THE SINGER OF THE ACHE

The Old Omaha Speaks

NOW this is the story of one who walked not with his people, but with a dream.

To you I tell it, O White Brother, yet is it not for you, unless you also have followed the long trail of hunger and thirst—the trail that leads to no lodge upon the high places or the low places, by flowing streams or where the sand wastes lie.

It shall be as the talking of a strange tribe to you, unless you also have peered down the endless trail, with eyes that ached and dried up as dust, and felt your pony growing leaner and shadow-thin beneath you as you rode, until at last you sat upon a quiet heap of bones and peered and peered ahead.

Moon-Walker was he called—he who walked for the moon. But that was after he had called his pony from the grazing places and mounted for the long ride. Yet was there a time when he ran about among the lodges laughing very merrily with many boys and girls, who played with hoop and spear, made little bloodless wars upon unseen peoples, and played in little ways the big, sad games of men. And then he was called by many names, and all of the names, though different, meant that he was happy.

But once his mother and his father saw how that a man began to look out of his eyes, began to hear a man talking in his throat; and so they said: “It is the time for him to dream.”

So they sent him at nightfall to the hill of dreams—as is the custom of our people.

Wahoo! the bitter hill of dreams! Many have I seen go up there laughing, but always they came down with halting feet and with sadness in their faces. And among these many, lo! even I who speak—therefore should my words be heard.

And he of the many names went up into the hill of dreams and dreamed. And in through the mists that strange winds blow over the hills of sleep burst a white light, as though the moon had grown so big that all the sky was filled from rim to rim, leaving no place for sun and stars. And upon the surface of the white light floated a face, an awful face—whiter than the light upon which it floated; and so beautiful to see that he of the many happy names ached through all his limbs, and cried out and woke. Then leaping to his feet, he gazed about, and all the stars had grown so small that he looked thrice and hard before he saw them; and the world was shrunken.

And frightened at the strangeness of all things, he fled down the hillside into the village. His mother and his father he wakened with bitter crying.

“How came the dream?” they whispered; for upon the face of him who went up a boy they saw that which only many years should bring; and in his eyes there was a strange light.

“A face! a face!” he whispered. “I saw the face of the Woman of the Moon! Whiter than snow, it was, and over it a pale flame went! Oh, never have I seen so fair a face; and there was something hidden in it swift as lightning; something that would be thunder if it spoke; and also there was something kind as rain that falls upon a place of aching heat. Into the north it looked, high up to where the lonesome star hangs patient.

“And there was a dazzle of white breasts beneath, half-hidden in a thin blanket of mist. And on her head, big drifts of yellow hair; not hanging loose as does your hair, O mother, but heaped like clouds that burn above the sunset. My breast aches for something I cannot name. And now I think that I can never play again!”

And there was a shaking of heads in that lodge, and a wondering, for this was not good. Not so had others, big in deeds, dreamed upon the hill in former times. Always there had been a coming of bird, or beast, or reptile, wrapped in the mystery of strange words; or there had been the cries of fighting men, riding upon a hissing of hot breaths; or there had been a stamping of ponies, or the thin, mad song of arrows.

But here it was not so, and the mother said:

“Many times the false dreams come at first, and then at last the true one comes. May it not be so with him?”

And the father said: “It may be so with him.”

So once again up the hill of dreams went the boy. And because of the words of his father and mother, he wept and smeared his face with dust; his muddy hands he lifted to the stars. And he raised an earnest voice: “O Wakunda! send me a man’s dream, for I wish to be a big man in my village, strong to fight and hunt. The woman’s face is good to see, but I cannot laugh for the memory of it. And there is an aching in my breast. O Wakunda! send me the dream of a man!”

And he slept. And in the middle of the night, when shapeless things come up out of the hills, and beasts and birds talk together with the tongues of men, his dream came back.

Even as before the moon-face floated in a lake of cold white fire—a lake that drowned the stars. And as he reached to push it from him, lo! like a white stem growing downward from a flower, a body grew beneath it! And there was a flashing of white lightning, and the Woman of the Moon stood before him.

Then was there a burning in the blood of the boy, as she stooped with arms held wide; and he was wrapped about as with a white fire, through which the face grew down with lips that burned his lips as they touched, and sent pale lightnings flashing through him.

