a pueblo fairy tale told over.
the yellow cottonwoods above the rio grande shivered in the fresh october morning as the sun peeped over the eagle feather mountain into the valley of his people. above the flat, gray pueblo of shee-eh-huíb-bak the bluish breath of five hundred slender chimneys melted skyward in tall spirals. upon here and there a level housetop a blanket-swathed figure stared solemnly at the great, round, blinding house of t’hoor-íd-deh, the sun father.
then a burro, heavy eared and slow of pace, rattled the gravel on the high bluff, gazed mournfully on the muddy eddies, and broke out in stentorian brays. apparently flojo[32] felt downcast. across these treacherous quicksands the grass was still tall in the vega—why did not pablo take him over too? and mustering up his ears, he trotted almost briskly down the slope to the water’s edge, where a swart young apollo was just stepping into the swift current. tall, sinewy, lithe as keem-eé-deh, the mountain[180] lion that lent its tawny hide for the bow-case in his hand; his six feet of glowing bronze broken only by a modest clout of white at the supple waist, his dense black hair falling straight upon broad, bare shoulders, and his dark eyes watchful of the swirling waters, the young pueblo strode sturdily in, paying no heed to the forlorn watcher upon the shore. in a moment he was in the channel swimming easily, one hand holding the bow-case above the red bundle upon his jet crown. sush-sh! sush-sh! splosh! splash! splash! and flojo heaved a great sigh as his master went spattering across the farther shoals, and at last climbed the sandy eastern bank.
pablo unrolled the bundle from his head, wriggled, wet-skinned, into the red print shirt and snowy calzoncillos, wrapped their flapping folds about his calf with the buckskin leggings of rich maroon; belted these at either knee with a wee, gay sash from the looms of moqui, fastened the moccasins with their silver buttons, and, with the tawny sheath of bow and arrows slung across his back, started at a swift walk. once only he stopped, after a scramble up the gravel hills that scalloped the plateau, to look back a moment. the long ribbon[181] of the valley, now faded from its summer green, banded the bare brown world from north to south, threaded with the errant silver of the river, whose farthest shimmer flashed back from under the purple mass of the mountain of the thieves. midway lay the pueblo, dozing amid its orchards below the black cone of the kú-mai, and pablo shook his head sadly, as he turned again and strode across the broad, high llano.
“it is not well in the village,” he muttered, “for it is full of them that have the evil road. the cum-pah-huít-lah-wen have told me that the half of those of shee-eh-huíb-bak are witches; but not all can be punished. but it is in ill times for us. tio lorenzo is twisted by the bads so that he cannot walk; and many die; and did not ámparo and josé diego marry the prettiest maidens of the tee-wahn, only to find them witches? how shall one take a wife when so many are accursed? it is better to hunt and forget the women, as do the warriors; for we know not who are true believers, and who have to do with the ghosts.”
across the wide, sandy plateau the young indian walked with undiminished pace; and as the house of the sun father stood in the middle of the sky, he entered a rocky ca?on of the eagle feather mountain and began[182] to climb a spur of the great peak. the huddled dry leaves under a live oak caught his eye, and he turned them with deft foot. “here pee-íd-deh, the deer, slept last night,” he exclaimed, “for the fresh earth clings to their under side. and here is a hair, and here the footmark. if only keem-eé-deh will help me.”
kneeling by the tree, he broke off a twig and stuck it in the earth in front of the footprint, the fork pointing backward, that pee-íd-deh might trip and fall as it ran. then, drawing the left-hand pouch from his side, he opened it and reverently took out a tiny parcel in buckskin, whose folds soon disclosed a little image of the mountain lion, chief of hunters, carved from adamantine quartz. its eyes were of the sacred turquoise; and in the center of the belly was inlaid a turquoise heart over the hollow which held a pinch of the holy corn meal. on the right side was lashed a tiny arrow-head of moss agate—one of the precious “thunder knives” which the horned toad had made and had left for pablo on the plains of the hollow peak of winds. putting the fetich to his mouth and inhaling from the stone lips, the hunter prayed aloud to keem-eé-deh to give him true eyes and ears, and swift feet to overtake; and[183] rising, gave a low, far roar to terrify the heart and loosen the knees of his prey. then, restoring the image to its pouch, with bow in hand and three arrows held ready, he pushed rapidly up hill, with keen eyes to the dim trail. here a trampled grass blade, there a cut leaf or overturned pebble, and again a faint scratch on the rocks, led him on. at last, just where the flat top of the mountain had been wrought to a vast arrow-point by the giant of the caves, he saw a sleek doe standing under a shabby aspen. down on his belly went pablo, and with a new breath-taking from the stone lips of the prey-god, crawled snake-like forward. the deer moved not, and within fifty yards pablo tugged an arrow to its agate head and drove it whirring through pee-íd-deh’s heart. the doe turned her great, soft eyes toward him, sniffed the air and went bounding up the rocky ledges as if unhurt. yet on the left side the grey feathers of the shaft touched the skin; and once on the right pablo caught the sparkle of the gem tip.
