Part 20

“Indeed, I have not. I will let you pick nothing. I will tear you to pieces!” said the Bear.

“Don’t, don’t, and I will make a bargain with you,” said the boy.

“Who should talk of bargains to me?” yelled the Bear, cracking a small pine-tree to pieces with his paws and teeth, so great was his rage.

“These things are no more yours than mine,” said the boy, “and I’ll prove it.”

“How?” asked the Bear.

“They are mine; they are not yours!” cried the boy.

“They are mine, I tell you! They are not yours!” replied the Bear.

“They are mine!” retorted the boy.

And so they might have wrangled till sunset, or torn one another into pieces, had it not been for a suggestion that the boy made.

“Look here! I’ll make a proposition to you,” said he.

“What’s that?” asked the Bear.

“Whoever is certain of his rights on this plateau and the things that grow on it must prove it by not being scared by anything that the other does,” said the boy.

“Ha, ha!” laughed the Bear, in his big, coarse voice. “That is a good plan, indeed. I am perfectly willing to stand the test.”

“Well, now, one of us must run away and hide,” said the boy, “and then the other must come on him unaware in some way and frighten him, if he can.”

“All right,” said the Bear. “Who first?”

“Just as you say,” said the boy.

“Well, then, I will try you first,” said the Bear, “for this place belongs to me.” Whereupon he turned and fled into the thicket. And the boy went around picking datilas and eating them, and throwing the skins away. Presently the Bear came rushing out of the thicket, snapping the trees and twigs, and throwing them about at such a rate that you would have thought there was a sandstorm raging through the forest.

“_Ku hai yaau! Ku pekwia nu! Ha! ha! ha! haaaa!_”

he exclaimed, rushing at the boy from the rear.

The boy stirred never so much as a leaf, only kept on champing his datilas.

Again the Bear retired, and again he came rushing forth and snarling out: “_Ha! ha! ha! hu! hu! hu!_” in a terrific voice, and grabbed the boy; but never so much as the boy’s heart stirred.

“By my senses!” exclaimed the Bear; “you are a man, and I must give it up. Now, suppose you try me. I can stand as much frightening as you, and, unless you can frighten me, I tell you you must keep away from my datila and piñon patch.”

Then the boy turned on his heel and fled away toward his grandmother’s house, singing as he went:

“_Kuyaina itoshlakyanaa! Kuyaina itoshlakyanaa!_”

He of the piñon patch frightened shall be! He of the piñon patch frightened shall be!

“Oh! shall he?” cried his grandmother. “I declare, I am surprised to see you come back alive and well.”

“Hurry up, grandmother,” said the boy, “and paint me as frightfully as you can.”

“All right, my son; I will help you!” So she blackened the right side of his face with soot, and painted the left side with ashes, until he looked like a veritable demon. Then she gave him a stone axe of ancient time and magic power, and she said: “Take this, my son, and see what you can do with it.”

The boy ran back to the mountain. The Bear was wandering around eating datilas. The boy suddenly ran toward him, and exclaimed:

“_Ai yaaaa! He! he! he! he! he! he! he! tooh!_”--

and he whacked the side of a hollow piñon tree with his axe. The tree was shivered with a thundering noise, the earth shook, and the Bear jumped as if he had been struck by one of the flying splinters. Then, recovering himself and catching sight of the boy, he exclaimed: “What a fool I am, to be scared by that little wretch of a boy!” But presently, seeing the boy’s face, he was startled again, and exclaimed: “By my eyes, the Death Demon is after me, surely!”

Again the boy, as he came near, whacked with his magic axe the body of another tree, calling out in a still louder voice. The earth shook so much and the noise was so thunderous that the Bear sneezed with agitation. And again, as the boy came still nearer, once more he struck a tree a tremendous blow, and again the earth thundered and trembled more violently than ever, and the Bear almost lost his senses with fright and thought surely the Corpse Demon was coming this time. When, for the fourth time, the boy struck a tree, close to the Bear, the old fellow was thrown violently to the ground with the heaving of the earth and the bellowing of the sounds that issued forth. Picking himself up as fast as he could, never stopping to see whether it was a boy or a devil, he fled to the eastward as fast as his legs would carry him, and, as he heard the boy following him, he never stopped until he reached the Zuñi Mountains.

