The Flute of the Gods Part 5

In Povi-whah the clan of the Arrow Stone people welcomed the Twilight Woman as their own, and the men and women who had journeyed with her from Ua-lano looked glad to have journeyed with her,--they had to answer many questions.

Tahn-te also had much practise in the Te-hua words when he tried to tell them what the peach was like, and what the pear was like, and the youth were skeptical as to peaches big as six plums.

A boy larger than he flipped with a willow wand at the urn with the little trees, and told him that in Provi-whah a boy was whipped if he lied too often!

"How many times may a boy lie and not be whipped?" asked Tahn-te, and the other boys laughed, and one stripling gave him a fillet of otter skin in approval, and said his name was Po-tzah, and that their clan was the same.

But the tiny Yahn who looked from face to face, and saw the anger in the face of the boy of the willow wand, caught the switch and brought it down with all the force of her two chubby arms on the nurslings brought from Hopi land.

Tahn-te caught her and lifted her beyond reach of the urn.

"I should have let the strange beasts of the iron men eat you," he said. "You shall go hungry for peaches if you kill the trees!"

The others laughed as she wriggled clear--and lisped threats even while keeping out of range of his strong hands.

"Always she is a little cat of the hills to fight for Ka-yemo," said Po-tzah. "Little Ka-yemo will some day grow enough to fight alone!"

Ka-yemo scowled at them, and muttered things, and sauntered away. He was the largest of all of them, but one boy does not fight six!

Yahn was in such a silent rage that she twitched and bent the willow until it was no longer any thing but a limp wreck:--she would break something!

"That is the Apache!" said Po-tzah. "I think that baby does not forget to fight even when she sleeps."

The little animal flung an epithet at him and ran after the sulky Ka-yemo:--evidently her hero and idol.

The mother of Tahn-te was called in council for things of which Tahn-te was not to know. But he learned that she was of the society of the Rulers:--that from which the spiritual head was selected when the Po-Ahtun-ho or Ruler no longer walked on the earth.

After the council sacred meal was sprinkled on the trees in the urn, and the priests of the order of Po-Ahtun divided them between the Winter people, and the Summer people, that it be proven which the care of the new fruit would belong to for prayers, and each planted them by their several signs in the sky. His mother spoke to him when alone and told him he was now to do a boy's work in the village, and his training must begin for the ceremonies of high orders into which the council wished him to enter.

"To serve our people?"

"Yes:--it will be so--to serve our people."

"Since it is to be like that, may I also speak?"--he asked. "May I not speak to the men who decide? I have thought of this each day since Ua-lano. At some time I must speak:--is not this the time?"

"It may be the time," she a.s.sented. "We will go to the old men of the orders. It may be they will listen."

All night they listened, and all night they talked, and the old men looked at the mother strangely that the son should speak the words of a man in council.

"Thanks that you let me speak," he said. "Thanks! It is true what you hear of the white gold-hunter's magic. It is strong. It is good that we find out how it is strong. My mother tells you how the Snake priests of Tusayan make me of their order, so that I can know that magic for the rain ceremony. In my hands also was given the Flute of Prayer to the desert G.o.ds, and to know Hopi prayers does not hurt me for a Te-hua:--it is Te-hua prayers my mother teaches me always! So it will not hurt me to learn the magic of the men of iron. They are strong and they will be hard to fight. The grey robe man is the man who teaches of their G.o.ds. He teaches it from magic white leaves in his hand, on the leaves there are words--other iron men can talk from them, but only the grey robe is the priest and teaches. He would teach me if I would serve him--then I could have their magic with our own."

"It may be evil magic," said one.

"It tames the strange beasts as the Hopi prayers tame the snakes,"

replied the boy--"and every day the beasts do work for these people."

The old men nodded a.s.sent--it certainly must be strong magic to do that!

But a man of the Tain-tsain clan arose.

"This woman has been gone many moons on a strange trail," he said.

"The son she brings back to her clan speaks not as a youth speaks. It is as if he has been very old and grows young again. It may be magic--and again it may be that he is half lost in his mind and dreams the dreams of a man. It is a new thing that men listen to a child in council."

Then K[=a]-ye-fah the aged Po-Ahtun-ho made a sign for silence, and sat with closed eyes, and it was very quiet in the council until he spoke.

