Part 9

“All the rest of that day I was angry at High Horse; but when I awoke in the morning, I thought of him the first thing, and I was not angry any more at all. I was sad, and I got sadder and sadder all that day. So I rode out on a high hill and sat there thinking about how we had said we were twins, and we had found each other at last and we would never be apart again, and we would be brother-friends and do great deeds and everybody would praise us. And when I looked around at the sky and the prairie, it was big and empty, and I was all alone in it and nothing cared about me. So I sat there and wept a long time.

“Next day I was sadder than the day before, and I thought I would go and see High Horse again. Maybe he was sad too and would not be angry at me any more. So I started towards the Miniconjou village, riding slowly because my mind was still forked; and all at once there was a horseback coming slowly out of the brush up there. When I saw it was High Horse, my heart drummed; but when he came close I could see that it was bad with him. ‘_How, Kola_,’ he said; and his voice was low and weak, as though he might be getting ready to die pretty soon. And I said, ‘What is wrong with you, brother-friend? Are you sick in your belly?’ And he groaned and said, ‘I am sick all over, brother-friend, and you must help me, for if nobody helps me I think I shall die.’ Then he groaned some more; and I said, ‘You know I will help you, for we are twins and brother-friends, and if you die then I must die too.’

“So we got off our horses and sat together in a clump of brush where nobody would see us, and High Horse said, ‘My brother, it is true. I have been talking to a Shyela girl and her name is Wacin Hin Washtay Win [Good Plume].’ When he had said that he muttered the name to himself for a while--like singing to yourself under your breath. Then the sickness went out of his face, and it was all shining when he looked at me and began telling me about Good Plume and how beautiful she was. It made me sad again to hear him, for I thought he was going crazy the way he told it, all out of breath. Then all at once the sickness came back in his face again, and he said, ‘Brother-friend, I want her so much that I cannot eat and I cannot sleep, and if I do not get her, maybe I shall just starve to death.’ ‘I will think,’ I said, ‘and we shall see what we can do.’

“Then I thought awhile. If my brother was about to die, would I not have to go and help him even if I died too? If he was going crazy, then would I not have to help him, even if I had to go crazy too? So I said, ‘You must take some horses to her father and tell him how much you want the girl. Maybe then he will give her to you.’ But High Horse shook his head and groaned. ‘Her father is a man of many horses,’ he said, ‘and I have only my buffalo-runner and the old horse we got from the Nez Percés and Absorakas.’ And I said: ‘If you are not man enough to try, how can I help you?’ ‘You will see that I am man enough to try anything,’ he said, ‘and I will do just what you tell me,’ When he said that, he looked like a warrior charging. Then he jumped on his horse and galloped away towards his village.

“I waited and waited, and after that I still waited a long while. It was getting dark when High Horse came riding back slowly with his chin on his chest. When he had got off his horse and sat down beside me, he just held his head in his hands for a while. Then he said, ‘The old man laughed at me. He just laughed and waved his hand for me to go away from there.’

“After I had thought awhile, I said, ‘Brother-friend, it is harder than I thought. This is something that will take a little more time. You will sleep with me tonight, and tomorrow I shall have a better plan.’

“So after we had slept, and it was morning, I said: ‘Hold fast to your pipe, brother-friend, and do not lose courage. I have a plan. The old man will not take two horses. You will offer him four horses, for I will give you Whirlwind and the horse I got from the Nez Percés and Absorakas. You will go to the old man with these. You will say how much you want the girl and that you have two good buffalo-runners, also a horse just beginning to get old and another one hardly old at all. Maybe he will not laugh at you this time. If he takes the horses, you will have the girl and we shall have only our four legs to ride. But that will be good, for we will go on the war-path _maka mani_ [earth-walking, on foot], and when we get back we shall have many, many ponies and be great warriors, and everybody will praise us and the old man will be proud of you.’

