The Talking Leaves: An Indian Story, William O. Stoddard [best novels for beginners TXT] 📗

then I never would paint."

The sun and the wind had painted him darkly enough; and if his hair had once been "light," it was now as white as the tops of the mountains he and Steve had been looking at.

Behind them, on a barren sandy level, through which ran a narrow stream of ice-cold water, about three-score of wild-looking human beings were dismounted, almost in a circle, each holding the end of a long "lariat" of strong hide, at the other end of which was a horse.

Some seemed to have two and even three horses, as if they were on an errand which might use up one and call for another. That was quite likely, for Lipan warriors are terribly hard riders.

Those who had now but one horse had probably worn out their first mount and turned him adrift by the way-side, to be picked up, Indian fashion, on the way home.

When a plains Indian leaves a horse in that way, and does not find him again, he tries his best to find some other man's horse to take his place.

More than sixty Indian warriors, all in their war-paint, armed to the teeth, with knives, revolvers, repeating-rifles of the best and latest patterns, and each carrying a long steel-headed Mexican lance.

Not a bow or arrow or war-club among them. All such weapons belong to the old, old times, or to poor, miserable, second-rate Indians, who cannot buy anything better. The fierce and haughty Lipans and Comanches, and other warlike tribes, insist on being armed as well as the United States troops, and even better.

What could a cavalryman do with a lance?

About as much as an Indian with a sword; for that is one weapon the red men could never learn the use of, from King Philip's day to this.

It was luncheon-time with that Lipan war-party, and they were hard at work on their supplies of dried venison and cold roast buffalo-meat.

Their halt would not be a long one in a spot where there was no grass for their horses, but they could hold a council while they were eating, and they could listen to a speech from the short, broad, ugly-looking old chief who now stood in the middle of the circle.

"To-la-go-to-de will not go back now till he has struck the Apaches. He has come too far. The squaws of his village would laugh at him if he rode through the mountains and came back to them with empty hands."

That was the substance of his address, put again and again in different shapes, and it seemed to meet the approval of his listeners.

There is nothing a Lipan brave is really afraid of except ridicule, and the dread of being laughed at was the strongest argument their leader could have used to spur them forward.

Once, indeed, he made another sharp hit by pointing to the spot where Murray and Steve were standing.

"No Tongue has the heart of a Lipan. He says if we go back he will go on alone. He will take the Yellow Head with him. They will not be laughed at when they come back. Will the Lipans let their squaws tell them they are cowards, and dare not follow an old pale-face and a boy?"

A deep, half-angry "ugh" went around the circle.

To-la-go-to-de had won over all the grumblers in his audience, and need not have talked any more.

He might have stopped right there and proceeded to eat another slice of buffalo-meat, but when an Indian once learns to be an orator he would rather talk than eat, any day.

In fact, they are such talkers at home and among themselves, that Murray had earned the queer name given him by the chief in no other way than by his habitual silence. He rarely spoke to anybody, and so he was "No Tongue."

The chief himself had a name of which he was enormously proud, for he had won it on a battle-field. His horse had been killed under him, in a battle with the Comanches, when he was yet a young warrior, and he had fought on foot with a knife in each hand.

From that day forward he was To-la-go-to-de, or "The chief that fights with two knives."

Any name he may have been known by before that was at once dropped and forgotten.

It is a noteworthy custom, but the English have something almost exactly like it. A man in England may be plain Mr. Smith or Mr. Disraeli for ever so many years, and then all of a sudden he becomes Lord So-and-So, and nobody ever speaks of him again by the name he carried when he was a mere "young brave."

It is a great mistake to suppose the red men are altogether different from the white.

As for Steve, his hair was nearer chestnut than yellow, but it had given him his Indian name; one that would stick to him until, like To-la-go-to-de, he should distinguish himself in battle and win a "war name" of his own.

He and Murray, however they might be regarded as members of the tribe and of that war-party, had no rights in the "Council." Only born Lipans could take part in that, except by special invitation.

It happened, on the present occasion, that they were both glad of it, for No Tongue had more than usual to say, and Yellow Head was very anxious to listen to him.

"That peak yonder would be an awful climb, Steve."

"I should say it would."

"But if you and I were up there, I'll tell you what we could do; we could look north and east into New Mexico, north and west into Arizona, and south every way, into Mexico itself."

"Are we so near the border?"

"I think we are."

Something like a thunder-cloud seemed to be gathering on Murray's face, and the deep furrows grew deeper, in great rigid lines and curves, while his steel-blue eyes lighted up with a fire that made them unpleasant to look upon.

"You lived in Mexico once?"

"Did I? Did I ever tell you that?"

"Not exactly. I only guessed it from things you've dropped."

"I'll tell you now, then. I did live in Mexico—down yonder in Chihuahua."

"She-waw-waw?" said Steve, trying to follow the old man's rapid pronunciation of the strange, musical name.