there was a curious ashen tint in the bronze of his cheeks, as the hunter sprang to his feet and began running in pursuit. “truly, that was to the life,” he whispered to himself. “and why does she not fall?[184] will it be that they of the evil road have given me the eye?” and stopping short, he fished out a bit of corn husk and a pinch of the sweet pee-én-hleh and rolled a cigarette, lighting it from his flint and steel. the first puff he blew slowly to the east, and then one to the north, and one to the west, and one south, one overhead, and one downward, all about, that the evil spirits of the six ways might be blinded and not see his tracks. when the sacred weer was smoked, he rose and took up the trail again. it was easy to be followed, now, in the soft wood soil of the mountain top; and in the very edge of the farther grove of aspens he saw the doe again, grazing in unconcern. worming from tree to tree, pablo came close, and again sent a stone-tipped shaft. it struck by the very side of the first, and drank as deep; but the doe, pricking up her ears as if she had but heard the whizz of the arrow, trotted easily away and disappeared over the eastern brow of the mountain, amid the somber pines.
pablo was very pale now, but not yet daunted. he smoked again to the six ways and prayed to all the trues to help him, and with another arrow on the string, pushed forward.
[185]
where the tall pines dwindled to scrubby cedars he came again to his quarry. but now the doe was more alert and would not let him within bowshot. only she looked back at him with big, sad eyes and trotted just away from range. and soon night rolled down the mountain from behind him and filled the whispering forest and drowned the great, still plains beyond, and he lost her altogether.
“this is no deer,” said pablo, gloomily, as he stretched himself under a twisted savino for the night, “but one who has wahr, the power. and her eyes, how they are as those of women sorrowing, large and wet! but i will see the end, even though i die.” and weary with the rugged forty miles of the day, he was soon asleep.
as the blue flower of dawn bloomed from the eastern gray, pablo rose, and smoked again the sacred smoke and inhaled the strengthful breath of keem-eé-deh, and started anew on his awesome hunt. soon he found the trail marked with dark blotches, and all day long he followed it. just as the sun-house stood on the dark western ridges he came to the foot of a high swell, on whose summit gleamed the gray of strange, giant walls.
[186]
“it will be the bones of ta-bi-rá,” thought pablo aloud, “for my father often told me of the great city of the pi-ro that was beyond cuaray in the first times, before the lakes of the plain were accursed to be salt, before those-of-the-old came to dwell on the river that runs from the dark lake of tears. but how shall a deer come thus into the plains, which are only of the prong-horns?[33] yet i have walked in her road all day, and here are her marks, going”—and he stopped, for his sharp ear caught a faint, far-off chant. it seemed to come from the ruins that crowned the hill; and, dropping to the earth, pablo began to crawl from cedar to cedar, from rock to rock toward it. at the very crest of the rounded ridge was a long line of jumbled stone—the mound of fallen fortress houses—and beyond, from the gathering dusk, loomed the ragged, lofty walls of a vast temple. under the shadows of the mound he crawled far around to the rear end of the gray wall, and then along the wall itself toward the huge buttresses that proclaimed its front. the chant was close at hand now—the singer was evidently within the ruined temple. but the tongue pablo did not know. it was not so musical as his soft tee-wahn, nor[187] was it like the guttural of the quéres—for that he knew also—and yet it was some voice of the children of the sun, and not the outlandish babble of the americanoodeh, nor of the spanish wet-head. it was not, then, some new tonto come to dig for the fabled gold of ta-bi-rá—whose shafts yawned black in the gray bedrock and here and there through the very base of the great wall—but some indian, and probably a medicine man, for the song was not as those of the careless. pablo crouched in the darkness against the eastern end of the wall, listening, forgetful of the bewitched deer and of all else. once in a wild swell of the song he thought he discerned a familiar word.
