I was helpless. Before the eyes of the crowd the cunning magician turned my honest heart into a vile nest of treachery. Alas! the people frowned as they looked upon me.
“Listen!” he went on. “Which one of you who have eyed the young man can see through his bosom and warn the people of the nest of young snakes hatching there? Whose ear was so acute that he caught the hissing of snakes whenever the young man opened his mouth? This one has not only proven false to you, but even to the Great Spirit who made him. He is a fool! Why do you sit here giving ear to a foolish man who could not defend his people because he fears to kill, who could not bring venison to renew the life of his sick father? With his prayers, let him drive away the enemy! With his soft heart, let him keep off starvation! We shall go elsewhere to dwell upon an untainted ground.”
With this he disbanded the people. When the sun lowered in the west and the winds were quiet, the village of cone-shaped tepees was gone. The medicine-man had won the hearts of the people.
Only my father’s dwelling was left to mark the fighting-ground.
IV.
From a long night at my father’s bedside I came out to look upon the morning. The yellow sun hung equally between the snow-covered land and the cloudless blue sky. The light of the new day was cold. The strong breath of winter crusted the snow and fitted crystal shells over the rivers and lakes. As I stood in front of the tepee, thinking of the vast prairies which separated us from our tribe, and wondering if the high sky likewise separated the softhearted Son of God from us, the icy blast from the North blew through my hair and skull. My neglected hair had grown long and fell upon my neck.
My father had not risen from his bed since the day the medicine-man led the people away. Though I read from the Bible and prayed beside him upon my knees, my father would not listen. Yet I believed my prayers were not unheeded in heaven.
“Ha, ha, ha! my son,” my father groaned upon the first snowfall. “My son, our food is gone. There is no one to bring me meat! My son, your soft heart has unfitted you for everything!” Then covering his face with the buffalo-robe, he said no more. Now while I stood out in that cold winter morning, I was starving. For two days I had not seen any food. But my own cold and hunger did not harass my soul as did the whining cry of the sick old man.
Stepping again into the tepee, I untied my snow-shoes, which were fastened to the tent-poles.
My poor mother, watching by the sick one, and faithfully heaping wood upon the center fire, spoke to me:
“My son, do not fail again to bring your father meat, or he will starve to death.”
“How, Ina,” I answered, sorrowfully. From the tepee I started forth again to hunt food for my aged parents. All day I tracked the white level lands in vain. Nowhere, nowhere were there any other footprints but my own! In the evening of this third fast-day I came back without meat. Only a bundle of sticks for the fire I brought on my back. Dropping the wood outside, I lifted the door-flap and set one foot within the tepee.
There I grew dizzy and numb. My eyes swam in tears. Before me lay my old gray-haired father sobbing like a child. In his horny hands he clutched the buffalo-robe, and with his teeth he was gnawing off the edges. Chewing the dry stiff hair and buffalo-skin, my father’s eyes sought my hands. Upon seeing them empty, he cried out:
“My son, your soft heart will let me starve before you bring me meat! Two hills eastward stand a herd of cattle. Yet you will see me die before you bring me food!”
Leaving my mother lying with covered head upon her mat, I rushed out into the night.
With a strange warmth in my heart and swiftness in my feet, I climbed over the first hill, and soon the second one. The moonlight upon the white country showed me a clear path to the white man’s cattle. With my hand upon the knife in my belt, I leaned heavily against the fence while counting the herd.
Twenty in all I numbered. From among them I chose the best-fattened creature. Leaping over the fence, I plunged my knife into it.
My long knife was sharp, and my hands, no more fearful and slow, slashed off choice chunks of warm flesh. Bending under the meat I had taken for my starving father, I hurried across the prairie.
Toward home I fairly ran with the life-giving food I carried upon my back. Hardly had I climbed the second hill when I heard sounds coming after me. Faster and faster I ran with my load for my father, but the sounds were gaining upon me. I heard the clicking of snowshoes and the squeaking of the leather straps at my heels; yet I did not turn to see what pursued me, for I was intent upon reaching my father. Suddenly like thunder an angry voice shouted curses and threats into my ear! A rough hand wrenched my shoulder and took the meat from me! I stopped struggling to run. A deafening whir filled my head. The moon and stars began to move. Now the white prairie was sky, and the stars lay under my feet. Now again they were turning. At last the starry blue rose up into place. The noise in my ears was still. A great quiet filled the air. In my hand I found my long knife dripping with blood. At my feet a man’s figure lay prone in blood-red snow. The horrible scene about me seemed a trick of my senses, for I could not understand it was real. Looking long upon the blood-stained snow, the load of meat for my starving father reached my recognition at last. Quickly I tossed it over my shoulder and started again homeward.
