MAHALA JOE
I
In the campoodie of Three Pines, which you probably know better by itsSpanish name of Tres Pinos, there is an Indian, well thought of amonghis own people, who goes about wearing a woman's dress, and is known asMahala Joe. He should be about fifty years old by this time, and has aquiet, kindly face. Sometimes he tucks up the skirt of his woman's dressover a pair of blue overalls when he has a man's work to do, but atfeasts and dances he wears a ribbon around his waist and a handkerchiefon his head as the other mahalas do. He is much looked to because of hisknowledge of white people and their ways, and if it were not for thelines of deep sadness that fall in his face when at rest, one mightforget that the woman's gear is the badge of an all but intolerableshame. At least it was so used by the Paiutes, but when you have readthis full and true account of how it was first put on, you may not thinkit so.
Fifty years ago the valley about Tres Pinos was all one sea of movinggrass and dusky, greenish sage, cropped over by deer and antelope, northas far as Togobah, and south to the Bitter Lake. Beside everyconsiderable stream which flowed into It from the Sierras was a Paiutecampoodie, and all they knew of white people was by hearsay from thetribes across the mountains. But soon enough cattlemen began to pushtheir herds through the Sierra passes to the Paiutes' feeding-ground.The Indians saw them come, and though they were not very well pleased,they held still by the counsel of their old men; night and day they mademedicine and prayed that the white men might go away.
Among the first of the cattlemen in the valley about Tres Pinos was JoeBaker, who brought a young wife, and built his house not far from thecampoodie. The Indian women watched her curiously from afar because ofa whisper that ran among the wattled huts. When the year was far gone,and the sun-cured grasses curled whitish brown, a doctor came ridinghard from the fort at Edswick, forty miles to the south, and though theywatched, they did not see him ride away. It was the third day at eveningwhen Joe Baker came walking towards the campoodie, and his face was setand sad. He carried something rolled in a blanket, and looked anxiouslyat the women as he went between the huts. It was about the hour of theevening meal, and the mahalas sat about the fires watching thecooking-pots. He came at last opposite a young woman who sat nursing herchild. She had a bright, pleasant face, and her little one seemed aboutsix months old. Her husband stood near and watched them with greatpride. Joe Baker knelt down in front of the mahala, and opened the rollof blankets. He showed her a day-old baby that wrinkled up its smallface and cried.
"Its mother is dead," said the cattleman. The young Indian mother didnot know English, but she did not need speech to know what had happened.She looked pitifully at the child, and at her husband timidly. Joe Bakerwent and laid his rifle and cartridge belt at the Paiute's feet. TheIndian picked up the gun and fingered it; his wife smiled. She put downher own child, and lifted the little white stranger to her breast. Itnozzled against her and hushed its crying; the young mother laughed.
"See how greedy it is," she said; "it is truly white." She drew up theblanket around the child and comforted it.
The cattleman called to him one of the Indians who could speak a littleEnglish.
"Tell her," he said, "that I wish her to care for the child. His name isWalter. Tell her that she is to come to my house for everything heneeds, and for every month that he keeps fat and well she shall have afat steer from my herd." So it was agreed.
As soon as Walter was old enough he came to sleep at his father's house,but the Indian woman, whom he called _Ebia_, came every day to tendhim. Her son was his brother, and Walter learned to speak Paiute beforehe learned English. The two boys were always together, but as yet thelittle Indian had no name. It is not the custom among Paiutes to givenames to those who have not done anything worth naming.
"But I have a name," said Walter, "and so shall he. I will call him Joe.That is my father's name, and it is a good name, too."
When Mr. Baker was away with the cattle Walter slept at the campoodie,and Joe's mother made him a buckskin shirt. At that time he was so brownwith the sun and the wind that only by his eyes could you tell that hewas white; he was also very happy. But as this is to be the story of howJoe came to the wearing of a woman's dress, I cannot tell you all theplays they had, how they went on their first hunting, nor what theyfound in the creek of Tres Pinos.