"You have brought a big thought out of the world of the Spirit People, Phen-tza," he said. "It has been given to you to say, and that is well! It has been given to me to see--and I see with prayer. When the G.o.d-thought is sent to earth people is it not true that the child of dreams, or the man of dreams, is the first to hear or to feel that thought? Was not the earth-born G.o.d, Po-se-yemo, called a youth that was foolish? Was he not laughed at by the clans until he wept? Was he not made ashamed until out of his pain there grew a wisdom greater than earth-wisdom? Let us think of these things, and let us hear the words of the child who dreams."

"It is well," said another, "even when half the mind is gone, it may be gone only a little while on the twilight trail to the Great Mystery."

"The life music comes in many ways," said K[=a]-ye-fah, the Ruler.

"Many reeds grow under the summer sun, but not in all of them do we hear the call of the spirit people when the wild reed is fashioned for the flute. The G.o.ds themselves grow the flutes of High Mystery. This youth is only a reed by the river to-day--yet through such reed the G.o.ds may send speech for our ears."

"We will listen," said the others. "Let us hear more of the men whose blankets are made of the hard substance." And at this Tahn-te again took courage and spoke.

"These iron men say they are only on a hunting trail--they say they will not trouble the people--that is what their men say who speak for them! But if one boy, or one man, could talk as they talk, you men of Povi-whah would know better if they speak straight. My mother has found the trail to her people on the right day, and has brought me here. I want to be the boy who learns that talk of the hunters of the blue stones and sacred sun metal of the earth, and then I can come back and tell it to the wise men of my mother's people."

"But you may not come back."

"I will ask all the Powers that I will come back. My mother will pray also, and her prayers are strong."

"I will pray also," said S[=aa]-hanh-que-ah.

The men smoked, and the boy watched them and waited until K[=a]-ye-fah spoke.

"That which the son of this wise woman says is to be well thought of;--it may be precious to us in days not yet born of the sun. You who listen know that we are living now in a day that was told of by Ki-pah in the years of our Lost Others, and Ki-pah spoke as the G.o.d Po-se-yemo spoke:--he was given great magic to see the years ahead of the years he lived."

"It is true," a.s.sented the governor--"It was when the people yet lived in the caves, and the water went into the sands in that highland--that is when he came to our Lost Others--Ki-pah--the great wisdom. He came from the south, and taught them to come down from the caves and build houses by the great river, and to turn the water to the fields here.

All things worked with him--and Kah-po--and Oj-ke and P[=o]-ho-ge were built and stand to this day where he said they must be built. He knew all speech, and could tell magic things from a bowl of clear water. It was in the water he saw men who were white, and who would cover the land if we were not strong. These men are the men he saw in the water.

I think it is so, and that this is the time to be strong."

CHAPTER V

TAHN-Te AMONG STRANGERS

The one thing to which the boy gave awed attention was that when the time came for the villages to fight--a leader would be born to them--if the people of the valley were true to their G.o.ds they would be strong always, Ki-pah the prophet told them to remember always the war star in the sky--the star Po-se-yemo had told them of, when it moved, the time to make war would be here.

And when the time came to fight, a leader would come to them, as he, Ki-pah had come! Because of this thought was the heart of the boy thrilled that he had been called a reed by the river--a reed through which music of the desert G.o.ds might speak.

He was filled with wild fancies of mystic things born of these prophecies. And the old men said that perhaps this was the time of which Po-se-yemo, the G.o.d, and Ki-pah, the prophet, had told!

The vote of a Te-hua council has to be the agreement of every man, and the star of the morning brought dawn to the valley before the last reluctant decided it was well to send a messenger to learn of the strange G.o.ds.

But as the sun rose Tahn-te bathed in the running water of the river, and his prayer was of joy:--for he was to go!

In joy, and with the light of exaltation in his face he said farewell to boy thoughts, and walked lightly over the highlands and the valleys to Ua-lano, and thence followed the adventurers to Ci-cu-ye and bent the knee to Father Luis, and kissed the cross, and let water be sprinkled over him, and did all the things shown him with so glad a heart that the devoted priest gave praise for such a convert from the pagan people. So pleased was he with the eagerness of Tahn-te to learn, that he made him his own a.s.sistant at the ceremonies of the Holy Faith.