The Delight Makers Part 45

"Tzitz hanutsh has nothing to do with the dead, and yet the women lament and its men think over the loss that the tribe has sustained. I tell you, Okoya, we have lost much; we are like children without their mother, like a drove of turkeys whose gobbler tiatui or mokatsh have killed. Now,"--his eyes flashed again and he gnashed his teeth,--"now Tyope and the old Naua are uppermost. Just wait until the men have returned from the war-path, and you will see. Evil is coming to us. Did you notice, satyumishe, on the night when they carried sa nashtio maseua back to the Tyuonyi how angry the s.h.i.+uana were; how the lightning flamed through the clouds and killed the trees on the mesa? I tell you, brother, evil is coming to our people, for a good man has gone from us to s.h.i.+papu, but the bad ones have been spared."

Okoya shuddered involuntarily. He recollected well that awful night.

Never before had a storm raged on the Rito with such fury. Frightful had been the roar of the thunder, prolonged like some tremendous subterranean noise. Incessant lightning had for hours converted night into day, and many were the lofty pines that had been shattered or consumed by the fiery bolts from above. The wind, which seldom does any damage at such places, had swept through the gorge and over the mesas with tremendous force, and lastly the peaceful, lovely brook, swollen by the waters that gushed from the mountains in torrents, as well as by the rain falling in sheets, had waxed into a roaring, turbid stream. It had flooded the fields, destroying crops and spreading ma.s.ses of rocky debris over the tillable soil. Yes, the heavens had come upon the Rito in their full wrath, as swift and terrible avengers. Both of them remembered well that awful night, and dropped into moody silence at the dismal recollection.

"Are there any other bad men at the Tyuonyi?" Okoya asked; but low, as if he were afraid of the answer.

"There may be others," Hayoue muttered, "but those two are certainly the worst."

Okoya felt disappointed; Tyope, he saw, must indeed be a bad creature.

"Do you know whether Tyope is mourning?" asked his uncle.

"I have not seen him," grumbled the other.

"I am sure he will look as if his mother had died," scolded Hayoue. "He is a great liar, worse than a Navajo. He puts on a good face and keeps the bad one inside. I would like to know what the s.h.i.+uana think of that bad man."

"Have we any bad women among us?" Okoya said, to change the conversation.

"Hannay is bad!" his uncle cried.

A pang went through the heart of the other youth. His prospective father and mother in-law appeared really a pair of exquisite scoundrels.

"Are there any others?"

"I don't know, still I have heard." Hayoue looked about as if afraid of some eavesdropper,--"what I tell you now is only for yourself,--that Shotaye is bad, very bad! After being Tyope's wife for a while, I should not be surprised if--"

"Does she speak to those that can do us harm?" Okoya interrupted in a timid whisper.

"It may be. There is no doubt but she is a harlot; I know it myself, and every man on the Tyuonyi knows it. Other women are also spoken of, but n.o.body says it aloud. It is not right to speak thus of people when we do not know positively. I have not seen Shotaye since our father died. She is mourning perhaps, for her cave is shut and the deerskin hangs over the doorway. She is likely to be inside in quiet until the trouble is over and the men can go to her again."

Okoya rose to go.

"Are you coming along?" he asked his uncle.

Hayoue shook his head; he still wished to remain alone.

"It may be," he said, "that we shall have to leave in two days against the Tehuas, and I shall remain so that I may be ready when the tapop calls upon us. You rely upon it, satyumishe, we shall go soon, and when it so happens that we both must go you shall come with me that I may teach you how the scalp is taken."

Thus dismissed, Okoya sauntered back down the valley.

When opposite the caves of the Water clan he furtively glanced over to the one inhabited by Shotaye. The deerskin, as Hayoue had stated, hung over the opening, and no smoke issued from the hole that served as vent and smoke-escape. The woman must be mourning very deeply, or else she was gone. She did not often enter his thoughts, and yet he wished Shotaye might come now and see his mother. He was convinced, without knowing why, that his mother would have been glad to see her.

At all events the dismal period of mourning was drawing rapidly to a close, and with it official sadness would vanish. He could hardly await the morrow. On that day he hoped that the question would be decided when the great work of revenge should commence and whether he would be permitted to take part in it. The words of his uncle had opened an entirely new perspective to Okoya. To become uakanyi was now his aim, his intense ambition. As warrior, and as successful warrior, he confidently expected that no one would dare refuse him Mitsha. This hope overcame the grief he had harboured during the days that elapsed, for that grief belonged to the past; and as the past now appeared to him, it seemed only a stepping-stone to a proud and happy future.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 11: I borrow these facts from Spanish sources. Both Castaneda and Mota Padilla mention cremation as being practised in the sixteenth century by the Pueblos. The latter author even gives a detailed description. Withal, the fact that the Pueblos also buried the body is more than abundantly established. Both modes of burial were resorted to, and contemporaneously even, according to the nature of the country and soil. There is comparatively little soil at the Rito. The mourning ceremonies, etc., I have witnessed myself.]

