Part 2

The little cabin was very old. Its furnishings were in keeping with its occupant and sufficient for her simple needs. There was a rough stone fireplace at one end of the single room. A flat projecting boulder on one side of its interior provided a shelf for the few cooking utensils. They were hung on a rickety iron swinging arm over the wood fire when in use. A much worn turkey wing, with charred edges, lay near the hearth, with which the scattered ashes were dusted back into the fireplace. A bedstead, constructed of birch saplings, occupied the other end of the room. Several coon and fox skins, neatly sewed together, and a couple of gray blankets, laid over some rush mats, completed the sleeping arrangements. With the exception of a few bunches of bright hued feathers, stuck about in various chinks, the rough walls were bare of ornament.

The other furniture consisted of a couple of low stools, a heavy rocking chair and a small pine table. A kerosene lantern and some candles illumined the squalid interior at night.

In an open space near the cabin was a small patch of cultivated ground that produced a few vegetables. Sunflowers and hollyhocks grew along its edge and gave a touch of color to the surroundings.

The old settlers and their families, who lived in the river country, provided Waukena with most of her food supplies and the few other comforts that were necessary to her lonely existence.

Many times I studied the rugged old face in the fire light. Among the melancholy lines there lurked a certain grimness and lofty reserve. There was no humility in the modelling of the determined mouth and chin. The features were those of a mother of warriors. The blood of heroes, unknown and forgotten, was in her veins, and the savage fatalism of centuries slumbered in the placid dark eyes. It was the calmed face of one who had defied vicissitude, and who, with head unbowed, would meet finality.

My friend the historian had known her many years, and had made copious notes of her childhood recollections of the enforced departure of her tribe from the river country. She and several others had taken refuge in a swamp until the soldiers had gone. They then made their way north and dwelt for a few years near the St. Joseph, where a favored portion of the tribe was allowed to retain land, but finally returned to their old haunts.

When she was quite young her mother gave her the headless arrow, which she took from one of the recesses in the log wall and showed to us. It was a slender shaft of hickory, perfectly straight, and fragments of the dyed feathers that once ornamented it still adhered to its delicately notched base. At the other end were frayed remnants of animal fiber that had once held the point in place. There were dark stains along the shaft that had survived the years. The old squaw held it tenderly in her hands as she talked of it, and always replaced it carefully in the narrow niche when the subject was changed.

Nearly a hundred years ago the shaft was fashioned by an old arrowmaker up the river for Little Turtle, a young hunter, who hoped to kill a particular bald eagle with it. For a long time the bird had soared with unconquered wings over the river country, and seemed to bear a charmed life. It had successfully eluded him for nearly a year, but finally fell when the twang of Little Turtle’s bow sent the new weapon into his breast, as he sat unsuspectingly on a limb of a dead tree that bent over the river.

The victor proudly bore his trophy to his bark canoe and paddled down the stream to Whippoorwill Bayou. He pulled the little craft up into the underbrush at twilight, and sat quietly on the bank until the full moon came out from among the trees.

On the other side of the bayou were heavy masses of wild grape vines that had climbed over some dead trees and undergrowth. Through a strange freak of nature the convoluted piles had resolved themselves into grotesque shapes that, in the magic sheen of the moonlight, suggested the head and shoulders of a gigantic human figure, with long locks and overhanging brows, standing at the edge of the forest. The lusty growth had crept over the lower trees in such a way that the distribution of the shadows completed the illusion. An unkempt old man seemed to stand wearily, with masses of the tangled verdure heaped over his extended hands. It was only when the moon was near the horizon that the lights and shadows produced the strange apparition. The weird figure, sculptured by the sorcery of the pale beams, was called “The Father of the Vines” by the red men, and he was believed to have an occult influence over the living things that dwelt in the forests along the river.

Under one of the burdened hands was a dark grotto that led back into the mysteries of the woods, and from it came the low cry of a whippoorwill. Little Turtle instantly rose, dragged out the concealed canoe, paddled silently over the moonlit water, and entered the grotto. A shadowy figure had glided out to meet him, for the whippoorwill call was Nebowie’s signal to her lover.

For months the grotto had been their trysting place. Rose winged hours were spent there, and the great hands seemed to be held in benediction, as the world old story was told within the hidden recesses.

Nebowie’s father, Moose Jaw, a scarred old warrior and hunter, had told White Wolf that his dark-eyed willowy daughter should go to his wigwam when the wild geese again crossed the sky, and White Wolf was anxiously counting the days that lay between him and the fruition of his hopes.

He was a tall, low browed, villainous looking savage. He had once saved Moose Jaw from an untimely death. The old Indian was crossing a frozen marsh one winter morning, with a deer on his shoulders, and broke through the ice. White Wolf happened to see him and effected his rescue. He had long gazed from afar on the light in Moose Jaw’s wigwam, but Nebowie’s eyes were downcast when he came. He lived down the river, and the people of his village seldom came up as far as Whippoorwill Bayou.

