Читать книгу Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk-Tales - George Bird Grinnell - Страница 7

By this time it was daylight, and it had got noised abroad through the camp that there was a Pawnee at the Head Chief’s lodge, and all the people gathered there. They called out, “Bring him out; we want him out here.” They crowded about the lodge, all the people, the old men and the women and the young men, so many that at last they pushed the lodge down. They shouted: “Let us have the Pawnee. Last night they stole many horses from us.” The chiefs and braves got around the Pawnee, and kept the Comanches off from him, and protected him from the people. The Cheyennes were camped close by, near the hill southeast of the Comanches, and they, too, had heard that the Comanches had a Pawnee in the camp. They came over, and rode about in the crowd to try and get the Pawnee, and they rode over a Comanche or two, and knocked them down. So Skin Shirt got his bow and arrows, and jumped on his horse, and rode out and drove the Cheyennes away back to their camp again.

The Cheyennes saw that the Comanches did not want the Pawnee killed, so they sent a message inviting him over to a feast with them, intending to kill him, but Skin Shirt told them that he was married into the tribe. While the Cheyennes were parading round the Comanche camp, they were shooting off their guns in the air, just to make a noise. Now, the young Pawnee on the hill, who was watching the camp to see what would happen to his friend, saw the crowd and heard the shooting, and made up his mind that Kut-a´wi-kutz had been killed. So he took his knife, and put the handle against a tree and the point against his breast, and put his arms around the tree and hugged it, and the knife blade passed through his heart and he fell down and died.

In the afternoon when all the excitement had quieted down, the Cheyennes came over again to the Comanche camp, and invited the Pawnee and his wife to go to their village, and visit with them. Then Skin Shirt said, “All right, we will go.” Three chiefs of the Comanches went ahead, the Pawnee followed with his wife, and Skin Shirt went behind. They went to the Cheyenne camp. The Cheyennes received them and made a great feast for them, and gave the Pawnee many horses. Then they went back to the Comanche camp. Kut-a´wi-kutz never went up to the hill until the next morning. Then he went, singing the song he had told his friend he would sing. He called to him, but there was no reply. He called again. It was all silent. He looked for his friend, and at last he found him there dead at the foot of the tree.