Lahoma

CHAPTER VII

RED FEATHER

One bright warm afternoon in October two years later, Brick Willock sat smoking his pipe before the open door of his dugout, taking advantage of the mountain-shadow that had just reached that spot. In repose, he always sat, when in the cove, with his face toward the natural roadway leading over the flat hill-island into the farther reach of the horseshoe. It was thus he hoped to prevent surprise from inimical horsemen, and it was thus that, on this particular afternoon, he detected a shadow creeping over the reddish-brown stone passage before its producing cause rode suddenly against the background of the blue sky.

At first glimpse of that shadow of a feathered head, Willock flung himself down the dirt steps leading to the open door; now, lying flat, he directed the barrel of his gun over the edge of the level ground, covering an approaching horseman. As only one Indian came into view, and as this Indian was armed in a manner as astounding as it was irresistible, Willock rose to his height of six-foot-three, lowered his weapon, and advanced to meet him.

When he was near, the Indian—the same chief from whom Willock had fled on the day of his intended housewarming—this Indian sprang lightly to the ground, and lifted from the horse that defense which he had borne in front of him on penetrating the cove; it was the child for whose sake Willock had separated himself from his kind.

At first, Willock thought he was dreaming one of those dreams that had solaced his half-waking hours, for he had often imagined how it would be if that child were in the mountains to bear him company. But however doubtful he might he regarding her, he took no chances about the Indian, but kept his alert gaze fixed on him to forestall any design of treachery.

The Indian made a sign to the little girl to remain with the horse; then he glided forward, holding somewhat ostentatiously, a filled pipe in his extended hand. He had evidently come to knit his soul to that of his white brother while the smoke from their pipes mingled on the quiet air, forming a frail and uncertain monument to the spirit of peace.

"Was it you that left a pipe and tobacco on my stove two years ago?" Willock asked abruptly.

"Yes. You got it? We will smoke." He seated himself gravely on the ground.

Willock went into the cabin, and brought out the clay pipe. They smoked. Willock cast covert glances toward the girl. She stood slim and straight, her face rigid, her eyes fixed on the horse whose halter she held. Her limbs were bare and a blanket that descended to her knees seemed her only garment. The face of the sleeping child of five was the same, however, as this of the seven-year-old maid, except that it had grown more beautiful; the wealth of glowing brown hair made amends for all poverty of attire.

Willock was wonderfully moved; so much so that his manner was harsh, his voice gruff in the extreme. "What are you going to do with that girl?" he demanded.

"You take her?" inquired the chief passively.

"Yes—I take her."

"Good!" The Indian smoked serenely.

"Where'd you find her?"

"Not been lost. Her safe all time. Sometime in one village—here, then there, two, three—move her about. Safe all time. I never forget. There she is. You take her?"

"I said so, didn't I? Where's her daddy?"

The Indian said nothing, only smoked, his eyes fixed on space.

Willock raised his voice. "Must I ask HER where he is?"

"Her not know. Her not seen him one, two year. She say him dead."

"Oh, he's dead, is he?"

"Him safe, too." He looked at the sun. "Long trail before me. Then I leave her. I go, now."

"Not much you don't go! Not THIS minute. Where is that girl's daddy?"

No answer.

"If he's safe, why hasn't she been with him all this time?"

"Me big chief."

"Oh, yes, I judge you are. But that's nothing to me. I'm big chief, too. I own this corner of the universe—and I want to know about that girl's daddy."

"Him great man."

"Well—go ahead; tell the rest of it."

"Him settle among my tribe; him never leave our country. 'Big country, fat country, very rich. Him change name—everything; him one of us. Marry my daughter. THAT girl not his daughter—daughter of dead woman. Keep her away from him all time, so him never see white man, white woman, white child, forget white people, be good Indian. The girl make him think of dead woman. When a man marry again, not good to remember dead woman. Him think girl dead, but no care, no worry, no sad. SHE never his daughter—dead woman's daughter. All his path is white, no more blue. Him very glad, every day—my daughter his wife. She keep scalp-knife from his head. My braves capture—they dance about fire, she say 'No.' She marry him. Their path is white; the sky over them is white."

He rose, straight as an arrow, and turned his grim face toward the horse.

"I see. And you don't want to tell me where he is, because you want him to forget he is a white man?"

"Him always live with my people; him marry my daughter."

"Tell me this; is he far away?"