The beginning of the whole affair of Mahala Joe must be laid to thearrow-maker. The arrow-maker had a stiff knee from a wound in along-gone battle, and for that reason he sat in the shade of hiswickiup, and chipped arrow points from flakes of obsidian that the youngmen brought him from Togobah, fitting them to shafts of reeds from theriver marsh. He used to coax the boys to wade in the brown water and cutthe reeds, for the dampness made his knee ache. They drove bargains withhim for arrows for their own hunting, or for the sake of the stories hecould tell. For an armful of reeds he would make three arrows, and for adouble armful he would tell tales. These were mostly of great huntingsand old wars, but when it was winter, and no snakes in the long grass tooverhear, he would tell Wonder-stories. The boys would lie with theirtoes in the warm ashes, and the arrow-maker would begin.
"You can see," said the arrow-maker, "on the top of Waban the tallboulder looking on the valleys east and west. That is the very boundarybetween the Paiute country and Shoshone land. The boulder is a hundredtimes taller than the tallest man, and thicker through than six horsesstanding nose to tail; the shadow of it falls all down the slope. Atmornings it falls toward the Paiute peoples, and evenings it falls onShoshone land. Now on this side of the valley, beginning at thecampoodie, you will see a row of pine trees standing all upstream onebehind another. See, the long branches grow on the side toward the hill;and some may tell you it is because of the way the wind blows, but I sayit is because they reach out in a hurry to get up the mountain. Now Iwill tell you how these things came about.
"Very long ago all the Paiutes of this valley were ruled by twobrothers, a chief and a medicine man, Winnedumah and Tinnemaha. Theywere both very wise, and one of them never did anything without theother. They taught the tribes not to war upon each other, but to standfast as brothers, and so they brought peace into the land. At that timethere were no white people heard of, and game was plenty. The younghonored the old, and nothing was as it is now."
When the arrow-maker came to this point, the boys fidgeted with theirtoes, and made believe to steal the old man's arrows to distract hisattention. They did not care to hear about the falling off of thePaiutes; they wished to have the tale. Then the arrow-maker would hurryon to the time when there arose a war between the Paiutes and theShoshones. Then Winnedumah put on his war bonnet, and Tinnemaha mademedicine. Word went around among the braves that if they stood togetherman to man as brothers, then they should have this war.
"And so they might," said the arrow-maker, "but at last their heartsturned to water. The tribes came together on the top of Waban. Yes;where the boulder now stands, for that is the boundary of our lands, forno brave would fight off his own ground for fear of the other'smedicine. So they fought. The eagles heard the twang of the bowstring,and swung down from White Mountain. The vul-tures smelled the smell ofbattle, and came in from Shoshone land. Their wings were dark like acloud, and underneath the arrows flew like hail. The Paiutes were thebetter bowmen, and they caught the Shoshone arrows where they struck inthe earth and shot them back again. Then the Shoshones were ashamed, andabout the time of the sun going down they called upon their medicinemen, and one let fly a magic arrow,--for none other would touchhim,--and it struck in the throat of Tinnemaha.
"Now when that befell," went on the arrow-maker, "the braves forgot theword that had gone before the battle, for they turned their backs to themedicine man, all but Winnedumah, his brother, and fled this way fromWaban. Then stood Winnedumah by Tinnemaha, for that was the way of thosetwo; whatever happened, one would not leave the other. There was noneleft to carry on the fight, and yet since he was so great a chief theShoshones were afraid to take him, and
the sun went down. In the duskthey saw a bulk, and they said, 'He is still standing;' but when it wasmorning light they saw only a great rock, so you see it to this day. Asfor the braves who ran away, they were changed to pine trees, but intheir hearts they are cowards yet, therefore they stretch out their armsand strive toward the mountain. And that," said the arrow-maker, "is howthe tall stones came to be on the top of Waban. But it was not in my daynor my father's." Then the boys would look up at Winnedumah, and werehalf afraid, and as for the tale, they quite believed it.
The arrow-maker was growing old. His knee hurt him in cold weather, andhe could not make arrow points fast enough to satisfy the boys, who losta great many in the winter season shooting at ducks in the tulares.Walter's father promised him a rifle when he was fifteen, but that wasyears away. There was a rock in the canyon behind Tres Pinos with a greatcrack in the top. When the young men rode to the hunting, they shot eachan arrow at it, and if it stuck it was a promise of good luck. The boysscaled the rock by means of a grapevine ladder, and pried out the oldpoints. This gave them an idea.
