Scarlet Feather

by Joan Grant

  “Then you agree, Raki, that we can’t let them part us?”

  He sighed. “Can we betray the Before People?”

  It was dark when we got back to the encampment. The others had finished the sunset meal, but food had been left in our tepee. I tried to talk of the things we should do when we had our own tribe to look after. But louder than the words, my thoughts kept saying, “Soon we shan’t be together any more, any more, any more,” on and on, like the feet of a weary runner.

  Every day Raki made me practise all he had taught me of a boy’s training. Time after time he went over the wrestling holds, showing me the exact spot where pressure on an arm snaps the bone like a dry twig, and how to turn an opponent’s strength against himself. I used his bow, which was heavier than mine, for the one I should soon be given would be longer by a handspan than any we had yet bent.

  So as to try to get used to the new life we should soon have to lead, when we thought there was no chance of us being seen, we changed clothes and he pretended to be my squaw. He wore the bracelets and necklaces which had been Mother’s and the embroidered tunic I had worn at the Feast of Midsummer. I was showing him how to plait his hair, because soon he would have to do even the ones at the back himself, when I suddenly realized that the notes of the mocking-bird I had been hearing were made by a human throat.

  Tekeeni, a boy two years older than us, swung down from a tree on the far side of the glade. He was laughing. “Poor Raki! Piyanah has turned him into a squaw! When he has learned still more of the ways of women there will be a great wrestling at the Choosing, for all the Braves will want Raki—the prettiest squaw of them all!”

  Then he came towards us, mimicking the postures of the Betrothal Dance.

  “Poor Tekenni will feel humble when he has been beaten by a woman,” said Raki calmly.

  Tekeeni had obviously not intended to provoke a fight, for when he saw Raki was unembarrassed he said airily that he couldn’t stay to talk to us as he had to visit a snare he had set.

  But Raki taunted him, “Tekenni is a child! He would run even from the Old Women in case they should smack him! Tekeeni dares not take three paces towards Raki, for if he did, he knows it would be a challenge!”

  Tekeeni hesitated, and then took three steps towards us. Raki and I usually fought people together, but this time I knew he wouldn’t like me to help.

  The fight was soon over, though Tekeeni didn’t give the sign which accepts defeat until blood was pouring from his nose and a loose eye-tooth hung from his upper jaw. He lay panting on the ground and then scrambled to his feet.

  “If all squaws fought like you do, Raki,” he said with a grin, “it would be the women who carried the war bows and the men who stayed behind to wash the cooking-pots.” He pulled the loose tooth and held it out to Raki. “Here’s something to add to your bear’s claws when you get them.” His smile was crooked because of his split lip, but I knew by his eyes that we had found a friend.

  One of the necklaces had broken in the fight, and after Tekeeni had gone we searched for the beads which had been trodden into the snow. Raki stood holding one of them in his hand. “I shall not be able to fight everyone who mocks me,” he said ruefully, “or I shall never learn to ‘Think as a woman, live as a woman, feel as a woman.’” He sighed. “I shall have to become impassive as the Elders!”

  I didn’t want him to become impassive! I wanted him to go on laughing easily as a spring, not to turn his face into a mask which hid pain, and sorrow, and joy…if a Brave ever felt joy, even from me. Had I at last found a way to turn him from the path he had accepted? Mockery might have shown him how difficult the lonely years would be; would he let me suffer mockery?

  After this I no longer tried to conceal my dread of the future. I told him that I might fail in the ordeals, and that I was frightened of dying; I did not tell him that I was more frightened of my heart turning into stone than my body into dust. But I could not make him promise to run away from the tribe; and we still had to count the days we had together. Eight, seven, six…time burning away faster than a pine-torch.

  When there were only three days left to us, the fear of separation was stronger than the fear of arguing with the Chief.

  Na-ka-chek heard me without interruption, then he said:

  “I have already told you that you must become the man and the not-man; the woman and the not-woman. You must obey my laws until you are a Chief and ready to make your own.”

  I thought that if I could break through his impassivity I might be able to make him believe me, so I tried to make him angry. “You are asking Raki to betray me as you betrayed my mother!”

