The Sire Sheaf

by Russ L. Howard

  Sur Sceaf said, “Because they follow my people throughout their journeys on Ea-Urth, just as the Thunder Beings and Nunnehi follow your people.”

  “Why aren’t you called the Elf People then?”

  “Sometimes we are, but mostly we are called the White Swan People because the white swan is our totem animal, just as the serpent is yours. We descend from the High Elf, Hereward, and that is who we got our name from. We are a warrior race the same as the Sharaka. We came out of a far off place in the direction of the rising sun, called the Firginias. Just like the Sharaka were driven out of Tahlequah by the Pitters, we were driven out of our homeland to the place we now live called Witan Jewell in the Umpqua Valley, to the west of here where the sun sets.” He paused to look around and saw the girls and Going Snake were listening intently, as was Sparrow Hawk. Even though Little Doe knew the story, she seemed intrigued at how he was telling it.

  “Most people know us by our unique way of speaking, for we view the Elven tongue of the English language as the most perfect tool the mind of man can possess. Our skaldic masters, what you call your Sachems, work endlessly to preserve it, along with our Deep Mysteries of Yore in a special writing form called the flame elfabet. As for me, I am also part Syrafa, you say Sharaka, by blood through my mother and Mo Mo Redith, and have been blessed with the ability to see the world through Sharaka eyes. Is that the explanation you wanted, Sparrow Hawk?”

  “Yes, and I thank you.” Sparrow Hawk smiled as she turned to the children. “There you have it in a nutshell, from the mouth of a Hyrwardi Swan Prince himself.”

  Three Doves looked at her mother, Little Doe, and said, “Don’t we speak Enkish too?”

  “Yes, Three Doves, but not with the flowing tongue of the Hyrwardi,”

  Sparrow Hawk clarified. “Do you not notice that the Lord Sur Sceaf speaks much more rapidly than do we. When we first met skalds at Tahlequah, they spoke so rapidly, I thought a bird was singing in their mouth.” She winked at Sur Sceaf. “Can you not hear his accent and sometimes he even calls us Syrafa instead of Sharaka.”

  Going Snake said, “I did. I heard it. He speaks funny.”

  Three Doves shouted, “No you didn’t hear it.”

  Before Going Snake could respond, the screech of an owl was heard directly above them in the towering spruce.

  Sur Sceaf said, “Ah! The owl tells me it’s time for young lads and ladies to be in bed.”

  Blooms Alone protested. “But we haven’t had our story yet and Going Snake gets to stay up all night when Sur Sceaf takes him to get the elk.”

  Little Doe asked, “Lord Sur Sceaf, would you like to stay a little longer? The girls have asked me to tell them the story of Red Bird, which I think you would like to hear.”

  * * *

  Sagwi’s tipi sat on a small rise near a pond just across from Thunder Horse’s tipi. She was a wise old sage of sixty winters and the shamaness of the tribe. An explosive flight of ducks from the pond heralded Taneshewa’s arrival. She burst through Sagwi’s tipi flap like a frog leaping into a pond. The silver-haired Sagwi gasped aloud and turned abruptly at her entrance.

  “What da matter dat you’s scaring da wits outta me, girl?” Sagwi said with a knitted brow. “You best start landing a lot softer in my nest, darlin. Woo, I’s got to catch my breaf after dhat.” Sagwi put down her mortar and pestle near the central fire, and wiped her hands on her buckskin apron.

  “I know you don’t like to be interrupted when you’re mixing your medicines, but I really need your help, Sagwi. I’m so mad, --so mad,--I could spit yellow jackets. I need to clear my mind, and get your wise counsel.” She paced and walked in circles around Sagwi’s fire, careful not to step on any of Sagwi’s herbs, roots, or bowls, which she had spread out for the mixing of healing potions. There was something about being in Sagwi’s tipi that had always had a very calming effect. It was like speaking to Grandmother Great Spirit in her clouds.

  “Well, if you’s goin to be interrupting me, is you goina listen dis time? Cause I done told you and told you dat you’s eatin rotten meat wif dat Hotuekhaashtait Standing Bull. Did ya listen when I told ya I done seen him kill an elk and he only eats da loins. Did ya listen when I told ya he kills da buffalo and he only takes da heart and da tongue. Brings none back to camp for us old folk or anybody needy. You didn’t listen when I done told you he’s gonna take your maiden heart, eat it, and toss you aside like a rag. Instead you just got all tied up wif him. And even when he broke your heart you kepta hanging on. Didn’t ju?”

