The Canyon Jack Schaefer

by Les Weil

  These things lived in the mind of Little Bear. They kept him conscious of a difference. Other things did too. The shortness of his legs made a sore in his mind and at last this healed but a scar remained. He could not run as fast as even the slowest among the other boys. They did not want him as a companion in their running games. When they played buffalo hunt and he was a man riding a horse-stick he could not overtake the boys who were buffalo. When they played and he carried a pole on which was impaled a flat leaf of the prickly pear whose thorns represented the horns of a buffalo it was the same. He played as hard as he could. He tossed and struck with the thorns trying to hook the hunters. When one of their play arrows hit the dirt spot on the leaf which represented the heart of the buffalo, he fell and rolled and threw dust and died as a stricken buffalo dies. But it brought little honor to a hunter to kill such a buffalo. He could be overtaken too quickly. His battle rushes could be avoided too easily. And when they played horse-taking he was no help at all. He dropped out of these games and sat cross-legged on rising ground and watched the other boys play and when they were out of sight he still sat and watched the wide rolling world around him and long thoughts grew in his mind.

  When he was older and had the painted pony it was better. The pony was good and ran as other ponies ran and he rode it as a Cheyenne rode, a living part of the living animal, moving as it moved in the release of running swiftness. He became a good hunter as his father had been. On the back of the pony he was as tall as any man. He found a laughter on his lips in the hot chase and a courage to ride in close and use the lance. He did not thrust down for the kidneys as some men did, to cripple the buffalo and have it die slowly at a safe distance. He thrust forward, straight for the heart, and if the buffalo tried to turn and fight he held firmly to the lance and pressed with it until his strength and the strength of the pony and the strength of the buffalo straining against each other drove the point to the death. It was when he dismounted to skin the buffalo and prepare the meat for carrying to camp that he remembered the shortness of his legs and the difference they made. And because of that difference which was more than just a shortness of legs it did not seem right to him that he should ornament his ears with rings and beaded hoops or wear his hair according to fashion or sit in a lodge circle in a buffalo robe of fine designs. It seemed to him that he should be simple and unshowing in all things. . . .

  He was a good hunter. He helped keep the lodge supplied with meat and fresh skins for the women to work into clothing and sleeping robes as a man should. Strong Left Hand had more time for the warpath and his own sons with him. When these sons were of age and their father nodded his head, they smoked the pipe when the question was asked in their own lodge and in other lodges and became good warriors. They were untiring in travel and they took many horses, more than they lost, and when they returned successful they never failed to give Little Bear one of the best so that he too would have horses and on proper feast days could give presents according to custom. They respected him for his courage in hunting and for his quiet dignity by the lodge fire. Strong Left Hand was proud of the feeling there was between his own sons and the foster son he had taken into his family. But he could not understand and his sons could not understand why this foster son and brother would not smoke the war pipe. And Little Bear himself did not understand. He was glad for his foster brothers that they showed themselves good warriors and thus gained wealth and honor for themselves in the eyes of the village. Yet always when the pipe was passed to him and he looked in his heart for what to do, there was no urge to gain honor for himself in this way. There was only the remembrance of a difference that he could not expain. ...

  Three miles from the village, hidden in a dip of the rolling plain, the successful returning war party stopped in prepare to surprise their people with their triumphant entry. They killed a buffalo and stripped off a large piece of the skin. They hung this over sticks pushed into the ground with the middle hanging down so that it was like a cooking kettle. They drained blood from the carcass and put it into this kettle. They took bunches of rye grass and twisted these into tight bunches and burned the ends and the let ashes fall into the blood. When the mixture was stirred it became dark. They spread their robes on the ground. One of the older men took a pointed stick and dipped it in the mixture and began to draw designs on the robes. He instructed the younger men as he worked, telling them why he did this and why he did that and the proper motions to use for each. He drew parallel lines across the robes and between these drew wolf tracks and bear tracks and other shapes that were not tracks but had meanings of their own. As the paint dried it became black and it adhered tightly to the robes.