“the bones of ta-bi-rá”
“hoo-máh-no?” he kept repeating to himself. “surely, the grandfather desidério said me that word when he told of them-of-the-old, when they-with-striped-faces dwelt on yonder mesa. but they are all dead these many years.”
a swift, short flash split the darkness, and a growl of far thunder rolled across the ruins. pablo glanced at the heaven. it was sown thick with the bright sky-seeds that flew up when the coyote disobeyed the trues and opened the sacred bag. from horizon to horizon there was not a[188] cloud; but again the flash came, and again the mighty drum-beat of those above. pablo crept to a breach in the wall, and peeped into the gloomy interior of the temple. even as he looked, the zig-zag arrow of the trues leaped again from ghostly wall to wall; and its blinding flight showed him that at which he caught his breath. for squat by a corner in the wall was a white-headed indian waving his bare arms; and facing him and pablo a dusky maiden, with drooping head. but her face was burned into his heart.
“surely, such are precious to the trues! for she is as the evening star, good to see!” and pablo craned forward eagerly. “the viejo will be a shaman,” he added, mentally, “for so our own fathers make the lightning come at the medicine dance.[34] but she! if there were such in shee-eh-huíb-bak, then one might take a wife—for her face is no face of a witch!”
just then there came another flash; and then a soft, girlish cry. the magic lightning of the conjurer had betrayed pablo; and before he could spring away a heavy hand was upon his shoulder.
[189]
“hi-ma-tu-kú-eh?” demanded a deep voice in an unknown tongue.
“nah tee-wah,” said the abashed hunter, trying in vain to shake off that strong grasp.
“tee-wah?” said the stranger, speaking in pablo’s own language. “i, too, have the tongue of shee-eh-huíb-bak, for my wife was of there. but now she has gone to shee-p’ah-poón, and there lives for me only my child, and she is hurt. but what hast thou here, peeping at our medicine?”
“it is by chance, kah-báy-deh,” answered pablo. “for yesterday when the sun was so, i wounded a deer, and unto here i have followed it in vain. for, perhaps, it has the power, and i could not kill it. and when i heard thy song i came, not knowing what it was.”
“since yesterday when the sun was so, thou hast followed the road of a wounded deer? and how wounded?”
“in truth, i gave it two arrows through the life, but it minded them not.”
“come, then, and thou shalt see thy hunting,” and he drew pablo into the temple. in a moment a dry arm of the entra?a (which the trues gave for the first candles) was burning; and by its smoky, flaring light pablo could see his strange surroundings.[190] beside him, that breakless hand still on his shoulder, stood an aged indian. his hair was white as the snows of shoo-p’ah-toó-eh, and his undimmed eyes shone from deep under snowy brows. he was naked but for the breech-clout, and upon his left arm was a great gauntlet from the forepaw of ku-aí-deh, the bear, with all its claws. but at his wrinkled face pablo stared in affright, for all across it ran long, savage knife-stripes, so old that they, too, were cut with wrinkles. “rayado!” flashed through the young hunter’s mind, “even as were they-of-the-old who dwelt in the mesa of the hoo-máh-no! but they are all dead since long ago.”
but even his superstitious terror could not keep his eyes from that modest figure crouched in the angle of the strange wall. truly, she was good to look at. in the soft olive of the cheeks a sweet, deep red was spreading. under the downcast eyes the lashes drew dark lines across the translucent skin. a flood of hair poured into her lap, and from under its heavy waves peeped a slender hand. it was plain from her dress that she was none of the bárbaros, but a pueblo. there was the same modest black manta of his people, the same fat, boot-like leg-wraps of snowy buckskin, the same[191] dainty brown moccasins. even the heavy silver rosary was about her neck, and from her ears hung strands of precious turquoise beads from the white, blue-veined heart of mount chalchihuitl. but even the white silver, and the stone that stole its color from the sky were not precious beside that sweet young face from which pablo could not turn away.
