The Sire Sheaf

by Russ L. Howard

  Halting at the steps of the earthen platform, Sur Sceaf removed the medicine belt, extended it toward the majestic figure and bowed at the neck. “I am Lord Sur Sceaf of the Herewardi, son of Sur Spear called Syr Hrus. I am the bearer of the secret communiqué of the three tribes, as was promised.”

  “Hail, son of Syr Hrus.”

  “Hail Chief Onamingo, chief of chiefs. It is good you have come to Eloheh with your people to the Camp of the Thunder Horse and Chief Mendaka. Freedom and length of days I wish to you and your people. May the communiqué I bear bring you the great peace you seek.”

  “So, it is The Traveler’s son come to my camp! Though your skin is white, I can see your grandmother Redith in you. It is wished, that you have her spirit within you as well. For Thunder Horse declares you to have it. Presuming you are the True Messenger, have you the token with you that will dispel all doubt?”

  “I do, my chief” Sur Sceaf said. He reached into his pants pocket, removed the gold coin from its pouch and handed it to Onamingo. “Try me!”

  Onamingo tried him with handshakes and grips, and after an examination of the token said in his deep oaken voice, “I see you are the True Messenger by the golden token which you bear. Have you the secret communiqué?” He handed the token back.

  “I have it locked safely in the ivory box of my teeth. My tongue is the key whereby I shall unlock the instructions of the Council of Three Tribes for your dutiful ears to likewise lock it in the sacred repository of your faithful heart until it is openly declared upon your acceptance to your people for their approval.”

  Onamingo responded, “Take me as I take you.”

  Onamingo rose, walked down the two steps. Sur Sceaf gave him the proper embrace in which Sur Sceaf imparted the secret communiqué from mouth to ear in a barely audible whisper.

  Onamingo then said, “Come, sit with me. You are the True Messenger. Now we shall talk of deeper things.”

  * * *

  Sur Sceaf sat in conference with Chief Onamingo in the council house of the long lodge at Eloheh from solar noon until twilight, discussing their concerns and plans for the relocation of the three tribes. Sur Sceaf was very glad he had obtained the counsel of Long Swan in drafting up the points of resettlement, for Onamingo grilled him meticulously on every detail. The wizard’s list had addressed every one of Onamingo’s concerns.

  “Sur Sceaf, I feel very confident in the plans you have outlined. I can see great thought has been given to this plan and you have considered all the potential obstacles. I feel confident in your leadership, but I fear some of the talking chiefs will think you unseasoned and be reluctant to entrust the safety of their people to you. Particularly those of the Buffalo Nations.”

  “I realize I am young,” Sur Sceaf said, “but in our culture we cultivate leadership from early childhood. I have been the commander of a very successful fyrd since I was seventeen winters and have led many successful campaigns against the Pitters in the Montan, in the Dragoon Mountains of the Arid Zone, and I am the one who stopped the Pitter invasion at both Frink Glen and Woon Stone. Above all, I have vowed to hold your people, whose blood flows in my veins, as dear as my own, and by the Thunder Beings may we together bring down the Pitter Empire.”

  “Yes, Mendaka has often sung your praises around the council fires, as has my counselor, Snake Horse, about how you held the Pitters like a stone wall at Frink Glen, permitting the remnant of the Sharaka to escape back here to the safety of Eloheh. In an act of great daring and intelligence, you swung back to smite the rest of their legions upon the breast of Woon Stone. And that at the age of seventeen winters, a time when most of our braves are just preparing to be warriors. I assure you that will carry much clout with the Buffalo Nations. Now, Lord Sur Sceaf, I call upon the Thunder Beings to witness my pledge to take you as the lord and leader of the three tribes, and thus as my leader. What you work out with the Buffalo Nations and the Ndee will be between you and them.”

  Onamingo extended his hand and Sur Sceaf shook it saying, “I humbly accept your pledge and fealty and with that I solemnly pledge to not give my heart rest nor sheath my sword until we are safe from the reach of our common enemy.”

  Onamingo relaxed, smiled, and his eyes twinkled as he said, “You know we have met somewhere before.”

