The Flute of the Gods

With briefness Tahn-té stated all heard in the council of Povi-whah concerning the wishes of the strangers from the South.

The men smoked the sacred smoke of council and listened, and when all was said, they nodded to each other.

“That which you say is that which the tribes have always talked about when the wild people came for war. In old days of our fathers, we people of the houses and the fields did make compact with each other as brothers. But always it has been broken, often it had to be broken. We are far apart. When the Yutah comes from the north, and the Pawnee from the east–and the Apache and the Navahu from every place, the men of each village must look to their own women. He cannot go to his brother to learn if he also is having war.”

“That is true,” said Tahn-té. “But the wild people fight and go away again. If these strangers find the symbol of the sun in our land, they will never go away–more will come–and then more always! I have seen the talking leaves of their people. If they get room for their feet, they then ask the field; if the way of the door is opened to them, they then take the house. They and their animals will ride us down as the buffalo tramp under foot the grass on the wide lands.”

“That other year the white strangers came. They staid not long. This time not so many come–next time not any ever come–maybe so!”

“Maybe so!” echoed Tahn-té, but shook his head in sadness. Like the men of his own village, these men had the hopefulness of children that all would be made well.

“If their god is so strong a god–and they come with good gifts, is it not well to make treaty and have them as brothers?” asked the old governor. “With the thunder and the lightning given to them instead of arrows, they could do good warrior work for those who were precious to them.”

“That is so,” agreed Tahn-té–“but the men of dark skins will never be precious to the white men of the beards–except they make slaves who obey,–who carry the water, and bring wood for the fire.”

“Men carry the water?”

“They are not men when they become slaves–they are not people any more!”

“We did not hear that,” said the governor. “Do these men tell it that way?”

“No–not in that way. But talking leaves of their god tells them that dark men of other gods than theirs must be ever as slaves to the white men of iron and all of their kind. It has been like that always. The talking leaves tell them how to make slaves–and how to make war on all people who refuse to say that their god must be the only god.”

“And that white god sends talking leaves of a spirit tree?”

“It is so,” said Tahn-té:–“Many leaves! The spirit of that tree was once a strong spirit, but the white people caught it with magic and shut it in a book, and the spirit grows weak in the book–the heart of the Most Mysterious cannot be shut in a thing like that. They have magic, but the heart does not sing to that magic–only the eyes see it.”

“Yet these strangers are wise,” ventured one of the council, “such leaves might be good to instruct quickly the youth of the clans.”

“It is so,” agreed Tahn-té again. “But when the gods are caught in the leaves of a book, is when they no longer speak in silence to the hearts of men. On a day when we walk no more on the Earth Trail, the names of our gods may also be written on the leaves of a spirit tree that is dead. Think of this and warn your sons to think of this! The youths of Povi-whah and of Kah-po hearken with joy to the trumpets of the men of iron, but the music for the desert gods is the music of the flute–let it not be silenced by trumpets of brass made by white men who conquer!”

Some of the men of the council looked at each other, and wondered in their hearts if the youth of Tahn-té did not make him dream false things and think them true. It was scarcely to be believed that one people would fight because another people found the Great Mystery–and prayed to It for strength to live well–and to live long–but called It by another Prayer Name!

They knew that in things of sacred magic Tahn-té was more wise than any other;–other youth were trained only in their own societies–but the son of the Woman of the Twilight reached out for the Thought back of the outer thought in all orders, and in different tribes.

Yet–they doubted him now and for the first time! They did not think that Tahn-té spoke with a crooked tongue, but some one had lied to him in the days when he crossed the land with the man Coronado;–or maybe the talking leaves had lied on some dark night of magic!

But however that might be, the Great Mystery had never sent the word to kill a people because of their prayers. The men of the council knew that could not be. But they were respectful to the young Po-Ahtun-ho, and they did not say so. That he had put aside his dignity of office, and come himself to Tegat-ha for council, was a great honor for Te-gat-ha.

And they smoked in silence, and did not say the thing they thought.

But Tahn-té the Ruler, read their hearts in their silence, and for the first time his own heart grew sick. In Povi-whah there was the jealousy of the war chief–and of the governor as well, and that, he thought, made them blind to much. But these men had only honor in their hearts for him and no jealousy. Yet to make them see motives of the strangers, as he saw them, was not possible; and to tell them that the men of iron gave worship to a jealous god was to brand himself for always as foolish in their eyes! They had thought him wise–but not again could they think him wise as to the foreign men, or the reading of their books!