  When the painting of the robes was done, they burned small bushes and with the dark ashes painted their faces. The younger men made stripes down their foreheads and cheeks but the older men covered their whole faces. They all dressed as they had been dressed during the raid on the enemies. They mounted their war ponies and led the others on rawhide ropes. When they topped the last rise before the village they shouted their war cries and rushed down toward the circle of lodges. That was a moment of excitement, a moment no warrior could soon forget. The whole village, men and women and children and dogs all shouting and barking, came running out to greet the heroes. Because they came swiftly, not stopping on the top of the rise to signal with waving robes, everyone knew that no men had been lost. Because there were many horses being led, everyone knew that much wealth had been gained and much honor won. People threw their arms about the warriors and helped them from their horses. Tribal singers moved around singing songs about them. Their relatives proved their pride and joy by giving gifts to i hose less fortunate in having no family representatives in this party.

  Soon the feasts were being prepared. Children scurried from lodge to lodge speaking invitations. Sparks flew from smoke holes into the evening dusk as fires were freshly fed. Streaks of firelight through the lodge openings outlined the village circle in the deepening dark. The sound of drums filled the air with its throbbing, the big drums where a social dance was under way, smaller drums for the songs that accompanied gambling games, an intermittent quick-beating tattoo to mark each climax in a big lodge where members of two soldier bands were counting coups in a brave-deed competition.

  The hum of activity ran long into the dark hours. At last the fires burned down. People retired to their home couches. The sound of drums and of rattles ceased and the only music heard was the lonely love song of some young man with his flute hovering near the lodge of his sweetheart. This too died away. The last voices faded and the restless stirring of horses tied by the lodges dwindled and dogs curled into their favorite spots in the dust. The final embers winked and were gone and the village was silent in sleep, an inseparable part of the vast plain rolling on to the hills and the great luminous mountains of the high border country. ...

  Little Bear could not sleep. He lay on his couch of sinew-strung willow rods with its mat of woven bulrushes just inside the open entrance of the lodge. The soft light of the late moon through the opening called to him. He rose quietly and went outside and through the village. He walked out onto the open plain. He sat cross-legged in the long grasses and heard the breezes of the night whispering through them. He stared at the moon. He sat still a long time. Far off a coyote howled and another answered and another and the drawn mournful wailing drifted around the horizon and faded and there was silence. Not the silence of no-sound, for in the whispering of the grasses he could hear the Maiyun talking, the spirits that dwell in the ground. "What is it that troubles this one," they said, "that he cannot be as other men? He fights the mighty buffalo, turning not from its sharp horns, but the enemies of his people he will not fight." A sliver of cloud floated across the moon and still Little Bear stared at it and he heard the Maiyun talking. "His mind is too heavy with thoughts," they said, "thoughts that go crosswise to good custom. He must lighten his mind by sacrifice as the old one directs."

  Little Bear pondered t
his many moments and knew what he must do. He rose and went back to the lodge. He took only what he would need, his pipe and a pouch of tobacco and a small bag of pemmican. He put the grass-filled double pads he used for a saddle on the painted pony and rode eastward toward the rising sun.

  All day Little Bear rode and all the next night. He stopped only for water and for brief rest and to graze the pony. Near the noon of the next day he came to the village he sought. He knew the lodge by the designs painted on it. A young woman was in front of it by a fire cooking soup in a small kettle. He went past her through the doorway and stepped to the right and waited. From the couch at the rear, propped up on piled buffalo robes, the old one looked at him with eyes bright in the wrinkled and toothless face, the old one, the great one, Standing All Night, oldest of living Cheyennes, old beyond reckoning, old beyond memory, able now to take food only in fluid form and to move about only with the aid of two sturdy great-grandsons.

  The old one pointed to the ground at his feet. Little Rear went there, careful to circle the inside fire and not to cross in front of it. He sat on the ground and looked up. He took out his pipe and filled it. He reached for a burning stick and lit the pipe. When the smoke came well he held the pipe out, stem up, bowl down. The old one reached and took the pipe. He smoked.