  “You’re right, but I still can’t get Standing Bull out of my heart. It’s like I’m strapped to a wheel and as it turns I turn under it so that one time I’m on top of the wheel thinking all this is a mistake and he really loves me. Then the next moment, I know it’s only a fantasy and I’m being ground into the mud with the pain he inflicted on me with his cheating. I just want to be free of him and the painful feelings I have for him.”

  Sagwi reached over with her gnarled fingers to grab a bundle of dried chamomile, stripped off the spent blossoms and added them to the sassafras root and cascara berries in the stone mortar and began grinding them with the pestle.

  “Sit down, Ahy! You can’t listen when you’re movin all about like a hover fly.” She waited until Taneshewa settled cross-legged on a doeskin next to her. “Love be measured by the wholesomeness of its fruit. What fruit have you of dis Standing Bull? It’s all rotted. Ain’t it? Had it been true, da fruit would’ve kept. ’Ceptin it ain’t so. Even da dried fruit keeps its sweetness. Ain’t no sweetness left in dis Hotuekhaashtait, is der? Only a foul, foul taste.” Sagwi spat on the floor for emphasis.

  “Well, I suppose you’re right, but...”

  “There ain’t no but about it child. ‘Bout time you ‘cept dat.”

  Taneshewa stared at Sagwi’s look of resolve. “Sparrow Hawk always told me I was too trusting for my own good. I was only a child of fifteen winters when I met Bull, but I was still really no more than a dreamy child. You remember, we met at my cousin’s wedding where he filled me with his honey tasting lies. It was just like my little girl’s mind pictured it should be, he the tall, handsome warrior, and I a maiden princess. But my dream was nothing but smoke. I gave the gift of my love and my body into the hands of the wrong man. I can never have that opportunity back again.” Sighing, she picked up a sprig of lavender and held it up to her nose to smell. “Even though I know now that Standing Bull robbed me, in the beginning he made me feel like he was everything I ever wanted. Mendaho even said, she was so envious of the way he treated me that it made her wish she had a warrior so in love with her.”

  Sagwi laughed. “That Meny flits around from one brave to another, but in fact she is weighing the hearts of all suitors for a true heart. She won’t let herself be taken ‘cept by da right man. Mark me! You’d do well to follow her doings.”

  “I see now that I should have been more like that.”

  “You done made some big changes in yo thinking. You was jus too young, Ahy. You’s always been a givin child. Always wantin to help others. I member da time dat Klamath child, Morning Dipper, used to cry jus to get you to give her what she wanted. Even when ju found out ju were still her friend. You need to stop beatin up on yoself for lovin da wrong man. It won’t be the first maid to make dhat mistake.”

  Ahy leaped to her feet and started pacing again. “I don’t know how. I’ve tried. It’s like my heart is working against me. Why is it I can deny him my body, but I can’t get him out of my heart?”

  Sagwi paused, ground the pestle in the mortar, then sprinkled the sweet smelling ingredients in a hot cast iron pot of water hanging on a tripod over the fire. “Fetch me two of those mugs off dhat rack.”

  Taneshewa grabbed two mugs and handed one to Sagwi. Sagwi dipped a mug into the pot, wiped it off and proffered Ahy some tea. “Here, drink dis, sit and calm y’self. Be still now and listen to yo heart.”

  The sweet aroma of the tea drifted up into Taneshewa’s nostrils
before she took a cautious sip. Since childhood, the taste of Sagwi’s calming tea always managed to soothe her tempers. It was almost as though Sagwi had sensed she was coming.

  Then Sagwi asked, “’Member da time when you is ’bout eleven winters old and you’s spying on Sparrow Hawk and her new husband. I told ya a wolf was gonna get ya if ya didn’t stop a spying on dhem. Dhen I donned a wolf skin and snuck up on y’all. You ran so fast dhat your legs done out run your body. Yo just kept falling down.” Sagwi threw her arms up then grabbed her sides as they both laughed heartily and took another sip of the comforting tea.

  “You thought it was a real wolf til I pulled da wolf skin off and you saw it was just me. Den you got in a temper cause you’s fooled. You ‘s so hurt you wouldn’t speak to me for a whole moon. It was jo father that told you I did it to protect you from your young eyes seeing what dhey shouldn’t be seein. So it is wif dat Standing Bull. He only dressed in da skin of a lover. He just has da pretty mask on so as to fool you and so’s he be able to eat your maiden heart out like he did. Now it been done said, da first cut is da deepest and he did indeed draw da first blood, but true love it is not always come in da proper time. Some fruits won’t come till after da frost has bitten dhem. Dat’s how it is wif love. In your case, da autumn fruit’ll be sweeter dan da summer fruit. You’s see. Dhen you is be whole again.”