The early stars were alight in the sky when the men came up from the council. In the house of the governor the evening meal was long ready.

From the place of the dance in the forest, men and maids were coming:–under the branches of the great trees they were coming, but among them was not the maid of the thong and the unfinished paintings. Tahn-té, seeing that it was so, ate with his hosts the rolls of paper-like bread, and the roasted meat of the deer.

It was a silent meal, for it was his first day of failure. All other things he had won–but to win his brothers to brotherhood against the strongest enemy they or their fathers had ever met–was a thing beyond his strength.

They had chosen to be blind, and for the blind, no one can see!

Standing on the terrace, the governor spoke alone to Tahn-té of the thing which the men of iron sought–it was the same thing Alvarado had asked of when he had come north from Coronado’s camp. It was strange that the sign of the Sun Father was a thing the white men sought ever to carry from the land. It must be strong medicine and very precious to them!

It was not possible for Tahn-té to make clear that the virtue of the yellow metal was not a sacred thing–only a thing of barter as shell beads or robes might be.

“Is it as they say,”–said his host after a smoke of silence–“is it as they say that the Order of the Snake is again made strong by you in Povi-whah?”

“It is true,” said Tahn-té. “The help I have is not much. The Great Snake they all revere for the sacred reasons, but only the very old men know that with the Ancients the medicine of the wild brother snakes was strong medicine for the hearts of men. Maybe I can live long enough to teach the young men that the strong medicine is yet ours, and that the wild brother snake can always help us prove to the gods that it is ours.”

“It is true that it is ours,” assented the old man,–“and it is good when the visions come to show us how it is ours,”–then after a little, he added:–“For the sleep you will stay with my clan?” but Tahn-té, standing on the terrace, shook his head and pointed to the south.

“Thanks that you wish me,” he said,–“but the work is there and the watching is there. When the smoke is over–I ask for your prayers and–I go!”

Steadily he ran on the trail past the thickets of the rose, and the great rock by the trail–steadily under the stars a long way. Then out of the many small night sounds of the wilderness he heard behind him the long call of a night bird in flight. Only a little ways did he go when again that little song of three descending notes came to him. It was very close this time, but he neither halted nor made more haste. For all the heed given it he might not have hearkened to it more than to the cricket in the grass.

Yet it spoke clearly to his ears. He knew that sentinels had been placed along his trail, and as he ran steadily, and alone, past each, he knew that the watchers were keen of eye and ear, and that the last two sent each other the signal “All is well,”–also he knew that the signal would be echoed back along the trail until each watcher would know that their visitor was on the trail alone, and all was well, and each could go back to Te-gat-ha and report to the war chief, and find sleep.

The watchfulness told him also that the maid they sought was one of importance. The visitor in the sky, called by his people the Ancient Star,–and called by Fray Luis the planet Venus, gave special meaning to a captive from the tribe of an enemy. It saved some clan from devoting a son or a daughter to sacrifice.

He did not halt at once even after the last call was sent back into the night, and he was far on the south trail ere he turned and more slowly retraced his steps. No lingering watcher must be overtaken by him on the trail.

So it was that Arcturus (the watcher of the night when the sun is away) was high overhead when he came again to the place of the great rock where as youths, he and his comrades climbed on each others’ shoulders–and even then only the most agile and daring had scaled the smooth wall, and lay hidden there in a water worn depression. Many scouts might pass it without thought that a maid could be hidden there!

But the mere whisper of a whistle like the bluebird call brought her head over the edge, and their eyes met in the starlight.

Half the day, and half the night, had she lain there waiting for his call, hearing more than once the pad of the feet, or the panting breath of scouts:–she had even heard words of the sentinels sent from Te-gat-ha ahead of Tahn-té–eager as wolves they were in search of the maid–for it was evil medicine most potent to lose a captive after the symbols of ceremony had been drawn on the body!

But all her fear of them gave her no fear of Tahn-té. His first look into her eyes had been the look which said strange things, and sweet things–it was as if he had spoken thanks that he had found her on the trail.

And when he held up his arm to her in the night, she wrapped closely the deerskin robe about her, and slipped downward into his embrace.