"Very far. Many days. You never find him. You stay here, keep girl, and me and my people your friends. You come after him—not your friends!"

"Why, bless your heart, I never want to see that man again; your daughter is welcome to him, but I'm afraid she's got a bad bargain. This girl's just as I'd have her—unencumbered. I'm AWFUL glad you come, pardner! Whenever you happen to be down in this part of Texas, drop in and make us a visit!"

With every passing moment, Willock was realizing more keenly what this amazing sequel to the past meant to him. He would not only have company in his dreary solitude, but, of all company, the very one he yearned for to comfort his heart. "Give us your paw, old man—shake. You bet I'll take her!"

He strode forward and addressed the girl: "Are you willing to stay with me, little one?"

She shrank back from the wild figure. During his two years of hiding in the mountains, Willock had cared nothing for his personal appearance. His garments, on disintegrating had been replaced by skins, thus giving an aspect of assorted colors and materials rather remarkable. Only when driven by necessity had he ventured on long journeys to the nearest food-station, carrying the skins obtained by trapping, and bringing back fresh stores of provisions and tobacco on the pony purchased by the Spanish gold.

Willock was greatly disconcerted by her attitude. He said regretfully, "I guess I've been so much with myself that I ain't noticed my outside as a man ought. Won't you make your home with me, child?" He held out his rough hand appealingly.

She retreated farther, saying with disapproval, "Much hair!"

Willock laid his hand on his breast, returning, "Much heart!"

"Him white," said the Indian, swinging himself upon his horse. "Him save your life. Sometime me come visit, come eat, come stay with you."

As he wheeled about, she held out her arms toward him, crying wildly, "Don't go! Don't leave me! Him much hair!"

The Indian dashed away without turning his head.

"Good lord, honey," exclaimed Willock, at his wits' ends, "don't cry! I can't do nothing if you CRY. Won't you come look at your new home?" He waved eagerly toward the dugout.

"Hole in the ground!" cried the girl desperately. "I want my tepee. Am I a prairie-dog?"

"No, honey, you ain't. You and me is both white, and we ought to live together; it ain't right for you to live with red people that kills and burns your own kith and kin."

She looked at him repellently through her streaming tears. "Big hair!" she cried. "Big hair!"

"And must I cut it off? I'll make my head as smooth as yonder bald-headed mountain-peak if it'll keep you from crying. Course you ain't seen nobody with whiskers amongst them Indians, but THEY ain't your people. Your people is white, they are like me, they grows hair. But I'll shave and paint myself red, and hunt for feathers, if that's what you want."

Her sobbing grew less violent. Despite his ferocious aspect, no fear could remain in her heart at sight of that distressed countenance, at sound of those conciliatory tones. Willock, observing that the tempest was abating, continued in his most appealing manner:

"I'm going to do whatever you say, honey, and you're going to be the queen of the cove. Ain't you never been lonesome amongst all them red devils? Ain't you missed your poor mammy as died crossing the plains? It was me that buried her. Ain't you never knowed how it felt to want to lay your head on somebody's shoulder and slip your little arms about his neck, and go to sleep like an angel whatever was happening around? I guess SO! Well, that's me, too. Here I've been for two long year, never seeing nothing but wild animals or prowling savages till the last few months when a settler comes to them mountains seven mile to the southwest. Looked like I'd die, sometimes, just having myself to entertain."

"You lonesome, too?" said the girl, looking up incredulously. She drew a step nearer, a wistful light in her dark eyes.

The man stretched out his arms and dropped them to his side, heavily. "Like that," he cried—"just emptiness!"

"I stay," she said simply. "All time, want my own people; all time, Red Feather say some day take me to white people—want to go, all time. But Red Feather never tell me 'BIG HAIR.' Didn't know what it was I was looking for—never thought it would be something like you."

"But you ain't afraid now, are you, little one?"

She shook her head, and drawing nearer, seated herself on the ground before the dugout. "You LOOK Big Hair," she explained sedately, "but your speech is talk of weak squaw."

Somewhat disconcerted by these words, Willock sat down opposite her, and resumed his pipe as if to assert his sex. "I seem weak to you," he explained, "because I love you, child, and want to make friends with you. But let me meet a big man—well, you'd see, then!" He looked so ferocious as he uttered these words, that she started up like a frightened quail, grasping her blanket about her.