  “You are asking me to send you to the Squaws’ Tepees while Raki passes the ordeals alone. If he knew that you had not the courage to win the right to the Feathered Headdress, he would choose another squaw to bear his sons.”

  “Raki would never choose another squaw! My mother said you had forgotten how to be happy and that was why the arrows of your Braves would never kill the Sorrow Bird. Please let us go to the Brown Feathers together, and then we will prove to them that because of love we are stronger than they are.”

  “Why should they believe that love gives strength when you are already showing that it makes you a coward?”

  “A man is not a coward if he says he will not be able to fight if you cut off his arms! That’s what Raki and I are like without each other…cripples! How can a cripple fight?”

  “You must be strong alone before you can be double strong together.”

  “Why should we be separated so as to learn how to become one again? If only you would let us train together, we will each win four Scarlet Feathers; no one has ever done that!”

  “You mean that you hope Raki will win eight feathers, and give half his honour to you. You must learn to wield authority in your own right before men will accept your words: if you returned from the ordeals in Raki’s company, the men would say, ‘She is like the squaw who carried home the deer for the hunter…and claimed the kill for her own.’”

  “If you make me leave Raki, men will say things that make bitter hearing for you! They will say, ‘Piyanah, the daughter of Na-ka-chek, is a coward! Na-ka-chek was foolish to have called her his son.’”

  There seemed no ember of kindliness in the cold ash of his eyes. “I have spoken; and the word of Na-ka-chek is not questioned by one of his tribe.”

  I managed not to cry until I thought Raki was asleep. The tears only increased my grief, but I could not stop them. Suddenly I knew he was awake. As he gathered me closer into the shelter of our fur robe, he said:

  “You needn’t sorrow any more, Piyanah. We are going to lead a new tribe, but now, not after seven years. It will be a small tribe, of two people who love each other.”

  The Little Valley

  The moon was up when we crept out of the tepee, and weaving shadows from the watch-fire patterned the black and white of the open space we had to cross before reaching the shelter of the trees. Thin snow crunched under foot; across the valley a wild dog began to bark, and another took up the challenge.

  It was very cold, but Raki’s hand was warm and secure. I wondered if the big grizzly, whose spoor we had seen two days earlier, had gone back to the high ground or was lurking near us in the darkness. I heard a thud, and thought it must have been caused by some large animal, but Raki said it was only snow falling off an overloaded branch. Except where the trees grew close together, the track was easy to follow in the brilliant moonlight, yet it seemed longer than I expected before we reached the place where we had hidden our bundles the previous day.

  We had bread, enough for three days, strips of pemmican, a bow with four extra bowstrings, fish-hooks, line, a rope of plaited raw-hide, two knives, and a small tomahawk. These were divided equally between us, but Raki carried two water-skins, one empty and the other full of seed maize, and a small cooking-pot. We each wore a second tunic and a blanket, and carried a spare pair of moccasins in our belt. I was glad that Raki
had let me bring only the things he considered essential, for the thongs of my pack soon began to chafe my shoulders.

  It was moonset when we reached the edge of the forest; we had to wait until the thin grey light brought the ground out of the shadows and it was safe to go on. We heard the roar of the water before we came in sight of the river, so I knew I could no longer cling to the hope that we should be able to cross on the ice lower down the valley.

  Raki knew what I was thinking, for he said confidently, “It’s not really a very difficult climb. You have done harder ones for no particular reason except that they were an adventure. This is an adventure above all the others, so you are sure to be steadier even than usual. Now we are our own tribe, the Great Hunters will give us counsel…they always do to Chiefs.”

  “I’m not frightened,” I said firmly, “not even right down inside of me.”

  “Of course you’re not, but it’s easier to climb when your hands are warm; give them to me and I’ll thaw them.” He pulled open the neck of his tunic and held my hands against his chest until the fingers were supple.

  Then he said briskly, “Now; before we have time to think about it any more. Would you like me to lower you down this first bit until you can stand on a ledge?”

