John G. Neihardt

“ And Wa-choo-bay raised his eyes and gazed with a sad look upon the Ponca woman. His voice came strong, but soft:
“I cannot take the blanket; neither shall I ever take a squaw. For I am a dreamer of dreams. I shall never hear zhinga zhingas laughing about my lodge. I am going on a long trail, for I follow a dream. Yet have I never seen a woman so good to see. There is an ache in my breast as I speak. Let this woman follow one who kills enemies and hunts bison. I dream dreams, and a long trail is before me, and its end is in the mist.” ”

“ In the doorway of her lodge Gunthai stood awaiting the approach of her son. Her body that was wont to be bent like a bow upon which a heavy hand is laid in anger, was erect and quivering as is the bow when the arrow has sped like a purpose. Upon her leathery, wrinkled face dwelt the glimmer of an inner illumination. Only the flesh was old, the light was young; for Hope is a youth.
As the lad approached, the tenseness of expectation held the old woman’s tongue and her question came from her eyes. “What has Nu Zhinga dreamed?” ”

“ Then the moon, big-eyed with wonder, arose above the hills, pouring a weird light upon the dance. Little Wolf, who had been huddling closely against a tepee with an unintelligible fear, now felt the delirium of the dance for the first time. He leaped to his feet with a shout that echoed strange and hoarse from the hills! The whole village, as if awakened from the spell, caught up the cry and sent it trembling up the gulches!
With the hot blood pounding at his temples, Little Wolf swung into the frenzy of the dance. He leaped like the antelope when it catches the scent of the hunter. ”

“ Then Seha strode out of the village and disappeared in the hills. His heart was loud as he walked, for would he not be a great man among his people? He believed in his power with that belief which is the power. All day he walked, and when the red sun glared across the western hills like an eye bloodshot with pain, he came to a clump of cottonwoods that sang upon the summit of a bluff.
Now the thunder spirits love the cottonwoods, for they rise sternly from the earth, reaching their long arms into the clouds, and they cry back at the storm with a loud voice. ”

“ Many seasons sit lightly upon a form when Hope sits with them; but Despair is heavy, and again the weight of many years bent the shoulders of the mother. When the sun leaves a cloud of glory, it leaves a mass of murk; thus passed the light from the wrinkled face of Gunthai.
There was a sigh in her voice as she spoke; a sigh like that of a wind that is heavy with rain: “There should have come a dream loud with the noises of battle and shrill with the flight of arrows! Thus did your father dream.” ”

“ When he laughed, there was summer in the wretched little tepee; when he cried, the snows drifted about the mother-heart.
Winter and summer the old woman sat in her lodge, her back bent with the burdens of many seasons and her face seamed with many memories; yet stern and expressionless as of one who has followed a long trail and cannot see its end though the sun be falling.
All day she would sit in her lodge, weaving baskets of willow, which she exchanged with her tribesmen for meat and robes; for the father of her child was dead. ”

“ And as he looked upon the sun, to him it was the smile of Wakunda! Now he would find the bison.
He caught his pony, grazing near by, and leaping upon its back, urged its stiffened limbs into a jog and took the lonesome stretch of prairie with song upon his lips. All day the pony jogged across the prairie at an easy pace toward the west. At that time of the evening when the coolness comes with the dew, and the bugs awake with drowsy hummings among the grasses, Shanugahi caught a roaring sound as of some sullen storm that thunders beneath the horizon. ”

“ And the man followed at the distance of an arrow’s flight behind his moving people, for such was the custom. But no thunder of bison came from the brown valleys where the trail went; neither was there any dust cloud of pawing hoofs. And the old women remembered old-time famines, and their hands trembled as they pitched the tepees in the dusk that ended the day’s toil.
And in the mornings the old men gazed into the shining distance, looking from under their hands with eyes that glared as in battle. And all day, sweating and toiling on the trail, the people ate the distance with hungry eyes. ”

“ The speed of the ponies was increased to a fast gallop; the band swept up the valley. A strange low cry fell from the lips of the maiden; a stifled cry like that of a sleeping brave who feels the knife of the treacherous foeman at his heart.
In the village was the sound of many glad voices; [87] but in the darkness of the hill above, a frail form buried its face in the dry bunch grass and uttered a moan that no one heard.
The autumn passed: the cold winds came down from the north, shaking the snow from their black wings, and the people of the village began to look upon Shadow Flower with awe. ”

“ In another circle at some distance from that of the braves, awaited the women, dressed in their brightest garments of dyed buckskin. At a signal from the head chief of the tribe, the snarling thunder of the war drums began. The two motionless circles suddenly became two rings of gyrating colour. The beaded moccasins twinkled like a chain of satellites swinging about the faggot fire for a sun. The shout of the braves arose above the cadence of the drum beats, and the monotonous song of the women grew like a night wind in a lonesome valley. ”