"No, no, honey," he cooed abjectly, "I wouldn't hurt a fly. Me, I was always a byword amongst my pards. They'd say, 'There goes Brick Willock, what never harmed nobody.' When they kept me in at school I never clumb out the window, and it was me got all the prize cards at Sunday-school. How comes it, honey, that you ain't forgot to talk like civilized beings?"

"Red Feather, him always put me with squaw that know English—that been to school on the reservation. Never let me learn talk like the Indians. Him always say some day take me to my own people. But never said 'BIG HAIR.'"

"Did he tell you your mother died two years ago?"

"Yes—father, him dead, too. Both died in the plains. Father was shot by robbers. Mother was left in big wagon—you bury her near this mountain."

"Oh, ho! So your father was killed at the same time your mother was, eh?"

"Yes."

"Well—all right. And now you got nobody but me to look after you—but you don't need no more; as long as I'm able to be up and about, nothing is going to hurt you. Just you tell me what you want, and it'll be did."

"Want to be ALL like white people; want to be just like mother."

"Well, I'll teach you as fur up as I've been myself. Your style of talk ain't correct, but it was the best Red Feather could do by you. Him and you lay down your words like stepping-stones for your thoughts to step over; but just listen at me, how smooth and fine-textured my language is, with no breaks or crevices from the beginning of my periods to where my voice steps down to start on a lower ledge. That's the way white people talks, not that they got more to say than Injuns, but they fills in, and embodies everything, like filling up cabin-walls with mud. I'll take you by the hand right from where Red Feather left you, and carry you up the heights."

She examined him dubiously: "You know how?"

"I ain't no bell-wether in the paths of learning, honey, but Red Feather is some miles behind me. What's your name?"

"Lahoma."

"Born that way, or Injunized?"

"Father before he died, him all time want to go settle in the Oklahoma country—settle on a claim with mother. They go there two times—three—but soldiers all time make them go back to Kansas. So me, I was born and they named me Oklahoma—but all time they call me Lahoma. That I must be called, Lahoma because that father and mother all time call me. Lahoma, that my name." She inquired anxiously, "You call me Lahoma?" She leaned forward, hands upon knees, in breathless anxiety.

"You bet your life I will, Lahoma!"

"Then me stay all time with you—all time. And you teach me talk right, and dress right, and be like mother and my white people? You teach me all that?"

"That's the program. I'm going to civilize you—that means to make you like white folks. It's going to take time, but the mountains is full of time."

"You 'civilize' me right now?— You begin today?" She started up and stood erect with arms folded, evidently waiting for treatment.

"The process will be going on all the while you're associating with me, honey. That chief, Red Feather—he has a daughter, hasn't he?"

"No; him say no girl, no boy." She spoke with confidence.

"I see. And your father's dead too, eh?" Evidently Red Feather had thoroughly convinced her of the truth of these pretenses.

"Both—mother, father. Nobody but me." She knelt down at his side, her face troubled. "If I had just one!"

"Can you remember either of them?"

"Oh, yes, yes—and Red Feather, him talk about them, talk, talk, always say me be white with the white people some day. This is the day. You make me like mother was. You civilize me—begin!" She regarded him with dignified attention, her little hands locked about her blanket where it lay folded below her knees. The cloud had vanished from her face and her eyes sparkled with expectancy.

"I ain't got the tools yet, honey. They's no breaking up and enriching land that ain't never bore nothing but buffalo-grass, without I have picks and spades and plows and harrers. I got to get my tools, to begin."

She stiffened herself. "You needn't be afraid I'll cry. I WANT you to hurt me, if that the way."

"It ain't like a pain in the stomach, Lahoma. All I gets for you will be some books. Them is the tools I'm going to operate with."

"Books? What are books?"

"Books?" Willock rubbed his bushy head in desperation. "Books? Why, they is just thoughts that somebody has ketched and put in a cage where they can't get away. You go and look at them thoughts somebody capable has give rise to, and when you finds them as has never ranged in your own brain, you captures 'em, puts your brand on 'em, and serves 'em out in your own herd. You see, Lahoma, what you think in your own brain ain't of no service, for YOU don't know nothing. If you want to be civilized, you got to lasso other people's thoughts—people as has went to and fro and has learned life—and you got to dehorn them ideas, and tame 'em."

Lahoma examined him with new interest. "Are YOU civilized?" Her countenance fell.

