Part 10 (1/2)
”'It is a risk,' said the Dine.
”And as he moved into the wind I knew the smell of him, and it was the man we had seen at Dripping Spring; not the hunter, but the one who had joined him.
”'Not so much risk as the chance of not finding the right house in the dark,' said Kokomo; 'and the girl has no one belonging to her. Who shall say that she did not go of her own accord?'
”'At any rate,' the Dine laughed, 'I know she must be as beautiful as you say she is, since you are willing to run the risk of my seeing her.'
”They moved off, and the wind walking on the pine needles covered what they said, but I remembered what I had heard because they smelled of mischief.
”Two nights later I remembered it again when the Delight-Makers came out of the dark in three bands and split the people's sides with laughter.
They were disguised in black-and-white paint and daubings of mud and feathers, but there was a Dine among them. By the smell I knew him. He was a tall man who tumbled well and kept close to Kokomo. But a Dine is an enemy. Tse-tse-yote had told me. Therefore I kept close at his heels as they worked around toward the house of Pitahaya, and my neck bristled. I could see that the Dine had noticed me. He grew a little frightened, I think, and whipped at me with the whip of feathers which the Koshare carried to tickle the tribesmen. I laid back my ears--I am Kabeyde, and it is not for the Dine to flick whips at me. All at once there rose a shouting for Tse-tse, who came running and beat me over the head with his bow-case.
”'They will think I set you on to threaten the Koshare because they mocked me,' he said. 'Have you not done me mischief enough already?'
”That was when we were back in the cave, where he penned me till morning. There was no way I could tell him that there was a Dine among the Koshare.”
”But I thought--” began Oliver, he looked over to where Arrumpa stood drawing young boughs of maple through his mouth like a boy stripping currants. ”Couldn't you just have told him?”
”In the old days,” said Moke-icha, ”men spoke with beasts as brothers.
The Queres had come too far on the Man Trail. I had no words, but I remembered the trick he had taught me, about what to do when I met a Dine. I laid back my ears and snarled at him.
”'What!' he said; 'will you make a Dine of _me_?' I saw him frown, and suddenly he slapped his thigh as a man does when thought overtakes him.
Being but a lad he would not have dared say what he thought, but he took to spending the night on top of the kiva. I would look out of my cave and see him there curled up in a corner, or pacing to and fro with the dew on his blanket and his face turned to the souls of the prayer plumes drifting in a wide band across the middle heaven.
”I would have been glad to keep him company, but as neither Tse-tse nor Willow-in-the-Wind paid any attention to me in those days, I decided that I might as well go with the men and see for myself what lay at the other end of the Salt Trail.
”I gave them a day's start, so that I might not be turned back; but it was not necessary, since no man looked back or turned around on that journey, and no one spoke except those who had been over the trail at least two times. They ate little,--fine meal of parched corn mixed with water,--and what was left in the cup was put into the earth for a thank offering. No one drank except as the leader said they could, and at night they made prayers and songs.
”The trail leaves the mesa at the Place of the Gap, a dry gully snaking its way between puma-colored hills and boulders big as kivas. Lasting Water is at the end of the second day's journey; rainwater that slips down into a black basin with rock overhanging, cool as an olla. The rocks in that place when struck give out a pleasant sound. Beyond the Gap there is white sand in waves like water, wild hills and raw, red canons. Around a split rock the trail dips suddenly to Sacred Water, shallow and white-bordered like a great dead eye.”
”I know that place,” said the Navajo, ”and I think this must be true, for there is a trail there which bites deep into the granite.”
”It was deep and polished even in my day,” said Moke-icha, ”but that did not interest me. There was no kill there larger than rabbits, and when I had seen the men cast prayer plumes on the Sacred Water and begin to sc.r.a.pe up the salt for their packs, I went back to Ty-uonyi. It was not until I got back to Lasting Water that I picked up the trail of the Dine. I followed it half a day before it occurred to me that they were going to Ty-uonyi. One of the smells--there were three of them--was the Dine who had come in with the Koshare. I remembered the broken plaster on the wall and Tse-tse asleep on the housetops. _Then_ I hurried.
”It was blue midnight and the scent fresh on the gra.s.s as I came up the Rito. I heard a dog bark behind the first kiva, and, as I came opposite Rock-Overhanging, the sound of feet running. I smelled Dine going up the wall and slipped back in my hurry, but as I came over the roof of the kiva a tumult broke out in the direction of Pitahaya's house. There was a scream and a scuffle. I saw Tse-tse running and sent him the puma cry at which does asleep with their fawns tremble. Down in the long pa.s.sage between Pitahaya's court and the gate of Rock-Overhanging, Tse-tse answered with the hunting-whistle.
”There was a fight going on in the pa.s.sage. I could feel the cool draught from the open gate,--they must have opened it from the inside after scaling the wall by the broken plaster,--and smelled rather than saw that one man held the pa.s.sage against Tse-tse. He was armed with a stone hammer, which is no sort of weapon for a narrow pa.s.sage. Tse-tse had caught bow and quiver from the arms that hung always at the inner entrance of the pa.s.sage, but made no attempt to draw. He was crouched against the wall, knife in hand, watching for an opening, when he heard me padding up behind him in the darkness.
”'Good! Kabeyde,' he cried softly; 'go for him.'
”I sprang straight for the opening I could see behind the Dine, and felt him go down as I cleared the entrance. Tse-tse panted behind me,--'Follow, follow!' I could hear the men my cry had waked, pouring out of the kivas, and knew that the Dine we had knocked over would be taken care of. We picked up the trail of those who had escaped, straight across the Rito and over the south wall, but it was an hour before I realized that they had taken Willow-in-the-Wind with them. Old Pitahaya was dead without doubt, and the man who had taken Willow-in-the-Wind was, by the smell, the same that had come in with Kokomo and the Koshare.
”We were hot on their trail, and by afternoon of the next day I was certain that they were making for Lasting Water. So I took Tse-tse over the rim of the Gap by a short cut which I had discovered, which would drop us back into the trail before they had done drinking. Tse-tse, who trusted me to keep the scent, was watching ahead for a sight of the quarry. Thus he saw the Dine before I winded them. I don't know whether they were just a hunting-party, or friends of those we followed. We dropped behind a boulder and Tse-tse counted while I lifted every scent.
”'Five,' he said, 'and the Finisher of the Paths of Our Lives knows how many more between us and Lasting Water!'
”We did not know yet whether they had seen us, but as we began to move again cautiously, a fox barked in the scrub that was not a fox. Off to our left another answered him. So now we were no longer hunters, but hunted.
”Tse-tse slipped his tunic down to his middle and, unbinding his queue, wound his long hair about his head to make himself look as much like a Dine as possible. I could see thought rippling in him as he worked, like wind on water. We began to snake between the cactus and the black rock toward the place where the fox had last barked.”