“There!” said the boy; “I’ll chase the old rogue no farther. He’s been living all these years on the mountain where more fruit and nuts and grass-seed grow than a thousand Bears could eat, and yet he’s never let so much as a single soul of the town of K’iákime gather a bit.”

Then the boy returned to his grandmother, and related to her what had taken place.

“Go,” said she, “and tell the people of K’iákime, from the top of yonder high rock, that those who wish to go out to gather grass-seed and datilas and piñon nuts need fear no longer.”

So the boy went out, and, mounting the high rock, informed and directed the people as follows:

“Ye of the Home of the Eagles! Ye do I now inform, whomsoever of ye would gather datilas, whomsoever of ye would gather piñon nuts, whomsoever of ye would gather grass-seed, that bread may be made, hie ye over the mountains, and gather them to your hearts’ content, for I have driven the Bear away!”

A few believed in what the boy said; and some, because he was ugly, would not believe it and would not go; and thus were as much hindered from gathering grass-seed and nuts for daily food as if the Bear had been really there. You know people nowadays are often frightened by such a kind of Bear as this.

* * * * *

Thus it was in the days of the ancients. And therefore the Zuñi Mountains to this day are filled with bears; but they rarely descend to the mesas in the southwest, being fully convinced from the experience of their ancestor that the Corpse Demon is near and continues to lie in wait for them. And our people go over the mountains as they will, even women and children, and gather datila fruit, piñon nuts, and grass-seed without hindrance.

Thus shortens my story.

THE REVENGE OF THE TWO BROTHERS ON THE HÁWIKUHKWE, OR THE TWO LITTLE ONES[16] AND THEIR TURKEYS

(THE ORIGIN OF THE PRIESTS AND CHIEFS OF THE DANCE OF VICTORY)

[16] This term refers to the two Gods of War, Áhaiyúta and Mátsailéma, who, as has been seen in previous tales, were accounted immortal twin youths of small size.

Long, long ago, there lived on Twin Mountain, Áhaiyúta and his younger brother, with their grandmother. They had a large flock of Turkeys of which they were very fond, but were not so attentive to them as they should have been. Said the grandmother to the boys, late one morning: “Let your poor Turkeys out, for they will starve, poor birds, if you do not let them out oftener.”

“But they will run away, grandmother,” said the two boys, who did not fancy herding them much of the time.

“Why should they run away?” asked the vexed grandmother, who had a sorry enough time managing the two heedless boys. “Rest assured they will come back when roosting-time comes, for such is their custom.”

So the Twain ran down and reluctantly let their Turkeys go. The Turkeys were many--dirty old hens, piping, long-legged youngsters, and noisy old cocks; but they were all more noisy when they were let out, and not long was it before they were straying far beyond the border of woods and toward Háwikuh.

Not long after noon the flock of Turkeys strolled, gobbling and chirping, into the valley north of Háwikuh[17] where many of the people of that pueblo had corn-fields. Some young men who were resting from their hoeing heard the calls of the Turkeys, and, starting up, saw across the valley a larger flock than they had ever been wont to find. Of course they were crazy. They started up and ran as fast as they could toward the pueblo, calling out as they went what they had discovered, so that all the people in the fields began to gather in. As soon as they came within the pueblo, they sought out the Priests of the Bow and told them what they had discovered.

[17] Háwikuh, or Aguico of the Spaniards, a pueblo now in ruins across the valley northwestward from Ojo Caliente, the southwestern farming town of the Zuñis.

Very quickly ran the priests to the tops of the houses, and they began to call out to their people: “Ye we would this day make wise, for our sons tell us of many Turkeys in the valley over the hill; so hasten ye to gather together good bows and arrows, boomerangs, and strings, that ye may be made happy and add unto your flocks and make more plentiful the plumes in your feather boxes.”

In a very short time the people were rushing out of their doorways all prepared for the chase, and they ran after the young men and leaders as though in a race of the kicked stick.