  Sur Sceaf hastily searched his memory, but could not remember ever having met the Red King. “Forgive me, but I don’t see how that is possible. I would certainly have remembered you.”

  “Well, it was many, many years ago when I was called to attend the Occasional Moot in Glide Garth by your esteemed father. Long before I moved my family to this place and before I was known as the Red King.”

  “Oh, no!” Sur Sceaf said. “My wild youth comes back to haunt me.”

  “There we were in deep council and you showed up late, coming into the meeting bare ass backwards, bottom first, and now here you are once again half naked.” Onamingo gave a pointed glance at his bare chest and chuckled. “Maybe I should call you Naked Man.”

  Sur Sceaf felt heat coming into his face, “You cannot think much of me for my youthful follies. I apologize.”

  “It was just what the moot needed. Our discussion got locked into serious disagreements and an impasse. The laughter at your antics broke the logger jam and made us return to what was important.” Then Onamingo chuckled and said, “Just don’t do it again. My people don’t know you well enough yet.”

  “Believe me, I’ve learned my lesson.”

  “We’ve all bought lessons dearly. Never mind that all of my talking chiefs named you Moon Cleaver.” The king’s laugh was contagious.

  “My father is a long-suffering man and bore with the follies of my youth as he did with all his children. He always said, wild colts and fillies make the best horses.”

  “Your father is the wisest of men. I shall go before you to the sacred pow wow. I will go up unto the talking chiefs and I will make straight the way for you. Then we shall present the communiqué to all the people for their acceptance or rejection. You may stay here within our camp for a half-moon. Then I shall send for you to come, and you shall proclaim the communiqué openly before many chiefs, thus to obtain the voice of the people at the great eclipse.”

  “So mote it be,” Sur Sceaf said.

  “I understand Mendaka has invited you to join us for the evening meal. We shall talk more there.”

  “I am as hungry as three bears. I’d be delighted.”

  He and Onamingo parted the flaps of the long lodge in the dusk of twilight. The village had quieted down for the evening. To the left there were several women dressed in buckskin working on their looms. Two others were gathering steaming kettles from their tripods.

  Onamingo said, “I understand you have met my daughter, Taneshewa.”

  Sur Sceaf followed the chief’s glance over to Ahy sitting on the knees of the large spruce outside her tent. She had removed his shirt and was now dressed in a buckskin tunic. His heart leaped in his breast like a stag in rut when he saw her.

  “Yes, we met well this morning. She was most helpful in directing me to the long lodge.”

  His revery was broken by a familiar and welcome voice, which hailed him. “Yeoh! Surrey!”

  He turned to see Mendaka’s smiling face. Dressed in the full regalia of a spirit chief, complete with a yellow broach on his head, black and red war paint and a bone pipe choker and vest, he was a welcome sight.

  “By the Elves of Neorxanawang, it is my white brother.”

  The two embraced. Sur Sceaf grabbed Mendaka’s shoulders, looked him over and nodded, “Damned, but you’ve put on the bulk, Dak. Being the chief of the dog soldiers has made you twice the warrior you were.”

  Mendaka’s eyes twinkled, “Well, look who’s talking. You’ve got a beaver where your face used to be.”

  “At least I can grow a manly beard. Your face is as bare as a baby’s bottom.”

  “Manly! Ha, I’d call it beastly, and I suppose you think you can still beat me
in arm wrestling.”

  “Hell yes, and along with that I’ll beat you at a foot race around the lake.”

  “You young bucks can try your antlers out over dinner.” Onamingo laughed and said to one of the guards, “Bid the wives know we are ready to sit to vittles together.”

  The guards headed for the women while Sur Sceaf and Mendaka followed Onamingo over into the campfire light cast about the banks of the stream to the side of Onamingo’s tent. Earlier the women had spread tule mats on the lush spring grass near a circle of stones in which burned a crackling fire.

  Onamingo waved at his wife who was dipping meat from a pot into a wooden plate.

  Mendaka said, “I have been telling the chief about the trips we made as young bloods with the Wose through the Montan and down into the White Mountains. He is particularly interested in how the Ndee have been able to remain safe in their lands under the same Pitter pressure that drove him and his tribe out of the Tahlequah.”

