The Delight Makers Part 10

"Neither would I, if I were in your place," Zashue taunted, and a good-natured though mischievous smile lit up his features. "If I were you I would keep still better guard over Mitsha Koitza."

"What have I to do with the child of Tyope," exclaimed the other, rather contemptuously.

"Indeed?" queried Zashue, "so you, too, are against Tyope? What has he done to you?"

"Nothing, but I mistrust him as much as I do the Navajo."

These last words were uttered in such a positive manner--they were so earnestly emphasized--that they cut off the conversation. It was plain that Hayoue had made up his mind on the subject, and that he did not wish to have it broached again.

"Sa nashtio," called Shyuote over to where the brothers were weeding in silence, "come over here; I must tell you something, but I must tell it to you alone."

Hayoue at once turned away, while Zashue called the lad to him. But Shyuote protested, saying that only his father was to hear his communication, and Zashue at last went where the boy was standing. It vexed him, and he inquired rather gruffly what he had to say. Shyuote made a very wise and important face, placed a finger to his lips, and whispered,--

"The Koshare Naua told me to tell you that you should go to see him, not to-morrow, but the day after, when the moon goes behind the mountains."

"Is that all!" exclaimed Zashue, disappointed and angry,--"is that all you had to say? That much you might have shouted to me. There was no need of being so secret about it, and"--he glanced at the insignificant and careless work the boy had performed--"is that all you have done since you came? You are lazy, uak! Go home. Go home at once to your mother and tell her that I shall not return for the evening, but will stay with Hayoue in the caves." And as Shyuote, dismayed and troubled, appeared loath to go, Zashue turned to him again, commanding in a very angry tone,--

"Go home! Go home at once!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: (Upper picture) A Navajo Hogan]

[Ill.u.s.tration: (Lower picture) The Heart of the Tyuonyi: The excavated lower story of the great terraced Communal House]

Shyuote left in haste; he felt very much like crying. Hayoue said to his brother,--

"Didn't I tell you that Shyuote was lazy? Okoya is far, far more useful."

"Let me alone about Okoya," growled Zashue; and both went on with the work as before.

Shyuote stumbled across the patches of corn, rather than walked through them. He felt sad, dejected, and very wrathful. All the buoyancy with which his victory over the girls had inspired him was gone. Since that heroic feat nothing but ill-luck had crossed his path. He was angry at his father for scolding him and driving him home, in the presence of Hayoue, for whom the boy had as great a dislike as his uncle had for him. Why, it was worse than the threats and cuffs of the old Naua! It was not only an injustice, it was an insult! So the lad reasoned, and began to brood over vengeance. He was going to show his father that he, the ten-year-old boy, was not to be trifled with. Yes, he would show his teeth by refusing to become a Koshare. Would not that be a glorious revenge! The little fellow did not know that he was pledged to the Delight Makers by a sacred vow of his parent which it was not in his power to break. After a while his thoughts changed, and he concluded that it might be better to say nothing and to go home and ask for something to eat. But never, never again would he favour his father with a friendly call in the corn-patch. This latter resolve appeared to him so satisfactory, the revenge so ample for the injury received, that he forgot the past and fairly danced through the fields, hopping sometimes on one foot and sometimes on the other. He crossed the brook and reached the large house almost to his own surprise.

It was noon, and the full blaze of the sun flooded the valley with light. Not a breeze fanned the air, nothing stirred. No vibrations troubled the picture which the cliffs, the caves, the buildings, presented in the dazzling glare. The cliffs had lost their yellowish hue and appeared white, with every protuberance, every indentation, or cavity, marked by intense shadows. The houses inhabited by the Eagle clan along the foot of the rocks were like a row of irregularly piled cubes and prisms; each beam leaning against them cast a jet-black streak of shadow on the ground. Below the projecting beams of the roofs a short black line descended along the wall, and the towering rocks jutted in and out from dark recesses like monsters. So strong were the contrasts between shadow and light that even Shyuote was struck by it. He stood still and stared.

