Collected Works of Zane Grey

by Zane Grey

  A hush pervaded the mesa. Everyone awaited the signal from the sun. It came with startling suddenness. At the edge of the saffron-spread eastern horizon appeared a thin line of red-gold that curved into a bow and continued to curve until by sudden magic it changed into an inverted golden bowl. Then a shout rang out, followed by a chorus of shrill staccato cries. They were off! The race had begun! Small objects moved in close formation on the desert below. One runner valiantly kept the lead for a long time, but at last someone passed him with upflung arm. A third crept up, gained on the new leader and swept by him. The girls with the cornstalks formed a rear guard, falling in behind the runners, only slowly to drop back. Now the lead was indisputable, and judging from the nature of the exclamations of the crowd a favorite among them was on his way to victory. The most difficult part of the event was still before the contestants, a racing climb to the top of the mesa up a tortuous footpath, far more arduous than the trail.

  When the runners rounded the foot of the cliff they were lost from sight. The crowd moved in a body toward the goal, to get a better view. Suddenly over the rim the onlookers could see an Indian bearing the bag of meal. He was naked save for a breechclout and moccasins, and his bronze body shone wet with sweat. His face was masklike, nostrils distended, eyes wide and staring, lips curled back, frozen in a smile half agony, half triumph. Again a shout rose from the crowd. Other naked forms now appeared, struggling, panting, but they could not overtake their leader. His sure feet carried him over the jagged rocks, between cactus spines, around brush and greasewood, on and up unflaggingly. Cries of encouragement showered on him from above. Girls reached out in their excitement as if to drag him up. He leaped a rock. Small stones sped away from under him. At last he cleared some brush, miraculously escaping a fall, and came out on a stretch of trail clear of obstacles all the way to the rim. A hundred yards, and he covered the distance to a gate of maidens holding waving cornstalks, and dashed through it to victory! Pandemonium broke loose, and alas for the segregation of the sexes! Indian girls swarmed from everywhere to attack the winner and snatch the precious bag from him. Holding the prize high, he fought them back with only his right arm for defense, until one slim creature pushing her way through made her presence known to him with a glad cry, and the bag of meal dropped into her uplifted hands. The victor had made his choice, and the chosen one had anticipated him.

  As soon as the other runners reached the mesa top, they rushed upon the scene waving cornstalks high in the air, inviting tussles with the girls such as the winner had experienced; and they fought desperately against the violence of the homely, less graceful maidens, as if indeed surrender might mean the jeopardizing of their future, and contrariwise yielded all too easily when the objects of their desire appeared before them. Romance, it was quite evident, was not prohibited at Oraibi.

  Not all the girls of the village joined in the scramble. Apparently the younger maidens were excluded. It seemed to Katharine that all the girls who encircled the men wore their hair in whorls. She asked Mary if that headdress had any particular significance, and Mary replied that the whorl was a symbol of the squash blossom in bloom, and a manifestation that the girls were of age to be courted. Whereas the long braids represented the fruit of the squash and revealed their wearers as the wives of the tribe.

  Good will prevailed. Defeat was received as happily as success, as the screams of laughter betokened. Slowly the commotion subsided. The crowds of Indians dispersed, disappeared quietly, as if serious anticipation of the religious ceremony of the afternoon was now in order. A few inquisitive Navahos remained to mingle with the whites.

  Because he was surrounded by acquaintances, Wilbur was forced to be agreeable, to meet the Blakely girls and talk to the professor and his sisters and to Mrs. Weston, who brought her husband and guests to be introduced to the others.

  Mr. Weston delighted the New York girl. He was what she had always imagined a desert scout might be like. A man of medium build, thickset yet lithe, with a face made intense by dark eyes under shaggy brows and scar lines of suffering and toil, and in appearance somewhat untidy, he was gruff yet kindly in manner. The guests were an artist, Miss Miller by name, a cartoonist and his wife, and the cartoonist’s young brother, a long-legged lad of perhaps eighteen years.

