Na-ka-chek had gone to the pool of the falling water, there to tell my mother that at the fullness of the growing moon his oath to her would be fulfilled. I knew he believed that the dark water would suddenly become thin and luminous so that he could see through it into her country, as though he, from a narrow cave, looked on a scene of brilliant sunlight in the far distance. He would recognize her among the shining people, and call to her for a sign to show him she had remembered, and forgiven.
I had often tried to tell him that the Land beyond the Sunset is not remote, that those who dwell there can walk with us in close companionship, though their voice is silence and their laughter the dance of the leaves. But this he refused to believe, saying, “I have made a vow, Piyanah, and only when it is fulfilled can I call to her again.”
I knew that my mother loved him, and so would not wait on vows. She would not think of him at the pool of the falling water, but in solitude she must so often have tried to comfort him. So every night, as the moon flowed up the current of the sky, I went to the Great Tepee where he had lived alone with his thoughts of her. I talked to her aloud, though I knew that her people did not depend on sound for hearing.
“Mother, make him believe that you are close to him, as you are close to me; not only when I am in danger, or pain, or sorrow, but also in the ordinary days. He is staring down into the pool which took your body from him: a light gleams in the dark water; for a moment he thinks it is a faint reflection of the torch you are carrying through the echoing caverns which separate your country from this little earth. He is calling your name to guide you to him. Then there is silence, for he knows that the light is only the reflection of a star; a cloud drifts over the moon and the wind is sorrowful among the trees.
“Don’t let him be alone any more, Mother. He is only austere because he dare not remember the joy he threw away: he is only aloof because he is so very lonely. I used to think he was cold and without understanding. …I hated him, Mother, for I thought he was trying to take me away from Raki. I thought he was jealous of our happiness because he had lost his own. But he was not harsh because we were strangers, he was harsh because he thought we were part of him; and it is difficult, Mother, for a Scarlet Feather to be kind to himself.
“He has often said to me, ‘The courage of your mother was so much greater than mine; and I betrayed her. Her wisdom was like a sun, and I tried to make her blind.’ He thought you would only accept him if he gained even more endurance, that you could love him only if he gained the wisdom of a hundred Elders.”
I knew that she heard me, and yet each sunset showed me that he had not heard her: I waited for him in the forest clearing through which he would pass on his way home, and then when he did not come I went back to the tepee among the lengthening shadows.
On the fifth night I knew she was so close that she was almost tangible. Was it a shadow, or could I see her standing by the entrance? Then she was moving ahead of me past the silent tepees, and I followed her. Above the encampment she paused, by the rock beyond which she would not let us pass when we were children. I knew she wanted me to take off my clothes and leave them on the rock: for insignia which set people apart from each other did not belong to the path by which she was leading me.
The moss was cool and deep under my feet which were echoing the rhythm of her going. I was secure because she took me with her, as Raki and I had not been secure since we were children. Now I was running, swift and effortless, for I knew she tarried to keep pace with my mortality.
In the sound of the falling water there was singing, slow and measured. I went forward gently, no longer impatient, for the sound was free of time. In it there was the eagerness of fire yet no urgency, for this light need not tremble with the effort of giving heat unsparingly before the kindling-wood cut short its span. Here was growth without death, joy without sorrow, swiftness without tiring, for yesterday and tomorrow linked hands and knew themselves twin sisters.
Then I was standing near the foot of the fall, and could see Na-ka-chek through a mist of spray. He was sitting cross-legged, deep in thought. Or had he fallen asleep, for his head bent forward as though bowed by the weight of the feathered headdress. Another mist was rising beyond the fall: a bright mist like sunlight seen beyond a curtain of rain. In this mist there were people…two people, and they were young yet rich with years.
I knew that for them the moon shone always between the same two trees: and they were timeless. I could not see them, yet I knew their arms were warm about each other: I could not hear them, yet I knew they laughed, and whispered the sweet truths of lovers united.
