Читать книгу Thunder Moon Strikes - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 6
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ОглавлениеWhy should sorrow be beautiful or beauty sad?
Thunder Moon in the room of his mother went through such an agony of joy and of love and of yearning that the muscles of his throat swelled and ached.
He sat by her bed and held her hand, and she looked up at him with love. From the steady mask of his face, it seemed that nothing had touched him in the slightest degree in this interview; but she saw that he could not meet her eyes steadily, and by that she guessed that his stern nature was troubled to the bottom.
“William,” she said.
There was no response.
“Thunder Moon!”
He looked quickly at her.
“Why are you sad, my dear?”
“Because I have found my people and lost my people.”
“They never really were yours.”
“My tongue is their tongue; and part of my heart is their heart.”
“I understand. But when you have our speech, then it will be different. But there will be many things for you to learn. You will have a great deal of patience, dear?”
“Yes.”
“Now I have kept you long enough. Go to your father. He is a stern man, William. But you will find that there is a great deal of love and tenderness under his sternness. Also—your brother is young; and he is still younger than he seems. Will you remember that?”
“Yes.”
“You may have to forgive him very often.”
“I understand,” said the warrior. “He has been the only son of a great chief. The lodge and the medicine pipes and all the horses have been his to look forward to.”
A faint, sad smile crossed the face of Mrs. Sutton.
“A little time will make everything right,” she said. “I trust in time and—in the goodness of men! Now go to your father.”
But when Thunder Moon left his mother’s room he found that the wild news had gone forth in every direction, and the Sutton ball was being continued through the day as a sort of impromptu reception.
Already half the young blades of the neighborhood had taken part in the chase, and the news of what they had captured had been broadcast. Newcomers began to arrive; farmers on plodding horses; dashing boys of any age; sedate landholders and plantation workers; and just as Thunder Moon came out into the upper hall, there was a screech of wheels turning sharply on the graveled road in front of the house, and Ruth Sutton went to her new brother and drew him to the window so that he could look down.
“You see how many people are happy because you’ve come home at last?” she asked, and she pointed down to the growing crowd.
Three four-in-hands had just torn up the driveway, one after the other, and the filmy clouds of dust they had raised were just blowing away in snatches under the cuffing hand of the wind. Those vehicles were loaded with people, and Thunder Moon stared at them with wonder. They looked a different kind of beings from those he had been accustomed to. They seemed more delicately made, more slender, and even their voices had a fragile sound in his ear.
Suddenly he stretched forth his long arm.
“What do you see, my boy?” asked the colonel.
“I see,” said Thunder Moon, “the woman who should be my squaw!”
Ah, fickle-hearted Thunder Moon! What of Red Wind, the Omissis girl with the braided hair like red metal? What of her? Has her memory been dismissed so quickly?
“Hello!” said the colonel. “That is rapid work.”
He was not altogether pleased, and he cast a worried glance at Ruth, as though a woman should know best how such an affair as this should be managed, and how serious this symptom might be.
But Ruth, laughing silently behind her brother’s back, shook her head, as a token that his was not such a dangerous affair, after all.
“Which one, William, dear?” she asked.
“That one—that one!” said he. “That one with the face like a flower.”
“Oh! It’s pretty little Jacqueline Manners. Of course it would be she! She is a darling, father, isn’t she?”
“Is it she?” asked the colonel, beginning to smile in turn. “That one with the flowers in her hat?”
Thunder Moon looked at him with eyes of wonder.
“No, it is that one—she gets down from the wagon now.”
“Heavens!” said Ruth Sutton. “It’s Charlotte!”
Thunder Moon stepped back from the window with a black brow.
“She is the squaw of another man, then?” he asked.
“You haven’t wasted your time with the Cheyennes,” said Ruth. “That’s Charlotte Keene. And every young man in the state has asked her to consider him.”
At this news Thunder Moon shrugged his shoulders, as much as to say that a battle not already lost still might be fought out.
Then he was taken to his room to dress in a suit of the colonel’s.
While the garments were being laid out by the servants, Standing Antelope entered, and his eyes flashed with joy when he saw his friend before him.
“I thought that they were talking and jabbering and getting ready to turn me over to the squaws for torture,” said Standing Antelope, “and I thought that they were bringing me just now to the place where I was to die.”
“And what of me, Standing Antelope?”
“I listened to hear your death song, but I thought that the wind might have blown the sound of it away from my ears. But behold, brother, our hands are free! Through the hole in that wall we may escape and climb down to the ground. There are fast horses everywhere. Never have I seen so many so fine! And with two knife thrusts we can make these two black men silent!”
“Do not touch them, Standing Antelope. Touch no one in this house; everyone is under my protection.”
“Ha?” cried the boy.
“This place is my lodge,” said Thunder Moon. “It is given to me to live in!”
“It is very well,” replied the boy. “I understand. The great chief understands that you are a part of his family.”
“Yes, and so does his squaw, who was my mother.”
“That is good,” said the boy without any enthusiasm, “and how great a sacrifice will this chief and his squaws and his warriors make to Tarawa because he has led you back to them?”
“I cannot tell,” said Thunder Moon, troubled. “All these people laugh and talk much like children in the street of the Suhtai town, but I have not heard them speak a great deal of the spirits. There is not much religion in them, and I have seen no making of medicine, and I have heard no promises of sacrifice. However, you and I must take care of that for otherwise the Sky People will be very angry!”
“You and I?” said the boy. “Ah, Thunder Moon, you have come home to your tepee, and you have your people around you. They seem to me very strange. And though I hope that you may be happy with them, I must go back to our nation.”
“Peace!” said the older warrior. “You are young and you cannot think for yourself. But I have seen many fine squaws and you shall pick out one for yourself, and I shall buy her with many horses. Then, if you must go back one day to our people, you may travel with a woman and with the horses I shall give to you, and many guns, and when you come back to the Suhtai you will be a great and a rich man, and you will tell Big Hard Face and White Crow how to follow the trail in order to come to me.”
This conciliatory speech the boy listened to, only half convinced, but the overwhelming authority of Thunder Moon kept him from answering immediately. He said, pointing suddenly, “Thunder Moon!”
“Aye, brother?”
“The medicines of these people is very terrible and wonderful! Look! There is a pool of water standing on one edge!”
For, at this moment, one of the servants had uncurtained a tall mirror that stood at one end of the room. Both the wanderers stared at this apparition with horror.
And Thunder Moon looked suddenly to the ceiling.
“Sky People,” he said, “if you are angry with me, do not send this miracle as a sign! If you are angry because I am changing my tongue and my dress, I shall give them up! I shall return to the Suhtai! No, Standing Antelope, I think it is not a bad sign!”
So saying, he began to advance, though slowly, and at last stretched out his hand and touched the cold surface of the glass.
“Now I know!” he cried, straightening himself. “It is like the little mirrors that the traders sell; it is like those, made large.”
At this there was a convulsive burst of laughter from the two servants. It died in a shriek of fear, for Standing Antelope, recovering from his terror the instant that he learned the true nature of the miracle, seized one of the valets by his head and at the same time presented a knife at his throat!