The wall was so high he had himself gone ahead and dragged her up by help of the skin robe. And, strong though he was, the weight of her as she slipped downward against him staggered him, and his arms went tightly around her slender girl’s body to save her, and to save himself.

And in that moment one of the magical things came to pass in the starlight, her young breasts were bare and held close to his own body. Her heart beats were felt by him as she lay limp for a space in his arms, and Tahn-té knew that for all other things in his life words could be found–but for the thrill of the touch of her body there were no words. It was as if a star had slipped out of the sky and given its glow and radiance to his life–the music of existence had touched him–and the magic of it held him dumb and still.

And he knew that the magic of the maid was born of the Great Mystery, and that a new life for him was born as each heard the heart beats of the other.

It was as truly a new marking for the Life Trail as had been the prayer made as a boy at the mesa shrine to answer the young moon message of the God of the Wilderness.

The maid stirred in his clasp and drew herself shyly away from him. At her first little movement, his arms grew tense about her, then they fell away, and he watched her, while with head averted from him, she arranged as well as might be her scant garb. There could be no words between them, but his touch was tender as he took her hand and led her out to the trail. He felt that she must know all he felt–and all the dreams into which the white shadow of her had entered–the sacred fourth shadow cast not by the body, but by the spirit, and linking itself with kindred spirit even while the human body breathed and moved and cast the black first shadow that all people may see.

The black first shadow all can see as a man moves or as he stands still, and the two gray shadows many can see after a man is on the death trail or when the breath has gone away. These remain with a man because they are of his body, but the white shadow is the shadow of the breath of the Great Mystery–it is as the perfume of the flower, the song of the bird, and the love of the man.

Fear lent the girl fleetness as she ran beside him in the night, and he marvelled at her.–No pueblo girl could have kept that pace. It was plain that she had lived with the rovers of the desert. All the long hours had she been without food or drink, yet she ran like a boy, and with the swiftness of a boy.

When the dawn broke, and the morning star showed each the face of the other, they had reached the trail by the river. From the west came black wind-swept clouds to meet the sun, and in the south the angered God of Thunder spoke. Tahn-té looked at the girl whose eyes showed the weariness of the long strain–his thoughts dwelt on the woes she must have lived through ere he found her:–plainly she could not run unfed to the hills of his people, and plainly since the storm was meeting them, the wise time to halt must be ere it swept the valley.

From the well known trail he had departed before the dawn, and the way they went was a hard way across the heights where earth’s heart-fires had split the land and left great jagged monuments of stone;–and red ash as if even now scarcely free from the heat of flame.

Into one of the great crevices,–wide, and roofed by rock–he led the strange maid. Water came from a break in the great grey wall, and sand had drifted there on the wind, and the girl with a moan that was of weariness sank down there where the sand was. Tahn-té felt himself strangely hurt by that moan and wondered that it should be so.

She was only a maid after all, and the little woeful cry made him think of a hurt child he would have lifted in his arms and carried home to its mother. But the maid of the bluebird wing was far from mother and from her people;–no words had they exchanged in the long trail of the night, he knew not anything but that she spoke Navahu, and would have him think she wished to be Te-hua.

When she lay so very still that he could not see even the sign of life in her face, he went close and touched her–and then he saw that the spirit of her had truly gone on the trail of the twilight–she was no longer alive as other people are alive.

He lifted her to where the water ran, and with prayer let the cool drops of the living spring touch her face until the life came back, and her eyes opened wide with terror at sight of him bending above her, but he whispered as to a child–“Na-vin (my own)” and then “K[=a] – ye-povi”–which was to call her the Blossom of the Spirit, the name had been always with him in the Love-maiden Dream;–and this maid was the dream come true!

He drew her back from that strange border land of life where the strong gods of shadow wait;–and then the whisper of the blossom name took the fear from her dazed eyes–she clung to his hands and in a sort of breathless joy repeated the name “K[=a] – ye-povi–K[=a] – ye-povi!”–Me! “K[=a] – ye-povi!”

“You!–Doli–Navahu!”

She nodded assent. “Yes–it is so–now,” she said–“but once when little,”–she made the sign for the height of a child–“Te-hua, not Navahu–then K[=a] – ye-povi!”

Thus it was Tahn-té found K[=a] – ye-povi after the many years, and knew that the Great Mystery had set his foot on the trail to Te-gat-ha that he, and not another, should find her!