I knew that my voice, my sight, my hearing had become a bridge between them, though this in a manner I could not understand: and that my recognition would carry the reality even to the waking Na-ka-chek, whose body wore feathers by a pool while his spirit gloried in his freedom.
Slowly, as though still half-asleep, he stood upright. He lifted the feathers from his head and took off the heavy ceremonial robes. Naked and strong as a tree, he stood with his hands upstretched towards the sky.
“Great Hunters, I am no longer alone!” Warmth, and strength, and security were in his voice. Then he threw back his head and laughed; strong, resonant laughter of a man in whose heart gladness is an urgent spring which must gush forth.
He looked round, as though startled by the sound of his laughter; as was I who had never heard it before. He saw me, but without surprise, finding it natural for me to be there, as Raki would have done.
“It is not usual for a man to laugh because he rejoices that he was a fool…and I have been very foolish, my Piyanah…but what does it matter, now that I have come home? Narrok can see without eyes, but I had eyes and refused to open them. It is good not to be blind or proud or lonely. It was foolish to climb a mountain by a precipice when there was a smooth path to follow, but it is good to reach the peak. It was foolish to make a journey in winter, when the river would have been easy for canoes after the ice had melted; but even the fool may rejoice when he reaches the valley. Sit here beside me, my Piyanah, and hear why your father knows he was a fool and in that knowledge has found rejoicing.
“I caused myself, and all those under my authority, to suffer, to strive, to choose always the more difficult of two ways: and all this I did to try to become worthy of your mother. The scarlet feathers in my headdress, and your feathers and Raki’s also, I strove for so that I might have something worthy to offer in exchange for her forgiveness. I was going to offer her my pride, my courage, my endurance, and the honour of my tribe; the courage, and enterprise, and freedom that you and Raki have won, and the future of your feathers, in exchange for a single word of recognition. I must give everything to her, and then perhaps, if it were enough, she might allow a bright gleam from her sun to pierce the darkness of the pool which hid her from me. So many fine and sonorous protestations I have made to her, here in the last five days…and none of them she heard!
“Then I began to think of you…you grow very like her, Piyanah, even in your body. I began to wonder what I should say to you if you were going away…as so soon you are going away, and I wanted to be sure you would remember me. Would you want to hear of the pride I feel in you, or the way I honour your courage, and your wisdom, and your endurance? Then I thought, ‘How can I know what Piyanah would want unless I know my own heart? What would I want Piyanah to say to me before she went away?’ It was easy then, for I knew above all things I should want to hear, ‘I love you, Na-ka-chek.’
“You nearly said that once, on the morning after you won your Scarlet. Do you remember how you smiled and said, ‘Dear Father’ …and then said, ‘I never called you that before…we have built a bridge over our canyon’? I wanted to say then, ‘I love you, Piyanah,’ but I thought a Chief and a Scarlet Feather could not open their hearts even to each other, without betraying them. Then I knew what your mother would want to hear, if my voice still held any meaning for her.
“I said, ‘I love you’; over and over again, in an ordinary voice as though she were sitting beside me and could hear everything. The words seemed to find an echo in the pool, and I thought the water was throwing them back to me. But it was not an echo, Piyanah; it was her voice! I saw her; it was natural to take her in my arms, and for both of us to smile at the man sitting by the pool, the man who had tried to barter for love by the power of the feathers which had forgotten their singing.
“Once I thought that love was a word used only by a man and woman who in the summer weather had forgotten their duty to the tribe; now I have learned that it is stronger than war cries, and in it is the wisdom of the generations. It is the way of knowledge of the Elders, and the Scarlet of warriors; it is the feathers of the bird of the morning, and the canoe by which the living and the dead cross the great river. It is the full moon and the high sun, the living rain and the heat of the growing. Love!—the single voice by which the wearers of the Singing Feathers can know their kindred, and themselves.”