Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1953 (5 page)

           
Sam caught up his rifle and
tomahawk. Otter also scrambled for his belongings.

           
“Who must we fight first?” demanded
Sam. “The
Chickasaws,
or Giluhda?”

           
“We must run away from both,”
replied Otter promptly. “The Chickasaws may come sneaking back to see what
happened here. And though Giluhda was frightened, he may return, too. Let him
find the Chickasaws here instead of us.”

           
Swiftly rolling their packs, they
headed down to the river. Otter made them wade along its edge, though the water
had turned chilly with the fall of night.

           
“Giluhda can smell out a trail like
a hunting wolf,” explained Otter. “Let us go for a long way in the river, then
come out and make our camp in a tree.”

           
“A big tree,” agreed Sam.

           
They followed that plan. Several
hundred yards downstream an immense oak grew at the water’s very edge, and they
mounted into its thick branches. High above the ground, they settled down in
two roomy forks, fastening themselves with their belts.

           
Though they had had more than enough
excitement that day, both of them were too weary to stay awake. Swiftly they
dropped off to sleep.

           
“I only wish that Mr. Lycurgus
Meehaw had seen Giluhda,” was Sam’s last thought as he closed his eyes.

           
SAM and Otter were awake before
dawn’s first gray hint had made the eastern sky pale. Their only breakfast was
a drink of water from the
Big
River
, and as soon as there was fight enough for
them to see they moved purposefully away on the trail Otter pointed out.

           
They kept their eyes and ears sharp
for signs of the prowling Chickasaw raiders, but saw and heard nothing of them.

           
“I think they crossed the
Big
River
again, very fast,” said Otter after a while. “I think that one little
thought of Giluhda made them go back to their own country. They taunt us
because Giluhda hates
Twilight
Town
, but they are afraid of him.”

           
For more than an hour they picked
their way along the edge of a vast canebrake. Otter knew the brake, and began
to move forward with eager haste. Once he sniffed the air.

           
“Do you smell the smoke of your home
fire?” Sam asked him.

           
“In my heart I smell it,” replied
Otter. “It will be good to see
Twilight
Town
again.”

           
The sun was more than halfway up to
the top of the sky, when Otter pointed with the heel of his hand.

           
“The tall trees yonder—do you see
them? When we reach there, we can see
Twilight
Town
.”

           
And when they reached the trees,
they saw it. Between them and the trees stretched a clearing, in which sprouted
the feathery green tops of early- growing corn plants. Beyond stood a row of
close-set upright logs, each pointed at the top. Above these Sam made out the
broad cone of a big bark roof—the roof of the town house, he guessed.

           
“We have come home, my brother,”
announced Otter, and led Sam along a path through the cornfield.

           
A skin-clad woman,
who had been loosening earth with a hoe that had a clam-shell blade, spied them
and began to walk toward the open gateway.
A yellow-coated dog scampered
along with her. Then a man appeared at the gateway, stared toward the
approaching travellers, and lifted a naked arm high in greeting.

           
“Ahi!”
called Otter, loud and
clear. “Peace to the town! I am come back!”

           
“Ahi!”
the man shouted back
deeply. Then he, too, disappeared within the stockade of logs. Sam could hear a
jabber of voices, and as he and Otter approached the entrance he saw the houses
inside and many people gathering to look at them.

           
These Cherokees were dressed in
tanned deer leather or furs. Nowhere was there garment, ornament or other
object that had come by trade from white men. Nobody spoke. Walking into the
town beside Otter, Sam knew that many eyes were fastened upon him. But when he
glanced
this way or that, the women and children looked
shyly away. Only the warriors stood silently and met his gaze with brown,
expressionless faces.

           
“Otter,” an old man greeted them
solemnly. “The chief has been told that you are coming. He waits.”

           
“Where?” asked Otter, and the old
man extended his arm in a brief gesture toward the big town house.

           
“We will go there, my brother and
I,” announced Otter. “Let the council follow us.”

           
He led Sam to the town house.
Inside, the earth floor had been dug away so that it sloped inward from all
sides to a central point several feet below ground level. On the slopes all the
way around were set benches, rough but workmanlike, made of split logs set on
stones. It was by far the biggest town house Sam had seen in any of the
Cherokee settlements he and Otter had visited on their journey. All was dim
inside, but at the center two men seemed to be kindling a fire with rubbing
sticks. It blazed up even as Otter led Sam down the slope between the benches,
and its flame showed the clay-plastered interior and the faces of the trusted
council members who were entering behind them.

           
A figure stood up beside the fire.
It looked fragile, even though it was draped in a loose cloak of raccoon skins.
As Sam followed Otter toward that figure, he saw that the chief of the Twilight
People was a middle-aged man, with a dark face seamed and netted with wrinkles,
and a scalp lock grayed over as though wood ashes had been rubbed into it. But
the chiefs deep-set eyes were steady and bright, his nose lean and curved and
strong. When he spoke, his voice rang deeply inside the town house.

           
“Otter!
You
have returned!”

           
“Chief, I have returned,” agreed
Otter ceremoniously. “With me, I bring the white warrior you told me to find.”
He gestured toward Sam. “His people call him Sam. He has saved my fife. Twice
he saved it. To me he is as a brother.”

           
“Is this true?” intoned the chief.

           
“I tell no he,” replied Otter.

