Star: The Story of an Indian Pony

by Augusta Huiell Seaman

  Chapter V

  While Star was travelling with the other Comanche ponies, he thoughtmany times of Songbird and wondered what she was doing without him toshare her days. If he had known the loneliness of his little playmate,he would have raced back to her, even though his mother had told himthat his duty was now beside her so that Quannah might ride him.

  Meantime, Songbird wandered sadly among the tepees where the otherchildren played happily while their fathers rode with Quannah to fightthe white men. The squaws tried to interest her in the work they weredoing, and took the best bits of venison and thrust green willow twigsthrough the meat, so that she might hold it in the campfire and cook it.

  Songbird smiled gravely when they did this and shook her head. She wasnot hungry, but the other children crowded up noisily and ate the crisptender meat, laughing when one child held his stick too long, so thatit burnt and let the meat fall into the hot wood ashes from which he atonce fished it with his twig.

  New clothes, fashioned from soft buckskin, new moccasins made frombuckskin with soles of tough buffalo hide, were laid in her father'stepee for Songbird. Though she put them on, she did not run to show themto the other children. Always she had hurried to her father first, thathe might praise her new things. As she remembered it, she slipped awayalone to the edge of the creek near camp. Sitting beneath the tree whereshe had woven the wild flowers in Star's mane, she wondered when herfather would come back.

  "If he had left Star with me," she said at last, as though the fishes inthe creek could hear her and understand, "I could follow him when itgrew dark, and if I found him he would not send me back."

  But the fishes did not pause to listen, and at last she rose and wentback to the camp. The buffalo calf, tied by a plaited rope made ofstrips of cured hides, rubbed its thickly haired head against hershoulder, and pretended to fight her, but she did not laugh at it as shehad always done while her father stood beside her. She changed the calfto another place, and fastened the rope carefully; then, having broughtfresh water to it in a bucket made of dry hide, she went into the bigtepee.

  Her pet horn-toads were kept in one of the deep pottery bowls made fromdirt and clay, then set in the sun to dry and harden. She carried thelittle creatures outside and let them run about on the ground and eatsmall insects. The bright orange, black, and red colouring of theirbacks made a beautiful design and looked as though an artist had paintedthem. Each head had a circlet of small sharp horns, while two largerones stood up very fiercely, and all over their backs were other tinyhorns, reaching to the tapering tail. Songbird knew the horn-toads couldnot hurt her with their many horns, nor could they bite, for they had noteeth.

  After eating, the toads became sleepy, so she placed them back in thebowl and carried them to their accustomed place in the tepee.

  "Caw! Caw!" a crow croaked outside, and Songbird hastened to the black,shining bird that walked jerkily at the entrance of her home. Its beadyeyes blinked up at her, and its head twisted sidewise in a very knowingmanner; then it straightened up and gave its hoarse call, as though ithad a sore throat.

  "Caw! Caw!"

  She did not clap her hands to-day and imitate its cry, but moved quietlyinto the tepee and soon came back, holding a deep earthen bowl which sheplaced on the ground. The crow sidled up, cocking its head to see ifanything were coming upon it from the sky or from the back. Satisfiedthat no robbers were near, it began eating.

  Songbird watched it as she sat on the ground with her knees drawn up andher hands propping her chin. Very gravely she decided that the crow wasgetting fatter.

  For several months she had cared for it. Some accident had happened toits upper bill and half of it was gone, so the crow had not been able topick up food from the ground or eat anything solid as the others coulddo when they pecked very hard. It had been almost dead from starvationwhen Songbird noticed it lying in the camp. She had driven away theother children who were teasing it with sticks.

  Her father had shown her how to fix soft food in a deep bowl so thatthe poor crow could thrust its entire beak down deeply to eat the moistmixture. So day after day it came to the tepee, knowing it would findfood. The meal finished, it always bobbed and stalked around, repeatingits cry, "Caw! Caw!" until at last it flapped its glossy wings anddarted high above Songbird's head. But even when almost out of sight shecould hear it calling to thank her and say that it would come again thenext day.