"Upon Waban where the fighting was, there must be a great many arrowpoints," said Walter.
"So there must be," said Joe.
"Let us go after them," said the white boy; but the other dared not, forno Paiute would go within a bowshot of Winnedumah; nevertheless, theytalked the matter over.
"How near would you go?" asked Walter.
"As near as a strong man might shoot an arrow," said Joe.
"If you will go so far," said Walter, "I will go the rest of the way."
"It is a two days' journey," said the Paiute, but he did not make anyother objection.
It was a warm day of spring when they set out. The cattleman was off tothe river meadow, and Joe's mother was out with the other mahalasgathering taboose.
"If I were fifteen, and had my rifle, I would not be afraid ofanything," said Walter.
"But in that case we would not need to go after arrow points," said theIndian boy.
They climbed all day in a bewildering waste of boulders and scrubbytrees. They could see Winnedumah shining whitely on the ridge ahead, butwhen they had gone down into the gully with great labor, and up theother side, there it stood whitely just another ridge away.
"It is like the false water in the desert," said Walter. "It goesfarther from you, and when you get to it there is no water there."
"It is magic medicine," said Indian Joe. "No good comes of going againstmedicine."
"If you are afraid," said Walter, "why do you not say so? You may goback if you like, and I will go on by myself."
Joe would not make any answer to that. They were hot and tired, and awedby the stillness of the hills. They kept on after that, angry and apart;sometimes they lost sight of each other among the boulders andunderbrush. But it seemed that it must really have been as one or theother of them had said, for when they came out on a high mesa presently,there was no Winnedumah anywhere in sight. They would have stopped thenand taken counsel, but they were too angry for that, so they walked onin silence, and the day failed rapidly, as it will do in high places.They began to draw near together and to be afraid. At last the Indianboy stopped and gathered the tops of bushes together, and began to weavea shelter for the night, and when Walter saw that he made it largeenough for two, he spoke to him.
"Are we lost?" he said.
"We are lost for to-night," said Joe, "but in the morning we will findourselves."
They ate dried venison and drank from the wicker bottle, and huddledtogether because of the dark and the chill.
"Why do we not see the stone any more?" asked Walter in a whisper.
"I do not know," said Joe. "I think it has gone away."
"Will he come after us?"
"I do not know. I have on my elk's tooth," said Joe, and he clasped thecharm that hung about his neck. They started and shivered, hearing astone crash far away as it rolled down the mountain-side, and the windbegan to move among the pines.
"Joe," said Walter, "I am sorry I said that you were afraid."
"It is nothing," said the Paiute. "Besides, I am afraid."
"So am I," whispered the other. "Joe," he said again after a longsilence, "if he comes after us, what shall we do?"
"We will stay by each other."
"Like the two brothers, whatever happens," said the white boy, "foreverand ever."
"We are two brothers," said Joe.
"Will you swear it?"
"On my elk's tooth."
Then they each took the elk's tooth in his hand and made a vow thatwhether Winnedumah came down from his rock, or whether the Shoshonesfound them, come what would, they would stand together. Then they werecomforted, and lay down, holding each other's hands.
"I hear some one walking," said Walter.
"It is the wind among the pines," said Joe.
A twig snapped. "What is that?" said the one boy.
"It is a fox or a coyote passing," said the other, but he knew better.They lay still, scarcely breathing, and throbbed with fear. They felt asense of a presence approaching in the night, the whisper of a moccasinon the gravelly soil, the swish of displaced bushes springing back toplace. They saw a bulk shape itself out of the dark; it came and stoodover them, and they saw that it was an Indian looking larger in thegloom. He spoke to them, and whether he spoke in a strange tongue, orthey were too frightened to understand, they could not tell.
"Do not kill us!" cried Walter, but the Indian boy made no sound. Theman took Walter by the shoulders and lifted him up.
"White," said he.
"We are brothers," said Joe; "we have sworn it."
"So," said the man, and it seemed as if he smiled.
"Until we die," said both the boys. The Indian gave a grunt.