  I was afraid of having to watch him do the climb, for if he fell, I might not be able to get down to him. He knew it, otherwise he would have gone first as he always did.

  “I’ll go now, while my hands are warm,” I said.

  “Take off your pack. I’ll lower them both down afterwards.”

  I lay face down and slid my feet over the edge of the cliff. The spray of the rapids far below reached me, fine as mist. Raki was lying flat holding my wrists.

  “Go slowly. You’ll feel the first ledge in a moment; the rock is honest; I tested it yesterday.”

  I couldn’t find the ledge and felt my fingers slipping from their hold. I nearly shouted to Raki to let go my wrists, for I thought I should pull him over with me. Then my foot found something to take my weight. “It’s all right, Raki, I can stand now.”

  “Edge along three paces to the right; then stretch out your hand until you feel a thorn bush; its roots are quite firm.”

  He let go my wrists. I felt as though the dark water below was trying to pull me backwards by the hair. Flattened against the rock I groped sideways, afraid that the narrow ledge was going to crumble before I could find a foothold. I reached the thorn bush and swung by it to the other ledge.

  His voice steadied me. “There’s a fissure in the rock a little farther on; follow that down till you come to a broad shelf. Wait there till I join you.”

  I heard the packs bumping against the rock-face as he lowered them down, then the thud of the coiled rope as he dropped it after them. The spray was swirling up from the fall like steam from a cooking-pot. My hair was grey with damp and I blew on the fingers of the hand I was not using to hold on with, to make them warm enough to be obedient. As Raki climbed down I tried not to think of what would happen if he slipped. …

  Then he was beside me, saying, “It isn’t a difficult climb, really, is it, Piyanah? It’s only that it looks difficult from the top. No one will think that we came this way, and even if they can follow our tracks so far, they will think we must have turned back to try to cross the river at the ford higher up. Or if they follow this bank till they reach the marsh, they will know they have lost us when they find no tracks there. If the ice hadn’t broken, we might have crossed almost anywhere, so they would have searched the whole of the far bank, but now when they find no sign of us beyond the ford, they may not try anywhere else. …I expect they will believe we have been drowned. It’s worth three days’ start, the ice breaking.”

  I tried to thank the Ice Spirit for bringing the thaw before we had crossed, but thought it would be easier to be properly grateful when we had reached the far bank.

  “I’ll go first this time,” said Raki. “Slide over the ledge when I tell you. I’ll put your foot in a safe hold; it’s rather difficult to find unless you know where it is.”

  The rest of the climb down was easier than I had expected, but I knew Raki was nearly as relieved as I was when we reached the foot of the cliff. We tied on our packs, and Raki wound the rope round his waist. I was used to balancing on slippery rocks above a torrent, for we often did it when spearing fish. The ice was moving faster now; and the slabs grinding together sounded like skeletons being gnawed by Great Cougar. The noise was too loud for us to hear our voices, but we could see each other laughing, and there was no longer fear behind the laughter.

  From boulder to boulder we jumped or scrambled, sometimes creeping forward on hands and knees, sometimes poised for a leap over racing water. The sun had cleared the mist before we reached the far bank. We spread our dripping clothes over a bush, and ran about naked in the sun till the air only felt sharp and clean, like cold water when you are thirsty, instead of being an enemy with arrows of ice. We ate some bread; there was no time to make a fire even if we had caught fish to cook in it.

  Spring had come before the Day of Spring, and all round us we could hear Earth stirring into life. From the forest we heard snow crashing from the branches, as trees held up their arms to the sun. Even when we struck north, away from the river, the sound of running water was with us, for each melting drift added its note to the spring chorus. There was heat in the sun now, and it was good to walk naked, and forget that the night would be cold.

  We decided not to make a fire until we were certain that its smoke would not betray us…perhaps it would be safe after dark, if we could find somewhere to hide the light. We came to a small stream which was running freely, and walked through the shallow water for a long way, further to hide our trail.

