Scarlet Feather

by Joan Grant

  I protested that Smiling Valley had been far too generous with his praise, but to my amusement, and Raki’s also, this was taken for the natural modesty of a mighty warrior.

  Each day brought further signs that the Chief dreaded our departure, for he was pathetically anxious that nothing should occur to offend us. Would we like tepees to be built close to his encampment, or would a site further up the western slope above the river be more to our liking? The diffidence with which he implied that a night of rain would be beneficial to his crops was almost ludicrous. I nodded, and then walked away as though deep in thought. He watched me anxiously, and then looked up at the sky to see if clouds were already hurrying to my summons.

  It was with embarrassment that I woke in the night to hear rain drumming down, for I knew I should never be able to convince him that it was not due to me.

  “I hope the Rain Spirits can laugh,” I said to Raki, “and that they have heard my apologies for being credited with powers which belong only to them!”

  It was difficult to make the Chief understand that we must have our own place of the corn-growing, and that this wish was not due to any lack of hospitality: at last he became reconciled, but clung to the hope that we should remain close neighbours. He praised the hunting-grounds adjoining his own to the east with words which might have described the Land beyond the Sunset. Nowhere else was game so easy to kill, or rivers so thronged with fish; nowhere were trees so noble, or the earth so lavish with crops. We realized why he wanted us on his eastern boundary…he was afraid that if we also adjoined the Smiling Valleys some of our beneficent powers might be deflected from him.

  We needed time, both to explore the proffered hunting-grounds and to discover whether such neighbours would be healthy for our own people, so we told the Chief that it was our custom never to make an important decision save at the full moon. To this he acceded with haste, clearly upset that he had not understood so obvious a law without being told.

  The superstitious awe in which the Blue Smokes held me began to spread even among our own people. Several of the women who had been troublesome in crossing the Bitter Mountains came to apologize for their past lack of faith in my leadership. I tried to make them see that I was the victim of a legend, but they did not really believe this. I tried being angry with them, and they became abject. I tried laughing at them, and they wept.

  Only then did I realize how easy it had been for the Old Women to wield power: the passionate desire not to think, not to accept responsibility, was a plant with a hundred roots: you think you have torn it up and left the ground clean for personal integrity to flourish, and then shoots of the unclean weed appear and choke out everything else which tries to grow there.

  The women of the Blue Smokes brought gifts to me, and when I thanked them, they said shyly, “I have two daughters and I want a son,” or “My husband prefers another squaw,” or “My child is sick”…and then looked pleadingly at me to help them. I tried to explain that I was a very ordinary woman, who had no magic except that she belonged to a tribe who recognized that man and woman are the right eye and the left eye, the left hand and the right hand, the left foot and the right foot, of a third who is man and woman, and so greater than either. I told them that without this recognition both men and women are crippled, having the use of only one eye, one hand, one foot; and that by their own choice they could bring this recognition into their own tribe and share our magic. But they stared at me uncomprehendingly, and then went forlornly away, saying, “Forgive me, that the gift I brought was not enough,” or, and this was even more difficult to bear, “Now I know that I am not worthy of your magic.”

  Hoping to prove that I was ordinary, I went hunting with the men. But when my arrows brought down a deer they would not believe my skill came from long practice as did their own. They thought I had only to notch an arrow to my bowstring for a demon to carry it to the quarry’s heart.

  I realized more keenly than I had done before how lonely Na-ka-chek must have been. They were trying to thrust on me the loneliness of a Chief who deliberately kept apart from his tribe. Everything I did became hideously important: if I carried seven arrows in a quiver, the next day every hunter carried seven. If Raki and I went down to the river to swim at dawn, next morning the bank was thronged with people. They thought we had come to talk with water spirits, who, if they saw them in our company, would accept them as being under our protection. I could not break down their silent belief that I had powers I was not willing to use to help them. I began to be afraid that they would soon begin to fear me, and hatred is always born from fear.

  Most of our tribe were happy with the Blue Smokes. After many hardships they enjoyed the easy way of life; they shared the awe in which I was held, and unless Raki had ordered them to do so, they need not have helped in the fields, or in hunting or setting fish-traps, for everything would have been willingly provided. Our squaws, who had been scorned and ill-treated by the Old Women of the Two Trees, were now envied and admired. They grew sleek and lazy with praise, and found it more pleasant hearing than they received in the company of their men, who laughed at them, or scolded them for feeding on credulity.

  I began to lie sleepless at night, worried and indecisive about the future. Where should we go if we left here? The legend had come from the Smiling Valleys so we might expect the same treatment if we went to them. Both Raki and I longed to discover something wrong with the eastern hunting-grounds, but there was everything a young tribe could hope to find. We could not go further south, for the way was barred by a waterless desert, only five days’ journey further on; a desert which in the memory of the Blue Smokes had never been crossed. Should we take the land so freely offered to us, and hope that in time we should be accepted as ordinary friends…or had awe already become too strong to destroy? Here there is everything they need, and because Piyanah went through an ordeal must she take them away from it? I felt very young and irresolute, and longed to be able to talk with Na-ka-chek as once the child Piyanah had longed for her mother.