"A white man," he said, "is--white." It did not seem as if that was whathe meant to say.
"Come, I will take you to your people. They search for you about thefoot of Waban. These three hours I have watched you and them." The boysclutched at each other in the dark. They were sure now who spoke tothem, and between fear and fatigue and the cramp of cold they staggeredand stumbled as they walked. The Indian stopped and considered them.
"I cannot carry both," he said.
"I am the older," said Joe; "I can walk." Without any more words the manpicked up Walter, who trembled, and walked off down the slope. They wenta long way through the scrub and under the tamarack pines. The man wasnaked to the waist, and had a quiver full of arrows on his shoulder.The buckthorn branches whipped and scraped against his skin, but he didnot seem to mind. At last they came to a place where they could see adull red spark across an open flat.
"That," said the Indian, "is the fire of your people. They missed you atafternoon, and have been looking for you. From my station on the hill Isaw." Then he took the boy by the shoulders.
"Look you," he said, "no good comes of mixing white and brown, but nowthat the vow is made, see to the keeping of it." Then he stepped backfrom them and seemed to melt into the dark. Ahead of them the boys sawthe light of the fire flare up with new fuel, and shadows, which theyknew for the figures of their friends, moved between them and the flame.Swiftly as two scared rabbits they ran on toward the glow.
When Walter and Joe had told them the story at the campoodie, thePaiutes made a great deal of it, especially the arrow-maker.
"Without a doubt," he said, "it was Winnedumah who came to you, andnot, as some think, a Shoshone who was spying on our land. It is a greatmystery. But since you have made a vow of brothers, you should keep itafter the ancient use." Then he took a knife of obsidian and cut theirarms, and rubbed a little of the blood of each upon the other.
"Now," he said, "you are one fellowship and one blood, and that is as itshould be, for you were both nursed at one breast. See that you keep thevow."
"We will," said the boys solemnly, and they went out into the sunlightvery proud of the blood upon their bared arms, holding by each other'shands.
II
When Walter was fifteen his father gave him a rifle, as he had promised,and a word of advice with it.
"Learn to shoot quickly and well," he said, "and never ride out fromhome without it. No one can tell what this trouble with the Indians maycome to in the end."
Walter rode straight to the campoodie. He was never happy in any of hisgifts until he had showed them to Joe. There was a group of older men atthe camp, quartering a deer which they had brought in. One of them,called Scar-Face, looked at Walter with a leering frown.
"See," he said, "they are arming the very children with guns."
"My father promised it to me many years ago," said Walter. "It is mybirthday gift."
He could not explain why, and he grew angry at the man's accusing tone,but after it he did not like showing his present to the Indians.
He called Joe, and they went over to a cave in the black rock where theyhad kept their boyish treasures and planned their plays since they werechildren. Joe thought the rifle a beauty, and turned it over admiringlyin the shadow of the cave. They tried shooting at a mark, and thendecided to go up Oak Creek for a shot at the gray squirrels. There theysighted a band of antelope that led them over a tongue of hills intoLittle Round Valley, where they found themselves at noon twelve milesfrom home and very hungry. They had no antelope, but four squirrels anda grouse. The two boys made a fire for cooking in a quiet place by aspring of sweet water.
"You may have my rifle to use as often as you like," said Walter, "butyou must not lend it to any one in the campoodie, especially toScar-Face. My father says he is the one who is stirring up all thistrouble with the whites."
"The white men do not need any one to help them get into trouble," saidJoe. "They can do that for themselves."
"It is the fault of the Indians," said Walter. "If they did not shootthe cattle, the white men would leave them alone."
"But if the white men come first to our lands with noise and tramplingand scare away the game, what then will they shoot?" asked the Paiute.
Walter did not make any answer to that. He had often gone hunting withJoe and his father, and he knew what it meant to walk far, and fasting,after game made shy by the rifles of cattlemen, and at last to returnempty to the campoodie where there were women and children with hungryeyes.
"Is it true," he said after a while, "that Scar-Face is stirring up allthe Indians in the valley?"
"How should I know?" said Joe; "I am only a boy, and have not killed biggame. I am not admitted to the counsels of the old men. What does itmatter to us whether of old feuds or new? Are we not brothers sworn?"
