FEATHER FOR FEATHER

TUM-UM-UM, tum-um-um, went the drums beaten by the hands of the old men—too old for wars, but now grown momentarily youthful with the victory of the young men who were returning from battle.

Tum-um-um, tum-um-um! So sang the drums—great, glad buckskin drums, exultant beneath the staccato blows of the old men’s drumsticks. Tum-um-um, tum-um-um! Now the women, dressed in their gayest garments of dyed buckskin, radiant in beads, with the spirit of song upon their painted faces, came forth in a long file from a lodge and approached the centre of the open space about which were grouped the mud lodges of the village.

There, in the centre, sat the old men. The drums were singing a glad song, in sullen tones, in this hour of victory, for a runner, breathless with his speed, had brought the good news when the sun was halfway down the sky, and now the slowly setting sun was blazing on the evening hills.

Soon the whole victorious band, fresh from their fight with the Sioux, would come over the hills like an eager, dusty wind, clamorous with glad tongues and thunderous with the driven hoofs of captured ponies.

So the drums sang and the women came forth and circled about them, peering beneath hands raised browward, into the deepening shadows of the valley down which the band would sweep.

They swelled the song of victory, the song of welcome to the victors, and the look of welcome was already upon their faces as they searched the deepening shadows.

There came a rumble over the hills as of a hidden storm in time of drouth, thundering mockingly in the rainless air. The drummers lifted their sticks with trembling hands and listened—with one accord they all listened for the shouts and the hoof beats.

Now the faint treble of distant shouting pierced the growing rumble of the thunder. It was the braves! They were returning with much glory and many ponies. The drumsticks fell snarlingly upon the taut buckskin, but the sound seemed only a whisper, for the entire village was shouting with a tumult that made the grazing ponies snort upon the hillsides and gallop away with ears pricked wonderingly.

“They come! They come!”

The villagers thronged upon that side of the village that looked toward the hills from whence the thunder deepened. A dust cloud gathered behind the hills. It grew until it caught the horizontal sunlight and seemed a scintillating tower of victory. Suddenly the hill above the valley was thronged with mounted braves, waving their weapons above their heads and shouting, and a sunlit cloud of glory seemed about them.

The band swept down the hillside and down the valley, and the dust cloud thickened under the impetuous hoofs that beat the parched and yellow prairie. When they drew near the opening in the circle of lodges, the foremost hurled his panting pony back upon its haunches and the others reared and halted behind, champing at the restraining thongs.

“A-ho!” shouted the foremost, holding his weapons above his head. “We come from the Sioux! We have many ponies and also scalp-locks! Sing! For we have fought a good fight and we are not ashamed!”

A great shout went up from the village, and the drums snarled. Slowly, majestically, the circle of women began moving about the drums, keeping time to the rhythmic beats with a sideward shuffling of their feet in the dust. In a monotonous minor key the singing of the women began—at first like the crooning of an Indian mother to a restless child when the camp fires burn blue, and all the braves are snoring in the dark.

Then it rose into the mournful wail of a wife looking upon a dead face—a wordless, eloquent song. Then, with a burst, it rose into a treble cry, and words became dimly recognisable amid the ecstasy.

“We come, we come, and we are not ashamed!” sang the women to the snarling of the drums. “Let the fires roar and the bison meat be cooked, for we have fought, and now we wish to eat!

“Let the women dance and sing that we may be glad after our fighting! A-ho! A-ho! We travelled far—one sleep, two sleeps, three sleeps, but we slumbered not! We came upon our enemies. They were hidden in the grass like badgers. They were dressed in yellow grass that they might hide. We saw them and we shouted with joy, for we were not afraid! The enemy trembled like wolves who have come to the end of the ravine and the hunters follow behind!”

As the women sang, shuffling about the circle, the braves rode in single file into the enclosure of the village and formed a circle about the dance.

“I saw a big man among my enemies,” sang the women, for so their song ran. “He was strong as a bear and terrible as an elk. His head was proud with eagle feathers, for many men had he killed. I did not tremble when he rushed at me; I raised my club and struck him, and he fell with his eagle feathers. He whimpered like an old woman when she becomes a child again. He said, ‘I have many ponies for you, and my children will cry if I do not go back. Spare me!’ But behold! I have his scalp lock!”

“His scalp lock! His scalp lock!” shouted the braves, as the words of the song were drowned again in the minor drone that followed the snarl of the drums. And they waved scalp locks above their heads—the locks of the fallen Sioux.

Out of the droning the song of the women grew again. It became more ecstatic, running the gamut of human passion—from the shrill shriek of defiance to the mournful wail for those who had fallen in the battle. And then the shuffling stopped; the song died away into a drone and ceased, like the song of a locust at the end of a sultry evening. The drums snarled no more, a great silence fell, the sun had sunk beneath the hills.