and as he gazed with a strange warm tickling at his heart strings, the long lashes lifted timidly toward the handsome stranger, and on a sudden the bright face turned ashen, and the girl sank back upon a heap of fallen stones. pablo stared with wide eyes, and a dizziness ran from head to knee, for there were dark drops upon the rocks, and amid the flowing hair he saw the notched ends of two arrows—his very own, feathered from the gray quills of koor-níd-deh, the crane. he reeled, to fall, but the strong hand held him up and the strong voice said:
“take the heart of a man, for it is not yet too late. thou hast done this, unknowing; for the witches filled thine eyes with smoke, to fool thee. but we will yet make medicine to heal my daughter—for i am the wizard t’bó-deh, the last of the hoo-máh-no, and precious to those above, who will help us. but thou hast still arrows in the quiver—go,[192] then, till thou come to the first cliff on the west, and shoot three arrows strongly into the sky. and bring to me that which falls—for it needs that thou who hast shed her blood shouldst bring it again. nay, tremble not, for the trues will help thee; and with this amulet of the striped stone the witches cannot come nigh. take the heart of a man, and go!”
pablo looked at the pitiful little heap in the corner, and turning, manfully strode out through the broad portal and went stumbling westward in the darkness, over mounds and hollows and fallen walls. down the long, steep ridge, across the undulant plain, knee-deep in dry and whispering grass, and up the western slope of the valley he trudged; and at last in the darkness ran up against a smooth, straight face of rock. “it is the cliff,” he shivered—for he feared greatly. but plucking up his soul, he backed away a few paces from the rock and notched a shaft and drew it to the head and sent it hurtling to the sky, and another and another. for a long time he waited, and then there was a soft whish! and an arrow stood in the earth at his feet. he groped and found it and drew back his hand quickly, for shaft and feathers were wet—with that soft, warm, ticklish wetness that[193] never came from water yet. another arrow fell and it was so, and so also was the third.
shaken as are the leaves of the shivering tree,[35] pablo put to his lips the amulet of the wizard and drew a long breath from it. then, gingerly plucking the standing arrows one by one, he started running from the haunted spot, not resting in his stumbling flight until he found himself at the foot of the hill of ta-bi-rá. in a few moments he was groping along the great wall, and at last stood again within the roofless temple.
now there was a tiny fire there, and the old man was squatted by it chanting and snapping two long feathers together in rhythm with his wild refrain. and in the corner was the same dark, limp heap, which seemed to drift near or farther away on the waves of the firelight.
“it is well!” said the old man, rising; “for already i have blown away the evil ones, that we be alone. and i see that thou hast brought blood from above to pay for that which is lost.”
taking from pablo’s hand the arrows, still red-wet, he broke one over the fire and one he thrust upright in the hard earth at the maiden’s feet. then he rubbed his[194] hands with ashes and laid them upon her breast, chanting:
“blood, water of life,
come back in the brooks of the heart!
blood, water of life,
give it to drink again—
for the red field is dry
and nothing grows.”
as he rubbed and sang the maiden stirred and moved and sat up. and taking the third arrow he put the notch to his lips and the barb to her side and drew with a strong breath, and the buried shaft grew long and longer from her side, until it fell upon the ground. so he drew the second shaft, and it, too, came away and left her.[36] then he laid the arrow of power against her side and the wounds were no more there; and she rose and took the hand of pablo to her little mouth and breathed on it, and looked up at him with timid eyes, but pablo sank down and knew nothing, for his strength was done.
when he woke, the sun-father was high over the gray ruins. pablo found himself upon a bed of dry grass, in the shadow of the wall; and near him sat the old man who was last of the hoo-máh-no, watching him with clear eyes. a low, sweet voice was[195] crooning a sleep-song in his own tongue; and from behind a jutting wall peeped forth a little moccasined foot.
“sleep! sleep! it is good!
sleep the moon-mother gave—
she that bought us the night,
paying her sight to buy!
sleep! for so she is glad!”
pablo sat up, bending forward if he might see the singer; but there was only a gleam of soft eyes around the wall, and then they were gone. the old man eyed him kindly. he was dressed now like pablo, with the garments of the pueblos; and the stern, quiet face, with its strange scar-stripes, seemed after all very good.
“thou hast slept well, son,” he said at last, “for we have been here many hours. but it is hard to fight them of the evil road, and for that thou wast tired. but rise now, eat and be strong, for other days come.”
as he spoke the maiden came bringing a steaming earthen bowl and set it down timidly before the stranger, at whom she dared not look, and disappeared again in her nook. the hot broth revived the young hunter, and a new heart came in him and he was strong. when he had eaten, the old man said:
[196]
“now thou art a man again. tell me how goes with the village of the tee-wahn? for in fifty winters i have not seen shee-eh-huíb-bak—since my wife had come from there to p’ah-que-toó-ai, where i loved her. is it well with the town? do they keep the ways of the old?”