  Katharine missed Curry and Hanley, and unable to explain their absence, was inclined to hope that they might be locking fists somewhere, Hanley, of course, getting the worst of it. She blamed Hanley for the new complexities which burdened Mary, for the pressure of anxiety that Mary was struggling to disguise under false gaiety. Wilbur, she felt, was not so much to blame. He was negative, a weak instrument for Hanley, and therefore pitiable. She did not want to abandon her faith in his one outstanding virtue, his complete abstinence from all kinds of liquor. She had established her faith on Mary’s own declaration of this fact. Now she was beginning to have misgivings. Did not Mary herself doubt him after last night’s episode?

  At the moment attention was focused on Miss Miller who, Mrs. Weston declared, was to start a painting of Oraibi Mesa shortly, and had to find the best perspective, but was afraid to scout around alone. Mrs. Weston was ready to accompany her if she could find some other recruits. Wilbur, to Katharine’s amazement, suggested that she and Mary go along. And when Mary agreed, Mrs. Weston was delighted.

  So it happened that an hour later their little party of four set out on horseback, prepared for a lengthy excursion by a picnic lunch, and promising that they would return in plenty of time for the dance. Wilbur was left to his own resources — and Hanley’s.

  * * * * *

  When Katharine and Mary rode up Oraibi Mesa the second time, Wilbur did not accompany them. He failed to appear when and where he had stipulated, and after giving him a half-hour’s grace, Mary accepted Mrs. Weston’s invitation to join her party. Under the circumstances meeting Curry was inevitable. He was again the ingratiating person of Katharine’s first acquaintance. The altercation of last night might never have happened. Manifestly it was forgotten.

  “I’d been thinking that Miss Winfield might want a rattlesnake to take home for a pet,” he said when, as he rode along with the girls for a brief time, Katharine had confessed to him her utter horror of snakes. “They’re really good-natured snakes. I like them. They’re square. Always give a fellow a chance to get out of the way, rattle their tails like they were tootin’ horns. These Hopis love them — worship them. You’d never catch them killing a rattler.”

  “How ever do they catch them for the dance?” Katharine asked.

  “Just like an eagle swooping down. They sneak up on them and nab them just behind the head and press so hard that the snake can’t twist around to strike. You’ll see them at the dance, dropping the snakes and catching them again.”

  The Eastern girl considered Curry’s words thoughtfully. “And the snakes are not doped for the dance nor their fangs removed nor anything?”

  Curry received the question with a smile. “No Hopi would ever molest a rattlesnake or dope him either. The dancers take precaution by fasting and drinking something they prepare from desert plants, but even that doesn’t make them immune from the effects of a bite. It slows up the working of the poison, and after the dance is over they take one of their strange antidotes. In fact, they all take it whether they need it or not.”

  “It’s all so solemn and sacred to them,” murmured Mary. “It’s an appeal to the snake god, who, in their belief, controls the rains. Drought is their one great fear.”

  “Then how terrible it would be for them, believing this, if the dance were prohibited. There’s all sorts of legislation on foot about it now,” Katharine demurred. “Why can’t we keep our noses out of other people’s business, particularly when they are not citizens and live only by sufferance?”

  “Because since the beginning of time man has wanted to take the mote out of his neighbor’s eye before he casts the beam out of his own,” replied Mary. “Perhaps on an average of once in ten years an Ind
ian might die from a rattlesnake bite received at a snake dance, but any white man’s town, east or west, the size of Oraibi, has two or three fatalities a year because the enforcement of traffic laws is so lax or because no laws exist. We are very, very inconsistent mortals.”

  Curry enjoyed Mary’s tirade immensely. “And all this time I’ve been thinking you were a reformer.” The twinkle in his eye belied his words.

  “I try to see things whole,” was Mary’s reply.