His persistent visits, encouraged by the grateful old Indian, and frowned upon by the flower he sought, gradually became less frequent, and finally ceased, when he learned the secret of Nebowie and Little Turtle, after stealthily haunting the neighborhood of the bayou for several weeks.

An evil light came into White Wolf’s sinister eyes, and the fires of blood lust kindled in his breast. He went on the path of vengeance. The savage and the esthete are alike when the coveted male or female of their kind is taken by another. He was too crafty to wage open warfare and resolved to eliminate his rival in some way that would not arouse suspicion and resentment when he again sought Nebowie’s smiles.

Old Moose Jaw smoked many pipes, and meditated philosophically over his daughter’s obstinate disregard of the compact with White Wolf. Nebowie’s mother had been dead several years, and the old Indian was easily reconciled to what appeared to be his daughter’s resolution to remain with him, for the little bark wigwam would be lonely without her. She went cheerfully about her various tasks, and never mentioned Little Turtle, until one day they came together and told him their story. As nothing had been seen of White Wolf for a long time, the old man assumed that his ardor had cooled, and finally consented to the building of the new Wigwam on the bayou bank near the Father of the Vines, where Nebowie would still be near him. He had no objections to Little Turtle and hoped that the obligation to White Wolf could be discharged in some other way.

He rejoiced when the small black eyes of a papoose blinked at him when he visited the new wigwam one afternoon during the following summer. He spent much time with the little wild thing on his knee when she was old enough to be handled by anybody but her mother. He would sit for hours, gently swinging the birch bark cradle that hung from a low bough near the bank, for he was no longer able to hunt or fish, and took no part in the activities of the men of the village. Little Turtle’s prowess amply supplied both wigwams with food and raiment, and there was no need for further exertion.

White Wolf had apparently recovered from his infatuation. He occasionally came up the river, but his connection with the affairs of the community, whose little habitations were widely scattered through the woods beyond the bayou, was considered a thing of the past.

Little Turtle was highly esteemed by the men of his village, and two years after his marriage he was made its chief.

The following spring delegations from the various villages along the river departed for a general powwow of the tribe, near the mouth of the St. Joseph, in the country of the dunes, about eighty miles away. Little Turtle and White Wolf went with them. Time had nurtured the demon in the heart of the baffled suitor, but there were no indications of enmity during the trip. The party broke up on its way home and took different trails. Little Turtle never returned.

Nebowie pined in anguish for the home coming, and White Wolf waited for her sorrow to pass. She spent months of misery, and finally carried her aching heart to the “Black Robe,” who ministered to the spiritual needs of her people, after the formula of his sect, in the little mission house up the river. He was a kindly counselor and listened with sympathy to her story.

He belonged to that hardy and zealous band of ecclesiastics who had come into the land of another race to build new altars, and to teach what they believed to be the ways to redemption. He told Nebowie to take her sorrow to the white man’s deity and gave her a small silver crucifix as a token that would bring divine consolation and peace. Forms of penance and supplication were prescribed, and she was sent away with the blessing of the devout priest.

Nebowie carried her cross and, during the still hours in the little wigwam, she held it to her anguished breast. The months brought no surcease. In the quiet ministry of the woods there crept into her heart a belief that the magic of the Black Robe’s God was futile.

The inevitable atavism came and she departed into the silences. For a long time her whereabouts were unknown. During the bitter months her intuitive mind worked out the problem. Something that she found in the wilderness had solved the mystery of her loved one’s disappearance, and, when she returned, she hammered her silver crucifix into an arrow head, bound it with deer sinew to the hickory shaft of the arrow with which Little Turtle had killed the bald eagle, and meditated upon the hour of her revenge. White Wolf was doomed, and his executioner patiently bided the time for action.

He renewed his visits and condoled with the sad old man, but made no progress with Nebowie, although she sometimes seemed to encourage his advances.

One evening in the early fall he returned from a hunting trip over the marshes. He followed one of the small trails that skirted the woods near his village. A shadowy form moved silently among the trees. There was a low whir, and something sped through the dusk.

When they found White Wolf in the morning the hair on one side of his head was matted with blood, and a small hole led into his stilled brain, but there was no clue to the motive or to the author of the tragedy. He was duly mourned and buried after the manner of his fathers. His taking off was numbered among the enigmas of the past, and was soon forgotten.

Nebowie continued her home life with her father and her little one, but tranquility was in her face. She felt within her the glow that retribution brings to the savage heart—whether it be red or white. A recompense had come to her tortured soul that softened the after years. The silver of the arrow point had achieved a mission that had failed when it bore the form of a cross.