"Not to no wide extent, but I can ford toler'ble deep streams that would drown you, honey. Just put confidence in me, and when I get over my head, I'll holler for help. I judge I can put five good years' work on you without exhausting my stores. I can read amongst the small words pretty peart—the young calves, so to say—and lots of them big steers in three or four syllables,—I can sort o' guess at their road-brands from the company I've saw 'em traveling with, in times past. And I can write my own name, and yours too, I reckon.—Lahoma Gledware—yes, I'm toler'ble well versed on a capital 'G'—you just make a gap with a flying tail to it."

"My name NOT Lahoma Gledware," she interposed in some severity. "My name, Lahoma Willock. Beautiful name—lovely, like flower—Willock; call me Lahoma Willock—like song of little stream. Gledware, hard—rough."

Brick Willock stared at her in amazement. "Where'd you get that from?"

"My name Lahoma Willock—Red Feather tell me."

He smoked in silence, puffing rapidly. Then—"My name is Brick Willock. How came you to be named Lahoma Willock?"

Lahoma suggested thoughtfully—"All white people named Willock?"

"There's a few," Willock shook his head, "with less agreeable names. But after all, I'm glad you have my name. Yes—the more I think on it, the more pleased I get. I reckon we're sort of kinfolks, anyhow. Well, honey, this is enough talk about being civilized; now let's make the first move on the way. You want to see your mother's grave, and lay some of these wild flowers on it. That's a part of being civilized, caring for graves is. It's just savages as forgets the past and consequently never learns nothing. Come along. Them moccasins will do famous until I can get you shoes from the settlements. It's seventy mile to Vernon, Texas, and none too easy miles. But I got a pony the first time I ventured to Doan's store, and it'll carry you, if I have to walk at your side. We'll make a festibul march of that journey, and lay in clothes as a girl should wear, and books to last through the winter."

Willock rose and explained that they must cross the mountain. As they traversed it, he reminded her that she had not gathered any of the flowers that were scattered under sheltering boulders.

"Why?" asked Lahoma, showing that her neglect to do so was intentional.

"Well, honey, don't you love and honor that mother that bore so much pain and trouble for you, traveling with you in her arms to the Oklahoma country, trying to make a home for you up there in the wilderness, and at last dying from the hardships of the plains. Ain't she worth a few flowers."

"She dead. She not see flowers, not smell flowers, not know."

Willock said nothing, but the next time they came to a clump of blossoms he made a nosegay. Lahoma watched him with a face as calm and unemotional as that of Red Feather, himself. She held her back with the erect grace and moved her limbs with the swift ease of those among whom she had passed the last two years. In delightful harmony with this air of wildness was the rich and delicate beauty of her sun-browned face, and the golden glow of her silken brown hair. Willock's heart yearned toward her as only the heart of one destined to profound loneliness can yearn toward the exquisite grace and unconscious charm of a child; but to the degree that he felt this attraction, he held himself firmly aloof, knowing that wild animals are frightened when kindness beams without its veil.

"What you do with that?" She pointed at the flowers in his rough hand.

"I'm going to put 'em on your mother's grave."

"She not know. Not see, not smell. She dead, mother dead."

"Lahoma, do you know anything about God?"

"Yes—Great Spirit. God make my path white."

"Well, I want God to know that somebody remembers your mother. It's God that smells the flowers on the graves of the dead."

They walked on. Pretty soon Lahoma began looking about for flowers, but they had reached the last barren ledge, and no more came in sight.

"Take these, Lahoma."

"No. Couldn't fool God." They began the last descent. Willock suddenly discovered that tears were slipping down the girl's face. He said nothing; he did not fear, now, for he thought the tears promised a brighter dawning.

Suddenly Lahoma cried joyfully, "Oh, look, Brick, look!" And she darted toward the spot at the foot of a tall cedar, where purple and white blossoms showed in profusion. She gathered an armful, and they went down to the plain.

"Her head's toward the west," he said, as they stood beside the pile of stones. Lahoma placed the flowers at the Western margin of the pyramid. Willock laid his at the foot of the grave. The sun had set and the warmth of the heated sand was tempered by a fragrant breeze. Though late in October, he felt as if spring were just dawning. He took Lahoma's hand, and his heart throbbed to find that she showed no disposition to draw away.

He looked up with a great sigh of thanksgiving. "Well, God," he said softly, "here she is—You sure done it!"