From traders, and from an occasional Navahu prisoner, Tahn-té had learned Navahu words, and Navahu god thoughts, and now he strove with eagerness to speak their language, even though haltingly, and question of her coming to him–to him!

To a new master she had been sold by the old people who had owned her long, and many of the Navahu had gone north for deer–and perhaps for buffalo, and she had been taken with them. So far had they travelled that Tse-c[=o]me-u-piñ, the sacred, had been pointed out to her–and as a bird will seek its own place of nesting, had she sought the Te-hua land by fleeing to the sacred mountain. In the night time she had fled from her new master,–from a tall pine where she had climbed, had she seen them search the trail for her. In vain they had searched, and alone she had wandered many days. Almost had she reached the Te-hua towns of the river when some traders of Te-gat-ha had found her in the forest. To their own town they had taken her and had traded her for shell beads and for corn–the rest Tahn-té knew!

He strung his bow while he listened,–and while the thunder shook the earth he slipped through the crevices of the rock and lay hidden at the edge of a mountain morass where the reeds grew tall, and wild things fed–ahead of the storm small animals might cross the open there to reach the shelter of the rock walls–and K[=a] – ye-povi must not go unfed.

A rabbit he killed and covered each track of his feet from the place where he picked it up. When he took it to her it had been cleaned and washed in a little cascade below the shelter he had found for her. With him he took also dry twigs and dry piñon boughs, that the fire made might not carry the odor of green wood.

The sheets of rain were flowing steadily towards them from the west, the earth trembled as the God of Thunder spoke, and the lances of fire were flung from the far sky and splintered on the rocks of the mountain.

The maid lay, wide eyed and still, where he had left her. That she feared was plain to be seen, and at his coming tears of gladness shone in her eyes.

To see that light in her face as he came back to her brought to him a joy that was new and sweet. He did not speak to her. He made the fire in silence, but at every crash of the storm he smiled at her, and made prayers, and threw sacred white pollen to the four ways, and the feeling that he was as guardian to the maid whose very name had been a part of his boy dreams, was a sweet thought.

It was a wonderful thing that out of the dreams she had grown real, and had covered the trails until she had reached him! It was sweet that his hand had touched her and told him that the maid was a real maid of pulsing heart and tremulous breath.

But with all the sweetness of it, there was a strange thought fluttering over his mind like a moth or a butterfly. It did not find lodgment there, but it did not go quite away, and ere he offered to her the meat roasted in the red coals of the piñon wood, he scattered prayer pollen between them as on a shrine.

The line of the white between them was as the threshold of a door over which a man may not step. No man crosses threshold of another if the wife of that man is alone there,–and no brother goes into the house where his sister is without other companion. This was the law from the time of the ancient days, and belongs to many tribes.

To the Navahu it did not belong, and the maid knew only that the white pollen meant prayer, and that she was circled by sacred things, and by thought so sweet that her eyes rested on the sands when he gazed at her.

So sweet did the thought grow that they no longer tried to speak as at first, and compare words Navahu, and words Te-hua;–her own forgotten tongue.

To whisper “K[=a] – ye-povi” was sweet, but to think “Doli” was sweeter–for it had been the vision of the goddess of the blue he had first seen in the pool of the hills;–and to him had come her symbol dancing on the ripples. He wore it in the banda about his head;–and he knew now that the image of her would never grow faint in his heart. Out of the hand of the Great Mystery had she come to him that the last and best gift of life should be known, and that the prayers to the gods be double strong because of that knowing.

Without daring to look at her he sat in silence and thought these things, and he felt that she must know what the thoughts were. The war of the elements was as a background for strange harmonies, and the low roaring clouds of darkness were but a blanket of mist under which the fire glow of two hearts be felt to shine near and clear, and send to each its signal.

Then–like a monster let loose, there were broken all bonds of the tornado on the river hills. A blackness as of night covered the earth with wide spread wings. With the voice of thunder it came;–and with the strength of a god it came.

Earth and stone were hurled on the wind as if a rain of arrows or spears had been hurled by some spirit of annihilation.

Even breath had to be fought for there,–and the maid in terror reached out her hands to the man across the sacred barrier and moaned pitifully, and in the darkness the man drew her close until her head rested on his breast, and his own bent head, and his body, sheltered her.