Then, in the silence and the shadows of the evening, one came forth from among the circle of braves, and, with a slow, majestic bending of the knees, danced in a circle about the women and the drums, that began again as an accompaniment to the song that he would sing.

Round and round the circle he danced, improvising a song to the rhythm of the drums, in which he sang his prowess, and the whole village shouted when he reached the end of his song, for he told of a good fight and a strong arm, and he had been great in battle.

Then, amid the shouting, another came forth to dance and sing, for he too had done great things. It was White Cloud, and he was great among his people. Round and round the circle he danced to the tune of the drums, dodging imaginary arrows, leaping upon imaginary foes, striking huge blows at the heads of warriors hidden in the shadow.

“See!” he shouted in his song, and his voice was loud and masterful, for a murmur of praise had passed among the people. “See! White Cloud brings the scalp lock of a chief. He took it alone with his strong hand. The scalp lock of a big Sioux chief! Who has done a greater deed than White Cloud? Then let the old men place the eagle feather in his hair that he may be known among his people.”

Once again the dancing stopped and the drums ceased their droning. White Cloud approached the old men, who slowly placed the eagle feather in his hair.

But one among the assembled braves did not give his voice to the shout that ensued.

His gaze narrowed with hatred as he looked upon White Cloud, and his body trembled as a strong tree that stands alone in the path of a tempest.

Then as White Cloud strode proudly to the inner rim of the circle of braves, with the tall eagle feather in his hair, another came forth bearing with him his bow and his arrows. It was he who had found no voice in which to celebrate White Cloud’s valour.

He was tall and sinewy, and he had the clear-cut, cruel face of a hawk, now dark with a darkness deeper than the shadow of the evening. It was Little Weasel.

Erect, quivering like a strong bow in the clutch of a mighty warrior, he walked into the open space, and the drums once more began their wailing. But Little Weasel raised one trembling hand and commanded silence.

“Fathers,” he said, and his voice was low, vibrant with the growl of a wounded beast in it, “Little Weasel needs no drums to help him fill the stillness.”

The people bent forward, hushed, because there was something deeper than shadow in the face of Little Weasel as he turned his hawk’s gaze upon the bowed head of White Cloud.

“Little Weasel has words to utter, but they are not song words nor dance words. Let the women and cowards sing and dance!”

Still the head of White Cloud was bowed, and Little Weasel laughed a strange laugh.

“Who took the scalplock of the big Sioux chief?” shouted Little Weasel. “I, Little Weasel, took it! One sleep, two sleeps, I kept it close beside me; for I am a young man and I wanted to hear the shouts of my people. But in the third sleep a great heaviness came upon me, and when I awoke my Sioux scalp lock had been stolen from me. Now I know the badger who crept upon me in my heaviness and stole my honour from me. Look! You have placed the eagle feather in his hair!”

In the hush that filled that shadowed place naught but the heavy breathing of the people was heard. Little Weasel fitted a feathered arrow to his bow.

“See!” he cried. “I do not cry about my stolen feather. I give another!”

The bow-thong twanged, the arrow sang, and lodged deep in White Cloud’s breast.

“Let White Cloud wear that feather in his breast so that the black spirits will know him! For look! Already he is among them!”

White Cloud had fallen upon his face. Little Weasel dropped his bow upon the ground, and, raising his hands above his head, he shouted into the stillness: “Fathers, I have given feather for feather!”

Then a great cry broke from the assembled braves and the women shrieked. But Little Weasel shouldered his way through the throng and went to his lodge, laughing bitterly.

That evening the fires of the feast did not roar upward into the night. There was no song; there was no babble of glad voices; there was no bubbling of kettle nor scent of meat.

For a member of the tribe had been murdered by a tribesman, and the murderer, according to an ancient custom, would be driven forth that night from the circle of the lodges into the prairie. And the people sat speechless at the dark doors of their lodges awaiting the signal.

After a long and wordless waiting in the dark, the people saw the door-flap of the big council lodge swing open, and they held their breaths, for the time of the casting forth had come.

Through the hush of the starlit night came Little Weasel, pacing slowly about the circle of the village, and the fathers of the council, slow with age, followed behind.

Three times the outcast made the rounds, and when he began the fourth and last circle (for four is a medicine number), the old men who followed raised their faces to the starlit sky and breathed these words into the quiet:

“Let the people look upon Little Weasel, our brother, for he has killed a brother and must suffer. Four times shall the bears bring forth their cubs; four times shall the lone goose fly; four times shall the frogs sing in the valleys; four times shall the sunflowers grow; and he must wander, wander. Then shall Little Weasel return and his deed shall be forgotten. Wah-hoo-ha-a-a-a!”

