Part 15 (1/2)
Almost he halted, moved in his mind to speak to the girl who had been more of comrade than had any other woman. But he remembered the evil prayer she had spoken that day, and this was not a time to give to thought of her anger. It was bad to have the evil wish of a woman, but to the other man must go the cares of the village loves and hates. All things had worked together to make him the wearer of the white robe--to place him outside the lines of village joys or sorrows,--his every demand was for vision of the strongly felt, yet unseen powers. Was he the son of a G.o.d?--as in the heart of him he still thought:--then to him belonged the fasting and the prayer of tribal penance, and the loves and the hates of the children of Te-hua were luxuries not for him. He was enemy to no man--and he could be lover to no woman!
[Ill.u.s.tration: YAHN AT THE GRINDING STONE _Page 112_]
The old men of his own orders had taught him much of the strength of magic which comes only to the priest who seeks no earthly mate. But the ten years of study of the white man's magic as spoken in their books of their G.o.ds, had taught him more. He had been witness that their G.o.ds were strong for war, and for worldly power. His people had need of all that power if the strangers came again and again like this into the country of the P[=o]-s[=o]n-ge.
The picture of Yahn, kneeling by the fireplace on the terrace, her eyes lifted to the sacred corn, brought quickly to him the memory of a more childish Yahn who was not unhappy even in her wars.
And now--through the madness, which he was warned came to all men--now she was a woman through that madness:--and a forsaken woman whom all Te-hua watched for the revenge she would take.
They knew Ka-yemo could not marry with the daughter of his uncle, but they knew also that he could not be driven into taking the daughter of another man as wife,--and Yahn knew this also. Many robes, and blue jewels had weighed down the love of a boyhood!
Tahn-te thought of this, and of the girl, as he pa.s.sed through the village to his own dwelling. Other maids greeted him, and followed him with kindly eyes. By all women Tahn-te was told in many ways that the wearer of the white robe need not live in a lonely house!
Yet he was not lonely, and when the marvels of the inviting eyes turned towards him, he was always conscious of an ideal presence as if the G.o.d-maid of the mesa had stepped between, and made harmless the sorcery of the village daughters by which he might otherwise have been enveloped.
Once, when he had confessed as much to the ancient Ruler who had been his guide and guardian, the old man had voiced approval and interpreted clearly for him the dream presence which was as a gift of the G.o.ds, and clearly marked him for other loves than that of an earth maid.
”But--if the dreams came like a maid also--but a maid so fine that it was as a star--or a flower--or a prayer made human--then--”
”It is like that?” asked the old man, and the boy answered:
”Sometimes it seems like that--but not when I awake. Only in my sleep does she come close, yet that dream has kept guard for me many days until the others laugh and say I have no eyes to see a woman, I do see--but--”
”That is well--it is best of all!” said K[=a]-ye-fah, the Ruler. ”If my own child had come back to me I might not have said it is well. My heart would have wanted to see your children and the children of K[=a]-ye-povi--I dreamed of that through many harvests--but it is over now. She did not live. The trader of robes from the Yutah brought that word, and it is better that way. I was dying because my daughter would be slave to Navahu men--and when word comes that she died as a little child, then the sun is s.h.i.+ning for me again, and I live again. But always when I think that the little child could be a woman, then it is good to think that your children could be her children. Since it is so--so let it be! The dream maid of the spirit flower, and of the star, can be my K[=a]-ye-povi, and you will have the mate no other earth eyes can ever see, and your nights and your days will not be lonely. Also it will be that your prayers be double strong.”
From that day of talk, the dream maid of Tahn-te had been a more tangible presence--never a woman--never quite that, but in the smile of certain children he caught swift glimpse of her face and then music rang in the rustle of the corn or the rush of the river. When the dream vision was beyond all measure sweet, he was certain of the wisdom of the Ancient--for the dream and the thoughts of prayer were double strong.
They were double strong that morning as he came from the river bath, and the face of Yahn--and the thought of her love--brought strangely that dream face to him in which there was no madness such as the Apache had shown him when at his feet in prayer.
The tombe sounded softly from a far terrace where special prayer was being made for the growing things, gray doves fluttered home with food to their young, and little brown children--not so much clothed as the birds!--climbed ladders to look in the dove cotes on his roof, and see the nurslings there lift clamoring mouths for worms or other treasure.
A woman weaving a blanket of twisted skins of rabbits worked in the open with her primitive loom in an arbor before her door, beside her a man whirled a distaff and spun the coa.r.s.e hemp of which the warp was made. Maids and mothers with water jars on their heads walked in stately file from a spring near the river's edge--and above all the serene accustomed life of that Indian village, could be heard the drone of the grinding songs--in the valley of P[=o]-s[=o]n-ge there was ever corn for the grinding, and the time of hunger had come not often to Povi-whah.
Tahn-te felt a certain consciousness of the great content to which the grinding songs and the steady beat of the prayer drum made music. He knew better than the others, the worth of that peace, and quiet plenty, for to the south he had seen hunger stalk in the trail of the white conquerors, and no woman weaving a robe could be sure that it would ever keep her children from the cold. The men of iron had entered doors as they chose and carried thence all manner of things pleasing to their fancy.
But the life of Povi-whah was a different life, and Tahn-te was glad often to know that it was his land. The great medicine Mesa of the Hearts stood like a guardian straight to the east and at morning its shadow touched the terraces.
Strange mystic rites belonged to that place where the Ancient Others had made high sacrifice. Great medicine was there for the healing of all the nations--and the secret of it was with the G.o.ds. He was glad as he looked at it that it was so close to his own people--if a day of need should come they would have the sacred place more close than any other people.
As he breathed a prayer and walked to his own door he met Po-tzah who was the Feeder of the Wind that fanned the Wheat. He was the first boy friend of Tahn-te in the valley and always their regard had been kind.
”This is a time of much striving and I am glad to see you, and see you here at my door,” said Tahn-te the Ruler. ”You come from the ceremonial bath after a night of prayer. I go from the bath for the making of many days and many nights of prayer. If my mother should return before I come down from the mountains--”
”She will be in the house of my wife, and she will be as our mother,”
said Po-tzah his friend and clansman.
”Thanks that it is so in your heart,” and Tahn-te took the hand of his friend and breathed upon it. ”My mother must not hear much talk of any trouble to come. If she thought there was danger she would not go from me, and in council it is decided that when the men of iron come into the valley, the young wives and the little maids must live for a season in the ruins of the wide fields of old, and my mother--the 'Woman of the Twilight' is to be the keeper of them there, and they must not be seen of the strangers.”
”They take many wives--if they find them--and are strongest?” asked Po-tzah thinking of his own wife of a year, and the little brown babe in its cradle of willow wands swung from the ceiling of their home.
Tahn-te smiled mockingly.
”Their priest will tell you they take but one. But their book where their G.o.d speaks, gives to all his favorites many wives, and helps his favorites to get them with fighting and much cunning, and in the days when I was with the christian men who said prayers to that G.o.d, I saw them always live as the book said--and not as Padre Luis said. That man was a good man--a better man than his book--He was good enough to be Indian--for that is what the Castilians call us--and all our brother tribes.”