  Since Dorrok’s death it was a council of six who made all important decisions: Raki and I, Rokeena and Tekeeni, Gorgi and Cheka; for the others still found it easier to accept leadership than to share it. The moon when we must decide whether to go or stay was now at the full. We had avoided discussing this vital problem with the rest, so that our opinions should be unprejudiced. The six of us gathered in the shade of an ilex that grew on the crest of the slope overlooking the cultivation, and it was time to speak.

  Cheka, the youngest and least experienced, spoke first. “It is difficult to be quite honest but I will try very hard. I want to stay here, because it is kind and easy. The country is safe, so Gorgi is willing to take me with him everywhere…and being with Gorgi is the only thing that really matters to me. But many of the other squaws no longer rely on their husbands as they did when things were more difficult.” She pointed down the slope. “Look at that field…thirty of our women working there and not a man with them…and the rest will be chattering with the women of the Blue Smokes.”

  “She is right,” said Gorgi, “I too would like to stay here, but the men of the Blue Smoke laugh at us for being dependent on squaws…though they think we do not hear their laughter.”

  “Their women laugh at us too,” said Rokeena, “because they say we dare not let our men out of our sight. They say our men are children, who need our protection even when fully grown. They pity us, because our men are not strong enough to make us obedient! Because I stay with Tekeeni they tell me I am brave to bear so great an affliction as to have to follow a man who has the body of a warrior and the spirit of a child, who must cling to a woman’s hand because he has not learned to walk alone.” Then she turned to me and asked, “Have the Chief’s women spoken to you like this, Piyanah?”

  “Yes,” I said reluctantly, “they ask, ‘What has this equality you talk about given to your women?’ And when I try to explain they nod their heads and say, ‘The men of your tribe are clever
, for they make you do their work as well as your own.’ They believe equality is impossible…and so do the men.”

  “Yes,” said Raki, “so do the men. I told the Chief that Piyanah wears the Scarlet in truth, and that she won it without using any weapons denied to ordinary mortals. He did not tell me in words that he thought I lied, but even though these people value courtesy he could not hide his disbelief. Though neither men nor women will acknowledge it, they are afraid of each other. The women fear the men because they need their protection against enemy Braves, against pumas, against having to think for themselves. Men fear women because they still resent the dependence on their mothers which they felt as children; they resent their physical need of women which drives them from the complete independence they covet above all things. They fear the unspoken power of women, which they think is due to their familiarity with certain demons…you will have noticed that in their legends the spirits, even the thunder spirits, are always female, and that only a woman can kindle a watch-fire.”

  “They are afraid of each other,” I said, “and both are proud of inspiring fear.”

  “Is that why they offered us hunting-grounds?” said Tekeeni. “If they fear themselves they must fear everyone else, and thirty-eight Braves within two days’ journey would add to their protection…especially as the Chief must know his tribe are vulnerable after too much security. The Blue Smokes do not belong to the Thirty Tribes, but last year at their place of barter they heard of the massacre of the Beavers, and also that it was the Two Trees who defeated the Black Feathers. Our numbers are small, but those who might come to our assistance are many.”

  “Of course that is why they are so willing to teach us their ways of cultivation, to offer seed, and help in preparing our future fields,” said Gorgi. “Honey to tame a bear…for a tame bear will still attack the stranger in the encampment.”

  “It is easy to get grease from a tame bear,” said Cheka. She pointed to a file of our women who were carrying baskets filled with weeds on their heads, “If we stay here they will sow the thistles of superstition in the ground we clean. Already our men and women are drifting away from each other…nothing important has happened, no bitter quarrels, yet the thistledown of separation is settling everywhere, and if we let it root we shall have to pull up a thousand thistles…while two thousand others grow.”

  “Then it is agreed we move on?” said Raki.

  “It is agreed,” said the others.

  “To the east or to the west?”

  “To the south,” I said, and even Raki stared at me in astonishment, for had not the Blue Smokes told us that to the south was a desert which stretched to the end of the world?

  “I have news for you from my father, Na-ka-chek. Last night he came to me while I slept, to say farwell before he went to join my mother beyond the sunset.”

  “He is dead?”

  “I have never seen him so vividly alive, but his people have seen his body fall to ash and watched the Death Canoe borne away towards the rapids. He told me that beyond the desert we shall find our place of the corn-growing. There is a river, running east to west through open grass-land, and then a shallow valley guarded by wooded hills. He took me there, though I did not see the desert we must cross. He even drew a line across a meadow to show where we must cut the first furrow for our planting.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this when you woke?” said Raki.

  “I had to be sure that all of you were willing to go on. I saw Na-ka-chek, but I cannot make you see him. He has shown me the country beyond the desert, but why should any of you believe what I have seen? The Blue Smokes have lived here for three generations, and they say that no one who has tried to cross the Great Thirst has ever returned. They are sure there is nothing beyond it, except greater thirst, and death. Why should you attempt such a journey because a woman called Piyanah had a dream?”

  “Why?” said Raki. “I will tell you. The Tribe of the Heron was born of a dream, and we shall find our place of the corn-growing through another dream.”

