The Flute of the Gods Part 21

Then they stared in each others eyes as men who look on death unexpected, or witchcraft--or some of the experiences of this life for which there are no words, and Don Ruy laid his hand on the shoulder of the lad, and drew him in silence out of the shadow of the roofed entrance.

"It is good to be where the bright sun shows things as they are," he decided. "The shadows and silence of that place tied the tongue. How feel you now, Lad, as to the story of Don Teo the Greek and the seeds that were given to the maid as sacred medicine?"

"But--the man died--so says the padre--and the woman--"

Then they fell silent and each was thinking back over the trails of the desert, and their company of thirty men--and the care needed to find the way alive with all the help of provisions and of beasts.

"The woman had a greater journey and a more troublous one,"--said Don Ruy. "These are clearly the fruits of Spanish gardens, but in some other way have they reached this land. It was made plain that the place of the palms where he left her was unknown leagues towards the western sea, and that the maid could only die in the desert."

"He crossed this river in his travels before he saw the Indian maid of medicine charms," reminded the secretary. "Do you not recall the journeys with the war people? He may have bestowed upon others the seeds of other lands."

Don Ruy drew a long breath, and then laughed.

"By our Lady!--You bring joy with that thought!" he said heartily.--"I made sure the Devil was alive and was working ahead on our trail when my eyes were startled by the offering of fruit and grain! You looked as if it might be your own hair was rising to stand alone! We are but children in the dark, Chico, and there come times when we have fear.

But your thought is the right thought, lad. Of a certainty he crossed this country; that there is no record is not so strange a thing--he was only another brown savage among many!"

They spoke together of the strangeness of their findings in the village--and its exceeding good arrangement with ladders to draw above in case of attack, and only one house--that of the doves and the fruit--into which one could walk from the court. All the others were as in the other villages--terraces, and the first terrace had doors only in the roof so that a blank adobe wall faced the court and the curious. Each great house with rooms by the score, and its height from two to five stories, was the home of many, and a fort in case of need.

While they commented on these things, two men came running swiftly through the gate from the Castilian camp. One was Jose, and it was Po-tzah who ran beside him. They went straight to the house of the dove cote, and Jose waited without while, after a few eager hurried words, the other slipped behind the twinkling arras of river reeds and sh.e.l.ls.

"What now?" asked Don Ruy coming up, and Jose showed fear at first and then spoke.

"It is your own horse to which it has happened, Excellency," he said.

"The padre say it is not the fault of any one, for the bush is high there, and who could see through them? But it is the snake--the one you say has the castanets in the tail, and it has put the poison in the foot of your horse!"

Don Ruy swore an oath that was half a prayer, and the pert secretary did the first thing that was familiar since he was seen with the company--he laid his hand on Don Ruy's shoulder and felt that the horse lost was as a brother lost, and Chico had a fancy of his own to caress it, and even burnish the silver of his bridle.

"And--why come you here to this house?"

"Here is the one man who knows the ways of the snake--if he is not in prayer they think he may come--but not any man can know what the Po-Ahtun-ho may do--and the horse beautiful may die on our first day in Povi-whah!"

But the reeds with their copper and sh.e.l.l ta.s.sels tinkled, and Don Ruy looked to see the old medicine man of spells and charms come forth.

He saw a man young as himself and more tall. Almost naked he was, with only the white banda in which was a blue bird's feather--the girdle and moccasins. One glance he gave Don Ruy and his companion, bent his head ever so little in acknowledgement of their presence, and then ran beside his friend Po-tzah with the easy stride of the trained runner.

Whatever his knowledge of the snake might be, he waited for no words, but moved quickly.

Many men were about the animal and Don Diego had bound tightly a cord of rawhide about the knee, and water was being poured on the foot. But Te-hua and Castilian alike stood aside as the swift nude figure came among them--and without word or question went straight to the hurt animal.

The other natives had approached the four-footed creatures with a certain curiosity--if not awe, and there had been more than a little scattering of prayer meal when the mules were hobbled. The braying of one of them had caused terror in the hearts of the older men.