“So High Horse did as I told him. But before the sun was overhead, he came back looking even sicker than ever, and he had to groan awhile before he could tell me how the old man laughed harder than before and waved his hand to say go away and quit talking foolishness.

“So I thought awhile, and then I said: ‘The old man will not take four good horses for the girl, and that is all we have. Maybe she will run away with you, and then when you come back she will be your woman and you will have your horses too.’ But that was no good either, because High Horse said he asked her when they were talking under the blanket, and she did not want to run away. She wanted to be bought like a fine woman.

“So I thought awhile, and then I said: ‘I have the right plan at last, brother-friend; and if you quit groaning and have a strong heart, you will get her this time.’ And High Horse said, ‘My heart is strong enough to do anything anybody can think up, if I can only have Good Plume.’ Then I said: ‘The old man will not take two horses. He will not take four horses either. The girl will not run away with you. Then you will just steal her, and I will tell you how to do it. Maybe she wants you to steal her anyway. This is going to be the biggest thing we ever did.’

“So this is how it was.

“When it was dark High Horse and I rode up the creek to the Shyela village and hid in the brush until we thought everyone was asleep. Then I tied my horse and we sneaked up to the old man’s tepee, leading the other horse and being very careful not to make any noise. Once a dog barked and a man came out of a tepee and looked around in the starlight. We were flat on our bellies by then, and when the man saw it was only a horse grazing, he kicked the dog and went back into his tepee.

“I would be holding the horse outside until High Horse could pull up a couple of stakes, crawl inside, gag the girl and drag her out. Then we would put her on the horse in front of him and he would get away from there fast and be happy all his life. The old people might start yelling, but everybody would be too excited to do anything, and I could run to my horse and get away. When High Horse came back, Good Plume would be his woman, and the old man would get used to it.

“When High Horse pulled the first stake, he waited awhile to see if the snoring would stop inside. It did not stop, so he pulled another stake, and still the snoring went on. Then I could see him crawling under. The snoring still went on, and that is all I could hear for a while. Pretty soon something popped, and the old man snorted.

“This is how it was. The old people had only this one girl, and they liked her so much that they had made a fine bed out of rawhide thongs for her to sleep on. Then when they saw how pretty she was getting to be, they were afraid some foolish young man might steal her in the night; so they always tied her with thongs to this bed.

“High Horse was in there feeling around for a good way to grab the girl, and when he knew she was tied, he took his knife and began cutting thongs. When the first one popped and the old man snorted, he was so scared that he dropped on his belly and quit breathing awhile. Then he began cutting thongs again. His heart drummed so hard that he was afraid it would waken the girl; but she just went on breathing quietly until he got down around her thighs. Of course he was getting more and more excited by now, and all at once the knife slipped and stuck the girl.”

At this point Eagle Voice fell to chuckling; and he did not resume the tale until he had filled his pipe, lit it, and passed it to me. Then, gazing at me with his mock-serious, crinkled, quizzical look, he shook his head slowly and continued.

“Grandson, it was bad. It was very bad. The girl shrieked, the old man began yelling, the old woman began screaming, and High Horse was getting out of there so fast he nearly knocked the tepee down. By the time we were both on the horse, people were rushing out of their tepees shouting to each other and all the dogs were barking. It was dim starlight, and everybody was so excited that nobody knew what anybody was yelling about; so we got away.

“Next day High Horse was feeling sicker than ever, and even I was feeling a little sick. But I said, ‘Brother, we nearly got her that time, and if you are man enough and your knife does not slip, next time we will get her, for I will think up a better plan.’ And High Horse groaned and said, ‘Maybe they will kill me next time, but I am going to die anyway if I don’t get Good Plume, and I am man enough to fight the whole Shyela village if they catch me.’ ‘Then quit groaning,’ I said, ‘and have a strong heart, for I have a plan already; only we must wait until the people up there are not excited any more.’

“So we counted ten days and waited; and while we waited we talked about my plan. Maybe I got it from Charger’s story about the wild young man who liked tobacco so much he could never get enough of it; but it was different too.