Something indefinite, a vague feeling of awe, crept over him. For the real grandeur of the scenery he had no sense of appreciation, and yet it seemed to him as if everything about were new and strange. Thousands of times had he gazed at the cliffs of his valley home, but never had they appeared to him as they did now. So strong was this impression, and so sudden, too, that he shrank from the sight in amazement; then he turned his eyes away and walked rapidly toward home. He was afraid to look at the colossal pillars and walls; they appeared to him like giants threatening to move. All his plans for revenge, every thought of wrath and indignation, had vanished.

Suddenly his left knee was struck by a stone hurled with such force that Shyuote bounded and screamed. At the same time six or seven boys, some apparently of his age while others were taller and older, rushed from the bushes skirting the ditch. Two of them ran directly in front of him.

They were armed with sticks and short clubs, and the largest, who seemed to be of the same age as Okoya, shouted,--

"You have injured Sayap, and caused her blood to flow. You rotten squash, you shall suffer for it."

Shyuote took in the situation at a glance. He saw that only desperate running would save him from being roughly handled. He darted off like an arrow toward the cave-dwellings in front of him. Unfortunately these were the quarters of the Corn people who had not yet moved into their new homes. To them belonged Sayap and the boys that were a.s.sailing Shyuote; and as the fugitive approached the slope, he saw it occupied by other youth ready and eager to give him a warm reception. At the same time the tallest of his pursuers was gaining on him rapidly; rocks flew past his head; a stone struck him between the ribs, stopping his breath almost. In despair he turned to the left, and making a last effort flew towards the houses of the Eagle clan. Panting, blinded by exertion and by pain, he reached one of the beams leading to a roof, rushed upward along it, and was about to take refuge in the room below, when a young girl came up the primitive ladder down which he had intended to precipitate himself. Issuing from the hatchway she quietly pushed the lad to one side; then, as in that moment one of his pursuers appeared on the roof, she stepped between him and Shyuote.

"Get out of the way, Mitsha! Let me get at the wren!" cried the youth who had just climbed the roof. Shyuote fled to the very wall of the rock; he gave up all hope and thought himself lost. But the girl quietly asked,--

"What do you want with the boy?"

"He has hurt Sayap, our sister," the tall youngster answered. "He threw a stone at her and caused her to bleed. Now I am going to pay him for it."

"So will I!" shouted another one from below.

"I too!" "And I!" "He shall get it from all of us!" yelled a number of youthful voices, and in an instant the roof was crowded with boys.

Mitsha had placed herself so as to s.h.i.+eld the trembling lad with her own body. Very quietly she said,--

"Don't you see that he also is bleeding? Let him go now, it is enough."

A stone had indeed grazed Shyuote's scalp, and blood was trickling down his cheek.

"It is not enough!" shouted one of the older boys, angrily. "Get out of the way, Mitsha!"

"You shall not hurt him on this roof," replied Mitsha, in a calm but very positive tone.

"Do you intend to protect him?" cried the tallest one of the pursuers, and another one exclaimed,--

"How does it concern you? You have nothing to do here." All turned against the girl. A little fellow, who carried several large pebbles in his hand for the occasion, endeavoured to steal a march around Mitsha in order to reach Shyuote; but she noticed it, and grasped his arm and pulled him back so vigourously that he reeled and fell at full length on the roof. Then she ordered them all to leave forthwith.

"You belong to the Corn clan," she said, "and have nothing to do here on the houses of the Eagle clan. Go down! Get away at once or I will call our men. As long as I am here you shall not touch the uak."

"So you take his part?" cried the biggest one of the invaders. He raised a stick to strike her.

"Lay down your club, you dirty ear of corn," replied the maiden, "or you will fare badly." With this she drew from under her wrap a heavy war-club; it was the same weapon which Tyope had used the night previous.