Then when Little Weasel came the fourth time to the opening in the circle of lodges, looking toward the place of sunrise, he saw one standing in the dark who held a pony by a thong. And Little Weasel leaped upon the pony, laughed a loud, unpleasant laugh, and urged it southward into the night.

Throughout the night the people in the village heard strange sounds. For at times somewhere in the darkness of the hills, something laughed a loud, unmirthful laugh.

“Do you hear it?” the people whispered. “It is a wolf. For sometimes in the lonesome nights they laugh so.” But the people muffled their ears in their blankets, for it is not good to hear a wolf laugh almost like a man.

All night long Little Weasel wandered upon the hills, holding his grazing pony and looking down upon the starlit village of his people. He laughed loudly at times, for he was not one of those who sadden with trouble.

“How can I get revenge upon my people?” he asked himself. And as yet he could not answer.

The pale dawn found him sitting upon the hills. Then he arose and mounted his pony and the three went southward—the pony, the man, and the question.

A light wind blew upon his back.

“How can I get revenge upon my people?” he sang aloud in endless variation until his question wove itself into a song—a battle song, for Little Weasel had not eaten, and hunger feeds anger. But the light wind sighing at his back made no answer.

“I will go to the country of the Pawnees and make them angry with my people,” he said to himself, and this seemed the answer to his question until the sun had reached its highest in the sky and the wind had fallen and the yellow prairie had become parched and bare.

In the afternoon he stopped in the glare of the sun and held one wet finger above his head that he might learn the source of the wind.

There was a faint breath from the south. As he stood it increased, coming in little puffs, hot and fitful and dry. Suddenly it came with a great puff and boomed in the arid gulches.

Little Weasel shouted with joy.

He had heard his answer in the booming of the sudden wind. He dismounted, and, with a flint and some dry grass, lit a little fire.

The great wind fed it and it grew. Then Little Weasel collected a bunch of grass, lit it and rapidly set fire to the dry prairie.

Long, yellow flames leaped up from the sun-cured buffalo-grass, howled in the wind that grew stronger and stronger, and raced northward toward the valley where the circled lodges of the Omahas lay.

“Now I will go back,” said Little Weasel, “and the fire shall go with me.” He kicked his pony in the ribs and pointed its head northward. The wave of flame preceded him, skimming the surface of the grass with great leaps, gaining strength and fleetness as the dry wind lashed it from behind.

“Aha-ha-he-ha-ha-ha-ha!” sang Little Weasel, and the pony, straining its wiry limbs to keep pace with the yellow giant that ran before, wheezed and coughed an accompaniment to the song, for the ashes were in his nostrils.

Over hills, through valleys, across gulches the pony ran, with the wall of flame ever a strong man’s bow-shot ahead of him.

Now the Omahas, who had been deprived of their feast of victory the evening before, had made the feast fires roar upward throughout the village that day and much meat had been eaten.

Weary with much dancing and singing and heavy with meat, the evening twilight found them sleeping heavily. And the night deepened and still they slept.

But there was one upon whom the feast had laid but a light hand, and who awoke suddenly in the night with a smell in his nostrils, a roaring in his ears, and a great light in his eyes. He marvelled, for the feast fires were dead in their ashes.

He arose, and when he reached the door of his lodge he gave a cry that woke the sleeping village and brought the people clamouring into the open air.

Half the earth and half the sky were aflame. The stars had fled before the great burning. Booming in the strong wind, a wave of flame was coming over the hills and reaching long, spiteful arms toward the village in the valley.

Spellbound, the people gazed. Then of a sudden a cry ran among them, for they had seen, through a momentary rift in the flame and smoke, high upon the eminence of a peaked, fire-blackened hill, a man standing upon a pony’s back, with his arms above his head. He looked prodigiously big and seemed to ride upon a flood of fire.

Then the flames closed in, the smoke hid the peaked hill, and frantically the people fled from their village to a nearby creek, where they huddled in the stream, and where the loud flame passed over them, booming on into the north.

When the gray of morning fell upon the blackened prairie, the people returned to their village. But at the opening in the circle of lodges stood a mounted man. Both he and his pony were blackened as with fire. It was Little Weasel.

As his people drew near he raised a wheezing voice and said: “Behold Little Weasel, whom the fire-spirits love! All day I rode across the hills, thinking of my people’s unkindness. In the evening a great fire grew up about me. It was not a common fire; it was a medicine fire. It grew up about me and my pony, and lifted us like the waters of a flood. And I was frightened till I heard a voice that thundered, and it said: ‘Little Weasel has been punished by a foolish people. The spirits of fire will take him back and his people will take him in again.’ And lo! here I am, Little Weasel. I want my eagle feather.”

And the people, believing many strange things, took him in with a great feasting.

And from that day they called him by another name—Paeda-Nu, the Fire-Man.

And he was great among his people.