And as the dream woman turned to run swiftly back up the star-trails he who dreamed reached out his arms and clutched at the garments of light that he might hold the thing that fled, for dearer than life it seemed to him now.

And he woke. His face was in the dust. His clutching hands were full of dust.

Wahoo! the bitter hill of dreams! Have you climbed it, O White Brother, even as I?

And in the morning he told the dream to his father, who frowned; to his mother—and she wept. And they said: “This is not a warrior’s dream, nor is it the dream of a Holy Man; nor yet is it the vision of a mighty bison hunter. Some strange new trail this boy shall follow—a cloudy, cloudy trail! Yet let him go a third time to the hill—may not the true dream linger?”

And the boy went up again; his step was light; his heart sang wildly in his breast. For once again he wished to see the Woman of the Moon.

But no dream came. And in the morning the pinch of grief was upon his face and he shook his fists at the laughing Day. Then did he and a great Ache walk down the hill together. All things were little and nothing good to see. And in among his people he went, staring with eyes that burned as with a fever, and lo! he was a stranger walking there! Only the Dream walked with him.

And the sunlight burned the blue, much-beaded tepee of the sky, and left it black; and as it burned and blackened, burned and blackened, he who dreamed the strange dream found no pleasure in the ways of men. Only in gazing upon the round moon did he find pleasure. And when even this was hidden from him for many nights and days he went about with drooping head, and an ache was in his eyes.

And in these days he made wild songs; for never do the happy ones make songs—they only sing them. Songs that none had heard he made. Not such as toilers make to shout about the camp fires when the meat goes round. Yet was the thick, hot dust of weary trails blown through them, and cries of dying warriors, and shrieks of widowed women, and whimpering of sick zhinga zhingas; and also there was in them the pang of big man-hearts, the ache of toiling women’s backs, the hunger, the thirst, the wish to live, the fear to die!

So the people said: “Who is this nu zhinga who sings of trails he never followed, of battles he never fought? No father is he—and yet he sings as one who has lost a son! Of the pain of love he sings—yet never has he looked upon a girl!”

And it was the way of the boy to answer: “I seek what I do not find, and so I sing!”

And the nights and days made summers and winters, and thus it was with the Singer of the Ache. He grew tall even to the height of a man—yet was he no man. For little did he care to hunt, and the love of battles was not his. Nor his the laughter of the feast fires. Nor did he look upon the face of any maiden with soft eyes.

And the father and mother, who felt the first frosts upon their heads, said: “Our son is now a man; should he not build a lodge and fill it with a woman? Should we not hear the laughter of zhinga zhingas once again before we take the black trail together?”

And because his father had many ponies, many maidens were brought before him for his choosing. But he looked coldly upon them and he said: “The stars are my sisters and my brothers, and the Moon is my wife, giving me songs for children. Soon shall there be a long trail for me.”

Thereat a cry went up against him and more and more he walked a stranger. Only the Dream walked with him; and he sang the songs that ache.

Harsh words the father spoke: “Does the tribe need songs? Can hungry people eat a silly shout, or will enemies be conquered with a singing?”

But the mother wept and said: “Say not so of him. Do not his songs bring tears, so strange and sweet they are at times? Does a man quarrel with the vessel from which he drinks sweet waters, even if it be broken and useless for the cooking?”

And the father frowned and said: “Give me many laughers, and I will conquer all the enemies and fill all the kettles of the feasts! Let the weepers and makers of tears drag wood with the women. Always have I been a fighter of battles and a killer of bison. This is not my son!”

And it happened one night that the Singer stood alone in the midst of his people, when the round Moon raised a shining forehead out of the dark, and grew big and flooded all the hills with white light. And the Singer raised his arms to it and sang as one who loves might sing to a maiden coming forth flashing with many beads from her tepee.

And the people laughed and a mutter ran about: “To whom does the fool sing thus?”

Soft, shining eyes he turned upon them, and he said: “Even to the Woman of the Moon! See where she looks into the North with white face raised to where the lonesome star hangs patient!”

And the people said: “This is the talk of a fool—no woman do we see!”

And then the Singer sang a new song through which these words ran often: “Only he sees who can—only he sees who can!”

So now he walked a fool among his people, singing the songs that ache.

Wahoo! bitter it is to be a fool! And yet, O White Brother, only they who have been fools are wise at last!