  When she picked up the bowl to return it to its proper place, as Quannahhad taught her to do, a beautiful fawn, with skin like brown velvetdotted with small white spots, leaped from the side of the tepee asthough it were trying to frighten her. Its nose sniffed the empty bowlas it stood poised on slender legs and stretched its graceful neck.Songbird tipped the bowl. The fawn licked it perfectly clean. Then itspink tongue touched the little brown hand that held the bowl, andSongbird, looking into the beautiful dark eyes, stroked the soft nose.

  The fawn waited at the entrance of the tepee until she came out. It keptpace with her to the place where Moko, the Picture-maker, lived. She wasa very wonderful old squaw with pure white hair. It was her work topaint pictures on the backs of dried buffalo robes.

  One side of these robes was always covered with brown, thick hair, whilethe under side, dried and stretched very smoothly, had to be paintedcarefully with colours made from roots, berries and earths, mixed in away that the old Picture-maker alone understood. Moko did not like anyone to watch her at work, but Songbird was always welcomed. The childwould sit for hours wondering at the magic way in which Moko madefigures of Indians on ponies, sometimes chasing buffaloes, huntingantelope, or possibly a camp with warriors walking about the manytepees.

  "Who showed you how to make pictures, Moko?" asked Songbird.

  "The Great Spirit," replied the Picture-maker, and Songbird ponderedover the answer. The painting Moko was now doing was the most wonderfulof all that Songbird had ever seen. The robe was the largest buffalohide that any Comanche had ever owned. Quannah had killed the enormousbeast with just one arrow, and the meat had provided food for many days.Now the hide, cured and dried, was being painted for him, and Songbirdknew that some day it would be given to her to keep.

  The picture showed a lot of Indians fighting white men. The Indianscould be easily told by their war-bonnets. All around the edges, therobe was bordered with the fighters, but in the very centre was anIndian boy riding a swiftly running pony. In his arms was a little girl.Songbird knew that the boy was Peta Nocona, and the girl in his arms wasPreloch, the white child who had afterward been the mother of Quannahand of Prairie Flower.

  "Why do the brothers of my father's mother war with us?" she asked atlast, for the question had been puzzling her a long time.

  The old squaw kept on with her work, as she replied, "Because they wantour lands, our ponies, our grass for their own pony herds, and they wantto kill all the buffalo and antelope, so there will be none left for us.Then we could not make new tepees, nor warm robes, nor clothes, normoccasins. Our ponies would all die if the white men had the prairielands, and the white hunters killed the game which they did not need forfood. Other Indians have told us how the white men cut the hides frombuffaloes that lie as thick as fallen leaves, and then leave the meatto spoil or for coyotes to eat. Indians hunt that they may have enoughmeat and robes to provide for their tribes. So it will be with thegrass. The white men's herds will eat it all, leaving our ponies tostarve."

  "But the world is so big," Songbird spoke, "why cannot all men dwell inpeace and share the game and grass?"

  "Because the white people want to rule us," the Picture-maker answeredquickly. "We lived here long before the white men came. We are thechildren of the Great Spirit. He gave us the land, He gave us the wildhorses that we might tame and use them, He gave us the buffalo and deer,the antelope on the flats, the fish in the streams, that we might livehappily. And because these things all belong to the Great Spirit, we didnot kill more than we needed.

  "The tribes did not quarrel with each other,
for each had its own landand no one sought to drive them from it. Men were taught not to lie orsteal, and a man who pledged his word was dishonoured if he broke it.But long years ago tales came to us through other tribes, of men withwhite faces who lied, stole, and cheated Indians who had believed inthem. These white-faced men killed the game, killed the Indians, burnedtheir tepees, then came in still greater numbers and drove the Indiansfrom place to place, saying, 'This is our land. This game belongs to us.You must not touch it!'"

  Moko paused and Songbird kept silent, fearing the old woman might notspeak further, but at last she went on.

  "When game grew scarce in the places where we had been driven, ourwarriors went in search of foods and robes for the old people, thesquaws, and the children. White men, who saw them coming, did not askwhy our men had wandered from the camps, but began to fight. After thatday our warriors fought every white man they met. Each chief knew thatunless he fought, his own tribe would be driven until it had no place togo, no game to eat, no robes for tepees or to sleep under when coldnights brought wind and snow, and soon all the Indians would die."

  "My father's mother did not want to go away from us," said Songbird."Many times he has told me she loved the Comanche people."