“ Then a great moan went up before the lodge of the big medicine-man, Ebahamba. “Ebahamba speaks with the spirits; let him pray to the thunder spirits that we may have food for our squaws and our children!”
And Ebahamba shut himself in his tepee four days, fasting, crying to the thunder spirits, and performing strange rites. But every morning the sun arose glaring like the eye of a man who dies of fever, and the hot wind sweltered up from the southwest, moaning hoarsely like one who moans with thirst; and the maize heard the moan and wilted. ”

“ I have been told by many of the old men that in the olden times an Indian could leave his tepee for months at a time, and on [280] his return would find his most valuable possessions untouched. I tell you, gentlemen, the Indian is like a prairie flower that has been transplanted from the blue sky and the summer sun and the pure winds into the steaming, artificial atmosphere of the hothouse! A glass roof is not the blue sky! Man’s talent is not God’s genius! That is why you are looking at a perverted growth. ”

“ Suddenly a cry of delight trembled on her lips. A cloud of dust had grown far away upon the verge of a hill to the northeast, slowly resolving itself into a long line of warriors approaching at a gallop. The column drew nearer. The face of the watching maiden grew darker with anxiety, as a brilliant cloud darkens when the twilight fails. She beheld the masterful form of Big Axe mounted upon a black pony, riding in advance of the band; yet her face darkened. Her brows lowered with the strain of her intense gaze. Was it a squaw that rode upon a pony white as a summer cloud beside her warrior? ”

“ Huge and hollow-sounding with the clatter of the pinto’s hoofs hung the night above and about—lonesome, empty, bitter as the soul of him who fled.
A weary age of flight since sunset; and now the midnight saw the thin-limbed, long-haired pony slowly losing his nerve, tottering, rasping in the throat. With pitiless spike-spurred heels the rider hurled the beast into the empty night.
“Gwan! you blasted cayuse! you overgrown wolf-dog! you pot-bellied shonga! Keep up that tune; I’m goin’ somewheres. What’d I steal you fer? Pleasure? He, he, he, ho, ho, ho! I reckon; pleasure for the half-breed! ”

“ In the light of a thin moon the far hills whitened. The big stars glowed kindly like the camp fires of a friendly people. The night wind talked to itself in the gulches; and attentive to these, Nu Zhinga forgot the reason of his coming, and lulled by the many pleasant sounds, fell asleep and was awakened by the pale damp Dawn.
Then he ran down the hill, and as he passed through the village, the old women, some busy about the steaming kettles, others bent beneath the loads of fuel, shook their heads and said: “Gunthai’s boy has had no vision; not so do they return who dream great dreams.” ”

“ In lonesome places shall I walk with my hate, and not even the lone hawk in the furthest hills shall hear me make aught but a hate cry. I have no longer any people! I am a tribe—the tribe that walks alone! The zhinga zhingas of the women that are not yet born shall hear my name, and it shall be like a nightwind wailing when the spirits walk and the fires are blue! I will forget that I am the son of a woman ”

“ THE Omahas were hunting bison. The young moon had been thin and bent like a bow by the arm of a strong man when they had left their village in the valley of Ne Shuga. Night after night it had grown above their cheerless tepees, ever further eastward, until now it came forth no more, but lingered in its black lodge like a brave who has walked far and keeps his blankets because the way was hard and long. ”

“ She gazed upon the peaceful face of Big Axe. The moon lit up her features in clear relief. Her eyes were terrible with hate; the lids drawn closely about them until they had the small beady appearance of the snake’s. Her lips were drawn closely cross her white teeth in a cold grin. Her form trembled as with a chill, yet the night was warm. Then she arose, and with a noiseless step, sought for something that hung upon the side of the tepee. She returned clutching a tomahawk. The light caught her whole form, making it [90] stand out, clear-cut like a statue, the statue of a prairie Judith. ”

“ I have found the white bison!”
The wheezing voice passed among the lodges like a mournful wind that haunts the lonesome places of a bluff. Round and round the village went the man and the wolf, crying into the silent lodges; and the man’s face was wolflike with weariness and hunger; and the wolf’s eyes were grown half human with the pinch of emptiness and frost.
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“Why do you not come forth, for I have suffered and I have the tuft of hair? No more shall the black spirits dwell among us! Come forth and look upon the face of him whose heart was the heart of a squaw!” ”

“ And on the fifth day the heart of the old mother was sore with sorrow, and all that night she did not sleep, but wept and moaned: “How shall Gunthai be comforted when her eyes are dim and her fingers stiff? Her son shall not be mighty in the hunt and battle, for he has had no dream.”
The lad, awakened in the night by the moaning of his mother, knew in an indefinite way that he was the cause of so much grief; and in his breast grew a great pang of soul hunger that would not pass away. ”

