Читать книгу The Sheep Eaters - Allen William Alonzo - Страница 2

Passing the Big Horn Canyon, where the rushing waters were beaten into spray, and where granite walls were shining like great sapphires reflected in the sun's bright rays, I wondered how many centuries it took to chisel that mighty water way fifty-two miles through this tortuous mountain. Perpendicular walls of fully 2000 feet are standing sentinels above this silvery water which goes roaring and foaming through the narrow abyss.

The golden eagle closes its wings and falls through space like a rocket from some unknown world, uttering a scream that resounds like a crash of lightning. The Big Horn, proudly perched on yonder crag, bids defiance to all living creatures. For fifteen miles this box canyon has cut through the backbone of the mountains and holds the clear waters as in the palm of one's hand. At the mouth of the canyon, where the waters flow calm as a summer lake, as though tired from their terrible journey, the rounded boulders, the white sands and quartz that have passed through, are resting, peaceful as the wild rose which waves to and fro in the spring zephyrs.

In the sand lies a dead cedar. Torn from the mountain top and crashing down the canyon, it was carried by the rushing waters out on to the beach and deposited in the sand. Sitting on a branch of this cedar is an old woman. Her white locks hang crisp and short on her bony shoulders; her face is covered with a semi-parchment, brown as the forest leaves, and drawn tight over her high cheek bones; her eyes are small and sunken in her head, but the fire has not yet gone out. An old elk skin robe, tattered and torn, is thrown across her shoulders, with its few porcupine quills still hanging by the sinew threads where they were placed a century ago. The last of her race! Yes, long ago her people have become extinct, passed away leaving her to die. But alas, death does not claim her, and she wanders alone until picked up by the mountain Absarokees.

I sat down by her side and asked her by sign talk: "Are you a Sioux?" She shook her head. "Are you a Blackfoot?" Again she shook her head, and the effort seemed to tire her. I made many signs of the different tribes, but in the Crow sign she said "No" to them all. Her form seemed to be of rawhide, and on her fingers were still a few old rings made from the horn of the bighorn ram.

I gave her some of my lunch, as I ate, and she munched it with a set of old teeth worn to the gums. She ate in silence until all was gone; then I told her I was a medicine man, and asked her how old she was. She held up ten stubs of fingers, all of which had been partly cut off while mourning for dead relatives, then took them down until she had counted one hundred and fifteen years. Her eyes brightened, and she fronted away to the main range to a towering crag of granite, facing the north, where Bull Elk Canyon empties into the Big Horn. She held her withered arm high above her head and said in sign language:

"My people lived among the clouds. We were the Sheep Eaters who have passed away, but on those walls are the paint rocks, where our traditions are written on their face, chiseled with obsidian arrow heads. Our people were not warriors. We worshipped the sun, and the sun is bright and so were our people. Our men were good and our women were like the sun. The Great Spirit has stamped our impressions on the rocks by His lightnings; there are many of our people who were outlined on those smooth walls years ago; then our people painted their figures, or traced them with beautiful colored stones, and the pale face calls them "painted rocks." Our people never came down into the valleys, but always lived among the clouds, eating the mountain sheep and the goats, and sometimes the elk when they came high on the mountains. Our tepees were made of the cedar, thatched with grey moss and cemented with the gum from the pines, carpeted with the mountain sheep-skins, soft as down. Our garments were made from the skins of the gazelle, and ornamented with eagle feathers and ermine and otter skins.

"We chanted our songs to the sun, and the Great Spirit was pleased. He gave us much sheep and meat and berries and pure water, and snow to keep the flies away. The water was never muddy. We had no dogs nor horses. We did not go far from our homes, but were happy in our mountain abode. Then came the Sioux, who killed the elk and buffalo in the valleys. They had swarms of dogs and horses, and ran the game until it left the valleys and went far away. Their people were always at war and stealing horses, which was very wrong in the sight of our people, who never stole anything. Our men were fearless and brave, and could bring down all kinds of game with their bows and arrows, and were contented; but the Sioux were not contented with fighting their enemies, but came to our mountain home and began to try to ascend the trail. Our chief met them on the steep precipice and ordered them to stop where they were, but they murmured and made signs of battle. Our people had great masses of rock as large as houses, where they could let them loose down the trail and crush the Sioux into the earth as they were all down in a deep canyon.

"The Sioux stopped and began a war council, and began to paint and get ready for battle. Our chief got the great rocks ready, and then sent a runner to tell the Sioux that our people never went into the valleys nor killed the buffalo, and that we wished to be apart from all other people. After a long council the Sioux fired a volley of arrows at our runner, and wounded him in the thigh. He came to the chief greatly alarmed at the dreaded Sioux as they were many.

"The ponies in the valley below were strange looking creatures to us; we had never seen them before. The dogs were howling and the valley rang with the wild warwhoop. The time had come for action, and the Sheep Eaters assembled at the narrow trail, headed by their chieftain, Red Eagle, with his bow six feet long, made from the mountain ram's horn, and bound with glue and sinew from the sheep's neck. Great excitement prevailed. The squaws and children had hidden among the rocks with all their robes and earthly possessions. The wild and savage Sioux knew no fear and were pressing up the narrow trail with war paint and feathers, their grim visages scowling in the sunlight as they came.

"Red Eagle, with that bravery known only to his tribe, waited until they had reached the most dangerous precipice. Then with a great lever that had been prepared years before, he loosened the great rock from its moorings, and with one crash it sped down the canyon like a cyclone, tearing the trees from their roots, and starting the rocks, until the canyon became one great earthquake. The screams of the terrified Indians, the howling of dogs and the neighing of horses were heard in one awful roar. The battle was over. The canyon was a mass of blood, and death was abroad in the valley. Not a living thing was to be seen.

"Red Eagle took a horn made of red cedar, and gave one long quivering blast which echoed and reechoed through the alps and was carried across the glaciers to every part of the mountain. Then the women and children came back and once more took shelter in their comfortable homes."

I arose and gave the old crone the balance of my lunch, and told her I was going to see that mountain some day and see their houses, but she held up her hand and said, "Away up mountain long time ago, maybe so, no tepee now."

And I went and left her sitting alone on the old tree, waiting for the Great Spirit to come take her to her tribe, over on the happy hunting ground, where scenes of warfare and savage Sioux would never molest them again. As I left her alone on the bank of the Big Horn I could not help feeling a pang of pity for the wild woman of the Rockies, whose life had been spent among the canyons, and on the streams whose waters had chiseled great passages through those granite walls centuries ago. She who was once a belle in her tribe and had lived to see the extermination of her people, and now wandered alone wishing to die and pass beyond. The earth was not to her as it had been in her youth.

I shall never forget the spell that came over me as she raised her palsied arm and showed me where she had lived a hundred years ago. Something seemed to tell me she was speaking the truth and my trip to that mountain became a living passion from that day.