  The dance was to be held in a large square court hemmed in partly by the walls of the pueblo where the Indians were already gathered. Katharine was impressed with the solemnity of the occasion. She felt that she was treading on holy ground amid reverent, worshipful souls. She could not pretend to understand the childish manifestations of the Hopis’ belief, but their apparent faith was nonetheless beautiful, and commanded her respect. She had come to join them in their church. They sat crowded along the roofs, some high, some low, waiting in silence. A few black cotton umbrellas, glaringly incongruous, spread blotches of shade here and there. Surely they were not necessary to a people who loved the sun; rather they were enviable possessions proudly flaunted on special occasions. Even the Indians wore their all to church.

  Separation of members of the Weston party could not be avoided because the few available points of vantage were scattered. For Mary and Katharine, Curry chose a low roof, partly shaded by an adjacent wall. The spot was secure, comfortable, and with an unobstructed view. He left them to return to the professor and his sisters. “Now let Wilbur show up if he must,” thought Katharine grimly.

  Mary seemed to divine what had passed through Katharine’s mind. “I wonder what is keeping Wilbur?” she whispered.

  “Hanley, likely,” returned her friend. “Haven’t you missed him and—” She bit her tongue in irritation over her vast stupidity.

  “The Blakely girls?” supplemented Mary. “Yes. But that’s not particularly significant. They’ve witnessed the Snake Dance several times, you know. Wilbur has never seen it.”

  The New York girl meditated on the situation. The cartoonist spoke of the Blakely girls as a pretty fast pair from Phoenix, the Phoenix summer variety he said, whatever that might mean. Well, she’d bite her tongue out before she would tell that to Mary!

  She felt herself staring steadily at a hut not large enough for a person to enter standing, which stood in the center of the court; she wondered about its use. Something like heavy burlap hung over the place designed for an entrance. Somehow she did not want to question Mary about it. Mary might not know. If, as she suspected, an Indian would suddenly pop out his head, Katharine would have been delighted. However, no such thing happened, and presently a nudge from Mary drew her attention to a corner of the court where a strangely costumed group of Indians came pouring through a doorway in single file.

  “These must be the men of the antelope order,” Mary whispered low. “They dance first, I believe.”

  They were certainly most extraordinary-looking. An odd block design of black and white paint, applied thickly to their faces, made their heads seem broader than they were long. One noticed at once that they were naked to the waist because their bodies had been treated with an intensely red stain. They wore knee-length dance skirts, and dangling from the waist, tail-fashion, long beautiful foxskins. Their feet were encased in tight-fitting moccasins, and bird feathers were caught in their long black hair. In their hands they carried gourds that rattled with each step. Keeping place as they had emerged, the antelope men marched around the court several times, then drew up in double file, forming a path to the opening of the hut. There they swung from one foot to the other with a quick tapping step, shaking the gourds, and defining each movement with a decided toss of the head. This monotonous performance continued for almost ten minutes, after which time the antelope men dispersed to clear the court for a new procession of dancers, who Katharine surmised must be the snake priests. Their costumes were similar to those of the antelope men. She was too fascinated to try to note any minor dissimilarity, and very concerned about the absence of snakes. The last four to appear were boys not over twelve years of age.

  These dancers, too, paraded the court, perhaps half a dozen times, but with speedier movement. They appeared a trifle more impressive than their predecessors. Every time they passed the hut — the kisi, Mary called it — the dancers stamped hard with the right foot on a plank that lay before it. This surely was some special invocation to the gods. Soon they gathered at the entrance to the kisi, in no particular formation, but dancing the tapping step of the antelope men. One among them stood before the kisi, and at once Katharine realized that the great moment had come. Now the purpose of the kisi was revealed. It housed the snakes, and the priest who stood there was to dole them out. He was welcome to his office, Katharine thought. She did not envy him. He lifted the curtain part way and thrust in his arm. Never could he know how prayerfully a certain young lady regarded his movements. In another moment he withdrew his arm, and there, suspended from the firm grip of his fingers in the paralyzing hold of which Curry had spoken, was a rattlesnake fully five feet long, which, quick as a flash, he passed along to the nearest dancer. Skillfully the dancer grasped the snake without giving him an instant’s freedom. What followed filled Katharine with such intense horror that at first she could not believe her own eyes. The man newly possessed of the snake lifted it to his mouth, snapped his lips hard over the place where he had taken the finger hold, and slipping his hand down over the full length of the writhing reptile, looped it up free of the ground. In this manner he held it, tight fast in mouth and hands, the head a few inches from his cheek, but powerless to turn and use its fangs.