But this man took no heed of the groups of men or of animals. He led the injured steed out of the pool of water, and with a knife of the black flint cut the bandage--to the extreme distaste of Don Diego, who had been chief surgeon.

Then, still without words to the people, he did a strange thing, for he knelt there on the ground and leaned his shoulder against the leg of the horse, and slipped slowly, slowly down until his cheek touched the pastern, and his strong slender hands slid downward again and again over the leg of the animal while his lips moved as though in whispered speech to the ground itself.

No man spoke for a long time, but some of the elder men cast prayer meal that it fell on the kneeling savage and on the horse, and the animal reached down and rubbed its nose on his shoulder as if he had been its well known and long beloved master.

Curious were all the Castilians, but Juan Gonzalvo, who had spent time in speech with Yahn Tsyn-deh, was more than curious. Like a tiger cat above its prey he stood frowning at the silent "medicine" of the naked worker in devilish arts.

Then the kneeling man arose and spoke in Castilian.

"It is good," he said. "It is done," but he did not lift his eyes from the ground. The task of some prayer was yet unfinished--and he turned again towards his home and walked swiftly and the horse followed him until Juan Gonzalvo caught it and gave careful heed to the stricken foot, and could see no sign where the swelling should be.

"It is big medicine," said the Te-hua men. "Now our brothers, the strangers have seen that our G.o.d is strong and our men to work are strong."

"It is sorcery of the devil," said Juan Gonzalvo. "Some medicine he had in his hands--some medicine we could not see. No physician in all Europe has skill to cure by such magic. Is it like that a naked savage should know more than the learned professors?"

"No:--it is not to be believed," a.s.sented Don Ruy--"but thanks to the Saints it is true for all that!--and that silent youth is after all Tahn-te the Cacique!"

"No--" said Padre Vicente with decision--"the sooner that office is no longer his the sooner do we arrive at that which brought us here. That is Tahn-te the worker in accursed red magic--Tahn-te the sorcerer!"

CHAPTER XIII

A PAGAN PRIEST IN COUNCIL

Little else was spoken of in the camp of the Castilians, but the witchcraft of the n.o.ble steed. The more pious picketed their own animals at a respectful distance from the one healed by sorcery.

Don Diego took the healing as a sign that the Evil One walked openly between the rows of the adobe dwellings, and that the field camp was a safer haven than a house whose every corner was, without doubt, a matter of unsanctified prayer in the building.

Others there were who had grown weary of drenchings of summer rains, and Yahn, hearing their arguments, warned them that old Khen-yah the rain priest was making medicine for more corn rains--they could easily hear his tombe if they but hearkened.

"That we can easily do without any strain to our ears," agreed Don Ruy--"but what of that? Is a piece of hide tied around a hollow log to serve as thunder from which the rain must come, whether or no?"

The girl did not grasp his raillery and liked it little. When Don Ruy spoke to her--or spoke of her, she felt she was being laughed at. Only her determination to be in some way a power through these strange people, kept her from betraying her anger.

"The rain comes," she stated coldly. "The drum of Khen-yah never rests in quiet until it does come. One night and one day he has made medicine--soon it must come."

"Then I cast my vote for the cover of a solid roof, gentlemen,"

decided Don Ruy. "I've had one taste of their red magic--it was speedy and effectual. If the old magician should decide to send us a flood, the sorcery would not be so much to my liking."

After some further discourse all agreed to accept the offered dwelling, though Don Diego warned Don Ruy it was unwise to speak in so light a manner of the power of the Evil One when it was rampant in the land. Already he had taken up the valiant battle for converts. His success was gratifying in that one woman had without understanding, yet with pleasurable smiles listened to the credo, and had accepted with equal gratification a string of blue beads of gla.s.s, and a rosary.--It was Sah-pah. She had found courage to slip alone into the camp while Yahn talked in the village. After the little matter of the beads she at once became as a shadow to Don Diego, who had great confidence of leading her away from her false G.o.ds. When he stated his pious hope to the official interpreter of Don Ruy, that damsel seemed little gifted with the devout apprehension or sisterly affection so much to be desired in females. She was angry because of the blue beads, and later, when the sulkiness had departed enough that her tongue found again its right usage, she stated that the pious Don Diego would find little trouble in leading Sah-pah to any place he chose--nor would any other man who wanted a convert!