  “I can tell him what I know from the news Kane has sent.”

  As they approached the mats Sur Sceaf saw an older lady with a lovely, though aged face, whom he took to be Taneshewa’s mother. She was carrying one of the wooden plates with steaming morsels of venison. As she passed, she called out in a voice very like Taneshewa’s, “Ahy, come eat. Join us.”

  Sur Sceaf’s heart raced at the prospect of being near this wondrous creature once again. But the beauty called back, “I’d rather not, Mother. I only have one more bundle of klackers to finish.” She held them up and shook them so that they gave off the gentle music of a rattle.

  Onamingo’s wife placed the plate of meat on a mat and called out, “My daughter, you have plenty of time to finish them. We have an honored guest here now. It is your duty to attend.”

  “I’m sorry Mother, Lord Sur Sceaf will excuse me. As a man of duty he will certainly understand it is my duty to appease the gods. After the klackers I must finish beading my purse for the pow wow. The girls have gone to Sparrow Hawk’s for some more white beads. Please, eat without me.”

  “My daughter is not usually this rude, Lord Prince Sur Sceaf.” The lovely lady gazed at Onamingo with flickering brows. “She’s like an owl when she does her beading. She won’t let go until it’s done.”

  Onamingo redirected, “It is possible Sur Sceaf you do not know that in our culture all the young maidens seek to impress the young bucks with their skills at beading.”

  “Please, I am not offended. Is there one particular buck your daughter hopes to impress?” Onamingo exchanged glances with his wife.

  She said, “If there is, she has not declared it.”

  Onamingo grunted, then said, “Lord Sur Sceaf, of the Hyrwardi, I want you to meet my wife of thirty-five winters. This is Dancing Rabbit of the Owl Clan.”

  “I am honored to meet the wife of Onamingo,” Sur Sceaf uttered. He waited for her hand to come forth then he clasped it with the allied-friendship grip and placed it to his forehead as a sign of honor.

  “Onamingo has waited three suns since Thunder Horse told him you were near. My man has had trouble sleeping, wondering what news you bear from the Council of Three Tribes. It will be good to see my husband find rest for his troubled heart. He shoulders the problems of his people too much. He will have much peace now. I read it already in his face, for he has told me, a sacred voice is calling you, a voice that has been the dream of all our old men for many moons.” Dancing Rabbit looked over at Onamingo with an affectionate look. “So we welcome you, Lord Sur Sceaf.” She then flagged the others to join them.

  The guards arrived with their wives.

  Onamingo said, “Permit me to introduce Snake Horse, my right hand man and Bear Dog, my other right hand man. And these are their wives, Morning Bird and Cat’s-A-Friend.” The two women contributed their plates to the circle and uncovered the dishes already sitting there. “A light has shown brightly on my path and it has led me to Sur Sceaf. Now my brothers, meet our new leader, Sur Sceaf of Three Bloods.”

  Snake Horse declared, “He is well-known to me.”

  After they exchanged the usual ritual pleasantries, Onamingo announced, “Sur Sceaf, you shall sit at my right hand, Mendaka will sit at his, and beautiful woman you sit here. As birds make their nest in a circle, so do we sit in a circle, recognizing that life is one eternal round.” He grabbed Dancing Rabbit and pulled her down beside him. “There, I put her in her place!” he declared with a twinkle in his eye.

  All laughed as they sat cross-legged in a circle on the tule mats by the crackling fire with the nearby Unequa Stream flowing silently within two man lengths of them. Onamingo turned to Sur Sceaf and said, “I jest about this woman, but she is the water beneath my roots. She nurtures me as does this silent stream. She shades me as do these trees. She warms me as does this fire. Without her there never could be a Chief of Chiefs.”

  Dancing Rabbit blushed. “Even though he is often like a bull elk in a wallow, there is no other man I’d do this for.”

  Sur Sceaf gave a huff. “That sounds like something Little Doe would say about you, Mendaka.”

  “Of course she would, I trained her well.”

  He glanced around, leaned forward, and said, “She isn’t listening is she?” They laughed.

