Legends of the Northwest Part 4

Then up from his seat in the silent crowd Rose the frowning, fierce-eyed, tall Red Cloud; Swift was his stride as the panther's spring, When he leaps on the fawn from his cavern lair; Wiwaste he caught by her flowing hair, And dragged her forth from the Sacred Ring.

She turned on the warrior. Her eyes flashed fire; Her proud lips quivered with queenly ire; Her hand to the Spirits she raised and said, And her sun browned cheeks were aflame with red: "I am pure!--I am pure as falling snow!

Great Taku-Skan-Skan [51] will testify!

And dares the tall coward to say me no?"

But the sullen warrior made no reply.

She turned to the chief with her frantic cries: "Wakawa--my Father; he lies!--he lies!

Wiwaste is pure as the faun unborn; Lead me back to the feast, or Wiwaste dies!"

But the warriors uttered a cry of scorn, And he turned his face from her pleading eyes.

Then the sullen warrior, the tall Red Cloud, Looked up and spoke and his voice was loud; But he held his wrath and spoke with care: "Wiwaste is young, she is proud and fair, But she may not boast of the virgin snows.

The Virgins Feast is a Sacred thing: How durst she enter the Virgins ring?

The warrior would fain, but he dares not spare; She is tarnished and only the Red Cloud knows."

She clutched her hair in her clenched hand: She stood like statue bronzed and grand: Wakan-dee [39] flashed in her fiery eyes; Then, swift as the meteor cleaves the skies-- Nay, swift as the fiery Wakinyan's dart, [32]

She s.n.a.t.c.h the knife from the warriors belt, And plunged it clean to the polished hilt-- With deadly cry--in the villain's heart.

Staggering he clutched the air and fell; His life-blood smoked on the trampled sand, And dripped from the knife in the virgin's hand.

Then rose his kinsmen's savage yell.

Swift as the doe's Wiwaste's feet Fled away to the forest. The hunters fleet In vain pursue, and in vain they prowl, And lurk in the forest till dawn of day.

They hear the hoot of the mottled owl; They hear the were-wolf's [52] winding howl; But the swift Wiwaste is far away.

They found no trace in the forest land, They found no trail in the dew-damp gra.s.s, They found no track in the river sand, Where they thought Wiwaste would surely pa.s.s.

The braves returned to the troubled chief; In his lodge he sat in his silent grief.

"Surely," they said, "she has turned a spirit.

No trail she left with her flying feet; No pathway leads to her far retreat.

She flew in the air, and her wail--we could hear it, As she upward rose to the s.h.i.+ning stars; And we heard on the river, as we stood near it, The falling drops of Wiwaste's tears."

Wakawa thought of his daughter's words Ere the south-wind came and the piping birds-- "My Father, listen,--my words are true,"

And sad was her voice as the whippowil When she mourns her mate by the moon-lit rill, "Wiwaste lingers alone with you; The rest are sleeping on yonder hill-- Save one--and he an undutiful son,-- And you, my Father, will sit alone When Sisoka [53] sings and the snow is gone."

His broad breast heaved on his troubled soul, The shadow of grief o'er his visage stole Like a cloud on the face of the setting sun.

"She has followed the years that are gone," he said; "The spirits the words of the witch fulfill; For I saw the ghost of my father dead, By the moon's dim light on the misty hill.

He shook the plumes on his withered head, And the wind through his pale form whistled shrill.

And a low, sad voice on the hill I heard.

Like the mournful wail of a widowed bird."

Then lo, as he looked from his lodge afar, He saw the glow of the Evening-star; "And yonder," he said, "is Wiwaste's face; She looks from her lodge on our fading race.

Devoured by famine, and fraud, and war, And chased and hounded from woe to woe, As the white wolves follow the buffalo."

And he named the planet the _Virgin Star_. [54]

"Wakawa," he muttered, "the guilt is thine!

She was pure,--she was pure as the fawn unborn.

O, why did I hark to the cry of scorn, Or the words of the lying libertine?

Wakawa, Wakawa, the guilt is thine!

The springs will return with the voice of birds, But the voice of my daughter will come no more.

She wakened the woods with her musical words, And the sky-lark, ashamed of his voice, forbore.

She called back the years that had pa.s.sed, and long I heard their voice in her happy song.

Her heart was the home of the sunbeam. Bright Poured the stream of her song on the starry night.

O, why did the chief of the tall Hohe His feet from Kapoza [6] so long delay?

For his father sat at my father's feast, And he at Wakawa's--an honored guest.

He is dead!--he is slain on the b.l.o.o.d.y Plain, By the hand of the treacherous Chippeway; And the face shall I never behold again Of my brave young brother--the chief Chaske.

