The Lonesome Trail. John G. Neihardt

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СКАЧАТЬ women came forth and circled about them, peering beneath hands raised browward, into the deepening shadows of the valley down which the band would sweep.

      They swelled the song of victory, the song of welcome to the victors, and the look of welcome was already upon their faces as they searched the deepening shadows.

      There came a rumble over the hills as of a hidden storm in time of drouth, thundering mockingly in the rainless air. The drummers lifted their sticks with trembling hands and listened—with one accord they all listened for the shouts and the hoof beats.

      Now the faint treble of distant shouting pierced the growing rumble of the thunder. It was the braves! They were returning with much glory and many ponies. The drumsticks fell snarlingly upon the taut buckskin, but the sound seemed only a whisper, for the entire village was shouting with a tumult that made the grazing ponies snort upon the hillsides and gallop away with ears pricked wonderingly.

      “They come! They come!”

      The villagers thronged upon that side of the village that looked toward the hills from whence the thunder deepened. A dust cloud gathered behind the hills. It grew until it caught the horizontal sunlight and seemed a scintillating tower of victory. Suddenly the hill above the valley was thronged with mounted braves, waving their weapons above their heads and shouting, and a sunlit cloud of glory seemed about them.

      The band swept down the hillside and down the valley, and the dust cloud thickened under the impetuous hoofs that beat the parched and yellow prairie. When they drew near the opening in the circle of lodges, the foremost hurled his panting pony back upon its haunches and the others reared and halted behind, champing at the restraining thongs.

      “A-ho!” shouted the foremost, holding his weapons above his head. “We come from the Sioux! We have many ponies and also scalp-locks! Sing! For we have fought a good fight and we are not ashamed!”

      A great shout went up from the village, and the drums snarled. Slowly, majestically, the circle of women began moving about the drums, keeping time to the rhythmic beats with a sideward shuffling of their feet in the dust. In a monotonous minor key the singing of the women began—at first like the crooning of an Indian mother to a restless child when the camp fires burn blue, and all the braves are snoring in the dark.

      Then it rose into the mournful wail of a wife looking upon a dead face—a wordless, eloquent song. Then, with a burst, it rose into a treble cry, and words became dimly recognisable amid the ecstasy.

      “We come, we come, and we are not ashamed!” sang the women to the snarling of the drums. “Let the fires roar and the bison meat be cooked, for we have fought, and now we wish to eat!

      “Let the women dance and sing that we may be glad after our fighting! A-ho! A-ho! We travelled far—one sleep, two sleeps, three sleeps, but we slumbered not! We came upon our enemies. They were hidden in the grass like badgers. They were dressed in yellow grass that they might hide. We saw them and we shouted with joy, for we were not afraid! The enemy trembled like wolves who have come to the end of the ravine and the hunters follow behind!”

      As the women sang, shuffling about the circle, the braves rode in single file into the enclosure of the village and formed a circle about the dance.

      “I saw a big man among my enemies,” sang the women, for so their song ran. “He was strong as a bear and terrible as an elk. His head was proud with eagle feathers, for many men had he killed. I did not tremble when he rushed at me; I raised my club and struck him, and he fell with his eagle feathers. He whimpered like an old woman when she becomes a child again. He said, ‘I have many ponies for you, and my children will cry if I do not go back. Spare me!’ But behold! I have his scalp lock!”

      “His scalp lock! His scalp lock!” shouted the braves, as the words of the song were drowned again in the minor drone that followed the snarl of the drums. And they waved scalp locks above their heads—the locks of the fallen Sioux.

      Out of the droning the song of the women grew again. It became more ecstatic, running the gamut of human passion—from the shrill shriek of defiance to the mournful wail for those who had fallen in the battle. And then the shuffling stopped; the song died away into a drone and ceased, like the song of a locust at the end of a sultry evening. The drums snarled no more, a great silence fell, the sun had sunk beneath the hills.

      Then, in the silence and the shadows of the evening, one came forth from among the circle of braves, and, with a slow, majestic bending of the knees, danced in a circle about the women and the drums, that began again as an accompaniment to the song that he would sing.

      Round and round the circle he danced, improvising a song to the rhythm of the drums, in which he sang his prowess, and the whole village shouted when he reached the end of his song, for he told of a good fight and a strong arm, and he had been great in battle.

      Then, amid the shouting, another came forth to dance and sing, for he too had done great things. It was White Cloud, and he was great among his people. Round and round the circle he danced to the tune of the drums, dodging imaginary arrows, leaping upon imaginary foes, striking huge blows at the heads of warriors hidden in the shadow.

      “See!” he shouted in his song, and his voice was loud and masterful, for a murmur of praise had passed among the people. “See! White Cloud brings the scalp lock of a chief. He took it alone with his strong hand. The scalp lock of a big Sioux chief! Who has done a greater deed than White Cloud? Then let the old men place the eagle feather in his hair that he may be known among his people.”

      Once again the dancing stopped and the drums ceased their droning. White Cloud approached the old men, who slowly placed the eagle feather in his hair.

      But one among the assembled braves did not give his voice to the shout that ensued.

      His gaze narrowed with hatred as he looked upon White Cloud, and his body trembled as a strong tree that stands alone in the path of a tempest.

      Then as White Cloud strode proudly to the inner rim of the circle of braves, with the tall eagle feather in his hair, another came forth bearing with him his bow and his arrows. It was he who had found no voice in which to celebrate White Cloud’s valour.

      He was tall and sinewy, and he had the clear-cut, cruel face of a hawk, now dark with a darkness deeper than the shadow of the evening. It was Little Weasel.

      Erect, quivering like a strong bow in the clutch of a mighty warrior, he walked into the open space, and the drums once more began their wailing. But Little Weasel raised one trembling hand and commanded silence.

      “Fathers,” he said, and his voice was low, vibrant with the growl of a wounded beast in it, “Little Weasel needs no drums to help him fill the stillness.”

      The people bent forward, hushed, because there was something deeper than shadow in the face of Little Weasel as he turned his hawk’s gaze upon the bowed head of White Cloud.

      “Little Weasel has words to utter, but they are not song words nor dance words. Let the women and cowards sing and dance!”

      Still the head of White Cloud was bowed, and Little Weasel laughed a strange laugh.

      “Who took the scalplock of the big Sioux chief?” shouted Little Weasel. “I, Little Weasel, took it! One sleep, two sleeps, I kept it close beside me; for I am a young man and I wanted to hear the shouts of my people. But in the third sleep a great heaviness came upon me, and when I awoke my Sioux scalp lock had been stolen from me. Now I know the badger who crept upon me in my heaviness and stole СКАЧАТЬ