“there are many true believers,” answered pablo slowly, “but many have forgotten the ways of the old and taken the evil road, so that it is hard to know who are good, there are so many witches. for that, the young men that believe in the olds are afraid to make nests, lest they find feathers of the accursed birds therein—for many that look to be snowbirds are inwardly owls and woodpeckers.”
“and thou hast no nest?” asked the old man with a keen glance.
“in-dáh-ah!” replied pablo emphatically—and from the corner he caught a bright gleam of eyes.
“it is well! for if the nest be bad, how shall the young birds grow up clean? and thy parents?”
“my father was war captain of the tee-wahn,” said pablo proudly, “and he taught me the ways of men, and the sacred stories of the old. but one gave him the evil eye, and he was slain by the cumanche in war.[197] my mother was a true believer, and soon she went after him, to make his house good in shee-p’ah-poón. so there is left only my grandfather, who is cacique, and my uncle. and with my uncle i live, for we are both of the eagle clan.”
“it is well! but now it is to stay here for a time; for in this place is mighty power of the olds. but if thou wilt hunt for us, that deer-maiden may eat well while i fast and talk with those above, then we will go with thee to shee-eh-huíb-bak; for my people are no more and my child is lonely to be with the people of her mother. but show me the wahr with which thou huntest, for perhaps the witches have blinded it.”
pablo fished out the little stone image, which he had never shown to man before, and t’bó-deh inhaled from its lips.
“it is so!” he said angrily; and prying out the turquoise heart he showed the hunter that from beneath it the sacred meal was gone, and in its place a tiny black feather. “it is no wonder that thy hunting was ill,” he cried, “for the witches have changed the heart of keem-eé-deh! but i will give thee a strong wahr that none can kill,” and breaking the polluted image with a rock, he covered the fragments with a cloth and chanted a sacred song. in a moment[198] the cloth moved, and the wizard drew from under it a bright new keem-eé-deh, carved from the sunlight-stone, the yellow topaz, and bound to its side was an arrow-head of transparent emerald. its heart was turquoise and its eyes red garnets.
“take it, son, and fear not,” said the aged conjurer, “for it is stronger than the ghosts. but now go and hunt, for there is no more meat.”
when pablo toiled up the hill of ruins at sundown a noble antelope was balanced upon his shoulders and a fat wild turkey dangled from his belt. he threw them down proudly, and was paid with a shy glance from the eyes that now lived in his heart, and the old man said:
“the new wahr is good! and thou art a hunter like keem-eé-deh himself. verily there will be no lack of meat in thy house.” but at this the maiden ran away with a red face, and pablo’s heart was glad.
for three days they were there while the old man made medicine; and every day pablo brought back much game. and every day his eyes grew deeper and those of the maiden drooped lower. on the fourth day they started, the three, to the northeast; and with three journeys they came to shee-eh-huíb-bak. there pablo brought the[199] strangers to his grandfather, the cacique; and when old desidério knew that this was the great wizard, the last of the hoo-máh-no, he was very glad, and gave him of the common lands, that his home should be always there.
when the people of shee-eh-huíb-bak were making clean for the noche buena, pablo came to the cacique, and said: “tata, there is another year, and i am tired to be alone.”
“but canst thou keep a wife?”
“thou knowest, tata, that none kill more game. as for my fields, they are good, and the careless-weed never grows there.”
“it is truth, my son. and who is good in thine eyes?”
“there is only one, tatita, and that is deer-maiden, the child of the hoo-máh-no. she is very good.”
“i like her,” answered the withered cacique, slowly, “for her father has given her a good heart, and they are both precious to those above. it is well.”
in four days the cacique and the hoo-máh-no brought pablo and the deer-maiden to the cacique’s house and gave them to eat two ears of raw corn—to him a blue ear, but to her a white one, for a woman’s heart is always whiter. pablo looked at her as[200] he ate, but she could not look. and when both had proved themselves by eating the last grain, the elders took them out to the sacred running-place and put them side by side, and marked the course, and gave them the road. then pablo went running like a strong antelope, but the girl like a scared fawn; and up the sacred hill they flew, and turned at the stone of the bell, and came flying back. but now pablo was slower, for it is not well to surpass one’s bride in the marrying race, as if one would rob her of respect; and if they come in equal, there is no marriage. so she was first; and all the people blessed them, and they were one. no witch could ever harm their house, for he-that-was-striped gave them strong wahr, and they were happy.