CHAPTER XVII.

Okoya had been correct in his surmise that Shotaye was gone. In vain Say Koitza pined; her friend had left never to return.

When the news of Topanashka's death reached her, which it did on the very night of the occurrence, she saw at a glance that henceforth her presence among the Queres was an impossibility, for she knew that the deceased was the only one who could interpose himself between Say Koitza and her enemies, and thus wield an influence indirectly favourable to herself. She recognized that henceforth Tyope was free to act as he pleased in the matter, for the medicine-men would be on his side. And she saw that the days of mourning that were sure to follow afforded her a capital opportunity for leaving the Rito un.o.bserved, and executing her flight to the Tehuas of the Puye.

Shotaye could not believe that Cayamo was the slayer of Topanashka. Her warrior from the north was in too great a hurry to get out of the way of pursuing Navajos. He was too anxious to save the scalp he had taken.

Even in case Topanashka had overtaken him, which seemed impossible, the Tehua would have avoided rather than attacked the unarmed old man. And if the maseua surprised their interview and followed her knight, the latter had too much vantage-ground to be ever overtaken by his aged and unarmed pursuer. The fact that the sandal had been found, Shotaye interpreted as evidence of Cayamo's precipitate flight. From her standpoint she reached the very correct conclusion that the Navajos who followed in Cayamo's tracks, and not the Tehua, must have killed the father of her friend Say.

But she saw that her people would fall into error as to the manner of Topanashka's death. She saw that they could not have reached a different conclusion, and also that the error must call forth extraordinary measures of revenge. She heard enough and saw enough, during the commotion prevailing at the Rito when the dead body was brought in, to become convinced that as soon as the mourning ceremonies were over the Queres would take the war-path against the supposed murderers of their war-chief. She took care not to disabuse the minds of any of her tribal brethren, and said nothing, but felt glad at the opportunity which the proposed campaign would give her for revenge.

Flight to the Tehuas was not only very easy, it could be executed under circ.u.mstances that would give her among the other tribe a position of considerable importance. It was almost needless to avail herself of the understanding with Cayamo; she had far more important things to communicate. By informing the Tehuas of the movement on foot against them, she appeared as a deserter from the enemy, as a timely friend. If afterward, as she confidently believed, Tyope should come up with the warriors against the Tehuas, he would find everything prepared for a disastrous reception. Matters looked exceedingly promising for her plans.

For all that, she did not forget Say Koitza; but she had been to some extent forewarned, and as soon as Say heard of Shotaye's absence she must suspect the truth. After all, Say was in no real danger. Until the campaign was over, there was no time to think of her case, and during that campaign Shotaye would provide for the Queres such a rough handling that no thoughts of witchcraft trials would trouble them for some time to come. For there should be mourning, sadness, grief, howling, and gnas.h.i.+ng of teeth on the Rito on a very large scale.

Still she did not lose sight of the possibility that her absence might be noticed at an early day, and might arouse suspicion. It was possible, though not at all likely. As long as people mourned, n.o.body would care for her. After the official mourning was over the council would be convened and the campaign announced. Thereupon all the men who had to take part would have to retire for the customary fasts and purifications, and the Yaya and the Chayani would have to work heavily.

Her home was not likely to be visited by any one for a number of days, and when the warriors of the Queres were on the march n.o.body would call them back because she had disappeared from the Rito.

Perfectly at rest in regard to her own future, rea.s.sured as to the fate of Say Koitza, Shotaye had, on the night of the second day after the murder of Topanashka, left her home and climbed to the northern mesa without meeting any obstacle. When the sun rose, she found herself quite near the place which Cayamo, as far as she understood, had designated as the spot where his friend Teanyi would wait for her. Unacquainted with the real distance that separates the Rito from the cave-dwellings above Santa Clara, she had underrated it; and it was only at noon, after she had spent hours walking through the pine timber and in fruitless waiting, that a man stepped up to her from behind a tree and called out,--

"Teanyi!" Then he added, "Cayamo," and inquired, "Shotaye?"

He was the looked-for and longed-for delegate; and when the sun stood at its height, the two were travelling toward the Puye together.