Then, as the dinner was done, they ate each of the other's kill, for itwas the custom of the Paiutes at that time that no youth should eat gameof his own killing until he was fully grown. As they walked homeward theboys planned to get permission to go up on Waban for a week, aftermountain sheep, before the snows began.
Mr. Baker looked grave when Walter spoke to him.
"My boy," he said, "I wish you would not plan long trips like thiswithout first speaking to me. It is hardly safe in the present state offeeling among the Indians to let you go with them in this fashion. Awhole week, too. But as you have already spoken of it, and it hasprobably been talked over in the campoodie, for me to refuse now wouldlook as if I suspected something, and might bring about the thing I mostfear."
"You should not be afraid for me with Joe, father, for we are brotherssworn," said Walter, and he told his father how they had mixed the bloodof their arms in the arrow-maker's hut after they had come back fromtheir first journey on Waban.
"Well," said Mr. Baker, who had not heard of this before, "I know thatthey set great store by these superstitious customs, but I have not muchfaith in the word of a Paiute when he is dealing with a white man.However, you had better go on with this hunting trip. Take Hank withyou, and Joe's father, and do not be gone more than five days at theoutside."
Hank was one of Mr. Baker's vaqueros, and very glad to get off for afew days' hunting on the blunt top of Waban. On the Monday followingthey left the Baker ranch for the mountain. As the two boys rode up theboulder-strewn slope it set them talking of the first time they had gonethat way on their fruitless hunt for arrow points about the foot ofWinnedumah, and of all that happened to them at that time. The valleylay below them full of purple mist, and away by the creek of Tres Pinosthe brown, wattled huts of the campoodie like great wasps' nests stuckin the sage. Hank and Joe's father, with the pack horses, were ahead ofthem far up the trail; Joe and Walter let their own ponies lag, and thenose of one touched the flank of the other as they climbed slowly up thesteep, and the boys turned their faces to each other, as if they hadsome vague warning that they would not ride so and talk familiarlyagain, as if the boiling anger of the tribes in the valley had brewed asort of mist that rose up and gloomed the pleasant air on the slope ofWaban.
"Joe," said Walter, "my father says if it came to a fight between thewhite settlers and the Paiutes, that you would not hold by the word wehave passed."
"That is the speech of a white man," said Joe.
"But would you?" the other insisted.
"I am a Paiute," said Joe; "I will hold by my people, also by my word; Iwill not fight against you."
"Nor I against you, but I would not like to have my father think you hadbroken your word."
"Have no care," said the Indian, "I will not break it."
Mr. Baker looked anxiously after his son as he rode to the hunting onWaban; he looked anxiously up that trail every hour until the boy cameagain, and that, as it turned out, was at the end of three days. For thetrouble among the Indians had come to something at last,--the wasps wereall out of nest by the brown creeks, and with them a flight of stingingarrows. The trouble began at Cottonwood, and the hunting party on Wabanthe second day out saw a tall, pale column of smoke that rose up fromthe notch of the hill behind the settlement, and fanned out slowly intothe pale blueness of the sky.
It went on evenly, neither more nor less, thick smoke from a fire ofgreen wood steadily tended. Before noon another rose from the mouth ofOak Creek, and a third from Tunawai. They waved and beckoned to oneanother, calling to counsel.
"Signal fires," said Hank; "that means mischief."
And from that on he went with his rifle half cocked, and walked alwaysso that he might keep Joe's father in full view. By night that same daythere were seven smoke trees growing up in the long valley, andspreading thin, pale branches to the sky. There was no zest left in thehunt, and in the morning they owned it. Walter was worried by what heknew his father's anxiety must be. Then the party began to ride downagain, and always Hank made the Indian go before. Away by the foot ofOppapago rose a black volume of smoke, thick, and lighted underneath byflames. It might be the reek of a burning ranch house. The boys wereexcited and afraid. They talked softly and crowded their ponies togetheron the trail.
"Joe," said Walter whisperingly, "if there is battle, you will have togo to it."
"Yes," said Joe.
"And you will fight; otherwise they will call you a coward, and if yourun away, they will kill you."
