The Light in the Forest (13 page)

But next morning after the rain, the mist drifted through the woods, vanishing like smoke, and they knew that all the drowned and blotted-out world was freshly created again. The mosses and trailing pine, the wintergreen, the mats of arbutus and partridge berry had never been so new and green. Lichens stood up risen from the dead. You walked the thick leaves from last fall and underfoot there was no sound. Neither was there mud like in the white man’s fields and roads. The forest floor lay clean and springy from ancient logs long since
rotted level with the ground and now returned to a kind of youth by the rain from heaven.

When the two boys tired of fishing, they gathered shag bark and pine knots. Then they waited for a night when their uncle, the Moon, lay abed. First they set a clump of freshly picked branches in the dugout’s bow. Behind it sat Half Arrow holding high a blazing torch of bark and pine tied by creepers. In the rear behind a second clump of green leaves, True Son paddled silently. His rifle lay ready across the thwarts. The fire lighted up the road of the creek through the forest like day. They saw coons illumined and transfixed at the water’s edge where they hunted frogs and crayfish. The boat glided through an unreal world. Submerged logs like Water Bulls of the Southern rivers passed below them. Above them from either side trees mingled the white bellies of their leaves while before them on the forest bank a buck, with jaws adrip from his drink, waited for the fatal bullet.

Part of each day they squatted by the fire, cutting each other’s ears to make them seemly, pulling the other’s unnecessary hair, their wet fingers dipped in ashes. Only the long center growth on
the head was left hanging. They were in no hurry, drifting with the day, mingling with slow time. Always the fertile forest spread around them. Abundance supported them. Completeness was for the taking. Days unfolded, rich and inexhaustible. After the Month When the Deer Turns Red came the Honey Bee Month. Soon would follow the Month When Corn Is in the Milk. Even though they wished it, they couldn’t stay forever. Their families would be wondering. They hated to go but they hated worse to stay. The sun had passed its northern meridian and was beginning its slow return. The foliage of the great forest wall had turned from light green to dark. It was time to leave.

The first thing they did when at last they reached the mouth of the Muskingum was to bathe in the home waters. And now as they paddled north there opened up before them the sacred heart of their Indian country, the beloved Forks of the Muskingum. Hurrying from the northwest came the White Woman’s River and from the northeast sprang the brave Tuscarawas. From here on the two boys never halted. Every bank and sandbar was familiar until they rounded the final bend and there among the great trees stood the bark village
with blue smoke rising from the high pitched roofs, with the forms of home villagers moving among the cabins and the sun throwing long shadows across the river over bank and street. It was as True Son had seen it so often in his mind, but never had he trembled like this at the sight.

They heard dogs barking at the strange dugout and saw brown faces turn toward them while quick hands shielded eyes from the sun. They had a glimpse of Shangas, the Exhorter, already dressed in his buffalo head and bearskins to preach against evil to whomsoever would listen. And there lounging easily with his pipe was Nischa, strong as two men, with Wapahamink, his crippled son who drew himself backward on the ground; and Nungasa, the girl whom True Son used always to find looking so steadily at him; and Moschaigeu, the old scalped one who wore a rag of beaver to cover his ancient wound; and Tsuchechin, the fat squaw, who had once defended True Son, hiding him from a beating when his father and uncle were away; and Suskit, the big black dog that always wanted to go with him; and Wikiwon, who had a difficulty of speech and was mocked by boys singing war songs through their noses.

“Now they know us and run to tell our cabins!”
Half Arrow exulted. By the time they beached the dugout, a little group of squaws and young people stood smiling and chattering to them from the high bank. The two youths answered with fitting restraint. Weren’t they men now, and hunters, home from an alien land? With dignity they picked up their belongings and stalked up the bank, trying to see no farther to the right or left than they had to.

“True Son, is it really you!” a soft voice hailed him, and there was his younger sister, A’astonah, her long hair streaming behind her, running with the children who had come to the cabin.

