The Flute of the Gods Part 26

"Doli (Blue Bird)--me!" she said appealingly. "Navahu"--then she held her hand out as though measuring the height of a child.--"Te-hua--me!"

"Te-hua!"--he caught her hand and knew that she was not a vision, though he had first known of her in a vision. She was a living maid, and twice on wilderness trails had she come to him!

"Te-hua--you?" he half whispered, but in Te-hua words she could not answer him--only begged rapidly in Navahu for protection--and motioned with fear towards the villages where the tombe was sounding.

To give help to an escaped captive of Te-gat-ha while on the trail to ask friendship of Te-gat-ha, was an act not known in Indian ethics--but as when he had been wakened by her in the canon of the high walls--so it was now--the outer world drifted far, and the eyes of the girl--pleading--were the only real things. In his hours on the trail through the forest he had thought the ever-present picture of her in his heart might be strange new magic for his undoing, but to hear her tremulous girl voice:--and to see the broken thong, and the symbols of the most primitive of tribal dances, drove into forgetfulness the thought of all magic that was false magic. The G.o.ds had sent the vision of her in the dawn of the sacred mountain, that he--Tahn-te--might know her for his own when she crossed his trail for help. The Navahu G.o.ddess of the earth jewel had surely sent her--else why the pair of blue wings between them?

The symbolism of it was conclusive to the Indian mind, and he reached out his hand.

"Come!" he said gently. "Little sister,--come you with me!"

When the sentinel on the wall of Te-gat-ha sighted a strange runner who ran to them, and ran with swiftness, the word went to the governor, and he sent his man of the right hand to the gate of the wall.

In times of feasts these two had met before the days when the prayers were listened to by Tahn-te, and the greeting given to the visitors was a greeting to a friend.

As they crossed the court, Tahn-te could see that confusion and alarm was there. A woman who had been chidden was weeping, and the governor of war had his scouts at the place in the wall where the water ran under the bridge of the great logs--that was the only place where one could creep through without pa.s.sing the gates, where the sentinel could always see.

"She is a witch!" wailed the woman who was in tears--"The painting was being done on her,--she would have been complete--and then it was the pot boiled over in the ashes:--they blinded my eyes, and the child was in the ashes also, and the body of him was burned. Could I see the witch when my eyes were blind? Could I hear the witch when my child screamed? Could I know she would cover herself with a deer skin and go into the ground, or into the clouds? On no trail of earth can you find her. She is a witch who brings bad luck to my house!"

But the men, heeding not her words, went over the ground in ways towards the mountains, and looked with keenness on all the tracks of women's feet.

Beyond the words of the women, Tahn-te heard nothing more of the person who was painted almost to completeness ere she went into the clouds, or into the ground. It was not etiquette to make questions.

The wise old governor gave greeting to the visitor as if no thing had happened more unusual than the rising or setting of the sun.

Tahn-te had been many times to Te-gat-ha when the Sun races were made in the Moon of Yellow leaves. At that time the Sun Father grows weak, and the races are made that he may look down and see the earth children as they show strength, and the prayer of the race is that the Sun Father goes not far away, but seeks strength also, and grows warm again after a season.

Thus Tahn-te knew kindly the people, and the chief men were called to hear why a runner had been sent at this time to the brothers of the North.

The head men wrapped themselves in the robes of ceremony, the younger priests painted their bodies with the white, and into the kiva of council they descended with their visitor of high office.

On the shrine there, Tahn-te placed a fragment of the sun symbol taken from the pouch at his girdle. Before a white statue of the weeping G.o.d he placed it, and the Keeper of the Sacred Fire there, breathed on his hand, and threw fragrant dried herbs of magic on the live coals, that all evil and all discord be driven out by the fumes, and when the smoke drifted upwards and out by the way of the sky, the talk was made.

With briefness Tahn-te stated all heard in the council of Povi-whah concerning the wishes of the strangers from the South.

[Ill.u.s.tration: INTO THE KIVA OF COUNCIL THEY DESCENDED _Page 206_]

The men smoked the sacred smoke of council and listened, and when all was said, they nodded to each other.

"That which you say is that which the tribes have always talked about when the wild people came for war. In old days of our fathers, we people of the houses and the fields did make compact with each other as brothers. But always it has been broken, often it had to be broken.

We are far apart. When the Yutah comes from the north, and the p.a.w.nee from the east--and the Apache and the Navahu from every place, the men of each village must look to their own women. He cannot go to his brother to learn if he also is having war."

"That is true," said Tahn-te. "But the wild people fight and go away again. If these strangers find the symbol of the sun in our land, they will never go away--more will come--and then more always! I have seen the talking leaves of their people. If they get room for their feet, they then ask the field; if the way of the door is opened to them, they then take the house. They and their animals will ride us down as the buffalo tramp under foot the gra.s.s on the wide lands."

"That other year the white strangers came. They staid not long. This time not so many come--next time not any ever come--maybe so!"

"Maybe so!" echoed Tahn-te, but shook his head in sadness. Like the men of his own village, these men had the hopefulness of children that all would be made well.