Now, the sage-bushes and grasses grow tall to this day in the valley north of Háwikuh, and so they grew in the days long, long ago that I tell of. It thus happened that the poor Turkeys who were racing after grasshoppers, and peeping, and calling, and gobbling, did not know that the Háwikuh people were after them until they heard some old hens calling out in alarm from behind. Even then they were unable to get away, for the people were around them shouting and hurling crooked sticks, and shooting sharp arrows at them in all directions. Soon they began to fall on every side, especially the long-legged young ones, who so tangled their legs in the grasses that they could not keep up with their mothers, and were easily overtaken by the hunters of Háwikuh; and the old hens who stayed behind to look after the young ones were no better, and the cocks who stayed back to look after the old hens were even worse off, for the people sought them most because their feathers were so much brighter.

So it happened in a very short time that more than half the flock were killed and others were falling when a half-grown Long-leg started as fast as he could alone toward Twin Mountain.

It was growing late, and Áhaiyúta and his younger brother and their old grandmother were on top of their house shading their eyes and watching for the return of the Turkeys, when they saw the solitary young Long-leg coming, all out of breath and his wings dragging, over the hill below Master Cañon.

“Ha!” said the younger brother; “look! there comes a Long-legs,--and what is he shouting?--Jump up, brother, jump up! Do you hear that?”

“_I-wo-loh-kia-a--a--a!_” called the Turkey, so that they could just hear him; and as that means “Murder! Murder!” you may think to yourself how much they were excited; but they were not so much alarmed as the old grandmother, “for,” said they, one to the other, “it is nothing but a youngster, anyway, and they are always more scared than the old ones.”

Nevertheless, they hastened down to meet him, and as they approached they saw that he was terribly frightened, so they anxiously waited until he breathed more easily and would stand still; then they asked: “What is it? Where is it? Why do you come alone, crying ‘Murder, Murder!’”

“Alas! my fathers,” exclaimed the Turkey. “Alas! I, alone, am left to tell of it; ere I left they were thrown down all around me.”

“Who did this?” angrily demanded the boys.

“The people of Háwikuh,” exclaimed the Turkey, glancing apprehensively around.

“Ha! we shall yet win back our loss,” ejaculated the boys to one another; and then they turned to the Turkey. “Are they all murdered and gone?” they asked.

“Yes, alas! yes; I alone am left,” moaned the young Turkey.

“Oh, no!” broke in the elder brother, “there will yet many return, for this is but a Long-leg, and surely when he could save himself others and older ones could.” Even then they heard some of the Turkeys calling to one another, out of breath over the low hills. “_U-kwa-tchi!_” (“Didn’t I tell you!”) exclaimed Áhaiyúta, and they started toward the mountain.

One by one, or in little bunches, the Turkeys came fleeing in, scared, weary, and bedraggled; and the boys knew by this, and that only a few after all returned, that the Long-leg had not been for nothing taught to fear. They betook themselves to their house. There they sat down to eat with their grandmother, and after the eating was finished, they poked little sticks into the blazing fire on the hearth, and cried out to their grandmother: “Tomorrow, grandmother, we will gather fagots.”

“Foolish, foolish boys!” crooned the old grandmother.

“Aye, tomorrow we will gather sprouts. Where do they grow thickest and straightest, grandmother?”

“Now, you boys had better let sprouts and war alone,” retorted the grandmother.

“But we must win back our losing,” cried the boys, with so much vehemence that the grandmother only shook her head and exclaimed: “_A-ti-ki!_ (“Blood!”) Strange creatures, my grandchildren, both!” whereupon the two boys poked one the other and laughed.

“Well,” added the grandmother, “I have warned you; now act your own thoughts”;--and the boys looked at her as earnestly as though they knew nothing of what she would say. “Fine warriors, indeed, who do not know where to look for arrow-sticks! But if you will go sprouting, why, over there in the Rain-pond Basin are plenty of sprouts, and then north on Scale Ridge grow more, and over in Oak Cañon are fine oak-sprouts, more than ten boys like you could carry, and above here around Great Mountain are other kinds, and everywhere grow sprouts enough, if people weren’t beasts passing understanding; and, what’s more, I could tell you boys something to your advantage if you would ever listen to your old grandmother, but--”

“What is it? What is it?” interrupted the boys excitedly, just as if they knew nothing of what she would say.

“Why, over there by the Rain-pond Basin lives your grandfather--”

“Who’s that? Who’s that?” interrupted the boys again.