“ Frenchy covered his face with his hands and the tears trickled through his fingers.
“But the dead horse parted the herd, and I woke up and the fire was dead and the sun looked like a moon through the smoke. Three aching years ago, it was; and I’ve dragged my carcass about and tried to look like a man. But night and day the deuces have followed me and tortured me. They burn holes in the dark whenever I shut my eyes; four pairs of devils dance before me all day in the sunlight till my head whirls.” ”

“ The shades of the valley crept slowly up the hills and the golden glow faded from the summits. Little Wolf still urged the stumbling pony through the darkness. As he rode, the frenzy that he had felt in the war dance rushed through him. His temples beat and his heart throbbed to the time of the snarling drums. To him the night breeze seemed heavy with noble deeds awaiting to be given life and voices of thunder for the ears of men. ”

“ When the sun was going down, the people gathered about the big chief’s tepee where the fathers were sitting with great thoughts. They did not smoke nor talk. They shivered as the long shadows crept out of the hills—yet it was the brown hot time.
And when it was dusk a chief made words which were whispers: “Let a wachoobay [holy man] take strong weapons and travel the back trail till the middle of the night, that he may meet the spirit that comes and kill it; for Famine walks with the spirit that comes, and there shall be the wailing of children and many flat bellies.” ”

“ And the sunlight burned the blue, much-beaded tepee of the sky, and left it black; and as it burned and blackened, burned and blackened, he who dreamed the strange dream found no pleasure in the ways of men. Only in gazing upon the round moon did he find pleasure. And when even this was hidden from him for many nights and days he went about with drooping head, and an ache was in his eyes.
And in these days he made wild songs; for never do the happy ones make songs—they only sing them. ”

“ There were men like wolves, bears, dogs, goats, roosters, beetles, scorpions. The little undertaker was the scorpion; a middleman was like a bear; there was a banker’s clerk like a goat; and a thin, angular, tall politician, with a body appropriately like an interrogation point, who slunk about like a hungry wolf.
By ten o’clock the last stragglers of the tribe had arrived and the Agency grounds were filled with circles of sweating, brown men, women, and children, passing the stone pipe, tranquilly awaiting the coming of the Agent, whose name, upon a reservation, is a shout. ”

“ Then she would tell him tales of his father; tales that were loud with the snarl of war drums, the twang of bow thongs, the shriek of arrows, the beat of hoofs! But there was no responsive glitter in the eyes of the boy; his heart was not the warrior’s, and the old mother seeing this, sighed and fell to work with nervous haste.
And the days of sun and snow wove themselves into years, until Nu Zhinga had reached that time when boyhood begins to deepen into manhood; and yet as the mother looked upon her son, she found him scarcely taller than a weak man’s bow. ”

“ The chief’s great breast heaved with the pleasure of his eye and ear. “Nunda Nu has the heart of a man and the eye of a woman,” he said; “her voice is soft like the song of a forest stream; Muzape Tunga spares her people.”
Nunda Nu turned her face to her village and made a signal with her uplifted hands. Soon an unarmed Ponca, manifestly a chief by his garments, was seen taking his way down the hillside.
“Come!” said Nunda Nu, turning to Big Axe; “my father bears the pipe of peace; let us meet him in the valley.” ”

“ Now a shout drowns the neighing and the snorting. A hundred braves leap to the backs of the plunging ponies. The dust cloud thickens and sweeps down the valley like a whirlwind. A far glint of brandished weapons; a dying shout; the band swoops about the base of a hill. Then the sultry day drones and drowses on the prairie. The grasshopper breaks the slumber of the stillness with his snapping noise; a lone hawk skirts the ground with slow, circling flight. But Shadow Flower stands and stares beneath a shading hand into the brilliance where the warriors vanished. ”

“ We have many ponies and also scalp-locks! Sing! For we have fought a good fight and we are not ashamed!”
A great shout went up from the village, and the drums snarled. Slowly, majestically, the circle of women began moving about the drums, keeping time to the rhythmic beats with a sideward shuffling of their feet in the dust. In a monotonous minor key the singing of the women began—at first like the crooning of an Indian mother to a restless child when the camp fires burn blue, and all the braves are snoring in the dark. ”

“ His face had the look of much pain; his hands gripped at the wet grass. And the lonesome one looked long upon the dead man, thinking deep thoughts. “Even the dead have pain,” he said, “and they seek to hold to the good earth. See how he clutches it! I shall live and follow my trail, for on all trails there is pain; and Wakunda wishes me to live.”
So he dressed himself in the garments of the dead warrior who needed them no more. He threw away the smoke-flap, and in a gully that roared with rapid waters, he washed the smutch from his forehead—the mud of dust and tears. ”

“ The old men and the braves sat about the fires and no word was on their lips. From lip to lip the fragrant pipe passed, yet even its softening influence could not move to speech the lips it touched. Each face upon which the firelight fell was hideous with the gauntness of hunger.
One by one the runners, sent out in search of the herds, came into camp. With a slow, swinging trot these great lean men approached, as the gaunt wolf approaches his lair in the cold light of the morning when no prey has been abroad all night. ”