  “Honestly, Sagwi, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to give that much to a man again.”

  “Don’t you see what yo gave away was not to a man, but it was to da mask he wore.”

  Taneshewa let out a big sigh. “You’ve always given me good advice, but to be whole again, I don’t see how that’s possible.” Taneshewa dipped her mug into the pot again and sipped more tea from it, slurping it to cool it down some and swishing her hand before her mouth as if to help.

  Sagwi reached over and said, “Give me dhat cup. Let me scry dat.” Holding the hot cup in her hand Sagwi looked into its contents and was silent for a long while. Finally she said, “What dis I see? I see all dhis raging fire and whirlwind surrounding a warrior tree dhat won’t burn. Wait, wait it’s a hawthorn tree, but no matter how da flames leap, it ain’t never bothered or consumed. It can’t be Standing Bull I’s seein. Be it him da tree’d been a scrub pine wif dead branches.” She grinned, then looked at Taneshewa with a troubled glance. “Sometun you ain’t tellin me?”

  Taneshewa dropped her gaze to the embers in the circle of blackened stones. She felt exposed and vulnerable with Sagwi’s gaze boring into her. She could not bear to look into those sagacious penetrating eyes. “Remember when Standing Bull came back to DiAhman, and all the old feelings sent me into the pits of sadness and despair? You told me to go to Thunder Horse and ask him to scry my future.”

  “Yeah, dhat right. I ‘member dhat.”

  “Remember when Thunder Horse declared I would marry a white lord, and he would take me by surprise and in a most unexpected way that would force me to cross a wide gulf.”

  Sagwi inhaled a startled breath. “Yo be tellin’ me he done come?”

  “That’s the problem. It can’t be him. The Thunder Horse must be wrong. But what confuses me is I had a dream of a white lord. In my dream there was a great white swan that shone as brilliantly as the sun that came to me while I was at the lake. I know it’s strange, but he spoke with me. Not with words, but with thoughts, directly into my heart.”

  “What him say, girl?”

  “The swan said, ‘I have traversed land and waters, woods and mountains for you, and here I find you hidden in the heights of the mountains.’ He beckoned me to ride upon his back, when out of the brush steamed a fearful bull creature with a boar’s head and black tusks and slavering teeth. The beast charged at me and ran a curved tusk up my thigh, wounding me deep. I broke free of the tusk and leaped upon the swan’s back, and the swan turned to spread his wings wide as a warning. But the beast continued to charge in a rage. I was so terrified that I pressed my hand over the wound.” She felt herself drift deeper into the vision.

  “What happened dhen?”

  “The swan spewed consuming flames out of its mouth and the beast was utterly consumed so that only ashes remained. A great wind arose from the swan’s wings that blew the ashes of the beast off into the high desert. The swan turned to me and said, ‘In the beginning I was with you and in the end I shall be with you. Look for me, because I come in a day you know not.’ Honestly, Sagwi, it was just like the Thunder Horse’s prophecy last winter. But now I know, the Thunder Horse just had to be wrong.”

  Sagwi frowned. “I ain’t ever known it to be so. Can’t be Thunder Horse dhat’s wrong.”

  “But it is. It has to be.”

  Sagwi fell silent and appeared to contemplate what Ahy had told her. When she glanced up again she had a sympathetic look. “Tell me, child, what ju really come to see me bout?”

  Taneshewa took a deep breath, relieved that Sagwi understood her heart. “Alright, I’ll tell you all.” Taneshewa looked into the hag’s sweet face, hoping she would help her unravel her torrent of confusing emotions. “It was like Thunder Horse said. He surprised me down by the lake. It was the Hyrwardi emissary, the one my father has been expecting. Green Eyes, I call him. He is a white man, high-born, but not like other white men I’ve seen. He warmed my heart with his green eyes and mellow voice. Pierced me to the core.” Taneshewa paused while she remembered how his gaze made her feel so filled with light and so free to smile again, as though it made her come alive out of her numbness. “His voice drew me in like the tendrils of some green vine. Meeting him was like being in a firestorm that was sucking all my hopes and dreams up from the depths of my heart and me with them, into him, and into some brilliant future. My heart still beats power when I think on him. But it’s wrong for me to think on him when he belongs to another.”