Tired and haunted I reached the door of the wigwam. Carrying the food before me, I entered with it into the tepee.
“Father, here is food!” I cried, as I dropped the meat near my mother. No answer came. Turning about, I beheld my gray-haired father dead! I saw by the unsteady firelight an old gray-haired skeleton lying rigid and stiff.
Out into the open I started, but the snow at my feet became bloody.
V.
On the day after my father’s death, having led my mother to the camp of the medicine-man, I gave myself up to those who were searching for the murderer of the paleface.
They bound me hand and foot. Here in this cell I was placed four days ago.
The shrieking winter winds have followed me hither. Rattling the bars, they howl unceasingly: “Your soft heart! your soft heart will see me die before you bring me food!” Hark! something is clanking the chain on the door. It is being opened. From the dark night without a black figure crosses the threshold . . . It is the guard. He comes to warn me of my fate. He tells me that tomorrow I must die. In his stern face I laugh aloud. I do not fear death.
Yet I wonder who shall come to welcome me in the realm of strange sight. Will the loving Jesus grant me pardon and give my soul a soothing sleep? or will my warrior father greet me and receive me as his son? Will my spirit fly upward to a happy heaven? or shall I sink into the bottomless pit, an outcast from a God of infinite love?
Soon, soon I shall know, for now I see the east is growing red. My heart is strong. My face is calm. My eyes are dry and eager for new scenes. My hands hang quietly at my side. Serene and brave, my soul awaits the men to perch me on the gallows for another flight. I go.
THE SINGING BIRD (1925)
John M. Oskison
Oskison was of Cherokee descent, born in Indian Territory (which later became Oklahoma) in 1874. He graduated from Stanford University in 1898 and began publishing short stories. He moved to New York City, where he worked as an editor for a newspaper and magazine, and died in Tulsa in 1947. As for this exciting, densely plotted story, the reader needs to hold tight: it is dotted with odd, struggling phrasings that can make it seem as if Oskison were translating it (e.g., “Cold, passionless men’s business Jim and his three companions were busy about now”; “She knew the privilege of her who turned singing bird to savor the preliminary delights of song!”). The title refers to a cuckolding, “she knew that the full-bloods called the deceiving wife a ‘singing bird’; with notes to lure others than her mate.” The issue of “full-bloods” versus “half-breeds” is a messier theme.
“NOW WE TALK, me and these Kee-too-wah fellows. Old woman, go to bed!”
Thus Jim Blind-Wolfe dismissed his wife, Jennie, who w
as not old. With the fleetest glancing look he pushed her gently toward the back door of the firelit cabin, one huge outspread hand covering both of her erect shoulders.
Big Jim, old Spring Frog, Panther, and The Miller made up this inner, unofficial council of the Kee-too-wah organization that had met at Jim’s cabin. Self-charged with the duty of carrying out the ancient command to maintain amongst the Cherokees the full-blood inheritance of race purity and race ideals, they would discuss an alarming late growth of outlawry in the tribe, an increase in crime due to idleness, drink and certain disturbing white men who had established themselves in the hills. Paradoxically, as they talked and planned secret pressures here and there, they would pass a jug of honest moonshine—but they would drink from it discreetly, lightly, as full-blood gentlemen should!
“Jim,” old Spring Frog opened, “I hear my friend say something about that fellow you hit that day at Tahlequah—”
Jim’s sudden, loud guffaw interrupted the old man.
“Him!” and Jim’s scornful rumble summed up the case of Lovely Daniel, a wild half-breed neighbor.
Smiling at the muffled sound of Jim’s laugh, Jennie Blind-Wolfe drew a gay shawl over the thick black hair that made a shining crown for her cleanly modeled head and oval brown face and went across, under the brilliant September starlight, to the out cabin where she was to sleep. It was an inviting pine-log room, pleasantly odorous of drying vegetables and smoked side meat hung from rafters.