  Meanwhile the man at the kisi had doled out another snake, and a second dancer seized it in his mouth; and the performance was repeated again and again until each dancer had a snake, even the small boys, who were given the shortest ones.

  Now the place swarmed with antelope dancers again, they too participating in this most formal procedure of all. Each snake dancer had an antelope man as a sort of custodian partner who took his place behind him, one hand resting lightly on his shoulder, the other gently stroking him with the feather-tipped rod he held in his hand. Advancing in a circuitous route, they danced a hopping step, four beats on the ball of one foot, the last being accentuated, then four on the ball of the other with a strange swaying motion accompanying the change. As they swayed the snakes swayed, and on and on and on. There was no drum, no music, just the beat of feet. Occasionally a dancer liberated a snake, why Katharine could not tell, and the first time it happened it appeared an accident. But quickly she saw that the extra antelope men on the outskirts of the court were there on guard to catch the liberated snakes, pouncing on them much like a cat on a mouse and even more sure of their strike. The snake dancer, unmindful of the snake he had freed, would go directly to the kisi for a fresh one.

  The four boys were brave and apparently tireless. They clung fiercely to their snakes and their small feet beat hard upon the ground. Katharine, following the leader with her eyes, saw two forms slip quickly before him and leap to a place on the walls — the Blakely girls, making their belated appearance.

  The dance went on — the beat of feet continued. It grew monotonous. The Eastern girl felt that fatigue must surely be creeping over the dancers. Yet she had been so interested that she had not noticed the sun dropping low, withdrawing its heat and flinging shadows across the court.

  “This performance will end with the sunset,” said Mary, which made Katharine aware that day was drawing to a close.

  She pitied the little boys. “Are they watching the sun?” she wondered. And in the next moment she rejoiced that they were still dancing safely. No dancer had been struck. Was it because they had believed they would not be? Was it more desert faith? More desert magic?

  Presently the dancers hesitated, the sound of feet lost momentum just as the tick of a huge clock that is suddenly stopped; then came a stir of action
and high cries, and every snake man, raising his snake aloft, fled from the court and out beyond the village upon the open spaces of the mesa. The long-awaited ceremonial dance was ended.

  Everyone seemed eager to rise, to exercise cramped limbs. Katharine and Mary slipped easily to the ground. Mrs. Weston, who was perched up on a high wall, signaled Curry for assistance.

  “I see the Blakely girls arrived,” said Mary.

  That they had was unmistakable. They were scrambling over roofs in high glee, attracting solemn stares from the Indians.

  Katharine recognized the trend of Mary’s thoughts. “But Wilbur has not come yet.” Then she added hastily, “Yes, they’ve been here quite a while.”

  This brought a strange, quizzical smile to Mary’s eyes. “Katharine, you’re a dear,” was all she said.

  Mrs. Weston descended upon them suddenly. “Whatever happened to Mr. Newton?” she asked. “He sure wanted to see the Snake Dance bad enough. I’ll kidnap the two of you if he doesn’t show up soon.”

  “Do please kidnap us temporarily,” suggested Mary. “I think we have been passed on to you, anyway.”

  With a word and a nod here and there, Mrs. Weston gathered together her friends and the professor and his sisters, and led them on a tour of the village, while Curry and Mr. Weston went off to bring up the horses. To study the village was to understand how primitively the desert-bound Hopis lived, yet Katharine was half-ashamed to poke around, uninvited, in their homes. It seemed audacious to her. Because they were white, they assumed the privilege was theirs, but that in nowise made it right.