“So this is the way it was. When we had counted ten days, we rode far around the Shyela village and came to the creek above it when the sun was low. Then High Horse stripped naked and I began painting him with mud all over. When I was through, he was all crooked stripes and spots, and he looked like some animal nobody ever saw. When he saw himself in the water he said, ‘I look so terrible that I scare myself.’ And I said, ‘You look so terrible you scare even me a little, and I made you. If you get caught, people will think you are some bad spirit and they will all run away; so you must not be afraid of anything; and don’t let your knife slip this time.’

“When the night was getting old and no dogs barked, we crawled into the Shyela village leading the horse. We did this so slowly that no dog noticed us. There was snoring in the girl’s tepee. So High Horse pulled a stake. The snoring went on. He pulled another stake. The snoring still went on. Then he crawled in. Pretty soon a thong popped and I heard the old woman say, ‘Wake up! Wake up! There is somebody in this tepee!’ And the old man said, ‘Of course there is somebody in this tepee. I am in this tepee. Go to sleep and don’t bother me.’ Pretty soon there was snoring again.

“I listened hard for another pop, but there was only snoring--more than before, like two men snoring back and forth at each other. And this is how it was in there.

“When the old woman and old man talked, High Horse lay flat on his belly and stopped breathing for a while. But he was very tired and very weak because he had not slept or eaten much for a long time, he was so sick about the girl. So all at once he was snoring as hard as the old man was.

“I waited and waited. The morning star came up. I waited and waited. There was a thin streak of day. I could not call to High Horse, so I waited. The hills were beginning to stare. Then I got out of there with the horse and hid up the creek in the brush where I had tied Whirlwind.

“Pretty soon all at once there was a big noise--screaming and yelling and barking down there in the village. It was even worse than the other time. Then I could hear somebody running hard, and it was High Horse, coming like an antelope. He was coming up the creek towards me, and he surely looked terrible in the daylight. All at once he dodged into a big hollow tree by the creek, and I could not go to him or call to him because I could hear people coming. It was a party of men with axes and knives and spears and guns. They were looking here and looking there and being very careful because of the terrible thing they had seen running. They stopped close to the hollow tree, and when they could not see any tracks, one said, ‘It was a bad spirit that has gone back into the water.’ Then they went away, for I think they were glad not to catch what they had chased.

“This is how it happened in the tepee. When the day began to come in through the flap, the girl awoke and looked around. The first thing she saw was that terrible animal sleeping there beside her bed. And that was when the big noise began and High Horse started running.

“I was lying there in the brush now listening, and afterwhile the big noise stopped and I could hear tepee poles coming down. The people were moving camp because of the bad spirit in that place; and when I had waited some more, there was no sound to hear at all, and I knew the people were all gone. So I went to High Horse; and when he came out of his tree he looked so sick and sad and terrible all at once that I had to laugh. Anyway, they had not caught us, and that was good. But High Horse did not laugh any; he just groaned. So I quit laughing, and said, ‘Have a strong heart, brother-friend, and when I have washed the mud off, I will think up a better plan.’ So we went into the water and I washed him. And when he was dressed, he said, ‘I know now I can never have Good Plume, so I shall have to die. I will go on the war-path alone, and somebody will kill me.’ And I said, ‘I am your brother-friend and you will not go to war alone, because I am going with you. We shall see if the old man laughs when we get back with a hundred ponies and I do not know how many scalps.’”

XII

_The Mysterious Mother-Power_

When Eagle Voice had ceased chuckling, the look of boyish merriment left his face, and for some time he sat motionless with closed eyes and bowed head, his hands upon his knees. He seemed very far away, as though the drifted wastes of many winters stretched between us. When I had fed the stove again, I said, only meaning to arouse him: “And did you get the hundred ponies and the scalps, and did High Horse get the girl at last?”