  Many times Standing All Night drew the fragrant smoke into his old lungs and breathed it forth in slow rhythm. When the pipe was finished he handed it back to Little Bear. His voice was old, an echo of sound from his withered chest. "My friend. What is it you want of me?" And Little Bear spoke quickly the words he had said over and over to himself on the way. "It is in my mind to ask you to go up on a hill with me."

  The moment those words were spoken, Little Bear was ashamed. A young man who wished to make sacrifice must ask an older man of experience to instruct him and go with him and take him to a proper place and come for him at the end of the appointed time and lead him down. And he, a foster son only from a far small village who had never counted a coup and who did not even have a formal name given by a grandfather or an uncle, had spoken the words to this old one, this great one, Standing All Night, who was no longer able to walk alone, who was no longer able to go forth any distance from his lodge even supported on the strong shoulders of his great-grandsons.

  The shame was big in the breast of Little Bear. He dropped his head and stared at the ground. But the voice of Standing All Night brought his head up again. "My friend, look at me." He looked at Standing All Night and the old one looked at him and saw something in his face others did not see. "My friend, you are the small one who had the moon in his eyes. What is it that troubles you?" And Little Bear could speak, for this was the man who had pierced his ears and the old voice was kind. He spoke of the difference that was always there in his mind. He spoke of the thoughts that grew heavy in him. ". . . and a man has a mare," he said, "and the mare has a colt. Four seasons the man must wait for the colt to be born and twice and three times four seasons for the colt to be grown enough to begin to be a good horse. Yet the man will ride it to war and the horse can be killed in the flash of an arrow or the thrust of a lance. Or it can be that the man takes a horse from an enemy. Yet that enemy in the time before had to wait four seasons for that horse to be born of its mare and twice and three times four seasons for it to be grown enough for good use. And it is gone from him in a moment." And again Little Bear said: "Sometimes it can seem when they smoke the war pipe and go forth on the warpath that they are like children playing at a game. Yet it is a game that can bring wounds and death-mourning to the one village and to the other. Hunting too can bring wounds and death-mourning. But there is a difference in hunting and it is not the same."

  Little Bear spoke. When he had no more words he was silent and quietness breathed in the lodge. Standing All Night sat still for many long moments. "My friend," he said, "one man cannot change a tribe. It is good that is so. There would be endless changing this way and that way and much mischief tormenting all people. It is fitting that a man do as the customs of his tribe tell him. It is fitting too that no man do what his heart tells him is wrong. That is hard. He must be certain that his heart speaks truth to him." Standing All Night lay back on the piled buffalo robes. He closed his eyes and with the closing the light of living seemed to be gone from him and he was very still. His eyes opened. There was new strength in them. "My friend. My strange small one to whom the moon calls. You must do what is in your mind. You must go up into the hills for a starving. I will go with you. These old bones and the fragments of flesh that still cling to them will remain here and feed on the soups that my great-grand­daughter prepares for me. Yet I will be with you. You must do as I tell you and when a single wolf howls and none answers you must listen and I will be with you. . . ."

  The land climbed around him, not swiftly but rolling upward. The stream dropped away on his left, twisting and flowing back down the way he had come. He moved slowly for his legs were short and the painted pony was two days' journey to the eastward with the horses of his foster family by the home village. A man who would make sacrifice must go humbly on foot.

  He was far into the hills, farther than he had ever been. Other young men who made sacrifice did so close to the village. He was bound by the words of the old one and he obeyed. He was afraid but he obeyed. It was country like this with its hollows dropping between high hills and the climbing rock heights ahead that Heammawihio, the Wise One Above, might leap over with his far-seeing glance when he looked down on the land and the peoples he had created. It was in country like this with its strange rock shapes rising abruptly out of seeing good pastureland that the bad Maiyun dwelled who delighted in causing sicknesses and dark troubles of the mind. He was afraid but he moved forward and he did not look back.

