Watch-fires were flowering in the dusk when I reached the encampment of the Yellow Skins. I went alone between the carved poles of the entrance, into the circle of silent people who waited round the bier of the youth whom they had hoped would lead their tribe after his father.
The men were naked, their bodies smeared with white ash in sign of mourning. They stared at me, their eyes heavy with hostility. They had known I was coming, for it is the custom for the victor of a challenge to say farewell to the vanquished. They hated me because I proved that the caverns were not an impossible ordeal: they hated me because they thought I had brought T’cha’s body home to them only as a further humiliation: they hated me because they were no longer confident that it was safe to despise their squaws.
Pine torches were burning at the head and at the feet of the corpse, at the left hand and at the right hand, so that he should not go in darkness, whether he travelled to the north or the the south, to the east or to the west. The Chief, his face was stone, stood beside his son. Slowly he raised his right hand in greeting. He would fulfill the courtesies due to one who had gained the right to join the Feathered Council of the future, but I knew he would sooner have cut off that hand than raise it in greeting to a squaw.
If I spoke only the formal farewell that was expected of me, no one would ever know that I had killed T’cha…except Raki, and he would not tell even Na-ka-chek since I had decided that I must come to my own decision. The Yellow Skins might kill me; claiming that it was a just vengeance for the murder of a wounded man. But if I kept silence I should always know that the integrity of which I was proud had only been strong enough to show a small flame in the darkness of the caverns, and had flickered and died at the challenge of the sun.
I could hear my voice, but it sounded as though someone else was speaking, someone who stood close to me but was yet separate from Piyanah.
“Chief of the Yellow Skins, Father of T’cha, I speak to you in the equality of the children of the Great Hunters. Each tribe is protected by a different totem: yet all totem-poles are but an echo of the trees which grow in the Land beyond the Sunset, and the spirit of all totems is an echo of the voice of the Lords of the Morning. In this recognition, all totems are carved from the same tree, and all men are brothers.
“Because T’cha and I are brothers, I gave to him that clemency which he would not have denied to me. He had called on me for succour and I gave him freedom. If I had kept him shackled to his body he would have known agony beyond the fortitude of warriors. If he had lived to be old, the pride of T’cha would have crumbled under the slow drip of pity, which is the only water he would have been given to slake his thirst.
“I asked the Great Hunters that I might judge with integrity. And when they answered, I asked that I might find within me the courage to set him free for the journey to their country. Water and rocks had crushed his legs and thighs: but it was a stone in my hands which crushed the bone above his temple.”
A murmur spread through the watching crowd. “Death! Death to the woman who has killed T’cha! Death. …”
Hatred was coiled like vipers in a circle round me.
“If T’cha could speak to you he would acknowledge my friendship!”
“Death! Death for the squaw who has killed T’cha!”
Their hatred was a dark flood lapping closer and closer towards me. I seized one of the funerary torches and held it high above my head.
“By this light in my hand I pledge my body and my spirit that I am not the enemy of T’cha, and that my people on the other side of the water have heard my voice calling to them to welcome him in friendship.”
“She has killed T’cha. Vengeance! Kill her! Kill her!”
Hatred was dark as wolves approaching a kill. The Chief leaned over the body of his son. “Speak, T’cha. Does she speak in truth? Or do you cry to us for vengeance?”
The sudden silence was sharp as ice. The Chief was staring down at the face of the dead boy. Did he expect the mouth to open and words to come forth that would bring me freedom or condemnation?
Slowly the Chief raised his head, but he was not looking at me nor at his tribe. It was as though he looked, with slowly increasing recognition, into the eyes of someone who stood beside me. He held out his hands, to set them on the shoulders of his son who to the rest of us remained invisible.
Then his hands fell to his sides. He lifted his head to watch T’cha go away from him, between the mourners, between the carved posts which marked their boundary, towards the river.
Very gently he took the torch from my hand, and held it above his head, as I had done.
“By this torch I pledge my word and the word of my people, that on this side of the water, and beyond the water also, the blood of T’cha is the blood of brotherhood between the Yellow Skins and the Two Trees. For my son, who was dead, has come home to me, brought home as was his body, by the courage of the Scarlet.”
Then he took from his great headdress a scarlet feather and put it in my forehead-thong.
And I went the way T’cha had gone, and in silence the people watched me go…but Raki waited for me on this side of the river.
I had said, “We must go to tell Na-ka-chek that there is peace between us and the Yellow Skins,” but when we reached his Great Tepee it was empty. Then I realized that the circle of the council was curiously quiet, and a solitary Elder sat smoking by the watch-fire. He looked up as we passed, and said:
“A Scarlet Feather should be as proud of his courtesy as of his courage.” Then, as we did not answer, he added, “The Chief of the Two Trees gives a great feast in the place of his tribe. The Feathered Council wait to join with Na-ka-chek in honour of his daughter. The clothes you should both wear have been put ready in his tepee.”