"Down there, more than a hundred miles south of the border. I thought we were safe. The mine was a good one. The hacienda was the prettiest place I could make of it. I thought I should never leave it. But the Apaches came one day—"

He stopped a moment and seemed to be looking at the tops of the western mountains.

"Did you have a fight with them?" asked Steve.

"Fight? No. I was on a hunt in the sierras that day. When I came home it was all gone."

"The Apaches?"

"The mine was there, but the works were all burnt. So was the hacienda and the huts of the peons and workmen. Everything that would burn."

"But the people!"

"Cattle, horses, all they could drive with them, they carried away. We won't say anything about the people, Steve. My wife was among them. She was a Spanish-Mexican lady. She owned the mine and the land. We buried her before we set out after the Apaches. I've been following them ever since."

"Were the rest all killed?"

"All. They did not even leave me my little girl. I hadn't anything left to keep me there."

"So you joined the Lipans?"

"They're always at war with the Apaches. I'm pretty near to being an Indian now."

"I won't be, then. I'll get away, somehow. I'm white, and I'm almost a man."

"Steve, have you forgotten anything you knew the day they took you prisoner?"

"No, I haven't. I was fifteen then, and if there's one thing I've been afraid of it was that I would forget. I've repeated things over and over and over, for fear they'd get away from me."

"That's all right. I've had an eye on you about that. But haven't you learned something?"

"You've taught me all about rocks and stones and ores and mining—"

"Yes, and you can ride like a Lipan, and shoot and hunt, and there isn't a young brave in the band that can throw you in a fair wrestle."

"That's all Indian—"

"Is it? Well, whether it is or not, you'll need it all before long. All you know."

"To fight Apaches?"

"Better'n that, Steve. It's been of no use for you to try to get away toward Texas. They watch you too closely, and besides, the Comanches are most of the time between us and the settlements. They won't watch you at all out here. That's why I insisted on bringing you along."

"Do you mean I'll have a chance to get away?"

"I don't mean you shall go back of the mountains again, Steve. You must wait patiently, but the time'll come. I tell you what, my boy, when you find yourself crossing the Arizona deserts and mountains all alone, you'll be right glad you can ride, and shoot, and hunt, and find your own way. It's all Indian knowledge, but it's wonderfully useful when you have to take care of yourself in an Indian country."

The dark cloud was very heavy on Murray's face yet, but an eager light was shining upon that of his young friend—the light of hope.

CHAPTER III

"Talking leaves?" said Ni-ha-be, as she turned over another page of the pamphlet in her lap and stared at the illustrations. "Can you hear what they say?"

"With my eyes."

"Then they are better than mine. I am an Apache! You was born white!"

There was a little bit of a flash in the black eyes of the Indian maiden. She had not the least idea but that it was the finest thing in all the world to be the daughter of Many Bears, the great Apache warrior, and it did not please her to find a mere white girl, only Indian by adoption, able to see or hear more than she could.

Rita did not reply for a moment, and a strange sort of paleness crept across her face, until Ni-ha-be exclaimed,

"It hurts you, Rita! It is bad medicine. Throw it away."

"No, it does not hurt—"

"It makes you sick?"

"No, not sick—it says too much. It will take many days to hear it all."

"Does it speak Apache?"

"No. Not a word."

"Nor the tongue of the Mexican pony men?"

"No. All it says is in the tongue of the blue-coated white men of the North."

"Ugh!"

Even Ni-ha-be's pretty face could express the hatred felt by her people for the only race of men they were at all afraid of.

There were many braves in her father's band who had learned to talk Mexican-Spanish. She herself could do so very well, but neither she nor any of her friends or relatives could speak more than a few words of broken English, and she had never heard Rita use one.

"There are many pictures."

"Ugh! yes. That's a mountain, like those up yonder. There are lodges, too, in the valley. But nobody ever made lodges in such a shape as that."

"Yes, or nobody could have painted a talking picture of them."

"It tells a lie, Rita! And nobody ever saw a bear like that."

"It isn't a bear, Ni-ha-be. The talking leaf says it's a lion."

"What's that? A white man's bear?"

Rita knew no more about lions than did her adopted sister, but by the time they had turned over a few more pages their curiosity was aroused to a high degree. Even Ni-ha-be wanted to hear all that the "talking leaves" might have to say in explanation of those wonderful pictures.

It was too bad of Rita to have been "born white" and not to be able to explain the work of her own people at sight.

"What shall we do with them, Ni-ha-be?"

"Show them to father."

"Why not ask Red Wolf?"

"He would take them away and burn them. He hates the pale-faces more and more every day."

"I don't believe he hates me."

"Of course not. You're an Apache now. Just as much as Mother Dolores, and she's forgotten that she was ever white."

"She isn't very white, Ni-ha-be. She's darker than almost any other woman in the tribe."

"We won't show her the talking leaves till father says we may keep them. Then she'll be afraid to touch them. She hates me."

"No, she doesn't. She likes me best, that's all."

"She'd better not hate me, Rita. I'll