She stood for a minute on the solid adz-hewn step listening to the faint, unintelligible murmur of her husband’s voice, the occasional comments of the others whom she had left crouched in front of glowing wood embers in the wide stone fireplace; to the music of Spavinaw Creek racing over its rocky bed to Grand River; to the incessant, high-pitched chirring of crickets in the grass, the hysteric repetitions of katydids and the steady clamor of tree frogs yonder at the edge of the clearing.
A maddening sound, this all-night chorus of the little creatures of grass and forest! For ten nights, as she lay beside the relaxed bulk of her giant husband, she had strained her ears in the effort to hear above their din the sound of a horse’s tramping at the timber edge and the sound of a man’s footsteps coming across the dead grass of the clearing.
“Oh, why don’t they stop! Why don’t they stop!” she had cried, silently, in an agony of fear. But tonight—
No fear, no resentment of the chirring voices in the grass, the forest clatter; tonight she knew what was to happen. Tonight she would know the shivery terror, the illicit thrill of the singing bird, but she would not be afraid. Lovely Daniel had promised to come to her. Some time before dawn he would come to the edge of the clearing, repeat twice the call of the hoot-owl. He would come to the tiny window of the out cabin, and then—
Lovely had made a wonderful plan, a credit to his half-breed shrewdness, if not to his name! It had been born of his hatred of big Jim Blind-Wolfe and nourished by a growing fever of desire for Jennie. Enough of it he had revealed to Jennie to set her heart pounding, hang a fox-fire glow in her eyes.
She undressed in the streaming light of a moon just past the half and diamond bright stars that laid a brilliant oblong on the floor in front of the open door. Standing on a warm wolf rug beside the wide home-made bed, she stretched her lithe brown body. Then, comfortably relaxed, she recalled the beginning of Lovely’s clever plan; a ripple of laughter, soft, enigmatic, rose to her lips.
The beginning dated from a torrid day of midsummer. The Cherokee tribal council was meeting in the box-like brick capitol, set among young oaks in a fenced square. In the shade, on the trampled grass of this capitol square, lounged a knot of councilmen, townsmen, gossips from the hill farms. Jim Blind-Wolfe— huge, smiling, dominating—was of the group, in which also stood Lovely Daniel. Alert, contentious, sharp of tongue, Lovely was sneering at the full-blood gospel that was being preached. Men grew restive under his jeers and mocking flings until at length Jim demanded the word. In slow, measured terms, as became a man of his impressive presence and bull-like voice, he summed up their drawn-out discussion:
“I tell you, Kee-too-wah fellows don’t like this lease business. You lease your land to white man, and pretty soon you don’t have any land; white man crowd you out! This here country is Eenyan (Indian) country, set aside for Eenyans. We want to keep it always for Eenyans. Such is belief of Kee-too-wahs, and I am Kee-too-wah!”
These were the words Jim repeated when he told Jennie of what followed. He described Lovely Daniel’s quick, angry rush toward him, and mimicked his sharp retort:
“Kee-too-wah fellows—hell! They think they run this here country.” Jim could not reproduce the sneer that twisted the halfbreed’s mouth as he went on: “Kee-too-wahs are fools. White man goin’ to come anyway. Jim Blind-Wolfe—huh! Biggest dam’ fool of all!” He ended with an evil gesture, the sure insult, and Jim’s sledge-hammer fist swung smoothly against the side of his head. Lovely’s body, lifted by the blow, was flung sprawling. He lay motionless.
“Jim!” cried old Spring Frog, “maybe so you kill that fellow. Bouff!—My God, I don’ like.”
Jim carried Lovely Daniel across the road to the porch of the National House, while young Hunt ran for Doctor Beavertail. That grave half-breed came, rolled up his sleeves and set to work. His native skill, combined with his medical school knowledge, sufficed to bring Lovely back to consciousness by late afternoon.
Next morning, with the memory of Jim’s devastating and widely advertised blow fresh in their minds, the councilmen—after much half jesting and half serious debate—passed a special Act and sent it to Chief Dennis for signature:
“It shall be unlawful for Jim Blind-Wolfe to strike a man with his closed fist!”