He lifted his head, gazing through me and beyond. Then the far look shortened slowly, and he smiled. “It is a story, Grandson,” he said, “and you are in a hurry again, Wasichu that you are. There is a road, and what you ask is yonder. We are going on the war-path.”

“‘But before we go, Grandfather,’ I said, ‘tell me why Lakotas sold their women. Wasichus sell their horses, but their women they give away. Was a Lakota woman only an animal that a man should buy her?’

“Your heart is Lakota, Grandson,” the old man answered, smiling indulgently as upon a child, “but you ask a foolish question like a Wasichu. In the old days we did not buy and sell the way Wasichus do. We stole our horses from our enemies, daring much, for we were brave men. If we gave them to a father and asked him for his daughter, who should have a woman but a brave man good for something?

“Before the sacred hoop was broken it was made of men and women, and from each there was a power that kept it strong. I think, before we go to war, I will tell you an _ohunka_ story about the power of women. Old people used to tell it in the night; and their grandchildren after them, grown old themselves; and their grandchildren too, and theirs, and theirs, the story is so old. Now all of those are gone and many more, and I will tell it, being old myself. Old people used to say that if _ohunka_ stories were told by daylight, something bad would happen to the teller. Maybe he would get sick and die, or his grandson would be killed, or his old woman would fall and break her hip. And I have even heard them say--” Here the old man paused to chuckle. “I have even heard them say he might grow long curly hair all over his backside; but maybe they were joking. Sometimes if somebody who wanted to hear made a gift, an _ohunka_ story could be told on a dark day. You have made a gift, Grandson, and the day is dark, so I can tell it; and this is the story about the power of women.

“Many snows ago there were two young Lakota warriors. One was named Good Voice Hawk, and he was a very good-looking fellow. The other was called Brave Eagle, and he was not good-looking at all.

“There was a girl, too, and she was very beautiful. Also her father was a _wichasha yatapika_ [a man they praise], because he had counted many coups, had given much meat to the old people, and nobody could say anything but good of him. Of such men chieftains were made. The girl’s name was Red Hail, which is a sacred name; for hail and rain and lightning come together with the power to make live and to destroy; and red is a holy color.

“The people had camped in a pleasant place with plenty of wood, water, and grass; and the councilors had announced that it was a good time for war parties to go forth.

“Now these two young men had been talking to the girl whenever either could find her alone, for both wanted her very much. Good Voice Hawk, the handsome one, would talk much about himself and say little evil things about Brave Eagle; but Brave Eagle, the homely one, would just look at the girl for the most part, making few words and saying nothing bad about anybody.

“A big war party was about to set forth the next day, and the two young men would be going with it. Maybe Red Hail liked them both and could not choose between them. Anyway, that evening when it was dark, she stole up to the big tepee where Good Voice Hawk lived, and peeked in through a little hole. Everything was fine in there. The young man was sitting on his braided rawhide bed, and his mother, sitting on his left side, was gently combing his long hair and preparing it for braiding. On his right side sat the father, busy making new wraps on arrowheads for his son. A younger brother was at the fireplace in the center, keeping a bright flame alive so that there might be plenty of light. And while Red Hail watched, the younger sister of Good Voice Hawk came with a bowl of _wasna_ and held it in front of her handsome brother, so that he might eat and enjoy himself before he went to war.

“Then Red Hail stole away in the darkness to a much smaller tepee where the other young man lived, and peeped in through the side of the flap. She saw nothing fine in there. Brave Eagle was sitting by the fire and he was busy wrapping arrows. The mother was sitting on her side of the tepee, the father on his, and the little brother was watching the young warrior. That was all she saw.

“Then Red Hail stole back to her own tepee, and what she thought the story does not tell.

“In the morning the war party started, passing the tepee of the girl, who stood there watching. Among the first came Good Voice Hawk, and surely he was very handsome on his fine horse that danced about as he paused to smile at Red Hail and let her see how handsome he was. And as he went, he often turned to look back at her again, until he passed out of sight over a hill. Last of all came Brave Eagle riding a mule, and he did not look at Red Hail at all, but just rode on and out of sight. Maybe there were no mules in the old days, but stories change like people, and this is how it came to me.