  Great Thirst

  When the Blue Smokes heard that we intended to go South over the Great Thirst they were appalled at what they considered the deliberate suicide of an honoured tribe, until, after doing everything in their power to make us change our minds, they became, overnight, helpful and enthusiastic.

  It did not take us long to discover why they had changed: the Chief had decided that I had at last been persuaded to use my magical powers. I would cause rain to fall so that the waterless desert became fertile; rivers would flow in forgotten water-courses, and as it would be a long time before other tribes came to know of such an extraordinary occurrence, the Blue Smokes would be able to extend their territory without hindrance.

  Their women made water-skins for us, as we were each to carry two in addition to our customary load. They prepared a store of dried meat cured without salt; cheese made from goats’ milk—their breed of goats was larger and more prolific than those we had tamed in the place of the Two Trees; and a store of breadsticks, bulky but easy to carry. They also gave us several skins of sour fruit juice, which was unpalatable, for it took on the taste of the hide, but they assured us it was excellent for quenching thirst.

  All these gifts were made with diffidence. The Chief would say, “I know well that the Chief of the Heron does not rely on the provisions needful to ordinary mortals. You thirst, and the clouds open; you wish for meat, and a sleek hind comes trotting towards you; it is over-warm, and a cool breeze blows from the north. And if the night is cold, you cause the thorn trees to burst into flame. However, most honoured Chief of the Heron, accept these gifts as a sop to my mortality. It pleases me to give you the best that I have, so be tolerant of me as would a river be if a squaw threw in a jar of water hoping to increase the roar of the rapids.”

  I had despaired of ever curing him of superstition, so I accepted his offerings in gratitude and did not stress that I was well aware of the dangers of the Great Thirst.

  During the preparations for this last stage of the journey, I became sure that the child who was going to be born to Raki and me was already strong in my body. By the signs in myself I knew that most of the other squaws were also with child, but decided it was as well that for a while they should continue to ascribe the thickening of their bodies to ease and plentiful food. They had been comfortable with the Blue Smokes, more so than ever before; but because they had won this security by crossing the Bitter Mountains they were prepared to undergo another ordeal to gain a greater plenty.

  Na-ka-chek had told me that our place of the corn-growing was beyond the desert, and there my son was to be born; I could not betray my son, nor his father, nor his grandfather. Yet sometimes I found it almost as difficult in the hours of waking to keep the security of a dream as it would have been to prove its source to the others.

  To Raki, my dream of Na-ka-chek was as vivid, perhaps even more so, than it was to me, and he was serenely confident that the Great Thirst was the last ordeal through which we had to pass. Gorgi and Cheka, Rokeena and Tekeeni, shared his confidence; the other men were obedient, but I knew they grumbled among themselves. We were taking them from hunting-grounds that were close and easy; we were depriving them of the admiration of the Blue Smokes, with whom they could feel mighty without doing anything to justify this vision of themselves they saw in other men’s eyes. I told them the Blue Smokes despised them as weaklings who required the companionship of women, but they found it convenient to think I spoke in jest.

  The Blue Smokes came with us to the last river north of the desert, five days journey from their main encampment. It was a small river, flowing between high banks and bordered by a belt of vivid green; but before we reached it we were already familiar with the flat lands that grew only thorn and sparse scrub, and where even a small breeze swept the loose soil into clouds of choking dust.

  I thought they would help us to carry our extra load of water-skins for the first day’s journey; the way was uphill over a
stony ridge, which they told us, shut away the desert that would otherwise have spread like a forest fire to burn the sap from all that grew in safety beyond its protection. But they must have considered even the fringe of the desert too perilous, for they stayed on the northern bank; wearing their best tunics and waving blue and yellow pennants tied to poles. These pennants were significant of something very important in their tribal history, but when I questioned the Chief he seemed to have forgotten their meaning.

  Some of the Blue Smokes had wept when they said farewell to us, but I was never sure whether it was because they thought we were deliberately going to meet death, or only because I was taking from them the magic, which, had we stayed, I might one day have used in their favour. They must have camped where we left them, for when at sunset we reached the crest of the barren hills we could see the smoke of their cooking-fires in the distance.

  On the evening of the second day we reached a water-hole; it was brackish but drinkable, so we were able to fill the water-skins that were already empty. We caught some lizards, which the Blue Smokes had taught us were wholesome to eat, and though none of us liked the taste, we roasted them in hot ashes. During the next day we several times saw what in the distance seemed to be pools of water, but when we reached them they proved to be depressions filled with a white earth which resembled snow, for it had a hard, brittle crust. Crossing one of these a woman stumbled and fell. She had grazed her knee earlier in the day and I saw her flinch, and then stoop to brush the white flakes from the raw flesh as though they hurt her. I was reminded of the child Piyanah, thrusting her fingers into the tribal salt-jar, and finding that salt stings an open wound. I scooped up a handful of the white earth and tested it with my tongue.

  Raki was ahead of me; I ran forward and caught hold of his arm, “Raki, we are walking through riches for which the Two Trees would barter a year’s work of moccasins and blankets. We are walking through salt, Raki—salt so precious that a man can be branded for stealing a handful from the tribal store.”