  He came to a double fork of the stream and did not know which one to take. He remembered words of the old one. He plucked a blade of long grass and held it up straight. Out of the still air a breeze came and bent the grass stem in the direction of the second stream fork. He followed this, keeping to the right-hand bank according to custom.

  He came to a flat rock close by the stream on the right side. It was a good place. The hills divided to the eastward so that he could see through them to the far horizon where the sun would rise each morning. He laid his things at one end of the rock, his pipe and pouch of tobacco and fire-sticks, and the small bag of pemmican he must not touch now during four days and the nights between. He gathered armfuls of grasses and laid these on the rock for his couch. He brought forth the knife, the knife with an iron blade that came from a pale­skinned trader across the big river in long ago days, the knife that had pierced his ears when he was a small­one-in-arms and the brave laughter of his father and the soft voice of his mother were fresh in those ears to be pierced, the knife that was with him now as a sign that the old one was near. He laid the knife on the flat rock with the blade pointing eastward towards the division in the hills. He lay down on the grasses on the rock with his face turned in the direction the knife pointed. He lay still and let the hours drift over him. . . .

  The sun sank behind the great egg-shaped mass of the mountain to the west. Dusk flowed over the hills. He rose and with his fire-sticks made a small fire. He revolved the one stick between the palms of his hands with its point in the hole in the other flattened stick until sparks glowed in the powdered dry buffalo chip around the edges of the hole. He blew on this and fed it with small twigs until the fire was burning. He filled his pipe and lit it and smoked. Three times each day he could do this, when the sun rose and when the sun stood straight overhead and when the sun sank below the western horizon. But he could not eat. He could not drink of the stream flowing near him.

  He lay on the grasses on the rock. The small fire burned down and out. The darkness covered him and he was afraid. The night winds moaned now and again through crevices in the far bluffs and the Maiyun of the hills were talking and he could not understand their voices. He shivered in the night-cool and was afrai
d. A wolf howled and another answered and yet another and the sound rose and fell through far hollows of the hills. He listened and there was nothing. He lay still and was afraid and a wolf howled with a deeper tone and there was no answer. He listened and coming along the night winds he heard and did not hear yet he heard an old voice like an echo from a shrunken chest: "My friend, it is well. I am here. ..."

  There were no dreams in the night. He slept and waked and slept again and the sleep was good because of the weariness of the long journey on foot into the hills. The day following, which was the second day, he lay on the grasses and the sun soaked its warmth into him and food-hunger gnawed like a ground squirrel in his belly. He forced his mind not to think of this and his thoughts roamed out and away through the hills and came back and were still. He lay quiet and the hours drifted over him.

  In the night, which was the second night, dreams came. He was falling through a blackness and there was a roaring in his ears. He cried out and woke. He shivered in the night-cool yet he sweated in the fright of falling. A breeze stirred and moved over his face and took the sweat drops away. It was like a hand, wrinkled and old and reassuring. He slept and dreams came again. He was standing in an unknown place. Everywhere he looked rock rose straight around him. He moved forward and passed through the rock and he was walking in a good land and a fine well-sewn lodge was before him and he knew it was his and by the entrance was a woman and she was beckoning to him. He went toward her and she was gone and the lodge was gone and on the ground was a fallen-in pile of rotting lodge poles and small bushes grew among them. A great sadness took hold of him and he fell on the ground and beat at it with his hands and he woke shivering in the night mist. He was lying on his face off the grasses on the hard surface of the flat rock and his hands hurt from striking on the stone. He rose and blew on his hands to ease the hurting. He lay again on the grasses with his head turned eastward toward the division in the hills. He lay still and at last his mind emptied itself of all thinking. And the Maiyun of the hills emerged like smoke from their homes in the far rock bluffs and clustered round him. They took the form of buffalo and starlight shone on their horns and their eyes glowed. "Is this the man," one said, "who will not be as other men?" And another spoke: "He believes he is humble in his difference but there is strong pride in such humbleness." And another spoke: "Shall we visit upon him a sickness that will wither him away?" And yet another spoke: "Let him live his allotted days. That can be more difficult than a withering away. ..."