“I’ve a mind not to tell you, you shameless little beasts, another word,” jerked out the old grandmother, sucking her lips as if they were marrowbones, and digging into the pudding she was stirring as though it were alive enough to be killed,--“just as though I were not telling you as fast as I could; and, besides, anything but little beasts would know their grandfather--why, the Rainbow-worm, of course!”[18]

[18] One of the “measuring-worms” which is named the rainbow, on account of his streaked back and habit of bending double when travelling.

“The Rainbow-worm our grandfather, indeed!” persisted the boys; and they would have said more had not their grandmother, getting cross, raised the pudding-stick at them, and bid them “shut up!” So they subsided, and the old woman continued: “Yes, your grandfather, and for shame!--You may sit there and giggle all you please, but your grandfather the Rainbow-worm is a great warrior, I can tell you, and if you boys will go sprouting, why, I can tell you, you will fare but with poverty the day after, if you do not get him to help you, that’s all!”

“Indeed,” replied the boys, quite respectfully.

“Yes, that I tell you; and, moresoever, over there beyond at the wood border, in a pond, is your other grandfather, and he is a great warrior, too.”

“Indeed!” exclaimed the boys, as though they did not know that already, also.

“Yes, and you must go to see him, too; for you can’t get along without him any more than without the other. Now, you boys go to sleep, for you will want to get up very early in the morning, and you must go down the path and straight over the little hills to where your grandfathers live, and not up into the Master Cañon to gather your sticks, for if you do you will forget all I’ve told you. You are creatures who pass comprehension, you two grandchildren of mine.”

So the two boys lay down in the corner together under one robe, like a man and his wife, for they did not sleep apart like our boys. But, do you know, those two mischievous boys giggled and kicked one another, and kept turning about, just as though they never dreamed of the morning. Then they fell to quarrelling about who could turn over the quicker.

“I can,” said the elder brother.

“You can’t!”

“I can!”

“No, you can’t!”

“Yes, I can, and I’ll show you”; and he was about to brace himself for the trial when the old grandmother strode over with her pudding-stick, lifting it in the air, with her usual expression of “Blood! my grandchildren both,” when they quieted down and pretended to sleep; but still they kept giggling and trying to pull the cover off each other.

“Stop that gaping and fooling, will you? And go to sleep, you nasty little cubs!” cried the irritated old woman; and laughing outright at their poor old grandmother, they put their arms around each other and fell asleep.

Next morning the sun rose, till he shone straight over the mountain, but still the two boys were asleep. The old grandmother had gone out to water her garden, and now she was sitting on the house-top shading her eyes and looking down the trail she had told the boys to follow, to see them come out of the shadow.

After she had strained her poor old eyes till they watered, she grew impatient: “Did I ever see such boys! Now they’ve gone and played me another trick. They’ll rue their pranks some day.” Then she thought she would go down and get some mush for breakfast. As she climbed down the ladder, she heard a tremendous snoring. “Ho, ho!” exclaimed the old grandmother; and striding across the room she shook the boys soundly. “Get up, get up! you lazy creatures; fine sprouters, you!”

The boys rolled over, rubbed their eyes, and began to stretch.

“Get up, get up! the day is warmed long ago; fine warriors, you!” reiterated the old woman, giving them another shaking.

The boys sat up, stretched, gaped, rubbed their eyes, and scratched their heads--the dirtiest little fellows ever seen--but they were only making believe. Their arms were crusty with dirt, and their hair stood out like down on a wild milkweed after a rain-storm, and yet these boys were the handsomest children that ever lived--only they were fooling their old grandmother, you see.

“You’d better be down at the spring washing your eyes at sunrise, instead of scratching your heads here with the sun shining already down the sky-hole”; croaked the old woman.

“What! is the sun out?” cried the boys in mock surprise; but they knew what time it was as well as the old crone did.

“Out! I should say it was! You boys might as well go to sleep again. A fine bundle of sticks you could get today, with the sun done climbing up already.”

So the boys pretended to be in a great hurry and, grabbing up their bows and quivers, never stopped to half dress nor heeded the old woman’s offer of food, but were jumping down the crags like mountain goats before the old woman was up the ladder.

“_Atiki!_” exclaimed the grandmother; “these beasts that cause meditation!” Then she climbed the terrace and watched and watched and watched; but the boys liked nothing better than to worry their old grandmother, so they ran up Master Cañon and into the woods and so across to Rain-pond Basin, leaving the old woman to look as she would.