  The country between us and the hills was flat and stony; there were no trees, for only stunted bushes could nourish themselves in the sandy ground. We had expected to be able to make a shelter out of branches, but here there was not even a rock high enough to keep off the night wind. Winter crept back with the lengthening shadows. We put on our tunics, and thought of the fur robe which had been too bulky to carry…by moonrise it would be bitterly cold. We were hungry enough to have eaten raw fish, but we couldn’t see any in the stream. I helped Raki to set a snare over a gopher hold, though it didn’t look very promising as there were no fresh droppings near it.

  A sullen wind began to blow from the north; it raised the sand in little eddies and disturbed the dry twigs of the huddled bushes. Long ago the stream must have been much larger, for now it threaded its way through a bed wide enough for a river. Beside it we were hidden from anyone who was not standing directly above us, and Raki wanted to risk making a fire; but I was more afraid of being taken back to the encampment than of the cold.

  I wondered if we should ever live in a community again, ever be part of a life which went on in the same pattern day after day. If only Father had not been so cruel, it would have been pleasant to see the Old Women stirring cauldrons, and the Elders smoking, remote and sombre, by the watch-fire. Even a bear needs the security of her den and the beaver her fastness under the bank…but Raki and I did not need a tepee, or people, or familiar things…we only needed each other. To be apart would be a coldness which no fire could warm, and a hunger which even deer-stew could not satisfy.

  “Piyanah,” he said, “we must dig a hole to sleep in. The bank is loose enough to pull down with our hands. Pile the earth on the windward side.”

  It was nearly nightfall before we finished. The sky was green as ice, and the wind dark as a crow’s wing. We huddled together like cubs whose mother has gone hunting, and I could hear the long, steady beat of his heart.

  “When we return into the sky, Piyanah, men will see one new star instead of two. The brightest stars are two people who have loved each other; they will take us into their tribe…and it is a greater tribe than follows the proudest Lord of Feathers, and its brotherhood is closer than blood-tie.”

  “Nothing else matters excep
t being together, does it, Raki?”

  “Nothing else matters,” said Raki.

  It took us two days to reach the mountains beyond the plain, and another to find the pass by which we crossed them. On the northern side, the foothills folded into narrow valleys, each separated by a sharp ridge, and it was in one of these that we found our “place of the corn-growing.”

  A stream leapt down five falls, and then sang through a meadow, a gentle slope of about two hundred paces, enclosed by wooded slopes which drew together beyond it so that the water flowed down into the open country through a narrow cleft. Instead of a tepee we made a shelter against the face of a steep rock; three small trees growing close together made the uprights, and between them we put closely interwoven branches until it was secure against wind and rain. Beside it there was a great pine with twin trunks, and this became our Totem; every day we put flowers at its foot to remind the tree spirit to look after us.

  Windrushes grew in the bed of the stream; from their stalks we made a covering for the floor, and a heap of the dry leaves was warm to sleep in. After Raki had made a trap below the largest pool, we had plenty of fish, and in the woods we found several kinds of plants which we knew were good to eat. There was a colony of gophers lower down the hillside, and though I hated to kill them, we had to set snares there, becuse their flesh was useful for stew and we needed the skins to make a curtain to close the entrance to our shelter. He carved me a needle out of a chipmunk’s bone, but it was difficult to sew the skins together without deer-sinew, for the gut of small animals is brittle unless it has been treated with oil or bear’s grease.

  It took us nearly a moon to prepare a plot of ground, for though the soil was dark and rich, it was difficult to get it ready for the sowing without any proper tools; but soon we could watch the green shoots of our own corn getting taller and stronger every day.

  Though we made several expeditions into the Uninhabited Country we couldn’t find any salt, and often wished that we had remembered to bring some with us. Sage and garlic helped to make our stews more interesting, but it was always exciting when we found something that was a change from fish or gophers. Occasionally Raki got wildfowl from a lake about three hours’ running distance from our little valley, and severals times he caught a porcupine, which we wrapped in clay and baked in hot ashes, until the clay was so hard it could only be broken with a heavy stone and the quills came off with it. The best find of all was a hollow tree full of honeycomb; I got badly stung taking this, but there was enough to fill four jars, which we had baked from red clay at the same time as we made our food-bowls.