  "I saw her grief"--the old Picture-maker spoke slowly, and now herwrinkled hand lay idly in her lap--"I heard her beg the white men toleave her with us, but they would not listen to her. So Preloch, thewhite squaw of Peta Nocona, and her baby daughter, Prairie Flower, wentaway and none of us ever saw them again. That is how the white men wouldtreat all of the Indians if we did not fight them."

  "My father tells me that his mother was three winters older than I amnow, at the time his father carried her to our camp." Songbird leanedforward. Her body rested on the ground, but her elbow propped her cheek,so that she might still watch the work of the old Picture-maker. "Tellme about her, please."

  Moko nodded, but her hand moved less swiftly as she began talking, whileher eyes looked through the tepee opening across the rolling prairie, asthough she saw once more the young son of the chief coming into campwith the white child in his arms.

  "I can see her now as he rode past me. Her hair was like sunshine, andwhen the Great Spirit made openings in the sky so that we could see thestars at night, two little pieces must have been kept to make her blueeyes. As she grew up among us she was different, for she was as gentleas a young doe. Many times she made peace between hot-blooded youngwarriors who wished to fight one another. The children followed her justto see her smile at them."

  A deep sigh interrupted Moko's story, and for a few seconds the oldwoman forgot the little girl who waited patiently.

  "I remember the day the white men took her away. Dark clouds gatheredoverhead. Peta Nocona, our chief, was dead, but he had told us to fleeto our camp in the hills where the white men could not follow nor findus. As we fled, the rain fell upon us, and Karolo, the Medicine Man,called upon the Great Spirit to send the spirits of Peta Nocona and allthe other Comanche warriors from the Happy Hunting Grounds, that theymight follow Preloch and her daughter, Prairie Flower, into the land ofthe white men and bring them back again to their own people.

  "The Great Spirit will send them both back some day," Karolo said as therain beat on his face. "He is weeping now because his children arecaptives among the white people."

  "Then we who heard him drew our robes over our faces that none but theGreat Spirit might see our grief. And for many moons the Comanches ofthe Quahadas kept their hair cut short because we were mourning thedeath of our great War Chief, Peta Nocona, and the loss of his whitesquaw, Preloch, with her baby daughter, Prairie Flower. Many wintershave passed, but they have never come back to us."

  "The snows of many winters have fallen on my head," the oldPicture-maker spoke after a short silence. "I am weary and my heart issad for my people. But I have asked the Great Spirit to let me stayuntil I have painted one more robe, so that you may hang it in yourtepee with this one. Your children's children shall read the picturesand learn how your father, Quannah, Chief of the Quahadas, conquered thewhite men who robbed him of his mother and sister. After I have finishedthat robe, the Great Spirit will let me rest, for I am old and weary,and my children wait me in the Happy Hunting Grounds."

  "I wish I could go with my father, as Preloch went with Peta Nocona,"said Songbird. "I can shoot arrows as well as the boys, and Star can goas fast as Running Deer!"

  "Some tribes take their squaws to help in the fight, but Quannah willnot allow it," asserted Moko. "Women and children must obey his ordersand stay in camp while the men go out to fight. Our chief says that thework of women is to teach children to be fearless and truthful. Thatwork is as great as fighting. Sometimes I think it may be greater work.Preloch said that it was better to make men love each other rather thanteach them to hate and kill one another. Maybe she was right, but thewhite men hate us and we have to save our own lives and our homes."

  Muttering to herself the old woman rose from the place where she hadbeen sitting, and as Songbird saw the thin lips tighten, she knew thatthe Picture-maker would not talk any more, so she slipped away from thetent and sat watching the sun drop over the edge of the world. Two whiteclouds closed together, and Songbird knew that the Spirit of the Sun haddropped the flap of its tent so that it could sleep. Soon the Spirit ofNight would ride his big black pony across the sky and the shadow wouldhide everything from sight.

  Somewhere in the world of darkness Songbird's father would be sleeping.Her eyes filled with tears and her lips trembled. She was so little, soafraid and so lonely.

  In the big tepee of the Quahada Chief, Songbird crept to bed, and as shelay staring into the darkness toward her father's couch of skins, sheheard the shrill yelps of coyotes gathering around the camp. Suddenlyshe drew the buffalo robe over her head and sobbed herself to sleep.