The Heritage of the Hills Part 23

Now dawn came fast and spread its inchoate light over the silent a.s.semblage in the hills. Then like a burst of sound disturbing a weary sleeper, the cherry stones resumed their rattling.

At once, back of the circle of tottering dancers, a weird chant arose till it drummed in Oliver's ears and seemed to be lulling him to sleep.

Out of the void taut fingers came and clasped his own. His hands were jerked high over his head. Something stung his feet and legs, and he thought of the rattler on the hill. The chant rose to a riotous shouting. The air was filled with imprecations, wailings, shrieks, and spiteful challenges. Now Oliver realized that his fingers were locked with those of the nude Indian who had danced opposite him; that they two were over the waning fire, fighting it with their feet.

How long it lasted he never knew. Life came back to his mistreated muscles, and with his feet he fought this thing that stung him and seared him and filled his heart with burning wrath. Then came a long, concerted shout. In rushed the Showut Poche-dakas to the fighters' aid.

Bare feet by twenty-fives and fifties slapped at the fire, and a herd of dark forms trampled over it and beat it to extinction.

A long shout of triumph that sped away on swift wings toward the coming dawn and the distant mountain! And then a single voice lifted high in words which in English are these:

"The evil fire G.o.d has been defeated. No barrier stands between the white man and the Showut Poche-dakas. From this hour to the end of time he who has danced the fire dance tonight and conquered the evil spirit shall be brother to the Showut Poche-dakas!"

Then just before Oliver fainted in some one's arms he heard in English:

"Seven hours and twenty minutes--the longest fire dance in the history of the tribe!"

And the new brother of the Showut Poche-dakas heard no more.

CHAPTER XVI

A GUEST AT THE RANCHO

Then there was feasting and racing and dancing and much ado. Dice clicked; cards sputtered; the p.a.w.n pa.s.sed in the ancient _peon_ game.

There was a barbecued steer, athletic contests, and compet.i.tions in markmanship. The Fiesta de Santa Maria de Refugio was to continue throughout the entire period of the full moon, and there must be diversion for every day and every night.

Oliver Drew awoke the next day after the fire dance in the _ramada_ which had been a.s.signed to him. He felt as if he had been pa.s.sed through a stamp mill, so sore were his muscles and so burned and blistered were feet and legs. He had been carried to his bed of green willow boughs directly after the dance, where he had slept until nearly nightfall.

Then he had been awakened and given food. After eating he fell asleep once more, and slept all night, his head in the silver-mounted saddle that Bolivio had made.

He dragged himself from the shakedown and went and sat at an opening in the booth. The _ramada_ of the California Indian is merely an arbourlike structure built of newly cut limbs of trees, their still unwithered leaves serving to screen the occupants from outside eyes.

The birds were singing. Up the steep mountainside back of the reservation the goats and burros of the Showut Poche-dakas browsed contentedly on buckthorn and manzanita bushes. There was the smell of flowers in the drowsy air, mingling strangely with that indescribable odour that permeates an Indian village.

It was noticeably quiet outside. Doubtless the Indians were enjoying an early-morning siesta after some grilling orgy of the night before.

Oliver groaned with the movements necessary to searching his pockets for cigarette materials. His groan was mimicked by a familiar voice in the doorway.

Jessamy Selden entered.

"I've been listening for a sound from you," she chirruped. "My, how you slept! All in?"

"Pretty nearly," he said.

She came and sat beside him on a box.

"Are you badly burned?"

"Oh, no. I guess your courtplaster helped some. But I'm terribly sore.

And, worst of all, I feel like an utter a.s.s!"

"Why, how so?"

He snorted indignantly. "I went nutty," he laughed shortly. "I have lost the supreme contempt which I have always had for people who go batty in any sort of fanatical demonstration, like that last night. I've seen supposedly intelligent white folks go absolutely wild at religious camp meetings in the South, and I always marvelled at their loss of control.

Now I guess I understand. Hour after hour of what I went through the other night, with the chanting and wailing and the constant rattle of those confounded cherry stones, and the terrible heat, and men and women giving out all about me, and the perpetual thud-thud of bare feet--ugh!

I wouldn't go through it again for ten thousand dollars."

"I thought it best not to warn you of the severity of it beforehand,"

she announced complacently. "Very few white men have ever danced the fire dance, and only one or two have held out to the end. Of course failure to do so signifies that the powers working against the affiliation are too strong to be overcome. These men who failed, then, did not become brothers of the Showut Poche-dakas."

"Lucky devils!"

"Here, here!" she cried. "Don't talk that way. You're glad, aren't you?"

"I'm tickled half to death."

"Is it possible that you do not take this seriously, Mr. Drew?"

"Look here," he said: "why didn't you tell me more of what I might expect at this fool performance?"

"I was afraid you might look at the matter much as you're looking at it now," she answered. "I knew you'd go through with it, though, if you once got started. I knew it to be a terrible ordeal, but I was confident that you would win."

"I thank you, I'm sure. Win what, though? The reputation of being a half-baked simpleton?"

"Do you imagine that the white people who saw you are ridiculing you?"

"Aren't they?"

"Absolutely nothing of the sort! You're the hero of the hour. People about here always attend the fiestas, and you'll be surprised to note the seriousness and lack of levity that they show in regard to the rites and ceremonies of the Showut Poche-dakas. It's an inheritance from the old days, I suppose, when the few white men who were here found it decidedly to their advantage to be friendly with the Indians. They glory in your grit, and everybody is talking about you. You should have heard Old Man Selden. 'There's a regular man,' he loudly informed every one after the dance. And folks about here listen to what Old Man Selden says, for one reason or another."

"But it was such an asinine proceeding!"

"Was it? I thought you respected the other fellow's beliefs and religious practices."

"Was that a religious dance?"

"Decidedly. All of their dances are religious at bottom. You were trying to overcome the evil spirit, represented by the fire, that stood between you and your union with the Showut Poche-dakas. You are one of the few who have weathered this ordeal and won. And now you're a recognized member of the tribe."

"And is that an enviable distinction?"

"What do _you_ think about that?"

Oliver was silent a time. "Tell the truth," he said at last, "I've been thinking more of my sore muscles and scorched legs, and of the ridiculous figure I supposed I had cut the other night. I suppose, though, that when a hundred or more fellow creatures unanimously admit a rank outsider to the plane of brotherhood, one would be shallow minded indeed to look upon it too lightly."

"Exactly. Just what I wanted to hear you say. And the more simple natured and trusting they are, the more it devolves upon you to treat their brotherhood with respect and reverence. You are now brother to the Showut Poche-dakas; and you'll be a wiser man before you're older by many days. In this little village you have always a refuge, no matter what the world outside may do to you. Nothing that you could do against your own race can make you an utter outcast, for here are your brothers, always eager to shelter you. If you owned a cow and lost it, a word from you would send fifty mounted men scouring the hills till the cow had been found and restored to you. Will the people of your own race do that? If the forest was burning throughout the country, rest a.s.sured your property would be made safe before your brothers turned their efforts to protecting the homes of other white men. Is it trivial, my friend?"

"No," said Oliver shortly.