The Delight Makers

by Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier

A sharp humming twang, a hissing sound, and a thud followed in lightning-like succession. Topanashka bends over, and at the same time tumbles forward on his face. There he lies, the left cheek and shoulder on the ground. The left arm, with which he has sought to support the body, has slipped; and it now lies fully extended partly below the head, the prostrate head. The chest is heaving painfully, as if under extraordinary pressure. Face and neck are colouring; the lips part; the throat makes a convulsive effort to swallow. The eyes are starting; they denote suffocation and terrible pain. The legs twitch; they seem struggling to come to the rescue of the body's upper half.

From the back of the old man there protrudes an arrowshaft. It has pierced it close to the spine, between it and the right shoulder-blade, penetrating into the lungs, where it now stabs and smarts.

From a distant tree-top there sounds the hoarse "kuawk, kuawk" of the crow. Otherwise all is still.

The wounded man coughs; with the cough blood comes to his lips,—light red blood. The thighs begin to struggle, as if formication was going on in the muscles. It is an impotent movement, and yet is done consciously; for the trunk of the body, which was beginning more and more to yield, now begins to turn clumsily backward; the left hand clutches the soil; the arm is trying to heave, to lift. But the weight is too heavy, the shaft inside too firmly and too deeply rooted. Nevertheless the hips succeed in rising; the trunk follows; then it tumbles over on the back, contracts with a moan of pain and suffering, and lies there trembling with spasmodic shivers.

Topanashka has made this superhuman effort for a purpose. He feels that his wound is severe, that his strength is gone; his senses are darkened and his thoughts confused. Still there is a spark of life left, and that spark demands that he should attempt to see whence came the arrow that so terribly lacerates his breast. But as he has fallen over heavily, the point of the arrow has been pressed deeper. Flint—an arrow-head of flint with notched edges—tears; the muscles do not close about the intruder. The blood flows into the chest; it fills the lungs; he suffocates. Yet all consciousness has not vanished, although pain and oppression overwhelm the physical instruments of consciousness, and deprive the will of its connection with its tools. The will longs to see him who has destroyed its abode, but it no longer controls the shattered tissues; the nerves shiver like the broken springs of clockwork ere they come to a stand-still forever. The eye still distinguishes light occasionally, but it cannot see any longer.

Weaker and weaker become the breathings. On both sides of the mouth a fold begins to form over the blood that has curdled and dried; new fillets stream to the lips from within. The legs still twitch convulsively.

Now a stream of blood gushes from the open mouth; wave after wave rushes up with such swiftness that bubbles and froth form between the lips and remain there. A chill pervades the whole body; it is the last nervous tremor; the lower jaw hangs down, showing with fearful distinctness the folds, the ghastly folds, of death.

All is still. Through the tops of the pines comes a humming sound like a chant, a last lay to the brave and dutiful man. Still, stark, and stiff he lies in his gore. His career is ended; his soul has gone to rest.

And thus all remained quiet for a short time. Then the grass was waved and shaken in the direction to which the old man had turned his back in the last hapless moment. The grass seemed to grow, to suddenly rise; and a figure appeared which had been lying flat behind a projecting rocky ledge. As this figure straightened itself, bunches of grass dropped from its back to the ground. It was the figure of a man.

But it is not the Tehua Indian who stands there motionless, with bow half drawn and an arrow in readiness, who gazes over to the corpse to see whether it is really a corpse, or whether it will need a second shaft to despatch it forever. The man is of middle height, raw-boned and spare. Shaggy hair bristles from under the strands that surround his head like a turban. He wears nothing but a kilt of deerskin; from his shoulders hangs a quiver; a flint knife depends from the belt. This man is no village Indian, notwithstanding that dark paint on his body. It is one of the hereditary foes of the sedentary aborigines,—a Navajo!