“I told Dorrok to prepare a feast,” I said slowly, “but it was only to try to make him believe I was going to come back.”
“The Chief can command his tribe without asking permission of his daughter.” The words were cold, but the old man was smiling. “But I must not delay you with conversation, or those who wait for you will grow impatient.”
I must have been seen leaving the Great Tepee, and some prearranged signal given: for as I turned towards our encampment the scattered torch-light began to flow into two streams, an avenue of fire to lead me home.
From every tribe they had come, to roar against the night the chants that welcome a warrior in victory. Now I knew why Raki had said he would run ahead to tell Na-ka-chek why I had kept him waiting. He would not share this triumph with me because the scarlet feather divided us. I wanted to tear it from my forehead-thong and break it in pieces: to show them that a squaw valued her love more than their insignia.
The sparks from the torches flared into the air like burning rain returning to the sky. Slowly I walked on, my right hand raised in greeting. The chants were like a strong wind driving me before it… “Piyanah the Warrior is triumphant…the bison call her brother. …”
The chant of the Leaping Waters, “Piyanah is the brother of the strong river and the rapids are proud to give her challenge.”
“The sun of her heart shall be warm even in winter, and the trees of her years heavy with fruit,” sang the Smiling Valleys.
Then ahead of me I heard the song of my own people. My heart felt as though it would break out of the stockade of my ribs. … “Piyanah has come home to us. Piyanah to whom the white birches are calling, ‘Little Sister, take us for your canoe.’ Piyanah, to whom the arrows are calling, ‘Let us dream of victory in your quiver until we may leap from your bowstring.’”
This was much more than a surge of sound on which I was swept along like a twig in a swift current: it was the voices of people I knew and loved. Dorrok, who had led me in search of courage. Tekeeni, whose laughter had taken me out of despair. Gorgi who had shared with me his pride and kindliness. Narrok, who had let me see his far horizon and taught me to honour the vision of my own eyes. It was at their torches I had kindled my own; their light which I had carried with me through the caverns.
I had been unarmed, and they had given me the weapons that they now proclaimed as mine. The arrows of will; the bow of integrity; the moccasins of questioning and ambition; the forehead-thong of understanding; the shield of impassivity and hard endurance. They had shared with me their hearts, by which at last I could uphold a torch in shining company with them. I had thought that Raki and I were alone together, following the light of our single star. Now I knew that all stars are sparks from the torch of the Lord of the Morning. I knew that people do not belong to a tribe only because they need the protection of each other against famine and cold and enemies. They can give nothing until they have heard the singing. Neither have they courage, nor endurance, nor wisdom, nor the skill of a craft, until it has been shared with them. Each torch must be kindled from a living brand; and unless that torch seeks other brands to kindle soon does it gutter and grow cold.
For so long I had fought to prove that I was not a squaw dependent on men, that I had forgotten that all men are dependent on mankind. I had been a drop of water, and now I was part of a great river: I had been a sapling stripped by the gales of winter, and now I was a forest: I had been a grain of corn alone in the grinding-bowl, and now I belonged to the rhythm of the growing field. I had been alone because I had been too blind, too proud, too deaf to know the company which sings beyond the cold lore of a tribe.
The knowledge of the company stayed with me through the night of feasting. The Chiefs were men of my father’s generation, yet they were no longer remote because they were proud with feathers: they were men who had shared the judgments of the council and so could share more than mead and wild-duck basted with honey; they could share laughter and humanity.
The Scarlet Feathers and the Braves no longer stared at me in hostility, for I had been accepted as one of themselves. Our women joined in the feast as equals, and this had not happened even in the memory of the ancestors.
Raki nodded towards one of the Leaping Waters who was sharing a cup of mead with Rokeena, and whispered to me, “If the stars see this they will think that the time of the Before People is returned.”
“Tomorrow they shall see that women can do more than share mead.”
And this was so, for Father agreed that our women could issue a challenge to twenty men from any other tribe with arrows and sling shot. Whether the women won, which they did three times out of fifteen, or whether they lost, they shared the sunset meal with their opponents…who a moon ago would have mocked anyone who said they acknowledged a squaw as worthy to join in a contest with them.
But this belonged to tomorrow, for Raki and I were still watching Rokeena and the Leaping Water.
“You are a man as well as a woman now, Piyanah,” said Raki. “You could lead a tribe alone. …”
“No, Raki! I can do nothing without you. You know that, Raki, you must know it.”
He took my hands in both of his. “Of course we shall be together always…I only said that you could rule a tribe alone. But if the Great Hunters remember their own youth they will never make it necessary.”
Soon it was dawn, and the Chiefs were going back to the tepees of the council. The last of the torches were quenched, and those who drowsed with mead stirred in the grey light and slept on.
Raki and I went down to the river, where he spread a blanket on the short, dry grass. We fell asleep as the sun was coming up over the hills, for we had promised Na-ka-chek not to share a tepee.