Is-Afraid-Of-His-Shadow! Gaspar – Coward!”
No boy could patiently endure this insult, even though it came from one much larger and stronger than himself. Gaspar’s jacket was off and his arms bared on the instant; but before he could fling himself against his enemy a strong hand was laid upon his own shoulder, and he was tossed aside as lightly as a leaf.
“Hold! Let there be none of this. It is a time for peace in our village. Wait in patience. The hour is coming, is almost here, when both the pale-face and the son of my tribe will have need of all their prowess. Go. Polish your arrows and point their heads, but let there be none of this.”
It was the great chief himself, who had separated the combatants, and as he stalked majestically onward he left behind him two greatly astonished and ashamed young warriors. In common, no grown brave bothered himself over the petty squabbles of striplings; unless, indeed, it might be to incite them to further conflicts. For the Black Partridge to interfere now was significant of something far deeper than a boyish fight.
Gaspar put on his coat and walked thoughtfully home to Wahneenah and Kitty, while Osceolo slunk away to his own haunts, to lie at length upon the grass and plot with a cunning worthy of better ends the various devices by which he could torment the young white lad of whom he was so jealous.
Wahneenah heard the tale with a gravity that impressed the chief’s action more strongly than before upon the lad’s mind; while Kitty took it upon herself to lecture him with all severity about the dreadful “naughtiness of striking that poor, dear Ossy boy.”
“Hmm, Sunny Maid! you needn’t waste pity on him. He doesn’t deserve it.”
“Maybe not, Dark-Eye. Maybe not. But heed you the warning. The dwellers in one village should keep that village quiet,” interrupted Wahneenah.
“Yes, but they don’t. There are almost as many sorts of Indians here as there are people. Some of them are horrible. I see them often watching Kitty and me as if they would like to scalp us. It’s been worse within a little while. It grows worse all the time.”
“All the more reason why you should be wise and careful. But it is dark in the tepee, and that’s a sign the Dust Chief is almost ready to shut up your eyes. Run, Gaspar, son, and Girl-Child. See which will sleep the first. And to the one who does, the bigger lump of my best sugar in the morning.”
They ran, as she suggested, but there was to be no further haste till Kitty had made Gaspar kneel beside her and repeat with her the “Now I lay me” little prayer, which her Fort mothers had taught her. The short, simple prayer, beloved of childhood the world over, that has carried many a white soul upward to its Father. Even to Wahneenah, though her mission training had been of another creed, the childish petition was full of sacredness and beauty; and as she stood near them, she bowed her head humbly and echoed it with all her heart.
Each was in bed soon after, and each with a lump of the toothsome dainty they loved.
“For Gaspar must have it because he was first; and my Girl-Child because she was the last. That equals everything.”
They thought it did, delightfully: if they stayed awake long enough to think at all. But when they were both asleep, and the sound of their soft breathing echoed through the dusky tepee, Wahneenah took her seat at its entrance, and began to sing low and softly, with a sweetness of voice which rendered even their rudeness musical, the love songs of her girlhood.
As she sang and gazed upward through the trees into the starlit sky, an infinite peace stole over her. Indeed, the joy that possessed her seemed almost startling to herself. All that was sad in her memories dropped from them, and left but their happiness; while the present closed about her as a delight that nothing could disturb. Her love for the Sun Maid had become almost a passion with her, and for her Dark-Eye there was ever an increasing and comprehending affection.
She remained so long, dreaming, remembering, and planning, that the first grayness of the dawn came before she could go within and take her own bit of sleep. But Muck-otey-pokee was always early astir; and if for no other reason, because the dogs which thronged the settlement would allow no quiet after daybreak. That morning they were unusually restless.
Cried Wahneenah, rising suddenly, and now feeling somewhat the effects of her late sitting:
“Can it be sun-up already? The beasts are wild this morning. I have never heard them so deafening.”
Nor had anybody else. There was no cessation in their barking.
“It’s a regular ‘bedlam,’ isn’t it? That’s what the Fort mothers used to say when there was target practice, and the children cheered the shooters. What makes them bark so?” answered Gaspar.
Wahneenah shivered, and suggested:
“Run out and play. Eh? What’s that? The Snake-Who-Leaps? So early, and with the horses, too? But mind him not. Take the Sun Maid out-of-doors, but keep close to the green before the lodge. Where I can see you now and then, while I get breakfast ready.”
Everybody was up; and more than one commented upon the strangeness of the three horses being brought to the tepee so early.
The warning message which had come from the south, and had been delivered to his chief by the Snake-Who-Leaps, on that dark night some weeks before, was now to be verified. “What the red men have done to the pale-faces, the pale-faces will now do to them. Retaliation and revenge!”
Yet not one was quite prepared for the events which followed. Followed even so swiftly that the women left their porridge cooking in their kettles and their cows half-milked; while the men of the village promptly seized the nearest weapon, and rushed to the hopeless defence.
The rude sound that had startled every dweller in that pretty settlement was the report of a gun. Then came a galloping troop of cavalry – more firing – incessant, indiscriminate!
There was a babel of shrieks as the women and little ones fell where they stood, in the midst of their work or play. There were the blood-curdling war-whoops of the savages, answering the random shots. Above and through all, one cry rang clear to Wahneenah’s consciousness.
“The horses! The horses! Ride – ride – ride – as I have taught you! For your lives – Ride!”
It was but an instant. Wahneenah and her children were amount and afield. But as, in an anguish of fear for his friends, and no thought of himself, once more the Snake-Who-Leaps shouted his warning, the whistle of a death-dealing bullet came to him where he watched, and struck him down across the threshold of Wahneenah’s happy home.