  As Sur Sceaf reached for some honeycomb, he glanced in Taneshewa’s direction. Head bent over her task, her sleek black hair obscuring her exquisite face, she twisted a large needle through the dried doe hooves attaching one to another with rawhide strips. For an instant his eyes were glued to the soft lines and curves her body formed. He had fantasies of running and dallying in fields of grass with her.

  Mendaka leaned over and said, “Careful, my brother the tracks of your eyes are easy to follow.”

  The women handed out wooden poles as tall as a man and the thickness of four thumbs and gourds to drink from. They reached into a wooden bowl filled with bread dough and molded the dough carefully over the ends of the sticks before holding the ends over the fire. The chief began reaching into the kettles with his fork and placing the meat on wooden plates that were passed around by Cat’s-A-Friend.

  The aroma of the succulent venison made Sur Sceaf’s mouth water.

  Sur Sceaf said, “I remember when I was living here as a fifteen year old and the first time Redith handed me a dough stick. I didn’t know what to do with it. I wondered if we were going to club our food to death or what.” Everyone laughed. The round-faced Cat’s-A-Friend almost choked, she found it so funny. “Well, then Redith wrapped this dough around the end of this club and placed it over the campfire. Of course, I tried it and ended up eating burnt bread.” Again, they all laughed.

  Snake Horse said, “That’s almost as bad as the time Mendaka put a grasshopper in my dough. I didn’t know what I was eating until I pulled those prickly legs out of my mouth.” He cast a warning look at Mendaka. “I am awaiting the day of my pay back.”

  “Not fair. You already took revenge while we were on the trail of some buffalo up by Buzzard’s Run,” Mendaka said. “You nearly killed us all with your cooking. Now, every time I eat buffalo, I cringe.”

  “I didn’t see you complaining about it then.” Bear Dog raised his eyebrows. “Did I?”

  “A starving man makes no complaint.”

  “You certainly put on a lot of weight for a starving man.” Bear Dog handed him a plate of squash. “Here, I know you love, Cat’s-A-Friend’s cooking. Eat and give thanks to the Thunder Beings who bless us all with this plenty.”

  Other dishes of hominy, beans, and dried salal berries were then sent around by Morning Bird. As Sur Sceaf took his bread pole and suspended it over a rock above the fire, he stole glances at Ahyyyokah Taneshewa. When his face met Taneshewa’s, he got a glare from those fierce eyes and a swift jerk from her head, as if the mere sight of him was somehow too repulsive for her to bear. The wound was deeply felt. Yet as time passed he noted out the corner of his eye, she could not help but steal glances back at him. In the far off back ground, clan a
fter clan began their evening drumming that echoed through the wood and over the lake.

  While Dancing Rabbit poured mescal into everyone’s gourd for drinking, Onamingo turned his pole to toast the other side of his bread. He said, “Sur Sceaf, I’ve heard much about your travels and adventures with Mendaka up in the Montan and down amongst the Apache Ndee in the Dragoon Mountains. Could you share your story with Bear Dog and Snake Horse who would be much interested in the strategies the Ndee are employing?”

  Sur Sceaf nodded and smiled, then glanced at Mendaka. “I hope my blood brother has not lied and exaggerated our campaigns too much, because I had planned on doing all that myself.”

  “And he’s good at it,” Mendaka shot back. Laughter followed.

  “Where shall I begin? Ferocious beasts of the North or the Ndee battling the Pitter legions?”

  Onamingo replied, “I have heard much report from the Cheyenne about the vicious beasts coming out of the North, the Dire Wolf, the Dogmen, and the Ice Bear, which requires that no man travels there alone anymore. That is, if one expects to live, and the Wose has confirmed this to me. That is why so many of the Northern Tribes are migrating south. Only the Snowmen know how to deal with those beasts. I prefer to hear of your encounters with the Pitter legions and how the Ndee manage to hold out against such overwhelming numbers. For, as you know, the force of the Pitter legions compelled us to leave our home in the Tahlequah. Not even the fiercest of braves could hold them back except at too great of loss. Only roving bands of dog soldiers remain there to fight in minor skirmishes.”