During our exploration of the sites of the old Indian villages in the river country, we discovered a large pasture that had never been ploughed. Traces of two well worn trails led through it, and, on a little knoll near the center of the field, we found what appeared to be burial mounds.

We were reluctant to desecrate the hallowed spot, but finally yielded to the temptation to open one of them. We unearthed two skeletons. They were both in a sitting position. I picked up one of the skulls and curiously examined it. Something rattled within the uncanny relic and dropped to the grass. The small object proved to be a silver arrowhead, and Waukena’s story came home to us with startling reality. We replaced the bones and reshaped the mound as best we could, but carried with us the mouldy skull and its carefully wrought messenger of death.

Nearly all of the Indians in the river country were buried in a sitting position. The grim skeletons of the vanished race belong to the world that is under ground. In countless huddled hordes, they sit in the gloom of the fragrant earth, with hands outstretched, as if in mute appeal, and wait through the years for whatever gods may come.

In the darkness that may be eternal, the disputations of theologians do not disturb the gathering mould. The multitudinous forms of reward and punishment, that play in empty pageantry upon the hopes and fears of those who walk the green earth, touch not the myriads in its bosom.

The self appointed, who bear the lights of man born dogma, and the blessings and curses of imaginary deities, into the paths of the unknowable, grope as blindly among pagan bones as through cathedral aisles.

That evening we rowed up the river to carry our story to Waukena. She held the mouldy skull in her lap for a long time and regarded it with deep interest. Sealed fountains within her aged heart seemed to well anew, for there were tears in her eyes when she raised them toward us.

Waukena was the little girl that played around the stricken wigwam on the bayou, and she had treasured the stained shaft as a heritage from those she had loved. To her it was a sacred thing. The life currents it had changed had passed on, but they seemed to meet again as the gray haired woman sat before her flickering fire, with the mute toys of the fateful drama about her. We left her alone with her musings.

When we came one evening, a week later, the door was open, but the ashes on the hearth were cold. On the rough table lay the mouldy skull, that was once the home of relentless passion, and near it, before its eyeless caverns, was the blood stained shaft, with the silver point neatly fitted back into its place.

Waukena may have stolen away through the solitudes of the dim forest, and yielded her tired heart unto the gods of her people, for she was never again seen in the river country. Her chastened soul may still wander in the shadowy vistas of the winter woods, when the sun sinks in aureoles of crimson beyond the lacery of the tall trees—that stand still and ghostly—their slender boles tinged with hues of red, like the lost arrow shafts of those who are gone.

Sadly and thoughtfully we walked down the old trail that bordered the bayou. We sat for a long time on the moss covered bank and talked of the arrow and the destinies it had touched. The pearly disk of the full moon hung in the eastern sky. A faint mist veiled the surface of the softly lisping water. An owl swept low over the bayou into the gloom of the forest. The pond lilies had closed their chalices and sealed their fragrance for another day. Hosts of tiny wings were moving among the sedges. Fireflies gemmed the dark places and vanished, as human lives come out of the void, waver with transient glow, and are gone.

There was a tender eloquence and witchery in the gentle murmurings of the night. Mystic voices were in the woods. Beyond the other shore the hoary form of the Father of the Vines seemed transfigured with a holy light. From somewhere in the gloom of the grotto came the plaintive notes of a whippoorwill.

As one crying in the wilderness, Nebowie’s spirit was calling for her lost lover from among the embowered labyrinths.

In the twilights of drowsy summers, the wild cadence still enchants the bayou. The moon still rides through the highways of the star strewn skies, and, with pensive luster, pictures the guardian of the trysting place of long ago. The shadows below the lofty forehead have deepened, and the great silent figure bends with the weight of the onward years.

Out yonder, in the moonlit woods, With humble mien he stands, With the burden of the fruitage In his vine entangled hands; Where the hiding purpling clusters Are caught by silver beams, That revel in the meshes Of his leafy net of dreams. With the weariness of fulfillment, His tendril woven brow Is bowed before the mystery Of the eternal Why and How.

III THE BRASS BOUND BOX

Jerry Island was formed by one of the side currents of the river that wandered off through the woods and lowland and rejoined the main stream above the Big Marsh.

The herons, bitterns and wild ducks swept low over the brush entangled water course and dropped into the quiet open places. Innumerable clusters of small mud turtles fringed the drift wood and fallen timbers that retarded the sluggish current. The patriarchs of the hard shelled brotherhood—moss covered and intolerant—spent their days on the half-submerged gray logs in somnolent isolation.

Kingfishers, crows and hawks found a fecund hunting ground along the winding byway. Squirrels and chipmunks raced over the recumbent trunks, and whisked their bushy tails in the patches of sunlight that filtered through the interlacing boughs above them.