           
The wise black eyes turned and
looked at Sam. “White man,” the chief said, “my name is Woodpecker. I am the
chief of this town and this people. I hear good things of you from my friend,
Otter. I say that you are welcome here.”

           
“Thank you,” said Sam.

           
The other man had finished putting
wood on the fire, and now he, too, straightened up. He was taller than Otter,
fully as tah as Sam. His face was the face of a man still young, smooth and
almost square. It had a shrewdly appraising look, like the face of a good
trader. His buckskin shirt, open at the neck, showed many necklaces around his
strong throat—one of bear claws, another of wampum beads, another of curiously
carved bits of wood.

           
“White man, my name is Eagle Wing,”
he introduced himself. “I am the medicine man of
Twilight
Town
. I, too, make you welcome.”

           
Eagle Wing spoke as an equal of
Chief Woodpecker. As medicine man, he seemed to feel that his greeting was a
necessary favor to a visiting stranger.

           
“Thank you,” repeated Sam.

           
“We will sit down,” announced
Woodpecker, and suited the action to the word.

           
Sam, too, squatted down and
sloped
his rifle across his knees. Now he could see what
made the chief of
Twilight
Town
seem frail of body. His left leg had been
broken at some time in the past, and badly set. It moved crookedly and
unsurely. Into Sam’s mind flashed what Otter had said at Brooke’s Fort—Woodpecker
had been injured by the monster Giluhda.

           
Eagle Wing, the medicine man, took a
seat next to Woodpecker. The members of the council found places on benches.
From under his robe Woodpecker drew a pipe with a big bowl of polished black
stone. He opened a pouch, and from it took tobacco with which he carefully
filled the pipe. From the fire he lifted a blazing twig, kindled the tobacco,
and drew a long, slow, dignified puff. Then he passed the pipe, stem forward,
to Sam.

           
This, Sam knew, was the final symbol
of friendly welcome. He puffed the strong-tasting smoke in turn, and passed the
pipe to Otter, who also puffed and then handed it to Eagle Wing. The medicine
man touched the mouthpiece to his own lips and returned the pipe to the chief,
who laid it aside.

           
“Our ears are open for your story,”
he said to Otter. “Speak. Tell us what happened on your journey.”

           
“I, Otter, sent by the Twilight
People, walked many days toward the east,” began Otter. “The rising sun showed
me the way. I saw land that no other man of
Twilight
Town
has ever seen. I crossed rivers and mountains. I came to a town of the
Red Coats. This young warrior, my friend and brother, said that he would come
back with me. You see his fire- weapon. It is strong magic. He brought it to
kill Giluhda.”

           
Woodpecker looked appraisingly at
the rifle,
then
brought his eyes back to Otter. “You
say that he saved your life,” he reminded deeply.

           
“Yes,” said Otter. “Let my brother
tell the story.”

           
All faces shifted to look expectantly
at Sam. A sense of embarrassment spread through the white youth. He spoke
slowly.

           
“We were crossing a river, on big
stones. Otter’s foot slipped, and I caught him by the hand so that he did not
fall. It was only a small thing.”

           
The Indians stared. There was
something of disappointment in their stares.

           
“You say that it was a small thing,”
repeated Eagle Wing, as if somewhat surprised.

           
“No,” said Otter boldly. “With the
tips of his fingers he caught hold of me and drew me back. I am not a light
weight. It took a quick, strong man to do that. He saved my life.”

           
“Your friend, the warrior from the
white men’s town, said that it was a small thing,” said Eagle Wing again.

           
“But that was not the only time,”
said Otter. “He will tell you about the next time he saved my fife.”

           
“What next time?” asked Sam, and he
fancied that Otter winced,
then
looked at him with
appeal.

           
“Last night,” said Otter.
“When we were captured by a raiding party of Chickasaws.”

           
“Chickasaws?” echoed Woodpecker, leaning
toward Otter. “Is this true?”

           
“I tell no lie. I would be dead now,
and my scalp taken, but for my brother.”

           
There was a faint murmur of
excitement from the council members.

           
“Tell us about this thing, white
warrior,” Woodpecker urged Sam.

           
“But I did not save Otter from the
Chickasaws,” insisted Sam, deeply embarrassed. “We were both tied fast. It was
the big animal you call Giluhda that came and frightened the Chickasaws away.”

           
“Otter says that you saved his
life,” said Eagle Wing from beside Woodpecker.

           
“Oh,” said Sam, remembering. “I know
what Otter means. Giluhda came running close to our fire. At my feet was a
gourd, and in the gourd was some of the black dust that I use to make my
fire-weapon talk. I threw the gourd into the fire. It made a loud noise that
frightened Giluhda away. That is all.”

           
Now Otter looked deeply shamed and
disappointed, and the members of the council eyed Sam as though he had said
something wrong.

           
“The white warrior is our guest at
Twilight
Town
,” said Eagle Wing gravely to the chief,
“but the stories he tells are small stories.”

           
“That is true,” agreed a council
member weightily. “Nothing he says sounds like the story of a strong, wise
man.”

           
Understanding suddenly burst upon
Sam.

           
He had gone against all Cherokee
custom and expectancy in trying to belittle his own deeds. The boasting of an
Indian, that would sound empty and vainglorious to white ears, was taken by his
own fellows as a serious basis for character judgment.