"If their G.o.d is so strong a G.o.d--and they come with good gifts, is it not well to make treaty and have them as brothers?" asked the old governor. "With the thunder and the lightning given to them instead of arrows, they could do good warrior work for those who were precious to them."

"That is so," agreed Tahn-te--"but the men of dark skins will never be precious to the white men of the beards--except they make slaves who obey,--who carry the water, and bring wood for the fire."

"Men carry the water?"

"They are not men when they become slaves--they are not people any more!"

"We did not hear that," said the governor. "Do these men tell it that way?"

"No--not in that way. But talking leaves of their G.o.d tells them that dark men of other G.o.ds than theirs must be ever as slaves to the white men of iron and all of their kind. It has been like that always. The talking leaves tell them how to make slaves--and how to make war on all people who refuse to say that their G.o.d must be the only G.o.d."

"And that white G.o.d sends talking leaves of a spirit tree?"

"It is so," said Tahn-te:--"Many leaves! The spirit of that tree was once a strong spirit, but the white people caught it with magic and shut it in a book, and the spirit grows weak in the book--the heart of the Most Mysterious cannot be shut in a thing like that. They have magic, but the heart does not sing to that magic--only the eyes see it."

"Yet these strangers are wise," ventured one of the council, "such leaves might be good to instruct quickly the youth of the clans."

"It is so," agreed Tahn-te again. "But when the G.o.ds are caught in the leaves of a book, is when they no longer speak in silence to the hearts of men. On a day when we walk no more on the Earth Trail, the names of our G.o.ds may also be written on the leaves of a spirit tree that is dead. Think of this and warn your sons to think of this! The youths of Povi-whah and of Kah-po hearken with joy to the trumpets of the men of iron, but the music for the desert G.o.ds is the music of the flute--let it not be silenced by trumpets of bra.s.s made by white men who conquer!"

Some of the men of the council looked at each other, and wondered in their hearts if the youth of Tahn-te did not make him dream false things and think them true. It was scarcely to be believed that one people would fight because another people found the Great Mystery--and prayed to It for strength to live well--and to live long--but called It by another Prayer Name!

They knew that in things of sacred magic Tahn-te was more wise than any other;--other youth were trained only in their own societies--but the son of the Woman of the Twilight reached out for the Thought back of the outer thought in all orders, and in different tribes.

Yet--they doubted him now and for the first time! They did not think that Tahn-te spoke with a crooked tongue, but some one had lied to him in the days when he crossed the land with the man Coronado;--or maybe the talking leaves had lied on some dark night of magic!

But however that might be, the Great Mystery had never sent the word to kill a people because of their prayers. The men of the council knew that could not be. But they were respectful to the young Po-Ahtun-ho, and they did not say so. That he had put aside his dignity of office, and come himself to Tegat-ha for council, was a great honor for Te-gat-ha.

And they smoked in silence, and did not say the thing they thought.

But Tahn-te the Ruler, read their hearts in their silence, and for the first time his own heart grew sick. In Povi-whah there was the jealousy of the war chief--and of the governor as well, and that, he thought, made them blind to much. But these men had only honor in their hearts for him and no jealousy. Yet to make them see motives of the strangers, as he saw them, was not possible; and to tell them that the men of iron gave worship to a jealous G.o.d was to brand himself for always as foolish in their eyes! They had thought him wise--but not again could they think him wise as to the foreign men, or the reading of their books!

The early stars were alight in the sky when the men came up from the council. In the house of the governor the evening meal was long ready.

From the place of the dance in the forest, men and maids were coming:--under the branches of the great trees they were coming, but among them was not the maid of the thong and the unfinished paintings.

Tahn-te, seeing that it was so, ate with his hosts the rolls of paper-like bread, and the roasted meat of the deer.

It was a silent meal, for it was his first day of failure. All other things he had won--but to win his brothers to brotherhood against the strongest enemy they or their fathers had ever met--was a thing beyond his strength.

They had chosen to be blind, and for the blind, no one can see!

Standing on the terrace, the governor spoke alone to Tahn-te of the thing which the men of iron sought--it was the same thing Alvarado had asked of when he had come north from Coronado's camp. It was strange that the sign of the Sun Father was a thing the white men sought ever to carry from the land. It must be strong medicine and very precious to them!

It was not possible for Tahn-te to make clear that the virtue of the yellow metal was not a sacred thing--only a thing of barter as sh.e.l.l beads or robes might be.

"Is it as they say,"--said his host after a smoke of silence--"is it as they say that the Order of the Snake is again made strong by you in Povi-whah?"

"It is true," said Tahn-te. "The help I have is not much. The Great Snake they all revere for the sacred reasons, but only the very old men know that with the Ancients the medicine of the wild brother snakes was strong medicine for the hearts of men. Maybe I can live long enough to teach the young men that the strong medicine is yet ours, and that the wild brother snake can always help us prove to the G.o.ds that it is ours."

"It is true that it is ours," a.s.sented the old man,--"and it is good when the visions come to show us how it is ours,"--then after a little, he added:--"For the sleep you will stay with my clan?" but Tahn-te, standing on the terrace, shook his head and pointed to the south.