"So I suppose," said Joe.
"Or they will make you wear a woman's dress like To-go-na-tee, the manwho got up too late." This was a reminder from one of the arrow-maker'stales. "But you have promised not to fight."
"Look you," said the Indian boy; "if a white man came to kill me, Iwould kill him. That is right. But I will not fight you nor yourfather's house. That is my vow."
The white boy put out his hand, and laid it on the flank of the foremostpony. The Indian boy's fingers came behind him, and crept along thepony's back until they reached the other hand. They rode forward withouttalking.
Toward noon they made out horsemen riding on the trail below them. As itwound in and out around the blind gullies they saw and lost sight ofthem a dozen times. At last, where the fringe of the tall trees began,they came face to face. It was Mr. Baker and a party of five men; theycarried rifles and had set and anxious looks.
&nb
sp; "What will you have?" said Indian Joe's father as they drew up beforehim under a tamarack pine.
"My son," said the cattleman.
"Is there war?" said the Indian.
"There is war. Come, Walter."
The boys were still and scared. Slowly Hank and Walter drew their horsesout of the path and joined the men. Indian Joe and his father passedforward on the trail.
"Do them no harm," said Joe Baker to those that were with him.
"Good-by, Joe," said Walter half aloud.
The other did not turn his head, but as he went they noticed that he hadbared his right arm from the hunting shirt, and an inch above the elbowshowed a thin, white scar. Walter had the twin of that mark under hisflannels.
Mr. Baker did not mind fighting Indians; he thought it a good thing tohave their troubles settled all at once in this way, but he did not wanthis son mixed up in it. The first thing he did when he got home was tosend him off secretly by night to the fort, and from there he passedover the mountains with other of the settlers' families under strongescort, and finally went to his mother's people in the East, and was putto school. As it turned out he never came back to Tres Pinos, he doesnot come into this story any more.
When the first smoke rose up that showed where the fierce hate of thePaiutes had broken into flame, the Indians took their women and childrenaway from the pleasant open slopes, and hid them in deep canons insecret places of the rocks. There they feathered arrows, and twistedbowstrings of the sinew of deer. And because there were so many gravethings done, and it was not the custom for boys to question theirelders, Joe never heard how Walter had been sent away. He thought himstill at the ranch with his father, and it is because of this mistakethat there is any more story at all.
You may be sure that, of those two boys, Joe's was the deeper loving,for, besides having grown up together, Walter was white, thereforethinking himself, and making the other believe it, the better of thetwo. But for this Walter made no difference in his behavior; had Joe toeat at his table, and would have him sleep in his bed, but Joe laughed,and lay on the floor. All this was counted a kindness and a great honorin the campoodie. Walter could find out things by looking in a book,which was sheer magic, and had taught Joe to write a little, so that hecould send word by means of a piece of paper, which was cleverer thanthe tricks Joe had taught him, of reading the signs of antelope and elkand deer. The white boy was to the Indian a little of all the heroesand bright ones of the arrow-maker's tales come alive again. Thereforehe quaked in his heart when he heard the rumors that ran about the camp.
The war began about Cottonwood, and ran like wildfire that licked up allthe ranches in its course. Then the whites came strongly against thePaiutes at the Stone Corral, and made an end of the best of theirfighting men. Then the Indians broke out in the north, and at last itcame to such a pass that the very boys must do fighting, and the womenmake bowstrings. The cattlemen turned in to Baker's ranch as a centre,and all the northern campoodies gathered together to attack them. Theyhad not much to hope for, only to do as much killing as possible beforethe winter set in with the hunger and the deep snows.
By this time Joe's father was dead, and his mother had brought the boy aquiver full of arrows and a new bowstring, and sent him down to thebattle.
And Joe went hotly enough to join the men of the other village, nursinghis bow with great care, remembering his father, but when he came tocounsel and found where the fight must be, his heart turned again, forhe remembered his friend. The braves camped by Little Round Valley, andhe thought of the talk he and Walter had there; the war party went overthe tongue of hills, and Joe saw Winnedumah shining whitely on Waban,and remembered his boyish errand, the mystery of the tall, strangewarrior that came upon them in the night, their talk in the hut of thearrow-maker, and the vow that came afterward.