  Taneshewa felt a familiar anger ignite inside her. “Don’t you see, Sagwi, he’s no better than Standing Bull. His smile, his eyes, his honey coated voice, it’s all a mask to lure me in with. He openly flirted with me and even had the nerve to mention his wife without so much as blinking an eye. He’s just like you said about Standing Bull, a maiden-heart hunter. So, you see, Thunder Horse has to be wrong!”

  Sagwi shook her head making her ivory earrings dance. “Yo only spent a little time wif dhis man and ju have dhis much feeling. He done told yo he be married, he didn’t do no wrong to you. Why is yo so twisted up over a man yo don’t even know fully yet?”

  “I don’t know, Sagwi. But honestly, when I drew near this white lord, it was like....like nothing I’d ever felt before, even with Standing Bull. With him, I entered a space of great peace. I don’t know if I can even explain it, but it was something like I had been in a cold dark, dank cave, and was, within the blink of an eye, brought into some warm cheery sunlit glade.”

  “Dher’s a lot more to dhis dhat you don’t know. Dhis meeting weren’t no chance. And dhat’s what I’ve been tryin to tells you. Dis fruit sound’n sweet to me!”

  “No! No,” she felt her face grow hot and the anger starting to churn inside her once again, “You’re not helping! It isn’t, sweet, he’s just like Standing Bull when I found out about the other girls. This man, Sur Sceaf, brazenly talked to me about his wife, as though I was a to be a mere pleasure ride for him. It made me feel like a rabbit when it gets whacked by a club. I was instantly stunned.” Her voice rose. “Not just a casual girlfriend, but, by Tah-Man-Ea, he had a wife! This arrogant bastard, Sur Sceaf, had a wife!”

  Sagwi’s whole face lit up like the moon in a broad smile. “Sur Sceaf! Taneshewa! He’s my dear nephew. You done met wif him. I’s so happy.”

  Taneshewa stared at Sagwi. “He’s what?”

  Sagwi laughed, “He da grandson of my older sister, Redith, she married dhat Quailor man we be callin Flying Wolf, who became a Hyrwardi. Converted over, he did. When Surrey, I mean Sur Sceaf, was but a youngin and you’s just a baby, he came to live here wif his grandparents. He was da best archer any of
us done ever seen. I ‘member back dhen, Surrey done killed an elk and took every last scrap of dat meat and handed it over to all da old folks in da tribe. You talks wif dese same old folks, some dead now, dhey all’s love him. He done chopped dhem fire wood and give um fish too. Yes, dhey do love him. You sayin’ he is here in DiAhman now?”

  “Yes, he is the expected emissary of the Council of Three Tribes.”

  Sagwi sprung up and raised her hands to the heavens. “Praise da Great Spirit, my b’loved Surrey is come to see his Aunt Sagwi.”

  Taneshewa crossed her arms, hugging her hurt feelings close. Sagwi just dismissed every feeling she had expressed, as if this Prince Sur Sceaf could do no wrong. “Please forgive me, but I must go.” She said stiffly. “I’ve had enough counsel for today. Besides, I have some reflecting to do, and I can see I need to see the Thunder Horse again.” Before Sagwi could reply, Taneshewa pushed her way through the tipi flap and hurried for the sanctuary of her own tipi.

  As she walked down the path she ruminated on Mendaho’s description of Sur Sceaf from the night before she met him, “Muscular golden torso, arms like the legs of a horse in strength. The grace of a bull elk. Long walnut colored hair running down his back like the mane of a stallion.” She spat out the words aloud as she hurried along the path. “Damn, I’ve got to get that image out of my head. Gotta think logically. Never in a thousand years would I consider him for love. Never!” She shook her head violently, trying to shake loose any thought of Sur Sceaf like the thoughts were tormenting bees buzzing in her hair.

  Following the well-worn path along the silent flowing Unequa Stream, her reverie was broken when she pierced through a thicket of chain ferns and saw Sur Sceaf directly in front of her tent. He and Going Snake were busy brushing down their horses near the campfire. He appeared just as surprised, as she observed him fumble and drop his currying brush. Her face heated up once again and flushed as they exchanged super charged glances. Briefly they made hypnotic eye contact then both looked away. She felt her heart accelerate and quickened her pace, only to have Going Snake rush towards her like a small puppy from behind the magnificent white horse.