True Son looked at her with love and aloofness, carrying his rifle, passing her by, striding on with Half Arrow, past his older sister, Mechelit, who stood halfway with bright vermillion cloth in her black hair, on to the door of his cabin where his mother waited. He saw her look of joy and that she had quickly fastened buckles to her strouding at news of his coming, but now she drew back to let him pass first to his father who stood straight in the shadows. Cuyloga’s face was strong and impassive. Not a line could you read from its muscles, but from his eyes True Son thought he discerned a deep welcome. Here in the shelter of the cabin,
while others who had the right crowded in and many eyes watched from the doorway, they embraced.

“
Elke!
Do you live yet, True Son! And are you come home to stay?” his father said, breathing heavily.

T
RUE
S
ON
slept that night in the bosom of his family. He lay at his accustomed place. He felt close around him the presence and affections of those dear to him. The good awareness of their rich brown skin, of their gray deer hide and bright calico garments, the rise and fall of their breath pervaded him. Familiar Indian odors of family and cabin that had been part of him since childhood lulled him to sleep. Even in unconsciousness he
knew them. They spoke to his heart. They said now it could beat softly and at ease, for he was home again.

For several days the village celebrated the boys’ return. The cabins of True Son’s father and uncle stood open to friends to come and share their rejoicing. The delicacies of bear’s oil and tree sugar were poured on hominy and venison and offered to the men. Warriors and hunters went from one house to the other, visiting, smoking, eating up all the two houses had. They shook bowls of plum stones for dice, the stones painted black on one side and white on the other. The sounds of their calling for black or white and then of their loud and triumphant counting could be heard through the village. There were the twanging of jew’s harps and the high whistling of hollowed cane flutes. True Son had thought nothing could approach the joy of hunting in the forest. But now he felt contentment in the deep summer days of the village. Afterwards they seemed to him like a dream.

It was a dream even then with shadows in it. Each day he was aware that not all the men of the village joined in the festivities. The cousins of Little Crane, who lived only a stone’s throw away, did not come. They sat on a log in a group with their
cronies and refrained from greeting True Son when he passed.

“If we had fetched back your white uncle’s scalp, this would not have happened,” Half Arrow spoke in True Son’s ear. “But take no notice. My father says it will pass. Time will dry it up like carrion.”

Just the same both boys felt uneasiness when the brother of Little Crane came from the Kill-buck. His name was Thitpan, which means Bitter, and his mouth was puckered up as from a mocker nut. With him were High Bank, his father-in-law, with only one eye; and Niskitoon, which means Put-on-Paint, whose skin was tattooed from head to foot with signs of valor; also others, including Cheek Bone, a Shawano. They carried rifles, mallets, tomahawks, packs for the trail, and an old keg. One end of the latter had been knocked out and deer hide stretched over. With Thitpan’s cousins they took up in the council house, which stood very near the cabin of Cuyloga. Here they started beating the drum.

True Son knew instantly from his father’s face that this was serious. Not often had he seen his father so unbent and even jovial as since he had returned to him. But now his father’s joking and
easy bearing were gone. Grimly he listened to the drum and the songs for vengeance and war.

“When will the white man learn!” he muttered. “He says to the Indian, brother, have peace. The Indian buries the tomahawk. He hides it deep under a stump. He believes his brother, the white man. He visits his brother, the white man. Then his brother, the white man, murders him, a guest under his roof. He thinks no more of it than killing a snake in his cabin. The white man talks to other Indians. He says, brother, what’s the matter? Why do you go to war? Why dig up the tomahawk?
Ekih!
The white man is a strange creature of the Almighty. He is hard to fathom. How can you reason with him? He is like a spoiled child without instruction. He has no understanding of good and evil.”

Sumakek, Black Fish, the father of Half Arrow, nodded. But True Son, standing with his cousin behind the men, could feel his mother and sisters stir uneasily at the talk and at the cries of recruiting.