Shotaye attempted to convey the idea to her companion that the Queres were upon the point of moving upon the Tehuas in force. Her excited gesticulations and broken sentences only succeeded in making him believe that she was herself the object of lively pursuit by a considerable number of men. Therefore when the pair reached the isolated, castle-like rock called Puye, which dominates the country far around, and along the base of which the dwellings of the Tehuas were excavated in friable white pumice-stone, in the same manner as are those of the Rito, Teanyi left her standing before the entrance to his own cave-home, went in, and called his wife to take care of the new-comer while he ran to the tuyo, as the governor is called among the Tehuas. The wife of Teanyi had not been informed of the nature of Shotaye's call, and as she took her into her quarters she eyed her curiously and suspiciously, for it was probably the first time she had seen a human being that spoke a language different from her own. She gave her no food, but waited her husband's return. Shotaye, on her side, cast the quick glance of her lively eyes at everything. From time to time she attempted a word of conversation; she smiled and gesticulated, but the only response was a shaking of the head and facial expressions that denoted suspicion rather than friends.h.i.+p.

Teanyi had informed the tuyo that he had met a woman from the Rito de los Frijoles and had taken her to his home, or rather to that of his wife; that the woman was gesticulating in an unintelligible manner; and that all he could surmise was that there might be Queres approaching the Puye with hostile intentions. He said nothing about Cayamo and his relations toward Shotaye, for Cayamo had enjoined absolute secrecy.

The governor of the Tehuas was a different man from the pompous little tapop of the Queres. The latter would at once have called the council and done everything to surround the event and his own person with as much noise as possible. Not so the tuyo of the Puye. He only said, "I will go with you," and went to the room of Teanyi's wife to see Shotaye and investigate for himself.

The gesticulations began again, and the woman used every effort to make herself understood. The governor did his best to understand her, but no progress was made toward comprehension. She even followed Cayamo's precedent in drawing a line on the floor from north to south, designating the southern end as Tupoge, the northern end as Puye, for thus much she had kept in memory. Then she pointed out on that line the spot where Topanashka had been killed, and said, "Uan save," and made the gesture-sign for killing. Lastly she tried to convey the idea that the Queres were in arms against the Tehuas.

The governor displayed much coolness, and paid close attention during this strange and almost comic interview. He thought he understood that a man from the Rito, probably called Topanashka, had been murdered by the Dinnes on the trail leading to the Puye from the south. He also thought that the Queres were on the war-path to avenge the murder. In what manner this was connected with the excited state of the woman he could not clearly see, unless she was perhaps the widow of the murdered man.

In that event she might have become insane from fright and despair! Her violent gesticulations and the expression of pa.s.sion and agitation on her features confirmed his suspicion that Shotaye was distracted.

A growing coldness in his manner at last showed the woman what sort of an impression she had been creating, and she felt very uneasy. Not that her life became endangered thereby; on the contrary, the Indian is very considerate and charitable toward such unfortunates. But from the moment that the Tehuas were convinced of her insanity they would attach no longer any importance to her warnings, and a precious lapse of time that should be improved for immediate preparations for defence was irretrievably lost. The Queres might be allowed to approach, and their onslaught would find the Tehuas utterly unprepared. If only Cayamo had been present! But he dared not approach a woman now, for he was at work purifying himself and fasting, in antic.i.p.ation of the great day when the scalp which he had taken would be feasted over, danced over, prayed at, and sung to. Shotaye found herself in a most painful situation. She noticed how complacently the tuyo smiled, the more she attempted to insist. At last he turned to Teanyi and said a few words to the latter.

Teanyi shook his head, and Shotaye followed the discussion that ensued between the two men with eager eyes and ears.

It soon became clear to her that they were of different opinions, and that each one persisted in his own. Finally Teanyi spoke alone, and for quite a while in a low voice; and the governor listened attentively and with growing interest. Though Teanyi's voice was m.u.f.fled, Shotaye still overheard the word Cayamo several times. Straining her sense of hearing, she caught the words tupoge, tema quio, finally Shotaye also. The tuyo listened, smiled, winked slyly, and at last laughed aloud. At the same time he turned his face to her and nodded most pleasantly; thereupon he said a few words to Teanyi aloud, and the latter turned to his family, which had little by little congregated in the room, and repeated, as appeared to Shotaye, his statements. At the close of his talk all broke out in a joyful laugh. The housewife, who until then had rather frowned at the visitor, now smiled and nodded too, repeating the words,--

"Not Queres; Tehua woman, wife of Cayamo."

All laughed, and the governor exclaimed,--

"It is well."