“When Red Hail’s father came back, the girl was crying, and she said, ‘Father, I want to be where the boys are. I want to go wherever they go.’ The father knew how it was with the girl, and after he had thought awhile he said, ‘My daughter, we will go together.’

“So when he had caught two good horses and everything was ready, they started after the party; and when they overtook it, camp was being made for the night.

“Now as the war party moved on, the people noticed Red Hail, because everyone knew about the two young warriors; and there was much talk of how Good Voice Hawk would bring her tender pieces of cooked meat when they camped in the evenings; but Brave Eagle did not bring her anything. Now and then the girl would ride ahead to sit upon a hill and sing when the two young men were passing; and there were some who said they heard a difference in the singing, and that it did not favor homely boys who rode on mules.

“One day when the war party was getting near to enemy country, the _blotan hunka_, who were the leaders of such parties, held council and decided to send out two scouts. Brave Eagle and Good Voice Hawk were chosen to go, maybe because everybody had been talking so much about them. So after they had been told just what to do, and it was growing dark, the two young men rode forth together, the one on his fine horse and the other on his mule. All night they rode towards the country of the enemy, and just as the day was beginning to break, they came to the sloping side of a bluff, sprinkled with stunted pines.

“Maybe there were people on the other side; so they tied the mule and the horse in a brushy place, and began crawling up the slope. It was not very far to the top, but daybreak had brightened when they reached it, and there below them was a village with many smokes rising, and already the people were moving about.

“As the two scouts gazed, they heard hoofs coming, and out of the brush not very far away a band of horses came trotting, and after them rode a man who was driving them to a good feeding place for the day.

“Then Good Voice Hawk whispered to Brave Eagle, lying there beside him, ‘Cousin, let us kill the man and scalp him and drive the horses home.’ And Brave Eagle answered, ‘No, cousin, I think that would be wrong, for we are only scouts. We should tell the _blotan hunka_ what we have seen, and they will know what is best to do.’ But Good Voice Hawk would not listen. ‘If you are afraid,’ he said, ‘of course I will do it myself.’

“He started crawling back and then got up and ran to where the mule and horse were tied. So what could Brave Eagle do but follow him? Should a warrior let his comrade fight alone, even if he is wrong?

“Now when they had ridden back to the top of the slope, there not very far away was the man with the band of horses. So Good Voice Hawk charged upon him, crying, ‘_hoka-hey_,’ in a loud voice; and Brave Eagle followed on his mule. The man had time to draw his bow and let an arrow fly, but he was so excited that he missed; and just as Good Voice Hawk came near, the man’s horse shied, and Good Voice Hawk charged by and did not touch him.

“Then Brave Eagle, who was close behind, with one swing of his war club struck the man from his horse; and already he had taken the scalp when the other circled back, crying, ‘Cousin, they are coming!’

“By now it looked very bad down there in the valley, for the people were boiling out of the village like a swarm of bumblebees, and over them a roar of voices grew. ‘Let us get out of here!’ cried Good Voice Hawk; and, without stopping to coup the enemy, he headed down the slope at a run; and after him went the homely warrior pounding on his mule.

“They were not very far out in the open country when, looking back, they saw many mounted warriors coming out of the pines back yonder, and they were coming very fast, because their horses were fresh and strong with plenty of grass. They were coming too fast for the mule, and it was beginning to look bad for those who fled, when Good Voice Hawk stopped his horse and cried out to his comrade, ‘Cousin, give me the scalp.’ And the other, who thought only of the scalp and that it might be taken from him, gave it to his comrade; for it was not his way to think bad things of people.

“Then Brave Eagle was all alone, kicking his mule along; and Good Voice Hawk grew smaller, fleeing yonder, and the sound of many hoofs behind grew louder.