“Look this way!” Little Crane’s brother kept calling from the council house. “The cause of my brother is loud! It cries for blood! It’s high in the sight of Heaven!”

“It’s not necessary for everybody to join,” True Son’s mother ventured in the cabin.

“No, but I am not everybody,” her brother, Black Fish, answered. “My son was Little Crane’s companion. He walked with him on the journey when he was scalped. How can I turn my back?”

“Your back and mine are too broad to turn,” Cuyloga agreed gravely. “It was going to visit my son that Little Crane was deprived of his life.
Ekih!
In my son’s own white village.”

“If you go, you wouldn’t take True Son and Half Arrow along! They are only boys!” his mother begged them.

There was no answer from the two fathers. Behind their backs, Half Arrow and True Son exchanged glances. Anyone could see they were bursting to go. When the war party in the council house sang its war songs, both were filled with excitement. The chanting moved them so that scarcely could they contain themselves at the fearful scalp yells that followed. The long Ow-w-w-w-w-w turning into a sudden uw-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w and held on a fierce tingling note set their blood on fire. Eagerly to each other they made the swift motions of tomahawking and scalping.

True Son’s mother watched bitterly.

“Cuyloga. Think what the whites will do to our son if they catch him. They will burn him as a traitor to their side.”

“Woman. Stay home and boil your pots,” Cuyloga reproved her. “It is something I have no choice in. True Son is nearly a man. It would not look good for him to stay behind. Our friends would say he is surely white, see he is unwilling to fight against his white people.”

“
Bischi
,” his brother-in-law grunted in agreement.

“But he needn’t go unless he wants to,” Cuyloga added.

“I go!” True Son said quickly. He felt the flush of a great exultation. He stood very straight, looking away not to see the quick pain in his mother’s and sisters’ faces. They were women and couldn’t be expected to understand.

Much was healed between the friends of Little Crane and themselves when Cuyloga and Black Fish with their sons joined. Now they were all brothers in arms against the white murderers. Under-the-Hill, with an old purple wound in his cheek, also joined, as did Pepallistank, Disbeliever, who with his bobbing lameness was about the fastest on his feet in the village; and Kschippihelleu,
whose name in English was Strong Water; and several others.

Now it is the custom that he who first proposes going to war is the leader. As Thitpan did, the others followed. When he tied up his pack, they tied up theirs. When he took his musket, tomahawk and death mallet, the others took up theirs. When he sang his war song of farewell and promise not to return save with scalps and captives, the others made the chorus of brave ferocity and deserving death noises that can’t be spoken in words but only in memory sounds that have come down in the ancient deeds of the race. True Son felt a savage sweetness he had never known before. He saw before his eyes a redness that colored all things like blood. He tasted a violence wilder than any root or game. Then Thitpan led the way out of the council house, followed in a single line by the rest.

Half Arrow and True Son brought up the rear. The latter remembered how it had been when last he had left the village. Then with everybody watching as today, his mother and sisters, his aunt and cousins, his friends and neighbors, his father had dragged him off like a dog. Now he went as a warrior,
painted, his eyebrows and hair plucked, on his back his small pack and in his hands his hatchet and striped rifle with brass fittings that was the envy of everybody who watched. Once out of sight of the village, Thitpan shot off his gun and the others followed in a blast of farewell and promise to those at home who listened.

As guide for the party, Thitpan chose Disbeliever. This was a slight on his father, the boy knew. Why, there was no greater He-Who-Knows-the-Marks in the forest than his father. He could follow the trail of the most careful and secretive stranger, sometimes naming both his tribe and age. More than once he had taught True Son his art, how to read the smallest sign on the ground or bushes, a leaf turned back or a blade of grass down, a bit of mud on a stone, gravel turned up, how in snow men would tread in each other’s tracks to look like one instead of two or many.