Part 17 (1/2)

One may not eat the food of man, yet commune with Those Above.

The first stars were above the hills as he fell, bleeding from many hurts--and breathless--at the shrine.

Far above one lone eagle soared, and the weariness was forgotten in the joy of Tahn-te. The sacred spark came quickly to the twigs crossed ceremonially for the fire on the shrine, and into the blue above, the slender trail of smoke led undeviatingly up where the great bird drifted as if awaiting to witness his offering of fire. Had any other found medicine like that? He knew now that his magic was to be strong magic, for his faith had been great--and he had followed the faith, and found the bird of the strong G.o.ds waiting his coming!

Time was lost to him in the trance of that which he had lived through.

The day was gone, and he stood alone on the heights and reached his hands in ecstasy to his brothers the stars. He felt the exultant strength of the mortal with whom the G.o.ds have worked!

And when the last mountain prayer had been whispered, a reeling, staggering, nude figure walked, and sometimes ran and often fell down the steep sides of Tse-c[=o]me-u-pin, and when the great dark pines and the slender aspens were reached, he used his hands as well as his feet in making his way, reeling from tree to tree, but holding with instinctive steadiness to the trail of the Navahu--the ancient way of the enemy, where ambush and slaughter was often known. Many captives had been driven between the high rock walls. Youths and maidens swept from Te-hua corn fields, and Navahu captives as well, caught by Te-hua hunters in the hunting grounds to the West,--all came through the one great pa.s.s--and the way of the trail was so narrow that to guard it was not a hard thing in time of battle.

The rush of the swift water was always near as he went on and on in the darkness. It had a lulling effect. The whispers of the pines also spoke of rest. This was the fourth day of the fasting. He, Tahn-te, had been strong as few men are strong, but suddenly in the night, earth and sky seemed to meet, and putting out his hands he groped through a thicket of the young pines, and fell there quite close to the dancing water--and all the life of earth drifted far. He, Tahn-te, the devotee of the Trues--the weaver of spells, and dancer of the Ancient Dance to the G.o.d of the Stone, lay at last in the stupor beyond dreams, helpless in the path of an enemy if any should trail him for battle.

His sleep was dreamless, and the length of it until the dawn seemed but a hand's breadth on the path of the stars across the sky.

But with the dawn a vision came, and he knew it again as the actual form of that which had been so often the vague dream-maid of charmed moments.

There was the flash of water in the pool--a something distinct from the steady murmur of its ripples--that was the sign by which he was wakened quite suddenly, without movement or even a breath that was loud. Under the little pines at the very edge of the stream he was veiled in still green shadows, and there before him was The Maid of Dreams. Those Above had let her come to him that for once his eyes should see and his heart keep her in the medicine visions of this fasting time of prayer.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MAID OF DREAMS _Page 130_]

Not once did she turn her eyes towards him as she stood, dripping with the water of the bath. Her slender figure was in shadow, and her movements were shy and alert and quick.

To the dry sand she stepped, and lifted thence a white deerskin robe.

Two bluebird wings were in the white banda about her loosened hair, very blue was the color of the wings as the light touched them, and he thought of the wonderful Navahu G.o.ddess Estsan-atlehi who was created from an earth jewel--the turquoise, and who is the beloved of the Sun.

If a maid could be moulded from any jewel of earth, Tahn-te thought she would look like this spirit of the forest stream. Even while held by the wonder and the beauty of the vision, he thought of this, and recalled the bluebird feathers in the prayer plumes of Tusayan:--next to the eagle they were sacred feathers:--the G.o.ds were sending him strong thoughts for magic!

Suddenly the maid stood tense and erect as though listening--or was it only the nearness of a mortal by which she was thrilled to movement?--for she clasped the trailing white skin to her breast, and stepped into the deeper shadow where grew the fragrant thickets of the young pine under the arms of the great pine mothers.

Without sound she moved. His eyes watched in strained eagerness for the one turn of the head, or one look of the eyes towards him, but that was not to be. To mortal all the joys cannot be given at one time--else all would be as G.o.ds!

He stared at the shadows into which she had blended herself, and he stared at the pool from which she had arisen. It was again a mirror reflecting only the coming day. Yet his heart leaped as he saw a sign left there for him!

Drifting idly there in a circle was a bit of blue too vivid for the echo of the sky of dawn--it was the wing of a bluebird, and even as he looked, it was caught in an eddy more swift, and moved on the surface of the water straight to the edge of the bank nearest his place of rest.

Staggering to his feet, he went to meet it. It was not an empty vision as the maid had been, and it did not fade as he grasped it. The visions of the night had been strong visions, but with the dawn had come to Tahn-te the added medicine of the second gift of the Spirits of the Air. Above the clouds must his thoughts be in their height. The medicine of the eagle had made that plain to him, and the feathers of prayer lay in his hand as a sign such as had come to no other man!

The Brothers of the Air were plainly to be his kindred!

This was the dawning of the fifth day on the prayer trail. A little way he walked, and the world reeled about him,--to escape from the cloud of weakness he ran the way of the brook towards the far river--and then as a brook falls into the shadows of a cavern place, Tahn-te fell and lay where he fell. In the darkness closing over him he heard the rustle of wings--though another might have heard only the whisper of the pines.

When the sun stood straight above, and the bush of the sage brooded over its own shadow, it was then Po-tzah and the brothers of Po-tzah found him. They wondered at the wing of the bluebird in his hand, but carried him on a robe of the buffalo until they brought him to his own home. Then the people of his order brought to him the foods and the drinks allowed after the fasting time to the men who make many prayers.

When the strength had come back he spoke in secret council of the vision of the eagle and the vision of the maid born from the waters of the sacred mountain of prayer.

The old men debated wisely as to the visions and the meaning of the visions. The dance was a great dance and plainly had the favor of Sinde-hesi since Tahn-te had come out of it alive;--the Summer People would hold a long feast to mark the time, and the boys who were taught by the old men, would be told in the kivas of the ways in which a man might grow strong in body and strong in spirit to face the G.o.d who lives on high in the hills.

Of the visions of the eagles they were glad--for in his dream Tahn-te had been carried by the eagle to the shrine of power, and that was very great medicine. It was well he had kept strength to follow the trail and meet the eagle there.