It was promptly signed and posted in the corridor of the capitol. Jim read it, and as he strode out into the square the thin line of his sparse mustache was lifted by a loud gust of laughter. Hailing the Chief, fifty yards away, he roared:
“Hey, Dennis, must I only slap that Lovely Daniel fellow next time?” The Chief met him at the center of the square. In an undertone, he undertook a friendly warning:
“You want to watch out for that Daniel fellow, Jim. You mighty nigh killed him, and—I kind of wish you had! He’s bad. Bad—” the Chief repeated soberly, and came closer to impress Jim by his words—“We ain’t got sure proof yet, but I’m satisfied it was Lovely Daniel that waylaid Blue Logan on the Fort Gibson road and killed him.”
The Chief’s low-toned confidences went on; and before he mounted the steps and went in to his battered old desk, he recalled:
“You have seen that Yellow Crest woman sometimes? She comes into town from the hills with stovewood and sits on her wagon, with a shawl always across her face. She was a pretty young woman six years ago, wife of Looney Squirrel. This Lovely Daniel took to hanging round, and Looney caught ’em—Yellow Crest and him. You are Kee-too-wah, Jim; you know what the old fellows do to a ‘singing bird’?”
“Yes,” Jim admitted, “they cut off the end of her nose!”
“Yes, they punish the woman so, and—” the Chief’s face showed a shadow of passionate resentment— “they do nothing to the man! The old fellows, the Kee-too-wahs,” he repeated, “still do that way. It was what Looney Squirrel did before he sent Yellow Crest from his cabin.”
“Yes, I know,” Jim assented.
“This Lovely Daniel is bad for women to know; a bad fellow for any woman to know, Jim!” The Chief eyed him shrewdly, pressed his piston-like arm in friendly emphasis before he walked slowly away.
On the long drive to his clearing beside Spavinaw Creek, Jim weighed Chief Dennis’ words. He thought of Jennie’s fond care of Lovely Daniel’s frail sister, Betsy, who was fighting a hopeless battle against tuberculosis in the cabin across the Spavinaw where she lived with Lovely.
“A bad fellow for any woman to know!” Jim repeated, with half closed, contemplative eyes as he urged his tough pony team along the stony road. He would have to think ab
out that. He would have to take more notice of his wife, too—that gay, slender, laughing young woman who kept his cabin, clung adoringly to him, her eyes dancing, and flashed into song with the sudden clear burst of a red bird in early spring—
Lovely as a menace to himself was one thing, he considered; foolishly, he refused to believe that he might be in serious danger from the half-breed; he believed that Lovely was a boaster, a coward, and that he would be afraid of the prompt vengeance of Jim’s friends. But Lovely as a menace to Jennie—well, no friend would serve him here, either to warn, fearing his wrath and the tiger-swipe of his great hand, or to avenge!
In direct fashion Jim spoke to Jennie of his encounter with the half-breed, and repeated the Chief’s words of warning. A passing gleam of fear rounded her eyes as she listened; it changed to a gay defiant smile when her man added:
“I think you better not go to see Betsy anymore.”
“No?” she queried, then very gravely: “she is awful low, Jim, and I am her friend.” She sat studying her husband’s face for many minutes, turned to the pots hanging in the fireplace with a tiny secret smile. “I am Betsy’s best friend,” she reiterated coaxingly.
“Well,” Jim conceded, stretching his great bulk negligently, “you watch out for that fellow, her brother!”
Some days later, Jennie rode to the capitol, sought Chief Dennis and asked:
“Is Jim in real danger from Lovely Daniel?”
“I think maybe he is in great danger, Jennie; but Jim does not agree with me on that!” The Chief’s slow smile was a tribute to her husband’s careless bravery.
“Ah, that would make it easier for Lovely,” she said to herself softly.
Jennie’s thoughts drifted back to various occasions when she had visited Betsy Daniel. Sometimes, but not often, as she sat with her friend or busied herself sweeping and airing the cabin, preparing a bowl of hominy, putting on a pot of greens and bacon, stripping husks from roasting ears, helping on a patchwork quilt, Lovely would come in. He would squat, a thin handsome figure, in front of the fire, sniff eagerly at the cooking pots, rise, move restlessly about. He would speak with Jennie of his hunting; he would talk of the white men he knew at Vinita, some of whom came to the Spavinaw hills in the late fall to chase deer with him and encourage him to become active in tribal politics. These men wished to spur him to active opposition to the reactionary full-bloods, the Kee-too-wahs, who bitterly resented white intrusion.
Great Short Stories by Contemporary Native American Writers Page 4