Whereupon the eager and pious gentleman gave thanks--let the others discuss civil or ecclesiastical rule among the savage people--or even risk their souls in dealings with sorcerers, but he had made the only convert on this first day, and thus it was recorded by the secretary on the first page of the "Relaciones" pertaining to the chapters of Povi-whah, in that part of the "Province of New Spain in the Indian Island which is refreshed by the majestical stream called in the savage language P[=o]-s[=o]n-ge, but the same called by the Castilians the Rio Bravo and the Rio Grande del Norte."

Yahn Tsyn-deh took with all seriousness her office as an adjunct of the Castilian camp, and Ka-yemo who also gave help in the tradings for corn, and for wood, and the various needs of the camp, found her there always except when she slept, and he went back and forth like a tethered beast, and dared not command her. He had not thought about her except to laugh in anger ever since a dawn when he had walked out of her dwelling because of her witch's temper and her tongue of a fiend:--and that day he had gone straight as the ravens fly, to the house of his oldest relative, and told him he wished to be married as early as might be to Koh-pe, the daughter of Tsa-fah. Then to the wilderness he had gone hunting, leaving all of trouble behind him while the two clans made the marriage.--When he came back again to his people all was decided--and he laughed loud in the face of Yahn--and pa.s.sed her by, and carried fresh killed rabbits to the door of Koh-pe.

That was how it had ended between them. Not once afterwards had he spoken to her until he met her as she walked triumphant and very proud beside the Castilians at the gateway. Triumphant and very proud did she continue to walk, and insolent were her eyes when she let them rest on the husband of Koh-pe. In vain he talked to the governor that she might be banished with the other women who were young. Ka-yemo found himself laughed at by the Te-hua men;--was he angry because the Castilian capitan of war could give the girl beads of red sh.e.l.l and bracelets of white metal--while he--Ka-yemo--had not given her even meat from the hunt all those summers and winters when she had been his love?

So the men laughed--and told him each new gift given to the one woman who knew Castilian words--and he laughed also as one does who cares little, but in his heart was growing rage such as he had never known could be in him. The man who was sentinel of Povi-whah while the stars shone was visited in the night by Ka-yemo the chief of war, and the governor Phen-tsa was well pleased when he heard it. To be married had, he thought, made a stronger man of Ka-yemo, for never before had he watched with the sentinel through the night, except the nights of the young moon when it was part of his work to watch, and to make reports of the things in the sky to the Po-Ahtun-ho.

And no one guessed that while his visit to the sentinel on the highest terrace had been brief--his walks past the dwelling of Yahn Tsyn-deh had been many, and first and last had he halted and lay flat on the roof and put his soul into his ears to know that she slept soundly, and--alone!

Then, angry in his heart with everybody--he went to the kiva of his clan where all the boys and the men slept--and the sun was high and even the youngest boy had gone out to eat before he wakened and looked on the world. When he did so he found that many visitors were abroad.

From Po-ho-ge--and Oj-ke--and Na-im-be and even far Ui-la-ua were men sent by council as if to a feast. The presence of all these men meant that they burned to know why the men of iron had come to the North.

They all spoke first with the governor, as was courtesy, and then on his good report of their good intent--they all approached the door of the Castilians, where smiles and greetings were exchanged, and those who breathed on the hand of the adventurers were asked also to kiss the silver figure on the cross of the padre, which they did with all courtesy since their hosts required it, and then with smoke to the pagan G.o.ds of the four ways, they all entered into converse of great intent, though the meanings at times were not so clearly understood each by the other, for all the help of Jose and of Yahn.