Death walks like a shadow among my kin; And swift are the feet of the flying years That cover Wakawa with frost and tears, And leave their tracks on his wrinkled skin.

Wakawa, the voice of the years that are gone Will follow thy feet like the shadow of death, Till the paths of the forest and desert lone Shall forget thy footsteps. O living breath, Whence art thou, and whither so soon to fly?

And whence are the years? Shall I overtake Their flying feet in the star-lit sky?

From his last long sleep will the warrior wake?

Will the morning break in Wakawa's tomb, As it breaks and glows in the eastern skies?

Is it true?--will the spirits of kinsmen come And bid the bones of the brave arise?"

"Wakawa, Wakawa, for thee the years Are red with blood and bitter with tears.

Gone,--brothers, and daughters, and wife,--all gone That are kin to Wakawa,--but one--but one-- Wakinyan Tanka--undutiful son!

And he estranged from his fathers tee, Will never return till the chief shall die.

And what cares he for his father's grief?

He will smile at my death,--it will make him chief.

Woe burns in my bosom. Ho, Warriors,--Ho!

Raise the song of red war; for your chief must go To drown his grief in the blood of the foe!

I shall fall. Raise my mound on the sacred hill.

Let my warriors the wish of their chief fulfill; For my fathers sleep in the sacred ground.

The Autumn blasts o'er Wakawa's mound Shall chase the hair of the thistle's head, And the bare armed oak o'er the silent dead.

When the whirling snows from the north descend, Shall wail and moan in the midnight wind.

In the famine of winter the wolf shall prowl, And scratch the snow from the heap of stones, And sit in the gathering storm and howl, On the frozen mound, for Wakawa's bones.

But the years that are gone shall return again.

As the robin returns and the whippowil When my warriors stand on the sacred hill And remember the deeds of their brave chief slain."

Beneath the glow of the Virgin Star They raised the song of the red war dance.

At the break of dawn with the bow and lance They followed the chief on the path of war.

To the north--to the forests of fir and pine-- Led their stealthy steps on the winding trail, Till they saw the Lake of the Spirit [55] s.h.i.+ne Through somber pines of the dusky dale.

Then they heard the hoot of the mottled owl; [56]

They heard the gray wolf's dismal howl; Then shrill and sudden the war whoop rose From an hundred throats of their swarthy foes, In ambush crouched in the tangled wood.

Death shrieked in the tw.a.n.g of their deadly bows, And their hissing arrows drank brave men's blood.

From rock, and thicket, and brush, and brakes, Gleamed the burning eyes of the forest snakes. [57]

From brake, and thicket, and brush, and stone, The bow string hummed and the arrow hissed, And the lance of a crouching Ojibway shone, Or the scalp-knife gleamed in a swarthy fist.

Undaunted the braves of Wakawa's band Jumped into the thicket with lance and knife, And grappled the Chippewas hand to hand; And foe with foe, in the deadly strife, Lay clutching the scalp of his foe and dead, With a tomahawk sunk in his ghastly head, Or his still heart sheathing a b.l.o.o.d.y blade.

Like a bear in the battle Wakawa raves, And cheers the hearts of his falling braves.

But a panther crouches along his track,-- He springs with a yell on Wakawa's back!

The tall Chief, stabbed to the heart, lies low; But his left hand clutches his deadly foe, And his red right clenches the b.l.o.o.d.y hilt Of his knife in the heart of the slayer dyed.

And thus was the life of Wakawa spilt, And slain and slayer lay side by side.

The unscalped corpse of their honored chief His warriors s.n.a.t.c.hed from the yelling pack, And homeward fled on their forest track With their b.l.o.o.d.y burden and load of grief.

The spirits the words of the brave fulfill,-- Wakawa sleeps on the sacred hill, And Wakinyan Tanka, his son, is chief.

Ah, soon shall the lips of men forget Wakawa's name, and the mound of stone Will speak of the dead to the winds alone, And the winds will whistle their mock-regret.

The speckled cones of the scarlet berries [58]

Lie red and ripe in the prairie gra.s.s.

The Si-yo [59] clucks on the emerald prairies To her infant brood. From the wild mora.s.s, On the sapphire lakelet set within it, Maga [60] sails forth with her wee ones daily.

They ride on the dimpling waters gaily, Like a fleet of yachts and a man of war.

The piping plover, the laughing linnet, And the swallow sail in the sunset skies.

The whippowil from her cover hies, And trills her song on the amber air.

Anon, to her loitering mate she cries "Flip, O Will!--trip, O Will!--skip, O Will!"