And it happened one summer that the village was builded in the flat lands by the Big Smoky Water. And there came snoring up the stream a monda geeung, the magic fire-boat of the palefaces. Up to the shore it swam, and they who guided it tied it to the sand, for its fires were hungry and there was much wood in our lands.

And all the villagers gathered there to see the magic swimmer of the palefaces; and among them came the lonesome singing fool.

And it happened that a woman of the palefaces came forth and stood high up, and looked upon us, smiling. White as a snowfall in the late spring was her face, and her hair was like the sun upon a cloud. And we all stared wide-mouthed upon her, for never before had her kind come into the prairies.

Also stared the fool. Even long after all the people had gone he stared; even until the smoky breath of the fire-boat writhed like a big black serpent out of the place where the stream runs out of the sky.

And then he laid his head upon his knees and wept; for a longing, bigger than the wish to live, or the fear to die, had come upon him.

Very early in the morning, when the sleep of all things is deepest, he arose from sleepless blankets. He called his pony from the grazing places, and he mounted for a long ride. Into the North he rode, and as he rode he talked to himself and to the silence that clung about him: “It was the Woman of the Moon! Into the North she went, even unto the quiet place where the lonesome star hangs patient. There shall I ride—there shall I ride! For there do all my songs take wings and fly; and there at last their meanings await me. There shall I ride—there shall I ride!”

And the fires of the day burned out the stars and died; downward and inward rushed the black, black ashes of the night. And still he rode toward the North.

And like the flashing of a midnight torch through a hole in a tepee flashed the days and passed. And still he rode.

Through many villages of strange peoples did he ride, and everywhere strange tongues and strange eyes questioned him; and he answered: “Into the North I ride to find the Woman of the Moon!”

And the people pitied him, because he seemed as one whose head was filled with ghostly things; and they fed him.

Further and further into the waste places he pushed, making the empty spaces sweet and sad with his singing; and the winter came. Thin and lean he grew, and his pony grew lean and thin.

And the white, mad spirits of the snow beat about the two. And now and then snow ghosts writhed up out of the ground and twisted and twirled and moaned, until they took on the shape of her he sought. And ever he followed them; and ever they fell back into the ground. And the world was bitter cold.

Wahoo! the snow ghosts that we follow, O White Brother!

And the time came when the pony was no longer a pony, but a quiet heap of bones; and upon this sat the man who walked for the moon. Then did the strength go out of him, and he turned his sharp face to the South. He sang no more for many days, for his body was as a lodge in which a fair woman lies dead with no mourners around. And at last he wakened in a strange lodge in a village of strangers.

And it happened when the green things pushed upward into the sun again that a young man who seemed very old, for he was bent, his face was thin, his eyes were very big, hobbled back into the village of his people.

And he went to a lodge which was empty, for the father with his frowning and the mother with her weeping had taken the long trail, upon which comes no moon and never the sun rises—but the stars are there.

Many days he lay within the lonesome lodge. And it happened that a maiden, one whom he had pushed aside in other days, came into the lodge with meat and water.

So at last he said: “I have sought and have not found; therefore will I be as other men. I will fill this lodge with a woman—and this is she. Henceforth I shall forget the dream that led me; I shall be a hunter of bison and a killer of enemies; for after all, what else?”

And this he did.

So all the village buzzed with kindly words. “The fool has come back wise!” they said.

And as the seasons passed there grew the laughter of zhinga zhingas in the lodge of the man who walked no more for the moon.

But a sadness was upon his face. And after a while the dream came back and brought the singing. Less and less he looked upon the woman and the children. Less and less he sought the bison, until at last Hunger came into that lodge and sat beside the fire.

Then again the old cry of the people grew up: “The fool still lives! He sings while his lodge is empty. His woman has become a stranger to him, and his children are as though a stranger had fathered them! Shall the fool eat and only sing?”

And a snarling cry grew up: “Cast out the fool!”

And it was done.

So out of the village stumbled the singing fool, and his head was bloody with the stones the people threw. Very old he seemed, though his years were not many. Into the North he went, and men saw his face no more.

But lo! many seasons passed and yet he lived and was among all peoples! For often on hot dusty trails weary men sat down to sing his songs; and women, weeping over fallen braves, found his songs upon their lips. And when the hunger came his strange wild cries went among the people. And all were comforted!

And this, O White Brother, is the story of the fool who walked for the moon!