The Indians came down a ravine toward Tres Pinos, and there met a bandof horses which some of their party had run in from the ranches; amongthem was a pinto pony which Walter had used to ride, and it came toJoe's hand when he called. Then the boy wondered if Walter might bedead, and leaned his head against the pony's mane; it turned its headand nickered softly at his ear.
The war party stayed in the ravine until it grew dark, and Joe watchedhow Winnedumah swam in a mist above the hills long after the sun hadgone quite down, as if in his faithfulness he would outwatch the dark;and then the boy's heart was lifted up to the great chief standing stillby Tinnemaha. "I will not forget," he said. "I, too, will be faithful."Perhaps at this moment he expected a miracle to help him in his vow asit had helped Winnedumah.
In the dusk the mounted Indians rode down by the Creek of Tres Pinos.When they came by the ruined hut where his father had lived, Joe's heartgrew hot again, and when he passed the arrow-maker's, he remembered hisvow. Suddenly he wheeled his pony in the trail, hardly knowing what hewould do. The man next to him laid an arrow across his bow and pointedit at the boy's breast.
"Coward," he whispered, but an older Indian laid his hand on the man'sarm.
"Save your arrows," he said. Then the ponies swept forward in thecharge, but Joe knew in an instant how it would be with him. He wouldbe called false and a coward, killed for it, driven from the tribe, buthe would not fight against his sworn brother. He would keep his vow.
A sudden rain of arrows flew from the advancing Paiutes; Joe fumbled hisand dropped it on the ground. He was wondering if one of the many aimedwould find his brother. Bullets answered the arrow flight. He saw thebraves pitch forward, and heard the scream of wounded ponies.
He hoped he would be shot; he would not have minded that; it would bebetter than being called a coward. And then it occurred to him, ifWalter and his father came out and found him when the fight was done,they would think that he had broken his word. The Paiutes began to seekcover, but Joe drove out wildly from them, and rode back in the friendlydark, and past the ruined campoodie, to the black rocks. There he creptinto the cave which only he and Walter knew, and lay on his face andcried, for though he was an Indian he was only a boy, and he had seenhis first fight. He was sick with the thought of his vow. He lay in theblack rocks all the night and the day, and watched the cattlemen and thesoldiers ranging all that county for the stragglers of his people, andguessed that the Paiutes had made the last stand. Then in the secondnight he began to work back by secret paths to the mountain camp. Itnever occurred to him not to go. He had the courage to meet what waitedfor him there, but he had not the heart to go to it in the full light ofday. He came in by his mother's place, and she spat upon him, for shehad heard how he had carried himself in the fight.
"No son of mine," said she.
He went by the women and children and heard their jeers. His heart wasvery sick. He went apart and sat down and waited what the men would say.There were few of them left about the dying fire. They had washed offtheir war paint, and their bows were broken. When they spoke at last, itwas with mocking and sad scorn.
"We have enough of killing," said the one called Scar-Face. "Let himhave a woman's dress and stay to mend the fire."
So it was done in the presence of all the camp; and because he was aboy, and because he was an Indian, he said nothing of his vow, noropened his mouth in his defense, though his heart quaked and his kneesshook. He had the courage to wear the badge of being afraid all hislife. They brought him a woman's dress, though they were all too sad formuch laughter, and in the morning he set to bringing the wood for thefire.
Afterward there was a treaty made between the Paiutes and the settlers,and the remnant went back to the campoodie of Tres Pinos, and Joelearned how Walter had been sent out of the valley in the beginning ofthe war, but that did not make any difference about the woman's dress.He and Walter never met again. He continued to go about in dresses,though in time he was allowed to do a man's work, and his knowledge ofEnglish helped to restore a friendly footing with the cattlemen. Thevalley filled very rapidly with settlers after that, and under theslack usage of the tribe, Mahala Joe, as he came to be known
, might havethrown aside his woman's gear without offense, but he had the courage towear it to his life's end. He kept his sentence as he kept his vow, andyet it is certain that Walter never knew.
Basket Woman: A Book of Indian Tales for Children Page 16