“_Uhh!_” groaned the old woman; “they are down among the rocks playing. Fine warriors, they!” and with this she went back to her cooking.

By-and-by the boys came to the edge of the basin where the pod plant grew. Sure enough, there was the Rainbow-worm, eating leaves as though he were dying of hunger--a great fat fellow, as big as the boys themselves; for long, long ago, in the days I tell you of, the Rainbow-worm was much bigger than he is now.

“Hold on,” said the younger brother. “Let’s frighten the old fellow.”

So they sneaked up until they were close to the grandfather, and then they began to tickle him with a stalk. Amiwili--that was his name--twitched his skin and bit away faster and faster at the leaves, until Áhaiyúta shouted at the top of his voice, “_Ha-u-thla!_” which made the old man jump and turn back so quickly that he would have broken his back had he a back-bone.

“_Shoma!_” he exclaimed. “It’s my grandchildren, is it? I am old and a little deaf, and you frightened me, my boys.”

“Did we frighten you, grandfather? That’s too bad. Well, never mind; we’ve come to you for advice.”

“What’s that, my grandchildren?” looking out of his yellow eyes as though he were very wise, and standing up on his head and tail as though they had been two feet.

“Why, you see,” said the boys, “we had a big drove of Turkeys, and we let them out to feed yesterday, but the fools got too near Háwikuh and the people there killed many, many of them; so we have decided to get back our winnings and even the game with them, the shameless beasts!”

“Ah ha!” exclaimed old Amiwili. “Very well!” and he lay down on his belly and lifted his head into the air like a man resting on his elbows. “Ah ha!” said he, with a wag of his head and a squint of his goggle. “Ah ha! Very well! I’ll show them that they are not to treat my grandchildren like that. I’m a warrior, every direction of me--and there are a great many directions when I get angry, now, I can tell you! I’m just made to use up life,” said he, with another swagger of his head.

“Listen to that!” said Mátsailéma to his brother.

“To use up life, that’s what I’m for,” added the old man, with emphasis; “I’ll show the Háwikuhkwe!”

“Will you come to the council?” asked the two boys.

“_Shuathla_,” swaggered the old man--which is a very old-fashioned word that our grandfathers used when they said: “Go ye but before me.”

So the boys skipped over to the pool at the wood border. There was their old grandfather, the Turtle, with his eyes squinted up, paddling round in the scum, and stretching his long neck up to bite off the heads of the water-rushes.

“Let’s have some fun with the old Shield-back,” said the boys to one another. “Just you hold a moment, brother elder,” said Mátsailéma as he fitted an arrow to the string and drew it clean to the point. _Tsi-i-i-i thle-e-e!_ sang the arrow as it struck the back of the old Turtle; and although he was as big as the Turtles in the big Waters of the World now are, the force and fright ducked him under the scum like a chip, and he came up with his eyes slimy and his mouth full of spittle, and his legs flying round too fast to be counted. When he spied the two boys, he cursed them harder than their grandmother did, but they hardly heard him, for their arrow glanced upward from his back and came down so straight that they had to run for their lives. “_Atiki!_ troublesome little beasts, who never knew what shame nor dignity was!” exclaimed the old fellow.

“Don’t be angry with us, grandpa,” said the boys. “You must be deaf, for we called and called to you, but you only paddled round and ate rushes; so we thought we would fire an arrow at you, for you know we couldn’t get at you.”

“Oh, that’s it! Well, what may my grandchildren be thinking of, in thus coming to see me? It cannot be for nothing,” reflected the old man, as he twisted his head up toward them and pushed the scum with his tail.

“Quite true, grandfather; we’ve started out sprouting, and had to come to our grandfather for advice.”

“Why, what is it then?” queried the old Shield-back.

“You see, we have a flock of Turkeys--”

“Yes, I know,” interrupted the old man, “for they came down here to drink yesterday and broke my morning nap with their ‘_quit quit quittings!_’”

“Well,” resumed the boys, “they went toward the Háwikuhkwe, and the shameless beasts, that they are, turned out and killed very nearly all of them, and we’re going to even matters with them; that’s why we are out sprouting.”