The boy's arm remained uplifted, but still the att.i.tude of the girl, her threatening look and resolute appearance, checked the a.s.sailants. Mitsha stood with apparent composure, but her eyes sparkled and the expression of her face denoted the utmost determination. Besides she was fully as tall as most of her opponents, and the weapon she was holding in readiness looked quite formidable. But the superior number of her a.s.sailants exercised a certain pressure on these a.s.sailants themselves, and the Indian under such circ.u.mstances has no thought of chivalrous feeling. A dozen boys stood before the solitary maiden on the roof, and they were not to be intimidated by her. For an instant only neither said a word; then a threatening murmur arose. One of the lads called out to the tallest of the crowd,--

"Strike her down, Shohona!"

A stone was thrown at her but missed its aim. At this moment the boys nearest the brink of the roof were suddenly thrust aside right and left, the one who had threatened Mitsha with his stick was pulled back and jerked to one side violently, and before the astonished girl stood Okoya. Pale with emotion, breathless, with heaving chest, and quivering from excitement, he gasped to her,--

"Go down into the room; I will protect my brother." Then he turned to face the a.s.sailants.

The scene on the roof had attracted a large number of spectators, who had gathered below and were exchanging surmises and advice on the merits of a case about which none of them really knew anything. Now a woman's voice rose from amid this gaping and chattering crowd,--the sharp and screechy voice of an angry woman. She shouted to those who were on the roof,--

"Get down from my house! Get down, you scoundrels! If you want to kill each other do it elsewhere, and not on my home!" With this the woman climbed on to the roof. She seized the boy nearest to her by the hair and pulled him fairly to the ground, so that the poor fellow howled from pain. With the other hand she dealt blows and cuffs, and scratched and punched indiscriminately among the youngsters, so that a sudden panic broke out among these would-be heroes. Each sought to get out of her reach with the greatest alacrity. She at last released her hold on the first victim and reached out for another; but the last of the young Corn people was just tumbling down from the roof, and her clutch at his leg came too late. In an instant the roof was cleared. The young braves from the Maize clan were ungraciously received below. A number of their parents had a.s.sembled, and when the woman began to expostulate, they looked at the matter from her point of view. They saw that it was an infringement, a trespa.s.s, upon the territory and rights of another clan, and treated their pugnacious sons to another instalment of bodily punishment as fast as they came tumbling from above. The final result for the incipient warriors of the Corn people was that they were ignominiously driven home.

While peace was thus restored upon the ground it still looked quite stormy on the roof. The woman who had so energetically interfered at last discovered Okoya, who was looking in blank amazement at this sudden change of affairs. Forthwith she made a vicious grab at his ebony locks, with the pointed remark,--

"Down with you, you stinking weed!"

But Mitsha interfered.

"Mother," she said gently, "do not harm him. He was defending his brother and me. He is none of the others."

"What!" the woman screamed, "was it you whom they were about to strike, these night-owls made of black corn? You, my child? Let me tell them again what they are," and she ran to the brink of the roof, raised handfuls of dust from it, and hurled them in the direction of the caves of the offenders. She stamped, she spat; she raved, and heaped upon the heads of the Corn people, their ancestors, and their descendants, every invective the Queres language contains. To those below this appeared decidedly entertaining; the men especially enjoyed the performance, but Mitsha felt sorry,--she disliked to see her mother display such frenzy and to hear her use such vulgar language. She pulled her wrap, saying,--

"It is enough now, sanaya. Don't you see that those who wanted to hurt me are gone? Their fathers and mothers are not guilty. Be quiet, mother; it is all over now."

Her mother at last yielded to these gentle remonstrances, turned away from the brink, and surveyed the roof. She saw Okoya standing before weeping Shyuote, and scolding him.

"What are you doing to this child?" asked Mitsha's mother, still under the pressure of her former excitement. She was ready for another fray.