At night the owls, coons, minks and muskrats explored the wet labyrinths, aged bull frogs trumpeted dolefully, and stealthy nocturnal prowlers came there to drink. Sometimes the splash of a fish broke the stillness, and little rings crept away over the surface and lost themselves among the weeds and floating moss.

Long ago the trails of wolves, deer, and other large animals appeared in the snow on the island during the winter; bear tracks were often found, and there is a legend among the latter day prosaics that a couple of panthers once had a den in the neighborhood. In later years most of the winter pathways were made by foxes and rabbits and their human and canine pursuers.

Near the bank of the main stream stood a decayed but well constructed old house. It was built of faced logs with mortar between them. There were three rooms on the ground floor, and some steep narrow stairs led into an attic next to the roof that sloped to the floor along its sides.

My friend “Buck” Granger, a gray haired old trapper and hunter, whose grandfather built the house about a hundred years ago, ushered me up the creaky stairs late one night.

The alert eyes of a red squirrel peered at us from the end of a tattered mink muff that lay on an oak chest close to the roof, and vanished. Apparently the small visitor was not greatly disturbed, for, after two or three gentle undulations, the muff was motionless.

After conventional but cordial injunctions to make myself at home, Buck departed to his quarters below.

The quaint and picturesque attic was full of interest. An old fashioned bedstead stood in the room, a cumbrous, home made “four poster.” Over its cord lacings was a thick feather bed, several comforters, and a multicolored patchwork quilt. The sheets and pillow slips were of coarsely woven linen.

Bunches of seed corn and dried herbs were suspended from pegs along the roof timbers; near the oak chest was a spinning wheel, and a broken cradle—all veiled with mantles of fine dust and cobwebs. The cradle, in which incipient genius may once have slumbered, was filled with bags of beans, ears of pop corn, and hickory nuts. Squirrels and white footed mice from the surrounding woods had held high revel in the tempting hoard.

The cradle had guarded the infancy of many little furred families after its first usefulness had ceased, for there were cosy tangled nests of shredded cotton and woolen material among its mixed contents.

Moths had worked sad havoc in the row of worn out garments that festooned the cross beams. Some rusty muskrat traps and obsolete fire arms were heaped in one corner, with discarded hats and boots.

Close to the roof, near the edge of the unprotected stairway, was a tall silent clock. It was very old. Most of the veneering had chipped away from its woodwork, parts of the enameled and grotesquely ornamented dial had scaled off, and across the scarred face its one crippled hand pointed to the figure seven. The worn mechanism had not pulsated for many years.

Innumerable tiny fibers connected the top and sides of the old clock with the sloping roof timbers, and a sinister watcher, hairy and misshapen—crouched within the mouth of a tubular web above the dial.

Tenuous highways spanned the spaces between the rafters. Gauzy filaments led away into obscurities, and gossamer shreds hung motionless from the upper gloom. There were mazes of webs, woven by generations of spiders, laden with impalpable dust, and tenantless. The patient spinners had lived their little day and left their airy tissues to the mercy of the years. Like flimsy relics of human endeavor, the frail structures awaited the inevitable.

There was an impression of mistiness and haziness in the wandering and broken fibers, and the filmy labyrinths—as of a brain filled with fancies that were inchoate and confused—an abode of idle dreams.

The web spanned attic pictured a mind, inert and fettered by dogma and tradition, in which existence is passive, and where vital currents are stilled—where light is instinctively excluded and intrusion of extraneous ideas is resented. Occupants of endowed chairs in old universities, pedantic art classicists, smug dignitaries of established churches, and other guardians of embalmed and encrusted conclusions, are apt to have such attics. Like the misshapen watcher within the tubular web above the dial, they crouch in musty seclusion.

I opened the queer looking bed, that had evidently been made up a long time, and lay for half an hour or so, trying to read by the light of the sputtering candle. The subtle spell of the old attic at length overcame the charm of my author, and I gave myself over to a troop of thronging fancies.

Although the invisible inmate of the muff gave a life accent to the room, the quiet was oppressive. A sense of seclusion from realities pervaded the human belongings. Intimate personal things, that only vanished hands have touched, seem to possess an indefinable remoteness—as if they pertained to something detached and far away—and lingered in an atmosphere of spiritual loneliness.

When the moon beams came through the cobwebbed window frame, and crept along the floor to the ghostly old clock, it haunted the room with a vague impression of weariness and futility. It seemed to stand in mute and solemn mockery of the eternal hours that had passed on and left it in hopeless vigil by the wayside.

The watcher in the web—grim and silent, like a waiting sexton—awakened uncanny thought. There was gruesome suggestion in the dark stairway hole at the foot of the clock—as if it had been newly dug in the earth.

Like evil phantoms into an idle mind, a pair of bats glided swiftly in through the open window, circled noiselessly about, and departed.